As Americans cut the cord(电线), Europeans sign up for more pay-TV. The biggest television drama of the past decade has been the story of how people watch it.

Ten years ago nearly nine out of ten American households subscribed to cable or satellite. Today little more than half do. The collapse of pay-TV, with the advance of online streaming(流媒体), has turned over the television industry. And the pace at which consumers are "cutting the cord" from cable providers is only increasing.

But not everywhere. On the other side of the Atlantic, cord-cutters are outnumbered by cord-knotters. As Americans tear up their contracts, Europeans are signing up for cable and satellite in greater numbers than ever. Why has American media's trend missed Europe?

One reason is price. America's cable industry may look competitive, but it is highly regionalised, so most homes have few options. The result is an average monthly cable bill of nearly $100. British homes pay less than half as much.

A second factor is content. American cable TV is running out of shows as studios move their best ones to their own streaming platforms. In Europe, pay-TV firms keep the rights of many of the most popular programs. Britons seeking the third season of Warner Media's "Succession", for instance, must go to Sky, a satellite firm, since Warner Media hasn't streamed outside the Americas.

The last reason why Europe still favors cable is that American streamers have collaborated with European pay-TV firms rather than competing with them. The latter are the ones with access to consumers and the ability to handle local marketing and ad sales.

Will cord-cutting at last cross the Atlantic? As long as film studios continue to license their programming to local players, consumers will have every reason to stick with pay-TV. In the long run, though, studios would rather bring viewers onto their own platforms, as in America. By the time the fourth season of "Succession" is out, audiences may be watching it online.

Researchers from Singapore said in their new study that in older adults, doing housework was tied to a better memory and attention span, and stronger legs, which helps prevent falls. Shiou-Liang Wee, a researcher said, "Housework is a purposeful activity performed by many older adults and represents a significant share of their self-reported physical activity. " 

For the study, Wee's team investigated nearly 500 healthy Singaporeans between 21 and 90 years of age. Among younger participants, 36% said they engaged in enough physical activity to meet the goal researchers set as beneficial, as did 48% of older participants. But 61% of younger and 66% of older participants met this target only through housework, the study revealed.

After taking other types of regular physical activity into consideration, the researchers found that housework was tied with sharper mental abilities and better physical capacity, but only among the older participants. Scores on tests of mental ability were as much as 8% higher among those who did lots of housework, compared with those who did little, Lee's team found.

And among older participants, balance and the time it took to stand up from sitting, which the investigators used as an indication of physical ability, were better for those who did lots of housework than for those who didn't.

Dr. Maria Carney, chief of geriatric (老年病的) medicine at Northwell Health, N. Y. , noted that exercise benefits your brain, and housework is exercise that also involves mental activity and requires detailed thought processes to complete. Physical activity increases blood circulation to your muscles and your brain, which helps mental function. Housework can be an important part of your exercise routine. Carney said, "It's a task you've got to plan for. You've got to use devices; you've got to use equipment. There's planning involved, so there's mental exercise along with physical exercise. "

Artificial intelligence helps teachers identify which of their students have learning difficulties, according to a new study.

Teachers make more accurate assessments of learning difficulties among their students if they are given Al-generated feedback(反馈) rather than an "expert solution" written by a qualified professional. Researchers believe that because the AI analyzed the teacher's own work, it's easier for the teacher to understand than a "model answer" prepared beforehand.

"Teachers play a critical role in recognizing the signs of disorders and learning difficulties in pupils and referring them to specialists," said Riikka Hofmann. "Unfortunately, many of them feel that they have not had sufficient opportunity to practice these skills. AI could provide an extra level of individualized feedback to help them develop these essential competences. "

Trainee teachers were asked to assess fictionalized students for potential learning difficulties, based on evidence including examples of their work, school behavior records and written texts of conversations with parents. Half of the trainees received the "expert solution", typical of the material given to trainee teachers, while the other half received AI-generated feedback on their approach, highlighting where they could improve. The trainees then completed similar follow-up assessments, and were graded both on the accuracy of their diagnoses(诊断) and on how well they had used the evidence. Trainees who received the AI feedback scored significantly higher than those who worked with the pre-written expert solutions.

While the researchers said this does not mean AI is preferable to one-to-one feedback from a skilled expert, this is not always available for trainee teachers. "We are not arguing that AI should replace teacher-educators: new teachers still need expert guidance on how to recognize learning difficulties in the first place," said Dr Michael Sailer. "It does seem, however, that Al-generated feedback helped these trainees to focus on what they really needed to learn. When personal feedback is not readily available, it could be an effective substitute(代替物). "

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich has the perfect long-lasting solution to our fog problem. They have developed a very thin and gold-based transparent coating(涂层) that can convert sunlight into heat, which can be applied to glass and other surfaces to prevent them from fogging.

The special coating is developed using titanium oxide and gold particles. It selectively absorbs infrared radiations(红外线照射) from the sunlight and creates a heating effect that is powerful enough to keep fog away from the surface of an object. The coating basically employs heat to stop fogging. The coating absorbs a large part of the infrared radiation, which causes it to heat up—by up to 8℃.

