Note：

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* Cost: Free

* Phone: 01674­830736

* Location: SNH Visitor Centre, St Cyrus National Nature Reserve

    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.

    Telepathy (心灵感应) is the ability to communicate without the use of the five senses. It's an instinct (本能) which can be woken up in times of emergency or need. When we feel that something is happening or about to happen by instinct，we're using resources within the unconscious (潜意识的) mind. When the resources of two persons' unconscious minds link together into the same frequency (频率)，we call it telepathy.

    We can either send or receive telepathy. If you know who is calling before you answer the ringing phone，you are probably a good receiver. If you think of a person and he/she calls you，you are most likely to be better at sending.

    You can easily put your ability to the test. Thinking of somebody and wish him or her to contact you. Be patient. The other person may not be a good receiver，but they should contact you much earlier than would normally be expected. Or whenever the phone rings，try ‘feeling' who is contacting you. Don't guess，but try to feel it with your mind. However，if neither of these works for you，that doesn't mean that you have no ability of telepathy. As mentioned earlier，telepathy is most likely to turn up in case of emergency.

    Telepathy dreams often contain telepathic messages. Two people may both dream of the other and find that their dreams have a clear connection. These people are probably linking to each other's unconscious mind.

    Telepathy & relationship. The more people spend time together，the more likely they are to be able to link up to the other's mind，especially when separated. There are two reasons for this. One is that they understand the other's mind through time spent together；the other is that there is usually a strong desire to communicate. A mother will often sense that her child is in danger. This is due to the child's eagerly wanting his or her mother，knowing that this is the person who would always want to be there for them，and the mother's deep desire to protect her child from harm.

    Learning to speak English well may be the best thing you can do to improve your life. That's right. If you can communicate in English, you can do the following things:

    Contact (联系) people from all over the world. Talk about your ideas and opinions on Internet discussion groups. Send e-mails to interesting people. Learn about their life and culture.

    Travel more easily. Communicate with people wherever you go—English is spoken in more than 100 countries. Ask directions, have a conversation, or ask for help. Maybe English will save your life some day!

    Push your career forward. If you want a good job in business, technology, or science, get out of that armchair and start learning English now! If you already have a good job, start learning before you lose it! Knowing English will let you do the following things:

    Put “excellent knowledge of English” on your CV (履历). Get your dream job, and earn more money.

    Gain technical knowledge. English is the language of technology, especially high technology like computer science, and medicine. If you're going to read about technology, you'll probably have to do it in English.

    Be a world-class businessman or woman. It's simple. International business is done in English. And all business today is international. So if you want to play, you have to know English—to contact other business people, go to conferences, and read international business newspapers and magazines, ect.

    Become a better scientist. Contact scientists from other countries, go to international conferences, and visit research centers abroad. Learn about new scientific discoveries by reading papers, books, and magazines.

    Use your computer more effectively. Most computer applications are in English, so you will understand them better—and become a better employee.

    He is both a great director and a great animator (卡通片制作者). He is Japan's Walt Disney.

    Hayao Miyazaki, the 72-year-old Japanese master of fantasy animation (奇幻动画), one of the most respected animation directors in the world, announced his retirement on September 6. Here are some key words about his films.

Good and evil (邪恶)

    Miyazaki rarely tells stories in simple good and evil. The worlds he creates tend to be complex (复杂的) and unclear. The bad figures often don't seem so bad once you get to know them. Miyazaki has explained that the lack of clear good and evil is because he sees the 21st century as a complex time, in which old ideas need to be re-examined, even in children's films.

Children

    The heroes in Miyazaki's films are usually children or teens, more often young girls. Sometimes they can see the spirit world; they are curious and friendly, even to strange creatures. The stories often deal with growing up.

Sky and water

    Two of Miyazaki's great loves are the sky and water, and he uses them in related ways. Flight is a forever theme — Miyazaki has never done a film without flying of some kind. His imagination seems to fly and leave behind the pull of gravity (重力), a force and control that he feels a bound (束缚) from setting him free.

    Water is another way for Miyazaki to fight gravity. In his films he likes the unexpected floods with crystal-clear water, and objects floating on the surface seem to be supported by magic.

Peace

    Miyazaki's negative view of the war goes far more than surface deep. Violence is usually seen as wrong and painful, and Miyazaki's heroes are often peacemakers.

    Everyone knows that if a dog's ears are up and its tail is wagging vigorously, it is definitely pleased to see you, but now scientists using a robot have found that the way dogs use their tails is more complicated than we thought, and that dogs which wag them to the left may he more friendly. The animal psychologists discovered that when real dogs approached a life-sized robot dog, they were less cautious about it when it was wagging its tail to the left, while if it was wagging its tail to the right, far fewer dogs approached it in a confident manner.

    In the first experiments, 56 percent of the animals approached the model without hesitation when the tail was wagged to the left, while only 21 percent did so in the other situation. When the researchers excluded (排除) owners from being present, the result were: 31 percent of the dogs approached continuously when the tail was wagging to the left, while only 18 percent did so when it was on the right.

    Animal psychologist Roger Mugford said it added to the growing evidence that does were even more complicated communicators than the animals more closely related to man such as monkeys. He said, "We know that dogs, in a sense, have languages, but it is more complicated because it is not just them wagging their tails, but also giving out chemical displays."

    He adds, "The research confirms earlier studies suggesting that dogs, like humans, had a left-side preference. If you are going to present a signal to a dog, it is sensible to put it on your left-hand side because that is where dogs, unlike most other animals, tend to look. It is another example of the similarity between dogs and humans. They are a lot more human than we give them credit for."