【推荐3】British shoppers buy 2.15 million tons of clothing and shoes annually, yet UK citizens have an estimated €30 billon worth of unused clothing at the back of the wardrobe. But new technology could see the end of that, with the garments themselves reminding the owners of their existence.

“Smart clothes” could help us clear out our wardrobes by sending messages or tweeting us if they haven’t been worn for a good while. If these messages are ignored, the garments will get in touch with a clothing charity and ask to be reused, with an organization automatically sending out donation information. They could be programmed for a public sale where they are sold to whoever offers the highest price on eBay.

Academics at Birmingham City University are developing the connected “wardrobe” to encourage more suitable clothes consumption. The concept sees garments tagged, using washable contactless technology.

Mark Brill, senior lecturer at the university, said, “Think of the surprise when an owner suddenly receives bids for items that they didn’t know were in their wardrobe.” “The connected wardrobe is a practical pleasant concept to encourage people to think about their clothing consumption. Finally, I hope it will encourage more appropriate fashion consumption,” he added. “Perhaps we can even move away from the idea of ‘ownership’ of clothing. When we’ve worn them enough, the items will pass themselves on to their next keeper. ”

It follows in the footsteps of the “Internet of Things” —a concept that sees ordinary household items connecting to the Internet in order to share information. Now, the “Internet of Clothes” will see that neglected garments will tweet and text the owners, “asking” to be worn depending on the weather and frequency of wear. Clothes will keep track of other information, such as who owned them previously, as well as how much they originally cost, who made them and how much the worker was paid for them.

【推荐2】A little brain stimulation at night appears to help people remember what they learned the previousday, a study of 18 severe epilepsy (癫痫) patients has found.

During sleep, brain cells fire in rhythmic patterns. When two brain areas synchronize (同步) their firing patterns, they are able to communicate. During non-rapid eye movement sleep, the hippocampus (海马体), found deep in the brain, synchronizes its activity with the prefrontal cortex, which lies just behind the forehead. This helps transform memories from the day into memories that can last a lifetime.

Dr. Itzhak Fried at the University of California and his team gathered 18 epilepsy patients who already had electrodes (电极) in their brains for medical evaluation. This offered the scientists a way to both monitor and change a person’s brain rhythms. They used a “celebrity pet” test in which participants were shown images matching a particular celebrity with a specific animal. They were expected to remember which animal went with which celebrity.

Patients saw the images before going to bed. In order to evaluate how the patients’ memory during sleep was enhanced, the researchers gave some of them tiny electrical stimulation through the wires in their brains while they were sleeping. In patients who got the stimulation, rhythms in the two brain areas became more synchronized. And when they woke up, they scored higher on the test.

The experiment was based on decades of research done by scientists, including Dr. György Buzsáki, a neuroscientist at New York University. But changing rhythms in healthy peoples’ brains might not improve their memory, he says, because those communication channels are already in perfect condition. The epilepsy patients may have improved because they started out with sleep and memory problems caused by both the disorder and the drugs used to treat it.

Even so, he says, the approach has the potential to help millions of people with damaged memory. And changing brain rhythms probably plays important parts in many other problems. “It is not specific to memory. It is doing a lot of other things,” Buzsáki says, “like regulating mood and emotion.”

【推荐3】One rainy evening, a student named Paula Ceely brought her car to a stop on a remote road in Wales. She got out to open a metal gate that blocked her path. That’s when she heard the whistle sounded by the driver of a train. Her Renault Clio was parked across a railway line. Seconds later, she watched the train drag her car almost a kilometre down the railway tracks.

Ceely’s near miss made the news because she blamed it on her GPS. She had never driven the route before. It was dark and raining heavily. Ceely was relying on her GPS, but it made no mention of the crossing. “I put my complete trust in the device and it led me right into the path of a speeding train,” she said.

Who is to blame here? Rick Stevenson, who tells Ceely’s story in his book When Machines Fail Us, points the finger at the limitations of technology. We put our faith in digital devices, he says, but our digital helpers are too often not up to the job. They are filled with small problems. And it’s not just GPS devices: Stevenson takes us on a tour of digital disasters involving everything from mobile phones to wireless keyboards.

