As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remember less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.

       In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood thatthe computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

       In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location (位置) better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called "transactive memory (交互记忆)".

       According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn't mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.

Senses That Work Together

    When we think about how our senses work, we usually imagine them operating separately: you sniff a flower, and the smell is delivered uninterrupted from nose to brain. However, it's more complex than that. Most evidence for cross-modal perception (知觉) comes from studies into sound and vision (视觉). But research that shows other senses crossing over is coming out all the time, and it seems that even sound and smell sometimes form an unlikely pairing.

    When New York researchers, Daniel Wesson and Donald Wilson, tried to find out the truth about a “mysterious” area of the brain called the olfactory tubercle (嗅结节)，they had to deal with this fact. Originally, they only intended to measure how olfactory tubercle cells in mice responded to smell. But during testing, Wesson noticed that every time he put his coffee cup down with a clunk (哐啷声)，the mouse cells jumped in activity. In fact, the olfactory tubercle is well-placed to receive both smell and sound information from the outside world. Later they found that among separate cells, most responded to a smell but a significant number were also active when a sound was made. Some cells even behaved differently when smell and sound were presented together, by increasing or decreasing their activity.

    Of course, mice aren't people, so research team has been carrying out further experiments. They pulled together a group of people and gave them various drinks to smell. Participants were asked to sniff the drinks, and then match them to appropriate musical instruments and produce the notes at different levels. The results were interesting: piano was regularly paired with fruity fragrances; strong smells sounded like the instruments that are made of metal.

    Further research found that listening to different sounds can change your perceptions. Studying taste this time, the team ordered some special toffee (太妃糖)and put together “soundscapes” corresponding to bitterness and sweetness. Participants tasted similar pieces of toffee while listening to each soundscape, and found the toffee more bitter or sweeter, depending on which soundtrack they were listening to.

    Studies like this are helping scientists correctly describe our understanding of the senses, and how the brain combines them with its advantage. The consequences are worth considering. Could we see musicians work together with chefs to produce sound-improved food and drink? Will you be ordering a coffee with a soundtrack to bring out your favorite smell? Come to think of it, that could be one thing you hope coffee shop chains don't get round to.

    Want to see 16 sunrises in one day? Float in zero gravity? Be one of the few to have gazed upon our home planet from space? In just four years' time, and for an astronomical $9.5 million dollars, it's claimed you can.

    What's being billed as the world's first luxury space hotel, Aurora Station, was announced Thursday at the Space 2.0 Summit in San Jose, California. Developed by US-based space technology start-up Orion Span, the fully modular space station will host six people at a time, including two crew members, for 12-day trips of space travel. It plans to welcome its first guests in 2022.

    “Our goal is to make space accessible to all,” Frank Bunger, CEO and founder of Orion Span, said in a statement. “Upon launch, Aurora Station goes into service immediately, bringing travelers into space quickly and at a lower price point than ever seen before.” While a $10 million trip is outside the budget of most people's two-week vacations, Orion Span claims to offer a real astronaut experience.

    During their 12-day adventure, the super-rich travelers will fly at a height of 200 miles above the Earth's surface in Low Earth Orbit, or LEP, where they will see incredible views of the blue planet. The hotel will orbit Earth every 90 minutes, which means guests will see around 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours.

    Activities on board include taking part in research experiments such as growing food while in orbit--which guests can take home for a super-smug souvenir—and soaring over their hometown. Guests can have live video chats with their less-fortunate loved ones back home via high-speed wireless Internet access and, upon return to Earth, will be greeted with a specially arranged hero's welcome. While enjoying the thrills of zero gravity, the travelers will be able to float freely through the hotel, taking in views of the northern and southern Aurora from the station's windows.

    DepositsHYPERLINK “https://www.orionspan.com/aurora-station-reservations”（订金）are already being a HYPERLINK“http://www.orisonspan.com/aurora-station-reservations”cHYPERLINK“http://www.orionspan.com/aurora-station-reservations” cepted for future stays on the space hotel. The $80,000 is fully returnable, should applicants find themselves unable to rise to the full $9.5 million. Travelers will complete a three-month Orion Span Astronaut Certification (OSAC) program before takeoff. Orion Span has a team of space industry veterans who together have more than 140 years of human space experience.

