The Owl Count

    Annie slept in the front of the seat with her father drovethrough the darkness. “We're almost there!” Dad announced cheerfully. “Soon we'll be observing and counting owls at the state park.” Yawning, Annie noddedand smiled. The time was 4:30 a.m. Looking out into the darkness, Annie remembered learning in school that most owls are active at night, when they hunt for food. During the day they sleep in hard-to-find spots.

    “Dad, why do you need to count owls?” she asked. “It's importantfor the scientists to have current information about bird populations,” he explained. “We want to know which birds have decreased in number and whether any new kinds of birds are coming into a certain area. You and I will write down the kinds of birds that we see today and keep a record of how many times we see each kind. Then we'll send out a report to a scientific organization that is collecting about birds from people all over the country.”

    Dad pulled into the parking lot of the state park. Then, with flashing in hand, they began their hike into the woods. Annie zipped up hercoat and tried to keep from trembling. She had not expected the morning to beso cold. Luckily her gloves were in her pocket.

    Suddenly Annie's father stopped and gestured for her to bestill. Obeying, Annie did not take another step. She thought she heard a low crying up head. “That's certainly a screech owl,” her father whispered. “Let's get a look at it.” After looking more closely, Annie could see that it was asmall owl. Sensing danger, the owl narrowed its eyes and pulled its feathers tightly against its body. Annie carefully wrote down in her notebook that theyhad seen a screech owl.

    Walking a little farther, they came to a tall oak tree. “Thislooks like a perfect spot to attract owls,” Dad said, “I'm going to play a recording of common call of the barred owl. Maybe we can get one to answer." Annie could hardly believe her ear. The recorded call sounded as if the birdwere asking, “Who cooks for you?” Moments later Annie thought she heard areturn call in the distance. She held her breath and waited. Suddenly a huge bird landed very quietly on a branch above them.

    Annie had long forgotten how cold it was. She stood in wonder, shining her flashlight on the bird and studying it carefully. The barred owl was nearly two feet tall. Grey feathers surrounded its dark eyes. The bird did not stay long, but it did not matter. Annie would never forget the image of the powerful barred owl.

    I recently posted a picture on Facebook from the movie Mad Max, a film where two groups race through the desert in steampunk vehicles, and wrote, “Actual picture of my way to work today.” It was meant to be a joke because of the sandstorms in Beijing, but one of my friends from back home thought it was real.

    I couldn't imagine how they could think that is actually what China is like. China has so many more conveniences and advantages than the West, and many of my friends agree. “I don't know how I will be able to deal when I go back home,” said a friend who is about to end her gap year in Beijing. “I've become so spoiled in China.”

    China seems to be leading the way in innovation(创新) and convenience for daily life. Back home I could never shop, pull out my phone and scan a QR code to pay.

    There have been rumors of starting bike sharing in my hometown for years with little success while bike sharing suddenly appeared in Beijing overnight. I just step outside and scan a code, and I am on my way.

    Going out to eat with a group of friends back home was troublesome for both the group and the servers. Splitting bills and swiping(刷) 10 different cards or making change for each person in the group can be a pain. But with China's WeChat, you can quickly send your friends your part of the bill.

    The list goes on…

    When I first arrived in Beijing, I was dead set on leaving in a month. That month has come and gone. Now, when someone asks me when I'm coming back, I think to myself, “Who knows?”

    While my friends think I am riding through the desert on a motorbike, I am actually taking a Didi for what is the equivalent of $5 in the US.

    With all the conveniences and technology here, I may never want to go back.

The Rapid Rise and Fall of Robot Babysitters

    During the winter of 2017, an 18-year old college student named Canon Reeves spent much of his time trailing a knee-high robot around Fayetteville, Arkansas, as it delivered Amazon packages to students. The robot, created by a start-up called Starship Technologies in 2014, is basically a cooler on wheels; it uses radars, sensors, and nine cameras to make deliveries. Reeves's job was to monitor how it handled various grounds, field comments from the public, and press the off switch if necessary. He said, "People would also ask if it could deliver beer." It couldn't.

    Broadly speaking, jobs of caring for robots fall under the umbrella of careers in automation, which include maintenance, engineering and programming. The demand for people with this skill set is considerable, with 20 million to 50 million new jobs to be expected in this category by 2030, according to the Mckinsey Global Institute. In the year that ended in June 2018, Indeed.com had almost three times the number of positions on the recruitment committee that ended in June 2016.