The problem with his argument in the book is that it’s not clear why he only focuses on digital technology, while there may be a number of other possible causes. A map-maker might have left the crossing off a paper map. Maybe we should blame Ceely for not paying attention. Perhaps the railway authorities are at fault for poor signaling system. Or maybe someone has studied the relative dangers and worked out that there really is something specific wrong with the GPS equipment. But Stevenson doesn’t say.

It’s a problem that runs through the book. In a section on cars, Stevenson gives an account of the advanced techniques that criminals use to defeat computer-based locking systems for cars. He offers two independent sets of figures on car theft; both show a small rise in some parts of the country. He says that once again not all new locks have proved reliable. Perhaps, but maybe it’s also due to the shortage of policemen on the streets. Or changing social circumstances. Or some combination of these factors.

The game between humans and their smart devices is amusing and complex. It is shaped by economics and psychology and the cultures we live in. Somewhere in the mix of those forces there may be a way for a wiser use of technology.

If there is such a way, it should involve more than just an awareness of the shortcomings of our machines. After all, we have lived with them for thousands of years. They have probably been fooling us for just as long.

【推荐1】When school closes, poor pupils lose the last social institution-one that educates, feeds, and sometimes clothes them-whereas richer pupils are gaining relatively more advantages. Disruptions to schooling tend to lower achievement while increasing inequality.

A new industry of"Learning Pod", where a group of families pool cash to pay for an in-person tutor, is deepening that inequality. Scoot Education, whose normal business is providing substitute teachers for schools, quickly developed a sideline in learning pods in California. For younger pupils, the total cost of a pod, shared among all parents, is $349 a day, which is beyond what a poor family can afford.＂Rich families can always find a way to educate their children, even if COVID-19 pandemic had not started," says Sarah Cohodes, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University.

Thus, if there would be no extraordinary interventions in the closing of schools, the long-run effects on those poor students are predictable.

A team of five education scholars recently calculated that American schoolchildren in 2020 learned 30% less reading and 50%less maths than they would in a typical year. Despite that, the top third of pupils posted gains in reading. Data from Opportunity Insights, an economic-research team at Harvard University, shows that after lockdowns began in March pupils from low-income neighbourhoods fell permanently behind on online maths coursework, while those from richer areas quickly rebounded.

Then there is the problem of access to online classes. Nearly half of native American pupils and 35% of black and Hispanic ones do not have access to either a computer or the internet at home, compared with 19%of whites. Worsening mental health among poorer families will also hurt achievement. Elizabeth Ananat of Barnard College and Anna Gassman-Pines of Duke University surveyed part-time workers in Philadelphia who had young children; half were showing their anxiety or depression for children's schooling.

【推荐2】Over the last century, engineers all over the world have spared no effort to achieve the unachievable in bridge design.

Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge

No bridge is as long as the Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge in the world. The 164.8-kilometre-long bridge built in 2011 in China serves as part of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway. The trip from Ningbo to Jiaxi ng that previously took 4．5 hours has been reduced to two, thanks to this bridge.

Rio-Niterói Bridge

Completed in 1974, the Rio-Niterói Bridge in Brazil is the second-longest bridge in all of Latin America connecting the cities of Rio and Niterói across the Guanabara Bay. The Rio-Niterói Bridge is technically known as a “box-girder (箱形梁)” bridge, made of special concrete. It receives an astonishing 140,000 (or more) vehicles per day.

Hartland Covered Bridge

The Hartland Covered Bridge is the world’s longest covered bridge. The 1,282-foot-long bridge was opened in 1901 and has been on Canada’s list of National Historic Sites since 1980． Although it was originally built without a roof, the bridge was capped with wooden materials during the repairs in 1921.

Jiaozhou Bay Bridge

The newly-built Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in China was named “world’s longest bridge over water” by Guinness Book of World Records in 2011, a title previously held by the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. The dispute was settled when the title of “longest continuous bridge over water” was given to the causeway, with the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge receiving the title of “longest bridge over water”.

