3 . Would it surprise you to learn that, like animals, trees communicate with each other and pass on their wealth to the next generation?

Professor Simard form University of British Columbia explains how trees are much more complex than most of us ever imagined. Although Charles Darwin thought that trees are competing for survival of the fittest, Simard shows just how wrong he was. As far as Simard is concerned, actually the opposite is true: trees survive through their co-operation, passing around necessary nutrition “depending on who needs it”.

Nitrogen (氮) and carbon are shared through miles of underground fungi (真菌) networks, making sure that all trees in the forest ecological system give and receive just the right amount to keep them all healthy. This hidden system works in a very similar way to the networks of neurons (神经元) in our brains, and when one tree is destroyed, it affects all.

Simard talks about “mother trees”, usually the largest and oldest plants on which all other trees depend. She explains how moribund trees pass on the wealth to the next generation, transporting important minerals to young trees so they may continue to grow. When humans cut down “mother trees” with no awareness of these highly complex “tree societies” or the networks on which they feed, we are reducing the chances of survival for the entire forest.

“We didn’t take any notice of it” Simard says sadly. “Trees move nutrition into the young trees before they die, but we never give them chance.” If we could put across the message to the forestry industry, we could make a huge difference towards our environmental protection efforts for the future.

4 . There are around 100 tribes(部落)that live in global isolation, mostly in South America and India. The Sentinelese have lived on one of the Andaman Islands in Eastern India for 60, 000 years. They protect their island by fighting against people from outside. Their language is different from any other known language. Another Andaman tribe is the Jarawa. In the past, they were independent and fought against anybody trying to make contact with them. But in 1998, the Indian government built a road across their land, and since then, they’ve had more contact with the outside world.

Some Amazon tribes avoid contact because of unhappy memories. The Mashco-Piro left their vegetable gardens after rubber companies killed most of their tribe at the beginning of the 20th century. Those who survived became nomadic(游牧的)and started hunting animals in the forest.

The Awa live in the Amazon forests ofBrazil. Out of 350 members, 100 have no contact with the outside world. They left their villages and adopted a nomadic lifestyle around 1850 to escape attacks by Europeans. In the following years, farmers in nearby communities started cutting the trees to expand their farmland. The Awa lost most of their hunting land. The few Amazon tribes that still exist are fighting to keep their traditional way of life.

Survival, an organization that fights for the rights of tribal people, says that uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable(弱势的)humans on the planet and that’s why their environment should be unavailable to the rest of us. After years of pressure, the organization got Brazil’s government to clear non-natives from the Awa land. All non-Awa people are leaving so the tribe can get their forest back.

But some think it's impossible for tribes to stay isolated forever in a connected world. Contact will be made one day. So the question is：Whose choice should it be, ours or theirs?

6 . Google has announced plans to stop supporting tools designed to follow Internet users across the web in order to target them with specific advertising.

Such tools are known as cookies-small data files that are stored on an Internet user's computer as they browse （浏览）different websites. This data can be read by web servers to identify web browsing behaviors of the user. Cookies make it possible for users to avoid having to repeatedly enter their user names and passwords to get access to websites they use often. But the use of cookies raises major privacy concerns, with critics saying a user's browsing history should not be recorded just to target them with ads.

Google announced in 2020 it had decided “to remove support for third-party cookies" from its Chrome browser. In another online announcement, Google repeated this promise, saying it will not build new tools to replace current cookie technology.

In explaining its decision, Google referred to a Pew Research study that found 72 percent of Americans feel that almost all of what they do online is tracked by advertisers. Google's decision to remove third-party cookies also followed increasing efforts to protect privacy in Europe and the United States. Google said the current Internet advertising model needs to change to answer “the growing concerns people have about their privacy and how their personal identity is being used.”

In January, however, Google's plan was questioned by British competition regulators. The country's Competition and Markets Authority announced it had launched an investigation into whether the changes would give Google an unfair advantage over competitors in Internet advertising. The agency said it received objections to the plan from Marketers for an Open Web, a league of technology and publishing companies. The group accuses Google of “abusing its dominant position” by attempting to create a new advertising model.

In its latest statement, Google said, “We will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products.”

7 . Earthquake rescue robots have experienced their final tests in Beijing. Their designers say with these robots, rescuers will be able to save lives during an earthquake. This robot looking like a helicopter, is called the detector-bot. It’s about 4 meters long, and it took about 4 years to develop the model. Its main functions (作用) are to collect information from the air, and send goods of up to 30 kilos, to people trapped by an earthquake.

This robot has a high definition 360 degree panoramic (全景) camera. It can work day and night and will also be able to send the latest pictures from the quake area.

Dr. Qi Juntong, Chinese Academy of Science, said, “The most important feature of this robot is that it doesn’t need a distant control. We just set the destination (目的地) information on it, and then it takes off, and lands by itself. It flies as high as 3,000 meters, and as fast as 100 kilometers per hour.”

This robot has a different function — it can change as the environment changes. Its main job is to search for any signs of life in places where human rescuers are unable to go.

