1 . For all programmers and processor industry participants, the RISC-V website is almost a must-visit as an open standard. Instruction Set Architecture, which is defined as the design of a computer from the programmer’s perspective, enabling a new era of processor innovation through open cooperation.

Unlike X86 and ARM, which are owned by certain enterprises, RISC-V is an open one, allowing anybody to download its instructions handbook and use it. Maybe that is why some US lawmakers are targeting RISC-V. Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner have reportedly been urging US President Joe Biden to take action regarding RISC-V, because, they fear that Chinese companies might make use of the open-source platform to improve their chips (芯片) technology.

Maybe the legislators (立法者) do not realize that by targeting RISC-V they are targeting not only a company or a platform but the idea of openness itself. Being a US company. RISC-V has a global membership, with a number of Chinese and US enterprises as members. It has for long been known as an open-minded institution promoting technological cooperation despite the political tensions, and the US lawmakers targeting it seem to be closing one of the last channels of technology communication between China and their nation.

By doing so they are harming the United States’ own interests and its technological leadership in the world. Open source is a good computing tool that benefits those who share programs as well as those who learn from it. The Android smartphone system, for example, has developed largely because Google decided to make it an open-source system, which attracted worldwide smartphone businesses to adopt its standard.

The US lawmakers might next target GitHub, or, some day, even forbid programmers from accessing the Internet. That will only lead to the US losing its technological edge, never to get it back again.

2 . At a conference last week, I received an interesting piece of advice:   “Assume you are wrong.” The advice came from Brian Nosek, a fellow psychology professor. He wasn’t objecting to any particular claim I’d made — he was offering a strategy for pursuing better science, and for encouraging others to do the same.

To understand the context for Nosek’s advice, we need to take a step back — to the nature of science itself. Despite what many of us learned in elementary school, there is no single scientific method. Just as scientific theories change, so do scientific methods.

Assuming you are right might be a motivating force, sustaining the enormous effort that conducting scientific work requires. But it also makes it easy to interpret criticisms as personal attacks, and for scientific arguments to develop into personal battles. Beginning, instead, from the assumption you are wrong, a criticism is easier to be viewed as a helpful pointer, a constructive suggestion for how to be less wrong — a goal that your critic probably shares.

Nosek’s advice may sound pessimistic, but it’s not so foreign to science. Philosophers of science sometimes refer to the “pessimistic meta-induction (元归纳)” on the history of science: All of our past scientific theories have been wrong, so surely our current theories will turn out to be wrong, too. That doesn’t mean we haven’t made progress, but it does indicate that there is always room for improvement—ways to be less wrong.

I like the advice because it builds in an awareness of our limitations and a readiness to accept the unknown (“there are things I do not know!”) along with a sense that we can do better (“there are things I do not know yet!”). It also builds in a sense of community — we’re all in the same boat when it comes to falling short of getting things right. Perhaps the focus on a shared goal — our goal as scientists and humans of being less wrong — can help make up for any harm in scientific motivation or communication.

3 .     1     We build cultures by the hundreds and new stories by the millions. We surround ourselves with things that have never existed before, while pigs and llamas and goldfish do not. But where do our new ideas come from?

Through the history of human activities, prior art promotes the creative process. Before 1908, each vehicle was custom built, with different parts assembled in different places and then painstakingly brought together. But Henry Ford came up with a critical innovation of streamlining the entire process. Nevertheless, the idea was something he learned about from the Chicago meatpacking industry. He simply assembled into a car the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work.     2     Even in Picasso’s painting Les Demoisellesd’ Avignon, we can trace its genealogy (血统宗谱).

But is there any moment when someone is suddenly struck by an idea that comes from nowhere? Take, for example, a surgeon named Anthony Cicoria, who in 1994 was speaking to his mother on an outdoor payphone when he was struck by a bolt of lightning. A few weeks later, he unexpectedly began composing and introduced his music works in subsequent years.     3    

However, on closer inspection, Cicoria also turns out to rely on the raw materials around him.     4     It is difficult to know what the lightning strike did to his brain, but it is clear that he rapidly absorbed these musical products. His sudden desire to compose may have come from nowhere, but his basic creative process did not.

    5     But creative ideas evolve from existing memories and impressions. Instead of new ideas being lit up by lightning bolts, they arise from the interweaving billions of microscopic sparks in the vast darkness of the brain.

When Leakey and Jane begin a study of wild chimpanzees on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, British authorities resist the idea of a young woman living among wild animals in Africa. They finally agree to Leakey’s proposal when Jane’s mother Vanne volunteers to accompany her daughter for the first three months.

