Artificial intelligence (AI, 人工智能) can help us make phone calls. It can guide us to where we want to go. It can play games. And now, AI can do even more things.

    Researchers from Microsoft have created the first machine translation system that can translate news articles from Chinese to English, Business Standard reported.

    According to Microsoft's official website, researchers tested the system by asking it to translate hundreds of sentences taken from news stories. Then, language experts compared the results to two translations that were done by humans. The experts concluded that the system's translations were as good as the human translations.

    Machine translation is always challenging. This is partly because different words can be used to express the same meaning. It can be hard to say which word is more “correct”.

    Experts used several methods to improve the system's translation abilities. “Much of our research is really inspired (得到启发) by how we humans do things,” lead researcher Liu Tieyan said.

    One method is called dual learning. In this method, the system translates every sentence from Chinese to English, as well as translates the sentences back from English into Chinese. This way, the system can improve itself and learn from its own mistakes. This is similar to what humans do to make sure their translations are accurate (准确的).

    Another method makes use of deliberation networks . The researchers taught the system to repeat the process of translating the same sentence over and over. Gradually, the system can improve the quality of its translations. This is similar to how people revise their own writing by going through it again and again.

    All living things on the earth need other living things to live. Nothing lives alone. Most animals must live in a group, and even a plant grows close together with others of the same kind. Sometimes one living thing kills another, one eats and the other is eaten. Each kind of life eats another kind of life in order to live, and together they form a food chain (食物链). Some food chains are simple, while others are not. But all food chains begin with the sun, and all food chains become broken up if one of the links (联系) disappears.

    All life needs sunlight to live on. But only plants can use sunlight directly (直接). Plants are “factories”. They make food from sunlight, water and things in the soil (土壤) and air.

    Plants feed all other living things. Animals can only use the sun's energy (能量) after it has been changed into food by plants. Some animals feed directly on plants, others eat smaller animals. Meat-eating animals are only eating plants indirectly.

    What about human beings? We are members of many food chains. We eat wheat (小麦), rice, vegetables, fruits and so on. We also eat meat and drink milk. But humans often break up the food chains. They kill wild animals. They also make rivers, lakes and seas dirty. When these rivers, lakes and seas are polluted, the fish in them cannot be eaten. If men eat the fish, they will get strange diseases (疾病).

    Each form of life is linked to all others. Breaking the links puts all life in danger.

    Do you know kind words and light music can help plants grow better? Many people talk and play music to their plants. And many people try very hard to protect their plants from loud noise, strong light and bad smell. That's not all. Some people are very careful about what they say or do in front of plants. They don't talk about unhappy things and won't beat a fly near their plants.

    Do plants have feelings? Many pupils think so. Even a few scientists think that plants have feelings. But most scientists don't agree. They don't think that plants call be happy, worried, angry, loving or afraid. They don't believe that a plant's feeling can be hurt.

    Professor Cleve Backster in America did an experiment and said that plants have feelings like human beings. He published an article in a magazine in 1968. People began to pay more attention to this topic since then.

Dear friends,

    I am writing this letter to draw your attention to the disasters（灾难）these days. Too much rain destroyed the crops and washed the earth away. Sometimes it was too little and made plants dead. Also there was too much dust in the air. All these did great damage to our life.

    However, we made them! So it is time for us to try our best to save the Earth.

    The most important thing is to plant trees as many as possible. At the same time, we should stop cutting down trees and protect the forests. And we can save our planet through many other ways, such as saving water and using both sides of paper. Besides, don't keep TVs or computers on when you are not using them. When you leave a room, turn off the lights.

    A small action is very helpful to our planet. Please join us in the action of protecting the Earth. Let's start from the little things right around us.

Bruce

Leader of the Students' Union

    "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." Have you ever said to someone? If so, you may have ended up becoming friends.

    It seems that similarity often helps form a friendship. Aristotle once said, "Some define (给……下定义) it (friendship) as a matter of similarity; they say that we love those who are like ourselves."

    Now, there are some scientific explanations for this idea. The scientists from the University of California said friends have similar brains, Scientific American reported.

    The scientists invited 42 university students to take part in a scientific test. Each student watched the same set of videos. At the same time, the scientists scanned (扫描) their brains and recorded their brain activities.

    According to their study, friends who watched the same videos reacted (反应) in similar ways. Similar parts of their brains lit up while watching the videos, especially the parts that were connected with motivation, learning and memory. However, people who weren't friends had different reactions to the same videos.

    "Having close friends whose brains react like ours may be rewarding because it reinforces (加强) one's own values, opinions and interests," lead scientist Carolyn Parkinson told Business Insider.

    But brain similarity is not the only thing that can result in a friendship. Scientists from the University of Leipzig, Germany, found that a friendship is also based on how physically close you are to someone. They did a scientific test on first-year college students who met in class for the first time. In this test, students who sat next to each other were more likely to become friends.