1 . Improve Cloud Security

Sensitive customer data has constantly been found exposed on cloud servers without password protection. To ease the problem, database software makers have been trying to make security easier for cloud database managers. At the Enigma Conference in San Francisco, Kenn White, a security manager at database software maker MongoDB, will describe a new technique, called field level encryption, to make data safer on the cloud.

Field level encryption works by scrambling data before it’s sent to a cloud database and rearranging it in order when the data is needed for use. The promise of the product is to protect the contents of a cloud database, even if bad guys access it.

MongoDB’s new feature comes as more and more companies move user data to cloud servers, rather than run their own costly data centers. It was predicted that cloud computing would be a $214 billion industry by the end of 2019. That would be up more than 17% from 2018, when it was $182 billion.

Companies have rushed to the cloud without understanding all of the possible security consequences. Many companies have left countless databases exposed, revealing personal data. A database containing details about who lives in 80 million US households was left unprotected in 2019, just like the data on Facebook users.

Database managers want to store their data in an unreadable form, but they also want to be able to find specific pieces of information in the database with a simple search term. For example, someone might want to look up health care patients by their Social Security numbers, even if those numbers are stored as random characters. To make this possible, field level encryption lets database managers encrypt a search term on their machine and send it to the database as a query. The database matches the encrypted version of the search term with the record it’s storing and then sends it back to you.

This approach only works with specific kinds of data. For example, field level encryption isn’t useful for long text entries, like notes in a patient’s medical chart, because you can’t search for individual words.

Still, for data like account numbers, passwords and government ID numbers, field level encryption protects data and maintains a usable database.

Most importantly, White said, it’s simple to set up. Database managers turn it on with a one-time configuration change when they set up the database. “That’s really powerful,” he said in an interview.

2 . Huang Danian, the well-known Chinese geophysicist, was born in 1958 in Guangxi, China. As a keen and able student, Huang went to the UK in 1993 to further his studies.

By the time Huang moved back to China in 2008, he had been living and working in the UK for 15 years. He had a good job and a life there, but he gave it all up to return to home driven by the idea that he needed to contribute to his country. As one of the world’s leading experts in deep earth exploration technology, Huang was invited to participate in the “Thousand Talent” programme. He took up a position at Jilin University, Changchun.

Huang was named lead scientist on China’s deep earth exploration programme, developing advanced cameras that can see through the Earth’s crust(外壳) so that it can be analysed without having to dig into it. He set up an advanced lab, sometimes paying for equipment with his own money. Some described him as a “lunatic” (a “madman”), but this passion and drive enabled Huang to push forwards China’s deep earth exploration technology into a world-leading position. Huang’s devotion contributed to China’s lunar probe(月球探测器) Yutu being landed on the moon in 2013 and the launch of the spacecrafts Shenzhou-11 and Tiangong-2 in 2016.

Huang's health also paid the price for his commitment to his work. He began having fainting fits(昏厥) in 2012, but paid them little attention, stating he did not have time to go to see a doctor— his work always came first. In November 2016, Huang fainted and was taken to hospital, where he was diagnosed with cancer. The disease was so advanced that he had just a couple of months to live.

Like the true scientist he was, Huang never gave up, but always tried to push forwards. Even from his hospital bed, he continued his work, writing letters of reference for his colleagues and replying to questions from his students. Huang died in January 2017, aged just 58. More than 800 people attended his funeral to celebrate a life that burned so bright, but was so short.

3 . “I was attacked by a tiger shark in October 1997. It was near my home on the island of Kanai. The waves were really good, so nothing was stopping us.”   That was until large shark came right up under Mike and _______ his teeth into Mike’s lower leg. There’d been no splashing, no noise, and Mike felt no pain, only intense pressure on his _______ body.

As he tried to get himself free, the shark bit down harder, shaking its head back and forth and tossing Mike around like a doll. Mike hit the shark hard in the face, again and again until the shark _______ him. As Mike swam back into shore, he felt his lower right leg spamming(痉挛); when he looked down, he realized it was _______. The shark had bit his lower leg off. Mike’s friends came to his aid immediately, and tried to control severe bleeding and rushed him to the hospital.

When Mike opened his eyes, he realized he was in the hospital.

During the next few weeks, Mike researched prosthetics (假肢) and considered the _______.

As soon as Mike was given the OK by his doctors, he did what many of us might consider _______: he started riding the waves again. In fact, his first time back was near the site of his attack. But Mike was unshaken. Instead, he was curious-why was he attacked? Mike _______ that the water had a fishy smell the morning of the attack. Was that what attracted the shark?

His curiosity led him to research sharks, and while he never_______ why he became a target, Mike did learn something that would change his life: Humans are far more _______ to sharks than the other way around, Mike tells Reader’s Digest. “I watched a documentary called Sharkwater, and I learned about the ________for shark fin soup and the fact that 70 million sharks a year are killed for their fins alone.”

