【推荐2】In a recent staff meeting, my colleagues and I discussed ways to alleviate the current stress our 11th-grade students were feeling. I offered a successful strategy that I use for organizing work in the classroom-negotiating (协商) due dates. The assistant replied, “Yes, a good idea, being flexible with due dates.” Flexible? That was not the word I used, and to me, those two words are not interchangeable; flexibility and negotiation are not the same thing.

Being flexible can help decrease stress and anxiety in the classroom. It shows willingness on the part of the teacher to listen, engage in conversation with students, and shift and adapt when possible. But the balance of power has not really changed. The student still needs to ask for permission, which may or may not be given. In a week when my work seems manageable, I may be feeling generous, but in a week when my workload is high, I may be less likely to lean toward flexibility. So flexibility might mean an extra hour, half a day, or a few days.

In either case the student has no power. In many ways, by the time students reach the stage of having to ask, it’s too late. The stress has already increased, and students are placed in a position where they may make poor decisions, like cutting classes, to get some extra time.

Negotiation is different. It happens at the beginning of the process and is a proactive (先行一步的) approach that encourages shared ownership, an acceptance of equal responsibility. Negotiating brings the teacher and students together to address the issue equally. The date by which work will be done is a question for all, but the student does need to do the work, and the teacher needs to assess it. There are competing needs and schedules and workloads.

Sometimes even the smallest things are worth considering carefully. In teaching, there is nothing small. As a teacher, I usually self-reflect my practice, and strengthen my practice.

【推荐3】Maybe you are still in high school or even in middle school. It is never too early to prepare to receive higher education. Having a better education usually means earning more money and studies have proven that those with a college degree earn more than those who graduate from high school.

It’s obvious that more education does you good, but what do you need to do to make that happen? First of all, you need to make sure you clear up some misunderstandings. Not all colleges are the same. Before you decide where you go, you first need to decide on what you wish to major in. And don’t restrict your choices. Try to pick out several universities that you want to attend because the more choices you have, the more chances you will have to be admitted to a university.

The next step is to find out how much attending a certain university or college charges you. Some places like community colleges charge very low and private universities charge extremely high. But don’t get discouraged. There are still ways to pay for them. By winning scholarship(奖学金), student aid programs or getting student loans(贷款), you can pay for an education that you have dreamed of.

Before you can even attend the college, your information has already gone to it. From your grades to your after-school activities, they must consider everything that you have done during your high school years to see if you are suited to attend their universities. You have to do well in your high school exams and the tests that most universities require. From school clubs to after-school community service programs that you may have volunteered for, they will take into consideration what kind of activities you took part in to have a much better understanding of you.

【推荐1】Ford has announced it has hired a pair of Boston Dynamics’ Spot robotic dogs. Ford is using the robotic dogs to help it 3D-map its Van Dyke Plant “By having the robots scan our plant, we can see what it actually looks like now and build a new engineering model. That digital model is then used when we need to change the equipment in the plant for new products,” said Mark Goderis, Ford’s digital engineering manager. The automaker named one of them Fluffy. The other is keeping its name Spot assigned to it by Boston Dynamics.

The dogs are used to capture 360-degree images of areas in the plant that are difficult to get to using a traditional 3D camera on a tripod. They’re equipped with five cameras and can climb stairs and kneel down to get into hard-to-reach places. Their four legs allow the robots to walk like a dog, around the plant at speeds of up to 3 mph — so they’re not exactly zippy. Besides, the battery lasts for only two hours.

Mark said that the old way of scanning with a camera on a tripod could take two weeks. Using the robotic dogs cuts that time in half. It also used to cost $300,000 to do it the old way. The robotic dogs are cheaper, but Ford didn’t say by how much.

At present, the metal dogs are followed by their handler, Paula Wiebelhaus, who manages the robotic dogs through a controller with a display that sees what the dogs see. But in the near future Ford wants to be able to program the dogs to go to different parts of the plant and report back what they see without being followed by a human. They can also ask for a ride on the back of a mobile robot that Ford has named Scouter. Like the dogs, it’s also capturing 3D scans of its environment.

【推荐2】Cell phones, tablets, laptops, smart-watches: the modern world is packed with a lot of devices that bring us connectivity, entertainment and information. Our hunger for the latest models leads to the “throwaway” culture, which means consumers often throw away old devices as soon as new ones come to the market, a habit that can have a significant effect on waste streams and the environment.

With concerns about e-waste growing, some companies are now turning to chemistry to develop solutions to recycle items like old cell phones, extracting value at the same time. One such example is the work being carried out by Mint Innovation, a clean tech firm based in Auckland, New Zealand. “We’ve developed a biological process for recovering valuable metals from electronic waste,” said Ollie Crush, the company’s chief scientific officer.

