What if you arrived home to find it delicious hot meal waiting for you, prepared by your very own kitchen robot? It might sound like science fiction. but professors at the university of Tokyo  have  taken  the first steps toward making that  scenario a reality. The team recently introduced a humanoid kitchen robot that can pour and other drinks into cups and serve the m to guests. When teating is over, the robot can also wash the dishes and put them away.

    In California, another interesting kitchen robot has been developed, called Readybot. It can pick up objects and either store them in  cabinets (橱柜）or put them in the trash. It also carries a separate floor-cleaning robot that can operate by itself. Unlike the Japanese robot, Readybot just looks more like a large box with arms and wheels.

    Readybot was created by engineers and designers who established a club called the Readybot  Challlenge. They believe that in the future millions of robots will be needed in homes to perform ordinary household tasks. Readybot is just the first step in their plan to create a robot that can do jobs not  only  in  kitchens but  in other rooms of homes and in offices as well.

    Clearly there are technological difficulties to solve before robots can cook a Complete dinner, and there arc also many safety concerns (忧虑） .Not everyone (especially parents) would be comfortable with the idea of robots in their house, manipulating hot pans and sharp knives. The European Commission recently funded(资助） a project to study these concerns. According to lead researcher Professor Chris Melhuish,“ Enabling  robots to work  safely with humans is a key need for the future development of robotics.”

    Wedding is one of the most universal traditions in the world. But it's celebrated differently by people around the world. Now let's know something about these traditions.

       In Jamaica, weddings are a community affair, with the whole village often coming together to help plan the big day. People in the village gather in the street to see the bride and if she isn't in perfect shape, she will be publicly criticized. And while women wear the typical white wedding dress，men wear a bush jacket for the event. Several cakes are baked for the ceremony and on the wedding day married women wearing white dresses carry the confections (甜点) to the wedding. The reception is often held at the groom's house, in a booth specially built for the event. The wedding celebration also includes a lot of dancing.

    In Welsh wedding tradition, a man carves a spoon out of wood and gives it to the woman he loves. H she wears it, they are engaged (订婚）. Brides are often hidden by their families just before their wedding day. The groom and his family follow and whoever finds her will be the next to get married.

    In her bouquet, a Welsh bride carries a small tree with shiny green leaves and white flowers that smell nice as a symbol of love, and gives a cutting of the plant to her bridesmaids as well. If the bridesmaid plants the cutting in her yard and it blooms, she will soon marry, according to Welsh tradition.

    In Czechoslovak, before the wedding, the bride's friends traditionally plant a tree in her yard and decorate it with colored ribbons and eggshells, because, according to the legend, the bride will live as long as the tree. Before the marriage vows, a baby is placed in the couple*8 bed to bless their fertility. During the wading ceremony, Czech women surround the bride*, dancing and singing. They then remove her veil (面纱）and make her put on a handrnade babushka ( a woman's head scarf).

    School days are supposed to be the best days of your life and part of that experience usually involves some unforgettable physical activities. I asked some people to give me their memories of what happened to them on the sports field and beyond, and this is what they told me.

    Cup winners

    When I was about ten, the football team from our year unexplainably made it to the cup final of the local schools' league. I say unexplainably because I only remember us losing nearly every match we played. Anyway, in the final I set up the winning goal, a brilliant cross to my mate David who headed the ball in just before the final whistle. I still have a photograph of the team holding the cup.

    Forest hike

    I remember having to lead a group of eight boys on a school expedition for the best part of two days when I was a teenager. Even though we got lost at one point, I managed to keep them all together and get them from one end of a large forest to the other and back by sheer(纯粹的)force of will. I was chosen to be the leader, I think, because I was the only one who knew how to read a map!

    When we arrived back at the campsite, we found out that all the other groups had cheated and hitched(搭便车)most of the way instead… I felt a bit stupid, but also rather proud of myself at the same time for having done it properly.

    Learning to swim, learning to drown

    I learned to swim comparatively late, I suppose. I was maybe nine years old but my brother had a painful experience which nearly put him off for life. We lived in the USA for a while and had access to a university pool where the coaches had trained the American Olympic team. In those days, though, their idea of teaching kids how to swim was to tie a can to their ankles with a bit of string, throw them in the deep end and shout "Swim!". I am surprised my brother survived at all. He could only have been about six at the time.

