1 . When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note — “Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery” — and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically (魔术般) appear.

All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn’t freeze. And I remember Mr. Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.

Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch (门廊) . Every so often my son’s friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.

5 . By the year 2050, a fifth of the world’s cities will experience unprecedented climate conditions and environments that currently don’t exist in any major cities, according to new research. A team of scientists at the Crowther Lab in Switzerland produced the report, which described the climate for 520 major cities 30 years in the future.

The results showed that 77 percent of the world’s cities will experience a surprising change in climate conditions by 2050, and 22 percent of the 520 cities will see conditions that are not currently experienced by any existing major cities.

In China in 2050, the climate of Xi’an, in Shanxi province, will be similar to that of current day Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho in southern Africa, with the maximum temperature of the warmest month likely to increase by 4.59℃. Chongqing in southwest China will resemble the climate of Swaziland capital Mbabane, as the warmest temperature is predicted to rise by 5.1℃.

Scientists predict summers in Europe will get warmer by an average of 3.5℃ and European winters will see temperature rises of 4.7℃. London’s climate will be more similar lo Barcelona, and Madrid’s to Marrakech.

The Crowther Lab hopes the analysis will motivate decision-makers to take necessary steps to prevent or address some of the climate effects due to the threat of climate change. The report also found that cities in tropical regions will experience smaller changes in average temperature but will be controlled by shifts in rainfall regimes. This may lead to a noticeable increase in unexpected events, and severe droughts.

“Across all scientific fields, the greatest challenge in climate science is no longer the precise measurement of climate change impacts, but inspiring people to picture is actual effects in order to motivate action,” said Tom Crowther, senior scientist und founder of the Crowther Lab.

6 . In 2017,the United Arab Emirates announced its ambition to colonize Mars within the next 100 years. But architects are already imagining what a Martian city might look like-and planning to recreate it in the desert outside Dubai.

Mars Science City was originally scheduled to cover 176,000 square meters of desert-the size of more than 30 football fields-and cost approximately 135 million dollars. To create a space for Dubai's Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) to develop the technology needed to colonize Mars,architects Bjarke Ingels Group were asked to design a prototype of a city suitable for sustaining life on Mars-and then adapt it for use in the Emirati desert.

For this unique commission,the architects first had to overcome the immense challenges of creating a design to make the severe environment of Mars habitable. Mars has a thin atmosphere and no global magnetic field,so there's little protection from harmful radiation. Temperature is another problem-the average on Mars is a chilly 63 degrees C. The thin atmosphere also means there's little air pressure,so liquids quickly evaporate into gas; despite freezing temperatures,an unprotected human's blood would boil on Mars.But according to Jonathan Eastwood,director of the Space Lab at Imperial College London,the biggest challenge in terms of a sustained presence on Mars is not the engineering or scientific challenge,but the human and personal one.More researches need to be done to test the effects of isolation on mental and physical health of astronauts.

The MBRSC hopes that,in future,such research could take place in Mars Science City.This is going to be our platform where we can develop the science and the technology that will help us in our future missions to Mars,said Adnan AlRais,Mars 27 Program Manager at MBRSC."We want to come up with a totally new facility that will help the international community.”

7 . After decades of playing catch-up with the U.S. and Russian space programs, China did something neither nation nor any other had done this December: land a spaceship on the dark side of the moon.

Strictly speaking, of course, the moon has no dark side. But because of the way it orbits Earth, our natural satellite shows us only one side － the other is hidden from our view. No one even saw the far side until 1959, when the Soviet Luna 3 spaceship flew around for a look and sent back photos. No astronaut or spaceship went there until this December, when the China National Space Agency (CNSA) launched a 2,500-pound lander called Chang’e-4 to the southern end of the lunar far side.

Chang’e-4 operated a small rover (探测车) to survey the geography there for the first time ever. By examining the geography of its landing area, Chang’e-4 could solve longstanding puzzles about the moon, including how it formed 4.5 billion years ago. Chang’e-4 also carried a very small ―lunar biosphere (生态圈) ‖ containing silkworm eggs and a tiny greenhouse designed to grow potatoes in order to study the growth of the seeds on the moon.

Besides Chang’e-4, China plans to launch Chang’e-5 in 2019. Its mission will be to gather moon rocks using an orbiter, a lander or collector, an ascent stage (上升器) and a capsule that will separate from the orbiter and return the rocks to the earth. ―With these missions, the Chinese will have shown complete mastery of flight in the space between the earth and the moon,‖ said Paul Spudis, an experienced lunar researcher based in Houston.

CNSA has already outlined ideas for Chinese astronauts to follow the robots to the moon. Pei Zhaoyu, deputy director of CNSA’s Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, told that China plans a permanent robotic lunar station in about 10 years and suggested a human presence on the moon another decade or so after that. Spudis said China’s ambitious Chang’e-4 and Chang’e-5 missions should send human’s plans for lunar return into rapid development.

News anchors(主播) must have been reluctant to read out the following news: Xin Xiaomeng began working as the world’s first female artificial(人工的) intelligence news anchor at Xinhua News Agency on Sunday, three months after a male robot joined the profession.

Unlike previous news robots though, Xin does not read news like a cold machine; she reads it almost like a human being. The muscles on her face stretch and relax-and her reactions change-as she continues reading. That’s why many news anchors were worried: Will AI replace us in the near future?

To find the answer, we have to analyse the technologies that support Xin at her job. Three key technologies are used to support Xin. First, samples of human voices are collected and synthesized (合成). This is followed by the collection and synthesis of human muscle movement samples. And third the voices and movements are married in a way that when the Al news anchor reads, the micro -electric motors behind her face move to make her expressions seem more human.

Yet we need a thorough knowledge of deep leaning technology to make a robot imitate a person’s voice. The developer needs to collect tens of thousands of pieces of pronunciations, input them Into the machine and match them with the text or the Al to lean and read. The process for imitating facial movements is similar. The developer has to analyse the movements of the 53 muscles in the human face, make a model set from the collected data for the AI news anchor to lean, and imitate the movements of facial muscles via programs

Both the technologies used to make Xin’s performance impressive are mature. The real difficulty lies in the third -the technology to match the pronunciations with facial movements so that Xin expressions vary according to the content of the news report. In fact, Xins expressions don' t always change according to the content. As a result, her expressions look anything but human. Actually. AI is still no match for human qualities.

During an interview, Professor Hawking warned that AI(人工智能) will soon reach a   level     1    it will be a “new form of life that will perform     2    (well) than humans.” Professor Hawking even went so far as to say that AI may replace humans altogether,     3    he didn’t state exactly a timeline for his forecast. He said: “I fear that AI may replace humans altogether. If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that improves and copies     4    (it). This will be a new form of life that outperforms humans.”

During     5    interview, Professor Hawking also urged more people to take an interest in science,     6    (say)that there would be “serious consequences” if this didn't happen. He said that a new space programme should     7    (develop), adding human may have to turn to other suitable planets for habitation     8    (eventual). He said: “I believe we have reached the point of no return. Our Earth is becoming too small for us, global population is increasing at a     9    (surprise) rate and we are in danger of self-destructing.”

This isn't the first time that Hawking     10    (express) fears about the rise of AI. In October last year, he warned that artificial intelligence could develop a will of its own that is in conflict with that of humanity.