Crush explained that Mint Innovation’s system included grinding(磨碎)waste up into a powder. “The reason why we must do this is that we need to make sure that we’re exposing all the metal contained within to a chemical filtering(过滤)process,” he added.

When it comes to recovering a valuable material like gold, the technique used by Mint Innovation has a number of steps. According to a video, chemicals dissolve (溶解) the powdered waste into a solution, with any materials that haven’t dissolved filtered out. Microbes are then added to the mix. Gold atoms catch on to them in a process called “selective biosorption”. Next, the microbes coated gold are filtered, producing a paste which is then turned into a solid, “recycled” gold.

“Nearly 50% of the value of e-waste comes from the gold,” Cameron Weber, a senior lecturer at Chemical Sciences, said. “In fact, there’s actually more gold in e-waste as a concentration than there is in gold that’s been mined, which shows you the value of being able to take your e-waste and recycle and reuse some of the elements that are found in it,” he added.

Looking ahead, Crush, explained the process could potentially have a number of interesting applications. “The future for Mint Innovation is to prove that our technology works with a number of different materials,” he said. “So, we’ll just keep trying to see where our microbial process makes more sense.”

【推荐1】Robots have been around for six decades or so. Originally, they were simple devices which did as they were told, working on assembly lines (流水线) in a robotic manner. They were often kept in cags to stop people getting too close. Now, they are stepping out of their cages, equipped with advanced sensors and machine learning. Clearly, the pace of automation is likely to see up, for two reasons.

The first reason is that covid-19 has created social changes which look likely to continue. The “Great Resignation”, in which millions around the world have quit their jobs, may in part be a consequence of lockdowns creating new opportunities for home working. These so-called lifestyle choices about which jobs to do, together with creaking (岌岌可危的) supply chains and a boom in e-commerce, have left warehouses and many other businesses struggling to employ workers.

The second reason is that the robots are getting better. In factories, they are working alongside people. Such robots will increasingly help out in other places too, including hospitals, and in roles, such as caring for an ageing society — which, post-covid, has got used to a more technological future for health care, with “telemedicine” via remote doctors and health-monitoring mobile-phone apps.

Even so, the rise of robots makes some people fear for their jobs and ask how they will earn a living. There is a similar fear in health care that robots will destroy jobs. Indeed, instead of destroying jobs, robots can create them by making businesses more efficient, allowing firms to expand. As Dr. Christensen points out, for the past decade manufacturing employment in America has grown, even as the number of factory robots increased.

Although some experts believe robots will enhance human capability, one problem is that regulation falls behind technology. It seems an awful lot of meetings lie ahead for roboticists and regulators to determine how machines and people will work together.

【推荐2】Angus Neish dared to hope that his fine-looking cattle, bred at Rodmead Farm in Wilt-shire, would nab a prize at the Royal Bath and West Show last month. The annual fair, held near Shepton Mallet, in Somerset, is England’s oldest and grandest. As well as a fiercely competitive livestock parade, it features Morris dancing, sheep-shearing and a vintage fairground. Its pony-chariot races are second to none. Many contestants performed vigorously before a large crowd. 100,000 turned out for some of the three-day show.

Britons love a fair. No one is sure exactly how many shows there are across the country, but at least 400 days of such rural events happen annually across the country. Roughly one in ten Britons attend them each year. It appears their popularity is rising.

In late June, it was the turn of the Royal Highland Show, near Edinburgh, where 217,000 people—breaking a record set in 2019—rolled up. It is estimated that the event last year boosted nearby businesses by almost £40m ($51m).

Why do people go? Nostalgia (怀旧) is evidently a draw. At Bath and West, as colored flags flapped, visitors formed queues, bought cream teas and listened as a military band played wartime hits. Rural shows also have a purpose. Many fairs were founded to spread the knowledge of new farming technology among rural populations. Some of that mission lives on.

A secondary goal is to better educate those who flood in from towns and cities—urban folk make up a decent share of those who pack the grounds. Some consumers also come armed with powerful knowledge of food supply chains—as well as sometimes picky personal preferences for organic, local, animal-friendly and environmentally sound products. Laura Williams, of the Royal Welsh Show, notes that visitors are “much more invested in farming and interested in where their food comes from” than in years past.

A last purpose, naturally, is for farmers to excel against their rivals in friendly competition. In this respect, Mr. Neish enjoyed an utterly successful day. In a first for Bath and West, his cattle scooped all four of the top prizes on offer in their categories. Such victories do not bring immediate, large financial rewards, but should boost the reputation of his breeding program.