There is a lot of talk about “brain power.” You don’t usually hear about stomach power. As it turns out, the stomach might also be very powerful with a new electronic pill inside it. The new electronic pill, equipped with a Wi-Fi transmitter, is swallowed and can harvest energy from inside a person’s own stomach to record core（核心）body temperature and then send the health data to an outside monitor.

The model can power itself for nearly a week—much longer than current absorbable devices, which are placed inside the body and only can share health information for less than an hour. “To make the device work even longer, and see if the stomach’s acid could power the device, we used tiny pieces of copper and zinc for experiments.” said Philip Nadeau, an electrical engineer who designed the device together.

The Wi-Fi devices fit inside a capsule but unfold when they hit the stomach and deliver drugs for long periods of time before they break down and pass through the body. This Wi-Fi pill could lead to fresh opportunities for drug delivery or real-time health monitoring from inside organs, said Giovanni Traverso, a doctor and biomedical engineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who c0-led a study of the pill published recently in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Despite our many medical advances, we’re pretty bad at measuring core body temperature. A recent study of 8,600 patients found that thermometer（温度计）readings from the mouth or skin did a lousy job of measuring core temperature. Getting an accurate temperature is important.

Traverso and Nadeau are also aiming to shrink（缩小）the pill to the size of a tablet. “Temperature tracking is just the first of many ways the medical community can use the device.” Traverse thinks.

D

    Back in 1969，it was the Apollo 11 crew who flew to the moon in a spaceship．When U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin stepped foot on the moon，they were the first．Meanwhile，their fellow astronaut Michael Collins circled the moon in their spaceship，named Columbia．

    When Armstrong and Aldrin were done with their walk，they returned to the command module，and back to Earth．That part of the spaceship is on view at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Washington，D.C. But，if you cannot get to Washington，soon you will be able to see Columbia on you computer or your smartphone．

    Digital scientists are scanning the inside of the spaceship．They are creating an online model，in three dimensions，or “3D”．By looking at these photographs，you will be able to see outer space，the way the astronauts did．It will be like sitting in their seats．

    Want your very own Columbia spaceship? You will be able to print a 3D copy of Columbia．Experts say anyone can make a life-sized model．But they expect most people to make smaller models of the 320×400cm(11’×13’)command module．

    Scientists are using special 3D technology to scan the inside．They use cameras on long arms to take the photographs．The thousands of photographs taken will be combined with 50 laser scans．

    What would it be like to sit inside Columbia and take a look around? All the images will be loaded into software that allows you to look around the module on a computer screen．The user will be able to see the Columbia both inside and out．The Smithsonian says that the 3D technology gives the user ways to see things they cannot see at the museum．And it will give information that even the museum curators(馆长)have not seen before．

    “With the Command Module，no one has been inside since it came into the collection，” says Adam Metallo，Smithsonian 3D imaging specialist．“Now the information we capture can give anyone in the world a view of what it looks like inside this incredible piece of history．”

 When my friend Lesa was diagnosed(诊断) with cancer, another friend and I went to the hospital to spend some time with her. We bought her a small toy and named him Lemon－Aide. We gave Lemon－Aide to Lesa and told her he was to go with her to all of her treatments to remind her that we were thinking of her and caring about her even though we could not always be with her. When the treatments were completed, she said when someone else needed him she would pass him along.

   A few months later，much to my surprise, it was me that she passed him to. Lemon－Aide went with me to all of my treatments.

   One day while waiting for my doctor I decided we could market the idea to fight cancer. Lesa thought it was a great idea so we founded the organization that came to be known as Lemon－Aideˈ s Friends, Inc. We designed our organization to remind people fighting cancer that there are people who love and care about them all the time. Today we have totally 5013 volunteers. The money raised is donated to cancer patients who do not have insurance. The Physicians on our Board of Advisors determine how and where our money is donated.

Lemon－Aide is for men, women, and children of all ages and to date has been sent to 34 states and 33 countries to provide smiling support for people fighting cancer. When life gave us lemons we made Lemon－Aide, a soft smiling toy that represents love, support, and encouragement.

Some plants get so hungry that they eat flies, and even small frogs. What's more amazing is that these plants occur naturally（in special environments） in every state. In fact, they're found on every continent except Antarctica.

   You've probably seen a Venus' flytrap-a small plant, which grows 6 to 8 inches tall in a container. At the end of its stalks（茎）are leaves that act like traps（陷阱）. Inside each trap is a lining of tiny hairs. When an insect lands on them, the traps suddenly shut. Over the course of a week or so, the plant feeds on its catch.

