Experiments under way in several labs aim to create beneficial types of genetically modified foods, including starchier potatoes and caffeine-free coffee beans. Genetic engineers are even trying to transfer genes from a cold-winter fish to make a frost-resistant tomato.

    A low-sugar GM strawberry now in the works might one day allow people with health problems such as diabetes (糖尿病) to enjoy the little delicious red fruits again. GM beans and grains rich in protein(蛋白质) might help people at risk of developing kwashiorkor. Kwashiorkor, a disease caused by severe lack of protein, is common in parts of the world where there are severe food shortages.

    Commenting on GM foods, Jonathon Jones, a British researcher, said: "The future benefits will be enormous（巨大的）, and the best is yet to come". To some people, GM foods are no different from unmodified foods. "A tomato is a tomato," said Brian Sansoni, an American food manufacturer.

    Critics of GM foods challenge Sansoni's opinion. They worry about the harm that GM crops might do to people, other animals, and plants.

    In a recent lab study conducted at Cornell University, scientists tested pollen(花粉) made by BT corn, which makes up one-fourth of the U.S. corn crop. The scientist dropped the pollen onto milkweed, a plant that is the only known food source of a butterfly caterpillar(毛虫). Within four days of feeding on the leaves, almost half of a test group of caterpillars died. "This is a warning bell." said Cornell researcher Linda Raynor.

    Some insects that are not killed by GM foods might find themselves made stronger. How so? The insecticides are used on the crops to kill the pests. But GM plants produce a continuous level of insecticide. Insects relying on those crops may develop resistance to the plants and they may also develop a resistance to the insecticide.

    At the forum on GM food held last year in Canada. GM crops that have been made resistant to the herbicide might crossbreed with wild plants, creating "superweeds" that could take over whole fields.

    So where do you stand? Should GM food be banned in the United States, as they are in parts of Europe? Or do their benefits outweigh（胜过） any of the risks they might carry?

    If you are a recent social science graduate who has had to listen to jokes about unemployment from your computer major classmates, you may have had the last laugh. There are many advantages for the social science major because this high-tech "Information Age" demands people who are flexible (灵活) and who have good communication skills.

    There are many social science majors in large companies who fill important positions. For example, a number of research studies found that social science majors had achieved greater managerial success than those who had technical training or pre-professional courses. Studies show that social science majors are most suited for change, which is the leading feature (特点) of the kind of high-speed, high-pressure, high-tech world we now live in.

    Social science majors are not only experiencing success in their long term company jobs, but they are also finding jobs more easily. A study showed that many companies had filled a large percentage of their entry level positions with social science graduates. The study also showed that the most sought-after quality in a person who was looking for a job was communication skills, noted as "very important" by 92 percent of the companies. Social science majors have these skills, often without knowing how important they are. It is probably due to these skills that they have been offered a wide variety of positions.

    Finally, although some social science majors may still find it more difficult than their technically trained classmates to land the first job, recent graduates report that they don't regret their choice of study.

    Microsoft has developed a new smartphone app that interprets eye signals and translates them into letters, allowing people with motor neurone disease to communicate with others from a phone.

    The GazeSpeak app combines a smartphone's camera with artificial intelligence to recognize eye movements in real time and convert them into letters, words and sentences. For people suffering from ALS（渐冻症）, also known as motor neurone disease, eye movement can be the only way they are able to communicate.

    "Current eye-tracking input systems for people with ALS or other motor impairments are expensive, not robust under sunlight, and require frequent re-calibration and substantial, relatively immobile setups," said Xiaoyi Zhang, a researcher at Microsoft who developed the technology.

    "To mitigate the drawbacks…we created GazeSpeak, an eye-gesture communication system that runs on a smartphone, and is designed to be low-cost, robust, portable and easy to learn."

    The app is used by the listener by pointing their smartphone at the speaker. A chart that can be stuck to the back of the smartphone is then used by the speaker to determine which eye movements to make in order to communicate.

    The sticker shows four grids of letters, which each correspond to a different eye movement. By looking up, down, left or right, the speaker selects which grids the letters they want belong to. The artificial intelligence algorithm is then able to predict the word or sentence they are trying to say.

    Zhang's research, Smartphone-Based Gaze Gesture Communication for People with Motor Disabilities, is set to be presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May.

