A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

    “It's extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components,” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing the components together. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.

    They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, and then has to be matched well to everything it's connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

    Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

    I work with Volunteers for Wildlife, a rescue(救援) and education organization at Bailey Arboretum in Locust Valley. Trying to help injured, displaced or sick creatures can be heartbreaking; survival(存活) is never certain. However, when it works, it is simply beautiful.

    I got a rescue call from a woman in Mutton town. She had found a young owl(猫头鹰) on the ground. When I arrived, I saw a 2­to-3­week­old owl. It had already been placed in a carrier for safety.

    I examined the chick(雏鸟) and it seemed fine. If I could locate(定位) the nest, I might have been able to put it back, but no luck. My next work was to construct(建造) a nest in a tree.

The homeowner was very helpful. A wire basket was found. I put some pine branches(松树枝) into the basket to make this nest safe and comfortable. I placed the chick in the nest, and it quickly calmed down.

    Now all that was needed were the parents, but they were nowhere to be found. I gave the homeowner a recording of the hunger screams of owl chicks. These advertise the presence of chicks to adults; they might also encourage our chick to start calling as well. I gave the owner as much information as possible and headed home to see what news the night might bring.

    A nervous night to be sure，but sometimes the spirits of nature smile on us all! The homeowner called to say that the parents had responded(回应) to the recordings. I drove over and saw the chick in the nest looking healthy and active. And with it was the greatest sight of all — LUNCH！The parents had done their duty and would probably continue to do so.

    Twenty-five years ago, most young Britons wanted a career in law, to be a doctor, or, if they were creative enough, to take up singing. But today, things stand differently.

    According to a survey by Tesco Mobile, a UK company, the “dream job” of young people aged between 16 and 25 in the UK is a video blogger(博客), or “vlogger(视频博主)”. The survey, carried out among 1,002 people, found that as much as 40 percent of them put vlogger as their number one choice on a list of ideal careers.

    This change is undoubtedly as a result of the Internet and social media. They have made it so much easier to reach audience of the world, without having to enter a career in show business in the traditional way.

    In the past, the biggest stars were trained by the Hollywood studios; now, anyone with a computer camera can become a star. Vloggers are the big stars of today because they are normal people interacting(互动) with their fans about everyday life.”

    However, what people see is only the bright side of being a vlogger and they fail to notice the fact that only those who are successful earn fame and fortune. For every success there are hundreds of others who never get off the starting line. There are the dreams that come true and the dreams that remain dreams forever.

    Although being vloggers is popular, some young people choose to follow careers that don't necessarily earn them fame, but allow them to make good use of the Internet to share their hobbies. Young Israeli David Leshaw, for example, runs a business called the Finishers Club. It's an online platform(平台) for runners to keep a record of their races. His job allows him to express his enthusiasm, and is always a learning experience. And that's enough for him.

    You have just won ten million yuan in a lottery (彩票) - how would you spend it? Before you know it, ten minutes had gone on daydreaming. There is a time and a place for daydreaming, but we don't have much control over that. Isn't it worrying that an estimated 30 to 50 percent of our waking time is spent daydreaming? What if your dentist is having that lottery daydream while removing your rotten tooth?

    Some studies suggest daydreaming makes us unhappy because we are not focusing on what is around us but are instead thinking about the past or future. However, a recent study published in the journal Neuropsychologica finds that mind-wandering can be of benefit to us. The researchers measured the brain patterns of more than 100 people using an MRI (核磁共振成像) scanner. This data was compared with tests on creative ability and a questionnaire on how much their minds usually wandered. Those whose minds wandered the most scored higher in creative ability tests and had more efficient brain systems measured in the MRI machine.

    Being efficient at mind-wandering means you can zone out and then naturally switch back in without missing any important point or step. Christine Godwin, the lead author of the latest study from the Georgia Institute of Technology, says that if you are focusing on difficult tasks, your performance will drop if your mind wanders. “But when tasks are easy, people who have high cognitive ability can let their minds wander because it does not affect their performance. You may be thinking about upcoming goals or problem-solving. These are some of the positive sides to mind-wandering."

    Mind-wandering can vary between being more practical or more emotional. What mind-wandering seems to be best at, researchers say, is coming up with new solutions to old problems. So, it's not always a waste of time!

As the world deals with the rising temperatures brought by climate change, the demand for cooling solutions in hot, dry regions becomes increasingly pressing. However, traditional air conditioning systems produce massive greenhouse gases and use lots of energy.

Facing these challenges, a research team from McGill University, UCLA, and Princeton have found an inexpensive, sustainable cooling method. Their approach not only offers a solution for cooling but also promises to address the problem of heat waves during electricity blackouts.

The researchers set out to achieve a new standard in passive cooling (无动力制冷) within naturally conditioned buildings in hot climates such as Southern California. They aimed to address an important question: how can passive cooling techniques outperform traditional air conditioning units and improve indoor comfort?

The key to this breakthrough lies in harnessing the potential of radiative (辐射的) cooling materials, specifically in the context of housing design. Traditionally, such materials have been employed to prevent roofs(屋顶) from overheating and improve heat rejection from cooling systems. However, the research team recognised that there is under-explored potential in integrating these materials into building design — they can not only remove waste indoor heat but also drive regular and healthy air changes.

Lead author Remy Fortin stated, "We found we could maintain air temperatures several degrees below the surrounding temperature."Remarkably, they achieved this success without giving up a healthy airing. This was never a piece of cake, considering air exchange can unintendedly introduce heat into the building when the goal is to keep the inside cooler than the outside.

The researchers are hopeful that their findings will be used to positively impact communities suffering from climatic heating and heat waves. Salmaan Craig, the principal researcher expressed their expectations: "We hope that materials scientists, designers, and engineers will be interested in these results and that our work will inspire more broader thinking for how to integrate breakthroughs in radiative cooling materials with simple but effective solutions."