Do you want to live another 100 years or more? Some experts say that scientific advances will one day enable humans to last tens of years beyond what is now seen as the natural limit of the human life span.

     “I think we are knocking at the door of immortality(永生),” said Michael Zey, a Montclair State University business professor and author of two books on the future. “I think by 2075 we will see it and that' s a conservative estimate(保守的估计).”

    At the conference in San Francisco, Donald Louria, a professor at New Jersey Medical School in Newark said advances in using genes as well as nanotechnology(纳米技术) make it likely that humans will live in the future beyond what has been possible in the past. “There is a great effort so that people can live from 120 to 180 years,” he said. “Some have suggested that there is no limit and that people could live to 200 or 300 or 500 years.”

    However, many scientists who specialize in aging are doubtful about it and say the human body is just not designed to last past about 120 years. Even with healthier lifestyles and less disease, they say failure of the brain and organs will finally lead all humans to death.

    Scientists also differ on what kind of life the super aged might live. “It remains to be seen if you pass 120, you know; could you be healthy enough to have good quality of life?” said Leonard Poon, director of the University of Georgia Gerontology Centre. “At present people who could get to that point are not in good health at all.”

    A new study shows students who write notes by hand during lectures perform better on exams than those who use laptops(笔记本电脑)．

    Students are increasingly using laptops for note­taking because of speed and legibility(清晰度)．But the research has found laptop users are less able to remember and apply the concepts they have been taught.

    Researchers performed experiments that aimed to find out whether using a laptop increased the tendency to make notes “mindlessly” by taking down word for word what the professors said.

    In the first experiment，students were given either a laptop or pen and paper. They listened to the same lectures and were told to use their usual note­taking skills. Thirty minutes after the talk，they were examined on their ability to remember facts and on how well they understood concepts.

    The researchers found that laptop users took twice as many notes as those who wrote by hand. However，the typists performed worse at remembering and applying the concepts. Both groups scored similarly when it came to memorizing facts.

    The researchers' report said，“While more notes are beneficial，if the notes are taken mindlessly，as is more likely the case on a laptop，the benefit disappears.”

    In another experiment aimed at testing long­term memory，students took notes as before but were tested a week after the lecture. This time，the students who wrote notes by hand performed significantly better on the exam.

    These two experiments suggest that handwritten notes are not only better for immediate learning and understanding，but that they also lead to superior revision in the future.

    For centuries, elephants have played a big role in the world's economies, culture and religion. The African elephant used to be found all over Africa and the Asian elephant moved from Syria to China to Indonesia. Nowadays, elephants are found in small groups in the south of the Sahara Desert and scarcely in Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and India.

    In the early twentieth century, there were close to ten million elephants, and now the elephant number is as low as 252,000 and expected to drop down to 160,000 by 2025. Between 2007 and 2014, the elephant population fell by at least 30%, or 144,000 elephants. As researchers have traveled over the African plains, they only spotted one herd of 36 elephants in an area like the size of Mexico. It is clear that these gentle mammals are disappearing right before our eyes.

    There are many reasons why the elephant population has been decreasing, one of which is their habitat. Humans are competing with elephants for living space, and as more and more humans clear the land that is being used by elephants, the elephants have less space. Elephant hunting or “poaching” has been a major factor for the disappearance of this species, and they are killed only for their valuable ivory tusks. Although the trade of tusks is illegal, it is still a common practice in many places.

    Often, all the local people living among elephants would be farmers, and found that they could make more money by selling the tusks of one elephant, than doing manual labor for twelve years. That alone makes it really hard to prevent them from killing the elephants.

    Some places such as Botswana, have put in extra effort to protect their wildlife from poachers by founding their Botswana Defense Force, which is made up of around 700 specially-trained soldiers that are stationed in 40 different areas. You may feel worried about the present situations elephants are in, but there are ways to help. To find out how you can help elephant conservation, adopt an elephant, or donate, click here.

    Wouldn't it be wonderful to travel to a foreign country without having to worry about the headache of communicating in a different language?

