An autonomous vehicle designed for making local commerce deliveries was unveiled by Nuro. The vehicle is about the height of an SW but far narrower than a typical car. The electric car features four exterior compartments (暗格) — two on each side — to hold separate deliveries. Each compartment can be tailored to a specific use, such as cooking a pizza or refrigerating a package.

    “We can use self-driving technology to deliver anything, anytime, anywhere for basically all local goods and services,” Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson said. “Consumers used to be okay with two-week paid shipping. It became two-week free delivery, followed by one week, two days, and the same day. Now same-day delivery isn't fast enough for some customers.”

    Nuro isn't alone in building robots for local commerce deliveries. Earlier this month, Toyota, a Japanese car company, unveiled a concept vehicle that could be used for package delivery. A handful of startups — including Starship Technologies, Marble and Dispatch — are testing small robots for deliveries on sidewalks.

    Nuro's vehicle will likely face legal hurdles. Fully autonomous vehicles without a test driver aren't legal in California today, and many companies have shifted testing to states where regulators are more welcoming of autonomous vehicles, such as Arizona.

    Nuro expects to face fewer challenges because it doesn't carry passengers. Nuro's narrow size may also be helpful when navigating streets and avoiding pedestrians. The vehicle isn't equipped with any special features to communicate with pedestrians or other road users. Some companies have tested and patented solutions such as digital screens that signal the car's next move. Ferguson said his team conducted studies and found that such techniques could confuse people. Nuro believes it's better to make sure the car performs predictably, so that human drivers know what to expect from it.

    “We feel by creating this new technology that's going to enable this last mile delivery, we're going to be creating new markets and doing things that previously weren't possible,” Ferguson said. “This is not swapping out Jobs with robots. It's creating new markets. There will definitely be new employment opportunities.”

    Spending money on a vacation may seem like a luxury（奢侈品）—but occasionally, you have to relax yourself. Here's where to go for a good time at an unbelievable value.

    Captiva Island, Florida

    Keep it simple by looking for seashells, or bicycling, jet skiing; you can even hit the tennis courts. The Summer Getaway package offers a fourth night free and rates from $209 a night, making the average for a four-night stay $157.Kids 12 and under eat breakfast free. You'll get a coupon（优惠券）book with more than $250 in savings on resort outlets（经销店）, from watersports, island cruises and more.

    Reyjavik, Iceland

    STA Travel Beats specializes in taking travelers to music festivals around the globe. It has an eight-day tour, Icelandic Beats, that takes you to the Icelandic Geothermal spas（水疗）, UNESCO world heritage sites, and black sand beaches. End your vacation at the Secret Solstice Festival on June 18. The tour is $1,218,not including airfare.

    Malpais, Costa Rica

    You get daily surfing instruction, sunset surf session, and yoga in the outdoor, oceanfront yoga studio in a week-long tour. As you get mind, body, and spirit together, keep it going with healthy meals at the beachfront restaurant. Prices are $2,895 for shared accommodations, $3,095 for private accommodations with shared bath, and $3,595 for private accommodations.

    Waterville Valley, New Hampshire

    Waterville Valley Resort is surrounded by 100 miles of trails in the White Mountain National Forest. If you get a Freedom Pass, you can save about $100 a day during a six-day tour; the pass enables you daily to have a two-hour mountain bike rental, unlimited tennis, a round of golf, and a kayak, canoe, or paddleboard rental. Rates start at $139 a night.

The thing that sets children apart from adults is not their ignorance, nor their lack of skills. Rather, it's their enormous capability for joy. A friend told me a story. One day, when she went to get his 6-year-old son from soccer practice, her kid greeted her with a sad face. The teacher had criticized him for not focusing on his soccer drills. The little boy walked out of the school with his head and shoulders hanging down. He seemed wrapped in sadness. But before reaching the car door, he suddenly stopped, crouching(蹲伏) down to look at something on the sidewalk. “Mom, come here! This is the strangest bug I've ever seen. It has, like, a million legs. It's amazing!” The little face was overflowing with indescribable excitement.

Nowadays, however, when we walk into a classroom, especially in a high school, we'll be choked by towering books and papers, and hiding behind them are a group of motionless creatures, pens in hand, minds dry, just as the hollow men portrayed by T. S. Eliot. Their pursuit of joy has given way to their hunger for grades. Laughter and happiness are a distant memory for them.

    Although joy is an unaffordable luxury in today's increasingly fierce competition, administrators and teachers need a mindset shift from crushing students with assignments to getting them to take pleasure in productive activities which develop their important qualities, like perseverance and obligation. The assumption that pleasure is the enemy of competence and responsibility makes no sense educationally.

Adults tend to talk about learning as if it were medicine: unpleasant, but necessary and good for you. Why not think of learning as if it were food—something so valuable to humans that they want to experience it as a pleasure?

