IKEA has assembling furniture down to an art. Just go to the store, pick up a bookcase and open the box. Inside you will find everything you need and easy to follow directions. It’s a perfect fit for people who like to DIY.

Now Ryan Schlotthauer, a recent graduate, has come up with a DIY electric car according to Fast Company. Inspired by IKEA and the French automaker Renault, he designed the Höga for his thesis(论文) project.

The Höga was packed for assembly(组装) just like the bookcase from IKEA. Schlotthauer’s approach was to treat the vehicle just like one big piece of furniture with 374 parts to be assembled. The bottom of the Höga is a flat chassis(底盘) that resembles a skateboard and contains the batteries, engine, wheels, and brakes; a model that is already being used for electric cars. The top can be customized depending on need. The Höga has a bright yellow outside and a blue interior. All of the parts are color coded for easy assembly. Yellow ones are for controls and red ones for technical parts.

The mini vehicle which is only 1.8 meters high and 2.3 meters long can seat two adults. The shape of this unique electric car was inspired by the Bauhaus concept of clean design. But small does not mean that the car cannot carry a load. The cabin can be configured to accommodate a bicycle, stroller, and even enough luggage for a vacation. The rear of the vehicle can also be opened to carry an oversize load, like an IKEA closet or couch. In fact, the vehicle doesn’t have doors like a conventional car, both the front and back open.

While the Höga is just a conceptual design that was modeled in software and there are no plans to manufacture it, it is still a great idea because it would be a very affordable car for low-speed driving. Who knows, maybe a marriage between IKEA and Renault is possible and someday you will be able to build your own car.

Visitors to HENN-NA, a restaurant outside Nagasaki, Japan, are greeted by an odd sight:   their food being prepared by a row of humanoid robots that look like the Terminator. H. I. S., the company that runs the restaurant, as well as a nearby hotel where robots check guests into their rooms and help with their luggage, turned to automation partly out of necessity. Japan’s population is shrinking, and its economy is booming; the unemployment rate is only 2.8 percent. “Using robots makes a lot of sense in a country like Japan,” said CEO Hideo Sawada.

Sawada predicts that 70 percent of the jobs at Japan’s hotels will be automated in the next five years. “It takes about a year to two to get your money back,” he said. “But since you can work them 24 hours a day, and they don’t need vacation, eventually it’s more cost-efficient to use the robot.”

This may seem like a vision of the future best suited—perhaps only suited—to Japan. But according to Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, many tasks in the food-service and accommodation industry are exactly the kind that are easily automated. Chui’s latest research estimates that 54 percent of the tasks workers perform in American restaurants and hotels could be automated using currently available technologies.

The robots, in fact, are already here. Chowbotics, a company in Redwood City, California, manufactures Sally, a boxy robot that prepares salads ordered on a touch screen. Botlr, a robot butler, now brings guests extra towels and toiletries in dozens of hotels around the country.

This seems to be worrying. America’s economy isn’t developing nearly as smoothly as Japan’s, and one of the few bright spots in recent years has been employment in restaurants and hotels, which have added more jobs than almost any other industry. That growth, in fact, has helped dull the blow that automation has delivered to other industries. The food-service and accommodation industry now employs 13. 7 million American. Since 2013, it has accounted for more jobs than manufacturing.

These new positions once seemed safe from robots because they required a human touch in a way that manufacturing or mining jobs did not. When ordering a coffee or checking into a hotel, human beings want to interact with other human beings—or so we thought. The companies bringing robots into the service industry are betting that we’ll be happy to trade our relationship with robotic waiters or clerks for greater efficiency. They’re also confident that adding robots won’t necessarily mean cutting human jobs.

(Oct. 13th, 2020, Reuters) The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 to Emmanuelle   Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the   development of a method for gene editing”.

Charpentier and Doudna have discovered one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Using these, researchers can easily change the DNA of animals and plants. This technology has had a great impact on the life sciences. It is contributing to new cancer treatment and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases(遗传病)come true.

Researchers need to modify genes in cells if they want to find out about life’s inner workings. This used to be difficult and sometimes impossible. Using the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors, it is now possible to change the code of life in a few weeks.

The discovery of these genetic scissors was unexpected. During Charpentier’s studies of Streptococcus pyogenes (酿脓链球菌),which cause the most harm to humans,she discovered a previously unknown molecule (分子), tracrRNA. It kills viruses by breaking their DNA.

She started working with Doudna,an experienced biochemist in 2011. They then reprogrammed the genetic scissors. In their natural form, the scissors recognize DNA from viruses, but Charpentier and Doudna prove that they could be controlled so that they can cut any DNA molecule at a given site. Then it is easy to rewrite the code of life.

Since Charpentier and Doudna discovered the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors in 2012, their use has exploded. This tool has contributed to many important discoveries in basic research, and plant researchers have been able to develop crops that can fight pests and drought.Clinical trials(临床试验)of new cancer treatments are under way, and the dream of being able to cure inherited diseases is about to come true. These genetic scissors have taken the life sciences into a new page and, in many ways,are bringing the greatest benefit to humans.