1 . As winter arrives, the problem of fogged-up car windscreens (挡风玻璃) becomes more pressing for drivers. Anti-misting sprays are one way to deal with such fogging. But they need frequent reapplication. Another approach is to fix a set of electrically powered heating wires. But because of the visual distraction (干扰) created, that doesn’t work for a car’s front windscreen.

Iran Hachler and Dimos of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have, however, come up with another way of warming something up to stop fog forming. Their new material is a coating ten nanometer (纳米) thick. It is flexible, easily made, and can be applied as a coating to glass or plastic, or inset inside such materials. Its demisting system is powered by sunlight.

In effect, it is a gold sandwich. The “bread” of this sandwich is a pair of layers (层), top and bottom, of a chemical material. The filling is a four-nanometre deep golden material. The whole structure lets visible light pass unlimited, while absorbing invisible lights and transforming them into heat. It is the filling that warms the glass. Gold acts as a medium in the heating process. The network will now absorb heat if left in the sunshine.

Glass coated with Mr Hachler’s and Dr Dimos’s invention is, they claim, four times more effective at preventing fog than an uncounted surface. It absorbs around 30% of solar radiation incident upon it, which, on a sunny day, increases the temperature of what it is applied to by around 8℃ On a cloudy day, that temperature rise is closer to 3-4℃. But in either case the enhancement is enough both to remove any fog that has formed and to prevent new fog forming.

The next step, Mr Hachler says, is to find the product’s best market. Even though gold is used, the cost of adding this extra one is low. For the two inventors, though, the idea might prove a gold mine.

2 . One late winter day in Manchester, UK, as I step inside the University of Salford’s latest research building, the cold 3°C air bites immediately. In fact, it’s a giant climate-controlled room, designed to test how homes built today will deal with the wilder weather climate change could bring.

Inside the £16-million room, researchers can create any weather they want with the touch of a button, from -20℃ cold to 40℃ heatwaves, alongside strong winds, snow and ice. “Anywhere people live, we can recreate those conditions,” says Fitton, who leads the Energy House 2.0 project for the university.

Inside the building are two new-build homes, complete with brickwork and pot plants. Both are equipped with cutting-edge green technology, like electric vehicle charging points, and will act as test beds to build greener homes in the UK. In 2025, the Future Homes Standard(FHS)will require all new homes to be built without gas central heating and with other green measures. Homes built to the FHS must deliver a 75% to 80% reduction in carbon emissions compared with homes built today.

That is why Bellway, partnering with the project, has built the rooms inside the Energy House 2.0. Yet clearly this is no ordinary new-build. For one thing, packed inside are three different heating systems: two air source heat pumps, plus panel heaters dotted around the walls and ceilings. There’s also a solar power input, a battery and a smart hot water tank that heats water using solar generation.

Over the coming months, Bellway will test different combinations of these technologies to find the most cost-effective way of meeting the FHS regulations.

Financially, things are promising. Based on energy-performance calculations, Bellway says its Future Home could have energy bills of just £11 a year.

Energy House 2.0 will let researchers see how houses perform in the UK’s future climate. “We can cycle through the climate change predictions 50 years into the future and see if we have any problems.” says Fitton.

When the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green was founded in 1872, it was East London’s first public museum. Today, we are transforming this beloved building into a new national museum of design and creativity dedicated entirely to children.

Relaunching later this year as Young V&A, the museum will be a place to imagine, play, create, debate and design. Young V&A will help children to develop abilities such as creative thinking, problem-saving ad collaboration through imaginative, hands-on gallery displays and creative programing for schools, families and community groups.

In a climate of growing inequality and reduced funding for the arts, it is vital that wed support young people’s creative development. We rely on your generous donations and are so grateful for your support. Whether you can give £25 or £25,000, all donations will help to complete this project.

£25 could buy books for the new Reading Room.

£75 could buy sensory materials to help bring the collection to life for young visitors.

£150 could conserve and display an inspirational object in the permanent galleries.

£5000 could help furnish the new creative studios in the Learning Centre.

•To pay by credit card, use the QR code, visit www.vam.ac.uk/appeal, or call 02079422905 to speak to a member of the Development team.

•Return a completed donation form or post a cheque directly to the museum or hand it in at the V&A Membership Desk or the Members’ Room.

•To find out about donating by bank transfer, making a regular monthly donation, or to make a larger gift, please email the Development team at appeals@vam.ac.uk.

9 . Americans use many expressions with the word “dog”. People in the United States love their dogs and treat them well.     1     However, dogs without owners to care for them lead a different kind of life. The expression, to lead a dog’s life, describes a person who has an unhappy existence.

Some people say we live in a dog eat dog world.     2     They say that to be successful, a person has to work like a dog. This means they have to work very, very hard. Such hard work can make people dog tired. And, the situation would be even worse if they became sick as a dog.

    3     This means that every person enjoys a successful period during his or her life. To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some people say that you can never teach an old dog new tricks. They believe that older people do not like to learn new things and will not change the way they do things.

    4     People who are unkind or uncaring can be described as meaner than a junkyard dog. Junkyard dogs live in places where people throw away things they do not want. Mean dogs are often used to guard this property. They bark or attack people who try to enter the property. However, sometimes a person who appears to be mean and threatening is really not so bad. We say his bark is worse than his bite.

Dog expressions are also used to describe the weather. The dog days of summer are the hottest days of the year. A rainstorm may cool the weather. But we do not want it to rain too hard.     5    

10 . Three young American men were on a crowded train when they encountered a heavily armed terrorist. With little regard for their personal safety, they rushed the terrorist and controlled him. Only some people seem capable of this split-second form of heroism. Why some men rise to the occasion—and others don’t—has been a bit tricky to explain. Psychologists have explored this question through biological and personality psychology.

Of course, heroism and courage can appear in many forms, and men and women risk their reputations, health, and social standing to do what they think is right. When it comes to physically risky bravery, people assume that men will take the lead. There are sound biological reasons for this fixed image. One of the most common fears in men is that they’ll be outed as a coward (懦夫), and a man who fails to display physical courage will suffer damage to his reputation in a way that a woman will not. Throughout human history, attaining a position of high status or dominance among one’s peers (同龄人) has been the ticket that needs to get punched for men to attract mates and father children.

People tend to have an idea of what heroes are like. When rating the personalities of movie heroes, participants expected them to be more careful and hard-working, open to experience, agreeable, and emotionally stable than the average person. But some studies indicate that people who exhibit heroic behavior score high on personality usually associated with madmen: risk-taking, sensation seeking, coolness under stress, and a tendency to take over in social situations.

The study of the relationship between personality and heroism is at an early stage. Psychologists are still at a loss to predict in advance who will heroically step up when needed. Often, the hero is an otherwise ordinary person who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. Meanwhile, some individuals trained to behave heroically might hesitate during a crisis. Future disasters will cry out for further acts of true heroism. Hopefully, the right mix of circumstances and personalities enable courage to carry the day.