2 . My father was the kind of guy who could walk into a room full of strangers and leave with new best friends for life! He was a hard worker and was known as “Mr Fix-It” to everyone. He was also one of the most cheerful, affable (和葛可亲的) and gentle people you would ever meet, which made us, his beloved daughters feel proud.

But when Dad was in his fifties, my family began to notice him struggling. His work and skills began to become worse and worse, and he became depressed and withdrawn. This was not the man I knew. At the age of fifty-eight, Dad was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. As for our family, it was the worst.

Our first step was to attend a meeting hosted by the Alzheimer’s Association to learn more about the disease and programs that might help us. That meeting inspired me to start a Walk to End Alzheimer’s^® team. But I still wanted to do more. In 2017, I became a board member of the Alzheimer’s Association Delaware Valley Chapter.

The loss from this disease is gradual. My father’s decline continued for several years. Losing my father more and more each day was leaving a big hole in my heart and my life. I decided to fill that hole with action to honor my father.

That’s why I recently decided to leave a gift to the Alzheimer’s Association by naming it as a beneficiary of my retirement plan. My future gift will provide money to support research because I don’t want another person in my family or someone in other families to have to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.

I am so proud to be able to honor my father and other family members who lost their fights to Alzheimer’s in this way. My dad was an inspiration to me, and I hope, through my gift, I can inspire others to join in the fight to end Alzheimer’s.

3 . As an intense heat wave sweeps through China, residents are seeking relief in air raid shelters and swimming pools to stay cool, and dozens of cities, including Shanghai, Chongqing and Hangzhou, have issued their highest-level red alert warnings. Shanghai has issued three red alerts this year, with the temperature hitting 40.9 Celsius on July 13, matching the record set in 2017 since 1873. The fact that Shanghai has experienced only 16 days of 40°C-plus temperatures since the city began keeping records in 1873 should give us an idea about the seriousness of the situation.

Medical experts say extreme heat could cause nausea (恶心), fatigue, sunstroke and even death, with senior citizens and people with long-term illnesses particularly vulnerable to heat waves.

Extreme heat events, which began a month ago, have affected the lives of more than 900 million people in China. Between June 1 and July 12, the average number of days with temperatures above 35°Cwas 5.3, up 2.4 days over normal years, breaking the national record set in 1961, according to the National Climate Center.

Parts of Europe are also in the grip of heat waves and experiencing extreme weather events after the western part of North America faced extreme heat waves last year. In response to the exceptionally high temperatures, the United Kingdom has declared a national emergency and issued the highest-level red alert warning for Monday and Tuesday for the first time. More alarmingly, the average global temperature in June this year was 0.4°C higher than normal years and the highest since 1979, with temperatures in countries such as Spain, France and Italy exceeding 40°C.

Unfortunately, extreme heat, which is directly related to climate change, will become more frequent and intense in the next 30 years, setting new records for high temperatures. As global warming intensifies, losses and devastation will increase, forcing natural and human systems to raise their adaptation limits.

4 . Aasritha Duriseti recently noticed her grandmother’s difficulty opening a bottle cap. Fortunately, she found a solution in her eighth-grade engineering class at Carson Middle School in Herndon, Virginia, whose assignment was to adapt existing products to make daily life easier for people with challenges.

Aasritha’s creativity kicked in as she researched existing bottle-opening devices. She used a piece of wood shaped like a cellphone and put three holes on it, each in different sizes and lined with a layer of dried, sticky hot glue, which provided firm grips (防滑力) for common bottle caps. With a simple twisting (拧) motion, her grandmother could open bottles without assistance.

“Students in the class used more than their math, physics and tool skills. They also learned to look at problems from another’s point of view,” said Teacher Mark Bolt, “Engineers need to put themselves in their product users’ shoes to build effective solutions.”

Other students in the class also showed sensitivity as they watched friends and family struggle with daily tasks.

