Zebra crossings－the alternating dark and light stripes on the road surface－are meant to remind drivers that pedestrians may be trying to get across. Unfortunately, they are not very effective. A 1998 study done by the Department of Traffic Planning and Engineering at Sweden's Lund University revealed that three out of four drivers maintained the same speed or even speeded up as they were approaching a crossing. Even worse, only 5% stopped even when they saw someone trying to get across.

    Now a mother-daughter team in Ahmedabad, India has come up with a clever way to get drivers to pay more attention－a 3-D zebra crossing with an optical illusion (视错觉).

    Artists Saumya Pandya Thakkar and Shakuntala Pandya were asked to paint the crosswalks by IL&FS, an Indian company that manages the highways in Ahmedabad. The corporation was looking for a creative solution to help the city's residents to cross the busy accident-prone  (易出事故的) roads safely. Thakkar and Pandya, who had previously seen images of 3-D zebra crossings that gave drivers the illusion of logs(原木)of wood on the streets in Taizhou, China, decided to test if a similar way would work in India.

    Sure enough, in the six months that the 3-D crosswalks have been painted across four of the city's most dangerous highways, there have been no accidents reported! The artists say that while it may appear that the zebra crossing could cause the drivers to brake suddenly and endanger the vehicles behind, such is not the case. Because of the way the human eye works, the illusion is only visible from a distance. As they get closer, the painting looks just like any other ordinary zebra crossing. The creators hope that their smart design will become increasingly common throughout India and perhaps even the world. So let's look forward to it.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    Parents often think that time spent with their kids will gradually decrease in adolescence. But a new study suggests that while teens try to avoid spending a lot of time together with their parents, private parent-child meetings may actually increase in their early adolescent years. And that may raise a teenager's self-esteem (自尊) and social confidence, especially if it is the time that spent with Dad, the researchers added. The researchers created a long-term study in which they invited families in 16 school districts in central Pennsylvania to participate. In each family, a teenager, a younger sibling (兄弟姐妹), their mother and their father were interviewed at home and then asked about their activities and self-worth five times over a period of seven years.

    The study authors were surprised to discover that when fathers spent more time alone with their teenagers, the kids reported they felt better about themselves. Something about the father's role in the family seemed to improve self-esteem among the teenagers in the study, said study co-author Susan McHale, a professor of human development at Pennsylvania State University.

    “Time with Dad often involves joking, teasing, and other playful interactions. Fathers, compared to mothers, were more involved in leisure activities and had more peer-like interactions with their children, which is crucial for youth social development,” the study showed. But Marta Flaum, a psychologist in Chappaqua, New York, said, “How these findings reflect the real world is a real question. The sample in the study is so small and so unrepresentative of most families in the country today that I'm not sure how much we can generalize from it. In my community in Westchester County, I don't see parents and teenagers spend much time together at all. Parents are often working so hard and have less time to be together with their kids.”

    However, Flaum encourages parents to make time for their kids no matter how much work they have to do. “Research like this reminds us of how important it is. The time we have with them is so short,” she said.

    Before I studied psychology, I used to think that people would laugh when funny things occurred. While I was right about that, I discovered there are lots of other psychological factors that make people laugh other than the funny part of a joke. When someone laughs at a joke, there will usually be more than one reason that makes him laugh—and the more reasons there are, the more powerful the joke will be.

    I was attending a stand-up comedy show in Egypt, and when the man started to make fun of pedestrians crossing streets, everyone laughed their hearts out. The main reason those people strongly laughed was that almost all of them felt angry towards pedestrians who crossed streets carelessly. The joke wasn't only funny, it also made the audience feel that they were right about being angry at those pedestrians. That is, people were laughing both because of the funny joke and because of the happiness experienced as a result of the psychological support they got.

    The better a joke makes a person feel, and the more it includes other psychological factors, the more the person will like it. For example, if you envy one of your friends, and someone tells a joke that is funny and, at the same time, makes your friend seem stupid, then you will probably laugh at it louder than if you weren't jealous of him.

    In short, we don't laugh only when we hear something funny; we also laugh when we experience some kind of happiness that results from the other psychological factors involved in the joke. I strongly discourage making fun of anyone or belittling someone to make someone else laugh. All I want to explain is that if your joke supports a person's emotions, he will certainly like it a lot.

