1 . All the hard work that you’ve spent making strong passwords, combining pet names with numbers, symbols and birthdates could all soon be for nothing as a new artificial intelligence (AI) model achieves a 95% accuracy of understanding keystrokes (按键).

At least that’s the extreme view of a team of British researchers. Using a deep learning model, they were able to steal data from a laptop’s keyboard using a microphone to understand what is being typed. This, in theory, would allow hackers who were able to gain access to your laptop to obtain what is being typed including messages and passwords.

The first step for this attack to work is by recording the keystrokes on someone’s keyboard. This is needed to train the algorithm (计算程序). While this could be done from the laptop’s microphone, it could equally be achieved by placing a smartphone near the computer. By pressing 36 keys on a modern MacBook Pro 25 times each and recording the sounds produced, the researchers gained a full set of training data. This information is turned into waveforms to show identifiable differences between each key. With this information in hand, they could then build a machine-learning model to understand which of these waveforms lines up with which key.

“If you get enough data, a model can be built pretty easily,” Oli Buckley, a professor of Internet security. “If it works on one keyboard, it will likely work on the next. The MacBook has a nice, quiet keyboard, so the idea is that if it works on something quiet, it will have a wide-reaching ability on louder keyboards”.

While this all sounds pretty scary, not to mention a new form of hacking (侵入) to look out for, it isn’t quite as worrying as it sounds.

“A good sample of data is needed for it to work, so this changes if you’re using a Dell, a MacBook or an external keyboard. Also, factors change. Some people type louder and harder, or my keyboards full of cat hair so that impacts things slightly”, says Buckley.

2 . Five years ago, French navy officer Jérôme Chardon was listening to a radio program about the journey of the bar-tailed godwit, a bird that migrates 14,000 kilometers between New Zealand and Alaska. Chardon understood how treacherous the journey would be, as heavy storms frequently hit Pacific island communities. Yet, somehow, bar-tailed godwits routinely pass through the area uninjured. Chardon wondered whether learning how birds traveled could help coastal communities avoid natural disasters.

This past January, a team from France’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) began experiments designed to test Chardon’s idea. Researchers with a project led by Frédéric Jiguet from NMNH equipped 56 birds of five species with cutting-edge animal tracking technology. The team members were ferried to remote islands in French Polynesia, where they attached tags (标签) using tracking technology. These tags sent the birds’ locations to the International Space Station, which bounced the data back to scientists on Earth who could then follow the birds — waiting to see how the birds responded to natural disasters.

The project is focusing on birds’ ability to hear infrasound, the low-frequency sound humans cannot hear but that the researchers believe is the most likely signal birds would use to sense storms and tsunamis (海啸). In a 2014 study, scientists tracking a kind of golden-winged birds in the central and southeastern America found that the birds flew up to 1,500 kilometers to escape from an outbreak of tornadoes (龙卷风) that killed 35 people. The birds fled at least 24 hours before any extreme weather hit, leaving the scientists to believe that they had heard the storm system from more than 400 kilometers away.

The team plans on tagging hundreds more birds across the Pacific to prepare for a potential tsunami. “I think if there’s one wave that spreads across islands, we can get data from different species at different locations,” says Jiguet. “That will say it’s worth continuing to tag and to develop local systems to better analyze this. There are chances that we will develop a bird-based tsunami early warning system.”

3 . Do you think cookies can tell stories? Jasmine Cho, 35, does.

A baker, artist, entrepreneur and activist, Cho tries to spread knowledge about social justice issues and diversity through the delicious medium of cookies.

It was in high school that she discovered her love of baking. At a sleepover a friend taught her how to make a dessert, “sort of demystifying baking and that whole process”.

Later, Cho realized her second passion: learning more about her Asian, American culture. An elective in college that taught Asian-American immigrant experiences brought an emotional moment for her. “So many emotions came up that I just couldn’t articulate. It was like this mix of anger, of relief, empowerment, sadness…” Cho said.

Cho realized she could combine these two passions to educate others about influential Asian American people and showcase matters that were important to her. With her online bakery, she designed cookie portraits about people she admired and posted the images on Instagram. “I don’t think I ever really knew how to communicate these stories until I found cookies,” Cho said. “Cookies are just so disarming. Who doesn’t like cookies?”

