Today, we have to use switches for our lights, knobs for our appliances,     1     remote controls for our TVs and air conditioners. In the future, we will be using     2     (advance) technology every day for automatic control of just about everything in our home. The future home will use integrated sensors to tell     3     you leave home each morning, and then go into     4     energy-efficient mode all by itself. You will no longer have to think about     5     (turn) switches on and off yourself. Your home will also learn your daily routine and     6     (prefer), so everything will be ready for you when you get home each evening. Your lights will come     7     the instant you enter the door along with your favourite music or TV programmes, and you will find your dinner already     8     (prepare) for you. All controls will respond to voice commands, so     9     you want to change your routine, you just say aloud what you want and the home system     10     (obey).

4 . What will future schools look like in 100 years? Imagine future schools in which students are totally engaged in a class. They are concentrating on working together to solve real-world problems. They are self-driven and are coming up with amazing ideas on the spot. They are concerned with each other’s well-being as part of a team. Their concerns reach far beyond the classroom to others all over the globe.

The school of the future will be an amazing melting pot of different peoples coming together to solve real-world problems.

Will they even be called “schools” in the future?

The teacher-student relationship is changing. Teachers are acting more as helpers rather than keepers of all knowledge. Students are driving their own education to the path that they feel best fits them. In the future, employers may not be as concerned with a diploma. They’ll look more at cases and examples of how students contribute to solving real-world problems. They’ll want to know how well they work in a team.

What will problem-solving look like in the future?

Information from the Internet is accessible everywhere and at unimaginable speeds. Kids are connected to news around the world in real time. Imagine someone could put out a request to the global community to help solve an issue in their own community! Classes can adopt an issue and work with other classes around the world in real time to create solutions.

What will information look like in the future?

It’s already everywhere. Users can get flooded by the constant flow of information. The need to understand what is true and what is not is important. The flipped classroom (翻转课堂) has already completely changed lecture-based lessons. It presents interesting content to students before they even come to class. They can access the Internet as many times as they want to review the lessons.

Scientists and engineers     1     (prepare) for possible travel into interstellar space, the area in between stars, in the distant future. Experts believe it will likely take many years before the technology and equipment are developed     2     (send) humans to this unexplored area of space. But if it does happen, massive spaceships     3     carry humans on long trips to distant starts.

Two American researchers, Andrew McKenzie from the University of Kansas and Jeffrey Punske of Southern Illinois University, have explored one possible problem with such travel. They considered the possibility     4     changes in human language could develop over time, thus     5     (cause) major communication problems with people on Earth.

Languages naturally change as communities grow more isolated from each other, the researchers noted in the paper. The long isolation of a community could lead to enough differences in language to make     6     impossible for community members back home to understand. The researchers noted that in    7     (add) to new words being used, the language of people traveling on spaceships and living in colonies     8     (experience) many other changes. For example, the sounds of different letters would likely change over time, affecting not only individual words, but the whole grammatioal system.

The researchers say one possible solution to     9     (limit) communication problems would be to include language experts on spaceship crews. Another suggestion is to use sign language as a form of communication. McKenzie added that space travelers might question whether it is even worth trying to learn how to communicate with people on Earth. But he believe there will always be a need, even     10     it is very limited. “You have to learn a little Earth English to send messages back, or to read the instruction manuals and information that came with the ship,” he said.

6 . For years, planet-hunters have been searching for a planet other than Earth that can support life. They may have found one.

The planet is the sixth found orbiting a star called Gliese 581. Steven Vogt, one of the scientists involved, expects the new planet to have water. On Earth, when we find water, we find life.     1    

A planet that can support life has to be just the right size for its system and just the right distance from its star. Some planets orbit so close to their stars that they’re much too hot for liquid water—or for life as we know it.     2    

But a right-sized planet that's neither too close nor too far might be just right for water. Gliese 581 is probably just right. It is about three times as huge as Earth.     3     Because it’s so close, one side of it always faces its star, and the other side is always dark.

The new planet is 20 light years away, which is as far as 250 million trips to the Moon and back.     4     Only light can go that fast. So even at the fastest speed we could manage, it would take a spaceship from Earth more than 200 years to go that far.     5     But that doesn’t mean we can’t study it. Thanks to powerful new telescopes and new techniques for searching the skies, scientists can learn a lot about distant planets without even leaving Earth.

Gliese 581 is an exciting discovery—and astronomers are likely to find more soon, thanks to new, powerful telescopes specifically designed to look for planets.

7 . In May this year, as part of our 150th anniversary, we asked readers aged between 18 and 25 to enter an essay competition. The task was to tell us, in no more than 1,000 words, what scientific advance they would most like to see in their lifetimes, and why it mattered to them.

The response was phenomenal: we received 661 entries. Some entrants hoped that science would make their lifetimes much longer than they can currently expect. Many looked forward to work that will end climate change. Others wanted to see advances in our understanding of human history, crop growth, space exploration, and medical technologies. The ideas were inspiring.

The winner is a compelling essay by Yasmin Ali, a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, UK. Ali submitted a piece on Beethoven, her brother’s hearing loss and the science which she hoped would one day cure it. It stood out to the judges as a reminder of why many scientists do research: to make the world better tomorrow than it is today.

All essays were judged by a group of Nature editors. The top ten submissions were then ranked by three members of a separate judging group: Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature; Faith Osier, a researcher; and Jess Wade, a physicist. All submissions were kept anonymous throughout the process.

We also selected two runners-up(非冠军的获奖者).Physicist Robert Schittko at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, proposes that nuclear fusion(核聚变) could offer a solution to the climate crisis, in a piece that effortlessly mixes grand ambition with gentle humour. And chemist Matthew Zajac at the University of Chicago in Illinois wrote a powerful personal account of why he wants to see advances in the field of same-sex reproduction.

The results show that today’s young scientists have a wealth of ideas, talent and conviction that research can transform their world. We look forward to seeing what they do next.