Some unwelcome visitors from North America have been turning up in the waters off the coast of Great Britain.

    North American lobsters (龙虾) have been found in the North Sea (between Great Britain and Northwest Europe), far from their own habitat. The lobsters usually live along the eastern coast of Canada and the United States.

    It is impossible that the lobsters could have made the 5,600-kilometre journey on their own. They were probably brought to Britain and then got away from containers. Some of the lobsters that were caught had elastic bands (松紧带) holding their legs shut, like lobsters that are kept in containers in stores or restaurants.

    Many may have been “set free” from some ships passing through the area. Sometimes passengers order a live lobster from a tank in the dining room and then ask the waiter to throw it overboard instead of cooking it.

    According to official records, 26 North American lobsters have been caught in waters off Great Britain since 1988. However, it is believed many more have been found but not reported.

    It is against the law to let North American lobsters come into British waters. If they settle down in European waters, it would be bad for the local lobsters. The two live in the same place and eat the same food. But North American lobsters are larger, stronger and more aggressive (好斗的) than European lobsters, and they produce young more quickly.

    As a result, they could take food and space away from the local lobsters, and from other types of shellfish that live in the same area. These lobsters may also carry diseases that could harm the local lobsters.

    There have been times in my life when I felt satisfied.Sometimes it was because I achieved a goal I had set. Sometimes it was because I overcame a fear or passed a test.However,every time I feel that way,I learn again that full isn't full.

    When I was a little boy,I felt that the love I had for my mom and dad,and the love they had for me,just filled me up.Surely in a house full of nine people lived a young boy who loved and was loved as fully as a person could stand. Imagine my surprise as I then extended（扩大影响）that love to my grandparents,my uncle & aunt,cousins,etc.As I grew older,I met and married a beautiful woman that I thought entirely filled me up with love.I could not imagine there would be any more room.Then a few short years later we added one daughter and then another daughter to our family.Again,I had room to love and be loved.See what I mean?Every time I feel that life and love are as good as they can get,they get better.

    There is a lesson here for us.We ought to always have a heart that is open to expanding.To do more,love more, live more,learn more,overcome more,forgive more and the list could go on.Each of us knows 100 stories about men and women who have proved the impossible to be possible.Every day we stand at the crossroad and must decide if we are going to be a better person today than we were yesterday.

    You are not full yet.Young or old,there is still room for more.

    2018 FIRST Robotics Competition Game—FIRST POWER UPSM

    The adventure begins on January 6, 2018. Play for real! Combining the excitement of sport with the rigors(严酷)of science and technology. We call FIRST Robotics Competition the ultimate Sport for the Mind. High-school student participants call it “the hardest fun you'll ever have”.

    Team Basics

    The really cool thing about FIRST Robotics Competition is that all skill levels are welcomed and needed, technical or non-technical. Read more about team basics, time frame, commitment, and skills required.

    Cost & Registration

    What does it cost to participate? There are costs involved with forming a FIRST Robotics Competition team and they can vary from team to team and region to region depending on what level of participation the team chooses.

Here are some basic cost standards:

    There are never any “per student” fees; all costs for individual team members are assumed by the team as a group.

    The annual fees for team registration, a robot kit of parts, and event participation are $5,000—$6,000. Additional costs for travel, food, team shirts and other optional items will vary.

    Scholarships

    A big advantage of participating in FIRST is gaining access to millions in college scholarships made available by colleges, universities, and corporations who support FIRST. This is exclusive financial help open only to FIRST team members, giving them a competitive leg up on other students seeking educational funds.

    America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while — then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.

    Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.

    Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don't show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.

    For the Americans, it is often considered friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!

    Antarctica's ice white environment is going green and facing other unexpected threats. Scientists say that as temperatures go up in the polar area, invading (入侵) plants and insects, including the flies, cause a major threat.

More and more of these invaders, in the form of larvae(幼虫) or seeds, are surviving in coastal areas around the South Pole, where the temperature has risen by more than 3℃ over the past three decades. Glaciers have melted, exposing more land which has been occupied by mosses that have been found to be growing more quickly and thickly than ever before—providing potential green homes for invaders.

    “The common house flies are a perfect example of the problem the Antarctic now faces from invading species,” said Dominic Hodgson of the British Antarctic Survey. “It comes in on ships, where it exists in kitchens and then at bases on the continent. It now has an increasing chance of surviving in the Antarctic as it warms up, and that is a worry. Insects like the house flies carry bacteria that could have a deadly effect on native lifeforms.”

    The Antarctic has several native species of insects. Together with its native mosses these are now coming under increased threat from three major sources: visiting scientists increasing numbers of tourists and global warming. However, it is global warming that is the main driver of the greening of Antarctica.

    In 2015, more than 38, 000 tourists visited Antarctica. “These tourists are often very careful about not leaving waste or having mud. But they could carry seeds or larvae on their boots when they set foot on the Antarctic, “ said Hodgson.

    More and more invasive insects and plants have been found on the Antarctic and have required removal. “The insects and plants that are native to Antarctica have survived there for thousands of years,” said Hodgson, “We have got to act now if we want to save the environment.”

    The idea that computers have some amount of "intelligence" is not new, says Ralph Haupter, the president of Microsoft Asia, pointing as far back as 1950 when computer pioneer Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. "So it has taken nearly 70 years for the right combination of factors to come together to move AI from concept to reality," says Haupter.

    It is predicted that the development of artificial intelligence will be the story of the coming generations, not just the coming year, but as 2019 gets underway, you'll find AI will begin to touch your life in many ways according to some researchers.

"Personal assistant AIs will keep getting smarter. As our personal assistants learn more about our daily routines, I can imagine the day I need not to worry about preparing dinner. My AI knows what I like to eat, which days of the week I like to cook at home, and makes sure that when I get back from work all my groceries are waiting at my doorstep, ready for me to prepare that delicious meal I had been longing for." —Alecjandro Troccoli, senior research scientist, NVIDIA.

"Thanks to AI, the face will be the new credit card, the new driver's license and the new barcode (条形码). Facial recognition is already completely transforming security with biometric capabilities being adopted, and seeing how technology and business are connected, like Amazon is with Whole Foods, I can see a near future where people will no longer need to stand in line at the store." —Georges Nahon, president, Orange Institute, a global research laboratory.

"2019 will be the year AI becomes real for medicine. By the end of the year we're seeing solutions for population health, hospital operations and a broad set of clinical specialties quickly follow behind." —Mark Michalski, executive director, Massachusetts General Hospital.