    If you watch British television on Friday March 15,you might be surprised to see celebrities wearing funny red noses and joking around. But don't worry. They're not mad. It's all part of a biannual fund-raising event called Red Nose Day.

    Organized by the charity Comic Relief, founded in 1985 by two British comedians, the aim of the event it is to raise money to fight poverty and injustice in the UK and Africa. Celebrities and public figures support the event by making appearances on comic TV shows broadcast by the BBC. This year, for example, UK Prime Minister David Cameron appeared in a music video by One Direction, which the band produced for the event.

    But Britons don't just raise money for charitable causes on one day a year. They do it all year round. One way of doing so is-by shopping in charity shops. These small, inconspicuous shops sell clothes, books and household goods just like any other shop But there's one big difference—everthing sold in the shops is second-hand.

    There are nearly 10,000 charity shops in the UK, according to the Charity Retail Association. Their business model is simple: Anybody who has things they don't want anymore can donate them to a charity shop, where they are checked for damage, cleaned and priced. Most items go back on sale at a small part of their original price and the money that is made by selling them is used for a charitable cause.

    The idea of buying used clothes may sound off-putting, but for shoppers who have less spending money, such as the elderly or those in low-paying jobs, it has been a welcome option for years. Now, shopping at charity shops is also becoming popular with young people looking for alternative fashion." You can find very unique clothes for a very cheap price. It doesn't bother me that other people may have worn them. I simply wash them before I wear them," said Anne Marie, a 19-year-old Internet user from the US, in a comment on a Yahoo forum.

    So next time you spot a charity shop, why not go inside? Who knows, you might find a lovely dress for just a few pounds. Even better, you can enjoy wearing it in the knowledge that your money helped a good cause.

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    Types of Fire Extinguishers

    Fire extinguishers are marked according to the kind of fore on which they should be used. Using the wrong type of the extinguishers can be dangerous and make things worse.

    Type A extinguishers are used for fires on paper, cloth, wood, rubber, many plastics and so on. These types of fires usually leave ashes when they burn, so use Type A extinguishers for fires that leave ashes.

    Type B extinguishers are used for burning liquids, such as oil, gasoline, and paints. These substances often come in barral-shaped containers, so use Type B extinguishers for such barrals.

    Type C extinguishers are used for electrical fires Electricity travels in a circuit, so use Type C extinguishers for circuits.

    Remember, A is for Ashes, B is for Barrals, and C is for Circuits. Make sure you have the correct type of fire extinguisher, learn PASS. PASS stands for Pull, Aim, Squeeze, and Sweep.

    Pull the pin at top of the extinguisher cylinder（灭火器圆筒）.

    Aim the nozzle（喷嘴）at the base of the fire.

    Squeeze or press the bandle.

    Sweep the sprary from side-to-side at the fire's base until it goes out.

    Yellowstone National Park.☞文章内容an easy day hike or boat trip can turn into a battle for survival.

    Grown-ups are often surprised by how well they remember something they learned as children but have never practiced ever since. A man who has not had a chance to go swimming for years can still swim as well as ever when he gets back in the water. He can get on a bicycle after many years and still ride away. A mother who has not thought about the words for years can teach her daughter the poem that begins "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" or remember the story of Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

    One explanation is the law of overlearning, which can be stated as follows: Once we have learned something, extra learning attempts or tries to increase the length of time we will remember it.

    In childhood we usually continue to practice such skills as swimming, and bicycle riding long after we have learned them. We continue to listen to and remind ourselves of words such as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and childhood tales such as Cinderella and Goldilocks. We not only learn but overlearn.

    The multiplication tables(乘法口诀表) are an exception（例外） to the general rule that we forget rather quickly the things that we learn in school, because they are another of the things we overlearn in childhood.

    The law of overlearning explains why cramming(突击学习)for an examination, though it may result in a passing grade, is not a satisfactory way to learn a college course. By cramming, a student may learn the subject well enough to pass the examination, but he is likely soon to forget almost everything he learned. A little overlearning, on the other hand, is really necessary for one's future development.

