What kind of house will you buy in the future? Would you like to live in a house where your plants can call your phone to tell you that they need to be watered? Or a house that helps you cut your energy bill by turning off the lights when you leave a room? It may sound like science fiction, but it already exists! Come and visit the Smart Home at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. It will show how you can live a green lifestyle by making use of advanced technology throughout the home that makes your life easier and simpler.

The Smart Home uses green technology to record the energy it uses, including electricity, water and gas. The house’s energy dashboard (仪表盘) lets you know your energy use through your television and computer. The house greets you with the new information when you walk in the door. It is able to record when you enter and leave rooms, and can switch the lights, television and music off                    .

The Smart Home is made entirely of recyclable and renewable materials. The furniture is made from used light bulbs, plastic bottles and other renewable materials, but you can’t tell from just looking at them. The kitchen countertops (工作台面) are made of recycled glass.

The entire house is designed to control the use of energy. The roof of the Smart Home has a sustainable vegetable garden, which does little harm to nature. Even the personal computer is green: it uses less power than a 60-watt light bulb. The house can raise and lower the window shades by itself.

The world’s first zero-carbon city is being built in Abu Dhabi and is designed to be not only free of cars and high buildings but also powered by the sun.

The oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the last place you would expect to learn lessons on low-carbon living, but the eco-city of Masdar could teach the world. While the presence of fossil fuel (矿物燃料) has helped make UAE one of the world’s wealthiest countries, the officials there are well aware that the oil wells will eventually run dry, leaving them with no choice, but to use renewable sources of energy.

Masdar is combining 21st-century engineering with traditional desert architecture to create zero-carbon comfort. It will house about 50,000 people, at least 1,000 businesses and a university. It is being designed by the British architectural firm Foster + Partners. The architects are turning the desert’s greatest threat-the sun-into their greatest fortune. They have built the biggest solar farm in the Middle East to power the city.

Traditional cars must be checked in at the city gates before you enter the city. And you can choose between the oldest and newest ways of transport. At street level, the streets will be narrow, just to let people walk by and so the buildings will shade each other, and the planners have done their best to keep the city foot-friendly. But if you feel tired, you can go down a level to take mini vehicles. These driverless vehicles can carry up to 6 people and will be solar powered or battery operated. They are programmed to go where you ask.

Water that is used in homes or for gardens will be recycled. All waste will be converted to energy or as nutrients for soil. The whole purpose of Masdar City is to reuse or recycle everything that is in it even some of the construction materials around gardens and city.

What makes us human？Is it our thoughts？Our emotions？Our behavior？

All of these things make us who we are，but at the center of it all lies the genome — the genes inside our bodies that determine everything from our hair color to our intelligence. But if we could change our genome，would we still be human？

Recently，a group of scientists from the US and South Korea worked together to successfully“edit”a human embryo（胚胎）and remove a genetic mutation（变异）that would have led to heart disease. This was achieved with the help of CRISPR-a gene — editing tool that allows scientists to edit the genome by cutting，changing or adding to parts of it.

Scientists involved in DNA editing are certain about the good of their work，and hope that in the future，diseases could simply be“edited out”.

However，others aren't so sure. People are worried that the science could be used not only to remove life-threatening illness，but also to make a“perfect”baby whose DNA has been chosen to improve its intelligence or other qualities. They say that this is a shallow way of thinking about raising children.

“It makes you think about who we are as people，and it makes you ask if humans should use the kind of power…that is changing human evolution（进化），”Jennifer Doudna of the University of California said.

Still，others worry that DNA editing could be turned into an expensive service that would only be available to the people who could afford it. That might mean the rich would be given another advantage in a world where they already have plenty of them.

“You could find wealthy parents buying the technology for their children, leading to even greater inequality than we already live with,”Marcy Darnovsky, director of the San Francisco Center for Genetics and Society, said.