【推荐2】An academic paper published in Nature Human Behavior on July 1 suggested smart technology is not making people more stupid but is, in fact, freeing up brain space to allow people to learn more. The paper said that despite the fierce attack of smart technology that has influenced people’s daily lives, it actually assists people to become more excellent rather than less intelligent.

For example, if a person needs directions for how to get to a nearby stadium to attend a game, without smart technology, he would have to fish out a map, figure out where the stadium is on that map, and then determine a reasonable route from his current location to his destination. However, with smart technology, the person could simply type in the location and have directions, find parking and even pick a place to eat afterward in mere minutes, freeing up room in their brains to take in other information.

The “popular description” surrounding smart technology is that it blocks a person’s cognitive(认知的)abilities such as memory, the paper continued. “And when participants expected information to later be accessible on the computer, they were less likely to remember what its content was, but more likely to remember where it could be found. These effects were temporary and they emerged when access to digital technology or information stored there was available, not when access was unavailable,” the paper continued.

The researchers did recognize that long-term use of smart technology did diminish people’s abilities to perform cognitive tasks such as “associations of media multitasking with task switching, episodic(片段的)memory and attention missing.” However, these impacts were all “relevant, not causal.”

【推荐2】Robots in space will be extracting (提取) gold from asteroids (小行星) within ten years if anew project backed by a Silicon Valley billionaire goes as planned. Peter Diamandis, the founder of Planetary Resources, said the company attempts to make the resources of space available to humanity.

The initial stage, to be achieved in the next 18 to 24 months, is to launch a series of private telescopes which will orbit Earth. These will be used to search for the right type of asteroids. The plan is to use commercially built robotic ships to extract rocket fuel and valuable minerals from the rocks that regularly pass by Earth. Diamandis predicts that they could have their version of a space-based petrol station up and running by 2025.

Several scientists not involved in the project argued that the project was daring, difficult and very pricey. They do not see how it could be cost-effective. But the founder of Planetary Resources has a track record of profiting from space exploration business. Diamandis was the first person to sell rides into space to tourists. “Before we started launching people into space as private citizens, people thought that was a ridiculous idea,” Diamandis said. “This is a long-term project. But it’s not a charity. We’ll make money.” The idea that asteroids could be mined for resources has been around for years. There are probably 1,500 asteroids that pass near Earth that would be good initial targets. They are at least 50 meters wide, and Diamandis figures ten percent of them have water and other valuable minerals.

Richard Binzel, Professor of Planetary Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says, “The idea might be many decades ahead of its time. But you have to start somewhere as it might offer a new perspective of saving the earth from being over explored.”

【推荐3】More than 5,450 square kilometres have burned across California in the past two weeks, as firefighters continue to battle some of the state’s worst wildfires. Meanwhile, the southern states of the US have experienced their first devastating hurricane this year.

The California fires include some that rank among the largest ever seen in the state. They followed a heatwave that caused blackouts, with Death Valley National Park hitting 54.4℃ in August, the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

“Exceptionally hot weather over the past two weeks certainly played an important role in drying out vegetation to this extreme degree,” says Daniel Swain at the University of California, Los Angeles. But the drying of fuel also started earlier, he notes. Last winter was dry in north California, and spring brought heatwaves.

There are several unusual aspects to the current fires. They expanded dramatically in the absence of the usual driver for large and fast-moving fires in the state: powerful, dry winds. “That makes the enormous area burned in such a short time all the more astonishing, since they’re essentially spreading on account of their own intensity,” says Swain.

The ignition (点火) of fires by dry lightning is also rare for the region, says Stephen Pyne at Arizona State University. He says this is California’s fourth major fire year in a row, when historically the state has seen between seven and 12 years between big fire seasons.

In the Gulf of Mexico, it is severe hurricanes that are the problem. Hurricane Laura made landfall in the US on Thursday 27 August amid official warnings of an “unsurvivable” storm surge (风暴潮), widespread flooding and catastrophic wind damage.

The storm is the first of four hurricanes in the Atlantic this year. About four-fifths of oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut down. The energy heartland of the south-western US was previously battered by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Researchers later found that the heavy rainfall from the storm was made three times more likely by climate change.

Climate change is almost certainly at work in California too. “It is perfectly clear that climate change is increasing the likelihood and intensity of heatwaves in California,” says Swain.

Although the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection had 14,000 people fighting the fires, observers say it is impossible to have enough crews to stop fires this big.

Authorities last month agreed a five-year plan to do just that. With climate change locked in for the next 30 years, the long-term answer is to reduce carbon emissions (碳排放), says Thomas Smith at the London School of Economics.