AlphaGo is a computer program that plays the board game Go.

    In March, 2016, the pride of humankind was crushed (粉碎) by a computer. Google's AlphaGo defeated the South Korean grandmaster (围棋大师) Lee Sedol four games to one, as the world looked on with shock and awe (敬畏). Artificial intelligence (AI, 人工智能) had suddenly reached a new and unexpected height.

    But as smart as AlphaGo is, it's no longer the best Go “player” in the world. Google's artificial intelligence group, DeepMind, has created the next generation of its Go-playing program, called AlphaGo Zero. The new AI program is unique in the way it learned to play Go. Instead of learning from thousands of human matches, as its predecessor (前任) did, AlphaGo Zero mastered Go in just two days without any human knowledge of the game and defeated AlphaGo by day three, reported The Guardian. It then went on to defeat AlphaGo 100 games to zero.

    To learn how to play Go, AlphaGo Zero played millions of matches against itself using only the basic rules of the game to rapidly create its own knowledge of it. Like the previous version, it used “reinforcement (增强) learning to become its own teacher,” according to DeepMind's website.

    “It's more powerful than previous approaches,” David Silver, AlphaGo's lead researcher, told The Guardian, “because by not using human data, or human expertise in any fashion, we've removed the constraints (约束) of human knowledge and it is able to create knowledge itself.”

    AlphaGo Zero's approach to self-learning is a significant advancement in AI that could be applied to help solve some of the world's biggest problems, according to a recent research report published in the journal Nature. For example, DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis argues that AlphaGo Zero could probably find cures for a number of serious diseases within weeks, according to The Telegraph. Indeed, the AI is now being used to study protein folding, which is connected to diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

    So now that AI has exceeded (超过) the bounds of human knowledge, perhaps the question is not about what AI can learn from humans, but what humans can learn from AI. We can only wait and see.

    Long long ago there were a lot of donkeys. The donkeys worked hard every day. They had no time to play or to relax, but they never felt appreciated（得到赏识的）for the work they did.

    One day two donkeys got bored. They wanted to live a comfortable life, so the donkeys went to see a wise old man. They told him their problem. The wise old man agreed they worked too hard, and he wanted to help the donkeys. “I have an idea,” he said.

    “What is your idea?” asked the donkeys.

    “I will paint you and no one will know you are donkeys,” said the man.

    The man went off to find some paint and he returned in just a matter of minutes. He had two pots of paints. One pot was filled with white paint, and the other black paint.

    The old man first painted them white, and then painted stripes（斑纹）over the white paint. When he finished, the donkeys did not look like donkeys at all. “You no longer look like donkeys,” the old man said. “Everyone will be fooled（欺骗）. I will call you something else, zebras（斑马）.”

    The zebras went to a field to eat grass. Now they did not have to work.

    Soon, other donkeys saw the zebras. They asked the zebras where they came from. When the zebras told the donkeys their secret, the donkeys all rushed to see the old man.

    “Please make us into zebras, too,” they pleaded. So the wise old man painted more donkeys. As he did, more and more donkeys came.

    The old man could not paint fast enough. Soon the donkeys became impatient （不耐烦的）. They began to kick about, and they knocked over the paint pots.

    There was no more paint. The painted donkeys ran off to become zebras. The unpainted donkeys, because of their impatience, had to return to work.

You might think people all over the United States have Wi-Fi—-wireless Internet service—and mobile phones. But there is no such service in Green Bank, West Virginia, a tiny town four hours from the U.S. capital, Washington D.C. Fewer than 150 people live in Green Bank, which has two churches, an elementary school and a public library. It is also home to the largest radio telescope in the world.

    There is a ban on Wi-Fi in Green Bank, along with anything else that can create electromagnetic(电磁的)waves. Officials say the waves could disturb the signals the telescope receives.

For many American, a visit to Green Bank is a little like returning to the 1950s. To get there, you must read road signs—because there is no GPS service in the town. People can connect with the Internet through telephones, but wireless service is not allowed.

    The observatory(天文台)is one of the largest employers in the area. The federal National Science Foundation(NSF)spends about ﹩8.2 million a year to operate the observatory, telescope and educational center.

    Jonah Bauserman is a technician. If he supposes there is a signal that is not allowed in the zone, he drives to the house where the signal is coming from and checks it. But once a week, when the device is cleaned, some banned devices are allowed near it.

    People in the town respect the work of the scientists. And they say they are happy to live without Wi-Fi and mobile phones. “You know, instead of sitting here on our phones and other devices we're out fishing and hunting and going to each other's houses.” Everyone knows each other and communication is almost always face-to-face.

    All over the world, children in hospital are being treated with a new kind of medicine：Laughter. Lucy is 23 and works for Theodora Children's Trust. She is one of many clown (小丑) doctors who bring a smile to the faces of sick children.