As well as a detector (探测器) that finds victims and detects poisonous gas, a camera is placed in the 40 centimeter long robot, which can work in the dark.

Another use for the rescuers is the supply part, with its 10 meter long pipe. People who are trapped in the ruins, will be able to get supplies including oxygen and liquids.

Experts have said that the robots will enter production, and serve as part of the national earth-quake rescue team as soon as next year.

8 . In a study published in Nature Machine Intelligence, researchers at Ohio State University show how artificial intelligence（AI）can follow clinical trials to identify drugs for repurposing, a solution that can help advance innovative treatments.

Repurposing drugs is legal and not unusual. When doctors prescribe(开处方)drugs that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration(FDA)for purposes different from what is printed on the labels, the drugs are being used “off-label” Just because a drug is FDA-approved for a specific type of disease does not prevent it from having possible benefits for other purposes.

For example, Metformin, a drug that is FDA-approved for treating type 2 diabetes, is also used to treat PCOS(a disease of women), and other diseases. Trazodone, an anti-depressant with FDA-approval to treat depression, is also prescribed by doctors to help treat patients with sleep issues.

The Ohio State University research team created an AI deep learning model for predicting treatment probability with patient data including the treatment, outcomes, and potential confounders(干扰因素).

Confounders are related to the exposure and outcome. For example, a connection is identified between music festivals and increases in skin rashes(红疹). Music festivals do not directly cause skin rashes. In this case, one possible confounding factor between the two may be outdoor heat, as music festivals tend to run outdoors when the temperature is high, and heat is a known cause for rashes. When working with real-world data, confounders could number in the thousands. AI deep learning is well-suited to find patterns in the complexity of potentially thousands of confounders.

The researcher team used confounders including population data and co-prescribed drugs. With this proof-of-concept, now clinicians have a powerful AI tool to rapidly discover new treatments by repurposing existing medications.

9 . If you visit Uluwatu temple in Bali, be cautious. The long-tailed temple monkeys there are well-known thieves. Since a long time ago, they have made a living by robbing visitors of their possessions and then holding those objects until a ransom in the form of food is paid. But Jean-Baptiste Leca of the University of Lethbridge, in Canada, wondered whether these monkeys are cleverer still. Sometimes, they do not accept the first offer and hold out for more. He therefore asked himself whether they are able to assess how valuable an object is to its owner, and factor that into their negotiations.

Dr. Leca and his colleagues conducted their experiment by wandering around the temple with video cameras, recording the activities of the monkeys. Every time they saw a monkey show interest in a particular tourist? they recorded the interaction. To work out what was going on, they had first to establish the relative values of food rewards to monkeys, and of stealable objects to people.

To confirm which stealable objects are most valued by people, they divided them into six classes: empty containers, such as phone cases and plastic bottles; accessories (搭配物) such as hairpins and key rings; hats and shoes; spectacles and sunglasses; and electronics and wallets. They then observed how often victims bothered to bargain with the thief for the return of property belonging to different classes, and thus classified objects into low value, medium value and high value.

They found that monkeys do, indeed, have a complicated sense of what they are doing — at least, adults and sub-adults do. These animals have a preference for stealing high-value items, and will often hold out either for more rewards, or for better ones, if they are in possession of such items. But this is something that they have to learn how to do as they grow up. Young monkeys make no such distinctions, and sub-adults are less good at doing so than adults.

10 . Bird pattern carved on Yubi in Chinese, comes alive and circles around, while an audio guide introduces the cultural relic and the bird’s connotation (寓意). Such is the experience of watching a cultural relic through a pair of augmented reality (AR) glasses at the Liangzhu Museum.

The museum displays various burial objects found in the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City in Hangzhou, showcasing the civilization of prehistoric rice agriculture and a state-level society between 3,300 B.C. and 2,300 B.C. The site was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2019, providing profound and compelling evidence that Chinese civilization started 5,000 years ago.

Using AR to tell Liangzhu’s ancient story and let the young people sense and feel close to cultural relics through modern technology is an important task at the museum, making it a pioneer in using modern technology and a hot place for tourists.

“I found that most students were very curious about it, and it could inspire students to have the desire to learn more,” said Chen Xi, the AR glasses provider. “I’ve never seen this before. The illustration of the ancient wild birds above is not that clear. But with the AR glasses, I know what the ancient wild bird exactly looks like and how it is different from what we see on TV,” said Rong Mei, a visitor in her twenties. “Compared with traditional ways of appreciating a cultural relic, AR glasses guide has virtual images which help people visually understand the information behind the relic, such as in which life scenarios was the relic used, its function and its cultural connotation,” said Zhou Liming, director of the Liangzhu Museum.

From digitalization to intelligentization (智能化), the Liangzhu Museum took more than five years. It started to collect the digital information of the ruins and relics since 2015. It paves the way for the museum to deliver Liangzhu’s story through multimedia approaches to attract more people, especially the youth, as modern technology bridges the gap between young people and cultural relics.