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If you want to tell the history of the whole world, a history that does not privilege one part of humanity, you cannot do it through texts alone, because only some of the world has ever had texts, while most of the world, for most of the time, has not. Writing is one of humanity’s later achievements, and until fairly recently even many literate (有文字的) societies recorded their concerns not only in writing but in things.

Ideally a history would bring together texts and objects, and some chapters of this book are able to do just that, but in many cases we simply can’t. The clearest example of this between literate and non-literate history is perhaps the first conflict, at Botany Bay, between Captain Cook’s voyage and the Australian Aboriginals. From the English side, we have scientific reports and the captain’s record of that terrible day. From the Australian side, we have only a wooden shield (盾) dropped by a man in flight after his first experience of gunshot. If we want to reconstruct what was actually going on that day, the shield must be questioned and interpreted as deeply and strictly as the written reports.

In addition to the problem of miscomprehension from both sides, there are victories accidentally or deliberately twisted, especially when only the victors know how to write. Those who are on the losing side often have only their things to tell their stories. The Caribbean Taino, the Australian Aboriginals, the African people of Benin and the Incas, all of whom appear in this book, can speak to us now of their past achievements most powerfully through the objects they made: a history told through things gives them back a voice. When we consider contact (联系) between literate and non-literate societies such as these, all our first-hand accounts are necessarily twisted, only one half of a dialogue. If we are to find the other half of that conversation, we have to read not just the texts, but the objects.

How much time do you spend doing research before you make a big decision? There are people who go over every detail exhaustively before making a choice, and it is certainly possible to overthink things. But a fair number of individuals are quick to jump to conclusions. Psychologists call the latter a mental bias (偏见). In this case, the error is making a call based on the least of evidence.

A research by Carmen Sanchez, a professor at the University of Illinois, and David Dunning, a professor at the University of Michigan, has found that hasty judgments are often just one part of larger error-prone patterns in behavior and thinking. These patterns have costs. People who tend to make such jumps in their reasoning often choose a bet in which they have low chances of winning instead of one where their chances are much better.

To study jumping, researchers did an experiment to examine decision-making patterns among 600 people from the general population. They applied a thinking game, in which players encountered someone who was fishing from one of two lakes: in one lake, most of the fish were red; in the other, most were gray. The fisher would catch one fish at a time and stop only when players thought they could say which lake was being fished. Some players had to see many fish before making a decision. Others—the jumpers—stopped after only one or two. Participants were also asked questions to learn more about their thought patterns. It was found that the fewer fish a player waited to see, the more errors that individual made in other types of beliefs, reasoning and decisions.

So what is behind jumping? Researchers commonly distinguish between two pathways of thought: automatic, known as system l, which reflects ideas that come to the mind easily, spontaneously and without effort; and controlled, or system 2, consisting of effortful reasoning that is analytic, mindful and intentional. It was found that jumpers and non-jumpers were equally influenced by automatic thoughts. The jumpers, however, did not engage in controlled reasoning to the same degree as non-jumpers. It is system 2 thinking that helps people counterbalance mental biases introduced by system 1. A lack of system 2 thinking is also more broadly connected to their problematic beliefs and faulty reasoning.

In everyday life, the question of whether we should think things through or instead go with our heart is a frequent and important one. Recent studies show that even gathering just a little bit more evidence may help us avoid a major mistake. Sometimes the most important decision we make can be to take some more time before making a choice.

What is the most shocking about the heatwave affecting the Pacific Northwest is not that it has hit a usually mild area, nor that so many long-standing temperature records are being broken. It is that those records are being broken by such large margins (幅度). In Portland, Oregon, temperature reached 46.6℃(116°F) — making it one of several cities in the region where former records have been beaten by a full 5℃(9°F). At the same time, heatwaves are also hitting central Europe and even Siberia.

Heatwaves may become headlines, but less attention is paid to them. In 2018 about 300,000 people over the age of 65 died as a result of extreme heat, mainly in India, a 54% increase since 2000, according to a report in the Lancet, a medical journal. The report also shows that, unlike storms and floods, heat does not lead to dramatic before-and-after pictures or widespread damage to belongings. It is a silent killer. As many as 70,000 people died due to a heatwave in Europe in 2003.

Heat also kills by worsening health conditions such as heart problems, so not all the deaths it causes may be directly attributed (归因) to it. Climate change will make heatwaves more common and more extreme. Even if greenhouse-gas emissions (排放) are cut to zero by the middle of this century, temperatures will go on rising for decades. So other measures are needed to protect people against extreme heat.

Governments can set up early warning systems to alarm health workers, shut down schools and stop outdoor activities. They can provide the public with forecasts of coming heatwaves, explanations of the dangers and detailed advice on what to do. Improved facilities can also help. This includes providing shaded areas, water parks and “misting stations” to help people cool down, and get to airconditioned “cooling centers” where they can find shelter and sleep if necessary.

The world is, undoubtedly, facing a big health challenge right now. There is no excuse for ignoring heatwaves and their effects.

