Grace, usually known as the Home of Microsoft, is inside an office building in Redmond, Washington. Once you come into the building, you will feel that you're in a modern and future home.

      When you enter the building, Grace's voice, coming from a hidden speaker, tells you your messages. In the kitchen, you set a bag of flour(面粉) on a flat stone table. Grace sees what you're doing and makes a menu of flour-based foods on the table. Once you choose one, Grace gives you ingredients(配料).

There's also a notice board in the kitchen made of “intelligent(智能的) cloth” that works like a touch screen computer. You can deal with postcards and invitations and surf the net with the touch of a finger. The invitations could be encoded(编码). You can deal with them on the computer. It's part of Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology, whose aim is to make every object more efficient(有效率的).

      “The day when your house becomes a member of your family is not far,” says Pam Heath, a manager of Microsoft. At the Andersen Windows Company, Jay Libby imagines that windows made of intelligent glass can be changed into TVs.

      “Nobody wants a television set,” says Libby. “What you want is the service it provides.” If the TV isn't improved, it will disappear in the future.

Home entertainment is one consideration for the future. At the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, scientists are designing systems that will allow old people to live better on their own. So Grandma's home can be cleverly designed to recognize(识别) her ways of waking, sleeping and movement. Family members will be told any change by their computers.

    According to a new scientific research, we are rapidly going close to major climate change and the effects on the environment could be quite serious. Geographers predict that climate zones could completely disappear within the next eighty years. Where will crops be grown if this happens? When the climate changes a lot, polar regions will get colder and tropical regions will get even hotter. As a result, where will animals be forced to move on the earth?

    Climate changes like these could lead to the spread of diseases. Tropical storms and hurricanes(飓风) will not only increase but may also become stronger. If the changes come too quickly, animals and plants may not be able to adapt(适应) right away and could disappear from the earth.

    According to Science Daily, a new study predicts that, by the year 2100, many of today's familiar climates will be taken place by climate unknown in today's world. It is urgent that we reduce the risks of far-reaching results for the whole world. The planet itself has been showing signs of change. In 2004, a huge tsunami created by a major earthquake killed thousands in Sumatra and in 2008, thousands more died in China in another big earthquake. Egypt was hit in 2009 with a major earthquake and Haiti was destroyed seriously and became ruins in 2010 by another big earthquake.

    Not long ago, scientists discovered ice melting(融化) in west Antarctica(南极洲). This is very worrying because temperatures in this area have remained rather constant(不断的) and actually even lower at time. Melting occurs when temperatures increase and since temperatures have remained, the ice should not be melting. However, satellite data(数据) shows melting around west Antarctica.

    Within just the last few months, new reports from around the world have been coming in and most agree that our climate situation is much worse than previously expected. At this point, it doesn't matter what is causing it, but rather, what can be done about it. On the other hand, our world is getting more and more unstable(不稳定) every year. Natural disasters(灾难) are becoming more frequent(频繁的) and serious.

    However, other planets are experiencing global warming as well as our own and some scientists believe there may be some connections between these. No one knows anything for sure at this point because there is simply not enough data.

    Apple has created a new robot named Daisy that can break a dead iPhone into pieces and find out valuable materials such as silver and tungsten (钨) in order to protect the environment.

    The robot can break up a dead phone in just 18 seconds and is a new type for Liam, another recycling robot Apple announced in 2016. Liam had 29 arms and could break iPhone into pieces within just 11 seconds.

    Daisy is able to break up 9 kinds of the iPhone, grouping them into usable parts. And it can find out valuable materials that traditional robots can't do.

    Without being stopped. Daisy is likely to do with over 1 million phones per year, a small part of the more than 2017 million phones Apple sold in 2017. The machine is programmed to carefully break up the many pieces of returned iPhones, including SIM card plates, batteries and cameras.

    It does this by taking away different parts of the iPhone bit by bit so they are all easier to recycle, separating out the valuable silver, tungsten and other parts. Computers made by other companies seem to be easier to break up. However. Apple does not make it public how many of its dead phones are recycled every year.

    Many scientists find that colors can change people's feelings. It's very interesting. Some colors can make people feel relaxed, and some colors can make people feel nervous. Now, this kind of knowledge is being used in many places. For example, school walls are always painted green because green makes students feel relaxed. It is also good for the students' eyes. Some books are also green or light blue for the same reason. Restaurant owners not only have to know how to make food, but also have to know how to make money. Here are some things they've learned from scientific studies. The color red makes people hungry. Many fast food restaurants have red furniture or walls. Soft colors like pink and light blue make people feel relaxed, so they spend more time eating. Loud music may be nice at first, but it soon makes people want to leave. Hard seats also make customers want to eat quickly and leave. Many restaurants, especially fast food restaurants, use this knowledge to make customers eat faster.

    Cycads(苏铁)grow in warm places. They are tall and green all year round. Their leaves grow on the top and flowers seldom come out. Some have bright orange fruits. They usually need hundreds of years to grow into adult plants.

    Cycads are facing problems now. In South Africa, the situation of cycads is getting terrible, but this has drawn little attention from the public. "In fact, there are 38 kinds of cycads in South Africa. Among them, 2 kinds have disappeared since 2003 and 25 kinds are in great danger," said a gardener. "Do you know what the loneliest plant is in the world? It is Wood's Cyead. Someone found it in a forest in 1895. It is the only one of its kind."

    So what causes cycads to be in danger? Surprisingly, the danger is from the people who love them most. These slow-growing adult cycads even sell for tens of thousands of dollars each. As time goes by, they have become a symbol(象征)of wealth and position(地位)in society. This makes cyead lovers want to own more. Cyead lovers buy and plant them in their private gardens. As a result, nearly all these cyeads die because the living conditions have changed.

    Recently, South African government has taken some actions to protect cycads from being stolen traded. At the same time, people around the world should also work together to protect the plants.

    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).