You use her as a shoulder to cry on. She texts you back with casual jokes. But she, Xiaoice, is only a virtual chatbot（虚拟聊天机器人）.

    Xiaoice, Microsoft's latest artificial intelligence robot, was briefly released in 2014, and returned to WeChat in 2015, where she became a big hit. Millions of young Chinese now exchange messages with her daily, The New York Times reported. On WeChat, Xiaoice is an official account. After following it, users can start text-based conversations with Xiaoice.

    “Her incredible learning ability was why people loved to talk with Xiaoice,” Liu Jinchang, a researcher at High-tech Research and Development Center under the Ministry of Science and Technology, told China Daily. Apart from her ability to identify photos and send emojis（表情符号） in conversations, Xiaoice gains 45 percent of her knowledge from interacting with users, China Daily reported.

    Chatbot programs first appeared in the mid-1960s in the US. Driven by top tech companies, they are becoming smarter and more common. For instance, IBM's latest artificial intelligence program served as an academic consultant at Australia's Deakin University, answering students' questions about course schedules and financial aid. Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa have been used as voice assistants who can read news, play music and even make jokes for their users.

    These programs are expected to move beyond smartphones, into televisions, cars and living rooms, The New York Times pointed out. However, it may take decades before scientists develop a “Samantha”, the advanced chatbot seen in the fiction film Her. In the film, Samantha has a romantic relationship with her user played by US actor Joaquin Phoenix. Many viewers were enthusiastic about this fantasy of virtual soul mates.

    All languages change over time, but some change at a faster rate than others. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The most important factors are the number of people who speak a language, where they live and whether they move around, the importance of the language for world trade and communication, and changes in technology.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} However, today English is the most widely used language in the world. English is spoken by about 350 million people as a first language in countries such as Great Britain, the United States. In addition, about a billion more people speak English as a second language.

    English started to take over French as an international language during the period of British colonialism (殖民主义) when the English ruled many countries in Africa and Asia. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} The colonial period came to an end at the same time that several other changes occurred. For example, the U.S. started to play a greater part in global affairs and the international economy. New means of communication technology such as television and the Internet spread English worldwide. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} In addition, they could use the Internet for information, business, or e-mail communication, all in English. Just as the use of English spread, other languages changed English by contact or by new inventions and technology.

    In contrast, Icelandic is a language that has changed very slowly. Icelandic speakers today can understand poetry written in a slightly different dialect over 1,000 years ago! Why has Icelandic changed so slowly? The main reason is the isolated (孤立的) location of the island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Compared to England, Iceland had no history of colonialism. Iceland's small population has not played a major role in international trade or communication. Today, most Icelanders speak English in addition to their native language. With outside influences, Icelandic is changing more rapidly now.

A. People everywhere could watch the news or sports events in English.

B. These changes have a great influence on the development of society.

C. Isolation meant that for hundreds of years, Icelanders had little contact with speakers of other languages.

D. What are some of the factors that influence how quickly a language changes?

E. The language communication brings about the communication of technology.

F. In the past, other languages such as Latin or French were more important than English.

G. English was the primary means of communication in these colonies.

Recordings of angry bees are enough to send big, tough African elephants running away, a new study says. Beehives (蜂窝)—either recorded or real—may even prevent elephants from damaging farmer's crops.

    In 2002, scientist Lucy King and her team found that elephants avoid certain trees with bees living in them. Today, Lucy wants to see if African honeybees might discourage elephants from eating crops. But before she asked farmer to go to the trouble of setting up beehives on their farms, she needed to find out if the bees would scare elephants away.

    Lucy found a wild beehive inside a tree in northern Kenya and set up a recorder. Then she threw a stone into the beehive, which burst into life. Lucy and her assistant hid in their car until the angry bees had calmed down. Next，Lucy searched out elephant families in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya and put a speaker in a tree close to each family.

    From a distance, Lucy switched on the pre-recorded sound of angry bees while at the same time recording the elephants with a video camera. Half the elephant groups left the area within ten seconds. Out of a total of 17 groups, only one group ignored the sound of the angry bees. Lucy reported that all the young elephants immediately ran to their mothers to hide under them. When Lucy played the sound of a waterfall (瀑布) instead of the angry bees to many of the same elephant families, the animals were undisturbed. Even after four minutes, most of the groups stayed in one place.