    Most people will answer a ringing phone. Usually you don't know who is phoning or how urgent their business is, so a ringing phone is difficult to ignore. In one experiment, a researcher wrote down the numbers of several public phones in stations and airports. Then he called the numbers. Someone nearly always answered. When he asked why, people usually said, “Because it rang.”

A few years ago in New Jersey, a man with a rifle killed 13 people. Armed police surrounded his house but he refused to come out. A reporter found out the phone number of the house and called. The man put down his rifle and answered the phone. “What do you want?” he said, “I'm really busy right now.”

    Imagine you're at work and the phone is ringing in someone else's office. Do you answer it or not? In one survey on telephone use, 51% of participants told researches that they did. We can't ignore the phone and for the reason, it forces its way into our lives. It interrupts what we are doing and on top of that, the caller is often someone we don't really want to talk to. However, in the survey, 58% said they never took the phone off the hook, and 67% didn't mind if someone called during a television programme. For 44% it wasn't a problem if someone rang during a meal, while only 28% were annoyed or upset. If someone phoned in the middle of the night, 40% told researchers that they got nervous or frightened, while around 30% got angry.

    Of course, when someone is really annoying, you can choose to hang up on him/her. This is in fact one of the rudest things you can do on the phone, but 79% said they were prepared to do it in some cases. Only 6% told researchers they never hung up on people.

    Do you believe that things are connected for no scientific reason at all? For example, do you avoid saying the word “four” to avoid bad luck? If so, you have a superstition (迷信). And you're not alone — all kinds of people have them.

    For example, Portugal's soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo always steps onto the pitch (球场) with his right foot first, according to The Telegraph. And sports players are not alone in having superstitions. A visitor once asked the Nobel Prize winning scientist Niels Bohr whether he really believed that the horseshoe he'd hung at his country home was lucky. “Of course not,” the Danish physicist said. “But I understand it's lucky whether you believe in it or not.”

    One recent study found that even scientists at MIT and other top US schools tended to look for a meaning in natural events, similar to the connection between stepping on the pitch and playing soccer well, according to The Atlantic. When the researchers gave the scientists little time to answer questions, they were twice as likely to agree with statements such as “Trees produce oxygen so that animals can breathe” as they were when they had more time to think about their reply.

    It seems that fear can make people think differently in this way, too. In a British study, students imagined meeting a “witch” who said she would cast (施魔法) an evil spell(符咒) on them. About half said a scientist should not be worried about the spell. Yet each of them said that, personally, they wouldn't let the witch do it to them.

    So why are so many of us superstitious? Well, it seems to be our way of dealing with the unknown. “Many people quite simply just want to believe,” Brian Cronk, a professor of psychology at Missouri Western State University, said in a 2008 interview. “The human brain is always trying to work out why things happen, and when the reason is not clear, we tend to make up some pretty bizarre (古怪的) explanations.”

    And these explanations aren't completely unhelpful. In fact, superstitions can sometimes work and bring real luck, according to psychologists at the University of Cologne in Germany in the May 2010 issue of the journal Psychological Science. They found that believing in something can improve performance on a task like an exam.

    So, what about you? What superstitions do you follow to keep you safe and successful?

    Teens who are preparing to undergo cosmetic surgery(整容手术) often have unrealistic expectations. The growing numbers of makeover television shows which make cosmetic surgery seem simple，have encouraged adolescents to pursue surgery to improve their physical appearance. As a result, more teenagers are going under the knife to achieve a desired look.

    When teens feel the need to have plastic surgery, they believe that it is not a huge deal, but they may not be mature enough to make such a life altering decision. If teens feel inadequate before surgery，they will most likely feel disappointed afterwards. Not only is surgery complex and risky for mature adults，it is extremely dangerous for younger people，and some doctors are performing these procedures on kids as young as fourteen！

    The cost of procedures can add up to thousands of dollars. Insurance does not cover the costs of these procedures. Teenagers often pay for surgery themselves 一 a very costly purchase for a young person. Not only can surgery become addictive for insecure teens，the consequence can be disappointing. When surgery takes an unexpected wrong turn, irreparable (不可挽回的）damage can occur. Any surgery on a young，undeveloped person has a risk of complication (并发症）such as infection (感染），which can lead to death.  Even if . there are no complications, there is no guarantee that surgery will provide the perfect nose or sculpted body. No matter how minor the procedure, it is not as effortless as it appears.

