1 . Welcome to Greyhound Lines! Feel free to explore the bus features.

We want you to feel at home when you travel with us. So our buses have plenty of features to help you relax, like comfy leather seats and lots of legroom (plus free Wi-Fi, onboard entertainment and power outlets so you can still be an armchair surfer).

Free Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is free on all our buses, for all passengers. We see it as a must-have these days, not a premium(高级的) feature. So go ahead, check your emails or Instagram window scenery from the road (we’d love if you tag it). Please don’t stream video during your journey, though - we’ve all got to share the bandwidth(宽带)!

Personal Power Outlets

Nearly every seat has its own standard power outlet, so you can keep your devices charged all the way to your destination. Getting off with a fully charged phone is extra handy if you’re navigating around a new place.

Extra Legroom

When designing our new and updated buses, we actually removed a whole row of seats rather than trying to squeeze more in. So there’s always space to stretch out when you ride with Greyhound. (Our bus designers must have been really tall.)

Eco-friendly

Every Greyhound bus is fully equipped with the latest technology to burn fuel cleanly, reducing our impact on the environment. Check out the Going Green page for more of our eco-efforts, and techy facts on things like low-sulfur fuel.

3 . Ai-Da sits behind a desk, a paintbrush in her hand. She looks up at the person posing for her, and then back down as she applies another drop of paint onto the canvas(画布). A lifelike portrait is taking shape. If you didn’t know a robot produced it, this portrait could pass as the work of a human artist.

Ai-Da produces portraits of sitting subjects using a robotic hand attached to her lifelike figure. She’s also able to talk, giving detailed answers to questions about her artistic process and attitudes towards technology. She even gave a TEDx talk titled “The Intersection of Art and AI” in Oxford several years ago. Ai-Da’s creators have also been experimenting with having her write and perform her own poetry.

But how are we to interpret Ai-Da’s output? Should we consider her paintings and poetry original and creative? Are these works actually art?

What discussions about AI and creativity often overlook is the fact that creativity isn’t an absolute quality that can be defined, measured and reproduced objectively. When we describe an object-for instance, a child’s drawing—as being creative, we project our own assumptions about culture onto it. Indeed, art never exists in isolation. It always needs someone to give it “art” status. And the criteria for whether you think something is art are formed by both your expectations and broader cultural conceptions.

If we extend this line of thinking to AI, it follows that no Al application or robot can objectively be “creative”. It is always we—humans—that decide whether works created by AI are art.

Some may see robot-produced paintings as something coming from creative computers, while others may be skeptical, given the fact that robots act on clear human instructions. In any case, attribution (归属)of creativity never depends on technical arrangement alone—no computer is objectively creative. Rather, the attribution of computational creativity is largely inspired by contexts of reception. Through particular social information, some people are inspired to think of AI output as art, systems as artists, and computers as creators. Therefore, as with any piece of art, your appreciation of AI output ultimately depends on your own interpretation.

4 . If you travel to nearly any Chinese city in the summertime, you will see people, mostly men wearing T-shirts, sitting out on the sidewalks on low chairs in the shade, playing a game with large round disks of wood.     1     Xiangqi dates back as early as the Warring States period. While experts have different opinions as to who created Xiangqi and how it is linked to Western chess, there is no doubt that by the Tang Dynasty Xiangqi was a popular game in China.     2     And in the 20th century both Sun Yat-sen and Zhou Enlai were big fans of the game.

And, though it may look quite a bit different than Western chess, Xiangqi is actually quite similar in what the pieces can do and how the game is played. Like Western chess, the object of the game is to capture the other player’s “king”.     3    

Unlike Western chess, instead of placing the pieces in squares, the pieces are placed on the intersections of lines. Another big difference between Western chess and Xiangqi is that there is a large empty space in the middle of the board, which the elephants cannot cross.     4     This space refers to an area in China where Liu Bang and Xiang Yu had a life-or-death war. The war was so influential that “the Chu River and the Han Boundary” has become a metaphor(隐喻)referring to any boundary between two opposing armies. When the Chinese people today see this name on the board, the battle scenes come to their mind, as though they are surrounded by thick smoke, able to hear the beating of war drums.     5    

5 . Humans are very social creatures. In addition to verbal (语言的) communication, we also use our bodies to help us better express our thoughts and feelings. This non-verbal communication is known as body language.