   The Venus' flytrap is just one of more than 500 species of meat-eating plants, says Barry Meyers-Rice, the editor of the International Carnivorous Plant Society's Newsletter. He states although you might have read some science-fiction stories, no meat-eating plant does any danger to humans.

   Barry says a plant is meat-eating only if it does all four of the following：“attract, kill, digest, and absorb” some form of insects. Meat-eating plants look and act like other green plants well, most of the time.

   All green plants make sugar to produce food. What makes meat-eating plants different is their special leaves, which need insects for one reason：nitrogen（氮）. Nitrogen is a nutrient that they can't obtain any other way. Why?

   Almost all green plants on our planet get nitrogen from the soil. Meat-eating plants can't. They live in places where nutrients are hard to get from the soil because of its acidity. So they've come to rely on getting nitrogen from insects and small animals. In fact, nutrient-rich soil is poisonous to meat-eating plants. Never fertilize（施肥）them! But don't worry, either, if they never seem to catch any insects. They can survive, but they'll grow very slowly.

Music for Humans and Humpback Whales

As researches conclude in Science, the love of music is not only a universal feature of the human species, but is also deeply fixed in complex structures of the human brain, and is far more ancient than previously suspected.

In the articles that discuss the field of bio-musicology, the study of the biological basis for the creation and appreciation of music, researchers present various evidence to show that music-making is at once an original human“business”, and an art form with skillful performers throughout the animal kingdom.

The new reports stress that humans hold no copyright on sound wisdom, and that a number of nonhuman animals produce what can rightly be called music, rather than random sound. Recent in-depth analyses of thesongs sung by humpback whales show that, even when their organ would allow them to do otherwise, the animals converge on the same choices relating to sounds and beauty, and accept the same laws of song composition as those preferred by human musicians, and human ears, everywhere.

For example, male humpback whales, who spend six months of each year doing little else but singing, use rhythms similar to those found in human music and musical phrases of similar length-- a few seconds. Whales are able to make sounds over a range of at least seven octaves(八度音阶), yet they tend to move on through a song in beautiful musical intervals, rather than moving forwards madly. They mix the sounds like drums and pure tones in a ratio(比例)which agrees with that heard in much western music. They also use a favorite technique of human singers, the so-called A-B-A form, in which a theme is stated, then developed, and then returned to in slightly revised form.

Perhaps most impressive, humpback songs contain tunes that rhyme.“This suggests that whales use rhyme in the same way we do: as a technique in poem to help them remember complex material,”the researchers write.

B

Scientists added a record of 715 more planets to the list known to the world beyond the solar system, astronomers said on Wednesday, in February 2014. The additions include four planets about 0.5-2 times as big as Earth that are the right distance from their parent stars for liquid surface water, which is believed to be fit for life.

The discoveries were made with the NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. The telescope, launched in 2009, spent four productive years observing 160,000 target stars for signs of planets passing by, within the telescope’s sight.

The numbers of planets announced at a NASA press conference on Wednesday increased Kepler’s confirmed planets from 246 to 961. Combined with other telescopes’ results, the total number of planets beyond the solar system now is nearly 1,700. “We almost doubled, just today, the number of planets known to humans,” astronomer Douglas Hudgins, head of planet exploration at NASA Headquarters in Washington, told reporters on a conference call.

Many planets’ discovery is due to a new technique that analyzes potential planets in batches rather than one at a time. The method was developed after scientists realized that most planets, like those in the solar system, have similar worlds orbiting a common parent star.

The newly found planets strengthen the evidence that small planets, two to three times the size of Earth, are common throughout the galaxy(银河系).

“Generally, wherever (Kepler) can see them, it finds them,” said astronomer Sara Seager, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “That's why we have confidence that there will be planets like Earth in outer space.”

Like the solar system, which has eight planets plus Pluto and other so-called “dwarf planets,” the newly found planets belong to families. But unlike the solar system’s planets, which are about 150 times farther from the sun than Earth. Most of the planets fly nearer to their parent stars than Venus（金星） orbits the sun, a distance of about 67 million miles (108 million km.)

NASA and other space agencies are designing new telescopes to discover planets in so-called “habitable zones” around their parent stars where temperatures would be suitable for liquid surface water. Two papers on the new Kepler research will appear in an upcoming issue of ‘The Astrophysical Journal’.