One cookie that Cho has identified with deeply is one she made of George Helm, a Hawaiian activist in the 1970s.

“It’s insane the amount of injustice that the native Hawaiian population has faced as well through the whole annexation (吞并) of the kingdom. There were so many horrific stories that I heard about nuclear testing and the fallout (核爆炸后的沉降物) impacting native Hawaiian populations in all of this,” Cho said, “George Helm was one of those activists who really represented the spirituality of the native Hawaiians and the connection to their land, to nature.”

Among her amazing cookie art are other political figures such as Larry Itliong, a Filipino-American labor organizer, and pop culture figures such as Keanu Reeves, a Canadian actor.

Cho hopes her cookie art continues to inspire people to be creative and think positively.

“Instead of trying to think of something new and original, just look inward and see, maybe there’s already a passion or a love that you have,” Cho said. “Use that for something that will serve the world in a better way.”

4 . I had just delivered a memorable speech that I had labored over for months, and I was about to learn how the experts judged my performance. The polite audience leaned forward in their folding chairs. Silence fell across the room and the drum rolled in my heart.

The contest organizer announced the third-place winner. The name was not mine. Then the second, and once again it was not me. At last, the moment of truth came. Either I was about to be lost in the warmth of victory or regretted the last several months’ preparation. While neither of these came to pass, my heart just sank.

Losing is a part of life, but it was an indescribable depression to drive 200-mile round trip, get up early on a freezing Saturday morning, and yet still finish fourth out of four competitors. After Lincoln lost the 1858 Illinois Senate (参议院) race, he said, “I felt like the 12-year-old boy who kicked his toe. I was too big to cry and it hurt too bad to laugh.” Oh yeah, I could relate.

I had spent hours in front of a computer and in libraries doing research for the Lincoln Bicentennial (两百周年纪念) Speech Contest. As I read through several biographies, one idea stood out: Lincoln was handed many sound defeats, but he never allowed them to permanently stop his spirit or ambition. I thought “failing successfully” was a very appropriate topic, given the many letdowns Lincoln experienced, and so this became the title of my speech.

Never mind the lost prize money and praise - I did gain a new perspective. Now, whenever I’m faced with a failure, I remember what Lincoln said after his unsuccessful 1854 Senate race, “The path was worn and difficult. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other out of the way, but I recovered and said to myself. ‘It’s a slip and not a fall.’”

9 . What do a student in China, an office worker in the UK and an astronaut in space all have in common? They all eat instant noodles. And they’re not alone—over 100 billion servings of instant noodles are consumed globally each year, making them one of the world’s most successful industrial foods. But how did this happen?

Put simply, they’re cheap to produce and cheap to buy, which was exactly what their creator intended to achieve. Momofuku Ando, an entrepreneur, spent a year perfecting the recipe just after the Second World War. He wanted to make something similar to traditional noodles. His creation was instantly popular, playing a part in the post war economic rise. Even in the year 2000—according to a poll by the Fuji Research. Institute—instant noodles Were voted the most successful invention, ahead of high speed trains, laptops and karaoke.

According to the World’s Instant Noodles Association, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and India—in that order—all consumed more instant noodles than before in 2021. Instant noodles’ popularity abroad is in part due to how easy they are to adapt to local tastes. In Thailand, for example, you can get green curry flavour, while in Mexico the noodles are garnished (加饰菜) with lime and salsa. And it seems that consumers have grown to expect innovation. Nisin, the food company founded by Ando launches over 300 products yearly, according to employee Kasura Suzuki.

Instant noodles have their critics, too. Their rise in popularity has come at an environmental cost—they’re made with palm oil, contributing to deforestation, and their packaging is plastic. And while they are a hot, tasty and filling meal, instant noodles don’t have much nutritional value, and include high levels of salt and fat. Nevertheless, instant noodles are undoubtedly lifesavers in emergency or extreme situations.

More than 60 years after their invention, instant noodles have become the default food for anyone short on money, time, or even a kitchen.