You may think that light pollution isn't something extraordinarily important. You may believe that every other type of pollution has a larger impact on the environment that light pollution does. But light pollution is serious.

    Light pollution, or “sky glow”, is the glow you can see at night above cities and towns. Light pollution is a problem that has been accompanying man ever since he started his first fire some 15,000 years ago. Light pollution is the light that comes from streetlights, buildings, parking lots and any other source of light that is reflected or directed into the atmosphere.

    Urban light pollution means that one-fifth of the world's population can no longer see the Milky Way(银河) with the naked eye(肉眼). Many city kids, even if they did look through the orange smog above their heads, would probably see only a handful of stars. We have lost our view of the stars, and we have mucked up our  night-time environment as well. Astronomers are calling for the dark places on Earth to be preserved as national parks.

    Lots of people find the ever-brightening night annoying, and animals that are programmed to prefer the dark may avoid a brightened habitat. Sea turtles can get lost searching for a beach to lay eggs, and their hatchlings(孵化的幼仔)may confuse over-lit beachfront resorts(度假胜地) for the ocean horizon, wasting precious energy needed to find the sea and escape predators(食肉动物). Because their necks aren't yet long enough to see things far away, baby turtles rely on the mirror image of the moon to guide them to the sea, to begin their new life. A car may even hit a particular turtle, which was thinking the light from a nearby city was moonlight reflecting off the ocean waves. Birds that live in and around cities can die because of sky glow, too. The bright lights can blind them, leading to countless collisions with buildings and other tall structures.

    On an individual level, people can help reduce much sky glow by using lighting only when necessary. The stars above us are priceless heritage— for not only for astronomers but for all humans. More of our children should be able to look up at night and see the Milk Way.

    Can exercise during childhood protect you against memory loss many decades later?Exercise early in life seems to have lifelong benefits for the brain,in rats at least.

    "This is an animal study,but it shows that physical activity at a young age is very important一not just for physical development,but for the whole lifelong track of cognitive（认知的）development during ageing,"says Martin Wojtowicz of the University of Toronto,Canada."In humans,it may delay the appearance of Alzheimer's symptoms（阿兹海默氏症）,possibly to the point of preventing them."

    Wojtowicz's team divided 80 young male rats into two equal groups,and placed running wheels in the cages of one group for a period of six weeks.Around four months later—when the rats had reached middle age—the team taught all the rats to connect an electric shock with being in a specific box.When placed in the box,they froze with fear.

    Two weeks later,the team tested the rats in three situations: exactly the same box in the same room,the same box with the room arranged differently,and a completely different box in a different room.

    The rats without access to a running wheel when they were young now froze the same percentage of times in each of these situations,suggesting they couldn't remember which one was dangerous.But those that had been able to run in their youth froze 40 to 50 percent less in both changed box settings.

    “The results suggest the amount of physical activity when we're young,at least for rats,has influence on brain and cognitive health—in the form of better memories—when we're older,"says Arthur Kramer of Northeastern University in Boston,who has found that,in humans,exercise promotes the growth of new brain cells.

    Basketball Statistician Help Wanted

    The Athletic Department is looking for students to help assist staff during the Fall 2016, Winter 2016-17 and Spring 2017 semesters. Students in this position will be keeping live statistics during basketball games. Students must meet all of the following requirements:

    Good computer skills

    Available evenings and weekends

    Knowing basketball rules and statistics

    Students interested in working for the Athletic Department should contact the Athletic Coordinator at their respective campuses.

    TP/SS Athletic Coordinator, Michael Simone, 240-567-1308

    Rockville Athletic Coordinator, Jorge Zuniga, 240-567-7589

    Springfield Athletic Coordinator, Gary Miller, 240-567-2273

    Germantown Athletic Coordinator, Gauri Chavan, 240-567-6915

    The printing press has a long history. It was invented in Germany by Joannes Gutenberg around 1440, and brought to England by William Caxton in the 1470s.Yet the basic technology of printing remained the same up to the end of the 18th century, requiring two men to operate a wooden screw press by hand, producing about 200 impressions an hour. The 19th century was the period in which this process was mechanised, automated, and made many times faster.

