4 . Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

On the distant world of Kiln lie the ruins of an alien civilization. A great mystery awaits humans: who were the builders and where are they now? These questions become realfor Professor Arton Daghdev, exiled (流放) from Earth to Kiln’s off-world labour camp due to his mistake. Facing the planet’s dangerous ecosystem ,Arton fights for survival.

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

A sci-fi classic in a brand-new edition. From a high Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth to the sky above, to an alien language that challenges our very sense of time and reality, Chiang’s unique imagination invites readers to question their understanding of the universe and their place in it.

War Bodies by Neal Asher

In a world ruled by robots, the Cyberat face a rebellion (叛乱) when the human Polity arrives.Piper, raised as a weapon, seeks help from the Polity after his parents are caught by enemies. As war worsens,Piper must face the puzzling technology implanted in his own body. It could either end their fight or cause serious consequences. The future of civilization hangs in the balance as the battle unfolds.

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

In a strange little home built into the branches of a forest live three robots.Vic Lawson,a human, lives there too.The day Vic repairs an unfamiliar android labelled“HAP”, he learns of a shared criminal past between the robots — a past spent in hunting humans. The robots, once hidden and safe, are now exposed.

5 . Have you ever changed jobs or moved to an unfamiliar city, only to find yourself wondering how to connect with new people?    1    However, a connection is a part of what it means to be human. When we do it well, our lives are far more fulfilling. Here are a few tips to help you build and strengthen connections with people.

Be your real self

You can’t go wrong with being yourself. Pretending to be someone you aren’t can lead your relationships to be built on lies and cause confusion in the future.     2     They forget that being themselves is how they make genuine connections.

Respect people’s boundaries

It’s likely that when you get to know someone new, you’ll discover their limits quickly. In order to build a meaningful relationship with that person, you must respect the boundaries.    3    Otherwise,the connection will be killed.

Move past the surface level

Meaningful connections move past the basics of small talk.Yes, the first time you meet someone, you can cover surface-level facts.    4    What are their values? What types of goals do they have for the future? What are their biggest hopes and dreams? These are all questions that give more insight into who they are and how we can connect with them.

    5    

One of the best ways to learn how to connect with other people is learning to be present. And don’t just be present mentally. Use your body language to show that they have your full attention. If you aren’t facing the person who’s speaking, they won’t feel like you care about connecting with them.

6 . Educational optimists predict that AI will soon provide amazing efficiencies and progress in teaching and learning. But are efficiency and machine logic what our students need most?

It’s certainly true that AI is a wonderful new tool dramatically transforming human life. AI is improving in speed and scope to recognize patterns in extremely complex data sets of all types, allowing it to make predictions about what might come next, be it a purchase of a customer, a word in a sentence , a sound in spoken language, or countless other processes.AI can answer specific complex questions or perform complex calculations at a rate impossible for the human mind to comprehend, let alone compete with. It can also create images and speeches which not only imitate reality but surpass it to meet programmed standards of excellence.

However, although these may be helpful to adults seeking to improve productivity, it is necessary to follow G.K. Chesterton’s advice that children should not be subjected to educational projects and ideas younger than they are. Allowing students to avoid traditional learning methods with AI will have uncertain and potentially harmful results. The same could be true of educators’dependence on AI for student assessment and lesson planning. In education at least, it is quite possible that AI will work against natural human development and provide not a shortcut to human formation but a short circuit.

Despite AI’s influence, traditional learning and writing assignments are crucial for promoting learning and cognitive development. Homework, similar to music practice, teaches discipline and skills essential for personal growth and future success. Deceptive(欺诈的)practices harm genuine learning, spoiling students’ competitiveness in an AI-dominated job market. Reliance on AI-generated content weakens critical thinking and creativity, damaging students’ intellectual growth. Moreover, it devalues the role of teachers in guiding students’development. In contrast, real engagement with homework cultivates invaluable human qualities essential in an AI-driven world, ensuring students’ competitive advantage and overall development.

7 . For people living with dementia (痴呆), a new program offers a supportive path to building social connections and reducing loneliness through music. Led by the Institute for Therapy through the Arts, Musical Bridges to Memory (MBM) is a12-week program designed to bridge relationships between people with dementia, their families, and the greater community that serve them through live musical interactions, training, and research in music-based approaches.

