【推荐1】Among the annoying challenges facing the middle class is one that will probably go unmentioned in the next presidential campaign: What happens when the robots come for their jobs?

Don't dismiss that possibility entirely. About half of U.S. jobs are at high risk of being automated, according to a University of Oxford study, with the middle class disproportionately squeezed. Lower-income jobs like gardening or day care don't appeal to robots. But many middle-class occupations-trucking, financial advice, software engineering — have aroused their interest, or soon will. The rich own the robots, so they will be fine.

This isn't to be alarmist. Optimists point out that technological upheaval has benefited workers in the past. The Industrial Revolution didn't go so well for Luddites whose jobs were displaced by mechanized looms, but it eventually raised living standards and created more jobs than it destroyed. Likewise, automation should eventually boost productivity, stimulate demand by driving down prices, and free workers from hard, boring work. But in the medium term, middle-class workers may need a lot of help adjusting.

The first step, as Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue in The Second Machine Age, should be rethinking education and job training. Curriculums — from grammar school to college —   should evolve to focus less on memorizing facts and more on creativity and complex communication. Vocational schools should do a better job of fostering problem-solving skills and helping students work alongside robots. Online education can supplement the traditional kind. It could make extra training and instruction affordable. Professionals trying to acquire new skills will be able to do so without going into debt.

The challenge of coping with automation underlines the need for the U.S. to revive its fading business dynamism: Starting new companies must be made easier. In previous eras of drastic technological change, entrepreneurs smoothed the transition by dreaming up ways to combine labor and machines. The best uses of 3D printers and virtual reality haven't been invented yet. The U.S. needs the new companies that will invent them.

Finally, because automation threatens to widen the gap between capital income and labor income, taxes and the safety net will have to be rethought. Taxes on low-wage labor need to be cut, and wage subsidies such as the earned income tax credit should be expanded: This would boost incomes, encourage work, reward companies for job creation, and reduce inequality.

Technology will improve society in ways big and small over the next few years, yet this will be little comfort to those who find their lives and careers upended by automation. Destroying the machines that are coming for our jobs would be nuts. But policies to help workers adapt will be indispensable.

【推荐2】A few years ago, I started to notice big shifts in teens’ behavior. Around 2010, teens started to spend their time much differently from the generations before. These teens and young adults all have one thing in common: Their childhood or adolescence coincided with the rise of the smart phone. For this reason, I call them iGeneration.

What makes iGen different? Growing up with a smartphone has affected nearly every aspect of their lives. They spend so much time on the Internet, texting friends and on social media that they have less leisure time for everything else. Whether it’s going to parties, shopping at the mall, or watching movies, iGen teens are participating in these social activities at a significantly low rate.

Some parents might worry about their teens spending so much time on their phones because it differs from the way they spent their own adolescence. But it is not just different——in many ways, it’s actually worse. Spending less time with friends means less time to develop social skills. A 2014 study found that sixth graders who spent just five days at a camp without using screens ended the time better at reading emotions on others’ faces, suggesting that iGen’s screen-filled lives might cause their social skills to shrink.

In addition, in the annual Monitoring the Future survey, the percentage of iGen teens who read a non required book every day dropped from 60 percent in 1980 to only 16 percent in 2015. Perhaps as a result, average SAT critical reading scores have dropped 14 points since 2005.

iGen shows another break with the previous generations; Depression, anxiety, and loneliness have shot upward with happiness declining. The teen suicide rate increased by more than 50 percent, as did the number of teens with clinical—level depression.

Parents used to worry about their teens spending too much time with their friends—they were a distraction, a bad influence, a waste of time. But it might be just what iGen needs now.

【推荐3】The words “protect animals” appear everywhere in books and on screens, because some animals are even in danger of dying out. But sometimes the reality can be a little different from what people read or watch.

About 300 black bears were killed in Florida, the US, in October, 2015.It’s been the first bear hunt in the state since 1994.Local officers explained that the black bear population（a）had grown to 3,500 and become a menace to local people.In the past two years, bears have hurt at least four people in Florida.

Months ago ,the Swiss government allowed the locals to kill a wolf.This was because the wolf killed 38 sheep, and it was a great loss to some local farmers. Days ago in China, three old men were caught by the police for killing a serow（鬣羚）, a kind of protected animal.They said they killed the animal because it ate the plants they grew.