    Of course, there are cases where plastic surgery is appropriate. If a child has a serious injury or scarring from an accident，it can be beneficial. In all cases, parents must be involved in the process for the welfare of their child, and must guide them in the right direction. Fortunately, parents or legal guardians (监护人）must sign documents allowing their child to have plastic surgery. Doctors also need to be a part of the decision. Most experienced and trust-worthy physicians turn down the opportunity to operate on a teenager unnecessarily.

    Plastic surgery is a life-changing experience.  Hopefully, more teens will realize that there is more to a person than physical beauty, and learn to accept themselves for who they are.

    Crossing your legs is an extremely common habit. While you may find it comfortable to sit with one knee crossed over the other, it might be causing health problems that you are not aware of.

    A study published in Blood Pressure Monitoring stated that sitting with your legs crossed can increase your blood pressure. The reason is that crossing one leg over the other increases resistance, making it even harder for the blood to circulate and increase your blood pressure. Thus, you shouldn't have your legs crossed for more than 15 minutes, and it's important that you get up and walk around at least once every hour.

    Crossing your legs can also lead to neck and back pain. Ideally, it's best for our bodies to sit with our feet planted flat on the floor. When you sit with your legs crossed your hips are in a twisted position, which can cause pressure on your lower and middle back and neck.

    You also might notice that when you sit with your legs crossed for long periods of time your feet and legs get painful. This is because when one leg sits on top of the other, it causes pressure on the veins and nerves in your legs and feet. While the feeling of discomfort may only last a minute or two, repeatedly crossing your legs until they feel numb can cause permanent nerve damage.

    So next time you sit down, try to get yourself in the habit of sitting with both of your feet on the floor. Not only will it help your posture and stability, but it will also save your health in the long run.

    A pretty face is never forgotten. Do you believe so? But maybe it is untrue! Psychologists believe beautiful people are less likely to be recognized. A new study suggests that attractiveness can actually prevent the recognition of faces, unless a pretty face has particularly distinctive features, such as Angelina Jolie's.

    German psychologists think the recognition of pretty faces is distorted (扭曲) by emotions. Researchers Holger Wiese, Carolin Altmann and Stefan Schweinberger at the University of Jena, Germany, discovered in a study that photos of unattractive people were more easily remembered than pretty ones when they showed them to a group of people.

    For the study, which was published in science magazine Neuropsychologia, the psychologists showed photos of faces to test subjects. Half of the faces were considered to be more attractive and the other half as less attractive, but all of them were being thought of as similarly distinctive looking. The test subjects were shown the faces for just a few seconds to memorize them and were shown them again during the test so that they could decide if they recognized them or not.

    The researchers were surprised by the result. “Until now we assumed that it was generally easier to memorize faces which are being considered as attractive, just because we prefer looking at beautiful faces,” Dr. Wiese said. But the study showed that such a connection cannot be easily proven. He assumes that remembering pretty faces is distorted by emotional influences, which enhance the sense of recognition at a later time. The researchers' idea is backed up by evidence from EEG-recordings (脑电图记录) they used during their experiment which show the brains' electric activity.

    The study also revealed that in the case of attractive faces, considerably more false positive results were detected. In other words, people thought they recognized a face without having seen it before. “We obviously tend to believe that we recognize a face just because we find it attractive.” Dr. Wiese said.

    My mother has a dining table which sits right in the middle of her dining room. It was once buried beneath piles of papers—magazines, articles, copies of schedules for vacations she took back in the 1990s, and baby pictures of grand children who are now paying off their college loans.

    My brother Ross and I recently flew to New York to visit my mother. "Mom, why don't we go through all that stuff?" Ross said. "No. Don't touch it!" My mother said. The next afternoon, when she couldn't find a bill she needed, Ross suggested it might be put somewhere in the dining room and that we find it together. "Besides," he said, "all those papers are clearly stressing you out." However, my mother just said, "Are you boys hungry?" And then she seemed to have lost herself in deep thought.

