【推荐3】As COVID-19 spread through Japan last spring, a doctor despaired. What shocked him was not the pace of infection, or a lack of protective equipment, but the old systems used to record test results and so track the course of the epidemic. “Even with coronavirus, we're handwriting and faxing,” he complained on Twitter.

Japan has excellent health care. Life expectancy at birth is 85 years, the highest in the world. But doctors have been slow to embrace(欣然接受) the efficiencies of information technology, despite Japan's reputation for medical technology. The OECD ranks it last among its members for its management and use of data in health care. A commission of experts convened(召集) by the Asia-Pacific Initiative, a think-tank in Tokyo, declared Japan's response to COVID-19 a “digital defeat”。

But the coronavirus is also providing a strong motive for change. The new prime minister, Suga Yoshihide, has made digitising Japan the centerpiece of his economic agenda. The potential benefits are especially big in health care, because costs are rising as the population ages. Spending on health accounted for 11% of GDP last year, up from 7% in 2000.

In 2015, the government allowed telemedicine to treat a few conditions, but with less compensation and more paperwork. Predictably, it did not takeoff: less than 1% of all medical institutions offered online consultations in 2018. But many restrictions on telemedicine have been suspended because of the pandemic, sending patients and doctors to their screens.

The situation "changed radically", says Hara Seigo, the boss of a telemedicine firm called MICIN, which saw monthly registrations jump ten-fold. Government surveys show the share of institutions using telemedicine has risen to nearly 15% this year.

Mr Toyoda, who gave up a career in brain surgery to work in digital health care, hopes that wider adoption of telemedicine will also promote the use of electronic medical records. Japan's medical system is strikingly paper-based. Only 42% of clinics have digitized their data on patients. Linking and analyzing those data could help to reduce costs. Unnecessary procedures would be easier to avoid. The effectiveness of treatments could be measured.

For Koizumi Keigo, a doctor who serves two remote islands in Mie prefecture, the expansion of telemedicine has been a huge blessing. Previously, when he was visiting one of the islands, patients on the other were left without a supervising physician. This year he began keeping tabs(密切注意) over video chat. Nurses hold up an iPad at patients' bedsides, while Bluetooth devices monitor blood pressure. That is enough to give him a sense of how his charges are doing. Now, he says, "even the grandmas would like to see more doctors go online".

【推荐1】Though the Tokyo Olympic Games drew to a close on August 8, 2021, the public is still watching the athletes. Their outfits and the technologies that helped them in the competition have aroused people’s interest.

Su Bingtian, the first Chinese sprinter to reach an Olympic 100m final, has ascribed his breakthrough to scientific training. “It takes Su 47 steps to run 100 meters. Each step counts,” Liang Dong, a member of Su’s training team, told Shenzhen Evening News. “Randy Huntington, Su’s American coach and a biomechanics expert in track and field, has collected a lot of data on outstanding sprinters and built a database. He put in all of Su’s data and got a near-optimal model. When Su is training, the team uses high-speed cameras to record his training and compares it with the model to find out his weaknesses.”

Technology has also brought a new boost to table tennis. On July 27, the semifinal match between China’s Sun Yingsha and Japan’s Mima Ito was in full swing at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. You wouldn’t have guessed that besides players, referees and audiences, a powerful AI platform was monitoring the match.

Every serve, swing and movement of Mima Ito was captured by this AI cloud platform deployed in Tokyo. At an average speed of 100 Mbps, the data was transmitted to the technical team of the Zhejiang University Table Tennis Intelligent Big Data Analysis Platform,2,442 kilometers away from the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, according to The Paper.

The Tokyo Olympic Games have seen not only scientific support in training, but many high-end technologies in athletes’ devices. For example, the Kenya women’s volleyball team’s GPS devices fed data on each player’s strength, heart rate and so on to coaches, who used the information to prevent injury and personalize training plans for each individual, South China Morning Post reported.

【推荐2】ECycling refers to the recycling of electronic items, which are becoming a common problem in American home and throughout the world. The EPA, or Environmental Protection Agency, has actually started a program to help and motivate the recycling of electronics.

To get the program to the regional and neighborhood levels, the EPA directed “Plug-In to eCyeling Partners.” These partnerships support electronic reusing programs in individual communities. They provide local governments, retailers and manufacturers with opportunities to reuse and recycle their items. Those who make and offer electronic devices then promote programs and opportunities for consumers to reuse their second-hand electronic products. One of the EPA’s goals is to enlighten customers about why the recycling of electronics is so important. They likewise wish to make eCycling chances easily accessible to specific consumers and their family electronics. According to the EPA, the eCycling program has actually been quite successful. In 2008, the EPA collected 66.5 million pounds of electronic devices through their Plug-In Partners.

Local governments have actually likewise got on board and passed laws intended to handle used electronic devices. Huge corporations have actually introduced eCycling programs at their local retail stores. One seller offers customers small, medium and big boxes for sale, which the customers then load with used electronics and go back to the store. Typically，customers bring their recyclable electronics to a location. When the electronic items are gathered by the EPA(typically this is done byt he Partners), they are reused or recycled.

Reused items are repaired and refurbished, and passed on to others as a contribution. You can repair or recondition your very own electronic devices too, extending the life of the items and conserving the energy of making new materials. Reusing electronic devices includes making use of the products and pats of the items. These materials and parts are then made use of to produce another item. This is more efficient than making items from new materials.

Some items that are commonly eCycled consist of televisions, computer monitors, printers, notebook computer, keyboards and cable televisions. Less usual items include copying machines, CDplayers, voice mail machines, computer hard drives, mobile telephones, remote controls, radios, batteries, telephones, facsimile machines and computer games. Occasionally, electronic items such as microwaves, fans, vacuums, smoke alarms, and toasters are eCycled.

As the eCycling program continues, you or your organization may want to get involved. Check the EPA’s internet site (www.epa.gov) for regional eCycling programs, or for details on how your company can participate. Their website has links to organizations that are taking part in the eCycling program.

【推荐3】Using the health records of more than a million Swedish conscripts (应征入伍者), a recent study revealed that keeping cardiorespiratory (心肺的) fitness in their late teens and early twenties can cut the risk of developing nine types of cancer by 40% when older. The research team from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden said, “These results could be used to further strengthen the promotion of interventions aimed at increasing fitness in youth.”

Almost a third of people aged from 16 to 24 in England aren’t physically active, without meeting guidelines of at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week including walking, riding a bike and dancing.

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) measures how well the heart, lungs and linked systems work to get oxygen to muscles during constant activities. The conscripts, aged between 16 and 25, had tests of CRF on exercise bikes between 1968 and 2005. The researchers used Swedish health data to see who went on to have cancer during an average follow-up of 33 years. The study found that increasing fitness was beneficial, regardless of body weight. However, they also found that higher fitness was linked to a higher risk of skin cancer. The researchers explained that this trend might be driven by exposure to sunlight.

Findings from those observational studies provide much evidence for a link between higher levels of physical activity and a lower risk of cancer. However, these studies cannot fully rule out the possibility that active people have lower cancer risk because they engage in other lifestyle behaviors. The researchers cautioned that they had no access to full data on factors such as diet, alcohol intake and smoking and so couldn’t fully account for those.

Dr Claire Knight, of Cancer Research UK, said, “The NHS recommends 150 minutes of activity a week, but it’s fine to build up activity over time and there are lots of ways to be more active. You don’t need to run a marathon or join a gym. Anything that gets you warmer and slightly out of breath and your heart beating faster counts.”