Were dinosaurs (恐龙) warm-blooded or cold-blooded? According to a new study, scientists have found that they were somewhere in the middle. This new study shows that dinosaurs were very different from most of today's animals that are either warm or cold-blooded.

    “I think we were all surprised by this,” said Felisa Smith from the University of New Mexico. “The idea certainly took some getting used to.”

    A study by a team of scientists led by John M. Grady of the university studied many different kinds of dinosaurs in their research. They looked at growth rate (比率), body temperature and body size of different kinds of dinosaurs.

    How are warm-blooded animals different from cold-blooded animals? Warm-blooded animals like humans can control their body temperature. They eat a lot, and burn calories (卡路里) quickly. They have a more active lifestyle than cold-blooded animals. While cold-blooded animals such as snakes do not control their body temperature. Instead, they must use sunlight to keep warm, and they move much more slowly. Cold-blooded animals do not need to eat very much. Their bodies slow down in colder temperatures.

    Besides dinosaurs, there are other animals that are not completely warm-blooded or cold-blooded, such as great white sharks.

    You carry a 1.3 kg mass of fatty material in your head that controls everything you will ever do. This fantastic control center lets you think, learn, create, and feel emotions. It also controls everything your body does. What is this amazing machine? It's your brain — a structure so amazing that the famous scientist James Watson called it ＂the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe＂.

    Imagine your kitten jumped onto the kitchen counter, and was about to step onto a hot stove. You would have only seconds to act. In situations like this, your brain reads the signals from your eyes and quickly calculates when, where and at what speed you need to run to save her. Then it tells your muscles to move. No computer can match your brain's great ability to download, process, and react to the flood of information from your eyes, ears and other sensory organs.

    If a bee lands on your foot, sensory neurons(神经元) in your skin send this information to your brain at a speed of more than 240 kilometers per hour. Your brain then uses motor neurons to send a message back to your foot: Shake the bee off quickly! Motor neurons can send this information at more than 320 kilometers per hour!

    Your brain contains about 100 billion tiny cells: neurons — it would take you more than 3,000 years if you tried to count them all. Whenever you dream, laugh, think, see or move, tiny chemical and electrical signals are racing between these neurons along billions of tiny neuron pathways. Believe it or not, the activity in your brain never stops. Countless messages fly around inside it every second, like a super-fast game of table tennis. Your neurons create and send more messages than all the phones in the entire world. And although a single neuron generates only a tiny amount of electricity, all your neurons together can generate enough electricity to power a light bulb.

    Those who are in love really know each other's thoughts and can see into one another's ice cream bowl.This truth became so clear to me the other day.

    At about 11:00 a.m.,my husband Gary called from work to see what was up at home."Oh nothing,"I said,"just having a little early lunch."Then he said,"So how's the coffee ice cream I bought?"I could almost "hear" him smiling.

    "What?"I was stunned.How in the world did he know I was eating ice cream?I never eat the ice cream, especially in the morning.Besides,he knows that I had been trying to diet again.However,I could hardly hide the laughter in my voice as I calmly asked,"Why would you think I'm eating coffee ice cream?"

    Gary said,"Uh...first,you said 'Just having a little early lunch' in a guilty,high voice.Second,your tongue must be rather cold because your words were a bit slow."What he said made me laugh out loud."The other thing is,I noticed you left some coffee ice cream untouched last night.That was like me hiding some cigarettes in the corner to enjoy later."

    We laughed long and hard together before he asked me gently,"What happened?Er...something must have happened to make you eat ice cream before lunch."

    Suddenly,I felt a rush of love for the man on the other end of the line.He knew me well-cared enough to find out what was bothering me,and trusted me enough to help me laugh at myself.

    There are billions of people on this planet, and many of us love to eat meat. In 2018 alone, the average American will consume more than 100 kgs of red meat, according to a report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). At the same time, the environmental impact caused by meat consumption – waste, animal treatment, health issues and even the greenhouse gas effects – has given rise to a number of startups (新兴企业) looking for ways to fill our growing demand for meat. But can the demand be filled in a sustainable and affordable way?

