“I see you've got a bit of water on your coat,” said the man at the petrol station. “Is it raining out there?”“No, it's pretty nice,” I replied, checking my sleeve. “Oh, right. A pony(马驹) bit me earlier.”

As it happened, the bite was virtually painless: more the kind of small bite you might get from a naughty child. The pony responsible was queuing up for some ice cream in the car park near Haytor, and perhaps thought I'd jumped in ahead of him.

    The reason why the ponies here are naughty is that Haytor is a tourist-heavy area and tourists are constantly feeding the ponies foods, despite sighs asking them not to. By feeding the ponies, tourists increase the risk of them getting hit by a car, and make them harder to gather during the area's annual pony drift(迁移).

    The purpose of a pony drift is to gather them up so their health can be checked, the baby ones can be stooped from feeding on their mother's milk, and those who've gone beyond their limited area can be returned to their correct area. Some of them are also later sold, in order to limit the number of ponies according to the rules set by Natural England.

    Three weeks ago, I witnessed a small near-disaster a few mils west of here. While walking, I noticed a pony roll over on his back. “Hello!” I said to him, assuming he was just rolling for fun, but he was very still and, as I got closer, I saw him kicking his legs in the air and breathing heavily. I began to properly worry about him. Fortunately, I managed to get in touch with a Dartmoor's Livestock Protection officer and send her a photo. The officer immediately sent a local farmer out to check on the pony. The pony had actually been trapped between two rocks. The farmer freed him, and he began to run happily around again.

    Dartmoor has 1,000 or so ponies, who play a critical role in creating the diversity of species in this area. Many people are working hard to preserve these ponies, and trying to come up with plans to find a sustainable(可持续的) future for one of Dartmoor's most financially-troubled elements.

    The Amazing Penguin Rescue

    The summer of 2016, the ship MV Treasure sunk, creating an oil spill. Thirteen hundred tons of fuel oil were flowing right in the middle of the African Penguins' habitat. Soon the oil covered about 20,000 penguins. Without swift help, the seabirds would have no chance for survival. Volunteers were showing up by the thousands and I also took part in what was the largest animal rescue operation ever.

    A warehouse was turned into a rescue center near the habitat and hundreds of pools were built to hold about 100 oiled birds each. When walking into the center, I couldn't believe my ears. I had expected to walk into a chorus of honking and squawking(叫声). Instead, the center sounded like a library. The penguins were dead silent. My heart ached for the painful birds. Cleaning them all seemed like an impossible task. But we had to carry on like doctors in an emergency room. There was no time for doubt. Cleaning oil off a penguin wasn't easy. Even with more than 12,500 volunteers, it took a month to bathe all 20,000 birds at the center.

    While volunteers were busy bathing the oiled penguins, another crisis (危机) was developing. Oil from the spill had started moving north. Tens of thousands of penguins were in the oil's path. But we already had our hands full with 20,000 recovering birds. If any more birds were oiled, we wouldn't have enough resources to save them.

    One researcher came up with an idea: What if the penguins were temporarily moved out of harm's way? Experts decided to have a try. Volunteers rounded up the penguins and released them 500 miles away. The hope was that by the time the seabirds swam home, the oil would be gone. The plan worked! Another 20,000 penguins were saved.

    The entire penguin rescue took about three months. More than 90% of the oiled penguins were successfully returned to the wild. Looking back on the rescue, I am still amazed by the work of the volunteers. What I could hardly believe was that we accomplished an impossible task.

    A new keyboard can tell whether you are its owner. The keyboard records information about the typing pattern and sends it to a computer program. The program then checks to see if the pattern matches the right user. If not, an alarm sounds, and the computer locks the typist out. It locks out anyone else, even if the person knows password. What's more, this device needs no batteries. It harvests all the energy it needs from the action of your typing. Besides, the keyboard is also self-cleaning and the keys are free of damage from water, oil and dirt.

    The keys of the new keyboard are made of the same inexpensive plastic that might be found on any other standard keyboard. But instead of being smooth, the keys have millions of tiny plastic nanowires (纳米线) on their surface area to every key, increasing the effective contact area between the plastics and fingers. This ensures that there's enough power to run the keyboard as someone types.

    Liming Dai, a scientist, did not work on the new keyboard, but he thinks the design could be important in getting better performance from a variety of devices. “It could also be applied to a touch screen, for instance,” Dai says. “Then smart phones and notepads could harvest energy from the action of someone typing or drawing.”

    “Future work might make the keyboard even more useful,” Dai adds. “A later design might build tiny capacitors(电容器) onto the nanowires,” he suggests. Capacitors are little devices that temporarily store electric charges. Those might then LEDs to light a Keyboard in the dark.

