【推荐1】Imagine wearing high-tech body armor (盔甲) that makes you super strong and tireless. Such technology, more specifically called an exoskeleton, sounds like the preserve of the Iron Man series of superhero movies. Yet the equipment is increasingly being worn in real life around the world. And one manufacturer — California’s SuitX — expects it to go mainstream. “There is no doubt in my mind that these devices will eventually be sold at hardware stores,” says SuitX’s founder Homayoon Kazerooni.

In simple terms, an exoskeleton is an external device that supports, covers and protects its user, giving greater levels of strength and endurance. Sometimes also referred to as “wearable robots”, they can be battery-powered and computer-operated, incorporating motors and hydraulics. Or they can be more simple, passive designs that use springs and dampeners.

“Integrating humans and machines into one system opens up a new realm of opportunity,” says Adrian Spragg, an expert on the technology at management consultancy Accenture. “Many of the early applications have been focused on military and medical applications, but in the last several years there’s been an explosion of use in a range of cases.” This expansion, which has come together with rapid advances in the technology, has seen exoskeletons increasingly used by manufacturing workers. Versions for consumers are also now being developed to help people more easily do everything from DIY, to walking, climbing stairs, and other daily activities. One report says sales are now due to rocket as a result. Global exoskeleton revenues (收入) are expected to explode from $392 million in 2020 to $6.8 billion in 2030, according to a study by ABI Research.

SuitX’s “suits” are now being tested by car manufacturers General Motors and Fiat. Prof Kazerooni, who is also the director of the University of California’s Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory, says that the primary benefit of the firm’s exoskeletons is to prevent muscle fatigue (疲劳).

“In general I see this development as very positive for occupational health and safety,” Prof Sandra Wachter says. “Machines are supposed to help us with dull, dangerous and dirty jobs. Problems, however, arise if robotics also double as workplace monitors. Are these suits tracking your movements, how fast you move, and how often you take breaks? Does a system compare this data with those of other workers to score or rank them? What happens if you move slower than others, or take breaks more often?”

【推荐3】Pandas’ Dietary Secret

Pandas are one of the world’s most fascinating vegetarians. They have a meat eater’s digestive system, yet almost rely on bamboo -- all day, every day.     1    

To understand how pandas live on such a diet, researchers tracked pandas in the Qinling Mountains and observed what they ate for six years. The team also analyzed the panda diet in depth by measuring the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and calcium -- the three most essential nutrients for mammals（哺乳动物）-- in the plant they are.

“There is strong evidence that animals try their best to meet their nutritional needs,” a researcher said. “In areas with only one eatable plant, animals may try to eat different parts of the same food.”

    2     The two bamboo species in Qinling, wood bamboo and arrow bamboo, grow at different elevations and sprout（发芽）at different times of the year.

In spring, pandas feed on young wood bamboo shoots, which are rich in nitrogen and phosphorous.     3     However, both species’ shoots have low calcium levels, pushing pandas to eat young arrow bamboo leaves which are rich in calcium in mid-July.

However, bamboo leaves fall heavily in winter, and their nutrient levels drop.     4    Records from Qinling show that among 25 cases of dead or ill pandas over the past 37 years, more than half occurred in March and April, right after the hardships of winter.

【推荐1】Dame Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born British architect whose tall structures left a mark on skylines and imaginations around the world and in the process reshaped architecture for the modern age.

She was not an average designer. She liberated architectural geometry( 几何), giving it a whole new expressive identity. Geometry became, in her hands, a vehicle for unprecedented and eye-popping new spaces. Her buildings elevated uncertainty to an art, conveyed in the odd ways.

Her work implying mobility, speed, freedom and uncertainty spoke to a worldview widely shared by a younger generation. “I am not European, I don’t do conventional work and I am a woman,’’ Strikingly Ms. Hadid never allowed herself on her work to be categorized by her background or her gender. And she was one of a kind, a path breaker. In 2004, she became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s Nobel.

Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad on October 31, 1950. Then in 1972, she arrived at the architectural association in London, a center for experimental design. Her teachers included Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas. “They aroused my ambition,” she would recall, “and taught me to trust even my strangest instincts.” By the 1980s she had established her own practice in London. And she began to draw attention with an unrealized plan in 1982—1983 for the Peak Club.

Her partner, Patrick Schumacher, played an instrumental and collaborative role in her career. Mr. Schumacher coined the term parametric(参数的) design to include the computer-based approach that helped the firm’s most weird concepts become reality. Ms. Hadid called what resulted in an organic language of architecture, based on these new tools, which allow us to combine highly complex forms into a fluid(流线的) and complete whole.

Her sources were nature, history or whatever she sought useful. When her Rosenthal Center, a relatively modest project, opened in 2003, Herbert Muschamp, the architecture critic declared it “the most important American building to be completed since the end of the cold war”.

“She was bigger than life, a force of nature,” as Amale Andraos, the dean of Columbia University’s architecture school, put it, “she was a pioneer.”

She was. For women, for what cities can desire to build and for the art of architecture.

【推荐2】In 2018, the state of California was on fire. Alexandria Villasenor, who was 13 at the time, witnessed the destruction of Northern California’s Camp Fire, which would go on to burn more than 150,000 acres of land. Villasenor was scared. “That’s when I found out how important climate education was,” she reflected. “And just how much we lacked climate education these past couple of years.”

Villasenor, now 15, is determined to have a bigger conversation. She quickly realized the fight requires international, government-level changes. For her, what started as local concern turned into a year-long protest (抗议) in front of the United Nations’ New York City headquarters and a global campaign for more compulsory climate education. She sat on a bench in front of the headquarters, pleading for the world’s leaders to take climate change seriously.

Her action received national attention, with millions of other students around the world joining in the movement. “It’s completely unacceptable to not learn anything about our planet and our environment in school, after all the young people would ‘inherit’ the Earth.” Villasenor said, “That’s why I think that climate education is so important, and that’s why I concentrate on it now.”

Right now, Villasenor is working with the Biden-Harris administration on its climate plan, which has promised to center the needs of young people and communities most impacted by climate change. She even spoke at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. “That was definitely a huge moment when I realized that people were listening to the voices of me and youth climate activists,” Villasenor said.

When she isn’t connecting with her fellow youth activists or holding elected officials accountable to the climate concerns of their young voters, Villasenor is like most other teens. “My favorite thing to do, of course, is sleep.” she said. “I like to read a lot. I like fantasy books, normally. I also like to write.”

【推荐3】Donald Trump was born in Queens, a borough of New York City. He was the fourth child. He had two brothers and two sisters. By his own telling, young Donald often created trouble in school. So when he was 13 years old, his parents sent him to a military-style school.

Trump went on to college first at Fordham University in New York, and then at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a degree in economics. He was also already investing in real estate. After he graduated, Trump quickly returned to New York City and his career.

In time, he became the head of the family business. He re-named it the Trump Organization. As its president, Trump developed and put his name on luxury buildings, casinos, hotels, and golf courses around the world. Later, he became linked to the entertainment industry, too. He became a part owner of beauty pageants, hosted a television show, and wrote a book about how to succeed in business.

During these years, Trump also married three times and divorced twice. The media wrote especially about his first and second marriages because he openly had a relationship with his second wife while he was married to his first. In 2005, he married Melania Knauss, a former model from Slovenia. She is only the second first lady who was not born in the United States. The first was Louisa Adams, who came from Britain in 1801.

But, until he officially entered the 2016 campaign as a Republican candidate, few linked him to politics.

Trump is unusual among past presidents because he had never worked in the government before. Nor has Trump served in the military. Only Presidents Taylor, Grant, and Eisenhower had no previous government experience; however, they had all been generals.

Trump is the oldest person ever to take office. He was 70 years old when he was sworn in.

He is also one of the richest.

And Trump is unusual in how he communicates with the public. As president, he continues to use Twitter to communicate his thoughts directly to anyone who wants to follow him.

While the long-term effects of Trump's presidency are not yet known, he will likely be remembered in part for his direct and unscripted style of communication.