    About ten men in every hundred suffer from color blindness in some way. Women are luckier; only about one in two hundred is affected in this matter. Perhaps, after all, it is safer to be driven by a woman!

    There are different forms of color blindness. In some cases a man may not be able to see deep red. He may think that red, orange and yellow are all shadows of green. Sometimes a person cannot tell the difference between blue and green. In rare cases an unlucky man may see everything in shades of green — a strange world indeed.

    Color blindness in human beings is a strange thing to explain. In a single eye there are millions of very small things called "cones". These help us to see in a bright light and to tell difference between colors. There are also millions of "rods", but these are used for seeing when it is near dark. They show us shape but no color.

    Some insects have favorite colors. Mosquitoes prefer blue to yellow. A red light will not attract insects, but a blue lamp will. In a similar way human beings also have favorite colors. Yet we are lucky. With the aid of the cones in our eyes we can see many beautiful colors by day, and with the aid of the rods we can see shapes at night. One day we may even learn more about the invisible colors around us.

    We've heard of robots and AI（Artificial Intelligence）taking human jobs, but I bet mayors（市长）don't really think their jobs can be threatened any time soon. They were wrong, and the AI running for the mayor of a Tokyo district was clear proof of that.

    AI can't legally nm for high-ranking public management positions yet, but one mayoral candidate from Tama City, Tokyo, intended to maximize the use of artificial intelligence in running city affairs. He was running his campaign （竞选运动） as "AI Mayor". Basically, he was suggesting replacing human public officials with AI and having them collect city data and create fair and balanced policies that will benefit everyone.

    "For the first time in the world, AI will run in an election," human candidate Michihito Matsuda announced on Twitter. "Artificial Intelligence will change Toma City. With the birth of an AI Mayor, we will conduct balanced politics."

    The AI Mayor was campaigning very much like its human competitors. Posters were shown all over Tama City and campaign trucks were blaring out（大声鸣响）promises of an AI utopia （乌托邦）and asking for support.

    Some people called Michihito Matsuda's campaign a stunt （噱头）, as a human would still be the one legally in charge. However, others said that they were excited about the future of AI running things in the background, adding that it had to be a better choice.

    Escaping predators (食肉动物), digestion and other animal activities—including those of humans—require oxygen. But that essential ingredient is no longer so easy for marine life to obtain, several new studies reveal.

    In the past decade ocean oxygen levels have taken a dive—an alarming trend that is linked to climate change, says Andreas Oschlies, an oceanographer at the Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Germany, whose team tracks ocean oxygen levels worldwide. "We were surprised by the intensity of the changes we saw, how rapidly oxygen is going down in the ocean and how large the effects on marine ecosystems are," he says. It is no surprise to scientists that warming oceans are losing oxygen, but the scale of the drop calls for urgent attention. Oxygen levels in some tropical (热带的) regions have dropped by an astonishing 40 percent in the last 50 years, some recent studies reveal. Levels have dropped less significantly elsewhere, with an average loss of 2 percent globally.

    A warming ocean loses oxygen for two reasons: First, the warmer a liquid becomes, the less gas it can hold. That is why carbonated drinks go flat faster when left in the sun. Second, as polar sea ice melts, it forms a layer of water above colder, more salty sea waters. This process creates a sort of lid that can keep currents from mixing surface water down to deeper depths. And because all oxygen enters the surface, less mixing means less of it at depth.

    Ocean animals large and small, however, respond to even slight changes in oxygen by seeking refuge in higher oxygen zones or by adjusting behavior, Oschlies and others in his field have found. These adjustments can expose animals to new predators or force them into food-scarce regions. Climate change already poses serious problems for marine life, such as ocean acidification, but deoxygenation is the most pressing issue facing sea animals today, Oschlies says. After all, he says, "they all have to breathe."

    Aside from food web problems, animals face various other physiological challenges as their bodies adjust to lower oxygen levels. Chinese shrimp (虾) move their tails less vigorously to preserve energy in lower oxygen environments. Some creatures, such as jellyfishes, are more tolerant of low oxygen than others are. But all animals will feel the impact of deoxygenation because they all have evolved their oxygen capacity for a reason, says Oschlies. "Any drop in oxygen is going to damage survivability and performance," he says.