Lucy is now studying whether the elephants will continue to avoid the sound of angry bees after hearing it several times. She hasn't tested enough groups yet to know, but her initial (最初的) results were promising enough to begin trials with farmers. She has now begun placing speakers in the fields to see if elephants are frightened away.

    Many people have long dreamed of being able to fly around as simply as riding a bicycle. Yet the safety and strength of a flying bike was always a big problem. Over the past 10 years, developments in technology have moved the dream of personal flying vehicles closer to reality. Now, two groups of inventors say such vehicles may be available soon.

    The British company Malloy Aeronautics has developed a prototype (原型) of its flying bicycle. Grant Stapleton, marketing sales director of Malloy Aeronautics, says the Hoverbike is able to get in and out of small spaces very quickly. It can be moved across continents very quickly because it can be folded and packed, he adds.

    Mr. Stapleton says safety was the company's main concern. He says the designers solved the safety issue by using overlapping rotors ( 交叠式旋翼 )to power the vehicle.

    The company is testing a full-size prototype of the Hoverbike, which will most likely be used first by the police and emergency rescue teams.

    In New Zealand, the Martin Aircraft Company is also testing a full-size prototype of its personal flying device, called the Jetpack. It can fly for more than 30 minutes, up to 1,000 meters high and reach a speed of 74 kilometers per hour.

    Peter Coker is the CEO of Martin Aircraft Company. He said the Jetpack “is built around safety from the start. In his words, reliability is the most important element of it. We have safety built into the actual structure itself, very similar to a Formula One racing car.”

    The Jetpack uses a gasoline-powered engine that produces two powerful jet streams. Mr. Coker says it also has a parachute (降落伞) that can be used should there be an emergency. “It starts to work at very low altitude and actually saves both the aircraft and the pilot,” he adds. Mr. Coker says the Jetpack will be ready for sale soon.

    Teens don't understand the big fuss (小题大做). As the first generation to grow up in a wired world they hardly know a time when computers weren't around, and they eagerly catch the chance to spend hours online, chatting with friends, so what?

    But researchers nationwide are increasingly worried that teens are becoming isolated, less skillful at person-to-per son relationships, and perhaps numb to the cheatings that are so much a part of the e-mail world. "And a teen's sense of self and values may be changed in a world where personal connections can be limitless," said Shetty Turkle.

    Another researcher, Robert Kraut, said he's worried about the "opportunity costs" of so much online time for youths. He found that teens who used computers, even just a few hours a week, showed increased signs of loneliness and social isolation. "Chatting online may be better than watching television, but it's worse than hanging out with real friends," he said.

    Today's teens, however, don't see anything strange in the fact that the computer takes up a central place in their social lives. "School is busy and full of pressure. There's almost no time to just hang out," said Parker Rice, 17 "Talking online is just to catch time."

    Teens say they feel good about what they say online or taking the lime to think about a reply. Some teens admit that asking someone for a date, or breaking up, can be easier in message form, though they don't want to do so. But they insist there's no harm.

    Ask any new college graduate about his immediate goals, and it is likely that he will tell you he wants a job. But it turns out that today's students are not going to be satisfied with any job. According to the latest survey, making a difference through their work is essential(必要的) to young people's happiness.

    The survey found that 72 percent of graduating college seniors believe being able to have a positive social influence through their work is essential to their happiness. Making a difference is so important to them that 45 percent say they would take a 15 percent pay cut to work at an organization that has a social or environmental influence, and 58 percent say they would take a pay cut to work for an organization whose values are the same as their own.

    Besides this, the survey found that female students are far more likely to put social influence in first place than their male classmates, echoing the results of a former study showing that female maths and science majors are more likely to say they go into those fields to make a difference.

    One reason for the emphasis(强调) on improving the world probably has to do with the culture of colleges, which encourages students to connect their studies back to real-world problems. Students are used to discussing important social issues(问题) with their friends and professors, and doing something about them in class or through volunteer activities. Once students develop those habits, they don't shut them off when graduation rolls around.