Do you want to live another 100 years or more? Some experts say that scientific advances will one day enable humans to last tens of years beyond what is now seen as the natural limit of the human life span.

     “I think we are knocking at the door of immortality(永生),” said Michael Zey, a Montclair State University business professor and author of two books on the future. “I think by 2075 we will see it and that' s a conservative estimate(保守的估计).”

    At the conference in San Francisco, Donald Louria, a professor at New Jersey Medical School in Newark said advances in using genes as well as nanotechnology(纳米技术) make it likely that humans will live in the future beyond what has been possible in the past. “There is a great effort so that people can live from 120 to 180 years,” he said. “Some have suggested that there is no limit and that people could live to 200 or 300 or 500 years.”

    However, many scientists who specialize in aging are doubtful about it and say the human body is just not designed to last past about 120 years. Even with healthier lifestyles and less disease, they say failure of the brain and organs will finally lead all humans to death.

    Scientists also differ on what kind of life the super aged might live. “It remains to be seen if you pass 120, you know; could you be healthy enough to have good quality of life?” said Leonard Poon, director of the University of Georgia Gerontology Centre. “At present people who could get to that point are not in good health at all.”

    David Brown and Anne are two patients in the Adult Day Care Program at Mercy Hospitals. David Brown is seventy-two years old. He's friendly and likes to talk. He lives with his wife in the city. But David is becoming forgetful. His wife says, “He'll heat up some soup, then forget to turn off the gas.” She is sixty-one and still works. She is worried about leaving her husband alone.

    Anne is eighty and lives with her 60-year old daughter. Her daughter says that she needs a rest. “Mom follows me everywhere. She follows me when I read newspapers. I need a rest and she does, too.”

    And so, several times a week, David and Anne's families take them to the Adult Day Care Center. Many hospitals have this program, Patients come to the Center for a full or half day, from one to five days a week. All the patients live with their families and most are old people.

    Mrs. Carol Johnson is the director of the Center. She says, “We help the patients learn many things here. Patients have the chance to get out of their houses. Husbands, wives or grown children can work or have a rest. Most important of all, families are able to stay together.”

    The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias (偏见) in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities. This phenomenon is something you have likely experienced in real life, perhaps at a holiday family gathering. Throughout the course of the meal, a member of your extended family begins spouting off on a topic, boldly announcing that he is correct and that everyone else's opinion is stupid, uninformed, and just plain wrong. It may be plainly evident to everyone that this person has no idea what he is talking about, but he talks continuously, blithely oblivious (忘乎所以) to his own ignorance.

    The effect is named after researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger, two social psychologists. They found incompetent people are not only poor performers, they are also unable to accurately assess and recognize the quality of their own work. These low performers were also unable to recognize the skill and competence levels of other people, which is part of the reason why they consistently view themselves as better, more capable, and more knowledgeable than others.

    This is the reason why students who earn failing scores on exams sometimes feel that they deserved a much higher score. They overestimate their own knowledge and ability and are incapable of seeing the poorness of their performance.

    “In many cases, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, encouraged by something that feels to them like knowledge.” Dunning and his colleagues have also performed experiments where they ask respondents if they are familiar with terms related to subjects including politics, biology, physics, and geography. Along with genuine concepts, they added completely made-up terms. In one such study, approximately 90 percent of respondents claimed that they had at least some knowledge of the made-up terms.

    So what can you do to gain a more realistic assessment of your own abilities? Instead of assuming you know all there is to know about a subject, keep digging deeper. Once you gain greater knowledge of a topic, the more likely you are to recognize how much there is still to learn. Another effective strategy involves asking others for constructive criticism. While it can sometimes be difficult to hear, such feedback can provide valuable insights into how others perceive your abilities. Even as you learn more and get feedback, it can be easy to only pay attention to things that confirm what you think you already know. In order to minimize this confirmation bias, keep challenging your beliefs and expectations and seek out information that challenges your ideas.

    As data and identity theft becomes more and more common, the market is growing for biometric(生物测量)technologies—like fingerprint scans—to keep others out of private e-spaces. At present, these technologies are still expensive, though.

    Researchers from Georgia Tech say that they have come up with a low-cost device(装置)that gets around this problem: a smart keyboard. This smart keyboard precisely measures the cadence(节奏)with which one types and the pressure fingers apply to each key. The keyboard could offer a strong layer of security by analyzing things like the force of a user's typing and the time between key presses. These patterns are unique to each person. Thus, the keyboard can determine people's identities, and by extension, whether they should be given access to the computer it's connected to—regardless of whether someone gets the password right.

    It also doesn't require a new type of technology that people aren't already familiar with. Everybody uses a keyboard and everybody types differently.

    In a study describing the technology, the researchers had 100 volunteers type the word "touch" four times using the smart keyboard. Data collected from the device could be used to recognize different participants based on how they typed, with very low error rates. The researchers say that the keyboard should be pretty straightforward to commercialize and is mostly made of inexpensive, plastic-like parts. The team hopes to make it to market in the near future.

    India has a very vast history and heritage (遗产). The country has witnessed some of the most important events in the past and every event has an effect of its own on the culture, religion, lifestyle, and economy of the country. This is one of the leading reasons why tourists prefer India to travel and explore. Historical tours in India provide everything that a traveler expects from his/her journey. These historical tours give an opportunity to study and explore Indian history.

    Historical tours of India generally consisted of four phases: ancient, medieval (中世纪的), modern India and contemporary (当代的) India. Some of the historical travel packages are:

    Forts and Palaces

    The rich cultural past of India is reflected in the countless forts (堡垒) and palaces across the country. Most of the forts were constructed as a defense device to keep the enemy away and palaces were made on the names of the kings and queens. Some of the famous forts and palaces are: Agra Fort (Agra), Fatehpur Sikri (Agra), Hawa Mahal (Jaipur), Amber Fort (Jaipur), City Palace (Jaipur), Gwalior Fort (Gwalior), Mysore Palace (Mysore), Red Fort (Delhi), etc.

    India Heritage Tours

    The main purpose of India Heritage tours is to make Indians as well as tourists familiar with the rich Indian legacy (遗产). The heritage of the country is at least 5000 years. Some of the heritage tours are: medieval heritage, Rajput heritage, Golden Triangle, splendid Gujarat, etc.

    South India Historical Tours

    The Southern India is known for its diversity and there are many places, which (景区) in South India include Goa, Cochin, Kerala, Munnar, Periyar, Kottayam and the list goes on and on.

The Coolest Inventions

    An Oceans Vacuum(吸尘器)

    There's a collection of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's bigger than Texas and growing. The way to clean it up now is to catch it with nets. That is both costly and slow. Instead, the Ocean Cleanup Project proposes a 62-mile-long floating barrier that would use natural currents to trap trash. If next year's trials succeed, a full cleanup operation would aim to start in 2020. It could reduce the trash by 42 % over 10 years.

    Easy-On Shoes

    In 2012, Matthew Walzer, a high school student with a disability, sent a note to Nike. "My dream is to go to college," he wrote, "without having to worry about someone coming to tie my shoes every day." Nike assigned a design team to the challenge. This year, they came out with their solution: the FlyEase. The basketball shoe can be fastened with one hand. A pair of Nike FlyEase shoes sells for $ 130.

    An Airport for Drones (无人机)

    As Amazon, Google, and others get ready for drone delivery service, there is one big question: What kinds of home bases will their drones have? Rwanda, in Africa, may have the answer. There, workers will soon start work on three "drone ports". The goal is to make it easier to transport food, medical supplies, electronics, and other goods through the hilly countryside. Construction is set to be completed in 2020.