Several Asian hospitals are doing experiments with tele-medicine. Tele-medicine is a technology that allows doctors to "see" patients without them being in the same place. This is made possible through high-speed communication networks(网络). At both ends of the line, the way of video-meeting lets them see and talk to each other. Blood pressure (血压) and body temperature are directly shown on computers.

    Tele-medicine is already in wide use in some places such as the United States and Germany. Among other uses, village doctors hold "consultations (会诊)"with far-away experts(专家). The experts can also help them during operations.

    Tele-medicine has been slow to reach Asia because of high costs besides other reasons. When things improve, this technology will develop very fast. Chinese University of Hong Kong's medical school has joined a big hospital in Beijing, and Thailand is building a tele-medicine station connecting 20 areas.

    Tele-medicine will do good to patients because doctors from different places can see them and give their medical advice. The help is quite important if the disease is an unusual one. It also helps spread medical knowledge among experts.

    As tele-medicine develops well, its costs will be lower and it will become very popular in the medical field.

    Lockheed Martin, American space system company (空间系统公司) has found a really cool way to inspire the young minds of today to the research fields in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

    It may look like a normal yellow bus, but all the magic happens once you get inside. Meet the “Mars (火星) Experience Bus,” part of Lockheed Martin's new “Generation Beyond” national education program to get the kids joining in studying what goes on outside of our home planet. The bus offers a virtual reality (VR, 虚拟现实) experience making the teenagers feel like they are driving on Mars.

    The VR experience was developed by taking advantage of software (软件) created for today's best video games, so you can imagine the picture shown is top level. The kids do seem really excited to see the bus take a virtual trip on the red planet and search unknown places. It's certainly a great way of learning about the universe by virtual reality working on a common bus.

    The Lockheed Martin's bus will start a tour in the United States to allow kids from different parts of the country to take a ride in it. The Generation Beyond project also includes an iPhone app for iOS providing real-time information about weather reports for Mars, and there's also a free deep space course for middle school teachers and students.

    People have always wanted to know what our future will look like. Go on reading this text, and you will know what will happen in the next fifty years.

    How can we know what the future will look like? To be able to understand the future, you have to know the past, what has taken us to where we are today and what has changed along the way? The world has changed a lot in the last 150 years, but people are driven by the same basic needs as they were 150 years ago. Will this change in the next 150 years? No.

    What inventions have really made a different in the last 150 years? In the past years, the inventions that have changed most people's everyday life are telephone, radio, television, computer, the car and the internet. Then we of course have a lot of inventions that have made life easier, like new medicine, faster cars, trains, etc. In general, people have been working hard in the last 150 years to make inventions that will make the world a better place. Since there is still much to do in the area, this will be important for at least the next 150 years.

    Why do we need to guess the future? Guessing the future is important for two reasons: First, we need to start to think about what kind of future we would like for ourselves and our children. And then we need to know what decisions we need to make today that will give us the best future.

    The biggest secret about inventing is that anybody can do it! Perhaps this sounds crazy, but it's true. Maybe you have the wrong idea about inventing, so read on to discover the truth.

    Wrong idea No. 1: An invention has to be something completely new.

    Inventing means creating something "new", but the idea could come from something that already exists(存在). The Wright brothers, for example, got the idea for building a "flying machine" from watching birds.

    Wrong idea No. 2: Inventors are born, not made.

    There are a lot of factors(因素) that make invention possible. Take Mazart, for example. He was born with a talent for musical composition. But other factors were also important for his creativity. His father was a music teacher, and Mozart practiced for hours every day, from the time he was four years old. Thomas Edison said that being an inventor was "99% hard work and 1% inspiration"!

    Very successful creators don't give up when they get something wrong. As one inventor said, "A failure is the right answer to the wrong question."

    Wrong idea No. 3: Inventors are always old people.

    Don't believe that you can't invent something when you are young. Here are two examples of young inventors: Louis Braille went blind when he was a child. When he was fifteen, he invented a system of reading and writing for blind people that is still used in most countries today.

    As a young man, George Nissen was watching some artists performing in a show. He watched how they fell into the safety net and then jumped back up again. This gave him an idea, and he invented the trampoline(蹦床).

    When your pen is broken, the battery in your toy runs out, or you have some leftover food, what do you do with these things? You will probably throw them all into one trashbin. But actually, all of these pieces of trash need to be sorted (分类) separately.

    Garbage sorting is a big problem worldwide. In recent years, some Chinese cities have been working hard on it.

    Shanghai has worked with Alipay to create a "green account (账户)" service for its residents (居民). Account holders get points by correctly sorting their garbage. Through the Alipay app, they can exchange the points for milk, phone cards and other products. The city is asking all of its residents to sort their garbage into four groups: wet, recyclable (可回收的), harmful and dry.

    Wet waste is also known as household waste. "They are things you don't want but that pigs can eat," Guangzhou Daily explained.

    Paper, metal (金属), glass and other things that can be reused are recyclable waste.

    Harmful waste includes things like medicine, batteries and fluorescent bulbs (荧光灯泡).

    Finally, any waste that's not wet, recyclable or harmful will go in the "dry waste" bin.

    Many other Chinese cities are also using this method to sort their garbage. For example, Shenzhen has been sorting its garbage into the same four groups since 2012. Students there also receive waste-sorting guidebooks that they must study.

    China is improving its waste-sorting efforts. There is still a long way to go. But it's never too late to learn how to sort your trash properly and protect the environment.

    If you don't sort your garbage, all of it will go to a landfill (垃圾填埋场) and be buried together. These landfills can take up large areas of ground that could have been used for planting trees. The electronic waste you throw away, such as batteries, can pollute the soil and water. Other pieces of garbage, like the metal part of a pen, can be used to make other things if they are properly recycled.