1 . Clean electricity is the power of the future, but engineers are facing a big challenge. How can we store electricity to be used at times when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining? In some cases, the answer will be batteries; but in other cases, it could come from a variety of different solutions—starting with gravity.

Gravity is the most abundant source of power on Earth. It’s always been everywhere since the beginning of time. Nobody knew about it until around 1700, when Isaac Newton saw an apple fall from a tree in his garden. Newton asked himself the question: “Why did that apple fall to the ground?” And he soon worked out the answer. Everything will fall to the ground if it can do so, because there is a massive force that pulls things towards the center of the earth. Newton decided to call this force “gravity”, a word that then just meant “weight”.

Engineers have used gravity as a source of power for centuries, long before Newton first explained it. In particular, they used gravity to move water from one place to another to irrigate (灌溉) fields and bring water to cities. They knew that water would flow downhill, but never uphill, so they built structures to use the force of gravity most effectively.

In 1907, engineers in Switzerland first used gravity for a new purpose: to store energy. They pumped (用泵抽送) water up a hill, where they stored it in a lake. Then when they needed more electricity, they let the water come back down the hill, driving electric turbines (涡轮机) as it fell. The idea was just so simple, and it is now used in many parts of the world. However, the problem is that “pumped storage” hydro schemes (抽水蓄能水电方案) can’t be built just anywhere, as they need lots of water and big hills or mountains.

Some experts believe that gravity systems are the cheapest way to store electricity. Gravity-stored electricity is maybe half the price of battery-stored electricity, but even so it is not cheap. In order to make gravity more effective, we would need to increase its force—and that, of course, is quite impossible. Yet gravity is not the only way of storing energy, and engineers are working on systems that store it using water pressure or compressed air... and even sand!

Storage is one of the big scientific challenges of our time, as storage is the essential partner of wind power and solar power. We need clean electricity 24 hours a day, not just when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.

2 .

Meditation is one kind of exercise in controlling attention. Meditators use some practices, like keeping focus on breathing, to strengthen the ability to take control over what their minds are doing. While meditators have long experienced its benefits, science only recently discovered that the mental effort of meditation is good exercise for the brain. Meditation has much to do with cognition, a term to describe the thought processes inside our heads (like focusing, making decisions, and remembering) that allow us to understand the world. Meditators are really good at using several cognitive abilities to stay focused. When they learn that their minds wander (走神), they quickly bring their attention back, which is like doing a mental push-up. All these mental push-ups end up strengthening their ability to change their thoughts based on what they are doing right now, like changing from doing math to reading when they go to different classes.

push-up

Groups of brain areas that communicate are called brain networks, and the health of the brain depends on the ability of brain networks to communicate well. Science has shown that meditation can improve sustained attention, which is how well a person can keep their attention on something hard for a long time. Scientists can measure improvements in sustained attention by looking for increases in certain brain waves, using EEG (脑电图). It proves that meditation can make the brain areas involved in attention communicate with each other more easily.

Meditation can even change the way that meditators’ brain networks communicate, by bringing new, helpful brain areas into the conversation or getting rid of a brain area that is too loud and distracting (分心的). As a result, meditators get better at focusing their attention away from negative thoughts and feelings and putting themselves into a good mood.

These changes take a long time and a lot of work. People need to make meditation a habit and guidance from a teacher can be helpful. Yet, not everyone can afford a personal teacher. That’s where technology steps in. Scientists have made apps that provide tips and help people meditate at their own levels. While some digital meditation apps have been carefully studied by scientists, some need to be tested. So, it is important to be careful at first about whether an app really works.

3 . Every time I look at the many recent orders on my online shopping account, or I receive a new package on my doorstep, I get a feeling of happiness that is hard to give up. Although I know that my shopping habits are bad for the planet, I just can’t stop.

But Ann-Christine Duhaime’s new book, Minding the Climate: How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis, has helped me understand that my desire (渴望) to keep buying things isn’t necessarily a personal weakness—it’s the way our brains have developed.

According to Duhaime, we managed to stay alive even when things were hard because our brains learned to repeat decisions like moving towards a tasty treat or backing away from danger. Today, we have some 86 billion neurons (神经元) in the brain continuously working to strengthen rewarding behavior—a kind of action that results in a positive outcome, which makes a person want to do it again. As the neurons work, they produce dopamine (多巴胺), which makes our rewarding behavior feel even better than usual. We actively look for more dopamine, and at the same time, learn to repeat the actions that lead to it.

However, Duhaime stresses that our brains are not programmed to keep buying more and more. All humans are different, and our brains work differently depending on our genetics (遗传性) and our life experiences. The challenge is that our brain systems are designed for short-term decision-making. When we buy something new, we get rewarded immediately. But the long-term worsening of the planet is harder for the reward centers of our brains to understand, even if we know about it.

