1 . Atomic shapes are so simple that they can’t be broken down any further. Mathematicians are trying to turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for help to build a periodic table of these shapes, hoping it will assist in finding yet-unknown atomic shapes.

Tom Coates at Imperial College London and his colleagues are working to classify atomic shapes known as Fano varieties, which are so simple that they can’t be broken down into smaller components. Just as chemists arranged element s in the periodic table by their atomic weight and group to reveal new insights, the researchers hope that organizing these atomic shapes by their various properties will help in understanding them.

The team has given each atomic shape a sequence of numbers based on its features such as the number of holes it has or the extent to which it bends around itself. This acts as a bar code (条形码) to identify it. Coates and his colleagues have now created an AI that can predict certain properties of these shapes from their bar code numbers alone, with an accuracy of 98 percent.

The team member Alexander Kasprzyk at the University of Nottingham, UK, says that the AI has let the team organize atomic shapes in a way that begins to follow the periodic table, so that when you read from left to right, or up and down, there seem to be general patterns in the geometry (几何) of the shapes.

Graham Nib lo at the University of Southampton, UK, stresses that humans will still need to understand the results provided by AI and create proofs of these ideas. “AI has definitely got unbelievable abilities. But in the same way that telescopes (望远镜) don’t put astronomers out of work, AI doesn’t put mathematicians out of work,” he says. “It just gives us new backing that allows us to explore parts of the mathematical landscape that are out of reach.”

The team hopes to improve the model to the point where missing spaces in its periodic table could point to the existence of unknown shapes.

2 . Animal appear to predict earthquakes by sensing electricity in the air — the first study to find reliable evidence of the phenomenon has shown.

Cameras revealed an “amazing” drop in the number of animals up to 23 days before a major quake hit their rainforest home at Yanachaga National Park in Peru. Lead scientist Dr Rachel Grant, from Anglia Ruskin University, said, “The results showed that just before the earthquake, animals’ activity dropped right down.”

On a normal day the cameras placed around Yanachaga National Park record between 5 and 15 animals. But in the 23 days before the earthquake, the number of animals dropped to five or fewer per day. No animals were photographed at all on five of the seven days immediately before the quake.

Another study showed that animal activity remained normal in the park over a different period when seismic (地震的) activity was low. Co-author, professor Friedemann Freund, said, “The cameras were located at an altitude of 900 meters. If air ionization occurred, the animals would escape to the valley below, where there were fewer positive ions ( 离子). With their ability to sense their environment, animals can help us understand small changes that occur before major earthquakes.”

Other evidence suggested that before the earthquake, the air around the high mountain sites filled with positive ions that can be produced when rocks are placed under stress. Positive ions have been known to cause ill effects in humans as well as animals. Scientists believe the animals were made to feel uncomfortable by the positive ions, leading them to avoid the area. They are thought to have escaped to lower ground, where the air was less ionized. The findings may help experts develop better short-term seismic forecasts.

3 . Scientists have discovered more than 5,000 new species living on the seabed in an untouched area of the Pacific Ocean that has been identified as a future hotspot for deep-sea mining, according to a review of the environmental surveys carried out in the area.

It is the first time the previously unknown biodiversity of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a mineral-rich area of the ocean floor that spans 1.7m sq miles between Hawaii and Mexico in the Pacific, has been comprehensively documented. The research will be critical to assessing the risk of extinction of the species, given contracts for deep-sea mining in the near-pristine area appear imminent.

Most of the animals identified by researchers exploring the zone are new to science, and almost all are unique to the region: only six, including a carnivorous sponge and a sea cucumber, have been seen elsewhere.

Contracts for mining exploration in the CCZ have been granted to 17 deep-sea mining contractors in an area covering 745,000 sq miles. The companies, which are backed by countries including Britain, the US and China, want to dig for minerals including cobalt manganese and nickel in part to sell to the alternative energy sector.

To better understand the impact of mining this fragile ecosystem and its newly discovered inhabitants, an international team of scientists has built the first “CCZ checklist” by compiling all the records from expeditions to the region. Published in the journal Current Biology, it includes 5,578 different species, of which an estimated 88% to 92% had never before been seen.

To study and collect specimens (样品) from the ocean floor, biologists have joined research cruises in the Pacific that send remote-controlled vehicles to traverse (穿越) the seabed 4,000 to 6,000 meters below. Adrian Glover, a deep-sea biologist at the NHM and senior author of the study described it as an “incredible privilege”. The expedition, funded through the Natural Environment Research Council and others, is backed by UK Seabed Resources (UKSR), a deep-sea mining company that operates the UK’s exploration area. The scientists watch operations by video link direct from the boat as new species are gathered by remote control vehicles in the darkness below.