However, these stories don’t always mean that animal protection stops because of human interests especially when it is related to economic development.A man named Zhou Weisen set up a wild animal base in Guilin, Guangxi. He saved over 170 tigers and about 300 bears.His base also offered jobs to local people.

“There may never be a standard answer to the question of whether we should give more attention to the environment or human development,”said Robert May, a British expert at Oxford University. “But we shouldn’t put either one to one side, as the future is uncertain.”

【推荐1】In the early decades of the United States, the agrarian(土地的) movement promoted the farmer as society’s hero. In the minds of agrarian thinkers and writers, the farmer was a person on whose well-being the health of the new country depended. The period between the Revolution, which ended in 1783, and the Civil War, which ended in 1865, was the age of the farmer in the United States. Agrarian philosophers, represented most eloquently by Thomas Jefferson, celebrated farmers extravagantly for their supposed centrality in a good society, their political virtue, and their Superior morality. And virtually all policy makers, whether they subscribed to the tenets of the philosophy held by Jefferson or not, recognized agriculture as the key component of the American economy. Consequently, government at all levels worked to encourage farmers as a social group and agriculture as economic enterprise.

Both the national and state governments developed transportation infrastructure, building canals, roads, bridges, and railroads, deepening harbors, and removing obstructions from navigable streams. The national government imported plant and animal varieties and launched exploring expeditions into prospective farmlands in the West. In addition, government trade policies facilitated the exporting of agricultural products.

For their part, farmers seemed to meet the social expectations agrarian philosophers had for them, as their broader horizons and greater self-respect, both products of the Revolution, were reflected to some degree in their behavior. Farmers seemed to become more scientific, joining agricultural societies and reading the farm newspapers that sprang up throughout the country. They began using improved implements, tried new crops and pure animal breeds, and became more receptive to modern theories of soil improvement.

They also responded to inducements by national and state governments. Farmers streamed to the West, filling frontier lands with stunning rapidity. But farmers responded less to the expectations of agrarians and government inducements than to growing market opportunities. European demand for food from the United States seemed insatiable. War, industrialization, and urbanization all kept demand high in Europe. United States cities and industries grew as well; even industries not directly related to farming thrived because of the market, money, and labor that agriculture provided.

【推荐3】The housing market in Canada has been in a dangerous situation. A recent news item said that the owner of two high-rise buildings of rental apartments had told his tenants (房客) that their rent would double in three months.

Toronto doesn’t have rent controls to stop this sort of thing from happening. However, the politicians warn almost immediately that landlords (房东) should be careful because it could cause new laws to pass that they may not like. Tenants in the two buildings, meanwhile, are angry and some will have to move out because they simply can’t afford to stay.

The next day another news story noted that the purchase price of a house in Toronto has jumped 33 percent this year, which might destroy the dream of owning a house for most young people. Both of these stories came out of Toronto but similar things are happening in Canada’s other major cities such as Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and Calgary.

The cost of both home rental and home purchase is related to the supply and demand pressures of the market place and this is probably as it should be. The catch is that the rapid increase in both costs is far outstripping (超过) the increase in salaries, particularly in those jobs that beginners and probably even the majority of people can get.

We can’t leave these people out on the streets. I think the expanding gulf between the haves and the have-nots that we are seeing in Canada is dangerous because when some people seem to have everything and others are next to nothing it can lead to desperation, depression and sometimes to violence. I doubt whether this phenomenon is limited to my country but it’s very concerning here. I feel sorry for the young people just entering the housing market.

【推荐3】When learning a foreign language, most people fall back on traditional ways: reading, writing, listening and repeating. But Brian Mathias’ research team found out that if you gesture (做手势) with your arms while studying, you can remember the vocabulary better, even months later.

As Mathias describes, they had 22 German-speaking adults learn a total of 90 invented words over four days. While the test subjects first heard the new vocabulary, they were shown a video of a person making a gesture that matched the meaning of the word. When the word was repeated, the subjects performed the gesture themselves. Five months later, they were asked to translate the vocabulary they had learned into German. Those who performed better on the task showed a higher level of activity in their motor cortex—the part of the brain that is responsible for our body movements. The researchers concluded that the motor cortex contributed to the translation of the vocabulary learned with gestures. The effect did not occur when the subjects were only presented with matching pictures instead of gestures.

Another research group led by Leipzig had young adults and eight-year-old children listen to new vocabulary for five days, paired with matching pictures or videos of gestures. After two months, the two methods were still tied. But after six months, the adults benefited more from the gestures than the pictures, while the children were helped equally by both.

