3 . AI could help us deconstruct the magic of music

We all know that music is a powerful influencer.     1     Fitness without a warm-blooded song would be boring. But is there a way to quantify these reactions? And if so, could they be reverse-engineered and put to use?

In a new paper, researchers at the University of Southern California mapped out how things like tone, rhythm, and harmony cause different types of brain activity, physiological reactions (heat, sweat, and changes in electrical response), and emotions(happiness or sadness), and how machine learning could use those relationships to predict how people might respond to a new piece of music. The results, presented at a conference on the intersections of computer science and art, show how we may one day be able to engineer targeted musical experiences for purposes ranging from therapy to movies.

    2     “Once we understand how media can affect our various emotions, then we can try to productively use it for actually supporting or enhancing human experiences,” says Shrikanth Narayanan, a professor at USC and the principal investigator in the lab.

The researchers first searched music streaming sites for songs with very few plays, tagged either “happy” or “sad.”     3     Two reliably caused sadness and one reliably caused happiness. One hundred participants who hadn’t heard the songs before split into two groups, listened to all three pieces, and either took a special scan or wore pulse, heat, and electricity sensors on their skin and rated the intensity of their emotions on a scale of 0 to 10. The researchers then fed the data, along with 74 features for each song, into several machine-learning mathematical steps and examined which features were the strongest predictors of responses. They found, for example, that the brightness of a song (the level of its medium and high frequencies) and the strength of its beat were both among the best predictors of how a song would affect a listener’s heart rate and brain activity.

The research is still in very early stages, and it will be a while before more powerful machine-learning models will be able to predict your mental and physical reactions to a song with any precision. But the researchers are excited about how such models could be applied: to design music for specific individuals, to create movie soundtracks easily arousing sympathy, or to help patients with mental health problems stimulate specific parts of their brain.     4     They want to start trying music-based therapies as well.

Letters Brought Back to Life

Letters as a way of communication have long given way to phone calls and WeChat messages. But a TV show, Letters Alive, is helping bring this old way to keep in touch back into the     1    .

Letters Alive took its idea from a UK program with a similar name, Letters Live. Both shows     2     famous actors and actresses, but there is no gossip, no eye-catching visual effects. Instead, it’s just one person walking up to a microphone and reading a letter.

But these are not just any letters. They vary greatly in time and subjects. There is, for example, a passionate letter that famous painter Huang Yongyu wrote to playwright Cao Yu 30 years ago to     3     his lack of creativity. There is also a(n)     4     note from Spring and Autumn Period written by two ordinary young soldiers to their elder brother to report their lives in the war zone.

Compared to published texts, letters also come with a personal     5    .

One example from Letters Live was a note of     6     from the mother of a dying child to JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. It read: “Mrs Rowling, cancer threatened to take everything from my daughter, and your books turned out to be the castle we so     7     needed to hide in.”

According to Guan Zhengwen, the director of Letters Alive, it is this kind of     8     behind every letter that strikes a harmony with the audience. “It’s a thing of the past that entertainment shows     9     themselves only with pretty faces,” Guan told Sohu News. “Entertainment industry is starting to switch to a(n)     10     on wisdom and intelligence.”

Adolescents Worldwide Not Sufficiently Physically Active

New WHO-led study says majority of adolescents worldwide are not sufficiently physically active, putting their current and future health at risk.     1     "Urgent policy action to increase physical activity is needed now, particularly to promote and keep up girls' participation in physical activity," says study author Dr Regina Gut-hold, WHO.

The health benefits of a physically active lifestyle during adolescence include improved heart and lungs fitness, bone health and positive effects on weight. There is also growing evidence that physical activity has a positive impact on cognitive development and socializing.     2    .

To achieve these benefits, the WHO recommends for adolescents to do moderate or vigorous physical activity for an hour or more each day. The authors estimated 80 percent of teems do not meet this recommendation by analysing data collected through school-based surveys on physical activity levels.

    3     Urgent scaling up is needed of known effective policies and programmes to increase physical activity in adolescents. Multisectoral action is needed to offer opportunities for young people to be active, involving education, urban planning, road safety and others. The highest levels of society, including national, city and local leaders, should promote the importance of physical activity for the health and well-being of all people, including adolescents.

