5 . Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM Speaker ($399.99)

With its long battery life, and incredible sound quality, this is currently my favorite Bluetooth speaker. The HYPERBOOM also boasts a 24-hour battery life. I use this speaker in place of a home stereo (立体声音响) for music. Ifs loud enough to fill a large room and mobile enough to take from room to room. The app allows you to switch sources, adjust the volume (音量), and even power the speaker on or off without having to get up!

Urbanista Brisbane Wireless Speaker ($99)

I love the way this portable Bluetooth speaker looks in our kitchen. The sound quality is incredible. One function allows you to pair two Urbanistas in stereo, doubling the volume capability and delivering a surround sound. Unfortunately, you have to repair the speakers together each time you use them in stereo. This is a smart, stylish Bluetooth speaker that’ll look and sound great on your shelf.

Audio Pro Addon CIO Speaker ($349)

With its easy setup and incredible sound quality, this is one of the best Wi-Fi-enabled speakers on the market. It has nearly every possible connection port, allowing you to broadcast to other Wi-Fi enabled speakers in your house.

Naim Mu-so 2 Wireless Speaker ($1,690)

This beautiful Wi-Fi connected sound system is perfect for music. The stylish design will fit neatly in any living room and fill the space with impressively loud sound. One unique feature is that you can set your favorite internet radio station and turn it on with a single button.

6 . In November 2019, Luke Summerscales and Jessica Jacobs were in a remote mountain range of New South Wales, fighting some of the worst bush-fires on record in Australia, when another disaster struck: a fellow firefighter collapsed from a heart attack. The nearest ambulance was more than an hour away and the terrain（地形）was too steep for a rescue helicopter to land, so the pair started doing CPR on 53-year-old John Kennedy until he was able to breathe on his own.

In November 2020, the Country Fire Authority recognized their actions by giving them both Chief Officer Commendation awards. But they're volunteers. Summerscales builds houses for a living; Jacobs works as a university lab technician. Starting in late 2019, as record fires spread fast across their nation during its summer season, they joined tens of thousands of Australians who set aside their usual lives to help stop the spread of the fires.

As climate change heightens both the frequency and intensity（强度）of bushfires, firefighters are being tested to new extremes. Australia unusually relies on volunteer labor in the state of New South Wales, which suffered some of the country's most severe fires during the 2019-2020 bushfire season, close to 90% of the men and women fighting fires were volunteers. It's been this way for more than a century in Australia, with ordinary citizens working together to protect the land.

2019 was Australia's hottest and driest on record, and the resulting fires all but exhausted the men and women constantly called to battle them. Peter Holding, 66, who has been a volunteer firefighter for 43 years, says he's never seen anything as severe as last summer's bushfire season. Still, as Australia's fire season intensifies in late 2020, its volunteer firefighters are preparing to do battle again.

7 . Amanda had just come home from school. Exhausted but looking forward to receiving an email from her friend in New Zealand, she turned on her computer and waited impatiently for it to start up. As she waited, she began thinking about the times she spent with Bridget, her best friend, since primary one. Just then, an envelop popped out on her screen. Amanda sat up and clicked on the “Inbox” bar, expecting to see her friend's usual email.

Amanda was surprised to see the email address belonging to Bridget's brother in bold at the top of a row of emails in her inbox. He seldom wrote to her because he was much older and they had nothing in common. A feeling of dread passed through her but she ignored it.

“It was probably nothing,” she said as she clicked on the email. What she saw was totally unexpected. It was a short email. He simply said that Bridget had been in a serious car accident and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit. He would write again later. Amanda's jaw dropped and her fingers that had been so busy clicking the mouse buttons earlier slid off the computer table.

At a loss as to what to do, Amanda hurriedly typed an email in response. She asked Bridget's brother for more information about the accident and Bridget's condition. Amanda's eyes brimmed with tears that threatened to flow down her cheeks. She could not help remembering that Bridget had told her of her plans to return to Singapore to visit her. She wanted to call Bridget’s brother immediately but it was only then that she realized she did not have his number.

Sitting up, she clicked on the 'Inbox' bar to check her incoming message again. However, the sign 'No New Message' flashed at the bottom of her screen.

