1 . Life will probably be very different in 2050. First of all, it seems that TV channels will have vanished by 2050. Instead, people will choose a programme from a “menu” and a computer will send the programme directly to the television. By 2050, music, films, programmes, newspapers and books will come to us in the similar way.

In many places, agriculture is developing quickly and people are growing fruit and vegetables for export. This uses a lot of water. Therefore, there could be serious shortages of water. Some scientist predict that water could be the cause of wars if we don’t act now.

In the future, cars will run on new, clean fuels (燃料) and they will go very fast. Cars will have computers to control the speed and there won’t be any accidents. Today, many cars have computers that tell drivers exactly where they are. By 2050, the computer will control the car and drive it to your destination. Also, by 2050, space planes will fly people from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just two hours.

Some big companies now prefer to use robots that do not ask for pay rises or go on strike, and work 24 hours a day. They are also easy to control. And they never argue with people. They can be easily used in a variety of places — factories, schools, offices, hospitals, shops and homes.

Scientists will have discovered how to control genes (基因). Scientists have already produced clones (克隆) of animals. By 2050, scientists will be able to produce clones of people and decide how they look and how they behave. Scientists will be able to do these things, but should they?

3 . 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.

4 . What do you plan to do when you retire? Keep working? Get more exercise? Or learn something new? You may put them on hold. There's a chance that, sooner or later, you might have to move further than you were thinking, as far as Mars.

On Thursday, National Geographic will show the first-ever Mars show home, giving earthlings (地球人)an idea of what their life could look like on the Red Planet. In the not-so-distant year of 2037, the igloo-shaped structure could be the home of your future.

It shows a house built using recycled spacecraft parts and Martian soil, called regolith, which has been microwaved into bricks. Some parts of the home are recognizable — a kitchen, a bedroom — but there are fundamental differences that are important to human survival.

As the Martian atmosphere is around one hundredth as thick as the Earth’s, people will need permanent (永久的) shelter from the sun；society will move largely indoors. Most buildings will be connected by underground passages and the houses won't have windows. The homes will have simulated solar lighting, or natural light that has been bent several times. Walls will need to be 10 to 12 feet thick, to protect people from dangerous rays (光线)that can pass through six feet of steel, and a double air-locked entrance to keep the home under proper pressure.

"We don’t think of our houses as things that keep us alive, but on Mars your house will be a survival centre, 99 says Stephen Petranek, author of How We’ll Live on Mars. This is not just the stuff of sci-fi. “10 to 20 years from now there will certainly be people on Mars,” Petranek says.

“We’ve had the technology for 30 years to land people on Mars, but we haven’t had the will, ”Petranek says. But two main factors have “completely swung public attitudes”.

The private companies’ participation has forced government agencies to speed up their game, and influential films such as Gravity and The Martian have caught society’s eye.

5 . In 2011, the old style Malta buses were taken off the road and replaced by modern vehicles. Most of the old buses were deserted, a few were sold, and about 100 of them were put into storage in the hope of showing them in a museum at some stage.

A pre-2011 visit to Malta wouldn’t have been complete without a ride on one of the colorful buses. Until 1973 you could tell the destination of the bus just by looking at its color--Sliema was green and white, Zabbar was red and white with a blue stripe(条纹)etc. Later, the buses all had numbers. For a while, they were all painted green and white before the ‘final’ orange, yellow and white.

In their prime, walking around the Triton fountain at the Valletta bus station, you would have found it very difficult to see two buses of exactly the same design. Most of them had locally built bodies. On the front of the buses carried names like Dodge, Leyland, Bedford etc. You were equally likely to find football pennants(锦旗)and the like decorating the cabs. Real bus experts would have recognized that these were there mainly for decorative reasons, and were seldom an exact idea of the vehicle’s origins.

Nowadays much more modern buses are to be found at the Floriana bus station. They are more environmentally friendly and possibly even more comfortable than the older types. However, I miss the old buses. I remember, when you boarded your bus, you had to prepare the correct change to pay the usually bad-tempered driver as you got on. If you were seated anywhere near the front, you would have noticed that most drivers sat well to the right of their steering wheel. The reason for this, as any Maltese would tell you, was to leave space for their pet to sit alongside them. I wonder where the pet sits these days.

7 . What will man be like in the future-in 5,000 or even 50,000 years? We can only make guesses, but we can be sure that he will be different from what he is today, for man is slowly changing all the time.