    In a recent Wall Street Journal article, technology policy expert Alec Ross argued that, within a decade or so, we'll be able to communicate with one another via small earpieces with built-in microphones. That's because technological progress is extremely rapid. It's only a matter of time. Indeed, some parents are so convinced that this technology is imminent that they're wondering if their kids should even learn a second language.

    It's true that an increase in the quantity and accuracy of the data loaded into computers will make them cleverer at translating “No es bueno dormir mucho” as “It's not good to sleep too much.” Replacing a word with its equivalent (同义词) in the target language is actually the “easy part” of a translator's job. But even this seems to be a discouraging task for computers.

    It's so difficult for computers because translation doesn't—or shouldn't—involve simply translating words, sentences or paragraphs. Rather, it's about translating meaning. And in order to infer meaning from a specific expression, humans have to interpret a mass of information at the same time.

Think about all the related clues that go into understanding an expression: volume, gesture, situation, and even your culture. All are likely to convey as much meaning as the words you use.

    Therefore, we should be very skeptical of a machine that is unable to interpret the world around us. If people from different cultures can offend each other without realizing it, how can we expect a machine to do better? Unless engineers actually find a way to breathe a soul into a computer, undoubtedly when it comes to conveying and interpreting meaning using a natural language, a machine will never fully take our place.

    Five people are talking about working from home.

Chris: I'm a language graduate and I've been translating from Italian to English for most of my career. We've been in Milan for nearly 20 years and I've been working from home for 12 years, since my first child was born. I've found that my work-life balance has been easier to manage since I started working from home—and it needs to be easy to manage when you've got children.

    Miranda: I'm a writer and I've been working from home for the last 18 months. I must say it's been pretty difficult. For one thing, I've been paying a lot more for heating. And I've missed the office gossip. To be honest, it's quite lonely. I almost wish I could go back to my old job.

    Jordan: Working from home has really changed my life. I love it. I love being my own boss. I've been working from home as a website designer since I left my last job in 2004. I have a bit more time these days. I've bought myself a new guitar and I've been taking guitar lessons for the last six months.

    Ahmed: It's not for everyone, but I like working from home. I do contract(合同) work in design. The best thing is that I don't have to commute(通勤) to work on crowded trains. I've had lots more time and I've been learning a new language since I started working from home in January. I've always wanted to learn Spanish.

    Rageh: I'm German but I've been living abroad for five years. I've been working in marketing for a pharmaceutical(制药的) company near London and I've been working from home part of the time since January. I work from home three days a week and commute to the office twice a week. I was very lucky to get this opportunity. When I work from home I get up late and work late in the evenings. I've never been a morning person.

    While the U.S. is still debating about getting rid of the penny, Sweden is rapidly moving towards abolishing currency (货币) altogether. Though this may sound radical(过激的), it is a natural evolution in this digital society.

    Sweden, which was the first European country to introduce banknotes in 1661, has just been working harder to convince its residents that digital payments are a safer alternative to carrying cash.

    Over the years, the idea has gained popularity with residents, especially the younger generation that is much more comfortable with technology. Today many banks don't even have ATMs and some have stopped handling cash altogether!

    Tickets to ride public buses in most Swedish cities can only be purchased via cell phones. Numerous businesses are also moving towards accepting only digital payments. Even the homeless that sell street paper to make ends meet have to start accepting this mode of payment!

    But despite its growing popularity, some people don't like this radical idea. They include the homeless, elderly people as well as those living in rural areas who are still uncomfortable with mobile phones and computers. But the officials are confident that in the very near future, they will be able to convince everyone to move this safe and more cost-effective payment system.

    Sweden is not the only country trying to abolish paper currency and coins. The movement is rapidly gaining ground in Denmark and Finland as well. In 2014, Israel announced a three-step plan to go cashless and just last week the vendors(小贩)of a popular street in Sydney declared they would stop accepting currency from customers. Whether this phenomenon spreads remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure—With increasingly advanced payment systems being introduced every day, pulling out cash is rapidly becoming "uncool".