Feifei,an 11-year-old boy from Xuzhou,Jiangsu Province,suffered from a sudden acute eye disease which has almost led to blindness.The disease was caused by excessive（过度的）eye fatigue（疲劳）during the winter vacation, during which he played computer games for continuous 10 days and nights.

    Many youngsters in China nowadays are increasingly addicted to computer games and other electronic products. This is followed by a series of health problems,with the most typical case being myopia,or nearsightedness.

    According to the latest research report released by the World Health Organization (WHO),the myopia rate among Chinese teenagers ranks first in the world—70 percent of high school and college students.The rate is nearly 40 percent in primary school students,while it is only 10 percent for their peers in the United States.

    There are at least 10 million people in China with severe myopia,and they are likely to get pathological（病理性的）myopia in middle age.Pathological myopia can't be treated with glasses or surgery,and it is one of the biggest factors that lead to blindness,Xu Xun,director of the ophthalmology（眼科学）department at Shanghai General Hospital,pointed out.

    Experts explain that two major factors lead to the high rate of myopia among Chinese people.One is high academic pressure,and the other one is excessive use of electronic devices over a long period of time.Genetics,on the other hand,are not the main reason,as only 20 percent of Chinese people had myopia in the 1960s.

    "Teenagers are now faced with severe academic pressure,which means they often study without natural light. This increases their risk of becoming nearsighted,"Xu said.

    Experts suggest that youngsters maintain a proper balance between study and rest so as to protect their eyesight, and parents should play an active role in the process.

    Zero gravity looks cool. But what about the thing no one likes to talk about? Yes, that is right: going to the bathroom. Zero gravity makes this everyday task quite a challenge. Astronauts have to be toilet-trained all over again.

    The Apollo astronauts raised themselves off the seat of their chairs and stuck a clear plastic bag to their back sides with sticky strips. A second astronaut watched closely to be sure no waste matter escaped the seal. (You would not want that stuff floating around the cabin!) When the deed was done, the astronaut cleaned up with a piece of plastic attached to the inside of the bag, removed the bag, dropped a disinfectant(消毒剂) pill in with the waste matter, and put the whole thing, sealed, into a special container.

    Donald W. Rethke, an engineer for Hamilton Standard Space Systems, developed a more private way to answer nature's call: the space toilet. It is somewhat like the kind of toilet one would find on commercial airplanes--with unique adaptations for zero gravity, of course. For instance, it has thigh bars that keep the astronaut from floating off the seat.

    The astronaut (male or female) defecates (排便) in a bag and urinates (排尿) in a hose. Solid and liquid wastes are kept separated because at least 85% of the urine is recycled and, yes, after careful filtration(过滤), used for drinking and other purposes. (Water is always in demand in space.) A vacuum sucks the waste materials into the toilet, where the waste is compacted into hamburger-like patties for easy storage. Although not exactly like an earthbound visit to the toilet, it is at the very least much more private than in the early days of space travel.

    One afternoon I toured an art museum while waiting for my husband to finish a business meeting. I was looking forward to a quiet view of the art works.

    A young couple viewing the paintings ahead of me chatted nonstop between themselves. I watched them a moment and decided the wife was doing all the talking. I admired his patience for putting up with her continuous talk. Distracted by their noise, I moved on.

    I met with them several times as I moved through the different rooms of art. Each time I heard her constant burst of words, I moved away quickly.

    I was standing at the counter of the museum gift shop making a purchase when the couple came near to the exit. Before they left, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white object. He extended it into a long stick and then tapped his way into the coatroom to get his wife's jacket.

    "He's a brave man.," the clerk at the counter said, "Most of us would give up if we were blinded at such a young age. During his recovery, he made a promise that his life wouldn't change. So, as before, he and his wife come in whenever there's a new art show."

    "But what does he get out of the art?" I asked. "He can't see."

    "Can't see? You're wrong. He sees a lot. More than you or I do," the clerk said. "His wife describes each painting so he can see it in his head."