    There are billions of people on this planet, and many of us love to eat meat. Can the demand be filled in a sustainable(可持续的) and affordable way? A bunch of businessmen are not only optimistic but are working to make this happen sooner than you may think.

    The environmental effects caused by meat consumption (食用)—waste, animal treatment, health problems and even the greenhouse gas effects that are potentially caused by methane gas produced by cows—have given rise to a number of startups(新兴公司)looking to develop meats in different ways.

    For example, San Francisco-based Memphis Meats is developing cell-based meats in its labs without requiring any animals. Israel's Future Meat Technologies is doing the same by producing fat and muscle cells that are being tested by chefs in Jerusalem. All of these companies use special processes to harvest cells from animals and grow them in a lab.

    But don't worry if you're not a meat lover. Startups such as Jet Eat, which is also based in Israel, are working on food products grown in labs that are plant-based and replicate (复制) meats using natural elements while still keeping flavor, consistency and the "overall sensory experience", according to a report on NoCamels. Jet Eat, which was founded in early 2018, aims to 3D-print their lab-grown products by 2020.

    As you can imagine, there are plenty of barriers facing the industry. Educating the public is a big one. Another controversial issue is the labeling of the products. Recently both the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that they will begin jointly controlling the new "cell-based meat" category.

    Many of us have concerns about the challenges facing future generations as our global population increases and the earth's natural resources decreases. The good news is that there are plenty of businessmen around the world—like those producing lab-grown meats—who are working to solve some of these problems and make a little money in the process. Nothing wrong with that.

    The school year has barely started in Denver, and French teacher Tiffany Choi is already worried that her students are suffering from absent-mindedness. The problem isn't texting, playing video games or passing notes. It's Denver's ongoing heat wave.

    "Today was a little bit hot, so I noticed kids were very sleepy and they were having to get up to drink water quite often." said Choi, who works at Denver's East High School. "If you lose too much water, and you have to keep going to the water fountain, that can take away from their classroom experience." While nodding off in class on a warm day may seem like a right of passage for the average teen, Choi's observation carries a bigger consequence than parched (干燥的) lips.

    "There's been quite a few media reports about teachers noticing that students weren't able to focus on hotter days," said R Jisung Park, a researcher, "Does a hotter climate during the school year actually affect the rate of learning?" The drops in academic achievement couldn't be explained by hotter weekends or hotter summers, but the trend was connected to higher temperatures on school days alone.

    The connection between lost learning and a greater number of hot days is one more example of how climate change is already affecting our lives-and it's an alarm bell for what we stand to lose in the future. Humans still have time to lessen the worst consequences of continued global warming. But unless significant changes occur in the next decade-which seem more and more unlikely—the world will be locked into an inescapable period of heat waves unlike our species has ever seen.

A farmer grew some vegetables in his garden. One day his wife was ill and he had no money. He had to sell some cabbages and carrots in the market. The next morning he took two baskets of vegetables to town. But it was raining hard that afternoon and there were few people in the street. When his vegetables were sold out, it was dark. He bought some medicine and hurried to his village. 

On his way home he saw a person lying on the snow. He placed his baskets on the ground and was going to help the person to get up. At that time he found it was a dead man and there was much blood on his body. He was so afraid that he ran away quickly, without taking the baskets with him. 

The next afternoon the farmer was sent to the police station. Having shown the baskets, an officer asked: "Are these yours?" "Yes, sir." the farmer answered timidly (胆怯)."Have you killed the man?" "No, no, sir." the farmer said in a hurry. "When did you see the dead man?" "About seven last evening." "Did you see who killed the man?" "No, Sir." The officer brought out a knife and asked, "Have you seen it yet?" "No, Sir." The officer became angry and told the policemen to beat him up and send him into prison. 

That evening the officer went on trying. Pointing to the knife, he asked again, "Have you seen it yet?" "Yes, Sir." The officer was happy and asked, "When and where?" "I saw it here this afternoon, sir."