Developed by researchers and designers specializing in typography(印刷术)and behavioral science，Sans Forgetica is a new font(字体)designed to help readers better remember the information they read by forcing them to spend a bit more time on each word，

The design of Sans Forgetica is based on a font called Albion，but with substantial   modifications(修改)to reduce familiarity and attain its goal of engaging the brain more and   helping the reader retain(保留) more information.It was developed by scientists at RMIT University in Melbourne，Australia，who believe it could help students studying for exams.

“We believe this is the first time that specific principles of design theory have been combined with specific principles of psychology theory in order to create a font，”Behavioral economist Jo Peryman told DW.

If fonts are too familiar，readers often glance over them without their brain creating may   memories of what was read.At the same time，if a font is too outlandish，the brain has to struggle too much to decipher(破译)it while neglecting the retention of information.According to its developers，“Sans Forgetica lies at a sweet spot where just enough obstacle has been added to create that memory retention.”Its modifications force readers to spend more time，but not too much time，reading each word，allowing the brain to engage in deeper cognitive processing.

So does Sans Forgetica actually work? Does it help readers better remember the information they read? So far，studies have shown that it can make a difference，although not a significant one.

One experiment had 96 participants recall word pairs presented in three different fonts.They remembered 69 percent of the word pairs written in Sans Forgetica，compared to 61 percent for the other fonts.In a different experiment，303 students took a mock(模拟)multiple-choice exam，and whenever the text was presented in Sans Forgetica，they remembered 57 percent of   the text，compared to only 50 percent of the surrounding text written in Arial font.

So Sans Forgetica won’t give you the memory of an elephant，but if you’re the kind of person who believes every little bit helps，it might be worth a try.

Asked to picture an electric guitar, most people will immediately bring to mind Leo Fender's most famous model—the Stratocaster. Upon its introduction in 1954, the Stratocaster not only redefined (重新定义) the sound of American music, but also immediately became an astonishing piece of design. Many musicians found Fender's first model, the Telecaster, clumsy, so he simply improved the instrument, making its shape fit a player's body. For Fender, form followed function as naturally as morning followed night.

You can learn more about electric guitars from The Birth of Loud. Ian S. Port's book is a vivid account of the careers of Fender and his main competition, Les Paul, the star guitarist. The book explores the two men's rise with extraordinary skills and authority.

Although they would be forever linked in their fame, they were in many ways opposites. Fender was silent and could often be found working in his laboratory until late at night, while Paul was a showman, a musical and technical whiz (奇才) who was one of the biggest stars before the age of rock 'n' roll pop. What they shared was that they both dared to try out crazy ideas. They were "untrained men who could build or fix almost anything", Port observes.

This book reflects Port's ability to marry an anecdotal (轶事的) writing style to a musician s ear. Describing sound is extraordinarily difficult. I myself have played electric guitars designed by Fender and Paul for many years, and Port's descriptions of their different sounds are the most accurate I have ever read. Port's writing skills are shown clearly when he describes Hendrix's famous performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock in 1969, which pushed rock guitar playing to a height it may never again reach. Port wisely ends his book here. The story of these instruments is the story of America from 1945 to the 1960s : loud, cocky (白大的), aggressively new.

Sending rockets into space requires sacrificing expensive equipment, burning massive amounts of fuel, and risking potential catastrophe. So in the space race of the 21st century, some engineers are abandoning rockets for something much more exciting: elevators.

Imagine hopping on a fast-spinning carousel (旋转木马) while holding a rope attached to a rock. As long as the carousel keeps spinning, the rock and rope will remain horizontal, kept in the air by centrifugal force (离心力). If we replace the carousel with the Earth, the rope with a long cable, and the rock with a counterweight, we can imagine the modern space elevator—a cable pulled into space by the physics of our spinning planet. For this to work, the counterweight would need to be far enough away that the centrifugal force generated by the Earth’s spin is greater than the planet’s gravity. These forces balance out at roughly 36,000 kilometers above the surface, so the counterweight should be beyond this height. The resultant force on objects at this specific distance is evidently zero, leaving the objects in geostationary orbit, which means they revolve around the Earth at the same rate the planet spins, thus appearing motionless in the sky.

The counterweight itself could be anything. From here, the cable could be released down through the atmosphere and connected to a base station on the planet’s surface. To maximize centrifugal acceleration, this anchor point should be close to the Equator. And by making the loading station a mobile ocean base, the entire system could be moved at will, allowing it to perform around extreme weather, and avoid satellites in space. Once established, cargo could be loaded onto devices called climbers, which would pull packages along the cable and into orbit.

But the main problem lies in the cable itself. In addition to supporting a massive amount of weight, the cable’s material would have to be strong enough to stand the counterweight’s pull. And because this tension and the force of gravity would vary at different points, its strength and thickness would need to vary as well. But so far, we’ve only been able to manufacture very small nanotube (纳米碳管) chains.