【推荐1】For the first time, a generation of children is going through adolescence with smartphones ever-present. Jean Twenge , a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has a name for these young people born between 1995 and 2012："iGen". She says, “Members of this generation are physically safer than those who came before them. They drink less they learn to drive later. " "But psychologically," she argues, "they far more easily get hurt. It's not an overstatement to describe iGen as being on the edge of the worst mental health crisis in decades.''

Today's teens are just not spending as much time with their friends face-to-face where they can really read each others' emotions and get that social support. And we know from lots of research that spending time with other people in person is one of the best predictors for psychological well-being and one of the best protections against having mental health issues. They're more likely than young people just 5 or 10 years ago to say that they're anxious, and that they have symptoms of depression.

How much of a factor is parenting? “Parenting is playing a role. Many parents are worried about their teens driving, and going out with their friends and drinking. Yet parents are often not worrying about their teens who stay at home on their phones all the time. But they should be worried about that. I think parents are worried about the wrong thing," Professor Twenge remarked.

She proposes several helpful solutions, "The first is just awareness that spending a lot of time on the phone is not harmless and that if you're spending a lot of time on the phone, then it may take away time from activities that might be more beneficial for psychological well being, like spending time with people in person. And then for parents, I think it is a good idea to defer giving your child a smartphone as long as you can.”

【推荐2】Wind turbines (涡轮) and solar panels that generate electricity are examples of “green” technology. A new study finds that such renewable energy might be green in another sense. Large collections of those turbines or solar panels appear capable of bringing rains to the desert and would allow more plants to grow.

Building large wind or solar farms just to study their question was not an option. It would be too costly. So experts Kalnay and Safa developed a model of North Africa’s Sahara Desert to find out how wind turbines and solar farms might alter the desert’s climate.

The team ran its model several times. In one run, it assumed that people would set up wind farms only. Another run assumed people would install just solar farms. A third assumed people would build both. They would affect the desert’s weather with temperature and average daily rain increased—but differently. Installing a mix of solar farms and wind turbines brought about a bigger change—not in temperature but in rainfall. In the Sahara, having both wind and solar farms more than doubled the amount of rain that fell, up to 215.4 millimeters per day.

The models predicted that the average rainfall would increase over time, as more plants grew. Plants move water from the ground to the air. Warmer air can carry more water. So as this air rises, it can ferry more water up to become clouds. Those clouds can release rain, relieving the thirst of plants below. Over time, this process repeats itself over and over. This positive feedback can greatly boost rains.

Such rainfall changes could lead to better agriculture, says Safa. “More rain also would help wild plants grow. We believe that the countries in the Sahara should seriously consider investing in wind and solar power”, he added.

【推荐3】School is, waking up early in the morning, whether it is hot or cold, putting on school uniform and rushing to the bus stop to catch the school bus and getting used to the words “Hurry up! You will be late!” You reach school and again the same words “Hurry up!” do not let you rest in peace.

Throughout the day, it is a mad rush. One period gets over, the other starts and you are ready for the second subject. When you forget to do your homework, you try to sit at the back and pretend to be looking for something on the floor or in your bag. You are lucky if you are not seen and it is bad luck if you get caught. If you are not lucky, be ready for a good scolding during break or after school. If you are lucky and your teacher is in a good mood, you may be left with a warning.

However, school is not so dull all the time; the games, library period and breaks are a welcome time. When you can relax, joke and have fun with your friends. There are some teachers, too, who can make school very exciting. For example, Mr. Taneja, has a typical style of talking, making us always hooked on the playground.

School can be fun, real fun, when picnics and field trips are organized. We wait for them eagerly and keep on requesting our class teacher to organize one for us. Debates, quizzes, cultural programmes also add luster to an otherwise dull school life. Fun increase after real hard work and you tend to enjoy more than those who had been lazy and have wasted their time. I think this period of your life is the most wonderful period-full of dreams and hope.