In Los Angeles, drivers spend sixty-one hours every year stuck in traffic. These drivers know all too well how bad the traffic can be. “There’re too many cars, and you can’t move around a lot.”

Professor Cyrus Shahabi also knows about traffic jams. He lives more than 65 kilometers from his office at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. He is always late even with the help of a navigation (导航) system.

He decided to develop a program called ClearPath for that. He says his program uses historical data to predict traffic conditions even before the driver leaves the house. “What’s unique (独特的) is that we use a lot of data that’s currently become available including traffic data, weather data, and we analyze that so that we can predict what’s going to happen in front of you when leave home.”

Professor Shahabi says his system does more than just answer current traffic conditions. With ClearPath, he says, a driver can decide what time he wants to leave, and ClearPath will give the fastest route. It looks at the entire road network, including surface streets as well as highways, before the driver hits the road. Professor Shahabi hopes to have ClearPath available nationwide and overseas once they can collect traffic data from other cities.

“I always thought that Los Angeles had the worst traffic, but now I know that Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, believe it or not, Singapore, Hong Kong certainly are examples that can immediately use this.”

Professor Shahabi hopes to share this new technology with companies that already have navigation systems, such as Google and Apple.

Millions of people suffer from motion sickness (晕动症). They have a lot of activities they fear. They often avoid doing these activities which include long-distance airplane travel, sea-trips, road-trips, even certain movies and video games. However, the French company Boarding Ring promises that it has its way to solve the problem, as long as the users are willing to wear Boarding Glasses!

Why do many people suffer from motion sickness? It is believed that the brain fails to deal with mixed signals from body parts. For example, when you are looking at your phone on a moving bus, your inner ear realizes the move but your eyes, focused on the screen, think you don't move.

Boarding Glasses tries to ease (减轻)motion sickness by making the user's eyes and ears transmit the same message. After the brain receives the same message, it will think you are in a moving environment Though that sounds difficult, the science behind the glasses is surprisingly simple.

The plastic frames (框架)，made up of two round frames on the front and two on the side, are filled with some blue liquid. Any movement can cause the liquid to flow around the eyes. This allows the eyes to sense the move and send the correct signal to the brain.

According to Antoine Jeannin, CEO of Boarding Ring, Boarding Glasses has been tested. The CEO said that over 95 percent of the users felt better after wearing the glasses. The best part is that Boarding Glasses only has a frame, so a single pair can be worn among a group of friends, or even an entire family!

You throw a flying disc (飞盘). Your friend catches it. Well done!

Flying discs are fun toys. They are becoming popular in China. On the Internet, there are more than thousands of posts about disc games, talking about things like rules and dress codes.

Flying discs are very beginner-friendly. It is easy for anyone to throw a disc almost anywhere they want to, from a field to a beach. No special skills are needed. Boys and girls can also play together, making it a good activity to socialize. 【小题1】

For those who want to compete, there are many choices. They can try the team disc sport called “ultimate”. 【小题2】 There are no judges. You must overcome your desire to cheat. Put simply, it makes us better people. In another game called “disc golf”, players try to hit faraway targets with a disc. Like in golf, the lowest number of throws wins.

【小题3】 They started with pie tins (烤盘), which inspired the birth of the toy. After enjoying the pies, some university students soon found that the empty pie tins could be tossed (扔)around. They had great fun with them in the 1930s. In 1948, a man named Walter made a plastic disc with his partner Warren. 【小题4】 The discs quickly became popular.