But it is not only the motor cortex itself that promotes learning. The meaning expressed by the gesture also figures in, “I think we underuse gesture in our classrooms,” Goldin-Meadow says. “Good teachers and good listeners use it, but not always in a systematic way. Others don’t necessarily bring it into the class —and it could be used more often and more effectively.”

【推荐1】This was the first real task I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. As I searched the name, I found that there were two famous people having the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts（花生）, while the other led some sort of army across America. I stared at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice; let the coin decide. I flipped(掷) a coin and Ah! Tails (背面)! My report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.

Weeks later, I stood in front of the classroom and proudly read my homework. But things started to get strange. I looked around the room, only to find my classmates with big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes and my stone-faced teacher. I was completely lost. “What could be causing everyone to act this way?”

Oh well, I dropped the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear, “My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American War of Independence.” The whole world became quiet! How could I know that my teacher meant that George Washington?

Of course, my subject result was awful. Sad but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to the headmaster Miss Lancelot, but she said firmly: No re-dos; no new score. I felt that it was not fair, and I believed I deserved a second chance. So I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, I sat in the headmaster’s office again, but this time a completely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the terrible moment at the beginning of the year as the headmaster told me I was good enough to skip(跳过) the 6th grade and started the 7th grade next term.

【推荐2】Located in Los Angeles, the University of Southern California（USC）is in the heart of a leading city. Although LA ranks highly in the Safe Cities Index report from The Economist Intelligence Unit, navigating any city calls for certain safety precautions（预防措施）along with practicing common sense.

◆Mobile Safety App Powered by LiveSafe

The Mobile Safety App powered by LiveSafe, managed by the USC Department of Public Safety （DPS）and the USC Department of Emergency Planning, is a free downloadable app that mobile users can use to contact emergency responders around the campus. Features include：immediate "push button" calls to DPS, easy reporting for suspicious(可疑的)activity or crime in progress, and location services to tell friends your route through campus.

◆Emergency Blue Light Phones

The University Park has multiple blue light phones that are strategically placed throughout campus. Take note of where the closest ones are on your route. They come in handy in case you lose your phone or are in an emergency. These phones are directly connected to DPS's 24-hour communications center. Besides emergency needs, they can also be used to request an escort（护送者）if you feel unsafe, report suspicious activity, and report crime.

◆TrojansAlert

TrojansAlert is an emergency notification system that allows university officials to contact you during an emergency by sending messages via text messages or email. When an emergency occurs, authorized USC senders will instantly tell you real-time updates, instructions on where to go, what to do (or what not to do), whom to contact and other important information. All members of the USC community, as well as parents and regular visitors to campus, are strongly encouraged to sign up for TrojansAlert.

【推荐3】As data leak and identity theft become more and more common,the market is growing for fingerprint or iris scans(虹膜扫描）－to keep others out of private e-spaces.They're still expensive,though,and some people are unwilling to have personal identifiers taken and kept by a third party.

Researchers say they have come up with a low-cost device-a smart keyboard. It precisely measures the sound with which one types and the pressure fingers apply to each key.These patterns are unique to each individual,says Jun Chen,a doctoral engineering student.By measuring how somebody types a password(码），he says, the keyboard can determine people's identities,and thus,by extension,whether they should be granted access to the computer it's connected to-regardless of whether someone gets the password right.

It doesn't require a new type of technology that people aren't already familiar with."Everybody uses a keyboard...and everybody types differently,"Chen says.

The device powers itself by generating electricity when a person's fingertips touch the keys-multi-layer plastic materials,press down,and lift again,which completes an electric circuit with the keyboard.The keyboard could offer a stronger layer of security by analyzing things like the force of a user's typing and the time between key presses.

This phenomenon,called"contact electrification,"is the same process that creates static electricity,Chen says:"lt's like when you run your hand across a wool blanket and see sparks(电火花）in the darkness."

In a study describing the technology published in the journal ACS Nano,the researchers had 100 volunteers type the word touch four times using the keyboard. Data gleaned from the device could be used to identify individual participants based on how they typed,with very low error rates,Chen says.

So far,there is just one such keyboard.But,Chen says,it should be pretty straightforward to commercialize and is mostly made of inexpensive,plastic-like parts. The team hopes it could make it to market in about five years.