Mid-IB at a glance

    The summer vacation is the time to strengthen your learning and prepare for the year ahead. In July and August Oxford Study Courses will once again hold its Mid-IB Summer School for students half way through their IB Diploma（国际预科证书）.

    We'll be back giving another generation of IB students a unique opportunity to sample a way of life enjoyed by students at famous universities.

    Students who have completed the first year of their IB Diploma can join us and we can help them prepare for their important second year.

    Students can choose how many subjects they study. Each subject is studied for one week. You can attend up to 5 weeks.

    The Mid-IB Summer School is held at Cambridge University in the UK （between June 20th and August 1 st） and at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology （MIT）in Boston, USA （between July 6th and July 25th）.

Student comments

◆ “The classes have shown me new approaches to learning. I have also learned how to approach exam questions and now feel confident in doing so.”

◆ “It was cool creating tight and close relationships with other students from around the world, realizing we all had a connection to each other.”

◆ “I really enjoyed the level of independence, although I felt like people were watching out for us. I also felt like an Oxford student!”

◆ “I have enjoyed the learning style and the course work has been extremely beneficial academically.”

Enjoy the summer

    Our Summer School gives you an action-packed social scene with visits to the fun places in the area, organized sports and social events, and advice on how to enjoy your free time in these amazing cities with your new friends. Welcome to contact us at ose@ose-ib.com or on +44（0）1865 521802!

    Angad Rekhi, a graduate student and an assistant professor of electrical engineering, has developed a wake-up receiver. This wake-up receiver has many potential applications, particularly in designing the next generation of net worked devices, including so called "smart" devices that can communicate directly with one another without human intervention (介入).

    Once attached to a device, a wake-up receiver listens for a unique ultrasonic（超声波）pattern that tells it when to turn the device on. It needs only a very small amount of power to maintain this constant listening, so it still saves energy overall while extending the battery life of the larger device. A well-designed wake-up receiver also allows the device to be turned on from a significant distance.

    Given the increased interest in networked devices, researchers and industry organizations are starting to define what features and techniques will become standard. Regardless of whether this ultrasound wake-up receiver is among these standard designs, it is likely wake-up receivers of some kind will be combined into commercial applications soon.

    By comparison, the ultrasound wake-up receiver requires a battery but has much greater range than the wirelessly powered devices, while still maintaining a long lifetime due to extremely low power draw. These two technologies-wireless power and wake-up receivers-would likely serve different purposes but both indicate at a turning point in devices that make up the Internet of Things.

    "In light of a long-promised future where interconnected, autonomous, widespread and unremarkable technologies make life easier, the networked devices available now, like video doorbells and app-enabled lights, seem like rather slight advances." the researchers said. They believe technologies like theirs could help cross the gap between the Internet of Things as we know it and the Internet of Things at its best-whatever that may be.

    Growing roses is quite a difficult task without knowing the right way. If you are attracted by the beauty of roses and need some tips for growing them, read on for some tips about taking care of rose plants.

    You have to buy a good plant, preferably around two years old.

    While most rose plants can tolerate around six hours of sunlight every day, some varieties need eight hours of sunlight exposure. The shade-loving roses need only four hours of sunlight every day.

    You will have to soak (浸泡) the roots overnight before planting. If you plant them in a container, then the watering should be done daily, whereas garden roses need water once or twice a week.

    The next point is the application of fertilizer (肥料),which is mainly needed by rose plants in containers. Most of the varieties do not need fertilizer, as they can feed on the nutrients that exist in the soil. There is no need of fertilization during November and December, and the frequency of fertilization can be reduced in summer, especially after April. It can be restarted in September and has to be increased during the growing periods.

    Cutting the stems promotes the growth of the plants and also aids flowering. It should be done regularly to remove dead or diseased leaves and stems.

    Rose plants can be successfully grown by beginners too! With some care and consideration, all your efforts would definitely be worth it once you smell the fragrance of beautiful roses.

    Lucy, whose skeleton（骨骼） was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, died shortly after she fell out of a tree, according to a new study published Monday in the British journal Nature.

    For their research, Kappelman and Dr. Richard Ketcham used a CT scanner to create more than 35,000 "slices" of Lucy's skeleton. Scientists named her Lucy from the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", which was played at the camp the night of her discovery.

