Last month my mother moved into a nursing home. This came after years of witnessing the worsening of her cognitive abilities and changes in her personality, all thanks to life-sucking frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

   My mom is going to lose her ability to speak, have trouble forming complete thoughts and sentences, and eventually forget how to do things she loved, like cook and read.

    But despite all of her inabilities, when I walked in on her having dinner with the rest of the women that make up the dementia floor of the nursing home, I didn't think she belonged.

    It wasn't until I spent three days there bonding with those women that I realized what scared me the most-she did fit in.

If you were an outsider looking at these women, you'd pity them. You'd think it was cruel that our bodies could turn on us in this way. You'd think it was sad that their families have put the burden of taking care of them on someone else. You'd want to intervene.

    You'd want to give the lady eating mashed potatoes with her hands a spoon, you'd want to peel the orange for the lady who's eating it like an apple, you'd want to scold the lady who forgets to flush the toilet and wash her hands after using the bathroom.

    I did all those things to my mother. But when I see her in an environment that lets her be herself, it somehow seems okay.

    Learn to love them unconditionally. It's easier said than done, but if she loved me after giving her hell for making me come home by 10 p. m. on Fridays, I can love her even if she forgets my name.

    Five meteorologists (气象学家) who were trapped for two weeks after polar bears surrounded their weather station are now able to leave after the creatures were chased away. Their supervisor told NBC News early Wednesday.

    Russian officials had feared the siege could last for another month, the time it would take to reach the islands in the Kara Sea, high in the Arctic Circle. But on Tuesday night a research ship took a detour (绕道) to assist those weathermen, station supervisor Vasily Shevchenko told NBC News. The ship run by Russia's state-run oil firm Rosneft frightened away the bears using its helicopter, before resupplying the weather station with more food and puppies (幼犬) . The puppies are not yet big enough to deter the bears, but the station is planning to draft in a replacement adult guard dog as soon as possible.

    Some of the bears had taken to sleeping directly outside the windows of remote outpost. There was no risk of the researchers starving because they had a year's worth of food, but they were forced to take dangerous trips to a nearby building, holding a gun for protection, according to Shevchenko.

    Polar bears are an endangered species. In Russia, it's a crime to shoot them unless in self-defense. The bears usually leave the islands in the summer, but this time they were trapped by the melting ice, an apparent sign of climate change, according to Shevchenko. “They've stayed on the island because there is nowhere for them to go,” he said.

    The animals suffer from global warming because it shrinks the floating ice that forms their main hunting ground. According to the environmental group the World Wide Fund for Nature, known as the WWF, this has got some polar bears to go near human habitats in search of food.

    While the start of a new school year is always exciting, this year was even more so for some elementary school students in Auckland, New Zealand. They became the world's first kids to be" taught" by a digital teacher, Will. Will is just an avatar(用户头像)that appears on the student's desktop, tablet, or smartphone screen, not a human-like robot walking around the classroom.

    Auckland energy company Vector and AI company Soul Machines worked together to develop Will, which has been modeled after the human brain and nervous system, allowing it to perform human-like behavior. The digital teacher is currently assigned to teach Vector's" Be sustainable with energy, "a free program for Auckland elementary schools.

    Just like the humans it replaced, Will is able to instantly react to the students' responses to the topic. Thanks to a webcam(网络摄像头)and microphone, the avatar not only responds to questions the kids may have, but also picks up non-verbal cues(非口头提示).For instance, if a student smiles at Will, he responds by smiling back. This two-way interaction not only helps capture the students' attention, but also allows the program's developers to monitor their engagement, and make changes if needed.

    Vector's Chief Digital Officer, Nikhil Ravishankar says," What was fascinating to me was the reaction of the children to Will. The way they look at the world is so creative and different, and Will really captured their attention."

    Will, in place since August 2018,has been a great success thus far. However, regardless of how popular it becomes, Will is unlikely to replace human educators any time soon .For one, the avatar's knowledge base is severely restricted. But more importantly, even the smartest digital avatars could never predict and react to all the unexpected situations that educators have to deal with on a daily basis. However, it could come in handy as a" personal tutor", providing kids with one-on-one help on specific subjects or even topics.

    After finishing a meal at an American Chinese restaurant you probably expect to receive a handful of fortune cookies after you pay the bill. Fortune cookies are in Chinese restaurants throughout the United States. It's rather satisfying to crack open a cookie at the end of your meal and read your “lucky fortune” on the slip of paper inside.

    The exact origin of the fortune cookie is unknown. It is thought that the tasty snack was the first introduced into San Francisco in 1914, after an immigrant began distributing the cookie with “thank you” notes in them. These “thank you” notes were intended as symbols of appreciation for friends who stood with him through the economic hardship and discrimination of his early life in America.

    There is an alternate origin story. Los Angeles is regarded as the site of the fortune cookie's invention. In this version of the story, David Jung, a Chinese immigrant residing in L. A., is thought to have created the cookie in order to uplift the spirits of the poor and homeless. In 1918, Jung handed out the cookies for free to the poor outside his shop and each cookie contained a strip of paper with an inspirational sentence printed on it.

