A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

    “It's extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.

    They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it's connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

    While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers' fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.

    Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

    Living and dealing with kids can be a tough job these days, but living and dealing with parents can be even tougher.

    If I have learned anything in my 16 years, it is that communication is very important, both when you disagree and when you get along. With any relationship, you need to let other person know how you are feeling. If you are not able to communicate, you drift apart. When you are mad at your parents, or anyone else, not talking to them doesn't solve anything.

    Communication begins with the concerns of another. It means that you can't just come home from school, go up to your room and ignore everyone. Even if you just say “Hi”, and see how their day was for five minutes, it is better than nothing.

    If you looked up the word “communication” in a dictionary, it would say “the exchange of ideas, the conveyance （表达）of information, correspondence （通信）, means of communication: a letter or a message”. To maintain (保持) a good relationship, you must keep communication strong. Let people know how you feel, even if it's just by writing a note.

    When dealing with parents, you always have to make them feel good about how they are doing as a parent. If you are trying to make them see something as you see it, tell them that you'll listen to what they have to say, but ask them politely to listen to you. Yelling or walking away only makes the situation worse.

    This is an example: one night, Sophie went to a street party with her friends. She knew she had to be home by midnight after the fireworks, but she didn't feel she could just ask to go home. That would be rude. After all, they had been nice enough to take her along with them. Needless to say, she was late getting home. Her parents were mad at first, not when Sophie explained why she was late, they weren't as mad and let the incident go. Communication is the key factor here. If Sophie's parents had not been willing to listen, Sophie would have been in a lot of trouble.

    Communication isn't a one-way deal: it goes both ways. Just remember: if you get into a situation like Sophie's, telling the other person how you feel-listening is the key factor to communication.

    The technique can lead to new ways to produce medicines, the researchers from the universities of Istanbul and Hawaii hope.

    As part of an effort to improve treatments for life-threatening illnesses, a team of scientists have created rabbits that glow(发光) in the dark.

    Their efforts produced two rabbits out of a litter of eight that went from being a normal, fluffy white to glowing green in the dark. The rabbits were born at the University of Istanbul as part of a collaboration（合作） between scientists from universities in Turkey and Hawaii.

    The rabbits glow to show that a genetic manipulation technique can work efficiently, though the specific color is more cosmetic than scientific. "The green is not important at all – it's just a marker to show the experiment can be done successfully," said University of Hawaii associate professor Stefan Moisyadi.

    To produce the glowing effect, researchers injected jellyfish DNA into a mother rabbit's embryos. Those altered embryos（胚胎）. Those altered embryos were then inserted back into the mother. Similar experiments have resulted in glowing cockroaches and cats.

    Eventually, the researchers hope the technique can lead to new ways to produce medicines, Moisyadi said. “The final goal is to develop animals that act as barrier reactive to produce beneficial molecules in their milk that can be cheaply extracted, especially in countries that can't afford big pharma plants that make drugs, that usually cost $1bn to build, and be able to produce their own protein-based medication in animals," Moisyadi said.

    The rabbits are expected to have the same life span as their non-glowing counterparts（副本）, but Moisyadi said he understands people can object to this kind of experimentation involving live animals.

    "To the people against, I say: think about, what are the benefits and what are the injuries?" Moisyadi said. "And if the benefits outweigh the injuries, let's go with the benefits."

    Moisyadi, a native of Turkey who is now with the University of Hawaii, started developing the project in 2006, and researchers are now waiting to see if pregnant sheep produce similar results.

    My first term at MIT（麻省理工学院）was awesome—I got all A's, and I declared math as my major. My parents were expecting me to become a doctor like them so I was trying to satisfy them. But I was desperately running away from them. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. My third term, I ended up with a D in math. I didn't do that well in my other classes, either. It seemed like all my friends were doing so well, getting opportunities over the summers.

    My fifth term, I realized that I was awful at higher-level math. I had lost all confidence in myself. I went to a few classes at the beginning of the term, but after by midterm, I had totally stopped. My only relief was the dance team I was on. I would sleep all day, and then go to dance practice, and then go back to sleep. As expected, I failed in all of my classes and had to withdraw from MIT.

    I had no choice but to tell my parents. Instead of yelling or hitting me, though, they just held me and cried. The next day, my dad took a day off from work and took me to a nearby, small arts college.

    I had lost all confidence in myself. Before my first biology test, I didn't think I could pass. I did pass. Since I had so much free time, I decided to join a biology lab. I realized that was what I wanted to do! I wanted to be a scientist!

    This past May, I graduated with the highest honors, and now I have my PhD in biology. Though it ended up taking me 5 years to graduate from college, I can say now that dropping out of MIT was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I've realized that a person is not their grades. I've realized how much my parents loved me. I've finally discovered my passion（热情）in life!

    University of New South Wales has launched its new 12-month Women in Maths & Science Champions Program designed to give women the skills and confidence to build their public recognition and set up a connected network of women in maths and science. The first group of 30 female PhD students started in August this year, and the second group of 19 early- career researchers was formally announced yesterday.

    Over the 12 months, the champions complete at least 20 hours of related activities as part of a community of representatives who will influence and inspire women to pursue a career in maths and science. The activities are varied, ranging from visiting schools and conducting science presentations, to attending conferences and creating content for social media. At the end of the program, PhD champions have the chance to apply everything they've learned to the Postgraduate Research Competition. Above all, participating is a requirement for program completion.

    Rose O'Dea, a member of the first group, is a PhD candidate at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences. She said, "I'm excited about the opportunity to work with school children. I hope to inspire some girls so they see not all scientists are older men in lab coals and that science is quite diverse and means different things depending on who you are."

    Dr. Mariana Mayer Pinto is an early-career researcher at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, where she mainly works with marine (海洋的) ecologists. She is originally from Brazil and said that being a woman from a developing country meant she knew the struggles that lack of role models can create. "You can't be what you can't see! I always have the hope that I can change the world bit by bit, and if one little girl says she can become a scientist because I talked to them, that'd be awesome, and that would make everything worth it."

Ida Nelson and her sister were relaxing and enjoying themselves in the sauna (桑拿室) when she heard a series of long low sounds from a small airplane circling the nearby airport.

It was 11:30 at night in the Alaskan village of Igiugig, population 70, and, as she told the reporter, "Any time a plane flies over that late, you know something is wrong."

Nelson and her sister leaped out of the sauna, ran to the window, and saw the problem: The airport's runway lights were out.

Nelson threw on some clothes, jumped into her ATV, and floored it to the airport, where she found a local pilot trying to turn on the lights manually.

"Normally, if you push the button 10 or 15 times, the lights will just light up," Nelson told KTOO out of Juneau. Not this time. Meanwhile, she and the pilot learned of the plane's urgent mission: It was a medevac (医疗救护直升机), there to transport a seriously ill local girl to the nearest hospital, 280 miles away in Anchorage.

Nelson had a plan. Driving her ATV to the end of the runway, she shone her headlights for the plane to follow. Great idea, but it wasn't enough. More light was needed, so a neighbor called nearly every home in the village—32 of them.

Within 20 minutes, 20 vehicles arrived at the airport, many of the drivers still in pajamas (睡衣). Following directions from the medevac pilot, the cars lined up on one side of the runway.

The medevac made its final approach and, guided by the headlights, landed safely. The young patient was loaded onto the aircraft, and the plane immediately took off again. Her illness was never publicly revealed, but she has since been released from the hospital.

In a world filled with uncertainty, the little community's positive activism was a big deal. Not so much for Nelson. As she told the reporter, in Igiugig, coming together "is kind of a normal deal."