    “I'm a Theodora clown doctor. I call myself Dr Looloo. I spend two days a week in children's hospitals, making funny faces, telling jokes, and doing magic tricks. As I walk into the wards(病房) I blow bubbles, shake hands with the kids, and make up nonsense songs for those children well enough to sing. I take special balloons to make 'balloon animals' and tell funny stories about them.

    I'm naturally a very cheerful person. I've always been a clown. In fact my father's a clown and I started working with him when I was eight years old. I knew it was just the job for me and I became a clown doctor because I think it's a great way to cheer up sick, frightened children in hospital.

    Being a clown in hospital is very tiring both physically and emotionally. We have to learn not to show our feelings, otherwise we'd be useless. Clown doctors are sensitive but this is not a side most people see. To the children we're happy all the time. I'm still learning to allow myself to feel sad occasionally. There working with a very sick little girl from Bosnia who speaks no English, so our only common language is laughter.

    At weekends I participate in events to raise money for Theodora Children's Trust. It's a charity, so we are paid with the money people give. Being a clown doctor makes the worries of everyday life seem small. All in all I feel honoured to do this job.”

    In my memory, winters always used to be really unpleasant. You had to dress like a bear just to keep warm when you went outside. You were often cold, wet and no more than one step away from the thin ice on the lake. If you worked over time and went home in the dark, you would arrive home to an ice-cold house. And that would mean turning on the heating and waiting.

    Fortunately, things don't have to be so challenging any more. Technology, engineering and design have developed, giving us new solutions to old problems. It means dealing with winter needn't be like skating on thin ice.

    With a smart thermostat(恒温器), our homes can be toasty when we need them to be. Many models go with smartphone APPs that allow you to regulate temperature from a distance, so we can warm up the house before we arrive home. According to techradar.com, a large technology news and reviews website, Tado's model has a voice control function, while the Nest “learns” your habits and heats the house for you.

    Clothes have been given an upgrade, too. Electronic heated jackets and trousers heat up when you turn them on. What better way to keep warm in the dead of winter? At the touch of a button, or through an APP on our phones, the clothes produce heat from materials placed inside. Many models offer three levels of heating which stay warm for over 12 hours.

    Finally, there is the headgear(头部装备) - Hats that have speakers which are included in the cloth using Bluetooth technology, so we can listen to our favourite music or, in some cases, have a phone call using the in-built microphone. All while keeping the head warm and avoiding coldness.

    For many, the thought of winter used to be enough to make their blood run cold. But using technology, life needn't freeze up. There's no reason why winter can't be really, really cool.

    You've probably heard such reports. The number of college students majoring in the humanities (人文学科) is decreasing quickly. The news has caused a flood of high-minded essays criticizing the development as a symbol of American decline.

    The bright side is this: The destruction of the humanities is, finally, coming to an end. No more will literature, as part of an academic curriculum, put out the light of literature. No longer will the reading of, say, "King Lear" or D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" result in the annoying stuff of multiple-choice quizzes, exam essays and homework assignments.

    The discouraging fact is that for every college professor who made Shakespeare or Lawrence come alive for the lucky few, there were countless others who made the reading of literary masterpieces seem like two hours in the dentist's chair.

    The remarkably insignificant fact that, a half-century ago, 14% of the undergraduate population majored in the humanities (mostly in literature, but also in art, philosophy, history, classics and religion) as opposed to 7% today has given rise to serious reflections on the nature and purpose of an education in the liberal arts.

    Such reflections always come to the same conclusion: We are told that the lack of a formal education, mostly in literature, leads to numerous harmful personal conditions, such as the inability to think critically, to write clearly, to be curious about other people and places, to engage with great literature after graduation, to recognize truth, beauty and goodness.

    Literature changed my life long before I began to study it in college. Books took me far from myself into experiences that had nothing to do with my life, yet spoke to my life. But once in the college classroom, this precious, alternate life inside me got thrown back into that dimension of my existence that bored me. Homer, Chekhov and Yeats were reduced to right and wrong answers, clear-cut themes and clever interpretations. If there is anything to worry about, it should be the disappearance of what used to be an important part of every high-school education: the literature survey course, where books were not academically taught but thoroughly introduced—an experience unaffected by stupid commentary and useless testing.

    The literary classics are places of quiet, useless stillness in a world that despises (鄙视) any activity that is not profitable or productive. Literature is too sacred to be taught. It needs only to be read.

    Soon, if all goes well and literature at last disappears from the undergraduate curriculum—my fingers are crossed—increasing numbers of people will be able to say that reading the literary masterworks of the past outside the college classroom, simply in the course of living, was, in fact, their college classroom.