    Fortune cookies first began to gain popularity in mainstream American culture during WWII. Chinese restaurants would serve them in place of desserts, as desserts were not popular in traditional Chinese cuisine. Today fortune cookies are not tied to Chinese-American culture. In fact, the largest fortune cookie manufacturer is located in the United States and it produces 4.5 million fortune cookies a day —— an evidence to the modern-day popularity of the snack. However, an attempt to introduce the fortune cookie to China in 1992 was a failure, and the cookie was cited for being “too American.”

    So the next time you break open a fortune cookie and read a fortune about the many successes you should expect in your future, remember that the conclusion to your Chinese restaurant meal may not be as Chinese as you think.

    I was having a great morning until I sat down in front of my office computer. "Your password has expired(过期)," a server message flashed on my screen, with instructions for changing it.

    Coming up with a new code doesn't seem like a big deal, unless you work at my company, where we have to change it monthly, using at least one uppercase character, one lowercase character, one symbol, and one numeral. Oh, and the whole darn thing can't be fewer than eight characters. And I can't use any of the same passwords I've used in the past three months.

    Suddenly I was furious. What didn't make it any better was that I was deeply depressed after my recent divorce. Disbelief over what she had done to me was all I thought about. Every day.

    My anger didn't mean anything to the empty input field with a pulsating cursor (闪动的光标), waiting for me to type a password that I'd have to re-enter — many times — for the next 30 days. I remembered a tip I'd heard from my former boss. He'd said, "I'm going to use a password to change my life."

    I couldn't focus on getting things done in my current mood. There were clear indicators of what I needed to do to regain control of my life, but I couldn't notice them.

    My password became the indicator. My password reminded me that I shouldn't let myself be a victim of my recent breakup and that I was strong enough to do something about it.

    I made my password Forgive@h3r.

    I had to type this statement several times a day. Each time my computer would lock. Each time my screen saver with her photo would appear. Each time I would come back from eating lunch alone. In my mind, I wrote Forgive her every day.

    The simple action changed the way I looked at my ex-wife. That constant reminder of reconciliation led me to accept the way things had happened at the end of my marriage and embrace a new way of dealing with my depression. As the month wore on, I felt a slow healing begin to take place. By the time my server prompted me to reset my password the following month, I felt free.

    One month later, my dear Exchange server asked me yet again to reset my password. I thought about the next thing that I had to get done.

    My password became Quit@smoking4ever.

    I quit smoking overnight. This password was a painful one to type during that month, but doing it helped me to yell at myself in my mind as I typed that statement. It motivated me to follow my monthly goal.

    One month later, my password became Save4trip@thailand.

    Guess where I went three months later: Thailand.

    Seeing how these reminders helped to materialize my goals kept me motivated and excited. While it's sometimes difficult to come up with your next goal, keeping at it brings great results.

    Here is a simplified extract of what some of my passwords have been in the past two years, so you get an idea of how my life has changed, thanks to this method:

    Forgive@h3r To my ex-wife, who started it all.

    Quit@smoking4ever it worked.

    Save4trip@thailand it worked.

    Eat2times@day it never worked, still fat.

    Sleep@before12 it worked.

    Ask@her4date it worked. I fell in love again.

    No@drinking2months it worked. I feel better.

    Get@c4t! It worked. I have a beautiful cat.

    MovE@togeth3r it worked.

    Facetime2mom@sunday it worked. I talk with Mom every week.

    And the one for last month: Save4@ring Yep. Life is gonna change again soon.

    The San Francisco Giants added a special pitcher(投球手)for the day. It was small—yet fierce—Hailey Dawson, who has a 3D-printed hand.

    The energetic 8-year-old from Nevada was invited to throw out the first pitch at the Giants game on Sunday. Dawson was born with Poland syndrome(综合症), a disorder in which affected individuals are born with missing or underdeveloped muscles on one side of the body. It affected her hand.

    With a traditional prosthetic(假肢)potentially costing thousands of dollars, Hailey's mom, Yong Dawson turned to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for help. She emailed UNLV engineering, and they accepted the challenge. Brendan O'Toole, chairman of the mechanical engineering department, said he and his team had got a lot of requests, "but this one was different." They got to work using a 3D-printer.Several prototypes(原型)and fittings later, Dawson got her first hand about four years ago.

    Hailey's mother said the hand had given her daughter a wonderful lift. "When she puts this robotic hand on, it changes her personality and confidence level," Yong Dawson told CBS San Francisco. "I love seeing that. I just wanted her to have an even playing field."

    When she arrived at AT&T Park on Sunday, Hailey got to hang out with players in the shelter at the side of the sports field. They even let her try on their World Series rings.

    Using her 3D-printed hand, Dawson threw out the perfect first pitch. Then with a wave and a smile, she headed into the stands to cheer on her newfound friends on the Giants.