1 . Preparing Cities for Robot Cars

The possibility of self-driving robot cars has often seemed like a futurist’s dream, years away from materializing in the real world. Well, the future is apparently now. The California Department of Motor Vehicles began giving permits in April for companies to test truly self-driving cars on public roads. The state also cleared the way for companies to sell or rent out self-driving cars, and for companies to operate driverless taxi services. California, it should be noted, isn’t leading the way here. Companies have been testing their vehicles in cities across the country. It’s hard to predict when driverless cars will be everywhere on our roads. But however long it takes, the technology has the potential to change our transportation systems and our cities, for better or for worse, depending on how the transformation is regulated.

While much of the debate so far has been focused on the safety of driverless cars (and rightfully so), policymakers also should be talking about how self-driving vehicles can help reduce traffic jams, cut emissions (排放) and offer more convenient, affordable mobility options. The arrival of driverless vehicles is a chance to make sure that those vehicles are environmentally friendly and more shared.

Do we want to copy — or even worsen — the traffic of today with driverless cars? Imagine a future where most adults own individual self-driving vehicles. They tolerate long, slow journeys to and from work on packed highways because they can work, entertain themselves or sleep on the ride, which encourages urban spread. They take their driverless car to an appointment and set the empty vehicle to circle the building to avoid paying for parking. Instead of walking a few blocks to pick up a child or the dry cleaning, they send the self-driving minibus. The convenience even leads fewer people to take public transport — an unwelcome side effect researchers have already found in ride-hailing (叫车) services.

A study from the University of California at Davis suggested that replacing petrol-powered private cars worldwide with electric, self-driving and shared systems could reduce carbon emissions from transportation 80% and cut the cost of transportation infrastructure (基础设施) and operations 40% by 2050. Fewer emissions and cheaper travel sound pretty appealing. The first commercially available driverless cars will almost certainly be fielded by ride-hailing services, considering the cost of self-driving technology as well as liability and maintenance issues (责任与维护问题). But driverless car ownership could increase as the prices drop and more people become comfortable with the technology.

Policymakers should start thinking now about how to make sure the appearance of driverless vehicles doesn’t extend the worst aspects of the car-controlled transportation system we have today. The coming technological advancement presents a chance for cities and states to develop transportation systems designed to move more people, and more affordably. The car of the future is coming. We just have to plan for it.

What does the underlined word “fielded” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

2 . By the end of the century, if not sooner, the world’s oceans will be bluer and greener thanks to a warming climate, according to a new study.

At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny marine microorganisms (海洋微生物) called phytoplankton. Because of the way light reflects off the organisms, these phytoplankton create colourful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean colour varies from green to blue, depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas, while reducing it in other spots, leading to changes in the ocean’s appearance.

Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface, where they pull carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die, they bury carbon in the deep ocean, an important process that helps to regulate the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean’s warming trend. Warming changes key characteristics of the ocean and can affect phytoplankton growth, since they need not only sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow, but also nutrients.

Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a scientist in MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, built a climate model that projects changes to the oceans throughout the century. In a world that warms up by 3℃, it found that multiple changes to the colour of the oceans would occur. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener. “Not only are the quantities of phytoplankton in the ocean changing. ” she said, “but the type of phytoplankton is changing.”

And why does that matter? Phytoplankton are the base of the food web. If certain kinds begin to disappear from the ocean, Dutkiewicz said, “it will change the type of fish that will be able to survive.” Those kinds of changes could affect the food chain.

Whatever colour changes the ocean experiences in the coming decades will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes. “It’ll be a while before we can statistically show that the changes are happening because of climate change,” Dutkiewicz said, “but the change in the colour of the ocean will be one of the early warning signals that we really have changed our planet.”

3 . Many people would answer the question of what makes us human by insisting that we are cultural beings. There is no doubt that we are. But one definition of culture is the totality of traditions acquired in a community by social learning from other individuals, and many animal species have traditions. Can we then say that some animals are cultural beings too?

One approach to study culture in animals is the so-called Method of Exclusion (排除), in which scientists investigate behavioral variations across populations of one species. In a famous study, scientists learned that chimpanzee (黑猩猩) behaviors were socially passed on as they were present at some sites but not at others, despite having same ecological settings. For example, chimpanzees in Tai National Park in Ivory Coast are well-known for their nut-cracking skills. Chimpanzees in Gombe national part in Tanzania, on the other hand, do not crack nuts, although nuts exist in their environment too.

However, when applying the Method of Exclusion, one has to be very careful. There are other factors that could also explain the pattern of behavioral evaluation. For example, some of the chimpanzee techniques scientists evaluated occur in only one of the three subspecies. So it’s quite possible that these behaviors also have an innate component. This would mean that one chimpanzee subspecies uses a new technique not out of cultural tradition, but because the behavior is fixed to specific genes. Another factor that has to be excluded is of course the environment Chimpanzees in Mahale do not fish algae (水藻), simply because algae does not exist there.