The seabed, Glover said, is an “amazing place” where, despite the extreme cold and dark, life thrives. “One of the characteristics of the abyssal plain is the lack of food, but life has a way of persisting down there,” he said, “It’s a mystery.” One of the deep-sea animals discovered was nicknamed the “gummy squirrel”, because of its huge tail and jelly-like appearance, he said. There are also glass sponges, some of which look like vases.

With approval for deep-sea mining looming, Glover said he believed it was “imperative that we work with the companies looking to mine these resources to ensure any such activity is done in a way that limits its impact upon the natural world”.

5 . Mental Health Crisis Among Teens Demands a New Approach

Since the CDC released its survey results last month showing alarmingly high rates of sadness and depressive thoughts among teens, fingers have been pointed from two sides at the causes of this crisis.     1    . Others say that today’s more secular(世俗的)culture has confused our most vulnerable young people. But neither side seems to grasp the true urgency of the issue.

According to the CDC’s findings, more than one in five of the 17,000 high school students surveyed reported mental breakdown. Their rates of sadness and hopelessness are the highest in a decade, reflecting an increasing trend exacerbated by society’s isolation(隔离)and stress.     2    .

Parents as well as teachers and others who have direct contact with children must accept this preventive approach. It is crucial that they not be afraid to ask direct questions about depressive thoughts.     3    . It is also especially important that parents understand what help is available to their children.

    4    . For example, we can demand equity equality, which means insurance coverage(保险范围)for behavioral illnesses health issues that is for physical , thus reducing the financial burden. We can also urge our congressmen to fund health programs and expand mental health professions.     5    . Put the politics aside. There are lives in the balance.

6 . In the late 1970s, archaeologists (考古学家) uncovered the remains of a woman and a young dog, her hand resting on the puppy’s chest in a 12,000-year-old village.

The find is some of the earliest evidence of the bond between humans and dogs. But even after years of study researchers are divided on how this bond began. Did it arise over thousands of years, as early dogs became tamer (驯服的) and more accustomed to human behaviors? Or was this fire already burning in the ancestors of dogs: the gray wolf?

Christina Hansen Wheat, a behavioral ecologist at Stockholm University, and workmates hand-raised 10 gray wolves from the time they were 10 days old. When the animals were 23 weeks old, a caregiver led them one at a time into a mostly empty room. Over the course of several minutes, the caregiver exited and entered the room, sometimes leaving the wolf alone, sometimes leaving it with a complete stranger. The team repeated the experiment with 12 23-week-old Alaskan huskies (哈士奇), which they’d raised similarly since puppyhood.

For the most part, the scientists saw few differences between the wolves and the dogs. When their caregiver entered the room, both species scored 4.6 on a five-point scale of “greeting behavior”—a desire to be around the human. When the stranger entered, dog greeting behavior dropped to 4.2 and wolf to 3.5, on average, suggesting both animals made a distinction between the person they knew and the one they didn’t. It’s this distinction that the team counts as a sign of attachment.

In addition, dogs barely paced—a sign of stress—during the test, while wolves paced at least part of the time. However, the wolves stopped pacing almost entirely when a stranger left the room and their caretaker returned. Hansen Wheat says that’s never been seen before in wolves. It could be a sign, she says, that the animals view the humans who raised them as a “social buffer”.

For her, that’s the most interesting part of the study. “If this is true, this sort of attachment is not what separates dogs from wolves,” she says. In other words, it didn’t have to be bred into them by humans, but could have been the seed we selected for, and then strengthened over thousands of years.

7 . In the 19th century, three pioneering women struggled to find their place in a male-controlled field. Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake—among the first female doctors—are the heroines of Olivia Campbell’s new book. The story is lively and interesting, and the main characters are full of personality and individualism. Jex-Blake is described as “big and confident, a determined educational reformer with large eyes and an even lager personality”. Garrett Anderson, referred to as “Lizzie” throughout, was equally determined but also educated, and polite. The result is a great read for anyone looking for an introduction to the history of medical women.

The biographies of the three women are woven into a bigger, grander story about medicine in the 19th century and it is slow and unwilling acceptance of female physicians (医师). Though British, Blackwell attended medical school in the US. “Lizzie” was admitted to the medical school only via a loophole (漏洞) in the admissions policy. And Jex-Blake’s attempt to sit a medical exam in Edinburgh was met with a storm of protest.