On July 14, 1960, Jane and Vanne arrive on the shores of Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in western Tanzania.

    1     The animals fled from Jane in fear. With patience and determination, she searched the forest every day, deliberately trying not to get too close to the chimpanzees too soon. Gradually the chimpanzees accepted her presence. Jane observes meat-eating for the first time October 30, 1961. Later, she sees the chimpanzees hunt for meat.     2    

On November 4,1961, Jane observes David Greybeard and Goliath making tools to extract termites (白蚁) from their mounds. They would select a thin branch from a tree, strip the leaves and push the branch into the termite mound. After a few seconds they would pull out the termite-covered stick and pick off the tasty termites with their lips. This becomes one of Jane’s most important discoveries.     3     On hearing of Jane’s observation, Leakey famously says: “Now we must redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.”

Jane’s work in Gombe becomes more widely known and in 1962 she is accepted at Cambridge University as a PhD candidate, one of very few people to be admitted without a university degree.     4     “It would have been more scientific to give them numbers”, they say. Jane has to defend an idea that might now seem obvious: that chimpanzees have emotions, minds and personalities.

Jane in Africa National Geographic decides to sponsor Jane’s work and sends photographer and filmmaker Hugo van Lawick to document Jane’s life in Gombe. In August 1963, Jane publishes her first article in National Geographic, My Life Among Wild Chimpanzees.

Working on the atomic bomb, Richard Feynman found that science represented the destruction and     1     put our future in danger, which was contrary to his knowledge of science when he was young. So he had a doubt     2     there was some evil     3     (involve) in science or not. In his lecture, the American scientist thinks that science has value in three ways. First, scientific knowledge     4     (make) us able to make all kinds of things. Second, it can offer us intellectual enjoyment. Third, it can provide scientist     5     a lot of experience, which is of great     6     (important) for scientists to progress, for they try to solve their ignorance, doubt and     7     (certain) in the process. At the end of his lecture, he hopes scientists take the     8     (responsible) of declaring the value of     9     (free), of teaching how doubt is to be     10     (welcome) and discussed and of ensuring the freedom for all generations to come.

9 . Many pupils in school think of science as just another subject on the time-table containing more facts to be learned. This is wrong. Science does not mean believing and remembering what other people tell us. The real scientist examines facts in order to find out the truth for himself. This is called the scientific method.

Let us see how scientists work and what is meant by the scientific method. In these days we hear a lot about science, but scientists, the men and women, who do the work and make the discoveries, seem distant and strange to us. Science often appears to be very difficult, and sometimes even a kind of magic. Certainly we feel we shall never be able to understand how it works. It is difficult of course, but I think we are wrong if we believe that we can not understand it. The important thing about the scientific method is that we get answers to questions by making tests. We do not just guess the answer or believe what anybody tells us. In fact, in simple ways we all use the scientific method every day.

We can see from very simple examples that the scientific method is not only for the use of a few people called scientists, but something we can all use with advantage. But patience and hard, careful work are necessary to find out the truth.

10 . An associate university professor in Florida has completed his research mission and set a new world record in the process: living 100 days beneath the ocean’s surface.

On Friday morning, Dr. Joseph Dituri felt the sun’s rays for the first time since he began the project 22 feet below the waters of Key Largo, Florida, on March 1.   

Dituri,55, a biomedical engineer who teaches at the University of South Florida and calls himself “Dr. Deep Sea”, spent just over three months at the bottom of the Emerald Lagoon in Jules’ Undersea Lodge, the only underwater hotel in the United States.

The research project, Project Neptune 100, was organized by the Key Largo-based Marine Resources Development Foundation and focused on ocean conservation research and studying how high pressure affects the human body.

The US Navy veteran said he’d noticed one impact: The water pressure seems to have shrunken his height by half an inch. Dituri stood at 6 feet 1 inch tall before starting his mission, the University of South Florida stated in a news release.

The scientist began the project with a belief that increased pressure could help humans live longer and prevent aging-related diseases, the news release said. Dituri said he hopes his underwater research will benefit the treatment of a variety of illnesses, including traumatic brain injuries.

Dituri also used the project as an educational experience for the youth. “We have interacted with thousands of school children to get them interested in science, technology, engineering and math, “Dituri told Guinness World Records on June 8. While underwater, he continued teaching his college students virtually.

Dituri broke the Guinness World Record for longest time living underwater at the 74-day mark of his project, on May 13. The previous record stood at 73 days, two hours and 34 minutes, set at the same location al Dituri’s successful attempt.