    Next time you raise an eyebrow at the views of your partner, friend, sibling （兄弟姐妹） or colleague, remember they could be helping to make you smarter. New research shows that intelligence is not fixed but can be improved throughout adulthood by family members, bright mates and intellectually challenging careers. The study challenges the commonly held belief that intelligence is fixed by the age of about 18.

    Scientific consensus suggests that intelligence is controlled by genes, with environmental factors such as schooling and nutrition playing a partial role up to this age. After this point, IQ scores become steady（稳定的）. But James Flynn, professor of political studies and psychology at the University of Otago in New Zealand, argues that people can "upgrade" their own intelligence throughout their lives. He believes intellectual stimulation（刺激）from others is important as the "brain seems to be rather like a muscle - the more you use it, the stronger it gets". However, the opposite is also true - so people sharing a home or workplace with those who are intellectually challenged risk seeing their IQ levels nosedive as a result.

    Professor Flynn analyzed US intelligence tests from the last 65 years and created new IQ "age tables". He found a bright ten-year-old with brothers and sisters of average intelligence will suffer a five to ten point IQ disadvantage compared to a similar child with equally bright brothers and sisters and special educational treatment to help pull them up.

    Professor Flynn also concluded that although genetics and early life experiences determine about 80% of intelligence, the remaining 20% is linked to lifestyle. This means that people can raise their IQ, or allow it to fall, by ten points or more. He suggested the best way to improve IQ levels is to mix with bright friends, find an intellectually challenging job and marry someone cleverer.

    Addyson Moffitt is an 8-year-old from Kansas City, Missouri. Maurine Ghelagat is a 9-year-old from a village in Kenya called Bartabwa. It might not seem as if the girls have much in common, but when they met at a dinner two years ago, in Kansas City, they immediately hit it off.

    "We had this one little red ball to play with," Addyson told TIME for Kids. "We didn't have any electronics or phones, no iPads or TV. It was just us playing." Addyson and Maurine still keep in touch now.

    The dinner was hosted by the nonprofit group World Vision International, which builds wells, pipelines, and rain catchers in communities where people find it hard to get clean water. Addyson, was at the dinner because her family supports World Vision. Maurine was there because her village had been without clean water. World Vision fixed that by building a water station there.

    "People helped Maurine so she could have clean water, and kids are dying because they don't have it," Addyson says. "I want to help."

    Races are one way World Vision raises money to pay for its water projects. Runners run a race, often a 26-mile marathon or 13-mile half marathon. They ask people to support them by donating(捐赠) to World Vision.

    Addyson decided to run the 2017 Kansas City Half Marathon for World Vision. At age 7, she was one of the youngest-ever runners in the race, and had to get special permission to take part.

    Addyson spent four months training with her parents, waking up before 6 a.m. to run. Meanwhile, she started fundraising(募捐)by asking friends to make donations as birthday presents and clearing tables at a restaurant for tips.

    By October 2017, when Addyson ran the race, she'd raised more than $20,000. She's the youngest person in World Vision history to raise more than $10,000. In 2018, she ran again and raised $36.000.

    But Addyson's work is not finished. "My goal is for every kid to have clean water," she says.

    While it's books that make a library, being in lovely surroundings may provide inspiration and help you work a little bit harder. Here are some of the coolest libraries of the world.

    Library of Birmingham – Birmingham, U.K.

    The new Library of Birmingham is said to be not only Britain's biggest public library, but also the largest in Europe. Designed by Dutch architects, this replacement for the Birmingham Central Library was opened in 2013 and has a wealth of resources within its walls, including adults and kids' libraries, music collections, a Shakespeare Memorial Room, and even a gym room. Gardens crown the roof, while the changing seasons bring variations in the shadows and reflections inside.

    National Library of France – Paris, France

    The National Library of France, which now contains an astonishing collection of 30 million, dates back to the 14th century and this royal library was set up at the Louvre by King Charles V. The Library was moved to Rue de Richelieu site in 1868, with major design work carried out by French architects Henri Labrouste and, following his death, Jean-Louis Pascal. Here, the reading rooms are elegance itself. There are more than just books to be found.

    State Library of New South Wales – Sydney, Australia

    The public State Library of New South Wales holds the honor of being the oldest institution of its kind in Australia. It was originally set up as the Australian Subscription Library in 1826, but it wasn't until 1942 that its permanent home was ready. Designed by Sydney architect Walter Liberty Vernon and completed in 1910, the magnificent sandstone Mitchell Wing is one of the architectural highlights.

Seattle Central Library – Seattle, Washington, USA

    Seattle Central Library's distinctive design ensures it stands out. Architect Rem Koolhaas is one of the names attached to its design. Architects sought to envelop the 11-story building with "a layer of transparency", using a skin of glass and metal. The finished article houses about 1.45 million books and other things, as well as more than 400 computers available for public use. The building, which opened in 2004, was included on the American Institute of Architects' list of America's 150 favorite buildings in 2007.