    4     Strong political will and action can address the fact that four in every five adolescents do not experience the enjoyment and social, physical, and mental health benefits of regular physical activity. Policy makers and stakeholders should be encouraged to act now for the health of this and future young generations.

6 . Sometimes when she felt bored, she would pick up one of the numerous biographies（传记）about herself and begin to note in. "I never did that" or "simply not true" she would write roughly in the margins at the sides of pages. Since journalists, biographers and more recently even "bloggers" had been writing about her since the day she was born, there was plenty of material to edit. Not that her notes or corrections were ever shared with the authors. Lately, however, she even seemed to have lost her appetite for correctness. Did it matter anymore if things were not right?

She knew that sitting alone chewing away on downbeat thoughts would not get her anywhere and would leave those around her confused and upset, should they ever catch her out. After all she was the decisive one, always on top of her game. A printed timetable for the following day lay on the table. A full day of openings and presentations, of smiling and nodding and flowers.

Shaking herself out of her gray mood, she stepped over towards the computer where a sudden burst of energy gave her an idea. The screen flashed up in front of her but instead of clicking on the familiar icons which would lead her to the emails Randolph considered she needed to read, she simply went to visit Mr. Google and began her search for train timetable.

A dish heaped with multi-coloured jellies and plenty of ice cream, served by a white-gloved train waiter with a perfect moustache. So many years had passed but she still remembered the jelly dissolving on her tongue in small but delicious mouthfuls. Each spoonful had to be lifted delicately to her mouth under the watched eye of her grandmother, who was a stickler for good manners. It was unlikely that they served jelly on the trains these days, what with all the concern about childhood fatness, but even a Spartan menu could not kill the romance of a train journey. As the timetable for Line-burst line flashed in front of her, she remembered that the Mayor of Alwoy would be expecting her to make a short, predictable speech at the opening of the now bridge.

7 . Travelling, at least travelling any considerable distance, means dealing with airports. I've seen my share of airports. They come in several _______. The smallest I have been through was in the African town of Hoedspruit where the main waiting area was smaller than many school classrooms, security and ticket checking were both _______ by one person who was also controlling the gate onto the airfield and you had to walk out to the plane and climb the stairs to get in. It was even smaller than Canada's Moncton airport where the person taking the tickets was also one of the two _______ on our flight.

At the other extreme are the _______, modern airports in the world's major cities. LAX, in Los Angeles has two parallel runways and provides the unusual opportunity to watch out the window of your landing aircraft as another one lands right beside you. Some, such as Beijing's Capital International Airport, SeaTac in Seattle and the International Airport in San Francisco, like those in Hong Kong and Shanghai, have _______ terminals connected by different buses or underground trains. Finding a connecting flight often means changing terminals, which can be a little _______.

Heathrow airport in London, England, _______ that bigger is not always better. Heathrow consists of terminals used by various _______ and is centered around an area that contains stores and restaurants. At Heathrow the tired traveller gets the _______ that they want you to spend your time in the stores because they won't announce the gate from which your flight will leave until about an hour before flight time. Given that they start to get people onto the planes half an hour before takeoff that leaves just 30 minutes to find and ________ your gate, some of which are a 15-minute walk from the store area. There is absolutely no ________ for this because the airport authorities know even before the day begins how many flights are arriving and departing and where they plan to put them. If I have just come off one long flight and I'm waiting for another, what I want is a quiet place, not an area ________ bright lights and noisy shoppers.

Travel, for me, is interesting but when I have to fly, getting there is ________ not half the fun. Airplanes are very efficient way to move people long distances and airports are a(n) ________ part of the process. Most airport do their best to provide a good travelling experience but they are to be ________, not really enjoyed.

8 . Celebrating Czech traditions

Have you ever witnessed the 300-year anniversary of a village? To me, it is so amazing that this village, named Bysicky, which is located in Bohemia in the Czech Republic, has sustained blizzards and wars for all this time, but has still kept its special charm.

