The US military wants to build artificial reefs (礁) to protect coastal bases from rising seas and climate change. Its “Reefense” programme has awarded three contracts with the goal of using both artificial and natural defences to support the protection provided by human-built sea walls and concrete breakwaters alone.

A first line of defence envisioned by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Reefense programme would consist of an artificial structure capable of removing some of the power of incoming waves. That would pave the way for corals (珊瑚) to grow on the artificial foundation and further strengthen the coastal protection capabilities.

While natural reefs usually start shaping up over five to ten years, DARPA is aiming for these artificial reef structures to inspire coral settlement within just a few years. Its vision could take advantage of new lab techniques for growing corals.

As part of the programme, one team at Rutgers University in New Jersey has received $4.5 million to develop defences based on reefs in the Gulf of Mexico near Tyndall Air Force Base. Another team, at the University of Hawaii, received more than $7.3 million to experiment with structures that encourage coral reef to grow in the Pacific Ocean. The third team, at the University of Miami, was awarded almost $7.5 million to develop an artificial reef solution with different species of coral for the Atlantic Ocean.

The research teams must first build artificial reefs, starting at 50 metres in length, before eventually extending them to 150 metres. Early testing in wave tanks is set to eventually lead to a three -year-long project offshore between 2023 and 2026.

Researchers will also selectively breed (繁殖) corals at seawater temperatures 3℃ higher than surrounding temperatures, so the animals can better survive in a warming world. “All the teams have skills in growing corals in their laboratory environments, selecting for higher temperatures or disease resistance,” says Catherine Campbell at the US DARPA.

The growing use of these icons could potentially lead to further miscommunication. Ben Zimmer, executive editor of Vocabulary.com, says it’s the emoji’s ambiguous (模糊不清的) meaning that could lead to confusion because users can look at an emoji and take different things from it.

Here’s one example Zimmer provided: the emoji that illustrates two folded hands. According to Zimmer, this emoji started in Japan where the symbol represented salutation or gratitude. Other cultures interpret this emoji to symbolize prayer, while millennials (千禧一代) often see this symbol belonging to two different people giving each other a high five.

Another potential issue is that the tone of someone’s voice can be lost when a text message is used to converse, resulting in the recipient not always grabbing the full meaning. “The person you’re sending them to may not know the meaning of an emoji-or misinterpret it,” said Hotel Tonight’s Shank.

You don’t need to be a psychologist to understand what happens next. New relationships — solely predicated on the use of text in the early days — can lead to lost love if you fail to recognize what your potential partner is trying to say.

The other obvious disadvantage is learning how to decode emojis, especially when they are stacked one after another, and get more complicated as they grow, added Eniac Ventures’ Mehta.

But this is increasingly difficult as the toolbox of emojis increases and the use of these symbols changes depending on the context and culture.

Language and communication classes are incorporated into a school’s curriculum to teach students how to use words to tell a story and communicate effectively. If these classes need to incorporate the language and symbols used in the mobile/digital world, aren’t we just regressing back to the age of hieroglyphs (象形文字)?

As Shakespeare once said: “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

If only William was here to comment on emojis.

“Don’t tell anyone”. We hear these words when someone tells a secret to us. But it can be hard to keep a secret. We often tend to“spill the beans”, even if we regret it later.

According to Asim Shah, professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, US, keeping a secret may well“become a burden”. This is because people often have an“obsessive (强迫性的) and anxious urge to share it with someone”.

An earlier study, led by Anita E. Kelly, a scientist at the University of Notre Dame, US, suggested that keeping a secret could cause stress. People entrusted with secrets can suffer from depression, anxiety, and body aches, reported the Daily Mail.

But with secrets so often getting out, why do people share them at all? Shah explained that people often feel that it will help them keep a person as a friend. Another reason people share secrets is guilt over keeping it from someone close to them. A sense of distrust can develop when people who are close do not share it with each other.“Keeping or sharing secrets often puts people in a position of either gaining or losing the trust of someone.”according to Shah.

He added that talkative people could let secrets slip out. But this doesn’t mean that it is a good idea only to share secrets with quiet people. A quiet person may be someone who keeps everything inside. To tell such a person a secret may cause them stress, and make them talk about the secret.

Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret, you’d better put yourself in their position. Think about how you would feel to be told that you mustn’t give the information away. Shah also recommended that if you accidentally give up someone’s secret you should come clean about it. Let the person know that their secret isn’t so secret anymore.