From self-driving cars to carebots (care+robots) for elderly people, rapid development in technology has long represented a possible threat to many jobs normally performed by people. But experts now believe that almost 50 percent of occupations existing today will be completely unnecessary by 2025 as artificial intelligence continues to change businesses.

    “The next fifteen years will see a revolution in how we work, and a revolution will necessarily take place in how we plan and think about workplaces,” said Peter Andrew, Director of Workplace Strategy for CBRE Asia Pacific.

    A growing number of jobs in the future will require creative intelligence, social skills and the ability to use artificial intelligence.

    The report is based on interviews with 200 experts, business leaders and young people from Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. It shows that in the US technology already destroys more jobs than it creates.

    But the report states: “Losing occupations does not necessarily mean losing jobs — just changing what people do.” Growth in new jobs could occur as much, according to the research.

    “The growth of 20 to 40 person companies that have the speed and technological know-how will directly challenge big companies,” it states.

    A 2014 report by Pew Research found 52 percent of experts in artificial intelligence and robotics were optimistic about the future and believed there would still be enough jobs in the next few years. The optimists pictured “a future in which robots do not take the place of more jobs than they create,” according to Aaron Smith, the report's co-author.

    “Technology will continue to affect jobs, but more jobs seem likely to be created. Although there have always been unemployed people, when we reached a few billion people there were billions of jobs. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will not change,” Microsoft's Jonathan Grudin told researchers.

    Why Do People Blink Their Eyes?

    People blink(眨眼) their eyes tens of thousands of times every day. Scientists have long believed blinking was an involuntary movement and served mainly to keep the eyeballs wet. But a new study suggests it has a more important purpose.

    An international team of scientists from the University of California at Berkeley studied the blinking of human eyelids. The journal Current Biology published their findings. The team said they found that blinking “repositions our eyeballs so we can stay focused” on what we are seeing. They said that when we blink our eyelids, the eyes roll back into their sockets--the bony area that surrounds and protects the eyes. However, the researchers found the eyes don't always return to the same position. They said this causes the brain to tell the eye muscles to reorganize our eyesight.

    Gerrit Maus is the lead writer of the report. He serves as an assistant professor of psychology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Maus says: “Our eye muscles are quite sluggish(迟缓的) and imprecise, so the brain needs to constantly adapt its motor signals to make sure our eyes are pointing where they're supposed to. Our findings suggested that the brain measures the difference in what we see before and after a blink, and commands the eye muscles to make the needed corrections.” The researchers said that without such corrections our surroundings would appear unclear and even jumpy. They said the movement acts “like a Steadicam(摄影稳定器) of the mind.”

    The researchers said they asked volunteers to sit in a dark room while staring at a small dot on a flat surface. They used special cameras to follow the volunteer's blinks and eye movements. After each blink, the dot was moved one centimeter to the right. The volunteers did not notice this, but the brain did. It followed the movement and directed the eye muscles to refocus on the dot. After the dot was moved in this way 30 times, the volunteers' eyes changed their focus to the place where they predicted it would be.

    Professor Maus says “Even though participants did not consciously register that the dot had moved, their brains did, and adjusted with the corrective eye movement. These findings add to our understanding of how the brain constantly adapts to changes, commanding our eye muscles to correct for errors in our bodies' own hardware.”

    AEA summer camp is an American-style day camp which follows a weekly theme. Themes are changed each week and each year to combine current trends and interests of children.

    Waikiki Sun & Sandbuckets of Fun (Week 1)

    Join Camp Adventure In a Polynesian Paradise! Come and move your toes in the soft white sand and listen to the symphony of a Seashell Band. It's great to be in Waikiki, where there's surf and sand. We'll drive and find various fish all around the island shore. It's Wet! It's Wild! It's Wonderful Waikiki Fun!

    Stars-spangled Spirit Spectacular (Week 2)

    It's a stars-spangled celebration across the nation! Join the old-fashioned ice cream social, play a double-header at the field of dreams, and learn about some heroes and founding fathers of America. Sparks (火花) will fly at your fantastic finale (结尾), as fireworks explode red, white and true blue.