Previously, products like anti-fogging sprays create a very thin film of water on the surface to remove fog. The problem with such surfaces is pollution. Along with water, the sprays also attract dirt, dust, oil, and various other dirty substances, and just a little dirt on the surface makes it useless. However, the new coating repels(排斥) water. Furthermore, the coating is significantly thinner, which makes it more transparent as well as flexible. It is heated passively and requires, during daytime, no additional energy source.

Gold might be expensive, but the researchers stress that their coating requires so little that the material costs remain low. Their coating is produced with standardized and readily scalable methods, all cost-effectively. However, although this product can work at very low levels of solar irradiation, it does rely on a certain amount of light.

The researchers will develop the coating further for other applications. In the process, they will examine whether other metals work just as well as gold. There is no need to fear. However, this would cause a car or a building to heat up more in the summer. The researchers have already filed a patent. Hopefully, this groundbreaking product will soon be available on the market.

In large population studies, people who eat lots of fruits and vegetables high in vitamin C appear to have a reduced risk for various types of cancer, including cancers of the mouth and lung. But it's not clear that these benefits come specifically from vitamin C. The Age-Related Eye Disease Study found that a daily supplement containing 500 mg of vitamin C can help slow the progress of macular degeneration, an age-related eye disease that causes vision loss. But we don't know what benefits, if any, are provided by vitamin C in particular.

Many people take vitamin C supplements in unnecessarily high doses to prevent or treat various conditions for which its effectiveness is unproved. The vitamin C supplements have variously been said for staving off sunburn and improving the appearance of wrinkles. None of these benefits have been confirmed in scientific studies.

Perhaps the best-known and most widely promoted use of high-dose(高剂量)vitamin C is to prevent or treat the common cold. Most of the evidence shows that high-dose vitamin C will, at most, shorten a cold by one day. In ordinary circumstances, vitamin C has no preventive value, although a few studies have reported a 50% reduced risk of developing colds among people taking vitamin C in extreme circumstances-for example, skiers, marathon runners, and soldiers working in extreme conditions.

The recommended vitamin C dosage per day for healthy women is 75 mg per day. For adults, the highest safe daily intake is likely to be 2, 000 mg per day. Vitamin C is water-soluble, so any amount more than you need will not be stored in the body. It's safe in almost any amount from foods, and supplements in recommended amounts are also regarded as safe for most people. In some people, high doses-more than, say, 2,000 or 3,000 mg per day-can cause a variety of symptoms. People with kidney conditions should take no more than 1,000 mg a day.

"Teamworking" is found everywhere within just about every organization. You can't get away from "teams" that may probably create something greater than the sum of its parts. Or so the theory goes.

Every team needs a common goal. There must be a clear reason for the team to exist. What they are hoping to achieve should be something achievable but tough and inspiring enough to attract the members and keep their motivation alive. What's more, they should also be well prepared for the possible difficulties they may have in the process.

Team members must be able to express their opinions freely and believe their suggestions will be taken seriously. This is important because the team may need to solve some complex issues. For example, it may discuss a sensitive topic. Should they keep their conclusion within the team or share it with other employees? This is an issue that all the members should agree on and honest discussion is needed.

Conflict solving is also very important. Disagreements are natural and, in fact, debate and discussion should be encouraged. A team made up only of "yes men" can make disastrous decisions that few people honestly agreed with in the first place. For example, team meetings may not be a good place for a pair discussion, so "under-the-table" method may be better.

It requires much more, but motivating people is most essential. Successful teamworking is not marked by how much progress the team makes toward its goals, but by how confidently its members complete their tasks with a sense of achievement and pride.

A. Building a strong team is not difficult.

B. He must be skilled in coaching them to reach goals.

C. There are some ways to help get the most out of a team.

D. Team building isn't just throwing a few people together.

E. So there should be rules on how to handle disagreements.

F. Besides, good teamwork is built on open communication.

G. And all the members should realize the value of what they are going to do.

It is a tough time to be a tree. Earth has lost a third of its forests over the past 10,000 years—half of that just since 1900. We logged them for wood. We cut them to make way for farms and cattle. We cleared land to build homes and roads. Although deforestation has decreased globally from its peak in the 1980s, trends vary by region. In Indonesia, which had been cutting down forests for oil palm plantations(棕榈种植园), primary forest loss has declined since 2016. From August 2020 to July 2021, the Brazilian Amazon lost 5,000 square miles of rainforest, a 22 percent increase over the previous year. Since 1990, we've cut down more forest globally than there is forest in the United States.

Trees are growing faster as they absorb extra CO₂. That "greening" of the planet has so far helped slow climate change. But climate change is killing trees. And what has made forest scientists increasingly uneasy is the quickening pace of extreme events—fire, more powerful storms, and, most notably, severe heat and drought, which can worsen the effects of all the rest, shifting forests that have been around since the last ice age to entirely new states.