Michael Kuwashima noticed how dyslexia—a reading disorder that the brain tends to confuse the order of numbers, letters and other images-made it difficult for a friend to follow along on pages full of text. Therefore, Michael created a small adjustable window-blind-style device. “My friend could isolate (分离) small sections of text while reading,” he said.

Arjan Garg focused on a different problem. Sometimes putting on clothes can be hard for people with a limited range of motion. Arjan created a “dressing stick” using four wood sticks of different sizes to fit different clothing.

The students tried different versions of their products along the way to make the best one to show the class.

Rather than requiring step-by-step directions for creating their projects, Bolt preferred to leave students’ creative paths open. “If we want to do better, we have to have a chance to fail,” he said.

5 . Researchers at the University of Helsinki recently examined hyperactivity (过分好动) and inattention in more than 11, 000 Finnish pet dogs. They found that the dog’s age and gender, as well as exposure to other dogs, played a part.

“We wanted to collect a large behavioral data of dogs to better understand behavior problems that are common in our companion dogs. We studied seven characteristics: noise sensitivity, fearfulness, fear of surfaces and heights, inattention, compulsive behavior, separation – related behavior, and aggression,” says Sini Sulkama, a researcher at the University of Helsinki.

Their goal was to identify demographic (人口统计的), environmental, and behavioral risk factors that could influence these anxiety - related characteristics in dogs. Their analysis showed that hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention were more common in young dogs and male dogs. They also found some major differences among breeds.

Interestingly, researchers discovered that the owner’s experience with dogs also had an impact. They found that hyperactivity and impulsivity are more common in dogs that aren’t their owners’ first dogs. “We can only conclude the possible relationship between these factors, but one possible explanation is that people try to choose easy individuals from less active breeds, like companion dog breeds as their first dogs,” says Sulkama.

They also calculated the urban environmental score for each dog. That describes how the land is used around the dog’s current home, breaking it down into artificial surface, agricultural areas, forests, and semi natural areas.

Although it might seem like most dogs are easily distracted to some extent, studies suggest that about 15% of dogs display high levels of hyperactivity and 20% show high levels of inattention. Researchers say they can make it easier to identify and treat dogs’ hyperactivity and inattention and may benefit the research. They can also be helpful when choosing to add a dog to the family. You might want to adopt a pet with the characteristics of a breed that matches your lifestyle.

6 . What if AI could interpret your imagination, turning images in your mind into reality? While that sounds like a detail in a science fiction, researchers have now accomplished exactly this. Researchers found that they could reconstruct highly accurate images from brain activity by using the popular stable diffusion (扩散) image generation model. The authors wrote that unlike previous studies, they didn’t need to train the AI models to create these images.

The researchers said that they first predicted a potential representation, which is a model of the image’s data, from fMRI (功能性磁共振成像) signals. Then, the model was processed and noise was added to it through the diffusion process. Finally, the researchers decoded (解码) text representations from fMRI signals and used them as input to produce a final constructed image.

The researchers wrote that a few studies have produced good reconstructions of images but it was only after training. This resulted in limitations because training complex models are challenging and there are not many samples to work with. Prior to this new study, no other researchers had tried using diffusion models for visual reconstruction.

In the past, we’ve seen other examples of how brainwaves and brain functions can create images. In 2014, a Shanghai - based artist Jody Xiong used sensors to connect sixteen people with disabilities to balloons of paint. The people would then use their thoughts to burst specific balloons and create their own paintings.

With the advancement of AI, more and more researchers have been testing the ways AI models can work with the human brain. In a January 2022 study, researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands trained an AI network on fMRI data from 1, 050 unique faces and converted the brain imaging results into actual images. The study found that the AI was able to perform reconstruction. In the latest study, the researchers found that current diffusion models can now achieve high-quality visual reconstruction.

7 . Every day, there are 25, 000 flights in America. Accidents are so rare that flying is much safer than car travel. But that doesn’t stop many people from panic when they are moving at 500 miles per hour, 33, 000 feet above the ground. Not being at the controls makes us feel a bit helpless. When the negative thoughts begin to swirl (打旋), even in a very safe place, we will suddenly feel panic.

