【推荐1】America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have just inflated a new, experimental capsule for astronauts to use in space. The inflatable room is now an extension to the International Space Station (ISS). It is more or less four meters long and 3 meters wide. It took three days to fully inflate.

Now ISS members have to wait a week before entering it NASA engineers must first make sure of something particular because even its extremely small split could be a matter of life or death for the astronauts. The blow-up ball is part of a test on the practicality of inflatable accommodation on the moon and Mars, and of orbiting space hotels. NASA paid $ 17.8 million dollars for the test. It hopes this' initial test will lead to bigger and better inflatable rooms at the ISS.

The inflatable is the world's first blow up capsule for astronauts, and other space travelers. It is called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or “BEAM" for short. It is named after Bigelow Aerospace (BA), the company that worked it out and built it. The company is already planning its next step, aiming for the moon station. Together with United Launch Alliance (ULA), it plans to send a B330 inflatable capsule to the moon in 2022 after completing independent space station tests.

Company's founder Robert Bigelow is now working on a project to build two private space stations that could serve as hotels in space. He said, “I regard inflatable capsules as a big part of space travel, and sooner or later, space tourism too. Until now, the strong capsules is small enough (about the size of a small bedroom, inflated) to transport as airless units, but big enough lo live in, once filled with air, which, I hope, most ordinary people are able to afford in the future."

【推荐2】CERTAIN CREATURES-namely, bees-have evolved to be skillful flying builders. To assemble (组装) a nest, worker insects team up to do various work to the specification of a complex design that ends up being many times their size. This process takes months, many times longer than the average lifespan of all but the queen. Meanwhile the insects must adjust as they go.

It is these insect building teams that inspired Mirko Kovac, a roboticist at Imperial College London, to develop a way to improve the flexibility of 3D printing. A typical 3D printer is limited by the range of its nozzle (喷嘴), and can only make objects smaller than itself. Dr Kovac’s team has removed these limitation by using flying robots.

Dr Kovac describes a system of flying robots that is composed of two types of multi-rotor drones: builders and scanners. The builders carry the 3D-printing nozzle. The scanners are robots equipped with cameras that are responsible for monitoring the progress of the builders.

The building process alternates between builders and scanners, layer by layer, printing and adjusting, until a structure is complete. First, a builder remains suspended over its area of operation and begins to release a jet or rush of the building material along its flight path. The choice of material is important——it must be lightweight enough for the drones to carry but strong enough to hold the subsequent layers that will be built on top. Once the builder robot has sprayed a layer of material, the scanner robot flies over, inspects the progress. The system then computes the next layer that the builder should make, while also correcting for any errors that might have been discovered in what has already been built.

Because the flying robots can, in theory, operate anywhere, they could fix things in dangerous or otherwise inaccessible places. Dr Kovac says that his robots could be used to spot and seal leaks in oil or gas pipelines, repair leaky insulation or fix cracks on tall buildings. Thinking more long term, Dr Kovac even sees a potential future for his construction robots, building on the surfaces of the Moon or Mars.

【推荐1】Plastics remain one of the most-used materials for making many things. Things made of plastics can be very strong and last a long time. Plastics are also much lighter than metal and can easily be formed into different shapes. Plastics can take hundreds of years to break down on their own. And very few kinds are highly recyclable.

A team of researchers working at the US Department of Energy says it has created a kind of plastic that could lead to products that are 100 percent recyclable. It recently reported the discovery in a study in the journal Nature Chemistry.

The researchers say the new material is a plastic polymer (聚合物) called polydiketoenamine, or PDK. The team reports the material can be broken down in parts at the molecular (分子的) level. It can then be built up again to form plastics of different shapes, textures and colors.

The researchers say this process can be repeated over and over again-without the plastic material losing any performance or quality.

“Most plastics were never made to be recycled,” lead researcher Peter Christensen said in a statement. “But we have discovered a new way to assemble plastics that takes recycling into consideration from a molecular perspective.”

