The world itself is becoming much smaller by using modern traffic and modern communication. Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution.
    To pollute means to make things unfit or unclean to use. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even eat it. Pollution is beginning to threaten (威胁) our health, our happiness and our life.
    Man has been polluting the earth from the time he first made fire, washed his clothes in the river and threw his waste on the ground. When land was used up or water became dirty, men moved on to another place. At first, the problem was not so serious because there was plenty of clean air, land and water. There weren't so many people then and their wants fewer. All the dirty things could be absorbed(吸收) by nature and soon covered over. But this is no longer true. The increase of pollution and the development of industry(工业) have changed that. Man is slowly poisoning(毒害)not only his environment but also himself.
    Through the use of poison, man has polluted the land, killing the animals. By putting dirty water and chemicals into rivers and lakes we have polluted our drinking water, killing the fish.
Our increasing population is part of the problem. More people, more waste.
     Where is this all to end? Are we turning the world into a big rubbish dump(堆存处)，or is there any hope that we can get rid of (摆脱，除去) the pollution? Luckily, millions of people have been warned of the danger of pollution. Large numbers of people are now working hard to bring pollution under control.
    The earth is our home. We must take care of it. This means keeping the land, air and water clean. And we must take care of the rise in pollution at the same time.

     Grace, usually known as the Home of Microsoft, is inside an office building in Redmond, Washington. Once you come into the building, you will feel that you're in a modern and future home.

      When you enter the building, Grace's voice, coming from a hidden speaker, tells you your messages. In the kitchen, you set a bag of flour(面粉) on a flat stone table. Grace sees what you're doing and makes a menu of flour-based foods on the table. Once you choose one, Grace gives you ingredients(配料).

There's also a notice board in the kitchen made of “intelligent(智能的) cloth” that works like a touch screen computer. You can deal with postcards and invitations and surf the net with the touch of a finger. The invitations could be encoded(编码). You can deal with them on the computer. It's part of Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology, whose aim is to make every object more efficient(有效率的).

      “The day when your house becomes a member of your family is not far,” says Pam Heath, a manager of Microsoft. At the Andersen Windows Company, Jay Libby imagines that windows made of intelligent glass can be changed into TVs.

      “Nobody wants a television set,” says Libby. “What you want is the service it provides.” If the TV isn't improved, it will disappear in the future.

Home entertainment is one consideration for the future. At the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, scientists are designing systems that will allow old people to live better on their own. So Grandma's home can be cleverly designed to recognize(识别) her ways of waking, sleeping and movement. Family members will be told any change by their computers.

    Garbage(垃圾) Island

    You can't see it from the air. It's almost impossible to see from a ship. But somewhere in the North Pacific is a huge island of garbage, just below the water surface.

    What is the island made of?

    The garbage island is not an island, but a collection of millions of plastic and other objects. The water movements of Pacific Ocean bring the objects together and cause them to go around in a big circle.

    Charles Moore found it in 1997 and named it “the Great Pacific Garbage Patch” .

    Where does all the plastic come from?

    Much of the garbage comes from everyday objects, such as shopping bags and water bottles. Some of these objects finally reach the ocean. Garbage from the western coast of North America takes about six years to reach it. Objects from East Asia take about a year. Other garbage comes from ships passing through the area.

    Is the Garbage Patch dangerous?

    The larger pieces of garbage are a problem for wildlife. For example, sea turtles（海龟）and seabirds often think the plastic is their food. They eat the plastic and die.

    In addition, the plastic stops sunlight from reaching deeper water. Without sunlight, very small sea animals die. Then, there is less food for larger fish to eat.

    What can we do to help stop it?

    Cleaning up the island isn't easy. But we can make people realize the problem. One environmentalist(环保主义者), David de Rothschild, is sailing around the world in boat made of plastic bottles to teach people about the problem of garbage in the sea.

    Another idea is that we can recycle the plastic garbage. Environmental engineer Cesar Harada is building a robot that collects pieces of plastic. Harada hopes to use his robot in the Pacific. Harada also has a website for reporting environmental problems. He says, “I hope everybody can become an environmental activist.”

    Our eyes may be playing tricks on us.  New research shows that sometimes people physically see what they want to see. Cornell University social psychologist(心理学家) David

    Dunning carried out experiments to test whether wishful thinking can actually affect what we see.

    “It's well proved from what is experienced in everyday life, and from the laboratory as well, that people think what they want to think," he says. "We're taking this a step further.

    We're asking if strong wishes and fears can actually affect what people physically see."

    Dunning and his assistants told volunteers that a computer game would show them either a letter or number to decide whether they would drink orange juice or fruit syrup(果子露).

    As they wrote in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the computer would flash an ambiguous picture, which could be seen as the letter "B" or the number "13". Volunteers who were told that a letter would get them orange juice most often reported seeing "B". Those who were told that a number would get them orange juice most often saw "13".

    The researchers also used a hidden camera to track volunteers' eye movements, particularly the first eye movement. "We don't control them," Dunning says, "and they don't even know that we are watching them, so it honestly shows what a person is seeing."

    "This research suggests that the brain is doing a lot of work between the eye and the conscious awareness to affect what we think," Dunning concludes (得出结论). "Before we even see the world, our brain has decided to keep what we want to see and avoid what we don't want to see."

    "Mirror (镜子) mirror on the wall, what film is on in the cinema?"

Now with this kind of new mirror, you can brush your teeth and read news at the same time in your bathroom. Now not many people have this kind of mirror, but it will be popular very soon.

    The mirror works with new software(软件). You can use it to get news. You can also make your time table on it. It can also tell you what to wear because it knows the weather. The mirror is very clever. You can write notes on it for family members.

    There's another kind of new mirror, too. It can get much information from the user's clothes. It tells the users what clothes make him or her look good. Going shopping or eating out? Wait a minute! The mirror can give you some coupons(优惠券), too.