It encouraged us to visit Quora.com, the online question and answer community, to find out how users get the most out of every tank of gas.

Light makes right

Alex Elderfield noted that excess weight prevents an engine from burning fuel efficiently. "Only carry what is essential in your car, clean out any junk or necessary items otherwise you are paying for the fuel to cart these from place to place," he wrote.

Driving smoothly — that is, not mashing the gas and then slamming the brakes later down the road — was a fixture of many responses. Quora user Clint Law agreed on that advice, who wrote, "Every little bit of kinetic energy that your brakes lose, your engine burned in fuel to build up." Overbraking should consequently be viewed as wasted acceleration. "That's really what kills your fuel economy," he argued.

Keep the pressure up

Keeping the recommended tire pressure for your car was another mantra among Quora users. Marlyn Rosent said she checked her tire pressure every time she filled up her SUV. Quora user Doug Dingus checks his tire pressure every weekend. “Less tire contact means reduced rubbing, requiring less fuel,” he said.

Air conditioning or windows

Though the summer heat get many drivers to roll up the windows and turn on the air conditioning, some people argued that running the A/C wastes too much gas. In between were many shades of grey.

Achilleas Vortselas said it would depend largely on a car’s speed. He wrote that as a general rule, people should drive with the windows down around the city and turn the air conditioning on when hitting the highway, where a car’s aerodynamic(空气动力的) characteristics would be influenced by opened windows.

More seriously minded people, however, said to travel as much as possible with windows up and the A/C off. Eddie Xue gets by with just a wisp of outside air. “Use the fan and open your windows every now and then at lower speeds," he wrote.

Scientists who study the intersection of conflict and human behavior say it’s essential to understand the biology behind some of these bitter interactions. As social beings, humans form strong bonds with groups that could help us survive against outside threats.

Olga Klimecki, a neurology researcher in Germany, says brain scans show how powerfully social identity can shape our emotional response to situations. For example, if someone sees a fellow member of the group in pain, the brain will react with empathy. “My brain would imitate the suffering of the other person by reactivating how I feel when I’m feeling bad,” Klimecki explains. But if it is an adversary who is experiencing pain, the same empathetic region of the brain isn’t active, and we also see more activation related to joy.

Worse still, conflict literally weakens our brain’s ability to feel love. Klimecki says studies show couples who just argued have less activity in regions of the brain that sense attachment and fondness. Conflict deepens quickly when we feel it threatening things we hold dearest—our values or our people. We dig in deeper, becoming less rational (理性的).

So, facing an urgent situation first requires releasing a brain dominated by defensive emotion. Phillips, a veteran conflict-resolution expert, says it means saying to your opponent, for example: “I understand this is core to your identity and your community, and I respect your sacred values.”

If you’re in a heated argument, Klimecki, the neurologist, suggests taking “microbreaks” to help regain perspective. She also suggests taking measures to reduce stress, because stress reduces function in a part of the brain that helps us think rationally. So, she advises getting more sleep, trying deep breathing or thinking of something that makes you feel positive. All these can cut down stress and give you greater capacity to handle conflict better, and hopefully keep dialogue open with your friends and loved ones, even when you disagree.

Roughly 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying the Roman city, Herculaneum. Now a group of scientists is working to figure out one of the great mysteries of that time—the scrolls of Herculaneum.

In 1752, workers digging in Herculaneum uncovered a home with over 600 scrolls. Most of the scrolls were made from papyrus-a paper-like material. The heat from the volcano had burned the scrolls so much that just touching them could make them fall apart. So scientists have been looking for ways to read the scrolls without opening them.

Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky has been working on this for over 20 years. He uses a CT scanner to take 3D X-ray images. Then he uses a computer program to “unroll” the scroll, and gets pictures of what it looks like on the inside. In 2016, his team used this method to read a burned scroll found near the Dead Sea.

But the scrolls from Herculaneum are much harder. The ink is made from charcoal and water, and doesn’t show up well in CT scans. Still, Dr. Seales hoped to be able to find the writing on the scrolls by training an AI program to look for these patterns.

Though Dr. Seales was making progress, it was slowly going. Then Dr. Seales met with two businessmen. They had the idea of creating a contest for decoding the scrolls. The contest, called the Vesuvius Challenge, offered large prizes to people who met certain challenges in decoding the scrolls. About 1,500 people have taken part in the contest.

In August, Casey Handmer found a pattern that revealed where the ink had been on the scrolls. Soon afterward, Youssef Nader created an AI program that found a whole word: “πoρραc”, which means “purple”. This was the first word ever read from these ancient scrolls. For their efforts, Mr. Handmer and Mr. Nader each won $10,000.

Now people are eagerly working to earn the contest’s $700,000 top prize, which is for decoding four longer sections of the scroll by December 31. The people behind the contest say that, with all the recent progress, it’s likely that someone will win this prize, too.