Retired Army Col. Farrell Patrick taught computer science at West Point during the 1970s and then at two private universities through the 1990s, so he isn’t surprised by the progress technology has made over the decades. But when the 91-year-old got his first virtual reality (VR) experience recently, he was amazed.

Sitting in a conference room at John Knox Village, Patrick sat up straight as his eyes and ears experienced what it would be like to be in a Navy fighter jet flying off the Florida coast. John Knox Village was one of 17 senior communities around the country that participated in a recently published Stanford University study.

During the study, the seniors were picked from seven-minute virtual experiences such as riding in a tank, watching stage performances, playing with dogs and cats or visiting places like Paris or Egypt. The participants wore headsets that gave them 360-degree views and sounds, making it seem like they had been all but dropped into the actual experience.

The study, working with the company Mynd Immersive, found that almost 80% of the seniors reported having a more positive attitude after their VR session and almost 60% said they felt less isolated socially. The enjoyment lessened somewhat for older respondents whose sight and hearing had deteriorated (恶化). Those who found VR less enjoyable were also more likely to dislike technology in general.

The company has worked on the biggest complaints the seniors in the study had about VR—the headsets were too heavy and the heat they generated made the seniors’ foreheads sweat. The new headsets weigh about six ounces (189 grams) instead of a pound (454 grams). Besides, they have a built-in fan for cooling, and the videos aren’t as jumpy.

Patrick says he hopes to live to 100 because he believes the next five years will see momentous changes in VR. Still a technology enthusiast, he believes the cost of systems will drop dramatically and become part of everyday living, even for seniors.

How should you spend your time? Whom should you marry? Where should you live? For centuries, people have relied on their instincts (本能) to figure out the answers to these questions. Now, we can use the big data to help determine the best course to chart.

Researchers have collected data on various kinds of choices people make, the information they base those choices on, and how things turn out. They have found that a simple data-driven algorithm (算法) would have been better than judges at deciding whether a defendant should stay in jail or be released and better than school principals at deciding which teachers should be promoted. Baseball teams found that algorithms were better than coaches at picking players and strategies. Tech firms in Silicon Valley have found that data from experiments provides better insights into how to design their websites than designers could.

But do statistics have similar impact on our making decisions in personal lives? Yes. The largest of experience sampling projects, Mappiness, has collected more than 3 million data points. It has revealed the activities that provide far more joy than most of us would have guessed, such as exercising, going to a museum and gardening, and the things that give us less pleasure such as playing video games, watching TV program and surfing the internet.

One study by 86 researchers collected information on more than 11,000 romantic couples. They used machine learning models to understand what predicts romantic satisfaction. They found many highly desired traits, such as a partner’s attractiveness and height, have just no connection with long-term happiness. Instead the qualities such as having a “growth mindset”, or a secure attachment style are most predictive of romantic satisfaction.

I am not claiming that we can completely outsource (外包) our lifestyle choices to algorithms, though we might get to that point in the future. I am claiming instead that we can all dramatically improve our decision- making by consulting evidence obtained from thousands or millions of people who faced dilemmas similar to ours.

If you’ve ever had a dog, you know just how deep a connection you can develop with “man’s best friend“. But a dog’s life is much shorter than humans, about 12 to 15 years long, which means every dog owner has to go through the heartbreaking moment when their loving pet passes away.

Why not make a clone of that dog then? This is the solution offered by a South Korean company, Sooam Biotech Research Foundation. The company has already successfully cloned at least 400 dogs, mostly for US customers, ever since it pioneered the technique in 2005. Now, Sooam Biotech has introduced its business to UK dog owners as well, offering them dogs that look just like their lost ones.

To clone a dog, researchers first need to take a skin cell from a living dog or one that has just died. Meanwhile, another dog is selected to supply an egg. Researchers then replace the DNA in the egg with that from the skin cell and implant the egg into the womb of a female dog. The egg grows into a puppy over the following two months.

The whole process takes less than a day, but it comes at a shockingly high price-around £ 63,000. But if you can’t afford it now, you can also save the cell in a laboratory and access it at a later date.

However, magical as cloning might sound, there is no guarantee that the cloned dog will be a perfect copy of the original one. Just like identical twins of humans, they share the exactly same DNA but there will still be small differences between them. “The spots on a Dalmatian clone will be different, for example,” Insung Hwang, head of Sooam Biotech, told The Guardian.

Dog owners will also have to accept the fact that personality is not “clone-able”. Apart from genes, personality is also determined by upbringing and environment, which are both random elements that cloning technologies simply cannot overcome, Professor Tom Kirkwood at Newcastle University, UK, told The Telegraph.

Perhaps bringing our dogs back by cloning is not the best way to remember them after all. Kirkwood, a dog owner himself, pointed out, “An important aspect of our relationship with them is coming to terms with the pain of letting go.”