Your next Saturday night takeaway could be brought to you by a robot after a major food delivery company announced plans to use automated vehicles to transport meals. Europe's biggest online takeaway food company Just Eat has partnered with Starship Technologies to deliver food with robots on the streets of London later this month. “Nobody has ever done deliveries with land-based robots,” said Allan Martinson, the chief operating officer of Starship.

    The robot courier can travel up to 4 miles per hour for about 10 miles. It uses a GPS signal and nine cameras to navigate(确定方向). Instead of a person arriving at their door, customers could find themselves receiving a notification(通知) on their phone that says a robot is on its way and a code to unlock the automated courier. “Put the code in, the robot opens up, and there's your food,” said David Buttress, chief manager of Just Eat.

    The robot, which has so far been tested in Greenwich, Milton Keynes and Glastonbury, costs ￡1 to transport within 3 miles, compared with the ￡3 to ￡6 it costs for a human courier. To date 30 robots have driven nearly 5,000 miles without getting into an accident or finding themselves picked on by passers-by. They have driven in more than 40 cities around the world, including London and Tallinn, Estonia.

    An initial worry was how the public would react to robots. But Martinson said the public has been calm when passing the delivery machine on the streets. “The most surprising reaction has been the lack of reaction,” said Martinson.

    Another significant fear was that people would disrupt(扰乱) the robots, or try to steal them and their contents. To prevent this, the robot is fitted with nine cameras, two way audio, and movement sensors that send a warning if it is lifted off the ground. And it opens only with a pass code provided to the customer via a notification. “It's much easier to shoplift than it is to steal a robot,” said Martinson.

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    When we see well, we do not think about our eyes very often. It is only when we cannot see perfectly that we realize how important our eyes are.

    People who are near-sighted can only see things that are very close to their eyes. Everything else seems ­­blurry. Many people who do a lot of work, such as writing, reading and sewing become near-sighted. People who are far-sighted suffer from just the opposite problem. They can see things that are far away, but they have difficulty in reading a book unless they hold it at arm's length. If they want to do much reading, they must get glasses, too.

    Other people do not see clearly because their eyes are not exactly the right shape. They have what is called astigmatism (散光). This, too, can be corrected by glasses. Some people's eyes become cloudy because of cataracts (白内障). Long ago these people often became blind. Now, however, it is possible to operate on the cataracts and remove them.

    Having two good eyes is important for judging distances. Each eye sees things from a slightly different angle. To prove this to yourself, look at an object out of one eye; then look at the same object out of your other eye. You will find the object's relation to the background and other things around it has changed. The difference between these two different eye views helps us to judge how far away an object is. People who have only one eye cannot judge distances as people with two eyes.

    Going green seems to be fad(时尚)for a lot of people these days. Whether that is good or bad, we can't really say, but for the two of us, going green is not a fad but a lifestyle.

    On April 22,2011,we decided to be green every single day for an entire year. This meant doing 365 different things, and it also meant challenging ourselves to go green beyond the easy things. Rather than recycle and reduce our energy, we had to think of 365 different things to do and this was no easy task.

    With the idea of going green every single day a year, Our Green Year started. My wife and I decided to educate people about how they could go green in their lives and hoped we could show people all green things that could be done to help the environment. We wanted to push the message that every little bit helps.

    Over the course of Our Green Year, we completely changed our lifestyles. We now shop at organic(有机的) stores. We consume less meat, choosing green food. We have greatly reduced our buying we don't need. We have given away half of what we owned through websites. Our home is kept clean by vinegar and lemon juice, with no chemical cleaners. We make our own butter, enjoying the smell of home-made fresh bread. In our home office anyone caught doing something ungreen might be punished.

    Our minds have been changed by Our Green Year. We are grateful for the chance to have been able to go green and educate others. We believe that we do have the power to change things and help our planets.

    Budget Hotels (经济型酒店) in Bloomsbury

    Bloomsbury is one of the most central areas in London. There are many traditional-style small hotels. The hotels listed below are our picks of the best budget hotels in the area.