Climate change still poses less of a threat to forests than logging and land clearing, but the threat is growing fast. Satellite data show that Earth's tree-covered area actually expanded from 1982 to 2016 by 7 percent, an area larger than Mexico. But that doesn't mean forests are doing fine. The data don't distinguish between natural forests and industrial tree farms, such as the millions of palm, eucalyptus(桉树), and pine trees planted as crops while rainforest is cleared. Also, the data don't show which forests were lost to chain saws and which were killed by climate-related events.

Like any doctor, Jacques Fellay wants to give his patients the best care. Hidden inside our bodies are genetic(基因的) markers that can tell him which patients could probably have diseases such as AIDS and provide early treatments. However, there are worries for Fellay: they contain sensitive details that could lead to embarrassment, discrimination or even worse.

A new kind of encryption, fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) (全同态加密), is making it possible for data users to run multiple operations on genetic data without seeing the contents. This can help end big data's privacy problem, and Fellay's patients can be some of the first to benefit.

In 1978, the concept of homomorphic encryption (HE) was firstly proposed. According to it, one could encrypt and share data with others, who could analyze and perform calculations on the data with no idea what it means. After getting the data back, the data user could simply arrive at the result using the secret key and it will make total sense.

In 2009, Craig Gentry firstly provided a workable FHE program. Like HE, it rests on a mathematical idea called a homomorphism, which mostly relies on using algebra(代数) to map data from one form to another without changing its underlying structure. However, it supports multiple operations on encrypted data, rather than only one calculation in HE.

Later, Gentry went on to work at IBM, which now has complicated FHE tools to run encrypted data. In the medical field, for example, it detected signs of COVID-19 infection by applying FHE to analyze the encrypted CT scans of more than 1, 500 people's lungs. In a paper published in October 2021, the team used FHE to collect data from multiple sources and predicted the effect of cancer treatments or the process of HIV infection, as in Fellay's case.

Workable, but still slow: calculations on the FHE-encrypted data could take millions of times longer than those on raw data. But, as Goldwasser says," If you believe that security is not a plus, but it's a must," she says, "then in some sense there is no overhead."

Research into social robots has shown that machines that are at the cutting edge of interaction can respond to feelings and emotionally care for the weak, the elderly and children.

Robin was designed as a companion robot to provide emotional support for children receiving medical treatment. Robin explains medical procedures to them, plays games and tells stories, and during treatment distracts them to reduce their sense of pain. The robot uses AI to understand other people's feelings, remembering facial expressions and conversations to build dialogue for follow-up sessions. In trials at the Wigmore Medical (UK) Pediatric Clinic in Yerevan, Armenia, the team found that Robin led to a 34% decrease in stress and an increase in happiness of 26% in the 120 children who interacted with him at least once.

Healthcare robots could all benefit from displaying emotional intelligence, both recognizing and responding to human emotions, and to some extent, managing them. The problem with this is the fear that human jobs may be lost as robots become better at handling social situations.

Population trends suggest that the demand for robots to work alongside people in care situations will grow over time. By 2050, the number of people aged 65 and over globally will be 1.6 billion (17%), roughly twice the proportion of what it is today. An extra 3.5 million care workers will be needed and that will include emotionally intelligent robots.

Today's simple systems are being trained to meet that demand. This includes a little wheeled robot that can guess how you are feeling from the way you walk, and the robot from the University of Lincoln in the UK—who helps elderly people to stay physically and mentally active.

The impact of social robots on our lives to date has been tiny. But new models are being introduced that could make the breakthrough. Human emotions are difficult to define, but as trust in robots increases, breaking down the psychological barrier becomes easier to imagine.

A new study shows that the more people read any kind of fiction, the better their language skills are likely to be. The piece was written by. Sandra Martin-Chang of Concordia University in Canada, and her student Stephanie Kozak.

Martin-Chang and Kozak used a scale (量表) called the Predictors of Leisure Reading (PoLR) to investigate reading behaviours (motivations, attitudes and interests). They then examined how well the PoLR predicted the language skills of 200 undergraduate students, with all data gathered at York University in Toronto. The researchers note that the age range of the subjects in the study is of key interest. In early adulthood, reading becomes self-directed rather than forced by parents or teachers, which makes this a perfect time for developing one's own reading habits. This population is also rather understudied, with most existing research focusing far more on children.

The researchers administered a series of measures over two separate half-hour sessions. First, the volunteers completed the 48-question PoLR scale measuring various reading behaviours. They were then given language tests. The researchers found that people who enjoyed reading fiction for leisure and who identified themselves as readers scored higher on the language tests, while those who read to access specific information scored more poorly on the same tests.

The many benefits of reading have long been established. Besides having better language abilities, lifelong readers are known to be more understanding of others, attain higher socioeconomic status and even live longer, healthier lives than non-readers.

"Teachers and parents can develop a love of reading by letting young people read what they want, without guilt or shame. This established interest, wanting to read something over and over again, having a strong desire to read an entire series, feeling connected to characters and authors, these are all good things," Martin-Chang concludes.