My name is Arianna Traviglia and I’m a senior cultural and heritage researcher at the Centre for Cultural Heritage Technology at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, Italy.

As head of the team, I encourage the development of new technologies to maintain and protect important archaeological (考古学的) findings. Right now, I am working in the field of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city which was destroyed and buried under 13 to 20 feet of ash and small rocks during a volcanic eruption in 79 AD. With the help of a robot, I try to carefully reconstruct (重建) the city’s 2,000-year-old broken frescoes (壁画). The project is called RePAIR.

There are thousands of fresco pieces in Pompeii, and it was nearly impossible for a human to reconstruct all the irregular pieces into big, meaningful paintings in the past. Technology now allows us to do it-the robot we use is running by artificial intelligence (AI). As it examines a piece, it searches a database for a match, and then sends the data back to its hands to fit matching pieces together, saving a lot of hours. Its soft human-like arms and hands allow it to hold and examine the easily broken pieces without damaging them. The technology is likely to allow many museums around the world to reconstruct large-scale broken frescoes or similar objects in the future.

In RePAIR, I’m studying the hyperspectral (高光谱的) images of the fresco pieces in storage and comparing them with the paintings on the walls of the House of the Painters at Work, part of a building in Pompeii. By comparing the resemblances in the images, we will be able to work out whether the broken pieces were from the same wall.

I studied history and archaeology in college. Archaeology helps us understand where we come from, and technology enriches that exploration. I’m glad I’m a translator of the two worlds. My mind runs wild when I think about the exciting Roman life that we are still missing because Pompeii’s frescoes were damaged and haven’t been reconstructed.

A local grocery store here has been remodelled and not a single one of the changes is good for those of us who shop there. The grocery aisles have been rearranged with some going in one direction and others going in another. The aisles have been pushed closer together, making it harder to get through them. It seems like all of these changes have been for the purpose of slowing the shoppers down so they will make more impulse buys. As I walked through the store today, no one was smiling and everyone was unhappy about it.

The change that bothered me the most, however, was in the check-out aisles. Only a few cashiers were left working with huge sections changed into self-scanning check-outs. It saddened me to see this. I knew that people were probably going to lose their jobs because of this change. I got in a cashier aisle and patiently waited while I saw some other people struggling to figure out how the self-scanning machines worked. I swore at that moment never to use one myself even if I had to wait longer every time I shopped there.

When I finally arrived at the front of the aisle, I saw the cashier was someone I knew. I greeted her with a smile. She smiled back with warmth and kindness that touched my soul. We chatted happily while she scanned and bagged up my groceries. I felt a friendship and a connection with her that warmed my heart. I wished her well before I left.

Machines can do a lot for us, but there are many things they can't do. They can't smile or love. Only we can do that. It is time that we should realize that profits aren't more important than people and that machines aren't more important than us. It is time that we should learn that loving each other and this world is what life is all about.

More and more people around the world are living in city areas and the need for high-quality fresh food is rising. At the same time, new homes, apartment buildings, shopping centers and roads are taking the place of rich land near cities. That makes growing crops in tall buildings an interesting solution.

In Dallas, Texas, a company called Green Habitat Hydroponics (GHH) sells vertical farming supplies. “You can control anything and everything you want to with hydroponics—the process of growing plants in sand, small stones or water with added nutrients but not soil,” Kris Maxwell, a sales employee at GHH said. “For example, certain plants need certain nutrients and PH levels. But don’t worry. You can change the hydroponics solutions by adding or taking away nutrients, or by changing the PH level, or even by controlling the amount of water in a solution, so that plants get all the nutrients and water requirements they need. There are even different solutions for certain stages in the plants’ growth.”

In this indoor environment, LED lights, which are environmentally friendly, replace the sun. Heaters, coolers, and special machines control the temperature and humidity. Up to 300 plants can grow in one container unit.

GHH also sells aeroponics systems. With this system, plants are placed in huge containers where only the roots are put in a solution. Nutrient rich wastes from fish, for example, are filtered and sent through the system.

The good thing about this method is that no fertilizers have to be used because the fish produce all of the necessary nutrients. Another advantage of vertical farming is that no pests will damage your crops.

What do you think? Does vertical farming have a bright future?