But when we exclude all the variations that can be explained by genes or environment, we still find that animals do show cultural variations. Does that mean there is no real difference between them and us after all? Not exactly: There is a fundamental difference between human and animal culture. Only humans can build culturally on what generations before us have learned. This is called “cumulative culture”. We don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. This is called the “ratchet (棘轮) effect”. Like a ratchet that can be turned forward but not back, people’s cultural techniques evolve.

It is likely that behaviors we see today in chimpanzee cultures could be invented over and over again by individual animals themselves. In contrast, a child born today would not be able to invent a computer without the knowledge of many past generations.

4 . Quantum ( 量子 ) computers have been on my mind a lot lately. A friend has been sending me articles on how quantum computers might help solve some of the biggest challenges we face as humans. I’ve also had exchanges with two quantum-computing experts. One is computer scientist Chris Johnson who I see as someone who helps keep the field honest. The other is physicist Philip Taylor.

For decades, quantum computing has been little more than a laboratory curiosity. Now, big tech companies have invested in quantum computing, as have many smaller ones. According to Business Weekly, quantum machines could help us “cure cancer, and even take steps to turn climate change in the opposite direction.” This is the sort of hype ( 炒作 ) that annoys Johnson. He worries that researchers are making promises they can’t keep. “What’s new,” Johnson wrote, “is that millions of dollars are now potentially available to quantum computing researchers.”

As quantum computing attracts more attention and funding, researchers may mislead investors, journalists, the public and, worst of all, themselves about their work’s potential. If researchers can’t keep their promises, excitement might give way to doubt, disappointment and anger, Johnson warns. Lots of other technologies have gone through stages of excitement. But something about quantum computing makes it especially prone to hype, Johnson suggests, perhaps because “‘quantum’ stands for something cool you shouldn’t be able to understand.” And that brings me back to Taylor, who suggested that I read his book Q for Quantum.

After I read the book, Taylor patiently answered my questions about it. He also answered my questions about PyQuantum, the firm he co-founded in 2016. Taylor shares Johnson’s concerns about hype, but he says those concerns do not apply to PyQuantum.

The company, he says, is closer than any other firm “by a very large margin ( 幅度 )” to building a “useful” quantum computer, one that “solves an impactful problem that we would not have been able to solve otherwise.” He adds, “People will naturally discount my opinions, but I have spent a lot of time quantitatively comparing what we are doing with others.”

Could PyQuantum really be leading all the competition “by a wide margin”, as Taylor claims? I don’t know. I’m certainly not going to advise my friend or anyone else to invest in quantum computers. But I trust Taylor, just as I trust Johnson.

5 . 1. One question every coach has beard in their coaching career is this.

“Why isn’t my kid playing?”

The stupidity of many “win-at-all-cost” coaches in youth sports is neatly matched by that of “play-my-kid-or-else” parents at the high-school level.

When the games start to count, the main reason why your kid isn’t playing is simple:

“They’re just not good enough.”

“He/she just isn’t fast enough.”

“He/she just isn’t strong enough.”

Good coaches, however, are not usually that blunt. They are very skillful in not telling what you and I would consider the “truth”. The thing is that many kids know what they’re good at, and what they’re not good at. When it comes to football, for instance, most of the middle-schoolers or freshmen already know the one or two kids who are good enough to play on the varsity team or to catch the eye of a college admissions officer. Their parents do not.

The rest play because they enjoy it, need the discipline, want to belong to a team, have dreamed of it since they were five or six, are trying to make their parents happy, need a varsity sport on their college application, or some combination of the factors above. Some of them don’t possess much athletic skill, but make up for it by practicing, by getting stronger and quicker, and with on-field effort.

Far too many children today are living in a world where they never learn “no”. They don’t know how to handle disappointment and failure. Nor do they know how to react and move on when they don’t get their own way.

It’s awful when your kid isn't playing. Been there, done that. No reasonable parent wants to see their child hurt. But no one escapes this life unhurt, emotionally if not physically. When these kids move on in life, they are going to get rejected when they apply for college, fail to get the job they want, and taste failure and disappointment on multiple fronts.

Coaches should try to make sure everyone gets some playing time. But that should never come at the expense of other kids who are more talented, try harder or spend more time practicing. No child should ever go out for any team thinking they’re going to be guaranteed a spot or playing time, no matter how loudly their parents complain.

In that sense, sports are a true mirror of life. No one is guaranteed “playing” time in life. For the most part, hard work, effort, planning and desire is rewarded. The benefits can be wonderful. But it’s good to be prepared when it doesn't work out that way.

6 . We’ve heard for years that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But, it actually might be even more important than previously thought, according to a study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which examined the effects of skipping meals and meal frequency as related to mortality (死亡率) and heart health.

The study, which was published in August of last year, sought to find out if eating behaviors like meal frequency, meal skipping, and time between meals were associated with all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality.

The study consisted of 24,011 adults 40 years or older who participated from 1999 to 2014. Researchers looked at various eating behaviors of participants who self-reported their eating habits every 24 hours. Causes of death were tracked via death records through December 31, 2015.