And there may be some ways to break the cycle. The best is not to stop buying things completely; a better solution may be to substitute the old rewards that we know aren’t good in the long run with new ones. For example, you can have a glass of milk, which gives you fewer calories, instead of eating chocolate just before bed for comfort. Once you start losing weight, the reward of being able to fit into your old clothes feels as good as what the chocolate would do. We need that same substitution for shopping.

Buying used things could also help satisfy our desire to get more things without using more natural resources. Additionally, creating social rewards, like encouragement and support from a community with similar goals, can inspire positive changes. Humans naturally like to connect with others, and this social support can lead to more eco-friendly choices.

Inner painting, a kind of traditional Chinese art, is marked as a national-level intangible cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产). Inner painting artists traditionally create works on the inner surface of the glass bottle by using special fine brushes that can enter the tiny bottles. It has a long history and is mainly divided into four major schools: Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, and Guangdong.

When we look at the inner painting of an object, we experience an indescribable beauty. Patterns on the painting often symbolize people’s wishes for good luck and a happy life. The most marketable ones are landscapes (风景), followed by flowers and birds.

The production of inner painting is difficult because it requires high   precision (精确) and the process of painting is totally reversed (反向的). During painting, there is no room for corrections. And a shaky hand leads to mistakes. Only those skilled and confident in their abilities can paint well. Most artists need to learn inner painting for years before creating great and fine pieces. Even if they already know how to paint, they need to practice drawing lines from the beginning when they start inner   painting.

Inner painting has its advantages due to its uniqueness (独特性), but it also faces challenges such as limited market needs, and a shortage of learners and talented artists to drive its development.

Luckily, today’s artists are trying to make inner painting more included in our lives. It is now used on everyday objects, like tea sets and folding screens. One of the artists invented a new type of brush, which improved the speed of drawing. Some young artists are making use of social media to help more people learn about inner painting skills.

Looking ahead to the future, the inner painting artists wish the art to be more available to the public, and win high market acceptance. They also hope inner painting courses can be offered at school for young people to take.

5 . You may sometimes notice athletes with purple circles on their skin from cupping. Or maybe you know someone who swears (极其信赖) acupuncture for their back pain. More and more people use practices from traditional Chinese medicine like these not only to fight disease, but also to prevent it.

TCM is short for traditional Chinese medicine. It is an ancient system of health and wellness. It’s been used in China for thousands of years. Western medicine focuses mainly on treating disease. But TCM looks at your entire well-being.

Western medicine tends to view the body a lot like a car. It has different systems that need the right inputs and outputs. It’s very specific (具体的) and logical.

TCM is based on balance, harmony (和谐) and energy. There are two central ideas behind TCM. One is qi, the other is yin and yang. Qi is also called life energy or vital energy. The belief is that it runs throughout your body. It’s always on the move and continually changes. TCM treatments often focus on ways to promote and maintain the flow of qi.

Yin and Yang are opposites that describe the qualities of qi. The belief is that everything in life has a little bit of its opposite, too, and balance is the key. For example, a drug from your doctor might cure disease. But it’s dangerous if you take too much of it.

According to TCM, these ideas play out in our bodies. When you balance the yin and yang of qi, you feel healthy and well. If they’re in disorder, you feel sick. TCM aims to create harmony and a healthy flow of qi.

Experts believe it’s safe, if you go to someone who knows what they’re doing. This is especially true of acupuncture, tai chi, and cupping. With a little background on how it’s used, I believe you can make wiser choices to improve your health.

7 . The Stanford marshmallow (棉花糖) test was originally done by psychologist Walter Mischel in the late 1960s. Children aged four to six at a nursery school were placed in a room. A single sugary treat (甜食), selected by the child, was placed on a table. Each child was told if they waited for 15 minutes before eating the treat, they would be given a second treat. Then they were left alone in the room. Follow-up studies with the children later in life showed a connection between an ability to wait long enough to get a second treat and various forms of success.

As adults, in fact, we face “the marshmallow test” every day. We’re not tempted (诱惑) by sugary treats, but by our computers, phones, and tablets — all the devices that connect us to the global delivery system for various types of information that do to us what marshmallows do to preschoolers.

We are tempted by sugary treats because our ancestors lived in a calorie-poor world, and our brains developed an ability to respond to these treats that reflected their value — a feeling of reward and satisfaction. But as we’ve reshaped the world around us, greatly reducing the cost and effort involved in getting calories, we still have the same brains we had thousands of years ago, and this mismatch is at the heart of why so many of us struggle to resist (抑制) tempting foods that we know we shouldn’t eat.

A similar process is at work in our response to information. Our formative (发展的) environment as a species was information-poor, so our brains developed a system that prized new information. But global connectivity has greatly changed our information environment. We are now constantly bombarded (轰炸) with new information. Therefore, just as we need to be more thoughtful about our intake of calories, we also need to be more thoughtful about our intake of information, and refuse to accept the temptation of the mental “junk food” in order to manage our time most effectively.