    I learned something about patience, courage and love that day. I saw the patience of a young wife describing paintings to a person without sight and the courage of a husband who would not allow blindness to change his life. And I saw the love shared by two people as I watched this couple walk away.

    Have you ever thought of quitting your job when you feel exhausted? Maybe most of you would say "yes". After a particularly busy period at work, I decided to get away from it all by going on a hike in the mountains in southern France.

    Before I left, I read an interesting story in a magazine. It read, "Once, while I was riding on a crowded bus, the man sitting next to me threw his cell phone out of the window when his phone rang. I was surprised. He looked at me, shrugged (耸耸肩) and looked away. I had no idea whether it was his or stolen or whether he even knew what a cell phone was or not, but he clearly wanted to be free of it, because it clearly troubled him."

    Billions of people across the world use cell phones. Though cell phones are a wonderful way for communication, they often do the exact opposite. Using cell phones can increase stress within families and friends.

    So when I recently returned home, I got rid of my cell phone. Now I go outside without taking my phone with me. I've noticed things in my neighborhood I never noticed before, such as gardens. I've met new people, started conversations with neighbors I didn't speak to before and talked with some of my friends face to face instead of chatting over the phone.

    Instead of keeping me off from the world, stopping using my cell phone has helped me get even closer to my family and friends.

    Google's new camera, called Clips, is a small, smart device. It comes with a case that has a clip (夹子), but it's not designed to be worn on your clothing. Most interestingly, it uses artificial intelligence to take photography out of your hands so it can capture moments on its own.

    This roughly 2-inch by 2-inch camera, with a three-hour battery life and Gorilla Glass for toughness, is intended for candid moments, like when a child does something cute that may happen too quickly for you to pull out your smartphone.

    Onboard the Clips device, it uses machine learning algorithms (计算程序) to help capture scenes. Those algorithms include face recognition. "Once it learns that there's a face you see frequently, it'll try to get nice photos of those faces," said Juston Payne, the device's product manager. And they also want it to recognize facial expressions, which involved "training it to know what happiness looks like". The Google team also trained it to recognize what not to shoot—like when a child's hand is over the lens, or if it is tossed in a dark purse.

    The only way to see the images is by connecting the camera with your phone, as it has no screen for viewing or editing.

    Were people concerned it could seem strange? Yes, Payne admitted. But they said they addressed that by making it obvious what it is. A green light on the front signals that it is on. Besides, unlike a camera meant to monitor your home, it is not connected to the Internet.

    "This product is only possible because of the way that silicon has advanced" Payne said, noting that it was only in the past year or so that they could squeeze the technology down into a device this size. Going forward, we're likely to get more assistance from the artificial intelligence packed into our apps and gadgets.

    Scientists at the University of Oxford have developed new artificial intelligence(AI) software to recognize and follow up the faces of chimpanzees(黑猩猩)in the wild. The new software will allow researchers and wildlife conservationists to significantly cut back on time spent analyzing videos, according to the new paper published in Science Advances.

    For species(物种)like chimpanzees which have complex social lives and live for many years, getting photos of their behavior taken from short-term field research can only tell us so much," says Dan Schofield, researcher and DPhil student at Oxford University's Private Models Lab, School of Anthropology. "By taking advantage of the power of machine learning to unlock large video files, it makes it possible to measure behavior over the long term."

    The computer model was trained using over 10 million images(影像):from Kyoto University s Primate Research Institute(PRI) video files of wild chimpanzees in Guinea, West Africa. The new software is the first to continuously track and recognize individual a wide range of poses, performing with high accuracy in difficult conditions such as low lighting and poor image quality.

    "Access to this large video file has allowed us to use deep neural networks to train models to a degree that was previously not possible," says Arsha Nagrad, co-auther of the study and DPhil student at the Department of Engineer Science, University of Oxford." Additionally, our new software differs from previous primate face recognition software in that it can be applied to videos with limited manual intervention(人工干预), saving hours of time."

    The technology can be potentially used to monitor species for conservation Although the present application focuses on chimpanzees, the AI software provided will be applied to other species, and help drive the adoption of AI systems to solve(解决)a range of problems in the wildlife sciences.