Unsurprisingly, the three heroines faced many difficulties, but their efforts finally proved successful. Women in White Coats is, therefore, a successful tale of social progress. The final concluding chapter paints a sunny picture of present-day equality within the medical profession. However, in its efforts to tell an inspiring story, the book glosses over continuing problems within the profession today. Though more women than men now graduate from medical school, they face struggles with career progression and sexism.

We need more books that don’t offer a “great white men” approach to history. However, they have to deal with the incomplete and uneven nature of progress. Inspiring as it is to read stories of heroines trying hard and succeeding against the odds, that isn’t the whole picture. Medicine might be better for women now than in the past, but the problems of the Victorian era continue to exist and we still have far to go.

8 . The next time San Francisco residents stop a taxi, they may step into a car with no one behind the wheel. Driverless taxis are now allowed to come on the city’s streets. On June 2, 2022, Cruise, a division of General Motors (GM), was approved to charge for rides in its self-driving cars, becoming the first company allowed to operate commercial driverless cars in a major US city.

Though Cruise is regarding it as a big win, its self-driving cars aren’t totally free to run on the streets of San Francisco as they please. Cruise vehicles will be limited to transporting passengers in less crowded areas of the city between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The speed limit is 30 mph. They are also not allowed to operate in heavy rain or fog. The rules are meant to reduce any injuries or accidents.

Cruise plans to launch the service gradually with a team of just 30 cars. The first robotaxis will be improved versions of GM’s Chevrolet Bolt. However, the company is seeking approval to get its custom-built Cruise Origin on public roads. The driverless electric vehicle has no wheels or pedals (踏板) and can attain highway speeds. The car consists mostly of a siting space, where passengers can face each other.

Cruise’s ability to obtain the commercial permit to operate is a big step forward. However, the company still has to convince passengers that its technology is safe. Many remain concerned about safety. A 2021 survey by the American Automobile Association found that 74 percent of Americans are afraid to ride in a self-driving vehicle.

It remains to be seen how the new driverless taxi experiment will play out in San Francisco. But based on the vast number of companies that are racing to develop self-driving vehicles and the tens of thousands of people on waitlists for robotaxi rides, the Cruise pioneering program is at least set for popularity, if not success.

9 . Thanks to in-depth reporting by the Wall Street Journal, we now know that Facebook has long been aware its product Instagram has harmful effects on the mental health of many adolescent users. Young girls, in particular, struggle with their body image thanks to a constant stream of photos and videos showing beautiful bodies that users don’t think they can attain.

While the information the Journal covered is essential and instructive, it does not tell the whole story. Deep down, this is not an Instagram problem; it’s a people problem. Understanding that distinction can make the difference between a failed attempt to contain a teen’s interest in an addictive app and successfully addressing the underlying problem leading to mental distress induced (诱发) by Instagram.

Critics were quick to shame Facebook for sitting on the data and not releasing it to researchers or academics who asked for it. Others criticize the social media giant for not using the research to create a safer experience for its teen users. The anger, while understandable, is misplaced.

While I’m reluctant to defend Facebook, I’m not sure it’s reasonable to blame the company for withholding data that would hurt its business. Have you ever binge-watched (狂看) a Netflix series? I assure you it wasn’t a healthy endeavor. You were in active, likely did nothing productive, mindlessly snacked and didn’t go outside for fresh air. It is an objectively harmful use of time to stare at a TV or laptop for a full weekend. Should we respond by shaming Netflix for not alerting us to how damaging an addictive product can be?

While it’s reasonable to say Instagram makes esteem issues worse, it strains credulity (夸张到难以置信) to believe it causes them in the first place. You create your own experiences on social media. For the most part, you choose which accounts to follow and engage. If you’re already vulnerable to insecurities and self-sabotage (自损) — as many teens are — you will find accounts to obsess over. And this isn’t a new phenomenon.

Before social media, there were similar issues fueling self-esteem issues. Whether the target be magazines, movies or television shows depicting difficult-to-attain bodies, there has been a relatively steady chorus (异口同声) of experts nothing the damage new media could cause young viewers.

Self-esteem issues have an underlying cause — one that’s independent of social media use. Instagram merely enhances those feelings because it provides infinitely more access to triggers than older forms of media. It’s more worthwhile to address those underlying factors rather than to attack Facebook.