Why do men die earlier than women? The latest research makes it known that the reason could be that men’s hearts go into rapid decline when they reach middle age. The largest study of the effects of ageing on the heart has found that women’s longevity(长寿) may be linked to the fact that their hearts do not lose their pumping power with age.

“We have found that the power of the male heart falls by 20-25 percent between 18 and 70 years of age,” said the head of the study, David Goldspink of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.

“Within the heart there are millions of cells that enable it to beat. Between the age of 20 and 70, one-third of those cells die and are not replaced in men,” said Goldspink. “This is part of the ageing process.” What surprises scientists is that the female heart sees very little loss of these cells. A healthy 70-year-old woman’s heart could perform almost as well as a 20-year-old one’s.

“This gender difference might just explain why women live longer than men,” said Goldspink.

They studied more than 250 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 80, focusing on healthy persons to remove the confusing influence of disease.

The team has yet to find why ageing（衰老）takes a greater loss on the male heart, said Goldspink.

The good news is that men can improve the health of their heart with regular exercise. Goldspink stressed that women also need regular exercise to prevent their leg muscles becoming smaller and weaker as they age.

Since the 1970s，scientists have been searching for ways to link the brain with computers. Brain Computer Interface(BCI) technology could help people with disabilities send commands to machines.

Recently，two researchers，Jose Millan and Michele Tavella from the Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne，Switzerland，demonstrated (展示) a small robotic wheelchair directed by a personˈs thoughts.

In the laboratory，Tavella operated the wheelchair just by thinking about moving his left or right hand. He could even talk as he watched the vehicle and guided it with his thoughts.

“Our brain has billions of nerve cells. These send signals through the spinal cord (脊髓) to the muscles to give us the ability to move. But spinal cord injuries or other conditions can prevent these weak electrical signals from reaching the muscles.” Tavella says. “Our system allows disabled people to communicate with external world and also to control devices.”

The researchers designed a special cap for the user. This head cover picks up the signals from the scalp (头皮) and sends them to a computer. The computer interprets the signals and commands the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair also has two cameras that identify objects in its path. They help the computer react to commands from the brain.

Prof. Millan，the team leader，says scientists keep improving the computer software that interprets brain signals and turns them into simple commands. “The practical possibilities that BCI technology offers to disabled people can be grouped in two categories: communication，and controlling devices. One example is this wheelchair.”

He says his team has set two goals. One is testing with real patients，so as to prove that this is a technology they can benefit from. And the other is to guarantee that they can use the technology over long periods of time.

Can you imagine what things will be like 50 years from now? You’ll get up in the morning and brush your teeth in front of the bathroom mirror just like today. But one thing will be different: besides showing your image, the mirror might also show news, traffic, videos and weather information.

When you are ready to go to work, your smart car will drive you to your office. It knows the best route to take to avoid traffic. You will be able to check your e-mails on the dashboard (仪表盘). Every car will even be able to “talk” to others to avoid accidents.
  The scenes above aren’t just fantasies. They are the latest concepts and inventions presented at last month’s Mobile World Congress, a yearly trade show held in Barcelona, Spain.
  At the show, people were able to experience new technologies and mobile devices (装置) that are highly likely to enter their daily lives in the near future.
  For example, a new fitting room was introduced that lets you try on clothes virtually. It has 360-degree mirrors that create a 3-D image of you in the clothes, and this image can be sent to your phone for you to decide later which items to buy.On the street, photos of products were placed on posters with NFC tags (标签) – a special code (编码) a bit like a 2-D bar code. You could hold your phone up to the tags to add those items to your shopping basket online, pay for them with your phone and have them sent to your home.  As The Guardian noted, the Mobile World Congress shows how electronic devices are becoming smarter by the day. Soon, you might find yourself asking your washing machine: “How are you getting on?” To which it will reply: “Almost there, sir; I’ll be done in 15 minutes.”