Let us take an example. Man, even five hundred years ago, was shorter than he is today. Now, on average（平均），men are about three inches（英尺）taller. Again, in the modern world we use brains a great deal. Even so, we still make use of only about 20% of the brain’s capacity（容量）.As time goes on, however, we shall have to use our brains more and more, and eventually we shall need larger ones! This is likely to bring about a physical change to the head, especially the forehead, will grow larger.

Nowadays our eyes are used very often. In fact, we use them so much that they become weaker and we have to wear glasses. But over a very long period of time it is likely that man’s eyes will grow stronger.

On the other hand, we tend to make less use of our arms and legs. These, as a result, are likely to grow weaker. At the same time, however, our fingers will grow more sensitive because they are used a great deal in modern life.

But what about hair? This will probably disappear from the body altogether in course of time because it does not serve a useful purpose any longer. In the future, then, both sexes are likely to be bald（光头的）.

Perhaps all this shows that future man will not be a very attractive being to look at! This may well be true. No matter how great the change is, future man will still have a lot in common with us.

8 . What will man be like in the future? How about in 5,000 or even 50,000 years from now? We can only make a guess, of course, but we can be sure that he will be different from what he is today.     1    

Let's give an example. Man, even 500 years ago, was shorter than he is today. Now, on the average, men are about three inches taller. 500 years is a relatively short period of time, so we may guess that man will continue to grow taller. Again, in the modern world we use our brains a great deal. Even so, we still make use of only about 20% of the brain's capacity(容量). As time goes on, however, we shall have to use our brains more and more---and finally we shall need even larger ones!     2     The head, in particular the forehead, will grow larger.

    3     In fact, we use them so much that very often they become weaker and we have to wear glasses. But over a very long period of time it is likely that man’s eyes will grow stronger. On the other hand, we tend to make less use of our arms and legs.     4     At the same time, however, our fingers will grow more sensitive because they are used a great deal in modern life.

But what about hair? It will probably disappear from the body altogether in course of time because it does not serve a useful purpose any longer. In the future, then, both sexes are likely to be bald.

Perhaps all this gives the impression that future man will not be a very attractive creature to look at!     5     He will still be a human being, with thoughts and emotions similar to our own.

9 . Everybody hates rats. But in the earthquake capitals of the world—Japan, Los Angeles, Turkey—rats will soon be the new best friends of humans.

What happens after an earthquake? We send in rescue dogs. Why? Because they can smell people. Dogs save lives. They help rescuers to find living people. But dogs are big and they can’t get into small spaces. So now a new research project is using a smaller animal to save lives: the rat.

How does it work? First the rat is trained to smell people. When this happens, the rat’s brain gives a signal. This is sent to a small radio on its back and then the rescuers follow the radio signals. When the rat’s brain activity jumps, the rescuers know that someone is alive. The rat has smelled that person.

Although there are already robots which can do this job, rats are better. Christian Linster at Cornell University, New York, says, “Robots’ noses don’t work well when there are other smells around. Rats are good at that.” Rats can also see in the dark. They are cheaper and quicker to train than dogs and unlike robots, they don’t need electricity!

The “rat project” is not finished, but Julie Ryan of International Rescue Corps in Scotland says, “It would be fantastic. A rat could get into spaces we couldn’t get to and a rat would get out if it wasn’t safe.” Perhaps for the first time in history people will be happy to see a rat in a building.

10 . Smart cities are coming. And you can be sure that hackers (黑客) won’t be very far behind. We’ve already gotten a glimpse of that future, as cities across the globe start to use technology to connect their services and people in ways that were science film just a few years ago. They are using sensors to collect data — such as traffic, garbage collecting, and road conditions —and then using that data to deliver services to more people and more efficiently.

But this rush to become a smart city has a major weakness: The more connected a city is, the easier it is to cyber-attacks. Hackers have, in recent years, effectively held cities hostage through ransom ware (赎金器), sometimes damaging critical systems for months at a time. The damage can cost millions to repair, as Baltimore and Atlanta have discovered.

And this is just the beginning. As cities add connectivity to their streetlights, power grids, dams, transit lines and other services, they are adding more targets that are possible to be hacked. What’s more, as additional information on people is collected, officials worry the result —lots of data could attract nation-states or terrorists who could use the data to launch physical and cyber war.

What cyber security lesson can’t be taught in this hack? For example: Don’t open email attachments from unfamiliar sources; don’t click on unrecognized links; don’t leave sensitive information visible on the walls or surfaces of your office.

But let’s just stick to the most important lesson: The information you share on social media can be used to profile and target you, whether that’s by engineering click bait (点击诱饵) aimed at your particular interests, guessing your password based on your birthday or figuring out your schedule and travels so that an intruder can access your home or office.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.