Whistler Travel Guide

Snow-capped peaks and powdered steeps; sparkling lakes and rushing waterfalls; challenging hiking routes and inviting restaurants—Whistler's offerings suit every season.

Things to do

The entire town displays the ski-chic atmosphere, hosting dozens of ski and snowboard competitions and festivals annually. In the warmer months, more outdoor enthusiasts come out to play. Visitors can try hiking or cycling up the mountains. While Whistler is an ideal vacation spot for the active types, other travellers can enjoy the local museums and art galleries filled with informative exhibits. Plus, there are family-friendly activities and attractions like summer concerts, along with plenty of shopping options.

When to visit

The best times to visit Whistler are from June through August and between December and March.

How to get around

The best ways to get around Whistler are on foot or by bike. Or, you can take the shuttle buses from Whistler Village, which transport visitors to Lost Lake Park and the Marketplace. Meanwhile, having a car will allow you the freedom to explore top attractions like Whistler Train Wreck and Alexander Falls without having to spend a lot of cash on a cab.

What you need to know

• Whistler receives feet of snow each year. If you're driving in winter, slow down and make sure to rent or come with a reliable SUV.

• Snowslides are likely to occur on Backcountry routes, so only advanced skiers should take to this off-the-map area.

• Whistler's wilderness is home to many black and grizzly bears. Keep your distance and do not feed them.

As the pandemic makes clear, cities are possibly humanity's greatest invention, but cities with huge populations also make us easily suffer from the rapid spread of disease. Yet humans aren't the only species that face this problem. Honeybees have lived social lives for tens of millions of years, making them some of the most experienced in the battle against infection. And over time, natural selection has given them quite a few impressive strategies for reducing transmission within bee groups.

However, these strategies are not enough to prevent every threat. Honeybees are battling their own global disease, for which they were totally not prepared. A parasitic mite (寄生螨) originally existed only in the groups of Asian honeybees, but later jumped to infect Western honey bees. Today, it has spread to every region where honeybees are kept except Australia and a handful of remote islands, quickly becoming a global disease of the bees.

If left untreated, a group of bees will typically die from the mites within two years. These infections, plus farm chemicals and poor nutrition, have forced beekeepers to struggle to keep their bees alive. Of the 2.6 million honeybee groups in the US, over half of them have parasitic mite.

And that's only the count of those bees that are tested and reported; the actual numbers are likely much higher. Beekeepers have still managed to slowly increase the number of groups they keep, on average, but at a much higher cost.

Western honeybees did not grow with parasitic mite, and the Western bees lack the behavioral features those Asian honeybees have, like permanently burying the members infested by parasitic mite and, perhaps the most extreme strategy, where the bees are so sensitive to parasitic mite that they completely die as soon as infected, sacrificing themselves to prevent the mite from reproducing.

Cruz Genet,11, and Anthony Skopick, 10, couldn't agree. Were the birds out on the ice ducks or geese? So on a 1 January evening last year, the two friends ventured onto the 2 pond near their homes, to get a better look. First they tossed a rock onto the ice to3 it. Then they stepped on it. 4 the ice would hold their weight, Anthony took a few steps, then…FOOMP. He crashed through the 5 frozen surface." There was no sound, no crack," he recalled,"I just fell through instantly". Cruz 6 to help his panicked friend. FOOMP— the pond 7 him too.

 The boys were up to their necks in icy water and quickly losing feeling in their limbs. Any chance of their 8 themselves was slipping away. Cruz was sure he was going to die. Anthony's older sister was nearby and started screaming for help.

 John Lavin, a9 driving nearby on his way home, heard her. He quickly 10 . Seeing the boys, he grabbed a nearby buoy (救生圈), 11 off his shoes, and ran into the cold water, chopping(劈) his way through the ice with his free 12 .

 Lavin made his way to Cruz and Anthony and pulled them back to land. When in hospital, doctors discovered that their five- minute 13 in the water had lowered their body 14 nearly ten degrees.

 Fortunately, the boys have fully recovered, though they are still a little awestruck by their 15 neighbor." Just to think," says Cruz," If he weren't there, we could have died."