After examining participants throughout the years, researchers found that certain eating behaviors were in fact linked to higher rates of premature death. Eating only one meal per day was associated with an increased risk of all-cause and CVD mortality while skipping breakfast was linked to an increased risk of CVD mortality, and skipping lunch or dinner was linked to an increased risk of all-cause mortality. Lastly, the study found that having meals too closely together (less than four and half hours apart) was also linked to all-cause premature death.

So, what does this mean for the average person? “At the end of the day what matters is that an individual can meet their nutritional needs for optimal (最佳) health,” explains Keri Gans, author of The Small Change Diet, “and breakfast typically is a good vehicle for nutrients associated with a decrease in cardiovascular risk, such as fiber and vitamins”. “If by eliminating meals they are missing out on important nutrients their body needs, then long term that can be harmful to their health,” leads to a “higher risk for certain cancers and heart disease,” she says.

While this study was large and comprehensive in many ways, there are also many limitations. It was mostly based on a 24-hour, self-reported dietary recall, “which may not always be the best method for dietary assessment,” explains Gans. “The participants may not accurately recall what they ate or honestly report it leading to the potential of misinformation.” Researchers noted that it was impossible to consider the role of sleep in the relationship between food and mortality, as well as a host of other unmeasured factors.

The bottom line is that while these findings about the relationships between meal skipping and mortality are important, there are a lot more factors that go into premature death.

7 . Vast underwater meadows (草甸) of gently waving sea grass cover hundreds of miles up and down the West Coast. These blue-green fields perform a variety of important services. They protect the shoreline from erosion, clear pollutants from the water and provide habitats for all kinds of marine animals.

New research suggests sea grass meadows may also mitigate a serious consequence of greenhouse gas emissions: the steady acidification of ocean waters. The study published in the journal Global Change Biology finds that sea grass forests can raise pH levels in coastal waters. As they perform photosynthesis (光合作用), they remove carbon dioxide from the water, counteracting the acidifying effect of the gas.

“I think we are all very excited about it,” said lead study author Aurora Ricart, a scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Marine Sciences.

Ocean acidification is a side effect of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Some of this CO₂ dissolves out of the air and into the sea, causing a chemical reaction that lowers the water’s pH. Scientists sometimes refer to it as global warming’s “evil twin”—an invisible companion to climate change.

Ocean acidification can have harmful effects on marine organisms like shellfish and coral by preventing them from properly forming the hard shells they need to survive. It’s a threat both to natural ecosystems and to shellfish fisheries around the world. The study presents a natural way to address the problem.

Researchers analyzed six years of data from sea grass meadows spanning more than 600 miles off the California coastline. It focused on the common eelgrass, one of the most widespread sea grass species on the West Coast. The authors claim it’s the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind.

According to the study, sea grass ecosystems can raise pH levels by more than 0.1 unit, equivalent to about a 30% decrease in acidity. The effect isn’t constant. It comes in waves and is influenced by temperature, daylight, ocean currents and other factors that affect water chemistry and sea grass photosynthesis rates. But the tempering influence on acidification can be lasting, sometimes persisting for up to three weeks at a time. The study also shows that pH is higher in sea grass ecosystems, compared to nearby areas with no sea grass, about 65% of the time.

The study didn’t investigate the effects of higher pH on marine organisms — that’s a question for future research. But there’s reason to believe these meadows may have a positive influence on shellfish and other ocean animals.

8 . What is life? Like most great questions, this one is easy to ask but difficult to answer. The reason is simple: we know of just one type of life and it’s challenging to do science with a sample size of one. The field of artificial life-called ALife for short — is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles. Many of these practitioners, so-called ALifers, think that somehow making life is the surest way to really understand what life is.

So far no one has convincingly made artificial life. This track record makes ALife a ripe target for criticism, such as declarations of the field’s doubtful scientific value. Alan Smith, a complexity scientist, is tired of such complaints. Asking about “the point” of ALife might be, well, missing the point entirely, he says. “The existence of a living system is not about the use of anything.” Alan says. “Some people ask me, ‘So what’s the worth of artificial life?’ Do you ever think, ‘What is the worth of your grandmother?’”

As much as many ALifers hate emphasizing their research’s applications, the attempts to create artificial life could have practical payoffs. Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both fields are enamored by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化). This is the capacity for a system to create essentially endless complexity, to be a sort of “novelty generator”. The only system known to exhibit this is Earth’s biosphere. If the field of ALife manages to reproduce life’s endless “creativity” in some virtual model, those same principles could give rise to truly inventive machines.

Compared with the developments of Al, advances in ALife are harder to recognize. One reason is that ALife is a field in which the central concept — life itself — is undefined. The lack of agreement among ALifers doesn’t help either. The result is a diverse line of projects that each advance along their unique paths. For better or worse, ALife mirrors the very subject it studies. Its muddled (混乱的) progression is a striking parallel (平行线) to the evolutionary struggles that have shaped Earth biosphere.

Undefined and uncontrolled, ALife drives its followers to repurpose old ideas and generated novelty. It may be, of course, that these characteristics aren’t in any way surprising or singular. They may apply universally to all acts of evolution. Ultimately ALife may be nothing special. But even this dismissal suggests something：perhaps, just like life itself throughout the universe, the rise of ALife will prove unavoidable.