8 . We all know a picky eater (挑食者) or two, or maybe you're the picky eater, avoiding food adventures at all costs, because you're convinced you'll hate whatever new and bad-looking food is put on your plate. But why is it that some people are picky eaters while others are willing to try pretty much anything that can be eaten?

There's no single explanation for the picky eating habit. Picky eaters are typically unwilling to try new foods, which can be the result of your DNA and the way you are treated and educated when you are young. Marcia Pelchat, Ph.D., a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia who specializes in food preferences in humans, tells China Daily, “A group in Finland looked at what we call food neophobia, which literally means 'fear of the new', and they found that there is some genetic basis for this.”

“Also, if you have parents who don't really like to try anything new, you will also be exposed to fewer new foods,” Pelchat says. The opposite is also true: Those who try new foods and have positive experiences are then more likely to try unfamiliar foods in the future.

People who are less adventurous may be more hesitant to try new foods. Trying anything new, food included, requires you to step outside of your comfort zone. If you're not very adventurous, you may have a tough time with this. People who seek new adventures or thrills might be more likely to experiment with food. “There is a thrill-seeking personality trait,” Pelchat says. “It's been shown, especially with spicy food, that there is some connection between trying new foods and thrill seeking,” she explains.

Most adult picky eaters start as child picky eaters. “It's normal for children to go through a picky stage when they're toddlers, maybe two or three years old, and that makes sense evolutionarily,” Pelchat says. But as we get older, if we continue to avoid new foods, pickiness can persist.

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9 . Being able to tell human faces apart is a skill that almost every person has, although some are far better at it than others. But a new study out from the journal Scientific Reports says that this is not just a skill that humans possess. Even fish can do it.

Following up on research studying different species’ abilities to recognize human faces (sheep, dogs, cows, horses, and-birds have all been tried), the researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Queensland decided to pick an animal that does not have an evolved neocortex, the part of the brain that processes sight and sounds, and does not have a close relationship with humans. That way, there would be no reason why these test subjects would have a past history of identifying human faces. So they picked the archerfish, a reef fish variety that shoots water into the air to knock its prey out of the sky. They used this adaptation to have the fish spray water at a face on a monitor hanging over their tanks for a reward. Most of the fish were able to pick out their learned face, even when colors were taken away or methods were used to make the face shapes unclear.

This study gives more backing to the hypothesis that differentiating between faces is not just a skill that big -brained organisms are born with. It is possible that a good portion of recognizing faces is learned over time. The development of the neocortex may contribute only to quickly process a large number of faces in varying situations. But more work needs to be conducted to find a deeper link to this possible learned behavior. The sample size of this study was very small—only eight fish were used altogether. Also, the faces displayed on the monitor were only white, female faces from a German database, shown in a frontal view, with no expressions. Other animal trials have shown that some species, like pigeons, respond more to differing angles and varied expressions.

10 . Researchers in Japan have installed (安装) on a train a speaker that barks like a dog and snorts like a deer in order to prevent collisions with animals on the tracks.

The country has been troubled by a problem with trains colliding with deer on its railways. According to Japan’s transport ministry, there were 613 cases of train services delayed for at least 30 minutes resulting from collisions with deer and other wild animals in 2018-19.

Deer are attracted to railway lines because of a need for iron in their diets. They lick (舔) the rails to pick up iron filings caused by the action of wheels against tracks. This dietary need has led to a constant battle to keep the deer separate from the danger of a fast-moving train. In the past, flashing red lights and even lion faces have been unsuccessfully trialed in an attempt to keep deer off the tracks.

This new device has been invented by a team at the country’s Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRD). RTRI officials explain that deer have a habit of repeatedly snorting short, shrill sounds to warn other deer when they sense danger. The barking of the hunting dog, which drives deer to panic, strengthens the effect of the warning noise, according to the RTRI. When the deer hear a combination of a 3-second-long recording of a deer’s snort and 20 seconds of a barking dog, they panic and flee rapidly.

RTRI researchers say late-night tests, at times when deer are most frequently seen by railway tracks, have resulted in a 45 percent reduction of deer sighting. Future plans include still barking sites where deer are commonly seen, but the unpleasant noises will not be so loud in areas where people live beside the tracks.