    On our last night there, my mother walked up to us with a small pile of unopened mails, which she had collected at the western edge of the dining table, and said, "Help me go through these." "Sure," I said. When we had succeeded in separating wheat from chaff (谷壳), I asked, "Would you want to deal with another little pile of papers?"

    My mother led the way  walking into the dining room the way an animal manager might be while entering a cage with tigers in it. Ross and I came in behind her and suddenly he reached for a pile of the papers on one side of the table. "No!" my mother said sharply. "Let's start at the other end. That's where the older stuff is." Finally, we threw 95 percent of the stuff into paper shopping bags. Then I asked what she wanted us to do with them, she surprised us all by saying, "Put them in the incinerator (垃圾焚化炉)."

    When I returned home, inspired by the visit to my mother, I sorted out my own accumulated(累积的) piles of papers, sold or gave away half of my possessions, and moved into a smaller house. It seems that my life has been cheaper and easier since then. And it proves that a small change does make a big difference.

    It seems that electronic devices just keep getting smaller. Scientists in the United States have announced the creation of the first transistor with only two dimensions(二维).

    A transistor is a small electronic device that transfers or carries electronic current. Scientists hope these new 2D transistors will be used for building high-resolution(高分辨率)displays that need very little energy.

    Two groups of scientists created these 2D transistors. They report that the transistors are only a few atoms thick.

    Usually transistors are made with the element silicon(硅). Computer processors, memory chips, TV screens and other electronic devices contain billions of silicon-based transistors. But these very small electrical parts have certain limitations.

    Dimitris Ioannou is an electrical engineering professor at George Mason University. He says the traditional transistor has been improved as much as it can be. He adds that researchers have been looking for new materials with special features and they want transistors to be seen through and soft.

    "If the layers are very thin, the transistor can become flexible, so it doesn't have to be rigid(坚硬的), like it would be in a silicon chip. So people can think of applications like wearable electronics, television screens and other things," said Ioannou.

    These new transistors can also carry higher current. They also can move the current much faster than traditional transistors. This is important for high-definition screens.

    Dimitris Ioannou says the scientific success could prove very useful in the future. "Now, how good and how useful it will be, it's still in the stage of research, but it certainly is an advance," said Ioannou.

    Sherry, a young friend of mine, suffers from insomnia (失眠) but she's found a new way to deal with her sleeplessness. Instead of tossing and turning in bed all night, she turns on the computer in her living room and connects with other night owls through a live streaming (网络直播) app. As she hums (哼曲子) pop tunes or talks about her day, people will post messages on the Internet and sometimes even send her virtual gifts.

    Sherry is just one of hundreds of millions of people who have been drawn to live streaming, the hottest new trend in social media, which lets people share their lives spontaneously (自发地) in real time. Live streaming, itself, isn't new. People have been able to watch sports events and lectures live online for years. But with new apps that became more convenient in 2007, viewers can now interact with whom they see on the screen by posting questions and comments, and this has turned ordinary people, like Sherry, into stars.

    However, this new trend has also drawn the attention of government regulators (政府监管机构) who are concerned about the content of some live streaming broadcasts. In April, 19 live streaming platforms were convicted (判罪) of allowing "improper" content to be broadcast. Defining "improper" content can be difficult, but generally, it means anything that has to do with politics or is considered morally harmful. And there is now a new law that requires live streaming apps to hold a license to operate and to keep records of broadcasts and on-screen comments.

    My friend Sherry has nothing to fear from the government regulators. If anything, her broadcasts are extremely dull (sorry Sherry!), as are most peoples broadcasts. But dullness is a small problem compared with the bigger problem of letting strangers see too much of your personal life. You've probably been warned about giving out personal information online and the same is true with live streaming. It can be dangerous. If you're not careful, strangers can find out where you live, where you spend your free time.

    A live broadcast in your living room can be fun, but remember to be safe and please, please, please... don't be dull!

I recently gave my adult class homework. The assignment was to "go to someone you love and tell them you love them. It has to be someone you have never said those words to before or haven't shared those words with for a long time".

That doesn't sound like a tough assignment, but most of the men in that group were over 35 and were taught that expressing emotions is not "macho (男子汉的) ".

