2 . Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR) is one of several companies that hope to begin mining the seabed on an industrial scale in the coming years, perhaps as early as 2024. Some think of the seabed as a sustainable source of the metals needed to produce batteries for electric vehicles or smartphones. Meanwhile, scientists are trying to figure out just how much ecological damage deep-sea mining would do.

The short answer is a lot, according to some European scientists who’ve been monitoring GSR’s efforts and reported initial results recently at a virtual meeting. But it is too soon to tell how much of the damage would be permanent or whether it should be considered excessive (过度的).

Each mining operation like GSR’s in the eastern Pacific would remove the “biologically active” surface layer from about 200 to 300 square kilometers (77 to 166 square miles) of seafloor each year, said Matthias Haeckel, a marine biochemist at GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany.“If mining takes place, it should be done without loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functions,“ said Ann Vanreusel, a marine biologist at Ghent University in Belgium.

That’s a hard standard to define, however, let alone enforce (实施)，because so little is known about deep-sea ecology. On two expeditions to the Pacific region targeted by GSR and other companies, the researchers identified thousands of species-70 to 90 percent of which were new to science.

“That in itself is a great example to show that, ’Hey, we do not have a good understanding of how this ecosystem operates’, ”says Diva Amon, a marine biologist and National Geographic explorer. In a review published this month in Marine Policy, Amon and her colleagues argued that at least a decade should be spent filling the gaps in scientific understanding before commercial deep-sea mining could begin.

3 . The sweat your fingertips produce while you sleep could help power the next generation of wearable sensors (传感器). These sensors can measure glucose (葡萄糖), Vitamin C, or other health indicators. That’s the promise of a new advance — a thin device that wraps around your fingertips like a Band-Aid. Its creators say that it is the most efficient sweat-powered energy harvester yet.

“The ability to harvest tiny amounts of sweat from the fingertips is really unique,” says Roozbeh Ghaffari, a researcher at Northwestern University.

Researchers around the world are currently developing wearable sensors to measure anything from a runner’s acceleration to a patient’s glucose levels.

However, what prevents these sensors from widespread use is how to power them continually. Batteries are large, heavy and short-lived, and solar power doesn’t work at night. More recently, researchers have looked to the human body itself to generate power.

Lu Yin, a scientist with the University of California, San Diego, and his team turned to fingertip sweat. Our fingertips are home to the highest concentration of sweat glands (腺体) on our bodies. They make sweat constantly, regardless of whether you’re exercising or not. We typically don’t notice this sweat because it disappears almost instantly.

The new device, reported in Joule, is just one square centimeter in size. It captures sweat and can generate 300 millijoules (毫焦耳) of energy per square centimeter during a night’s sleep. This is enough to power a watch for a day. What’s more, if a person wearing the device presses two fingers together, it can produce 30 millijoules per square centimeter. These little bursts of energy are enough to power a wearable Vitamin C sensor.

“It allows the user to continuously harvest energy from the human body,” says Wei Gao, a medical engineer at the California Institute of Technology. “From a power point of view, this makes wearable sensors more practical.”

Wearable sensors are still in the early stages of development, but research like this is helping to push them toward becoming an everyday reality, Ghaffari says.

4 . These days, many gyms require clients to wear masks or face coverings. The good news: research suggests they don't actually hold up your performance.

Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan gathered a group of 7 men and 7 women, ranging from slightly inactive to excellent cyclists and tested the effects of wearing a three-layer cloth face mask, a surgical mask, and no mask on their exercise performance.

The study participants started with a brief warm-up on a fixed bike, then took a progressive intensity exercise test, during which it was vital for them to keep the same pedal rate while the resistance was continually increased until exhaustion (疲惫不堪). Something like the heart rate was recorded every 30 seconds.

The results suggested that wearing a mask had no effect on performance or muscle oxygen levels. Since there was no difference in time to exhaustion between conditions, the highest power reached at the end of each test was similar in mask and no-mask conditions for all participants, Professor Chilibeck explained. Researchers also did not see any effects of the masks during exercise on blood oxygen levels, which wouldn't decrease if breathing was not affected.

And while droplet (飞沫) spread was not measured, all masks used were tested in a previous study in which they were shown to effectively minimize droplet spread, according to Chilibeck. Though the participants represented a wide range of fitness levels, it's important to note that these tests were conducted on a very small sample size, and more research is needed on larger populations to draw sweeping conclusions about the general population.

5 . Science and technology developed vigorously in China in 2020 despite COVID-19. These are the top 3 achievements.

