【推荐3】Scotland is a country in Great Britain, to the north of England. Scotland has nearly 800 islands, but people only live on some of them. About five million people live in Scotland, which is 8.5% of the UK population. Most people live in the south of the country, in and around the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and Dundee.

In Scotland, most people speak English and Scots and a minority speak Scottish Gaelic, an old Celtic language which is very different from English. Scots is spoken by young and old people and sometimes people mix Scots and English. Some words in Scots are the same as in English and some are different.

The most popular sport in Scotland is football and famous teams include Celtic and Rangers, from Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city. Another popular game, golf, was invented in Scotland in the Middle Ages. You can go skiing in winter at Scotland’s five mountain ski fields and any time of the year at snow sports centers around the country.

When people think of Scottish food, they often think of haggis, a type of sausage made from parts of a sheep. However, Scotland is also known for its variety of seafood and beef.

Blue is a colour which is often connected with Scotland. The Scottish flag is blue with a white X-shaped cross called the Saint Andrew’s cross. St Andrew is the Patron Saint(守护神) of Scotland. Everywhere you go in Scotland, you will see tartan(苏格兰格子呢), kilts and bagpipes. Also, look out for the national animal, the unicorn, and the thistle, the national flower of Scotland.

【推荐2】A company called OpenAI has recently announced a new version of its artificial intelligence (AI) artist, DALL-E 2. Given just a short sentence describing a picture, the tool can create complicated images (图像) in many different styles.

OpenAI has already changed the world once with its AI writing tool, GPT-3. GPT-3 was trained on huge amounts of writing in many different styles. When it was released in 2020, it shocked people by quickly creating complete, well-written articles in different styles. It is so powerful that OpenAI has tried to be prudent when it comes to how it allows people to use the tool, to make suire that it isn’t used for harmful purposes.

DALL-E actually grew out of an effort to apply GPT-3 to images. OpenAI released the first version of DALL-E last year. DALL-E 2 is even more powerful. DALL-E 2 has been trained on massive numbers of pictures with matching descriptions, which means it “knows” a lot about how different things look.

DALL-E starts its images with a pattern of random dots. It then changes the pattern of those dots until different parts of the image begin to match the description the DALL-E is given. Does DALL-E 2 have something new? The user can select an area of an image and ask DALL-E 2 to put something into the picture, or take it out. Some artists are concerned that their job opportunities might be limited if a computer system can make such high quality pictures on demand so easy. OpenAI says the tool will allow artists to be creative in new ways.

To make sure the tool isn’t misused, OpenAI already has strict rules about the sorts of images that can be created with DALL-E. One of those rules prevents DALL-E from creating realistic pictures of actual people. For now, the company isn’t releasing DALL-E 2. Instead, it is allowing a small number of people to work with the tool to learn more about what works well, and to discover possible problems.

【推荐3】Unlike humans who enter a state of relatively complete unconsciousness while sleeping, birds can more carefully control their sleep. Birds often sleep with one eye open, only half their brain resting at the same time. The other half of the brain is awake, able to note danger if needed.

While the exact way in which birds control their sleep patterns has not been well studied, it has been shown that the safer a bird feels when sleeping, the more likely it is to sleep deeper. If the situation is more uncertain, however, the bird will sleep more lightly.

Sleeping together is another defensive method that many birds use. By living together, some species can create a nighttime place where thousands of individuals sleep. As a result, there are more birds to notice their enemies’ attack, giving each individual bird a greater chance of survival. In winter, many birds, particularly small birds, live together to share body heat and survive lower nighttime temperatures.

When birds sleep, they bury weak body parts in their feathers. A bird’s feathers create air pockets that help it keep warm, and by placing feet or the bill into the feathers, less body heat is lost. When a bird’s bill is buried deeply in its feathers, it is also able to breathe air warmed by its own body heat.

There is little data about how long birds sleep at a time, but studies show that birds may sleep longer during longer nights. This may be because birds are not able to search for food or take part in other activities without enough light and so sleeping is the next natural item on their to-do lists. Birds are able to sleep for a short time during the day, however, and can also sleep longer whenever they are in a safe place.