4 . Imagine a world where you move around in front of a personal computer in your own sound space. You listen to your favorite songs, play loud computer games or watch a movie—all without other people hearing the sound. That is the possibility presented by “sound beaming,” a new technology from Noveto Systems, an Israeli company.

On Friday, the company presented a desktop device that sends sound directly to a listener without the need for headphones or a special receiver. Noveto Systems gave The Associated Press (AP) a chance to test its Sound Beamer 1.0 before its debut. The AP’s Louise Dixon writes that listening to the device is like something from a science fiction movie. The sound seems so close it feels like it is inside your ears while also in front, above and behind them.

Noveto expects the device will have many uses. Office workers could listen to music or conference calls without others hearing. People could play a game, a movie or music without waking up others in the same room. Because the device does not use headphones, it is possible to hear other sounds in the room clearly.

The device uses a 3-D technology that finds and follows the ear position of the listener. It sends ultrasonic waves to create sound pockets by the user’s ears. Sound can be heard in stereo or 3-D. The 3-D method creates sound on all sides of the listener The demo version of the device included nature videos of birds on a lake, bees flying and a quiet waterway. By changing a setting, the sound can follow a listener around when they move their head. It also is possible to move out sound beam’s path and hear nothing at all.

While the idea of sound beaming is not new, Noveto was the first to launch the technology. Its chief executive officer Christophe Ramstein said a smaller version of the device will be ready for release to consumers next year.

5 . Fires sweeping across the Amazon rainforest this year have been a hot topic as scientists and environmental groups are worried that they will worsen the climate change crisis and threaten biodiversity.

As the largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon rainforest is often called "the lungs of the world". It is also home to about 3 million species of plants and animals, and 1 million native people. The vast areas of the rainforest play an important role in the world’s ecosystem because they absorb heat instead of it being reflected back into the atmosphere. They also store carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, ensuring that less carbon dioxide is released, mitigating the effects of climate change.

"Any destroyed forest is a threat to biodiversity and people," Thomas Lovejoy, an ecologist at George Mason University told National Geographic. "The overwhelming threat is that a lot of carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere," he stressed. "In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon rainforest must be protected," U. N. Secretary General António Guterres said.

Data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show that the number of forest fires in Brazil quickly increased by 82 percent from January to August this year compared to the same period last year. A total of 71,497 forest fires were registered in the country in the first eight months of 2019, up from 39,194 in the same period in 2018, INPE said. "We estimate that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest have decreased by between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months," Carlos Nobre, a researcher at the University of São Paulo, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Brazil owns about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, whose degradation (恶化) could have severe consequences for global climate and rainfall. The extent of the area ruined by fires has yet to be determined, but the emergency has transcended (超出) Brazil’s borders, reaching Peruvian, Paraguayan and Bolivian regions.

7 . An advance in electronic publishing could make the e-book you are reading seem as dated as a silent film. Publishers hope to explore the growing success of e-books by releasing versions with added soundtracks（电影配音）and musical accompaniments.

The noises in the first multimedia books — released in Britain on Friday - include rain hitting a window in a Sherlock Holmes tale. When the plot of a book reaches the most exciting part, background scores will create tension.

Supporters argue that sound effects are the next logical development for e-books and will add excitement for younger readers. Critics, however, will argue that the noise will ruin the simple pleasure of having the imagination stimulated by reading.

Caroline Michel, chief executive of the literary agency, said the new generation of computer- literate readers was used to multiple sensory input. She said, “Young people have split computer screens where they may be watching television and replying to an email at the same time. If that's what the market wants then we should respond to the market.”

Book track's sound effects work by estimating the user's reading speed. Each lime you turn a page, the software reassesses where you have reached in the text and times the sounds to switch on accordingly. If the soundtrack becomes out of synch （同步），a click on any word will reset it.

Some authors fear that a soundtrack could destroy the peace and quiet of libraries and ruin the pleasure, of reading. David Nicholls, author of Our Day, the bestseller now released as a film, said, “This sounds like the opposite of reading. I have enough trouble reading an e-book because I'm constantly distracted by emails.

Stuart MacBride, the crime writer whose novel Shatter the Bones was an e-book bestseller, sells 18% of his books as electronic downloads. He said, “If I'm reading, I will do the noise in my head. I don’t need someone to tell me what lea cups clinking sounds like. That would irritate （激怒）me.”

8 .

Video calls are a common occurrence, but have you imagined being able to touch the person on the other end of the line? Scientists are making this a reality.

