【推荐2】With the development of science and technology, people find it increasingly difficult to keep pace with the most fashionable smart phones in the world, especially when smart phones are connected with robots. If any robot can take over the world, it’s RoBohon. He has all the information you put in your smart phone and can read human feelings. So everyone probably wants to own the cutest smart robot phone.

RoBohon is very useful. He can project photographs and films, tell you he loves you if he senses you are crying and do everything your smart phone can do.

RoBohon was created by Japanese electronics company SHARP. The robot phone, with a 2-inch screen fitted into its back, stands 20cm tall and weighs 390 grams. Most surprisingly, he can walk on his own legs around your home and act as a super cute personal assistant. He can even dance. He reads your text messages, announces phone calls, dries your tears and wakes you up. He can even recognize your face and call your name when you enter the room. He will be always at your side keeping you company and providing you with great comfort.

RoBohon can also serve as an alarm clock. The robot can be a wonderful partner in a small conversation. Though he is expensive, more than double the price of iPhone, who wouldn’t want a small personal assistant?

【推荐3】As the saying goes, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” That’s because this healthy food choice is supposed to be full of nutrients. The apple at the supermarket, though, might be so old that it has lost many of its nutrients. But soon there might be a way to check the quality of fruit by scanning it.

Scientists at Food+Future coLAB have come up with the idea of a handheld spectrometer (分光仪) that scans food. The machine will work by shining infrared (红外线的) light on a piece of produce. By measuring how chemicals in the fruit or vegetable take in the light, the scanner can recognize the food’s chemical makeup.

“The machine can tell you exactly how old an apple is, how many calories it contains, what nutrients are present inside it, and even small differences in taste,” Greg Shewmaker of Food+Future coLAB recently said.

For the new machine to be useful to consumers, researchers first need to create a database that contains possible chemicals for a particular type of fruit, like an apple, for example. Scientists will need to scan lots of pieces of produce(农产品)to collect this data. The information collected will allow the scanners to tell customers the quality of fruit.

Once consumers know what’s inside an apple, they can decide if they want to buy it.

Knowing fruit quality may also affect how a store prices produce. “We can price produce based on the nutritional value,” Shewmaker explained. Food+Future coLAB has already created a working model of its machine. It says you may see one in your local supermarket within the next few years. Then deciding whether you’ve picked the healthiest fruit will be just a quick scan.

【推荐1】Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers break wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death.

The capsid (壳) of a virus is something like the shell of a turtle, said physicist Otto Sankey of Arizona State University. “If the shell can be damaged by mechanical vibrations (震动), the virus can be destroyed.”

Recent experimental evidence has shown that laser (激光) pulses with the right frequency can kill certain viruses. However, locating these resonant (共振的) frequencies is a bit of trial and error. Experiments must try various conditions, Sankey said.

To further this search, Sankey and his student Eric Dykeman have developed a way to calculate the vibrations of every atom in a virus shell. From this, they can determine the lowest resonant frequencies. An experiment has recently shown that pulses of laser light can cause destructive vibrations in virus shells. Sankey said, “Like pushing a child on a swing from rest, one sudden push gets the virus shaking.”

However, it is difficult to calculate what sort of push will kill a virus, since there can be millions of atoms in its shell structure. A direct calculation of each atom’s movements would take several hundred thousand Gigabytes of computer memory, Sankey explained.

The team plans to use their technique to study other, more complicated viruses. However, it is still a long way from using this to destroy the viruses in infected people. “This is such a new field, and there are so few experiments that the science has not yet had enough time to prove itself,” Sankey said. “We remain hopeful but remain skeptical at the same time.”

【推荐3】Wildlife in New York City tends to be headline news. These animals' admirable ability to live with humans in peace draws our attention and sympathy. Yet, what most New Yorkers don't even know is that another animal, the Quaker Parrot, has invaded (入侵) the city with surprising results.

Quaker parrots originally came from the mild regions of Argentina and Brazil. The details related to the birds' arrival to the U. S. have become a thing of legend. During the 1960s, workers at JFK International Airport reported that the parrots—then products of the pet trade—escaped from broken shipping trunks (箱子). Others say the birds escaped from their homes or were intentionally released by their owners, some of whom may have been unprepared to deal with the birds' unpleasant screams. Either way, the birds have now infiltrated (渗透) all five districts in New York within the last five years. They've also expanded into the lower Hudson Valley and major cities around the U. S.

Each bird is born knowing how to build a nest, although this skill is adjusted slightly with age and experience. The birds use their soft feet to build these free-standing nests in between tree forks. Nest structures can grow to the size of a refrigerator, housing up to 200 pairs of birds. Each nest can weigh more than a ton.

Unfortunately, these parrots' unique habit of building nests on public facilities can cause their homes to catch fire, taking down the electrical network. Con Edison, New York City's energy services company, realized about 14 years ago that these nests were behind a series of Power outages (停电) in Brooklyn. So the company partners with wildlife specialists to carefully remove nests from dangerous areas before they become a security risk.

Despite the challenges these parrots present for the public, they are one of the few invasive species stories with a fairly happy outcome. The parrots seem to pose no risk of overpopulating the neighborhood or outcompeting native species for food. And public service corporations arrange special teams to keep equipment free from birds, and the parrots have become a largely welcomed addition to New York's wildlife scene.