Unlike transportation you’d find in Prague such as the metro or tram, the most common way to get around in the countryside is by bike, as it’s a lot more convenient. So on Saturday morning. I departed from home on a bike ride with my host family. After an 8-kilometer journey, we finally arrived at the village.

There was a road that led straight into the center of the village. Many stalls selling pizza, beer and ice cream were by the roadside. You could hear guitar music coming from the other side of the road, where an outdoor stage stood on large area of meadow.

When the performance from the guitarists finished, group of children wearing traditional costumes came on stage. As the crowd applauded loudly, the children were divided into three groups. A group of older kids playing different musical instruments stood on the left side, a group performing typical Czech dances was on the right, and a choir sang beautifully in the center.

Many of those present were relatives of the children, and we were there because my sister was a member of the dancing group. On the edge of the grassland, there were girls riding horses.

The end of the road led to a circled space, where the city hall stood in the middle, surrounded by a circle of colorful cottages. In front of the houses there were also many markets and a radio station reporting on the event.

So this is what a typical village celebration looks like, with markets food and performances from traditional Czech culture, which was quite different from festivals in big cities. Czech people value their history, so there will always be parties to celebrate a place’s existence or an important person from history. There are no high buildings in these villages, but people still like to go there to spend their weekends because of the peaceful environment. I guess that is what life really means.

9 . A sensational new scientific discovery in the ocean near Australia may explain the most massive extinction of living things in Earth’s history. For years, scholars have been frustrated in trying to analyze why 90 to 95 percent of sea life and 75 percent of and life vanished about 250 million years ago. The extinctions were so enormous that they are called The Great Dying. To date, some authorities on ancient life thought that a volcanic eruption or a sudden change in the environment affected all life on Earth. Other specialists have doubted these theories, maintaining that it was not plausible that a solo volcano could bring about such chaos. From the outset, critics believed these claims were exaggerated.

By contrast, there is wide acceptance of the idea that a meteor (流星)which hit Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago was the primary cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction. Nevertheless, until now they had no evidence of an intense meteor impact 185 mill on years earlier. Now they do.

American geologists have been examining rock samples from a deep sea crater (火山口)near the northwest coast of Australia. The samples were initially collected and preserved by petroleum technicians seeking oil. Now the geologists and their colleagues believe that the precise splits in the rock’s structure show a typical pattern for meteors. There is a clear distinction from volcanic patterns. In fact, a spokesperson went so far as to say that these rocks completely revise the way scientists perceive the mass extinctions from the ancient era. Academics say that the meteor’s crater s the size of Mount Qomolangma, the highest mountain on Earth! Literally, the meteor made a mark on Earth as it drowned in the sea. The Earth could not absorb such a harsh blow without sustaining global devastation. Things must have come to a standstill. Evidently, the blow was fatal for many forms of life.

Bear in mind that all this was long before mammals---including humans--emerged in Earth’s history. Still, we would be wise to pay attention to the damage a meteor can cause. Fortunately, meteor strikes on Earth are few and far between.

10 . Welcome to Adventureland!

Everyone loves Adventureland! The Parks and Exhibitions were built for you to explore (探索), enjoy, and admire their wonders. Every visit will be an unforgettable experience. You will go away enriched, longing to come back. What are you going to do this time?

The Travel Pavilion

Explore places you have never been to before, and experience different ways of life. Visit the Amazon jungle (丛林) village, the Turkish market, the Tai floating market, the Berber mountain house and others. Talk to the people there who will tell you about their lives, and things they make. You can try making a carpet, making nets, fishing ...

This exhibition shows how progress will touch our lives. It allows us to look into the future and explore the cities of the next century and the way we’ll be living then. Spend some time in our space station and climb into our simulator (模拟装置) for the Journey to Mars.

The Nature Park

This is not really one park but several. In the Safari Park you can drive among African animals in one of our Range Cruisers: see lions, giraffes, elephants in the wild. Move on to the Ocean Park to watch the dolphins and whales. And then there is still the Aviary to see ...

This is the center of Adventureland. Run out of film, need some postcards and stamps? For all these things and many more, visit our underground shopping center. Come here for information and ideas too.