At the beginning of our next class, I asked if someone wanted to share what happened when they told someone they loved them. One of the men raised his hand. He appeared quite moved and a bit shaken.

He began by saying, "I didn't feel that I had anyone to say those words to. But as I began driving home, I knew exactly who I needed to say 'I love you to. Five years ago, my father and I had a disagreement and never resolved it. We hardly spoke to each other." "The next morning, I called my dad. When he answered the phone, I said, 'Dad, can I come over tonight? I have something to tell you.' I assured him it wouldn't take long, so he finally agreed."

"At 5：30, I was at my parents' house ringing the doorbell. As luck would have it, Dad answered the door."

"I took one step in the door and said, 'Dad, I just came over to tell you that I love you'"

"His face softened, his wrinkles (皱纹) disappeared and he began to cry. He reached out and hugged me and said, 'I love you too, son, but I've never been able to say it.'"

"Dad and I hugged for a moment longer. I hadn't felt that great in a long time."

"Two days after that visit, my dad had a heart attack and ended up unconscious in the hospital. I don't know if he'll make it."

"My message to all of you is this：Don't wait to do the things that need to be done. Take the time to do what you need to do and do it now!"

Screen time before bedtime may leave people feeling sleepy in the morning. Cell phones, computers and TVs emit (发出) blue light. And exposure to that bluish light during the two hours before bed can keep us from getting a good night's rest, a new study finds. It cuts down on the length of people's sleep. It also leaves them feeling tired in the morning and can disrupt the body clock. Data shows that this blue light tends to make us more alert at night, making it harder to get all the rest we need.

Green and his team surveyed 19 people — all in their 20s — for a sleep study. All spent two hours on a computer right before bedtime. But they didn't all experience the same light exposure. Looking at screens that gave off intense blue light cut someone's sleep by about 16 minutes, compared to when they had used screens with red light. Those exposed to blue light also woke up more often at night than if they had been exposed to red light.

"The normal blue light emissions from the computer screen also affect how much melatonin (褪黑素) each volunteer makes. It is released into our blood around 9 p. m. When our bodies make less melatonin, we may still feel too alert at bedtime to fall asleep when the body is tired. And body temperature won't drop as expected after we use devices emitting lots of blue light. Using screens before bed damages the body's biological clock," Green says. "More and more kids are using screens nowadays. Sleep is important, especially during the first few years of life when 'neural plasticity' (神经可塑性) is at its greatest. Their brains are still developing the ability to learn and pay attention. That makes the new results worrisome," Green says.

Rahman says that the new work makes a good point about how blue light from screens can be bad for our bodies. However, he points out, the light in this study is extremely bright. It is far brighter than what a normal computer, tablet or TV will emit. Still, Rahman says the results remind us to think about how we should use screens before bed.

Next month, I'm traveling to a remote area of Central Africa and my aim is to know enough Lingala—one of the local languages—to have a conversation. I wasn't sure how I was going to manage this—until I discovered a way to learn all the vocabulary I'm going to need. Thanks to Memrise, the application I'm using, it feels just like a game.

"People often stop learning things because they feel they're not making progress or because it all feels like too much hard work，" says Ed Cooke, one of the people who created Memrise. "We're trying to create a form of learning experience that is fun and is something you'd want to do instead of watching TV."

Memrise gives you a few new words to learn and these are "seeds" which you plant in your "greenhouse". When you learn the words, you "water your plants". When the application believes that you've really memorized a word, it moves the word to your "garden". And if you forget to log on, the application sends you emails, reminding you to "water your plants".

The application uses two principles about learning. The first is that people memorize things better when they link them to a picture in their mind. Memrise translates words into your own language, but it also encourages you to use "mems". For example, I memorized motele, the Lingala word for "engine"，using a mem I created—I imagined an old engine in a motel (汽车旅馆) room.

The second principle is that we need to stop after studying words and then repeat them again later, leaving time between study sessions. Memrise helps you with this, because it's the kind of application you only use for five or ten minutes a day.

I've learnt hundreds of Lingala words with Memrise. I know this won't make me a fluent speaker, but I hope I'll be able to do more than just smile when I meet people in Congo. Now, I need to go and water my Vocabulary!

