【推荐1】Your next car might drive itself. After years of trials on city streets，driverless vehicles(车辆)are now nearing the practical use. Last month，a driverless bus began carrying passengers through Lyon，France. Most in the automobile industry think self driving vehicles will be on the road by 2020.

Driverless cars will at first be huddled with human driven cars. But the first places where they will become dominant(占优势的)are crowded urban areas—exactly the spots most damaged by the car age. Many advanced cities are already reducing the role of human-driven vehicles. Driverless cars will quicken that process and will bring us enormous benefits.

Driverless cars will reduce accidents by around 90 per cent. That’   s big—the annual death toll on the world’   s roads is about 1. 2 million a year. Pollution and carbon emission(排放)will drop， because urban driverless cars will be electric. The old，otherwise，would stay at home most of the time and the disabled and teenagers will suddenly gain mobility.

On the other hand，driverless cars will bring terrible results. The best thing about the car age was that it employed tens of millions of people to make，market，insure and drive vehicles. Over the next 20 years，the mostly low skilled men who now drive trucks，taxis and buses will see their jobs reduced. Car makers are especially scared. The few cars of the future might be made by tech companies such as Apple，Baidu and Google. Imagine the influences on Germany，where there is the largest vehicle industry.

Dramatic change is coming，and driverless cars could arrive by 2020. But governments have hardly begun thinking about it. Only 6 per cent of the biggest US cities have considered them in their long term planning.

Ten years ago，anyone hardly saw the smartphone coming. But now it is so common in our daily life. Let’   s hope we do a better job of handling the driverless car.

【推荐1】Located at Europe’s biggest water park, the Galaxy Erding in South Germany, the world’s first VR water slide takes the exciting experience to a whole new level by offering thrill-seekers the choice of three attractive worlds —Space, Sky, or Snow. By simply wearing a headset, riders can slide through a magical alien world, follow beautiful butterflies around floating islands or put themselves in a white winter wonderland. To make the experience even more heart-stopping, the 160-meter-long ride that lasts about 35 seconds has two uphill tracks that provide a roller-coaster-like experience.

While the tire slide, which has been successfully tested by almost 10,000 park goers since it opened in February 2018, is impressive, the technology behind it, developed by California startup Ballast is even more so. The specially-created waterproof headsets can be worn in water up to a few meters deep, without harming the delicate Samsung Galaxy S8 mobile devices that run the custom software for the VR experiences. The headsets also charge wirelessly (无线地), allowing park operators to swap out sets throughout the day.

The biggest challenge the company faced, however, was providing a suitable VR experience for everyone. That’s because unlike roller coasters, where the speed is fixed for all riders, water slide speeds vary depending on the weight of the person. To overcome the issue, Ballast fixed smart sensors (传感器) in important areas along the slide to keep track of the rider’s progress at all times. The information, conveyed through the headset, allows the custom software to adjust his or her location within the virtual world accordingly, making for a smooth, seasickness free ride for all.

Though Ballast is thrilled at Space Glider’s success, the company has bigger ambitions. They want to create an experience where guests will be able to swim underwater surrounded by virtual dolphins, whales, and even sharks, without wearing the heavy headsets!

【推荐2】Vinegar is great. It makes salad, fries and dumplings taste better, and you can even clean your windows with it. And now, according to scientists, it may even help the planet’s population survive climate change.

Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan have found that growing plants in vinegar makes them more resistant to droughts. This could mean that in the future, worries about climate change affecting the world’s supply of food will be much less.

The discovery was made after the researchers studied the Arabidopsis, a plant known for its ability to survive in dry weather. It was found that when the plant was placed in drought-like conditions, it produced a chemical called acetate(醋酸盐)—the main component of vinegar.

After discovering this, the scientists experimented further by adding acetate to the soil of other plants, and they stopped giving them water completely. After leaving the plants for 14 days, they found that the ones treated with acetate had survived, while the untreated plants had dried up and died. It’s hoped that this simple method of survival could soon be used to help farmers in dry countries keep their crops alive.

Jong Myong Kim, the co-author of the study, tells Popular Science that he’s already been in touch with people all over the world who are interested in trying this simple and cost-effective method out for themselves from flower growing companies to amateur gardeners. Although at this point keeping thirsty plants alive isn’t as easy as just pouring vinegar over them, Kim says he and his team are working on making the process as simple as possible. “Now we are trying to cooperate with some farmers, and also some companies, to make a method of applying this system,” he says.

And for those of us who always forget to ask our neighbors to water our plants when we go away, hopefully this means the end of returning home from a trip to find our favorite flowers have died.

【推荐1】Sure, it’s good to get along well with your teacher because it makes the time you spend in the classroom more pleasant.

And yes, it’s good to get along well with your teacher because, in general, it’s smart to learn how to get along well with the different types of people you’ll meet throughout your life.

In fact, kids who get along well with their teachers not only learn more, but they’re more comfortable about asking questions and getting extra help. This makes it easier for them to understand new materials and do their best on tests. When you have this kind of relationship with a teacher, he or she can be someone to turn to with problems, such as problems with learning or school issues.

Here is a question: what if you don’t get along well with your teachers? In fact, teachers want to get along well with you and enjoy seeing you learn.But teachers and students sometimes have personality clashes (个性冲突), which can happen between any two people. If you show your teacher that you want to make the situation better, he or she will probably do everything possible to make that happen. By dealing with a problem like this, you learn something about how to get along with people who are different from you.

However, if a certain teacher isn’t your favorite, you can still have a successful relationship with him or her, especially if you fulfill your basic responsibilities as a student. Here are some of those responsibilities:

Attend class ready to learn.

Be prepared for class with the right pencils, books, and completed assignments.

Listen when your teacher is talking.

Do your best, whether it’s a classroom assignment, homework, or a test.

One cost-cutting proposal is to allow college students to get a bachelor’s degree in three years instead of four. Educational institutions have been actively exploring ways to make the learning process more efficient. But there’s a question: Would the quality of undergraduate (本科生) education suffer? Few US universities have formally approved a “three-year degree” model.

I doubt that mainstream North American colleges will carry out a three-year curriculum (课程) any time soon. For one thing, most universities already allow highly qualified students to graduate early by testing out of certain classes and obtaining a number of college credits (学分). In addition, at famous universities, the committee who determine which courses are required and which courses are electives are unlikely to suddenly “throw out” one quarter of the required credits. Professors will resist “diluting (稀释)” the quality of the education they offer.

In my opinion, a quality four-year education is always superior to a quality three-year education. A college education requires sufficient time for a student to become skilled in their major and do coursework in fields outside their major. It is not a good idea to water down education, any more than it’s not a good idea to water down medicine. If we want to help students find their way through university, we should help them understand early on what knowledge and skills they need to have upon graduation. We should allow students to test out of as many courses as possible. We should give them a chance to earn money as interns (实习生) in meaningful part-time jobs that relate to their university studies, such as the five-year co-op program at Northeastern University.