How much do you know about A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)?Artificial means‘man-made', and intelligence means‘the ability to learn. understand and think about things'. A.I. is about making machines think, talk, do and see. A.I. is used in many fields from、playing games to helping doctors. Many machines around us work very well because they work with the help of A.I. Man has always dreamed of building‘thinking machines'. In 1770, Wolfgand Kempelen(1 734—1804)built a wooden robot called Turk that was able to play chess(SUR). It played very well and even beat some of the top chess players of the time! Later it was found that Turk was not real. Inside the box machine was a chess player.
John McCarthy(1927—)is thought as the‘Father'of A.I. He invented the word‘A.I.'and the LISP computer programming language that many A.I. developers use today. How does A.I. work?
A.I. uses ideas from many fields:

    Computer technology has become an important part of people's life. This technology has its own special words. One well-known computer word is Google. It's the name of a popular “search engineer(引擎)” for the Internet. People use the search engineer to find information about almost any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in math Google is a very large number-One hundred zeros follow the number one. When you “Google” a subject, you can get a lot of information about it.
    If you Google someone, you might find that person's name on a blog (博客). A blog is short for a Web log. It's a personal Web page. Some people write blogs to express their opinions and ideas over the Internet. Some use them to share their lives with faraway friends or family. Others write blogs to help them deal with sickness, money problems or to choose movies to see or books to read. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.

    There are many different kinds of disasters around the world. As an adult you know what to do during a disaster, but what about the children? Some adults think it would probably never happen to them, so they don't teach their children what to do. Before it's too late, here are ways to help you prepare your child for a disaster:

    Educate: It is always good to let your child know about possible disasters. This doesn't mean children have to live in fear. When teaching them about disasters, keep the conversation positive（积极的）by telling them there is a solution（解决办法）to the disaster. Keep the conversations short, allow for questions and answer honestly.

    Prepare: Always be prepared, that is the best advice for children. For example, when preparing for bad weather, get the tools you need, like candles, radios, food, water and medicine. Teach your child what is needed in certain disasters so that they know what is available for them, if ever needed.

    Plan: You should always have a plan for you and your child for any dangerous situation. Write out a simple list that they can read. The plan could start with “listen to an adult's advice and/or call 119”.

    Practice: Once you have got the correct safety tools and worked out the right plan, practice every few months. Practicing what to do during a disaster with your child will help them if the time comes.

    Disasters can't be avoidedbut they can be lessened（减轻）once you areprepared and ready for one.

    In 1845, a deadly disease struck the farms of Ireland, killing all the Lumper potato plants. In another place or time, the death of single crop species (物种) might not have been so important. But in Ireland, in 1845, people depended almost solely on the potato for food. The death of one species caused a terrible famine(饥荒). Now, some scientists are worried that such a famine could happen again, but on a much wider scale.

    Over the centuries, farmers have discovered thousands of different species of food crops. Each species has special qualities. Some can be grown in very hot or cold climates. Others are not affected by certain diseases. However, you won't find many of these species in your local supermarket. To feed the seven billion people on Earth, most farmers today are growing only species of plants and farming only species of animals that are easy to produce in large numbers.

    For example, in the Philippines, there were once thousands of varieties of rice: now fewer than 100 are grown there. In China, 90 percent of the wheat varieties grown just a century ago have disappeared. Scientists believe that over the past century, we have allowed more than half of the world's food varieties to disappear.

    One solution to this problem is to collect and store the seeds (种子) as many different plant varieties as we can before they disappear. The idea was first suggested by Russian scientist Nikolay Vavilov. In the 1920s and 1930s, he collected around 400,000 seeds from five contients. More recently, others are continuing the work he began.

    In the U.S. state of Iowa, Diane Ott Whealy wanted to protect historic plant varieties, like the seeds her great –grandfather brought to the U.S. from Germany more than a hundred years ago. She and her husband started a place called Heritage Farm, where people can store and trade seeds.

    More importantly, the people at Heritage Farm don't just store the seeds; they plant them. By doing this, they are reintroducing foods into the marketplace that haven't been grown for years. These food species are not just special in terms of appearance or taste. They also offer farmers food solutions for the future, from the past.