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A once-in-a-century embarrassment
In the early morning of January 7, US Eastern time, with many lawmakers already sleepy, the election of the speaker of the US House of Representatives in the 15th round of voting, finally elected Kevin McCarthy as speaker, allowing the US Congress to reopen after a long shutdown. It was the longest delayed election of a speaker in 164 years and was called a “once-in-a-century embarrassment” for American democracy. In the U.S., the election of the speaker is not an urgent matter. The vice president serves as president of the Senate, and the majority party chooses the speaker of the House. The election is a formality. If the election is…
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Use the hammer of science and reason to crush rumors
In the past 2022, mankind has been stubbornly fighting against the novel coronavirus. At the same time, antigen detection extract contains highly toxic and easily fried substances, nucleic acid sampling swab contains carcinogens, long-term wearing of masks can lead to the enlargement of lung nodules…… These rumors related to the novel coronavirus emerge in an endless stream, confusing our understanding and becoming a stumbling block on the road to fighting the epidemic. Although the COVID-19 virus cannot be eliminated by human efforts, we should strengthen our resistance to rumors just as we strengthen our resistance to the virus. We should not follow others’ opinions, listen to others’ opinions, and use…
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A new generation of robots that can perform multiple tasks
A small white robot on a food delivery mission at George Mason University in Virginia was blocked by a group of students when it stopped. It could let the students go first, try to walk around them, or walk through the middle of the crowd. After a few seconds, the robot decided to walk straight through the students, splitting the crowd in half. ‘These robots sometimes come right at your legs,’ said Alice Christensen, an anthropology major at the university. She lifted the top of another robot car and pulled out a Subway sandwich. Christensen, 22, often uses an app similar to Grubhub or Uber Eats, where food delivery tasks…
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The next five to 10 years will see significant changes in agricultural technology
The technology of large-scale discovery of biological germplasm resources and utilization in plants will be developed rapidly. Main features of scientific and technological development: The collection and utilization of biological germplasm resources will be further accelerated, and systems biology will provide systematic theoretical and technical basis for large-scale gene resources exploration and utilization. Through genotype analysis, the comprehensive application of cell engineering, chromosome engineering, molecular marker-assisted selection, gene cloning and transgenic technologies become the main ideas of efficient germplasm innovation. Possible breakthroughs in photosynthesis research will speed up the great revolution in modern plant breeding in the future. The main features of scientific and technological development are as follows: to…
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Tocqueville and the Fall of the Revolution
For most Chinese, the name Tocqueville was probably quite unfamiliar before Wang Qishan recommended “The Old Regime and the Great Revolution” at the end of 2012. However, many young people may not feel this way. As early as middle school, they had known this Frenchman in ideological and political textbooks. There Tocqueville is introduced as a critic of “individualism.” But he is best known for his research on the French Revolution and democracy. Charles Alexis de Tocqueville was born into an aristocratic family near Paris. That was 1805, 16 years after the outbreak of the Revolution. At that time, France was already under the reign of Emperor Napoleon. But this…
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Cartier and China
Bumping headlong into the magnificent world of Chinese art ”the jeweler of the emperor, the emperor of the jeweler” – this evaluation from King Edward VII is undoubtedly the most appropriate definition and praise for the French jewelry leader Cartier. The Cartier family, which has an international vision, has always been good at drawing inspiration from the cultures of various countries and the details of elegant life, creating handed down works that lead the trend. Cartier has a deep relationship with ancient Chinese civilization. Since the publication of “Marco Polo’s Travels”, Marco Polo’s wonderful experience in the East has deeply attracted the exploration eyes of Europeans, and China has become…
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“House of Cards,” a Washington story
On the banks of the Potomac River, the natural dividing line between the north and the south of the United States, there is a city, the capital of the United States-Washington, District of Columbia. In the eyes of ordinary people, one political game after another is probably going on here day and night. In the private room of a certain high-end restaurant, there may be some unspeakable transactions going on; An overwhelming conspiracy is brewing… In Washington DC, a special “political ecosystem” is rooted here and breathes with the city. The stories in Washington D.C. are inseparable from the lives of ordinary people. If you are not there and do…
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A big world in small powder
Which plants produce pollen? Not all plants produce pollen, which is the male gametophyte of seed plants. Plants are divided into higher plants and lower plants according to whether they have morphologically differentiated roots, stems, and leaves, and whether they have “embryonic” structures in their ontogeny. Lower plants include algae, lichens, etc.; Higher plants include bryophytes, ferns, and seed plants. Seed-plants, at the end of the evolutionary line in the present plant world, say that only the higher seed-plants of “us” higher plants can produce pollen. Mosses that grow in wet places, ferns that can easily attack you visually (some ferns have dense, neat piles of spores on the underside…
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The magic of cold metal welding
In everyday life, when we put two pieces of metal of the same material close together, nothing strange will happen. But in the space environment, two pieces of metal might fuse into one piece and never separate. The Galileo probe’s high-gain antenna was unable to fully open due to the cold welding effect The antenna won’t open, disrupting the Jupiter mission On October 9, 1989, NASA launched Galileo, a probe to Jupiter. To ensure Galileo can receive command signals from Earth, which is so far away from Jupiter, NASA has specially equipped the spacecraft with a “high-gain antenna” capable of transmitting 80 kilobytes per second. In order to reduce the…
