【推荐1】Scientists in Germany say they have used new technology to create see-through human organs (器官). They say the technology could lead to production of three-dimensional (3D) body parts for use in transplant (移植) operations.

The scientists are with Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. They said they developed a process that uses a substance to make see- through organs, such as the brain and kidneys. The German researchers use lasers (激光) to obtain a picture of the organ to be replaced. The laser light helps them see every single cell inside the blood vessels (血管中的细胞).

The researchers use this information to print out the structure of the whole organ. For this, they need special equipment. They use a 3D printer to produce the structure--one that has height, width and length.

The researchers then load the printer with stem cells, which can become any kind of cell in the body. The stem cells act as “ink” in the printer. They are put into the correct position, making the organ fully operational.

The leader of the study, Ali Erturk, described the new technology as a major development for 3D printing in the medical field.” Previously 3D-printed organs lacked detailed cellular structures because they were based on pictures from computer tomography or MRI machines,” he explained.

“We can see where every single cell is, and we can actually replicate it exactly the same,” Erturk said. “I believe we are much closer to a real human organ for the first time now,” he added. Erturk and his team plan to start by creating bioprinted organs. They hope to develop a human kidney within 5-6 years. The researchers will first test to see if animals can live with bioprinted organs and could start tests within five to ten years, he predicted.

【推荐2】Hong Yunzhu received a call in June from a service platform for senior citizens in Shanghai's changing district reminding her of her doctor's appointment. Hong then clicked on a related device and a taxi was booked for her.

She used the “one-click service for the elderly” tool that makes communication between residents and the platform possible through the use of internet of things, big data and cloud computing (云计算).

According to Feng Xiaoli, a staff member of the community service office of the Jiangsu Road subdistrict where Hong lives, the d c vice allows elderly residents to call a hotline for assistance or make a taxi booking with just a click of the button. In the event of an emergency, holding the button would alert relevant authorities as well.

As part of the city ' digital transformation efforts, the device was first launched in 2019 by the civil affairs bureau in changing district, an area with 39,900 residents aged over 80, and later in the Jiangsu Road area. To date, 300 devices have promoted some 667 services for senior citizens in Shanghai. The service is available 24 hours a day throughout the year for applicants over 60 scars old who have Shanghai medical insurance.

“The most important quality of smart elderly services is to improve the quality of life of the elderly through technical means,” says Meng Gang, deputy director of a senior care service development center in changing district.

Changing also provided smoke alarms, infrared (红外线的) monitoring devices that collect movement data and GPS-enabled bracelets (手镯) to some 5,000 elderly people who live alone there. “We're aiming to combine elderly care service data and offer more proper services for those in need by analyzing their requests via the senior service platform,” Meng says.

【推荐3】Flooded by more information than we can possibly hold in our heads, we’re increasingly shifting from the job of remembering to search engines and smartphones. Google is even reportedly working on eyeglasses that could one day recognize faces and supply details about whoever you’re looking at. But new research shows that outsourcing our memory -- and expecting that information will be continually and immediately available--- is changing our cognitive habits.

Research conducted by Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University, has identified three new realities about how we process information in the Internet age. First, her experiments have shown that when we don’t know the answer to a question, we now think about where we can find the nearest Web connection instead of the subject of the question itself. A second revelation is that when we expect to be able to find certain information again later on, we don’t remember it as well as when we think it might become unavailable. And then there is the researchers’ final observation: the expectation that we’ll be able to locate information down the line leads us to form a memory not of the fact itself but of where we’ll be able to find it.

But this shift comes with a downside. Skills like critical thinking and analysis must develop in the context of facts: we need something to think and reason about, after all. And these facts can’t be Googled as we go; they need to be stored in our internal long-term memory. Especially in the case of children, “factual knowledge must precede skill” says Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology, at the University of Virginia -- meaning that the days of drilling the multiplication table and memorizing the names of the Presidents aren’t over quite yet. Adults, too, need to recruit a supply of stored knowledge in order to situate and evaluate the new information they encounter. You can’t Google context.

【推荐1】In the U.S.A., labor songs are traditionally stories of struggle and pride, of timeless demands for respect and the hope for a better life. Sometimes they represent old songs with new words. One example is “We Shall Not Be Moved”. It uses the music and many of the same words of an old religious song.