Though diet and exercise are recommended as ways to improve health, new UC Riverside research in mice is the first to examine the long-lasting, combined effects of both factors when they are experienced early in life.

“Any time you go to a doctor with concerns about your weight, almost without fail, the doctor recommends that you exercise and eat less,” said researcher Marcell Cadney. “That’s why it’s surprising that most studies only look at diet or exercise separately. In this study, we wanted to include both,” he said.

The researchers found that early-life exercise led to reduced anxious behaviors and an increase in adult muscle and brain mass. When fed Western-style diets high in fat and sugar, the mice not only became fatter, but also grew into adults that preferred unhealthy food.

To obtain the findings, the researchers divided the young mice into four groups — those with access to exercise, those without access, those fed a standard, healthy diet and those who ate a Western diet. Mice started their diets immediately after weaning (断奶), and continued with them for three weeks until they reached adulthood. After an additional eight weeks of “washout”, during which all mice were housed without wheels and on a healthy diet, the researchers did a behavioral analysis and measured levels of several different hormones (激素).

One of those they measured, leptin, is produced by fat cells. It helps control body weight by increasing energy consumption and signaling that less food is required. Early-life exercise increased adult leptin levels in adult mice, regardless of the diet they ate. Previously, the research team found that eating too much fat and sugar as a child can change the microbiome (微生物群) for life, even if they later eat more healthily. Going forward, the team plans to study whether fat or sugar is more responsible for the negative effects they measured in Western-diet-fed mice.

This study offers great opportunities for health interventions in childhood habits. “Our findings may be related to understanding the potential effects of activity reductions and dietary changes associated with overweight,” said Marcell.

In the sport of track and field, athletes compete not only with one another but against themselves, and in each race they try to achieve the new personal best.

For one Nebraska teen running in what would likely to be his final cross-country outing before graduating from high school, his personal best turned out not to be marking the fastest time but displaying the biggest heart.

Although it was a long shot when he came out from the starting position last Thursday, Brandon Schutt from Bellevue East High School knew if his time was good enough that day, he still had the potential to qualify for the upcoming state meet. A mile into the 3.1-mile race, however, Schutt realized he wasn’t going to be able to keep up the necessary momentum (势头). Rather than risking injury, he slowed to a comfortable pace that would allow him to simply get pleasure from the moment and the day.

Meanwhile, Blake Cerveny from Omaha Burke High School was running a very different kind of race. Aiming to beat his own personal record, after a fast start, he continued to push himself hard.

With less than 400 meters to go, Cerveny’s legs cramped up (抽筋), but he didn’t give up. Cerveny rose from the ground and continued on, only to fall again after another 150 meters and again... About 100 meters away from the finish line, he lay curled on the ground. His legs had simply given out.

Before Cerveny’s dad could reach his son, Brandon Schutt was at his side to offer a helping hand. The two completed the final meters of the course. Schutt even made sure the injured runner crossed the finish line first, securing his opponent a faster time.

In today’s competitive world, while the emphasis in athletics is so often on breaking records, it is inspiring to see an athlete like Brandon Schutt.

Certain forms of AI are indeed becoming ubiquitous. For example, algorithms (算法) carry out huge volumes of trading on our financial markets, self-driving cars are appearing on city streets, and our smartphones are translating from one language into another. These systems are sometimes faster and more perceptive than we humans are. But so far that is only true for the specific tasks for which the systems have been designed. That is something that some AI developers are now eager to change.

Some of today’s AI pioneers want to move on from today’s world of “weak” or “narrow” AI, to create “strong” or “full” AI, or what is often called artificial general intelligence (AGI). In some respects, today’s powerful computing machines already make our brains look weak. AGI could, its advocates say, work for us around the clock, and drawing on all available data, could suggest solutions to many problems. DM, a company focused on the development of AGI, has an ambition to “solve intelligence”. “If we’re successful,” their mission statement reads, “we believe this will be one of the most important and widely beneficial scientific advances ever made.”

Since the early days of AI, imagination has outpaced what is possible or even probable. In 1965, an imaginative mathematician called Irving Good predicted the eventual creation of an “ultra-intelligent machine…that can far surpass all the intellectual (智力的) activities of any man, however clever.” Good went on to suggest that “the first ultra-intelligent machine” could be “the last invention that man need ever make.”

Fears about the appearance of bad, powerful, man-made intelligent machines have been reinforced (强化) by many works of fiction — Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Terminator film series, for example. But if AI does eventually prove to be our downfall, it is unlikely to be at the hands of human-shaped forms like these, with recognisably human motivations such as aggression (敌对行为). Instead, I agree with Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom, who believes that the heaviest risks from AGI do not come from a decision to turn against mankind but rather from a dogged pursuit of set objectives at the expense of everything else.

The promise and danger of true AGI are great. But all of today’s excited discussion about these possibilities presupposes the fact that we will be able to build these systems. And, having spoken to many of the world’s foremost AI researchers, I believe there is good reason to doubt that we will see AGI any time soon, if ever.