    Amazing Adventures to the Outer Limits (Week 3)

    It's your time to shine as you join our Camp Adventure planetary race through outer space. See wonderful scenes as we take a spin around the solar system. Learn the order of the planets, hunt for moon rocks and chart your own course for a future space mission (任务). Join your favorite Star Wars friends as you journey on your unusual expedition to the outer limits.

    Scientists in Argentina have created the world's first cow with two human genes that will enable it to produce human-like milk.

    Genetic engineering was used to introduce the "mothers' milk" genes into the animal before birth, according to the National Institute of Agribusiness Technology in Buenos Aires.

    As an adult, the cloned cow "will produce milk that is similar to that of humans", which will prove "a development of great importance for the nutrition of infants(婴儿)", said the institute. "The cloned cow, named Rosita ISA, is the first in the world with two human genes that contain the proteins present in human milk," said the statement.

    In April, scientists in China published details of research showing that they had created dairy cows which produced milk containing proteins found in human breast milk. But the Argentine team said the Chinese only introduced one human gene, while their research involved two, meaning the milk will more closely resemble that of humans.

    “Our goal was to raise the nutrition value of cows' milk by adding two human genes, which do good to the immune system of infants,” said Adrian Mutto, from the National University of San Martin which worked with the institute.

    Cristina Kirchner, President of Argentina, said that the scientific institute made all Argentines proud. She also said that she had refused the "honor" of having the cow named after her. "They came to tell me that the name is Cristina, but what woman would like to have a cow named after her? It appeared to me to be more proper to call it Rosita.”

    Steven Stein likes to follow garbage trucks. His strange habit makes sense when you consider that he's an environmental scientist who studies how to reduce garbage, including things that fall off garbage trucks as they drive down the road. What is even more interesting is that one of Stein's jobs is defending an industry behind the plastic shopping bag.

    Americans use more than 100 billion thin plastic bags every year. So many end up in tree branches or along highways that a growing number of cities do not allow them at checkouts (收银台). The bags are not allowed in some 90 cities in California, including Los Angeles. Eyeing these headwinds, plastic-bag makers are hiring (聘请)scientists like Stein to make the case that their products are not as bad for the planet as most people assume.

    Among the bag makers' arguments: many cities with bans（禁令）still allow shoppers to purchase paper bags, which are easily recycled but require more energy to produce and transport. And while plastic bags may be ugly to look at, they represent a small percentage of all garbage on the ground today.

    The industry has also taken aim at the product that has appeared as its replacement: reusable shopping bags. The stronger a reusable bag is, the longer its life and the more plastic-bag use it cancels out. However, longer-lasting reusable bags often require more energy to make. One study found that a cotton bag must be used at least 131 times to be better for the planet than plastic.

    Environmentalists don't doubt these points. They hope paper bags will be banned someday too and want shoppers to use the same reusable bags for years.

    Attitudes toward new technologies often fall along generational lines. That is, generally, younger people tend to outnumber older people in face of a technological shift.

    It is not always the case, though. When you look at attitudes toward driverless cars, there doesn't seem to be a clear generational divide. The public overall disagree on whether they'd like to use a driverless car. In a study last year, of all people surveyed, 48 percent said they wanted to ride in one, while 50 percent did not.

    The fact that attitudes toward self-driving cars appear to be so steady across generations suggests how transformative the shift to driverless cars could be. Not everyone wants a driverless car now——and no one can get one yet ——but among those who are open to them, every age group is similarly engaged.

    When it comes to driverless cars, differences in attitude are obvious based on factors not related to age. College graduates, for example, are particularly interested in driverless cars compared with those who have less education: 59 percent of college graduates said they would like to use a driverless car compared with 38 percent of those with a high-school diploma or less.

    Where a person lives matters, too. More people who lived in cities and suburbs said they wanted to try driverless car than those who lived in rural areas.

    While there's reason to believe that interest in self-driving cars is going up, a person's age will have little to do with how self-driving cars can become mainstream. Once driverless cars are actually available for sale, the early adopters will be the people who can afford to buy them.