Researchers at the University of new South Wales, Australia have invented a soft skin stretch device(SSD). A haptic device that can recreate the sense of touch. Haptic technology mimics the experience of touch by stimulating localized areas of the skin in ways that are similar to what is felt in the real world, through force, vibration or motion.

Vibration is the most common haptic technology today and has been built into many electronic devices such as one attached to the back of the trackpad(触摸板) in laptops, which simulates a button clicking. However, haptic feedback with vibration becomes less sensitive when used continuously. The existing technology also has great difficulty recreating the sense of touch with objects in virtual environments or located remotely. According to Mai Thanh Thai, lead author of the study.

The new technology overcomes issues with existing haptic devices. The research team introduced a novel method to recreate the sense of touch through a soft artificial “muscles”.

“Our three-way directional skin stretch device, built into the fingertips of the wearable glove we also created is like wearing a second skin-- its soft stretchable and mimics the sense of touch-- and will enable new forms of haptic communication to enhance everyday activities”said Thanh Nho Do, senior author of the study.

Imagine you are at home and you call your friend who is in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs, and your friends also wears a glove with integrated 3D force sensors. If your friend picks up an object, it will physically press against your friend’s fingers. And their glove with 3D force sensors will measure with interactions. The force signals can be sent to your glove so your device will generate the same 3D forces. Making you experience the same sense of touch as your friend.

The haptic devices could be applied in various situations, allowing users to feel objects inside a virtual world or at a distance. It could also be used in medical practices. Doctors can feel a patient's organ tissues. With surgical tools without touching them.

9 . By the time Robert Porter Allen was born in 1905, the whooping crane was already in trouble. The beautiful bird was once commonly found across North America. By 1941, the whooping crane population had dwindled to the double digits. The tallest species in North America were critically endangered.

In the 1940s, the remaining cranes migrate every year from the Gulf Coast of Texas to somewhere in the north of Canada to breed. The conservation community didn’t know where the birds went. The wetlands where they used to spend winters were growing rarer and rarer as the tiny, non-migrating group of whooping cranes was alive in Louisiana in 1941, but the group had disappeared by the time Allen started his research.

In 1942, Allen undertook the whooping crane project over the next three years, he did almost constant fieldwork that took him from Texas up the cranes’ migration route to Nebraska, and on into Saskatchewan in search of the nesting ground of the birds.

Studying the bird in its breeding habitat and seeing how many birds were born would allow conservationists to understand how to help the birds on their journey. But finding the whooping cranes’ nesting site meant difficult and fruitless air searches over northern Canada.

In 1952, Allen wrote a report on the whooping crane. The report was a warning call to the conservation community: only 33 migratory “whoopers” remained, and their nesting site still hadn’t been found. Two years later, the whooping cranes breeding grounds in Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park were finally found, and Allen headed north to study them personally, an “incredibly difficult journey,” in Sprunt’s words, Allen’s work laid the groundwork for conservationists to save the birds.

Their efforts paid off as the numbers reached 57 by 1970 and 214 by 2005. Today, the whooping crane is still listed as endangered, but there are roughly 600 birds alive.

10 . In a natural disaster—a hurricane, flood, volcanic eruption, or other catastrophes—minutes and even seconds of warning can make the difference between life and death. Because of this, scientists are working to use the latest technological advances to predict when and where disasters will happen. They are also studying how best to analyse and communicate this information once it is obtained.

Hurricane Georges made landfall in Biloxi, Mississippi, after damaging Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and several islands of the Caribbean badly with torrential rains and winds up to 160 km per hour. Few people lost their lives along the Gulf Coast of the United States, although hundreds died in the Caribbean. This was a very different outcome from 1900, when a powerful Gulf Coast hurricane made an unexpected direct hit on Galveston, Texas, killing at least 6,000 people.

Vastly improved hurricane warnings explain the different circumstances-residents of Galveston had no advance warning that a storm was approaching, while residents of Biloxi had been warned days in advance, allowing for extensive safety precautions.

While people in Biloxi were thankful for the advance warning, some residents of New Orleans, Louisiana were less satisfied. A day before Georges made landfall, forecasters were predicting that the hurricane had a good chance of striking New Orleans. Because much of New Orleans lies below sea level, the city is at risk for flooding. Emergency management officials must begin evacuations well before a storm strikes. But evacuation costs money: businesses close, tourists leave, and citizens take precautionary measures. The mayor of New Orleans estimated that his city’s preparations for Georges cost more than 50 million. After Georges missed New Orleans, some residents questioned the value of the hurricane forecasts in the face of such high costs.

The different views on the early warnings for Hurricane Georges show some of the complexities related to predicting disasters. Disaster prediction is a process of providing scientific information to the government officials and other decision-makers who must respond to those predictions.