Body language includes things like facial expressions, eye contact and posture (姿势). It actually developed as a form of communication before humans could speak or write. We can tell a lot about what a person is thinking or feeling just by looking at them.

In fact, body language is so common that you may not even realize that you are communicating many messages to others every day without even using words. For example, you might move your head from side to side to express the word “no” instead of actually saying the word. Or, you might give a “thumbs (拇指) up” to show that you like or agree with something.

But now that we are spending more time online, we may not have as many in-person interactions as before. Because of this, our means of non-verbal communication has changed, but is still an important way to express our thoughts.

Our “digital body language” is becoming increasingly important as we change how we communicate. Instead of using voice messages, we can video chat with our friends to show them our smiling face. Another way to express our emotions digitally is through emojis (表情符号). When we are communicating online, we are only revealing the content and leaving out tones and facial expressions. That’s when emojis can help in communication.

Whether using video chat to show our expression or sending an emoji, don’t forget the importance of digital body language and non-verbal communication.

6 . Some women with severe anorexia (厌食症) have returned to a healthy weight and feel less anxious after having electrical devices implanted into their brains, which is based on a small study. But more research is needed.

About one in five people with anorexia die of the illness and there is a lack of effective treatments. Imaging studies suggest that certain brain circuits (回路) may underlie the fear of gaining weight and compulsion (强迫) to self-starve.

Bomin Sun at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China and his colleagues wondered whether they could harm these circuits by electrically affecting a part of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens (伏隔核). This brain region helps us to learn from experience, but in people with anorexia it seems to form abnormal connections with other brain regions.

The team took in 28 women with at least a three-year history of anorexia who hadn’t improved following standard treatment. The women had an average body mass index (BMD) of 13; a BMI of less than 18.5 is considered underweight. A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight. The researchers surgically implanted electrodes (电极) into the nucleus accumbens on women’s brains. They connected the electrodes by wires to a battery, to continuously affect the nucleus accumbens.

Over the next two years, the average BMI of the participants increased to 18 and almost half regained a BMI of 18.5 or above. They also reported feeling less anxious.

“This is a very promising result,” says Philip Mosley, a research from Australia. But the study didn’t include a placebo (安慰剂) group for comparison, meaning it isn’t possible to rule out that the participants’ improvement was simply because they expected the treatment to work, says Mosley.

Mosley and his colleagues are about to start a trial of the same treatment in which they will control for the placebo effect. Brain surgery may seem like an extreme treatment, but for people with severe anorexia, it may be better than the alternative, which is often death, says Mosley.

7 . Dancing is natural and almost any child can dance. However, why do so many people find it hard to dance when they reach their teens or adulthood?     1    

Most people have heard the words “Dance like nobody is watching”.    2     When we’re learning something new, we hate having an audience watching our silly mistakes. Actually, everyone else is too busy worrying about their own mistakes. Chances are that you’re not the only one struggling with the steps!

We all have patterns of muscle memory. Your body likes doing repetitive movements that it doesn’t have to think about.     3     Your brain may understand, but it can take a while to direct them to interpret these new and unfamiliar movements. Be patient with yourself and understand it’s the way your body works.

    4     If you’ve never danced before, the complex rhythms and fast footwork of flamenco(弗拉门科舞) would be a big challenge as the first dance style. If you’re inflexible, I recommend doing some yoga first to make your body get used to the new demands of dance.

A lack of rhythm is the biggest obstacle of learning to dance. However, it can be overcome with enough practice.     5     Then start learning to dance when you begin to feel the beat. Dance can be a very rewarding and enjoyable hobby. Just be patient with yourself and learn to dance.