Chang’e-5 Spacecraft’s Return with Lunar Samples

The Chang’e-5 lunar probe was launched on November 24 and its lander-ascender (着陆器和上升器) combination touched down on Moon on December 1. The return capsule landed in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China with about 2 kg of lunar samples on December 17. As China’s most complex and technologically advanced space project, it has laid the foundation for manned lunar and deep space explorations in the future.

Homegrown Global Navigation System Completed

With the launch of the 55th satellite of the BeiDou Navigation (导航) Satellite System (BDS) and the last one of the BDS-3 entering orbit on June 23, the homegrown global navigation system was completed. China has built the system in three steps since the 1990s, with the BDS-1 completed in 2000 and the BDS-2 in 2012, serving users across the Asia-Pacific region. The system was officially launched for world services on July 31.

New Records for Manned and Unmanned Submersibles

During a voyage completed on June 8, the unmanned submersible (潜水器) Haidou-1, developed by the Shenyang Institute of Automation of CAS, set a new record by diving at a depth of 10,907 meters in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the deepest area in the world.

Deep-sea manned submersible Fendouzhe sank 10,909 meters into the Mariana Trench on November 10, setting a new national deep-sea diving record. This put China in a leading position in the field of manned deep diving.

9 . Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology that lets machines do things that require “thinking”. It is a hard term to define (下定义) because AI isn’t actually one thing. Rather, it’s a group of technologies that help machines acquire, understand and use information to perform tasks. The range of technologies is one of the reasons people use so many different terms when mentioning AI.

Recent developments of AI have received a lot of media attention. Although some have welcomed the technology because of things that AI makes possible, the attention has also produced a lot of fear and caution. In particular, many are concerned about the effects AI could have on people’s jobs.

Unfortunately, the media excitement is often a distraction (令人分心的事物) that causes people to miss an important point. Since AI isn’t just one thing, we aren’t waiting for it to be invented. Rather, the technology is experiencing a long development process. AI isn’t coming. It’s already here. We aren’t living in a world controlled by computers­yet. But we are living in a world that relies more and more on AI for better efficiency.

Newspapers, design companies and film studios are all making use of the technology. Often the technology is used to do the heavy lifting of repetitive tasks so that professionals can work more productively. Admittedly, the tasks AI does are often the things done by low or entry­level employees. But that hasn’t necessarily spelled the end for human workers.

In recent years, for example, AI­driven translation has dramatically increased the amount of material a human translator can process each day. But the easy availability of translation has also led to an increased need for translators. As a result, the industry and its human translators often struggle to keep up with demand.

There is no doubt that AI is changing how we live and work in very complex ways. That makes AI an important trend to watch, but not to panic about yet.

10 . HANDSTITCHED WORLDS: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF QUILTS

Quilts (床罩) are a narrative art; with themes that are political, spiritual, communal, or commemorative, they are infused with history and memory, mapping out intimate stories and legacies through a handcrafted language of design. Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts is an invitation to read quilts as maps, tracing the paths of individual histories that illuminate larger historic events and cultural trends.

Spanning the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, this insightful and engaging exhibition brings together 18 quilts from the collection of the American Folk Art Museum, New York, representing a range of materials, motifs, and techniques from traditional early-American quilts to more contemporary sculptural assemblages. The quilts in Handstitched Worlds show us how this too-often overlooked medium balances creativity with tradition, individuality with collective zeitgeist. Like a road map, these unique works offer a path to a deeper understanding of the American cultural fabric.

Number of Works:18 quilts

Organized by: American Folk Art Museum, New York

Approximate size:175-200 linear feet

Security: Moderate security

Participation Fee: Please inquire

Shipping: IA&A makes all arrangements; exhibitors pay outgoing shipping costs within the contiguous U.S.

Booking Period:12 weeks

Tour: June 2021—August2024

Contact: TravelingExhibitions@ArtsandArtists.org

Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI

June 12, 2021—August 29, 2021

Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, WA

September 17, 2021—January 23, 2022

Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT

February 19, 2022—May 14, 2022

Fort Wayne Muesum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN

June 18, 2022—September 11, 2022

AVAILABLE

October 2022—January 2023

Dane G. Hansen Memorial Museum, Logan, KS

February 17,2023—May 14, 2023

AVAILABLE

June 2023—December 2023

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, MS

January 30, 2024—April 21, 2024

AVAILABLE

May 2024—August 2024

All tour dates can be customized to meet your scheduling needs. Please contact Traveling Exhibitions @ Artsand Artists.org for more information.