>Gates lauds waterless toilets
蓋茨在京推介'無(wú)水廁所'
US billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates unveiled a futuristic toilet that doesn't need water or sewers and uses chemicals to turn human waste into fertilizer. "The current toilet simply sends the waste away in the water, whereas these toilets don't have the sewer. They take both the liquids and solids and do chemical work on it, including burning it in most cases," the Microsoft co-founder said in Beijing. He compared the change from traditional toilets to waterless models as a similar development to what happened in computing around the time he founded Microsoft in the mid-1970s. "In the way a personal computer is sort of self-contained, we can do this chemical processing at the household level," he said.
微軟公司聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人、美國(guó)億萬(wàn)富翁兼慈善家比爾?蓋茨近日在北京展示了一款未來(lái)派廁所，無(wú)需使用水，也不用連接下水道，僅使用化學(xué)物質(zhì)就能將人類糞便轉(zhuǎn)化為肥料。蓋茨說(shuō)："目前的廁所只是用水把排泄物沖走。而這種新廁所并不連接下水道。它們能對(duì)尿液和糞便進(jìn)行化學(xué)處理，多數(shù)情況是燒掉它們。"他將傳統(tǒng)廁所轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)闊o(wú)水廁所的過(guò)程，與他在上世紀(jì)70年代中期創(chuàng)立微軟時(shí)計(jì)算機(jī)領(lǐng)域的發(fā)展相提并論。"就像個(gè)人電腦在某種程度上可以獨(dú)立運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)一樣，我們現(xiàn)在也可以在家庭層面化學(xué)處理糞便。"

>'Human Uber' invented
宅人福音'人肉優(yōu)步'問(wèn)世
A new "human Uber" could let you pay someone to live your life for you. Japanese researcher Jun Rekimoto has developed a special screen that can be strapped to a person's face and allow them to live on your behalf. The technology is aimed at allowing someone – a "surrogate" – to live your life for you, wearing your clothes and behaving on your instructions. You, on the other hand, would be able to lounge at home, watching events through your laptop and using its camera to communicate with people your surrogate meets. Though the mask has been described as "human Uber", it's actually far more involved than that. "A surrogate user mimics a remote user by following the remote user's directions," a page describing the tool, known as ChameleonMask, reads.
一種新型"人肉優(yōu)步"讓你可以付錢找人替你生活。近日，日本研究人員暦本純一研發(fā)出一款可以綁定在人臉上的特殊屏幕，戴上屏幕的人可以代替你去生活。該技術(shù)的目標(biāo)是讓某人，即替身穿上你的衣服、依照你的指示行事從而替你生活。另一方面，你則可以懶洋洋地窩在家中，通過(guò)筆記本電腦來(lái)觀看事態(tài)發(fā)展，通過(guò)攝像頭和你的替身遇到的人進(jìn)行交流。盡管這款面具被比作"人肉優(yōu)步"，但實(shí)際上并不是戴上面具就完事了。頁(yè)面上是這樣描述這款名為"變色龍面具"的工具的："替身用戶遵照遠(yuǎn)程用戶的指示模而仿之。

>Noises increase heart risks
噪音或增心血管病風(fēng)險(xiǎn)
A preliminary study showed exposure to environmental noises might increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Noises can fuel the activity of a brain region involved in stress response and in turn promote blood vessel inflammation, according to a study to be presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions. The findings revealed people with the highest levels of chronic noise exposure had an increased risk of suffering cardiovascular events, like heart attacks and strokes. Researchers analyzed the links between noise exposure and major cardiovascular events among 499 healthy people with an average age of 56. Of the participants, 40 experienced to cardiovascular event over a 5-year period. People with the highest levels of noise exposure had higher levels of activity in the amygdala, an area of the brain involved in stress regulation and emotional responses, and more inflammation in their arteries. These people also had a greater than three-fold risk of suffering a heart attack or a stroke and other major cardiovascular events, compared with people who had lower levels of noise exposure, according to the study. That risk remained elevated even after the researchers accounted for other cardiovascular and environmental risk factors, including air pollution, high cholesterol, smoking and diabetes.
一項(xiàng)初步研究顯示，接觸環(huán)境噪音可能增加心臟病和中風(fēng)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。這項(xiàng)將在美國(guó)心臟病協(xié)會(huì)科學(xué)會(huì)議上發(fā)布的研究稱，噪音能加劇參與應(yīng)激反應(yīng)的腦區(qū)的活動(dòng)，從而增加血管炎癥反應(yīng)。研究結(jié)果顯示，最能長(zhǎng)期接觸噪音的人群，發(fā)生心臟病、中風(fēng)等心血管事件的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)會(huì)增加。研究人員以499名健康狀況良好、平均年齡56歲的人為研究對(duì)象，分析接觸噪音與主要心血管事件之間的關(guān)聯(lián)。5年間，這499人中有40人發(fā)生心血管事件。根據(jù)研究，接觸噪音最多的人，杏仁核(參與壓力調(diào)控和情緒反應(yīng)的腦區(qū))活動(dòng)水平更高，動(dòng)脈炎癥反應(yīng)更多。這些人發(fā)生心臟病或中風(fēng)等主要心血管事件的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)也是接觸噪音較少的人的三倍多。即使研究人員排除空氣污染、高膽固醇、吸煙和糖尿病等其他心血管和環(huán)境風(fēng)險(xiǎn)因素后，這些人發(fā)生心血管事件的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)依然更高。

>Contact lens as bandage
科學(xué)家發(fā)明'眼球創(chuàng)可貼'
Treating wounds on a part of the body as delicate as the eyeball isn't easy, but scientists have developed an innovative new approach: a therapeutic contact lens that can act as a bandage for damaged eyes. This is no ordinary contact lens, because it's made up of donor cells left over from regular corneal transplants. These special limbal mesenchymal stromal cells help to encourage the injured eye to repair its wounds itself. According to the researchers, a contact lens bandage could be in place within hours of a patient arriving at hospital with eye damage. It's also likely to be cheaper and easier to apply than current treatments. These lenses will need to go through an extensive set of clinical trials before they get approved, and researchers say it could take several years for them to become available to general public.
要處理人體中像眼球這樣脆弱部位上的傷口絕非易事，不過(guò)科學(xué)家已研發(fā)出一種創(chuàng)新療法：治療用隱形眼鏡，對(duì)受傷的眼睛來(lái)說(shuō)這種隱形眼鏡相當(dāng)于創(chuàng)可貼。這不是普通的隱形眼鏡，因?yàn)樗沙Ｒ?guī)角膜移植遺留下來(lái)的供體細(xì)胞組成。這些特殊的角膜緣間充質(zhì)間質(zhì)細(xì)胞有助于刺激受創(chuàng)眼部進(jìn)行自我修復(fù)。研究人員稱，眼部受傷的患者到醫(yī)院數(shù)小時(shí)內(nèi)，就能用上隱形眼鏡創(chuàng)可貼。這種方法可能比現(xiàn)有療法更便宜、更易應(yīng)用。這些創(chuàng)可貼隱形眼鏡在獲得批準(zhǔn)前還需進(jìn)行大量臨床試驗(yàn)，研究人員表示，可能還需要好幾年的時(shí)間公眾才能用上這種"眼球創(chuàng)可貼"。

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