His unique situation as a shark survivor empowered him to give sharks a ________, Mike says. He began working with the Hawaii state legislature (立法机关)to help pass a ________ on shark-related products.” I partnered with other like-minded shark attack survivors and marine biologists, and we headed to Washington to urge the government to create a nationwide bill protecting sharks.”

    1     (wear) different colors can affect how you feel and how others react to you, so it is important to consider this when deciding     2     to wear in the morning. If you want people to take you seriously, put on navy blue or black. Blue would also be helpful for an interview or oral examination because it relaxes you and makes you feel calm. Red gets you noticed by everyone and make you feel energetic,     3    be careful, as it can raise your heart rate and not everyone want this effect. So think carefully before you leave your house.

5 . What role might arts play in response to climate change and related economic and ecological crises?

It’s often said that a novel, a painting, a song or a motion picture changed how a lot of people thought or felt about the world. Anthropologists (人类学家) and historians rightly argue that major changes in society have sprung up not from the arts, but from-our relationship to our environment. Nevertheless, artists’ efforts help shape the terms by which society adapts to such changes and their consequences. Think of how Beethoven marked the beginnings of modern democracy and the nascent (初期的) Industrial Revolution. Or how Hollywood writers and directors inspired massive support for the U.S. war effort during the early 1940s.

We have stepped into a century in which the societal systems have been built since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Our food system，transport system，energy system，financial system，and possibly our political and governance systems were designed during an era in which fossil fuels met the great quantity of our fast-growing energy demand. But fossil fuels are exhaustible resources, and their reduction will drive evermore desperate methods of extraction (提炼), create evermore environmental risk and require evermore capital-even as alternative energy sources they are also costly. Further, burning fossil fuels changes our planet’s climate. So, at the same time our economy will need to be redesigned to run on entirely different energy sources, and the natural world will be shifting around us in unprecedented (空前的) ways, with more frequent disastrous storms，floods，droughts etc.

Everything will be up for negotiation, redesign and change. And artists have the opportunity and duty to translate the resulting tumultuous (动荡的) human experience into words, images，and music that help people not just to understand these events mentally, but also to come to grips with them willingly. The economic and environmental shifts described above are currently being detailed in ever-greater specificity in hundreds of reports released yearly by climate and energy experts. What’s missing in their carefully worded journal articles is the human dimensions of imagination, joy or sorrow, inspiration, and passion. Art can help us cope with the possible effects of our collective challenges. It can help prepare society for a possibly painful future. It can give voice to suffering and loss, helping people deal with life’s unavoidable stress. And it can also offer beauty, which can be especially important in hard times.

Meaningful art can and must express the chaos we encounter and help us process it mentally and emotionally. To achieve this, artists need to dig deeper, observe more closely and help their audiences connect abstract explanations and forecasts with actual experiences.

6 . Women Who Changed Science Forever

This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating three women who changed the face of science forever.

Ellen Ochoa is an American engineer and retired astronaut. She was the first Latina woman to fly in space as part of the crew of the shuttle Discovery in 1993. Ochoa attended San Diego State University and then continued her education at Stanford. Ochoa regards her mother, whose passion for learning kept her in part-time college courses all through Ochoa’s childhood, as an important influence on her career.

At the end of her flying career, Ochoa had traveled nearly 1,000 hours in space. From 2012 to 2018, Ochoa served as the director of Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, only the second woman to head up NASA’s human spaceflight headquarters.

Mamie Phipps Clark was an American social psychologist (心理学家), who specialized in child development in black children. Born in Arkansas, Clark drew on her early experiences as a black child in the segregated (种族隔离的) American South to help children growing up with the same iniquities.

Clark stated at Howard University in 1934, and went on to complete a PhD in psychology. She and Kenneth, now her husband, were the first two black people to earn PhDs at Columbia. With their funding, she started the famous Doll Test, which showed the negative effects of school segregation on black children.

Anandibai Jpshee was to become India’s first woman physician with a medical degree. When she was young, her father strayed (偏离) from the traditional Hindu belief that women should not receive education and encouraged her to go to school. When she was fifteen, she was determined to study medicine, a choice likely influenced by the loss of an infant son and surviving a serious illness herself. At the Woman’s Medical College, Joshee studied devotedly, hoping to return to India to serve other Indian women.

She died in February 1887 at the young age of twenty-one. Despite her short life, Joshee’s accomplishments were remarkable for an Indian woman, and her achievements were enough to open the door for other Indian women to quickly follow.

Koshiba had a legendary life. When he was a kid, he dreamed of being a soldier or musician, but his dream was broken when his right hand was damaged by polio(小儿麻痹症).While in the hospital, he read Adlbert Einstein’s books and     1     (become) interested in physics. He never made it to the top of his physics class in high school, but went on to study at the University of Tokyo, then the University of Rochester,     2    he earned his PhD. “There are things in the world you can achieve despite poor academic records.” Koshiba said. What     3     (count) most is adopting an active attitude toward studying.