    The following analysis of the slices showed sharp, clean breaks seen at the end of Lucy's right humerus （肱骨） are similar to bone breaks seen in victims of falls.

    The researchers concluded that these and other breaks in her skeleton show that Lucy, who is believed to have stood about 3 feet 6 inches and weighed about 60 pounds, fell feet first and used her arms to support herself﹣but that the injury was too severe to have been survivable.

    The researchers estimate that Lucy was going about 35 miles an hour when she hit the ground after falling from a height of roughly 40 feet, according to the statement.

    That sounds plausible. But other scientists are doubtful. "There are countless explanations for bone breaks," Dr, Donald C, Johanson, director of the Institute of Human Origins and one of the scientists who discovered Lucy, said, "The suggestion that she fell out of a tree is largely a just﹣so story and therefore unprovable." Johanson said it was more likely that Lucy's breaks occurred long after she died, saying that "elephant bones appear to have the same kind of breaks, It's unlikely they fell out of a tree.

    But the new research focused on "a small number of breaks" that are consistent with "high﹣energy bone﹣to﹣bone influences" and which differ from the sorts of breaks commonly seen in other collected bones. Kappelman responded in an email, "These appear to have occurred at or near the time of death."

    Scientists recently discovered that pictures on cave walls at Creswell Crags are the oldest known in Great Britain. But they didn't find out in the usual way.

    Archaeologists often date cave art with a process called radiocarbon dating. The technique can measure the age of carbon found in charcoal (木炭) drawings or painted pictures. Carbon is an element found in many things, including charcoal and even people. But in this case, there was no paint or charcoal to test. People carved the pictures of animals and figures into the rock using stone tools. The scientists had an "aha!" moment when they noticed small rocks stuck to the top of the drawings. The small rocks must have formed after the drawings were made.

    "It is rare to be able to scientifically date rock art," said Alistair Pike, an archaeological scientist at Britain's University of Bristol. "We were very fortunate that some of the engravings were covered by stalagmites(石笋).

    When a test proved that the stalagmites formed 12,800 years ago, the scientists knew the art underneath them had to be at least that old. And some of the animals shown, like the European bison, are now extinct-another tip-off that the art is quite old.

    The artists came to Creswell Crags, This place is one of the farthest points north reached by our ancient ancestors during the Ice Age. At that time, much of the North Sea was dry, so people could move about more easily.

    Some tools and bones found there are 13,000 to 15,000 years old. They show that the travelers hunted horses, reindeer, and arctic hare. Their artwork is similar to art in France and Germany. It tells scientists that the Creswell Crags artists must have had a close connection to peoples several thousand kilometers away—another important clue to understanding how humans spread out across the world.

    Nowadays six Amazon Scout delivery robots rolled out in a pilot program in Snohomish County, Wash. The robots carry meals, groceries and packages to homes and offices in this region just north of Seattle. They have appeared on the sidewalks of London, Beijing and other cities and communities worldwide. These machines must overcome pedestrian legs, naughty dogs and broken pavement, which raises some questions.

    These services are gaining attraction as a growing number of city residents expect immediate or scheduled delivery for just about everything. Between 2017 and 2018 online retail sales in the U.S. increased by 16 percent. On the final step of all these deliveries, called the last mile, humans on bicycles, motorized scooters (电动车) or large delivery trucks typically deliver packages. All the vehicles compete for space on busy urban streets. "Deliveries are trending upwards in all crowded city centers, and if city and state leaders don't start thinking about creative solutions like robot deliveries, we can expect even worse traffic jams," says Paul Mackie, director of a transportation policy research center in Arlington.

    A study by this center found 73 percent of delivery vehicles in Arlington were parked outside of authorized areas, often blocking bike lanes and crosswalks. By moving the last step of deliveries from the road to the sidewalk, cities could reduce traffic jams and solve the parking problem entirely, Mackie says.

    Companies such as Amazon are not developing this delivery technology simply to clear up urban traffic. Self-driving vehicles and sidewalk robots could cut down last-mile delivery costs in cities by as much as 40 percent, according to a 2018 report by a consultancy firm. A delivery robot can cost thousands of dollars to manufacture, and most currently require human management and conservation. But in the long run companies that use autonomous delivery vehicles in the next several years could end up saving billions of dollars, the report stated.