On a Saturday morning earlier this September, the world got its first look at the Strati. This electric vehicle is unlike any other currently on the road. It rolls on four wheels, but its body and chassis(底盘) weren't built in a factory. Instead, Strati's designers used a technology called 3-D printing. It created those parts of the car in one piece, from the ground up.

    “Compared to a typical vehicle on the road, the Strati definitely looks different,” says Greg Schroeder, a senior research engineer at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. He did not work on the new car. His organization studies trends and changes in th e auto industry.

    It took 44 hours to print the new car at the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago. Over the next few days, the car's designers installed additional parts. These included the car's engine, brakes and tires. Then, early on September 13, Jay Rogers climbed into the car, started its engine and drove the vehicle onto the street. Rogers helped found Local Motors. It's the Arizona-based company behind the Strati. Two weeks later, his team printed a second Strati, and just as fast, at a fair in New York City.

    Justin Fishkin, a local Motors official, sees the Strati as a window into the future. Today, car buyers are limited in their choice of a vehicle. They can order only what car companies have already designed. But in the future, he says, you may be able to design your own car online and then get it printed to order.

    Manufacturing experts say 3-D printing has begun to revolutionize how they make things. The technology has been around for decades. But these machines used to be so expensive that only large companies could afford them. In the last few years, though, that has changed. Many of the machines are now inexpensive enough for small companies—or even individuals —to own. Some local libraries make them available to the public. High Schools are beginning to use them in classrooms. Wide access to these printers means people can now design and print a wide variety of new things.

    The car's printer is a one-of-a-kind device.

    The technology behind the 3-D printer used in Chicago is an example of additive manufacturing. This proce ss builds solid objects, slice by slice, from the bottom up. (“Strati” means layers, in Italian.) A mechanical arm moves a nozzle from one side to another, back and forth. As it moves, the nozzle deposits a liquid—often melted plastic or metal (but it could be food, concrete or even cells) —that quickly hardens or bonds to become solid or semi-solid. This creates a single, thin layer. Once a layer is complete, the printer starts depositing the next one.

     “There's a lot of interest in 3-D printing in the auto industry,” says Schroeder. Right now, the technology is particularly useful for building models of cars or car parts.

    To compete with current auto manufacturers, the 3-D printer would have to increase in a hurry, Schroeder says. By contrast, he notes, a Ford F-150 pickup truck rolls off an assembly line at a rate of roughly one per minute. To print as many Stratis would require many more printers. Schroeder says he doesn't see 3-D printing soon taking over for such high-volume manufacturing. But, he adds, “Who knows what will h appen in the long term?”

    Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee designed the 3-D printer used in Chicago. Lonnie Love, a research scientist at the lab, led the effort.

    Additive manufacturing often is slow and expensive. It also may produce materials that are unreliable, Love says. So for two years, his team searched for ways to make 3-D printing better. They built new machines and tested them over and over.

    All of that work paid off: their new machine is fast and uses less expensive material than earlier printers. In addition, it prints a plastic embedded with fibers of carbon to produce a stronger material. This helps ensure the material won't crack or break under pressure.

    Philo Farnsworth is not a name most people know. But his work changed the way we learn, the way we live, and even the way we think. Philo Farnsworth is responsible for one of the 20^th century: television.

    Philo Farnsworth was born in America in 1906. He was interested in science and technology at an early age. When he was twelve years old, he built an electric motor for his family's washing machine. When he was fourteen, he was already giving a lot of thought to electrons（电子）. As he was driving the family's horse-drawn plowing machine, he noticed the evenly spaced rows of the potato fields. This sight gave him the idea that electrons could scan（扫描） an image one row at a time—an idea that was the key to electronic television.

    By the time he was twenty-one years old, Farnsworth had started his own company and had managed to build the world's first electronic television. It was a very simple device（设备）. But after years of hard work, Farnsworth was able to introduce the kind of television we now use.

    Farnsworth was a great inventor, but lived an unhappy life. He had a legal battle with the company, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) over who the real inventor of the TV was. He won the case, but the government stopped companies from making TVs during the war, so Farnsworth didn't make much money from the invention.

    When Farnsworth was young, he imagined television as a convenient way for distant audiences to enjoy lectures by famous professors, or entertainment by the best symphonies（交响乐） and ballets. When he was older, television became much more popular, but he was very disappointed in the silly programs on TV. He even told his own son, “There's nothing on it worthwhile, and we're not going to watch it in this household.”

    You've flown halfway around the world; you've sniffed out this place that nobody in Falongland or Thailand seems to have ever heard of; so what on earth is there to do here? You consider this question as you sink into an old wooden beach chair that holds you above the sand.

    It was a long journey from Bangkok to Huaplee. By the time you found the bus station and got yourself sorted out, it took almost as long as the flight from Falongland.

    Huaplee is located just south of Hua Hin, about two hundred kilometres from Bangkok, down the west side of the Gulf of Thailand. Not many tourists find this place，and the ones that do wonder if finding it has been their purpose all along.

    There's an apparent laziness that surrounds you here. It's what this place offers, and it，s free of charge. The small waves that tap the shoreline seem to slow everything down. You settle into your beach chair in preparation for a long rest. You sit there and watch the sea.

It's early afternoon, so the cook comes out and asks what you'd like to eat this evening. Before long he's rushed off to the market to buy the ingredients for whatever it was that you ordered—every meal fresh and to order. No menu here.

    There is no poolside noise here but just that wonderfully warm, clear blue sea. There⁹ s no street noise. The only sounds are the murmurs of nature.For now you just count your blessings (福祉)，listing them in the sand with your toe (脚趾)• You don't have to worry about being late for work. You don't have to do anything.

    The beach to your right stretches off to the horizon (地平线)，slowly narrowing to nothingness only to re-emerge again on your left, now steadily widening until it covers the chair beneath you. Sand to your left and sand to your right; it's unbroken, endless. No start, no end, just sand, sun,and peace. Step off it, and you re-enter the world of traffic, stress, work，and hurry.

    Normally you，re the type who can，t sit still for more than ten minutes, but you're on Huaplee Lazy Beach now and, in the right frame of mind, it stretches all the way around theworld.

     “How could it take me so long to find it?” you wonder.

When milk arrived on the doorstep

    When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn't take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

    Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note-“Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery”-and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically appear.

    All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn't freeze. And I remember Mr. Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

    There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.

    Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch （门廊）. Every so often my son's friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.

    Everyone needs friends. We all like to feel close to someone. It is nice to have a friend to talk, laugh and do things with. Surely, there are times when we need to be alone. We don't always want people around. But we would feel lonely if we never had a friend.

    No two people are the same. Sometimes friends don't get along well, which doesn't mean that they no longer like each other. Most of the time they will go on being friends. Sometimes friends move away, then we feel very sad. We miss them much, but we can call them and write to them. Maybe we would never see them again, and we can make new friends. It is surprising to find out how much we like new people when we get to know them. Families sometimes name their children after a close friend. Many places are named after men and women, if they are friendly to people in a town. Some libraries are named this way. So are some schools. We think of these people when we go to these places.

    There is more good news for people, if they have friends. These people live longer than those who don't have friends. Why? It could be that they are happier. Being happy helps them keep Healthy. Or it could be just knowing that someone cares. If someone cares, they take better care of themselves.