That’s what happened recently to a woman flying on a commercial airline. Many of us can go along doing ordinary things and suddenly be overcome with fear. The physical symptoms are real, and it requires a calming force to steady our emotions. In panic mode, every sound and movement feels like a threat. The passengers responded accordingly, jumping at every sound and the slightest turbulence (骚乱).

Floyd Dean - Shannon noticed a woman’s distress. As a flight attendant, he has plenty to do during a flight. But he stopped and spoke comfortingly to the woman. Floyd calmly explained what the noise was and that it was normal. As the woman began to calm down a bit, Floyd sat down in the aisle beside her and held her hand. He told her she was safe. He made her feel safe. He sat with her through the entire flight. At one point, Floyd learned it was another passenger’s birthday, so he led the plane in a song to celebrate — another way of making the woman feel safe by distracting her from her fears. He stayed by the woman’s side until it was time to land.

We all have friends who become distressed, who over worry, who may struggle with some difficulties that keep them from enjoying life. Like Floyd, we can be open enough to see, and to be there. We don’t have to be professional counselors; we just need to be friends.

8 . The city of Phoenix and its surrounding areas are known as the Valley of the Sun and there are so many entry-level hiking trails for explorers in Phoenix. If you’re looking for a casual walk, check out one of these easy hiking trails in Phoenix.

Judith Tunnell Accessible Trail: This is a barrier free trail that makes it easy to get out and enjoy the beauty of South Mountain Park, which is a city park and preserve that boasts the title of largest municipal (市政的) park in the country. Hike along to enjoy the beautiful scenery and then stop to relax at one of the trail side benches.

Difficulty: Easiest

Distance: One - mile loop

Canal Trails: The canals throughout central Phoenix provide some of easy off – pavement hiking in the city. If you’ re just getting accustomed to walking over uneven dirt surfaces and aren’t quite ready to take on the ups and downs of many trail surfaces, the canal paths are for you.

Difficulty: Very easy

Distance: Varies

Trail 100 at North Mountain Park Visitor Center: This nice wide trail, part of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, is popular with local hikers, runners, and mountain bikers, so be prepared to share the trail. The trail surface here is more uneven with casual ups and downs through desert washes.

Difficulty: Easy to moderate

Distance: About 2. 5 - mile loop

Papago Park: For a classic Phoenix experience, Papago Park is the answer. Depending on where you’re at in the park, you can catch views of the downtown Phoenix skyline, Tempe Town Lake, the Phoenix Zoo and historic Tovrea Castle.

Difficulty: Easy

Distance: 0. 2 mile.

10 . Recently, researchers revealed details on several tiniest robots they have created. Small enough to sit on the side of a penny, the robots can be controlled by a laser(激光). The tiniest is shaped like a crab(螃蟹)and is just half a millimeter wide. The robots don’t have any power of their own. Instead, they can be controlled from a distance by using lasers. The researchers say the robot is designed a bit like a 3D pop-up book. The basic shape for the crab is flat. The flat shape is then attached to a rubbery material that’s stretched out. When the rubbery material is allowed to relax, the robot pops up into a standing crab.

This mixture of layers is the secret to the crab’s movement. The different layers give the material two positions that it can be in. When the hard glass layer is softened, the rubbery layer bends the material. But when the hard layer hardens again, it turns back to its old position. The scientists call this “shape-memory” . The trick to getting the hard glass layer to soften is to warm it up with a laser. Because the robots are so tiny, their parts heat up and cool down very quickly. By warming up different parts of the robots, scientists can make them move in different ways. The researchers say their robots can climb, walk, turn, and even jump.

The robots aren’t super speedy. But given their tiny size, they’re also not too slow. It takes the crabs about 20 seconds to cover 1 centimeter.

Right now the robots aren’t all that useful. All they can do is move, and they need to be in a place where lasers can shine on them to do that. But scientists say that one day tiny robots like these might be able to work in very small spaces. It’s possible that they could build very tiny machines, or perhaps even travel inside the human body to help deal with medical problems.