    A key moment in the development of mass newspapers was the development of the steam-powered printing press, adopted by the times in 1814. The new presses were able to print per hour around five times the number produced by the machines. The editor, John Walter, had the machines fixed secretly at night, so that when his printers reported for duty the next morning the majority of them found that they were out of work. The Times went from a circulation of 5,000 a day in 1815 to around 50,000 in the middle of the century. This was not caused by the steam press, but neither could it have happened without it.

    Later developments improved this effect: the Applegath machine achieved 5,000 impressions per hour, and the Hoe press, an import from the United States, reached to 20,000 impressions per hour. Increase in the speed of papermaking in this period brought down the cost of printed materials both for the producer and the customer. In 1896, the Daily Mail was sold at the cost of only half a penny, and by 1900 it was selling nearly 1,000,000 copies a day.

    If print production was completely changed in those years, then so was its distribution. The appearance of the steam railway meant that for the first time newspapers could be distributed across the country on a daily basis.

    Artificial intelligence (AI) technology may soon be a useful tool for doctors. It may help them better understand and treat diseases like breast cancer in ways that were never before possible.

    Rishi Rawat teaches AI at the University of Southern California's (USC) Clinical Science Center in Los Angeles. He is part of a team of scientists who are researching how AI and machine learning can more easily recognize cancerous growths in the breast. Rawat provides information about cancer cells to a computer. He says this data helps the machine learn." You can put the data into computers and they will learn the patterns and the pattern recognition is important to making decisions."

    David Agus is another USC researcher. He says machines are not going to take the place of doctors. "Computers will not treat patients, but they will help make certain decisions and look for things that the human brain can't recognize by itself. Once a confirmed cancerous growth is removed, doctors still have to treat the patient to reduce the risk of cancer returning. The form of treatment depends on the kind of cancer."

    Currently, researchers take a thin piece of tissue, put it on a small piece of glass and add color to better see the cells. That process could take days or even longer. Scientists say artificial intelligence can do something better than just count cells. Through machine learning, it can recognize complex patterns, or structures, and learn how the cells are organized.

    The hope is that machines will soon be able to make a quick identification of cancer that is free of human mistakes. "All of a sudden, we have the computing power to really do it in real time. We couldn't have done this, we didn't have the computing power to do this several years ago, but now it's all changed." Agus adds that the process could be done for almost no cost in the developing world. He says that having a large amount of information about patients is important for a machine to effectively do its job in medicine.

    The University of Southern California researchers are now only studying breast cancer. But doctors predict artificial intelligence will one day make a difference in all forms of cancer.

    What's the one thing every child wants in school? More breaks! And that is exactly what some schools are giving students, which turns out to be beneficial for everyone. Eagle Mountain Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas, is one of four public schools carrying out the LiiNK program, a project that increases breaks per day to improve creativity, develop character, and heighten school success.

    LiiNK was inspired by Scandinavian approaches to learning based on the simple concept （观念）of giving children more outside playtime and less time spent indoors. In Finland, where the system has been in place for decades, students have some of the highest scores on global assessment tests. Instead of spending increasing amounts of time inside the classroom, they're putting more and more focus on physical activity. Finnish kids get to enjoy 15 minutes of playtime for every hour of class.

    After spending six weeks in Finland in 2016, Debbie Rhea, the creator of LiiNK and professor at Texas Christian University, discovered that the additional breaks of "outdoor play" actually helped students improve their performance inside the classroom. "You start putting 15 minutes into these kids every so often and it gives the platform for them to be able to function at their best level," she says.

    Other studies have shown that outdoor playtime decreases restlessness, anxiety, and has a whole other benefits such as improved motor skills, physical fitness, and social development. Rhea started carrying out the program in private schools in 2017, and has since expanded her program to districts in Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Utah and the children in these schools are all the happier for it. It just goes to show that the best way to raise happy and successful children, is to simply let them be kids every once in a while.