Also, many classic American labor songs came from workers in the coalmines of the South. In some cases, there were open wars between oppressed (被压迫) labor activists and coalmine operators. Once, in Harlan County, company police searched for union leaders. They went to one man’s home but could not find him there. So they waited outside for several days. The coal miner’s wife, Florence Reece, remained inside with her children. She wrote the well-known song, “Which Side Are You On?”

Probably the most famous labor songwriter in America was Joe Hill. He was born in Sweden and came to the United States in the early 1900s. He worked as an unskilled laborer. Joe Hill joined the Industrial Workers of the World. More than any other union, they used music in their campaigns, urging members to “sing and fight”. One of Joe Hill’s best-known songs is “Casey Jones”. It uses the music from a song about a train engineer. In the old song, Casey Jones is a hero. He bravely keeps his train running in very difficult conditions. In Joe Hill’s version, Casey Jones is no hero. His train is unsafe. Yet he stays on the job after other workers have called a strike against the railroad company.

Another American labor song is called “Bread and Roses”. That term was connected with the women’s labor movement. The song was based on a poem called “Bread and Roses” by James Oppenheim. The poem was published in The American Magazine in December of 1911. At that time, conditions in factories were already a national issue. In 1911, a fire at a clothing factory in New York had taken the lives of 146 people. The victims were mostly immigrant women. The following month there was a famous strike by textile workers. Due to the encouragement of the poem, they won higher pay and better working conditions.

Since then, labor songs gained more attention. Union activists also realize that labor songs can unite and help people feel strong. This can be true even when the music has nothing to do with unions.

【推荐2】European Union member countries made the final plan that would require all new cars sold in the EU to be zero emission(排放) vehicles starting in the year 2035. It’s part of the EU’s plan to deal with climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a plan bigger than similar efforts in the US. A quarter of the EU’S emissions come from transportation, and 70% of that is road traffic.

“The direction of travel is clear: in 2035, new cars and vans(货车) must have zero emissions,” European Commission Executive Vice President Timmermans said in a statement. “The new rules on CO₂-emissions from cars are a key part of the European Green Deal and will be a big contribution to our target of zero-emission by 2050,” Timmermans added.

The plan also requires that, by the year 2030, the average emissions of new cars drop by 55% and the average emissions of new vans drop by 50%, compared with vehicle emissions in 2021.

But there’s one major caveat to the plan. The EU said it would allow the continued sale of cars that run on e-fuels(合成燃料) past 2035 at Germany’s request. E-fuels are made using CO₂ emissions caught in the air.

The US President has said he supports the increase of electric vehicles, and in 2021 he signed an order setting a goal that half of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the US in 2030 be zero-emission vehicles.

The shift from combustion engines(内燃机) to electric vehicles won’t be as easy as turning a key, experts say. Some of the challenges of changing to zero-emission vehicles include the high cost of electric cars, and a lack of charging equipment.

【推荐3】Science fiction pioneer and writer Wu Yan won this year’s National Outstanding Children’s Literature Award for his latest work China Orbit. The book focuses on the development of the Chinese aerospace (航空航天) industry, and it was inspired by the planning and preparation for China’s first but canceled manned spacecraft, “Shuguang 1”, also known as Project 714, during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“I collected many historical documents and stories and started writing decades ago,” Wu remembered. Partly based on Wu’s own experiences in the 1970s, the book is a combination of reality and fiction, and in some ways his own memoir (回忆录) was added into the science fiction. This innovative and unique writing method makes the book stand out and has even stirred up a debate on how to categorize it. Is it science fiction, popular science, children’s literature, or aerospace literature?

His fellow science fiction writer Liu Cixin, author of The Three-Body Problem, sees it more deeply, and believes China Orbit is not really children’s science fiction or popular science. He thinks it is too complicated to be classed under a single category. He speaks highly of China Orbit as a unique science fiction novel that vividly shows a child’s real-life experience in a military camp of a specific era.

In Wu’s opinion, China is a big market for children’s science fiction, but it still lacks extraordinary works. He warned people not to try to earn quick money from it after The Three-Body Problem frenzy and movie blockbuster The Wandering Earth because Chinese science fiction still has a long way to go. “We need to build Chinese science fiction step by step, with an accumulation (积累) of really great works. We need to innovate, and treat it as part of building China’s new culture,” Wu said.