A mother's love

    I'm a New York City firefighter. Every day, I see terror— sometimes even death. But the day I found Scarlett was different. That day I saw life. And love.

    We were responding to a call about a burning garage. Outside, I heard the sound of cats crying. I couldn't stop — I would have to look for the cats after the fire was put out.

    It took a long time to finally bring the big fire under control, but we did it. No one inside was hurt.

    At that point I was free to investigate the cat noises. There was still a lot of smoke and heat coming from the building. I followed the meowing(猫叫) to a spot on the sidewalk near the front of the garage. There, crying and huddled(挤作一团) together, were five terrified kittens. They must have been inside the building, as their fur was badly singed(烫烧).

    I left the five kittens in a box on a neighbor's porch(门廊).

    I wanted to find the mother. It was obvious that she had gone into the burning garage and carried out all of her babies, one by one —unbelievable.

    We finally found her. She was badly burnt: her eyes were blistered (起水泡), her paws(爪子) were blackened, and her fur was singed all over. You could even see her reddened skin beneath the burned fur. She could barely move. I picked her up, and she relaxed in my arms as much as her pain would allow. Sensing her trust, I shed a tear. I was determined to save this brave little cat and her family.

    The vet told me they would observe the kittens and their mother overnight, but they weren't optimistic about the mother's changes.

    About a week later, I found out she was going to live. One of the technicians suggested we name her Scarlett, because of her reddened skin.

    Knowing what Scarlett endured(忍受) for her kittens, it melted my heart to see her reunited with them. She touched each of them again, nose to nose, to make sure they were all safe. She had risked her life five separate times — and it had paid off. All of her babies had survived.

    As a firefighter, I see heroism(英雄事迹) every day. But what Scarlett showed me that day was the kind of bravery that can only come from a mother's love.

    For the past four days, the streets of India have been brightly lit and full of festivities. Millions of people around the country have been celebrating the festival of Diwali.

    Diwali has been celebrated in India for hundreds of years. It takes place each year in either October or November. Although the holiday lasts only one night, people continue to celebrate for several days.

    People light oil lamps during the festival. In the tradition of the Hindu religion, the lamps are meant to celebrate the victory of light over darkness and good over evil (邪恶). The holiday also celebrates the start of a new year in the Hindu calendar. But Diwali is an important festival in many other Indian religions as well, including Sikhism and Jainism. In a country of more than 1.2 billion people and different religious beliefs, Diwali is a celebration that touches everyone.

    Diwali means “rows of lamps” in Sanskrit, a language used in many Indian religions. During the festival, families and friends come together to light the oil lamps，which are called diyas. Then they put the lamps in rows outside their homes and temples.

    As in other cultures' winter holidays，sweets and gifts are also a big part of Diwali. Neighbors and friends share treats, called mithai, and exchange presents.

    Employers often use the holiday to express appreciation for their workers. This year, a businessman even bought cars and houses for some of his employees!

    The Diwali spirit can be felt outside India as well. Indians in countries around the world, including the U. S. and Canada，are also celebrating the holiday this week.

    Most people know that listening to music when they are feeling down or depressed can encourage their spirits.

    However studies have also shown that music, especially certain tones can reduce stress. Music can change brainwave patterns, deepen breathing, and bring on a totally stress-free and more open mindset（心态）. Using music to relax when considering a particular problem may not only raise your mood, but also could help you reach that "a-ha"moment and find a solution.

    Music has also been shown not only to make you feel good, but also, to be a great motivator. For example, during exercise, listening to music can keep you going, or get you to exercise more by helping you to ignore negative feelings of tiredness and focus on the pleasurable feelings you get from being absorbed in the music.

    Music is mainly used to record emotion. When we listen to a piece of music we share the artist's feelings on a visceral（本来的）level. That can be sad, and who among us hasn't put on a painful love song to share in the misery after a bad break-up? On the contrary, we can share in the delight of songs of joy and happiness, or any song or piece of music that reminds us of a particular happy time in our past.

    So next time you are feeling down, put on Beethoven' s Ode to Joy, I bet you will feel a lot better about whatever it was that was bothering you!

    Several Jobs That Will Be Automated By Artificial Intelligence(AI) And Robots

    Translator

    Image recognition software and voice recognition software are bringing some major advances to language translation．Applications like Google's Word Lens can translate words from signs and documents in real time and there ale a lot of translation apps that allow you to type in a word or phrase and will translate it for you．

    Some will even speak the phrase for you and raw word-to-word translation will be fully automated soon．

Fast food workers

    Automated ordering booths have already made their way into a few McDonald's restaurants around the world，and cooking positions could be removed next．The booths probably can't handle customer service problems well，so televideo systems could bring in an office employee to deal with complaints．

Field technician

    New advances in the Internet of Things could make this work obsolete ．

Low-cost sensors combined with high availability cellular／satellite communications and cloud technology are being started to automate and alarm these sites，and can be checked and maintained from a desktop or mobile device．

Sales representative

    But，e-commerce is changing how we make purchasing decisions，especially those where there isn't much differentiation among the major competitors．

    If you're selling a high-differentiation product and／or a high-price，low-volume product you have some job security，but if you're selling a high-volume，low-differentiation product，you better start polishing your resume，said Doug Camplejohn，CEO of Fliptop．“These kind of product sales are all moving online．”

Life is difficult.

    What do you think about life? Maybe most people say that life is difficult. But life is no longer difficult once we truly understand and accept it. Most people do not fully see this truth. Instead, they complain about their problems and difficulties as if life should be easy. It seems to them that their difficulties represent a special kind of suffering especially forced upon them or their families, their class, or even their nation.

    What makes life difficult is that the process of facing and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending on their nature, cause us sadness or loneliness or regret or anger or fear. These are uncomfortable feelings, often as painful as any kind of physical pain. And since life causes an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy.

    Yet, it is in this whole process of solving problems that life has its meaning.

    Problems are the serious test that tells success from failure. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we encourage the human ability to solve problems, just as in school we set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of meeting and working out problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt instruct.” It is for this reason that wise people learn not to fear but to welcome the pain of problems.

    An online supermarket company—Ocado in the UK, has recently displayed a robotic hand that can pick fruits and vegetables!

    When an embryo (胚胎) is in the womb, the very first sense it develops is touch. The sense of touch is also the one that lasts the longest—as we get older and our vision and hearing begins to weaken, touch still remains. Humans use their touch to protect themselves, to create emotional relationships with other people, and to experience pleasure. Can you imagine life without it?

    The sense of touch comes from a network of nerve endings and special touch receptors on the surface of the skin. While there are different kinds of touch receptors (感受器), they help us judge pressure, texture and vibrations (震动). They are located in our fingertips, palms, soles of our feet, face, lips and tongue.

    When we touch something, the mechano-receptors perceive the touch and through a network of nerves, send signals to the brain. This informs the brain about the location of the touch, the amount of force used, and the speed at which it was used.

    Several different techniques have been tried in the past to create such a robotic hand—using three fingers. But this latest design by SoMa copies the human hand. The gripper (夹具) is made up of flexible materials which grasp onto the thing based on its size and shape. Then air pressure is used to control the movement of the robotic fingers to pick objects safely and without causing damage.

    The next step would be for the robot to judge how ripe the fruits and vegetables are, and apply pressure accordingly. Members of the research team are currently working on adding computerized vision to the robots, so that they can see what they are gripping.

    Does all this mean robots can replace people? According to Ocado, it helps improve productivity by removing some of the repetitive tasks done by humans.