Many plastics have different chemicals added to them to make them more useful and powerful. The problem is that these chemicals attach to the monomers (单体), which remain in plastics even after the material gets processed at a recycling plant. The research team reported that, with the newly discovered PDK material, the monomers could be recovered and separated from any chemical additives.

Next, the researchers plan to develop PDK plastics with a wide range of thermal and mechanical properties. These plastics could be used for many kinds of cloth, as well as things such as 3D printed materials and foams. In addition, the team is trying to include plant-based matcrials in the process.

【推荐2】New bio-plastics are being made in laboratories from straw, wood chips and food waste, with researchers aiming to replace oil as the source of the world’s plastic.

The new approaches include genetically modifying bacteria to eat wood and produce useful chemicals. But the bio-plastics are currently significantly more expensive to make than fossil fuel-based plastics.

Land and seas around the world, from high mountains to deep oceans, have become polluted with plastic, prompting major public concern. The world has produced 8bn tons of plastic since the 1950s and demand is still rising.

While some waste plastic is recycled, much of it is burnt to produce electricity, resulting in carbon emissions that drive climate change. In contrast to plastic made from oil, plastics made from plant-based materials only release the carbon the plants absorbed from the air as they grew. Bio-plastics will also give more options for products that biodegrade (生物降解) in the environment, although they can be made very long-lasting if required.

“Plastics are an incredible enhancement to our daily lives,” said Paul Mines, CEO of Biome Technologies in the UK, which has spent t5m in the last five years on bio-plastics research. “But we can’t go on using fossil fuel-based materials. About 6-7% of every barrel (桶) of oil is used to make plastics.”

“Using plant materials is feasible,” said professor Simon, at the University of York. “Replacing half of the nation’s plastic bottles could be done using just 3% of the sugar beet crop, 5% of wheat straw or 2.5% of food waste,” he said.

Currently, just a few thousand tons of bio-plastic are used in the UK each year, compared to millions of tons of conventional plastic. Mines said this could rise to about 20,000 tons in the next five years.

【推荐3】Every driver loves sailing through a series of green lights without having to stop and wait at a traffic light. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, German researchers have found a way to reduce time spent at crossings.

Called the KI4LSA project and funded by the Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, the innovation is being tested. Scientists first studied algorithms (算法) taken from a busy crossing to learn about traffic patterns and where improvements were most needed. There is a great necessity to speed up waiting times at crossings as traditional methods are inflexible, according to the Fraunhofer Institute.

The new AI method uses radar sensors and high-resolution cameras to interpret traffic patterns in real-time. They can determine the speed of traffic as well as waiting times and combine this with algorithms. Scientists are currently trying this out at a busy crossing in Lemgo, Germany, with encouraging results.

The intelligent lights are said to improve traffic flow by 10 to 15 percent, which results in money saved; the EU estimates that traffic jams create economic damage that adds up to 100 billion euros a year. Apart from reducing commuting time, these traffic lights will reduce noise and CO₂ emissions from cars idling (空转) at crossings.

Another exciting development in this research is the K14PED project, which studies pedestrians passing crossings. Using AI, researchers can identify how many people are waiting at a pedestrian crossing and whether some of these people will need extra time to cross the street. Using a 3D points cloud, they can tell if someone has disabilities or is elderly without identifying the individual. Because pedestrian buttons that are presently at crossings cannot determine if some people have special needs or are elderly, this is a real win. Such a needs-based system could reduce pedestrian waiting time by 30 percent, which could then decrease jaywalking (乱穿马路) by 25 percent.

Testing will be done until the late summer of 2022 in the German towns of Lemgo and Bielefeld, with researchers optimistic that it will be adopted by many countries. This technology is exciting news for pedestrians and drivers alike. It encourages safety, protects the environment, and may even give you more time to enjoy your morning coffee before heading off to work!