Topic Reading-Vol.1845-4/30/2017

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Google cofounder's 'flying car' makes its debut

Do you want to fly yourself without a license? Here is one coming up soon. Though the price tag hasn’t been attached yet, this flying car, or rather looks more like a flying jet ski, will be on sale by the end of the year.

This project was initiated and invested by Larry Page, the cofounder of Google. Unlike Uber’s flying taxi that transport a person from a place to another, this personal flying vehicle seems to offer views like the ones seen in a drone-shot video and excitement that can’t be enjoyed in any other flying vehicle affordably (presumably) available to public today.

Enjoy seeing the video and think if you’re excited about this personal flying machine for your next Christmas or birthday present. 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/24/technology/larry-page-flying-car/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.1844-4/29/2017

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

The next generation of jobs

What do you want to be? This typical question to ask a future profession may no longer be appropriate for today’s children. Instead, it may become more common to ask, “What skills do you want to acquire?” and “How are you going to use the skills?”

As technologies advance more rapidly and drastically, job protocols and processes, how to do things, are going to change at a significant scale and speed that has never been experienced. For example, many people may work on numbers of micro-jobs in shorter periods rather than a single job for a long time. Also, AI may take away traditional jobs from your want-to-be list, such as customer service, marketing and medical examination.

In order to live through this changing world, young people need to develop skills that match their career objectives, and keep developing new skills as they grow.

Enjoy reading and thinking what skills you have or need to develop to achieve your career objectives.

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170424-the-next-generation-of-jobs-wont-be-made-up-of-professions

Topic Reading-Vol.1843-4/28/2017

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Plastic-eating caterpillar could munch waste, scientists say

The caterpillar is the wormlike larva, the immature, wingless stage of a butterfly or a moth. They have numerous pairs of legs and powerful biting jaws. They usually eat the leaves of the plant or tree on which their lives began.

So what if some species of the caterpillar eat plastic bags just like they eat the leaves they were born on? Whether they think it’s edible or not, scientists found that some caterpillars do eat, or at least degrade plastic bags. Sounds like good news for the environment as millions of tons of the plastic polyethylene are produced each year. That’s enormous number of plastic bags considering the weight of each piece.

Enjoy reading and thinking if caterpillars help humans clean the planet.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39694553

Topic Reading-Vol.1842-4/27/2017

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

France is the weakest of Europe's big 3 economies

Marine Le Pen was supported by over 20% of the voters in the latest presidential election, and she is advancing to a run-off for the French presidency on 7 May. The radical politician commits to revive the republic without EU, euro and NATO. It sounds like an idea to become a fully independent state in the continental Europe like Switzerland. Why such significant portion of people in France want an extreme politician to lead the country?

Though France is one of the major economies in Europe, its rate of economic growth has been lagging behind the fellow EU giants, Germany and the UK. Also, one out of four young people is unemployed. To make the situation even worse, the country’s deficit is mounting because of its relatively high social spending.

Time to choose a drastic change like the UK or the US, or continuity and consistency.

Enjoy reading and thinking if there are effective cures that could remedy France’s economic problems.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/19/news/economy/france-election-economy/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.1841-4/26/2017

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

The army that conquered the world

It could, most likely would, have been a disaster if it had been discovered a few years earlier.

Qin Xi Huang’s tomb and his terracotta army were accidentally found by farmers near Xian in 1974, when there were no more Red Guards, who had destroyed tombs and statues of historic importance including the Ming emperor Wanli like today’s Taliban or ISIS, marching across the country looking for and destroying anything counter-revolutionary.

The first emperor of China seemed to have a persistent passion for eternal life and the next life. He spent fortune in search of remedy for immortality, which of course turned out to be unsuccessful. Instead, the terracotta warriors created to guard his tomb seem to have attained eternal life. As many as 8,000 of them are well preserved by the present dynasty and shown to commoners from the world. But his tomb is still untouched to avoid interrupting his sleep even after over two millenniums.

Enjoy reading and thinking if the resting emperor is happy with his eternal sleep.

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170411-the-army-that-conquered-the-world

Topic Reading-Vol.1840-4/25/2017

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Lotte World Tower opens in Seoul setting world records

How high do you want go above the ground to look down other buildings and observe the view of the city? If the higher the better for you, here is a brand-new skyscraper just opened to public in the capital of South Korea, called Lotte World Tower. It is 555-meter tall, not the highest but the fifth in the world ranking, and has a glass-bottom observatory at 478 meters.

One thing absolutely necessary to enjoy the magnificent view is fast but un-pressuring, neither by air nor fellow passengers, elevators. In this newly completed skyscraper, a double-deck elevator brings as many as 52 passengers at a time to the top floor in just a minute at a speed of 10 meters per second, or 36km/h.

Too fast for you? There are much faster ones competing in the world elevation race as landmark buildings and towers become taller and taller. The fastest one so far lifts you 20 meters per second!

It seems not just architects but engineers of elevators are the ones competing in the world-tallest race.

Enjoy reading and thinking if you’re ready to enjoy elevators at a speed of an automobile. 

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/19/architecture/lotte-world-tower-fastest-double-elevator/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.1839-4/24/2017

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Facebook shares brain-control ambitions

Just think of something, and it’ll be done or realized, even before you speak or type a word of it. This is what the SNS giant is working on now. Though it’ll take long before such brain-direct technology fully recognizes what the mind thinks and reacts properly, the company believes the prospect of such invention and is investing considerable resources.

A silent speech interface is being developed to decode the words humans speak on a day-to-day basis. It requires neither implanted sensor in the brain nor sharing of all the thoughts of the person with Facebook (sounds so scary!). It’s a system that allows a person to choose what to express and write straight from the brain.

Sounds like a system of dream, doesn’t it?

Enjoy reading and thinking what you would do if you got such a mind-decoding, or reading system.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39648788