1 . The days of having to remember your ID could soon be a thing of the past. The famous tourist town of Wuzhen, China, is now using facial recognition technology to act as its entry pass through the gates of the attraction. The system uses cameras to notice people as they approach the entry, and checks these against a database of registered visitors within a few seconds. The technology is thought to be up to 99. 77 percent accurate and able to distinguish people better than a human.

Wuzhen is a popular tourist town with visitors going there in large numbers to see its stunning river system and museums. Baidu, a web firm often referred to as “Chinese Google”, created the system. When people now check in to their accommodation, they will have their photo taken and uploaded to a central database upon leaving and re-entering the town, the system will re-check that they are still a guest at a hotel, before allowing them back in.

The technology is being used to track the 5,000 visitors that stay in the town’s hotels every day. Yuan Qing lin, director of the Institute of deep Learning at Baidu, told The Verge, “With our technology, you don’t need to give your ID. When you are approaching a gate, it will take a photo of you and compare that photo to the database.” Wuzhen used to monitor its visitors using a ticket-entry system, but this could easily be abused. It was discovered that some people were sharing their tickets to avoid paying.

Baidu’s system is based on neural networks, which can process huge amounts of data-more than one billion faces. As well as recognizing faces, the system can discover facial movements, so it can’t be fooled by holding a mask. Baidu is also using the software for employee entry at its Beijing headquarters.

5 . We were dozens of feet off the ground, balancing on an inch of rope, slowly one foot in front of the other, crossing over towards the next platform, one careful step at a time. I tried to tell the counselors(辅导员). No. I’m not doing it. Somehow though, they made me go up on the ropes course: across a balance beam(平衡木), up a netted ladder(梯子) that made me _______, knowing there was no other _______ out now.

At the end of the ropes course, I _______ up a ladder to the tallest tower I’d ever been on, faced with a terrifying zip line(滑索) back down to the ground. I was _______. The counselor at the top had a（n）_______ voice. She _______ me down and asked what frightened me. I’d been on a zip line like this before at a waterpark. I fell straight into the water because I couldn’t _______. The counselor told me to take my time. I _______ to try it her way. She closed her eyes and had me _______ mine.

“I want you to remember this experience. So, I want you to take a deep breath through your ________ and smell the air as much as you can.”

I grabbed the handlebar and looked down with a huge swallow(咽口水). No. Not gonna happen.

“You know you can do this. Just let go and you’ll be on the ________ in three seconds. Like this: One. Two. Three.”

I thought about going on three. No. Not gonna happen. Pushing myself off that platform was terrifying even though I knew it would ultimately be ________. I took another deep breath. “Okay, let’s count again. One. Two. Three.” No. “It’s alright sweetie. Just because you couldn’t hold on before doesn’t mean you can’t hold on now.”

“Let’s count one more time. One. Two. Three.”

And I let go. I flew to the ground in one, two, three... with every butterfly I’ve ever known to exist ________ around in my stomach. And after dangling(摇晃) over the forest floor for three seconds, my feet ________ and took me running across the ground. I was ________. I felt supported. I did it!

6 . As we enjoy the summer ocean waves along the beaches, we may think nervously about Steven Spielberg’s Jaws and the great fear that sharks inspire in us.

Yet we are happy to see global efforts to protect the declining number of sharks. The world has realized that we need the species, like sharks, to keep a balanced ecosystem. Sharks, in particular, are “in” these days. Thanks to good public policy and famous stars such as Jackie Chan and Ang Lee, killing sharks for fin (鳍) soup is no longer cool.

The demand for shark fins has been rising for decades, threatening sharks with extinction (灭绝) — up to 100 million sharks are killed each year just for their fins. But we have started to reverse the trend (趋势), particularly in many areas of the United States and overseas where restaurants once proudly provided delicious shark fins on the menu.

In California, a ban on the sale and possession of shark fin soup has gone into effect this year through the efforts of Wild Aid and other organizations. Overseas marketing and public efforts featuring posters on public transportation systems and TV ads have been underway for the past few years. These efforts all show signs of success, on both the supply side and the demand side of trade in shark fins.

Actually, stopping the killing of sharks is part of a broader movement to stop the killing of wild animals and the buying and selling of wildlife products. These products come from hunting elephants, tigers and rhinos, besides killing sea life. Whether it is shark fin soup or ivory piano keys, killing animals is big business. The hunting of elephants in search of ivory tusks for luxury (奢侈的) goods has become a war. The decrease of African elephant populations is alarming. Together with international partners, the United States is leading the worldwide effort to reduce demand for high-end products that rely on killing animals.

7 . If you walk around the Rahway Trail in the South Mountain Reservation of Millburn, New Jersey, you might spot more than plants and creatures. Small fantastic _________ are hidden in the tree trunks and branches—an amazingly lovely sight in this _________ normal-looking forest nowadays. The idea to _________ small wooden houses to the landscape came from Therese Ojibway, who 10 years ago wanted her son, who has autism (自闭症), to have a safe space to _________ in the wilderness.

“So she found Rahway Trail and started constructing the houses and leaving _________ decorations here and there for her son,” said Julie Gould, one of the keepers of the trail.

The South Mountain Conservancy later noticed the sudden _________ of little houses around the forest. Learning Ojibway’s story, they _________ her to continue building her magical kingdom to what is now known as the Fairy Trail.

“She thought this was a (n) _________ way of getting little children like her son into nature, _________ them to use their imaginations and creativity,” said Beth Kelly, another trail keeper.

Ojibway and her son moved out of the area a few years ago, but the Fairy Trail __________. Gould and Kelly were __________ asked to become the “Makers and Keepers” of the trail. The women, along with volunteers, continue to help build little wooden homes for __________ with special needs.

“To give these kids __________ houses to live in, most of the homes are made out of __________ elements that can then break down back into the forest. We get __________ when we see the children come here and the kingdom make their day.”

10 . Most of us would like to be more creative, but we assume there is little we can do about it. Psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson claims that with enough practice, any of us can become experts. However, he is quick to add that this requires a specific kind of practice that Ericsson calls “deliberate practice”, that is, pushing beyond one’s comfort zone and setting goals that are above one’s current level of performance. He says he has yet to find the limits on being successful and he doesn’t believe them to be real.

Ericsson has looked primarily at artistic and athletic skills, but can these findings apply to creativity? Most experts agree that even if most people cannot hope to become creative geniuses, they can learn to become more creative through practice. Psychologists claim that there are actually two levels of creativity, which they refer to as “Big C” and “small c”. “Big C” creativity applies to breakthrough ideas, ones that may change the course of a field or even history. “Small c” creativity refers to everyday creative problem solving, like creating a new recipe or improving a process, which psychologists subdivide further into similar and different thinking. Similar thinking involves examining all the facts and arriving at a single solution. In contrast, different thinking involves coming up with many possible solutions. What most people think of as creativity generally involves different thinking and can be taught, practised and learnt.

Even with practice, different thinking alone cannot make one creative, however. Scott Barry Kaufman, a cognitive psychologist, says that most creative people share one personality quality: openness to new experience. Since this quality and these processes have been identified, less creative people can try to emulate them. Normally, we tend to reproduce what we already know because creative ideas move us into unfamiliar territory involving risks and following the usual behaviors is comfortable.

Moving outside of our comfort zone, engaging indeliberate practice and tolerating contradictory ideas, risk and failure are all things we can learn to do better. It is unlikely that doing so will transform any of us into creative geniuses, but it does have the potential to increase our level of creativity.