It’s easy to assume（假设）that when you finally lose those extra pounds, life will change for the better. But dieting can in fact make you painful and more at risk of depression（忧郁症）, a study said.

Researchers found that losing weight didn’t make people happy. Instead, those who successfully slimmed down（瘦身）were almost twice as likely to feel sad, lonely and sleepy as those who stayed the same weight or got fatter.

The research at University College London found that the advertising industry tells dieters their lives will be changed when they are thinner. Then they feel disappointed when they discover little has changed except their weight. In addition, dieting itself can be difficult, which in turn can cause people to feel down.

The findings come from a study of almost 2,000 overweight and obese men and women aged 50 and over. They were weighed at the start of the study and answered questions about how often they felt sad and lonely. Four years later, some 14 percent of the volunteers had at least 5 percent of their body weight--an amount known to improve health.

Tests showed their blood pressure and levels of harmful blood fats had dropped; however, their mood（情绪）was also lower. Those who had lost weight were 78 percent more likely to have depression than those who hadn’t.

A

    For thousands of years, man has enjoyed the taste of apples. Apples, which are about 85 percent water, grow almost everywhere in the world, both the hottest and coldest areas. Among the leading countries in apple production are China, France and the United States.

     There are various kinds of apples, but a very few make up the majority of those grown for sale. The three most common kinds grown in the United States are Delicious, Golden Deli­cious, and McIntosh.

     Apples are different in colour, size and taste. The colour of the skin may be red, green, or yellow. They have various sizes, with Delicious apples being among the largest. The taste may be sweet or tart (酸的). Generally, sweet apples are eaten fresh while tart apples are used to make applesauce(苹果酱).

      Apple trees may grow as tall as twelve meters. They do best in areas that have very cold winters. Although no fruit is produced during the winter, this cold period is good for the tree.

B

     The year is 2094. It has been announced that a comet (彗星) is heading towards the Earth. Most of it will miss our planet, but two pieces will probably hit the southern half of the Earth.

     On 17 July, a piece four kilometers wide enters the Earth's atmosphere with a massive explosion.  About half of the piece is destroyed, but the remaining part hits the South Atlantic at 200 times the speed of sound. The sea boils and a huge hole is made in the sea bed. Huge waves are created and spread outwards from the hole. The wall of water, a kilometer high, rushes towards southern Africa at 800 kilometers an hour. Cities on the African coast are totally destroyed and millions of people are drowned.

     Before the waves reach South America, the second piece of the comet lands in Argentina.  Earthquakes and volcanoes are set off in the Andes Mountains. The shock waves move north into California and all around the Pacific Ocean. The cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tokyo are completely destroyed by earthquakes. Millions of people in the southern half of the earth are already dead, but the north won’t escape for long.  Because of the explosions, the sun is hidden by clouds of dust, temperatures around the world fall to almost zero. Crops are ruined. The sun won't be seen again for many years. Wars break out as countries fight for food. A year later, no more than 10 million people remain alive.

Could it really happen? Will we meet the same end?

Fear may be felt in the heart as well as in the head, according to a study that has found a link between the cycles of a beating heart and the chance of someone feeling fear.

Tests on healthy volunteers found that they were more likely to feel a sense of fear at the moment when their hearts are contracting（收缩）and pumping blood around their bodies, compared with the point when the heartbeat is relaxed. Scientists say the results suggest that the heart is able to influence how the brain responds to a fearful event, depending on which point it is at in its regular cycle of contraction and relaxation.

Sarah Garfinkel at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School said: “Our study shows for the first time that the way in which we deal with fear is different depending on when we see fearful pictures in relation to our heart.”

The study tested 20 healthy volunteers on their reactions to fear as they were shown pictures of fearful faces. Dr Garfinkel said, “The study showed that fearful faces are better noticed when the heart is pumping than when it is relaxed. Thus our hearts can also affect what we see and what we don’t see and guide whether we see fear.”

To further understand this relationship, the scientists also used a brain scanner（扫描仪）to show how the brain influences the way the heart changes a person’s feeling of fear.

“We have found an important mechanism by which the heart and brain ‘speak’ to each other to change our feelings and reduce fear,” Dr Garfinkel said.

“We hope that by increasing our understanding about how fear is dealt with and ways that it could be reduced, we may be able to develop more successful treatments for anxiety disorders, and also for those who may be suffering from serious stress disorder.”