Getting stitched(缝合) up by Dr. Robot may one day be reality. Scientists have created a robotic system which did just that in living animals without a real doctor pulling the strings. Much like engineers are designing self-driving cars, the medical research is part of a move toward autonomous surgical robots, removing the surgeon’s hands from certain tasks that a machine might perform all by itself.

Doctors wouldn’t leave the bedside they’re supposed to watch. Plus they’d handle the rest of the surgery. In small tests using pigs, the robotic arm performed at least as well, and in some cases a bit better, as some competing surgeons in stitching together intestinal(肠的) tissue. “The purpose wasn’t to replace surgeons, ”said Dr. Kim who led the project. “If you have all intelligent tool that works with a surgeon, can it improve the outcome? That’s what we have done.”

If you’ve heard about machines like the popular Da Vinci system, you might think robots already are operating. Not really. Today many hospitals offer robot-assisted surgery where surgeons use the machinery as tools that they control by hand to operate through tiny openings in the body. But robot-assisted surgery has been controversial, as some studies have shown it can bring higher costs without better outcomes.

Kim’s team at Children’s Sheikh Zayed Institute invented the new STAR system—it stands for Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot—works sort of like a programmable sewing machine. They added sensors to help guide each stitch and tell how tightly to pull. But the approach wasn’t perfect. In the living animals, the robot took much longer and made a few stitching mistakes while the surgeon sewing by hand made none. Kim said the robot can be sped up. He hopes to begin human studies in two or three years.

3D printing is becoming more and more popular. We are now able to create things we need very quickly and easily using 3D printers. But can you imagine printing food?

Some scientists are trying to change the dining experience by doing this. They hope that having a 3D printer in the kitchen will be as common as the microwave oven or blender.

Scientists say that it’ll be quite easy: you simply have to select a recipe(食谱)and put the raw food‘inks’into the printer. You can also modify (修改) the instructions to make the food exactly how you want it. This means that it would be very quick and easy to create tasty and nutritious meals.

Using 3D printers to create your meals would also be saving the environment. There would be less need for traditional growing, transporting and packaging processes as food production would be a lot more efficient. For example, alternative ingredients such as proteins from algae, beetroot leaves and insects could be converted into tasty products.

Printing food could also help people who suffer from dysphasia (a swallowing disorder). They could program the printer to print softer versions of their favorite foods so that they would not have trouble in swallowing them.

However, some people think that a future of 3D food printing would be a disaster. It could take away many jobs, including those from growing, transporting and packaging food. Imagine a world where there was no need for farming or growing crops and the same tastes could be printed from a raw “food ink”. Likewise, traditional cafes and restaurants might lose business. Also, there are concerns about the nutritional value of printed food: is it really possible to be get the nutrients we need from food–based inks and gels(凝胶)?

What’s more，cooking and eating together with family and friends has long been a traditional and enjoyable activity. It is hard to imagine a world where the pleasure of cooking is dead and meals can be created at the touch of a button.

Self-driving vehicles will rely on cameras, sensors and artificial intelligence（AI）to recognize and respond to road and traffic conditions, but sensing is the most effective for objects and movement in the neighborhood of the vehicle. Not everything important in a car’s environment will be caught by the vehicle’s camera. Another vehicle approaching at high speed on a collision (碰撞) track might not be visible until it’s too late. This is why vehicle-to-vehicle communication is undergoing rapid development. Our research shows that cars will need to be able to chat and cooperate on the road, although the technical challenges are considerable.

Applications for vehicle-to-vehicle communication range from vehicles driving together in a row, to safety messages about nearby emergency vehicles. Vehicles could alert each other to avoid collisions or share notices about passers-by and bicycles.

From as far as several hundred meters away, vehicles could exchange messages with one another or receive information from roadside unit’s（RSUs）about nearby incidents or dangerous road conditions through 4G network.

A high level of AI seems required for such vehicles, not only to self -drive from A to B, but also to react intelligently to messages received. Vehicles will need to plan, reason, strategize and adapt in the light of information received in real time and to carry out cooperative behaviors. For example, a group of autonomous vehicles might avoid a route together because of potential risks, or a vehicle could decide to drop someone off earlier due to messages received, a foreseen crow ding ahead.

Further applications of vehicle-to-vehicle communication are still being researched, including how to perform cooperative behavior.