A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

    “It's extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.

    They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it's connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

    While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers' fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.

    Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

     The answer to protecting and saving marine(海洋) wildlife can start with cutting back on something Americans use every day—plastic drinking straws. Actor Adrien Grenier, best known for playing Vincent Chase in 2015 movie Entourage, has launched a campaign to reduce the amount of single-use plastic usage in this country in order to protect and save marine wildlife and the environment. Plastic drinking straws are among many single-use plastic products contributing to the shocking loss of marine life, but they're a great place to start because they're something Americans are using by the hundreds of millions without any awareness that they're so damaging.

According to Ecocycle, an international environmental organization, Americans use more than 500 million straws daily, which are enough to fill 127 school buses each day, and they can't be recycled. They means plastic straws end up in landfills or oceans, where fish and other marine wildlife mistake the small bits for food and swallow them. After seeing a photo of a whale beached on the shore with a belly full of plastic, Grenier felt the inspiration to launch the Lonely Whale Foundation, hoping to inspire and educate others on the challenges facing marine life.

     Along with stopping the use of straws, Grenier hopes to educate consumers on the dangers of other single-use plastic items such as grocery bags and water bottles. While many Americans use these plastic products in their daily life, there are more sustainable alternatives that can help protect the environment. Ecocycle recommends the use of straws made from stainless steel, glass, and even bamboo instead of plastic. You can buy a number of these environmentally friendly straws online and in stores.

    By now, you've probably been warned that a robot is coming for your job. But rather than repeat the warning, I've decided to throw down a challenge: man against machine.

    Start with the task we're doing right now: communicating in fluent human. We're sharing abstract ideas through words that we choose with an understanding of their slight difference and impact. We don't just speak in human; we speak as humans. A robot who says that science is fun is delivering a line (念一句话). A human who says that science is fun is telling you something important about being alive.

    Here's another inbuilt advantage we take for granted: as humans we are limited by design. We are bound in time: we die. We are bound in space: we can't be in more than one place at a time. That means when I speak to an audience, I am giving them something special. It's a custom-made, one-off, 100% robot-free delivery, from today's one-and-only Australian Chief Scientist.

    True, I now come in digital versions, through Twitter and Facebook and other platforms, but the availability of those tools hasn't stopped people from inviting me to speak in person. Digital Alan seems to increase the appetite for human Alan, just as Spotify (a digital music service) can increase the demand for a musician's live performances.

    Thanks to technology, many goods and services are cheaper, better and more accessible than ever before. We like our mass-produced bread, and our on-tap lectures and our automated FitBit advice. But automation hasn't killed the artisan bakery (面包店). Online courses haven't killed the booming, alongside their machine equivalents.

    Here's a third argument for the win. We humans have learned the habit of civilization. Let me explain this point by a story. A few years go, some researchers set out to study the way the people interact with robots. They sent out a small robot to patrol (巡逻) the local mall. That robot had a terrible time, and the villains of the story were children. They kicked him, bullied him, and smacked (掌击) him in the head.

    The point is not that the children were violent. The point is that the adults were not. They restrained whatever primitive impulse (冲动) they might have felt in childhood to smack something smaller and weaker in the head, because they had absorbed the habit of living together. We call it civilization. If we want artificial intelligence for the people, we'll need every bit of that civilizing instinct.

    Together, these points suggest to me that humanity has a powerful competitive edge. We can coexist with our increasingly capable machines and we can make space for the full breadth of human talents to flourish.

    Who could have imagined that a treadmill(跑步机)on wheels would one day become a thing? Lopifit is an unusual means of transportation that allows you to power an electric bicycle by walking on a treadmill.

    Lopifit founder Bruin Bergmeester says it all started when he asked himself the question. "How can I use a treadmill outdoors?" He eventually came up with a design, to which he added an electric engine, and Lopifit was born. The treadmill bicycle is similar to a typical electric bicycle in that the motor only works when the rider puts power in as well. The Lopifit senses it when you walk on the treadmill and uses the motor to turn a drive chain at the back part of the treadmill, helping you reach a top speed of 17 miles per hour.

    To use the Lopifit, simply turn on the battery and use your feet to slide the treadmill backwards and activate (激活) the motor. Then get on and enjoy the ride! If you need speed, just walk on the treadmill, and if you want to coast, all you have to do is stay still and admire the view. To stop, you have two hand brakes available.

    The Lopifit first hit the streets in 2014 and, unsurprisingly, became an instant hit. That was actually quite challenging for the company, because it started get inquiries and calls for orders, but it was nowhere near ready for mass production. The unique treadmill bicycle became available this year, and Lopifit is struggling to keep up with demand, despite the high price tag of $ 2,115.

    But despite having a very loyal fan-base of so-called Lopifitters, the creative means of transportation also has naysayers who simply consider the invention stupid and unnecessary. They basically believe that if you're going to walk, you might as well do it the old-fashioned way. But the Lopifit does have the unique advantage of helping you walk really fast without breaking a sweat, or walking at cycling speed, if you will.

    Some parts of the garden are for the rest of the world to admire. Others are for you to disappear to when you don't want to be found. Of course, that's easy enough to arrange when you have lots of land with space for the kids to run round and cosy "garden rooms" for the adults to enjoy. But when your garden is on the small side, you might think it's a tall order. Well, you're wrong.

    To create a secret garden, people tend to take the routine: surrounding a small garden with high fences and then placing a lawn(草坪) in the middle and borders round the edge. Far from making the most of the area, that just makes it look a lot smaller and more boring. Dividing it up makes much more use of your space and means you can have your practical family area plus a secret garden.

    When you're searching for the perfect secret site within your existing set-up, consider your present favourite spot. A secret garden needs to be special—a complete contrast to the more practical family parts of the garden. Perhaps you take a folding chair down to a quiet corner that gets evening sun; maybe you sit and watch the pond or simply slip out to the patio(露台)with a glass of wine.

    It's quite easy to change an existing favourite feature into a secret place. You could top the patio with a pergola(棚架) pole and plant a grapevine for shade, or position a bench overlooking the pond and plant bamboos to screen it from the rest of the garden.

    The areas you create needn't all to be the same size—or even the same style—but if you're planning a major redesign, take your time and work it out on paper before committing time and money. Then when it's done, you'll really be able to relax and enjoy it.

    You'll need to take a deep breath before hearing this news. An astonishing 93% of kids around the world live in environments with air pollution levels that are damaging their health, according to a new report by WHO.

    Air pollution is to blame for the deaths of 543, 000 kids under 5 in 2016, with more than one in four deaths of children under five years old being related to environmental issues. Exposure (暴露) to air pollution can damage the health of kids in a variety of ways, either causing or being associated with everything from low birth weight to childhood obesity and so on.

    "The large toll of disease and death revealed (揭示) by these new data should result in an urgent call to action for the global community especially for those in the health department WHO stated. "Strong action to reduce exposure to air pollution offers an opportunity to protect the health of children." The report stressed that health experts should communicate with families, communities and policy-makers about the serious risks of air pollution exposure. "Although more researches into how air pollution affects children's health will continue to be valuable, there is already evidence to justify strong, swift action to prevent the damage it clearly produces," WHO added.

    Disease caused by dirty air is more common in low-and-middle in some countries, especially those in Africa, South-East Asia, and Western Pacific regions. Poor countries in these areas have the highest levels of exposure to household air pollution due to the use of polluting fuels and technologies for basic needs like cooking, heating and lighting.

    Advised solutions include cleaner transport, cleaner cooking and heating fuels and technologies energy-efficient housing and urban planning, safer industrial technologies and better waste management.