By the age of seven months, most children have learned that objects still exist even when they are out of sight. But it is something that self-driving cars do not have. And that is a problem. For a self-driving car, a bicycle that is momentarily hidden by a passing truck is a bicycle that has disappeared. How to give AI the reasoning ability for a seven-month-old child is now a matter of active research.

Modern Al is based on the idea of machine learning. If an engineer wants a computer to recognize a stop sign, he does not try to write thousands of lines of code that describe every pattern of pixels(像素) which could possibly indicate such a sign. Instead, he writes a program that can learn for itself, and then shows that program thousands of pictures of stop signs. Over many repetitions, the program gradually works out what features all of these pictures have in common.

Similar techniques are used to train self-driving cars to operate in traffic. But they do not understand many things a human driver takes for granted. In a recent paper in Artificial Intelligence, Mehul Bhatt of Orebro University in Sweden, describes a different approach. He and his colleagues took some existing Al programs which are used by self-driving cars and bolted onto them a piece of software. In tests, if one car momentarily blocked the sight of another, the reasoning-enhanced software could keep track of the blocked car, predict where and when it would reappear, and take steps to avoid it if necessary. The improvement was not huge. On standard tests Dr Bhatt's system scored about 5% better than existing software.

However, the question goes beyond self-driving cars to the future of Al itself." I don't think we're taking the right approach right now,"Dr Marcus, who studies psychology and neural science at New York University, says. "It's not actually the answer to AI. We haven't really solved the intelligence problem. "One way or another, then, it seems seven-month-olds still have a lot to teach machines.

Have you ever had a troubling problem that has left you wondering where to turn for help?

Eve Hobsbawm is a life adviser. She offers advice to people struggling with all kinds of problems, from relationship difficulties to what to cook for dinner. She does this through a website inviting people to email her with their problems. There's nothing unusual about that, except for the fact that Eve is only eight years old.

This junior trouble-shooter, who also goes by the name "Miss Eve Mouse" lives in London with her parents. Not only is Miss Mouse willing to lend an ear to her clients, she will also offer them a helping hand, for a fee of course. She charges between 10p for advice on little, everyday worries and 1pound for more complicated problems. Her areas of expert knowledge, if not of experience, are problems about love, life and work-life balance.

A problem shared is a problem halved, but Eve can't always helped. A note on the site states that she can't answer questions like "Does space ever end?" and she won't solve schoolwork-related problems, especially not maths.

She explained to the Guardian newspaper that she was inspired to set up the company by her father who runs a tech start-up. Eve said, "As soon as I saw his business and understood the kinds of things business do, I thought that's what I'm going to do."

But since setting up her company in December she has been so overwhelmed with messages that she has had to take a step back. " There has been a lot of sudden interest in my site, which is nice," she says, " but I need to do my homework too, so I won't be solving any more problems for a bit. "

Plastic recycling is a hot topic, But what's the real face behind if? You diligently sort your rubbish; you dutifully wash your plastic container; then everything gets thrown in a landfill or in the ocean anyway, According to one aalyx1s, only 9% of all plastic ever made has likely been recycled. Here' the kicker: the companies making all that plastic have spent millions on advertising campaigns lecturing us about recycling while knowing full well that most plastic will never be recycled.

A new investigation by National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)reports that the large oil and gas companies that manufacture plastics have known for decades that recycling plastic was unlikely to ever happen on a broad scale because of the-high costs involved. "They were not interested in putting any real money or effort into recycling because they wanted to sell raw material, "Larry Thomas, former president of one of the plastic industry's most powerful trade groups, told NPR. There is a lot more money to be made in selling new plastic than reusing the old stuff. But, in order to keep selling new plastic, the industry had to clean up its wasteful image. "If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be so concerned about the environment, "Thomas noted.

We have been successfully convinced that people start pollution and people can stop It and that if we just recycle more, the planet will be OK. To some degree, that s right there must be a level of personal responsibility when It comes to the climate emergency. We all have to do our part. But individual action is a tiny drop in a heavily polluted ocean. We need systematic change to make a real difference. And, more than anything, we need to change what we value.