The year 3700, Earth is far too hot for any human to call it home. On this planet at least, man is nothing more than a memory--if there is anything left to remember the "wise man". But what about our wisdom--will any of it survive us?

    The conventional answer is no. Knowledge requires a knower, and there will be no knowing minds around then. But if information survives, perhaps in books or hard drives, maybe the knowledge isn't quite dead but dormant(休眠), ready to become alive with the help of other minds that develop over time or come to visit Earth in the distant future.

    At first sight, that seems to be reasonable: after all, we have done similar things with past knowledge. For example, we saved an ancient computer from a ship destroyed at sea off the southern coast of Greece, and succeeded in finding the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphics(象形文字). Careful work can bring previously lost wisdom back to life.

    However, the key point is that there is a certain cultural continuity with those ancient times that allows us to reason and make progress in the dark: we know we are dealing with the legacy(遗产)of other humans. Without that link, the survival of objects and raw data doesn't guarantee the survival of knowledge. And a lack of continuity in language with any future intelligence would be a barrier. Knowledge is closely connected with language. When a language dies out, we can lose systems of reasoning that they contain. If that's lost, then it can't be recovered.

    All this means that other minds might not be able to fully make human knowledge alive when we are gone. It is better to concentrate on not dying out in the first place.

    Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been making changes to my brain. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Involving myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. That's rarely the case any more.

    I think I know what's going on. For over a decade, I've been spending lots of time online. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes by a few Google searches. Even when I'm not working, I'm scanning headlines or just tripping from link to link.

The Net is becoming a universal medium where information flows through my eyes and ears and into mind. The perfect recall of silicon memory (硅制存储器) can be a blessing to thinking. But that comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall Mcluhan pointed out, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is weakening my ability for concentration. Once I was a driver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a flying swallow.

I'm not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to acquaintances, Bruce Friedman, a blogger, also has described how the Internet has changed his mental habits. His thinking has taken on a "staccato (破碎)" quality. "I can't read War and Peace any more" he admitted, "I've lost the ability to do that."

A recently published study suggests that when reading online, we tend to become "more decoders (解码器) of information". We are not only what we read; we are how we read.

    PHILADELPHIA-The thumb of a Terracotta Warrior was stolen by a member of the public in Philadelphia, where the statue is on display. The cultural relics authority of Northwest China's Shaanxi province will send conservationists（保护工作者）to repair a Terracotta Warrior that had its thumb stolen by a member of the public while on display at a Philadelphia museum.

    US departments that are involved should guarantee the safety of the relics on display, and parties concerned will be held legally accountable, the provincial cultural heritage department said on Sunday.

The statue of a cavalryman（骑）, which dates back to at least 209 BC, is one of10

    Chinese Terracotta Warrior statues now on display at the Franklin Institute in Pennsylvania.

    Since 2009, Wang's team has restored more than 100 of the Terracotta Warriors. According to the Stolen（Lost）Cultural Relics Information Publishing Platform of China, which went online late last year, up to 60 percent of cases of theft have occurred in museums and historical relics institutions. However, most cases occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. As security technology developed in recent years, it has become more difficult to steal a cultural relic from a museum in China, according to the publishing platform.

    Chen Shiqu, deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Department at the Ministry of Public Security, said during a previous interview that the prices of cultural relics have risen in recent years, leading to more thefts by using upgraded technology.

    "Some criminals are equipped with high-tech tools that can make a tunnel very quickly to steal and transport the cultural relics," he said.  "China will continue to complete the mechanism for fighting against and preventing relies thefts. We will crack down on（打击）the whole market chain, including the trading of the relics and organized thefts. All involved offenders will face criminal liability."

    Meanwhile, US authorities said Michael Rohans, 24, from the US state of Delaware was arrested in connection with the theft and has been released on $15, C00 bail（保释金）, on the condition that he surrender his passport, consent to drug testing and refrain from leaving the country before trial. Museum staff members noticed the missing thumb on Jan 8, and a special agent from the FBI's Art Crime Team tracked down Rohana days later.

    Studies have shown most people fail to realize how much time they spend on their smart­phones each day.

    Frank and Amelia's family were put to a test, using a free app called "Moment­screen Time Tracker". The Vascellaros—Frank, Amelia, 14­year­old twins Frankie and Joe, and 17­year­old Sam—all said they did not really know they were spending so much time on their phones each day.

    "Honestly, I don't feel like I'm on my phone a lot," Amelia Vascellaro said. Amelia was on her phone far less often than Frank, according to the app. While Amelia spent about an hour per day on the phone, Frank spent close to four hours on his phone—which came as a shock to him. The children's times varied but they often spent more than a couple of hours on the phone as well.

    Minneapolis­based Dr Kirsten Lind Seal sees phone usage come up a lot among families. Lind Seal said many family members' phone use has become problematic.

    "If we hear more than once, 'Do you have to be on your phone right now? Can you please put your phone down? Did you hear what I said?' it may be a sign that it is negatively influencing our family relationships and our daily lives," she said.

    Lind Seal said actually paying attention to how much time one spends on the phone is a good first step in deciding when to put it down.

    She asks parents to encourage more face­to­face communication for teens and young adults as they continue developing their social and emotional skills. "What we find is that we are really losing out on empathy—the ability to understand other people's feelings and problems——when we spend a lot of time on our smart­phones to communicate with other people she said.

Gene technology to benefit people

    Among all the fast growing science and technology, the research of human genes, or biological engineering as people call it, is drawing more and more attention now. Sometimes it is a hot topic discussed by people.

    The greatest thing that gene technology can do is to cure serious diseases that doctors at present can almost do nothing with, such as cancer and heart disease. Every year, millions of people are murdered by these two killers. And to date, doctors have not found an effective way to cure them. But if the gene technology is applied, not only these two diseases can be cured completely, bringing happiness and more living days to the patients, but also the great amount of money people spend on curing their diseases can be saved, therefore it benefits the economy as well. In addition, human life span(寿命) can be prolonged.

    Gene technology can help people to give birth to more healthy and clever children. Some families, with the English imperial(皇室) family being a good example, have hereditary(遗传的) diseases. This means their children will for sure have the family disease, which is a great trouble for these families. In the past, doctors could do nothing about hereditary diseases. But gene technology can solve this problem perfectly. The scientist just need to find the wrong gene and correct it and a healthy child will be born.

    Some people are worrying that the gene research can be used to manufacture human beings in large quantities. In the past few years, scientists have succeeded in cloning a sheep; therefore these people predict that human babies would soon be cloned. But I believe cloned babies will not come out in large quantities, for most couples in the world can have babies in very normal way. Of course, the governments must take care to control gene technology.