    Over the last year, a 34-year-old businessman named David Rodriguez spent hundreds of hours following a machine called the KiwiBot around UC Berkeley's campus while it delivered Red bull and other drinks to students. To retrieve (检索) orders, the app encourages students to give the robot a wave; the robot's digital eyes will roll depending on its mood. Rodriguez, who heads business development for the start-up, was tasked, early on, with monitoring the KiwiBot for problems – even carrying it, should the motors fail. Since April 2018, though, the KiwiBot has largely been left unattended, and the majority of human interactions involve technical checks and loading food into the robot. To eliminate the boring work, the team is developing a restaurant robot to collect and load orders – which could happen in 2020. However, Rodriguez assured me that his staff won't be out of work. Everyone holds double roles in the company. Greater robot self-governing just means employees will shift their focus to accounting, engineering, and design.

    Mckinsey estimates that millions of jobs globally could be lost to automation by 2030. "A huge number of jobs will be produced as autonomous vehicles are released into the environment," Ramsey said. In 2016, Bosch started training students from Schoolcraft College, a community college in Michigan, in autonomous-vehicle repair; Toyota has trained students in maintenance as well. "We might even see a return to low-level jobs where people come and fuel the car for you," Ramsey said. "Until we can wirelessly charge, someone needs to refuel them." The hardest-to-automate industries, as it happens, are the ones that require looking after humans, such as childcare, education and health care. Robot babysitters might feel like they have scored the job of the future, but in fact, they might be better positioned.

    World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76. He was often called the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein. But his amazing career actually started as a young man who struggled to get around to doing his homework at Oxford University where he studied physics. He then went on to Cambridge to research cosmology, the study of the origin of universe.

    When he was 21, Hawking's life hit a big hurdle. He was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. The disease causes the brain to stop sending messages to a person's muscles. At the time, doctors said he would only live for around 2 years, but he proved them very, very wrong.

    And with the help of a special wheelchair and speech computer, Hawking spent much of his time researching the beginning of the universe and black holes. His most famous discovery was probably when he demonstrated that black holes emit some radiation, which has since become known as Hawking Radiation. He also spent a lot of time thinking about what existed before the big bang.

    Hawking wrote books that explained his big ideas in ways that could be understood by the average person. In 1988 he published A Brief History of Time. It became really popular and sold more than 10 million copies. However, he wasn't just known for his books. He also had a lot of fun becoming a regular on TV screens around the world. He even had a big Hollywood film made about his life.

    Throughout his life Stephen Hawking inspired people to look beyond our planet and expand our knowledge of the universe. His family says that he'll be greatly missed and the legacy of his amazing ideas will live on.

    There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real! Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do.

    May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough difficulties to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough hope to make you happy.

    Always put yourself in others' shoes. If you feel that it hurts you, it probably hurts the other person, too.

    The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried, for they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.

    Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss and ends with a tear. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, and you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

    When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

    Please send this message to those people who mean something to you, to those who have touched your life in one way or another, to those who make you smile when you really need it, to those who make you see the brighter side of things when you are really down, to those who you want to let know that you appreciate their friendship. And if you don't, don't worry; nothing bad will happen to you. You will just miss out on the opportunity to brighten someone's day with this message.

    The common cold is the world's most widespread illness, which is probably why there are more myths(神话) about it than any of the other illnesses.

    The most widespread mistake of all is that colds are caused by cold. They are not. They are caused by viruses passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by coming into contact, directly or indirectly, with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expect the Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in isolated Arctic regions explorers have reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected(感染的) people from the outside world by way of packages and mails dropped from airplanes.

    At the Common Cold Research Unit in England, volunteers took part in Experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts of being cold and wet for long stretches of time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits, allowed themselves to be doused(浸入) with cold water, and then stood about dripping(滴干)wet in drafty(通风的) rooms. Some wore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of the volunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose.

    If cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in the winter? In spite of the most painstaking research, no one has yet found the answer. One explanation offered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at other times, and this makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on.

    No one has yet found a cure for the cold. There are drugs and pain suppressors such as aspirin, but all they do is to relieve the symptoms.