    Zhonglin Wang is a co-designer of the new keyboard. His team has build a working model of the keyboard. “If a company decides to fund(投资) its production, this keyboard could be in stores in as little as two years,” says Wang.

    One afternoon I toured an art museum while waiting for my husband to finish a business meeting. I was looking forward to a quiet view of the art works.

    A young couple viewing the paintings ahead of me chatted nonstop between themselves. I watched them a moment and decided the wife was doing all the talking. I admired his patience for putting up with her continuous talk. Distracted by their noise, I moved on.

    I met with them several times as I moved through the different rooms of art. Each time I heard her constant burst of words, I moved away quickly.

    I was standing at the counter of the museum gift shop making a purchase when the couple came near to the exit. Before they left, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white object. He extended it into a long stick and then tapped his way into the coatroom to get his wife's jacket.

    “He's a brave man.,” the clerk at the counter said, “Most of us would give up if we were blinded at such a young age. During his recovery, he made a promise that his life wouldn't change. So, as before, he and his wife come in whenever there's a new art show."

    “But what does he get out of the art?” I asked. “He can't see.”

    “Can't see? You're wrong. He sees a lot. More than you or I do,” the clerk said. “His wife describes each painting so he can see it in his head.”

    I learned something about patience, courage and love that day. I saw the patience of a young wife describing paintings to a person without sight and the courage of a husband who would not allow blindness to change his life. And I saw the love shared by two people as I watched this couple walk away.

    The New York Vegas Hotel has some of the most beautiful and luxurious (豪华的) rooms. Here are four kinds of them.

    Park Avenue

    This kind of room has about 350 square feet of space. It comes with either a king-size or queen-size bed. The room has the following: a 40-inch television and a good bathroom. The Park Avenue room costs about $65 to $85 per night during weekdays and has a weekend rate of $100 to $110 per night.

    Marquis

    This Marquis room is up-grade. It provides guests with 700 square feet of space. This up-grade room has a good bathroom, two separate dining areas, and Internet access. There is also a small refrigerator in the room. Guests can stay in this kind of room for about $125 per night.

    Players

    The Players room comes with two queen-size beds. This room is almost 800 square feet and has a sitting area. The Player room has the following: two 40-inch televisions, a good bathroom, dining and entertainment areas and Internet access. One can stay in the Players room for $155 per night.

    Penthouses

    This kind of room has about 1,100 square feet of space with a DVD and CD player, coffee pots, and a separate master bedroom. Penthouses rooms have more up-grade amenities (设施). Guests can stay in this room comfortably for $415 per night, and it has a different price in the busy season.

    Las Vegas travelers have their choice of one of these hotel rooms. It doesn't matter which room one chooses because all of them are wonderful!

    Who cares if people think wrongly that the Internet has had more important influences than the washing machine? Why does it matter that people are more impressed by the most recent changes?

    It would not matter if these misjudgments were just a matter of people's opinions. However, they have real impacts, as they result in misguided use of scarce resources.

    The fascination with the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) revolution, represented by the Internet, has made some rich countries wrongly conclude that making things is so "yesterday" that they should try to live on ideas. This belief in "post-industrial society" has led those countries to neglect their manufacturing sector (制造业) with negative consequences for their economies.

    Even more worryingly, the fascination with the Internet by people in rich countries has moved the international community to worry about the "digital divide" between the rich countries and the poor countries. This has led companies and individuals to donate money to developing countries to buy computer equipment and Internet facilities. The question, however, is whether this is what the developing countries need the most. Perhaps giving money for those less fashionable things such as digging wells, extending electricity networks and making more affordable washing machines would have improved people's lives more than giving every child a laptop computer or setting up Internet centres in rural villages, I am not saying that those things are necessarily more important, but many donators have rushed into fancy programmes without carefully assessing the relative long-term costs and benefits of alternative uses of their money.

    In yet another example, a fascination with the new has led people to believe that the recent changes in the technologies of communications and transportation are so revolutionary that now we live in a "borderless world". As a result, in the last twenty years or so, many people have come to believe that whatever change is happening today is the result of great technological progress, going against which will be like trying to turn the clock back. Believing in such a world, many governments have put an end to some of the very necessary regulations on cross-border flows of capital, labour and goods, with poor results.

    Understanding technological trends is very important for correctly designing economic policies, both at the national and the international levels, and for making the right career choices at the individual level. However, our fascination with the latest, and our under valuation of what has already become common, can, and has, led us in all sorts of wrong directions.