MBM gags participants in weekly sessions, which include interactive performances and training in communication skills to improve caregivers’ relationships with loved ones living with dementia. According to a 2022 study that examined MBM’s impacts, this music-based therapy (疗法) can increase social engagement between caregivers and their loved ones despite ongoing declines in cognitive (认知的) health.

Research shows people with dementia benefit from interventions that control their preserved cognitive and functional abilities. Music taps into our implicit memory (内隐记忆) , linking us to past experiences and emotions without the need for conscious awareness. This is especially true for music that is personally meaningful to us, such as a favorite song, which can promote brain plasticity and cognition.

Neurologist Dr. Ronald Devere notes, “Musical understanding, musical emotion, and musical memory can survive long after other forms of memory and cognitive function have disappeared." Even as cognition declines, music can help to promote connection and shared communication — making it an efficient tool to support people with dementia.

In addition to improving communication, MBM positively impacts mood and alleviates the caregiver’s burden. Caregivers who participated in this program reported significant reductions in   distress (痛苦) as a result of improved communication through music. In short, the program’s positive health impacts extend beyond individuals with dementia to their families and loved ones because it facilitates communication and social connection, particularly in cases where verbal   language is no longer possible.

These findings add to decades of research that demonstrates music can positively impact our health, and they provide further insights into the benefits of the MBM program to people with dementia and their caregivers. They also correspond with other community-based interventions to use music to promote healing.

8 . Virginia’s McAfee Knob is one of the most famous spots along the Appalachian Trail, offering a beautiful view of forests and valleys. Thousands of hikers visit it each year to take in the scenery. Recently, a new agreement was reached to protect much of this view forever. Two conservation groups, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) and The Conservation Fund, have bought 850 acres of land from six different owners below the Knob. This area, now called the McAfee Vista Preserve, will not only maintain the view but also help restore wildlife habitats.

Heather Richards from The Conservation Fund expressed joy at the completion of the deal. She praised the cooperation between the organizations involved and the landowners for their commitment to conservation.

McAfee Knob is extremely popular, with around 50,000 visitors annually. It is so iconic that when Google featured the Appalachian Trail in the Doodle on their homepage in October, they used an illustration of McAfee Knob. However, this popularity has led to some challenges. For instance, there have been concerns about garbage attracting bears and the need for better management of visitor numbers and facilities.

This recent acquisition is part of ongoing efforts by the ATC to protect views along the trail. Over the past four years, they, along with partners like The Conservation Fund and the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club, have purchased about 1,300 acres from various landowners.

However, the funding for this purchase has raised some controversy (争议). A significant part of the money came from the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, which has faced opposition due to its potential impact on the environment. Despite initially opposing the plan, the ATC entered into an agreement with its developers to receive funding for conservation efforts.

The ATC also received support from other sources, such as the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Forest CORE Fund and donations from members of both the ATC and the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club.

10 . Generative AI must seem like a superweapon to people who aim to cause disagreement and argument online. Deep-fake videos imitate public figures. Crowds of conversational chatbots worsen conflict, and efforts to detect and relieve such campaigns remain in their early period.

But can Generative AI also negotiate confict? Chris Bail, a leading expert on artificial intelligence and human behavior, and his colleagues have conducted research indicating that Large Language Models such as ChatGPT can make online conversations more productive, reduce incivility, and increase willingness to have difficult conversations across social disagreements. What’s more, they’re already seeing practical applications. Inspired by such research, Nextdoor, a community-based social-media platform that has struggled to boycott online poison, recently launched a successful, large-scale (大规模的) effort to reduce incivility.

In a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Chris Bail and his team examined whether Large Language Models can teach people conflict-negotiation techniques on a large scale. They enlisted a large group of people with different opinions about gun control and paired them to discuss this topic with someone who does not share their view on an online chat platform the team built.

After exchanging several messages on their platform, half of the research participants began to receive pop-up messages suggesting alternative phrasings for the messages they were about to send to their chat partner. These pop-ups employed GPT-3 to rephrase each post using conflict negotiation principles — without changing the opinion expressed within them. Participants had the option to send these rephrased versions of their message or ignore them.

The researchers found that GPT-3 is surprisingly good at processing difficult conversations. People whose partner used the AI-generated re-phrasings described the conversations as more productive, less stressful, and expressed greater willingness to consider alternative viewpoints.