【推荐2】In the near future, we may be using our eyes to operate our smart-phones and tablets, even when it comes to playing popular games like Fruit Ninja(水果忍者).

The Gaze Group has been developing eye-controlling computer technology for nearly 20 years. But those devices(设备) have been firstly designed to help those with disabilities, and are very expensive.

“After a while, we figured out that probably the best way is to go for a mass-market way,” says Gaze’s Sune Alstrup Johansen. “where everybody would have this available.”

Johansen and some of his colleagues have formed a new company, the Eye Tribe, which is hoping to develop the technology on a mass commercial level.

The technology works when combined with the computing device toward the user’s face. After making sure of the user’s eye movements, the technology is then able to easily find where a person’s eyes are moving, and then allow the eyes to control a cursor (光标).

“Our software can then determine the location of the eyes and know where you’re looking on the screen to make sure what you’re looking at,” reads an explanation on the Eye Tribe site.

There has been a gradual change toward hands-free technology in recent years, particularly in the gaming(电玩游戏) world. Recently Xbox released the Kinect device, which lets users control their Xbox and play certain games using only their hands, legs and voices. But still, most of these devices have been more of a trick than a practical way to use one’s hands to control a mobile device. Johansen said a replaceable filter (滤光器) would be a cheap, convenient way for most consumers.

And even as companies like The Eye Tribe work to create such a product for the average user, making the eye-controlling technology more accessible and less expensive will have similar benefits for physically disabled users.

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【推荐1】When night falls in the Netherlands, lights dance across a farm and create a dreamy landscape. Here, in a field inspired by beauty and equipped with photobiology, art meets with agriculture. Yet, there is more than what meets the eye; these glowing lights also provide higher production and more sustainable crops.

This magical field is part of a project called GROW and was created by Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde. Living in the city, he had a desire to connect people to the source（源头）of their food in an inspiring way. “How can we make the farmer the hero? We barely know where our food comes from,” Roosegaarde said in the video describing the project.

His vision was to combine science and art, and in so doing, create a better world. Desiring to offer the world light in dark times, he set to work in a 5-acre field of leeks（韭葱）. He used his own design concept alongside artists, a team of designers, and experts at the Wageningen University.

Using the science of photobiology, the group discovered that certain mixes of red, blue, and ultraviolet lights accelerate plant growth. The team then put LEDs in different places across the field. These lights move up and down in order to ensure the light is evenly distributed across the area. And when these lights move at night, they seem to dance, creating a poetic dreamscape. “It’s very futuristic and also very romantic, in a way,” Roosegaarde said.

Aside from being beautiful and promoting growth, the team observed that due to these lights, they needed to use 50 percent less pesticides（杀虫剂）on the crop. This is because this specific recipe of lights activated the defense system of the plants. And as it works on all crops, not just leeks, Roosegaarde foresees a way to reduce the use of pesticides on many other plants. And his project will soon be touring 40 countries, and sending its dancing lights across the world.

【推荐2】The endangered pandas in Qinling Mountains might face a new threat：the loss of their food—bamboo, which makes up 99% of their meals.

Adult pandas spend most part of the day eating bamboo and have to take in at least 40 pounds a day to stay healthy. However, a new study published in Nature and Climate Change warned that they may soon find their food gone because most of the bamboo in Qinling Mountains might disappear by the end of the century due to the rise of temperature worldwide.

A team made up of researchers from Michigan State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has studied the effects of climate change on the bamboo in

Qinling Mountains. They have found that bamboo is very sensitive to climate change. “80% to 100% of the bamboo would be gone if the average temperature increases 3.5 degrees worldwide by the end of the century.” said Liu Jianguo, one of the report’s authors. He added, “This is how much the temperature would rise by 2100 even if all countries will keep their promises in the Paris Agreement. But you know what is happening around the world.”

In recent years, China has been trying its best to protect the endangered pandas by setting up more and bigger natural reserves.

“But it is far from being enough and the endangered pandas need cooperation from the rest of the world, because their future is not just in the hands of the Chinese,” said Shirley Martin from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) but not a member of the team.

The Qinling Mountains, in the southwest of China, are home to about 260 pandas. That is about 13% of the China’s wild panda population. In addition, about 375 are living in research centers and zoos in China.

【推荐3】Stephen Warren, study leader at the University of Washington — has been on the case of the green icebergs for more than 30 years. He first took samples from one of these green hunks of ice in 1988, near the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctic. Most glacial ice occurs in shades of white to brilliant blue. The bluer the ice, the older it is. Typically, compression (压缩) from accumulating layers of snow pushes air bubbles out of the ice, reducing the scattering of white light. The compressed ice absorbs most of the light except for blue — creating the blue color seen in the hearts of icebergs and glaciers.

The green ice was similarly bubble-free, and yet it looked green instead of blue. Warren and his team soon found that the green ice came not from glaciers, but from marine ice. That’s the ice from the undersides of floating ice shelves.

At first, the team thought that organic material in the marine ice was causing the green color. But further research showed that the green marine ice didn’t have a higher-than-usual amount of organic impurities. Now, a new study finds that a different sort of impurity may be the root cause of the green ice. Warren and his colleagues report that the marine ice at the bottom of the Amery Ice Shell has 500 times more iron than the glacial ice above.

This iron comes from the rocks under the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which are turned into fine powder as glaciers move over them. The icebound iron oxidizes (氧化) as it contacts seawater. The resulting iron oxide particles take on a green color when light scatters through them. When icebergs break off the larger ice shelf, they carry this iron-rich ice with them. It’s like taking a package to the post office. The iceberg can deliver this iron into the ocean far away, and then melt and deliver it to other living things that can use it as a nutrient.