    A bunch of companies are not only optimistic but are working to make this happen sooner. All of these companies harvest cells from animals and grow them in a lab. For example, San Francisco-based Memphis Meats is developing cell-based meats in its laboratories by manufacturing fat and muscle cells without requiring any animals. And don't worry if you're not a meat lover. Startups such as Jet Eat, which is based in Israel, are working on food products grown in labs that are plant based and produce meats using natural ingredients while still maintaining flavor, consistency and the "overall sensory experience".

    As you can imagine, there are plenty of hurdles facing the industry. Educating the public is a big one. Another controversial issue is the labelling of the products. Meat industry trade groups have been pressing the USDA to more strictly regulate alternative meats, labeled as "imitation products".

    Many of us have concerns about the challenges facing future generations as our global population swells and the earth's natural resources shrink. The good news is that there are plenty of companies around the world—like those producing lab-grown meats - who are working to solve some of these problems and make a few bucks in the process. Nothing wrong with that.

    Consumer electronics once again topped the list of the most wanted gifts this holiday season.

    "Seventy-six percent of consumers who plan to buy holiday gifts say that they will spend money or buy at least one technology product; definitely a solid vote of confidence for technology."

    Steve Koenig is with the Consumer Electronics Association. He says the group's latest research also shows that Americans this year are spending more on technology products. "Here in 2012, $252 on average the technology spend for consumers this year."

    From tablet computers to smart phones, American shoppers have been lining up to get the newest and coolest electronic devices on the market. There are more choices today than ever before. "It's kind of hard to make a decision."

    Tablet computers are one of the best-selling products this year. Brian Tong is Senior Editor of CNET.com. The website reports on tech news and examines the latest electronic products. He says the Apple iPad Mini is one of the most popular tablets. Its starting price is $329. One of Apple's biggest competitors is the Google Nexus 7. It starts at $199.

    "Its hardware is more powerful than what's in the iPad Mini, but also it offers you a lot of things like maps that work better than Apple's maps.

    But Brian Tong says there is one reason why people may like the iPad Mini more than the Nexus 7. "If you just want to read books and surf the Internet, you don't really need to get an iPad Mini, but if you want the largest robust group of apps (应用软件) that's where the iPad and Apple's ecosystem shines the most."

    Elman Chacon is with the electronics store Best Buy. He says another hot product this season is smart cameras. They connect to the Internet through Wi-Fi. This makes it easy for users to email or upload photographs directly from the camera." You can literally take a picture and upload it into your Facebook in a matter of seconds. These things are pretty cool because they do a lot of things."

    Streaming media boxes also connect to the Internet. People are able to watch web content such as movies and YouTube videos on their televisions. Another popular item is wireless speaker systems. The newest ones work with any device that has Bluetooth technology, including smart phones, laptops and tablets.

If you've ever seen a sparrow steal your dog food or a crow open a garbage bag, you get a sense of that some birds have learned to take advantage of new feeding opportunities—a clear sign of their intelligence. Scientists have long wondered why certain species of birds are more innovative than others, and whether these capacities stem from larger brains or from a greater number of neurons（神经元）in specific areas of the brain.

It turns out that it's a bit of both, according to a recent study by an international team that included members from McGill University published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The researchers used a new technique to estimate the number of neurons in a specific part of the brain called the pallium in 111 bird species. The pallium in birds is equal to the human cerebral cortex（大脑皮层）, which is involved in memory, learning, reasoning, and problem-solving, among other things. When these estimates about neuron numbers in the pallium were combined with information about over 4,000 feeding innovations, the team found that the species with the higher numbers of neurons in the pallium were also likely to be the most innovative.

"The amount of time chicks spend in the nest as their brains develop might also play a crucial role in the evolution of intelligence," says McGill University Emeritus Professor Louis Lefebvre who spent more than 20 years gathering examples of feeding innovations. "Larger species of crows and parrots, which are known for their intelligence, spend longer in the nest, which allows more time for the brain to grow and accumulate pallial neurons."

The results of the study help to deal with previously opposed views of the evolution and significance of brain size and show how a life-history perspective helps to understand the evolution of cognition.