    Arosfa Hotel

Arosfa Hotel lies on the corner of Torrington Place and Gower St. The Arosfa was once the home of the famous Pre-Raphaelite painter, Sir John Everett Millais. The hotel takes pride in the quality, cleanliness and value that they offer to their guests. For your comfort and safety, smoking inside the hotel is not allowed.

Address: 83 Gower St, London, WC1

    Breakfast: English breakfast

    Internet service: Free WiFi and two personal computers for guests

    George Hotel

The George is a friendly and comfortable smoke-free hotel on a quiet street in North Bloomsbury. All rooms have a work desk and tea/coffee facilities are provided. It's only a 10-minute walk from King's Cross, St Pancras railway station and Euston railway station.

Address: 58-60 Cartwright Gds, London, WC1

    Breakfast: English breakfast

    Internet service: Free WiFi

    Ridgemount Hotel

    The Ridgemount is one of the cheapest hotels in the area. A friendly place and the standard rooms with shared bathrooms are provided for guests. You can speak Welsh or English with the hotel workers. They will be happy to provide useful advice on the area.

Address: 65-67 Gower St, London, WC1

    Breakfast: English breakfast

    Internet service: Free WiFi

    Arran House Hotel

    The Arran House is a popular family-run hotel. It's a little more expensive than the other hotels in the area. Rooms with shared bathrooms are provided.

Address: 77-79 Gower St, London, WC1

    Breakfast: English breakfast

    Internet service: Free WiFi

    Everybody hates rats (big mice). But in the earthquake capitals of the world — Japan, Los Angeles, Turkey — rats will soon be man's best friends.

    What happens after an earthquake? We send in rescue dogs. Why? Because they can smell people. Dogs save lives. They help rescuers to find living people. But dogs are big and they can't get into small spaces. So now a new research project is using a smaller animal to save lives: the rat.

    How does it work? First, the rat is trained to smell people. When this happens, the rat's brain gives a signal (信号). This is sent to a small radio on its back, and then the rescuers follow the radio signals. When the rat's brain activity jumps, the rescuers know that someone is alive. The rat has smelled that person.

    Although there are already robots which can do this job, rats are better. Christian Linster at Cornell University, New York, says, "Robots' noses don't work well when there are other smells around. Rats are good at that." Rats can also see in the dark. They are cheaper and quicker to train than dogs, and unlike robots, they don't need electricity!

    The "rat project" is not finished, but Julie Ryan of International Rescue Organization in Scotland says, "It would be wonderful. A rat could get into spaces we couldn't get to, and a rat would get out if it wasn't safe." Perhaps for the first time in history, people will be happy to see a rat in a building (but only after an earthquake, of course).

Robots have long been drawing inspiration from animals, with the creation of robot dogs or snake-shaped robots. And yet, the field of robotics is far less enthusiastic about the other kind of living things—plants. Barbara Mazzolai, an Italian roboticist owes this to a misconception about plant behavior: that they cannot move or think. "It's not true at all, " she says. To challenge this view, Dr Mazzolai and her team recently launched a machine called "FiloBot", a robot based on a climbing species. 

To survive, a climbing plant must switch between several different behaviors. In forest environments, it must first grow out of the soil and travel along the ground in search of a support to hold onto, such as a nearby tree. Once a support is located, though, the plant fixes itself around the object and then growing towards the light. To choose the best angle to grow upwards, a climbing plant uses its shoots(芽) to receive information about light and gravity. 

FiloBot has sensors on its main shoot. It can 3D-print its body with plastic and grow at a controllable rate. These functions, researchers found, enabled FiloBot to cross gaps, and find things to attach to. The lack of heavy on-board computing device means that it is light and requires minimal care, while its slow pace means that it doesn't disturb things around it, making it possible to move through a complex, unseen environment, or monitoring disaster sites. 

For now, FiloBot is still being tested. Its tendrils(卷须) have not left the laboratory. Still, it has already been employed in deconstructing plant behaviour. For example, it was long assumed that climbing plants find their supports by growing towards shade, though the exact mechanism was unclear. FiloBot could imitate this behaviour by detecting far-red light, which is typical of shaded areas, providing clues to how plants do it. 

Dr Mazzolai hopes that such projects will inspire other roboticists to take their cues from plants and develop completely new technologies.