Q：My neighbor's back garden is an overgrown jungle for a few months and I believe I've got rats under my shed as a result. I have been troubled by such a bad scene for a long time.Can I make my neighbor manage her back garden?

       A：Firstly, you will need to contact a pest control company to deal with the rat problem, which could be a danger to you and your family. The pest control company will produce a report detailing the issue and give an opinion as to whether your neighbor's overgrown garden has caused the rats to run in all directions.

      If that is the case, then you should get in contact with your neighbor in an attempt to resolve the issue. You should discuss your concerns with all your heart with your neighbor and advise her of the situation and of the findings of the pest control company.

     You do not advise whether the house is rented out or perhaps your neighbor is elderly without the ability to deal with the problem personally. If your neighbor is uncooperative, then I would advise you undertake the following action.

     Get in contact with your local authority or the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government and report your concerns, particularly the pest issue immediately.You could also contact the HSE, more especially if children use the garden and are likely to come in contact with rat droppings etc, which can be dangerous to them. If the above is not successful, you should inform your lawyer and take advice. You should also document your conversations with your neighbor.

     If your house is for sale, ask your agent to prepare a report outlining the effect of the next door garden on value, but also outlining the effect on marketability and the negative impact on viewings.

Notes：

①uncooperative adj.不愿合作的，不愿配合的　②authority n ． 权力，职权，官方，当局　③marketability n ． 可销售性

    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.”

    Mountaineers have noted that as they climb, for example, up to the 12,633­foot Humphreys Peak in Arizona, plant life changes greatly. In the Sonoran Desert, one climbs into a pine forest at 7,000 feet and a treeless tundra(冻土带) on the top of the mountain. It may seem that plants at a given altitude are associated in what can be called “communities” －groupings of species. The idea is that over time, plants that require particular climate and soil conditions come to live in the same places, and are frequently to be found together. Scientists study the history of plant life and build up a picture of how groups of plants have responded to climate changes and how ecosystems develop. But are these associations, which are real in the present, permanent?

    A great natural experiment took place on this planet between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago, when small changes in the earth's orbit caused great sheets of ice to spread from poles. These glaciers(冰川) covered much of North America and Europe to depths of up to two miles, and then, as the climate warmed, they retreated. During this retreat, they left behind newly uncovered land for living things to occupy, and as those living things moved in they laid down a record we can read now. As the ice retreated and plants started to grow near a lake, they release pollen(花粉). Some would fall into the lake, sink to the bottom and mix with the sand. By drilling into the lake bottom it is possible to read the record of the plant life around the lake. The fossil record seems clear; there is little or no evidence that entire groups of plants moved north together. Things that lived together in the past don't live together now, and things that live together now didn't live together in the past. Each individual living things moved at its own pace. The fossil record seems to be telling us that we should be thinking about preserving species by giving them room to move about－to respond to environmental changes.

    Each year there is an increasing number of cars on roads and streets as millions of new cars and trucks are produced. One out of every six Americans works at putting together the parts of cars, driving trucks, building roads or filling cars and trucks with gas. Americans won't live without cars!

    Most Americans would find it hard to think what life would look like without cars. However, some have realized the serious problems of the air pollution that is caused by the car.

    The polluted air becomes poisonous and dangerous to health.

    One way to get rid of the polluted air is to build a car that does not pollute. That's what several of the large car factories have been trying to do. But to build a clean car is easier said than done. Progress in this field has been slow.

    Another way is to take the place of the car engine by something else. Inventors are now working on steam cars as well as electric cars. Many makers believe that it will take years to develop a practical model that pleases man.

    To prevent the world from being polluted by cars, we'll have to make some changes in the way many of us live. Americans, for example, have to cut down on the number of their total cars. They are encouraged to travel and go to work by bicycle. Bicycling is thought to help keep the air clean.

    But this change does not come easily. A large number of workers may find themselves without jobs if a car factory closes down. Thus the problem of air pollution would become less important than that of unemployment.

    Although cars have led us to a better life, they have also brought us new problems.

    While the start of a new school year is always exciting, this year was even more so for some elementary school students in Auckland, New Zealand. They became the world's first kids to be “taught” by a digital teacher, Will. Will is just an avatar(用户头像) that appears on the student's desktop, tablet, or smartphone screen, not a human-like robot walking around the classroom.

    Auckland energy company Vector and AI company Soul Machines worked together to develop Will, which has been modeled after the human brain and nervous system, allowing it to perform human-like behavior. The digital teacher is currently assigned to teach Vector's “Be sustainable with energy,” a free program for Auckland elementary schools.

    Just like the humans it replaced, Will is able to instantly react to the students' responses to the topic. Thanks to a webcam(网络摄像头) and microphone, the avatar not only responds to questions the kids may have, but also picks up non-verbal cues(非口头提示). For instance, if a student smiles at Will, he responds by smiling back. This two-way interaction not only helps capture the students' attention, but also allows the program's developers to monitor their engagement, and make changes if needed.

    Vector's Chief Digital Officer, Nikhil Ravishankar says, “What was fascinating to me was the reaction of the children to Will. The way they look at the world is so creative and different, and Will really captured their attention.”

    Will, in place since August 2018, has been a great success thus far. However, regardless of how popular it becomes, Will is unlikely to replace human educators any time soon. For one, the avatar's knowledge base is severely restricted. But more importantly, even the smartest digital avatars could never predict and react to all the unexpected situations that educators have to deal with on a daily basis. However, it could come in handy as a “personal tutor”, providing kids with one-on-one help on specific subjects or even topics.

    Think plants are just boring green things that you use for food and decoration? Think again! Plants are able to do some pretty awesome things that you're probably totally unaware of.

    Researchers have discovered that plants have the ability to communicate with an underground network made up of fungus (真菌) , which serves the plants in many ways. Tomato plants use the fungus web to warn each other of their own unhealthy conditions. Trees connected through the fungus network could move nutrients (养分) to and from each other. It is believed that larger trees move nutrients to smaller ones to help them to survive.

    Not only that, but they can also damage unwelcome plants by spreading poisonous chemicals through the fungus. It sounds like the plant world had the Internet before we did.

    Some plants have a rather impressive line of defense against being eaten. When sensing they are being swallowed, they give off a chemical into the air that attracts the insect's natural enemy. The enemy attacks the bug, thus saving the plants. This is basically the plant kingdom version of getting your older brother to beat up that kid who steals your lunch money.

    You might be aware that humans and animals have an internal clock. But did you know that plants also have this clock? This means they can prepare for certain times of day just like we do. Is it because they can react to light at sunrise? In a study, scientists found that plants use the sugars they produce to keep time, which help to regulate the genes responsible for the plant's own internal clock. So, in a sense, wake up with petunias (矮牵牛) is just as valid as ―wake up with the chickens.

    Nature is full of surprises. So for those of you who didn't know the wonders of plants, now you do.