Alice Moore is a teenager entrepreneur (创业者), who in May 2015 set up her business AilieCandy. By the time she was 13, her company was worth millions of dollars with the invention of a super-sweet treat that could save kids’ teeth, instead of destroying them.

It all began when Moore visited a bank with her dad. On the outing, she was offered a candy bar. However, her dad reminded her that sugary treats were bad for her teeth. But Moore was sick of missing out on candies. So she desired to get round the warning, “Why can’t I make a healthy candy that’s good for my teeth so that my parents can’t say no to it?” With that in mind, Moore asked her dad if she could start her own candy company. He recommended that she do some research and talk to dentists about what a healthier candy would contain.

With her dad’s permission, she spent the next two years researching online and conducting trials to get a recipe that was both tasty and tooth-friendly. She also approached dentists to learn more about teeth cleaning. Consequently, she succeeded in making a kind of candy only using natural sweeteners, which can reduce oral bacteria.

Moore then used her savings to get her business off the ground. Afterwards, she and her father secured their first business meeting with a supermarket owner, who finally agreed to sell Moore’s product — CanCandy.

As CanCandy’s success grows, so does Moore’s credibility as a young entrepreneur. Moore is enthusiastic about the candy she created, and she’s also positive about what the future might bring. She hopes that every kid can have a clean mouth and a broad smile.

Meanwhile, with her parents’ help, Moore is generally able to live a normal teenage life. Although she founded her company early on in life, she wasn’t driven primarily by profit. Moore wants to use her unique talent to help others find their smiles. She donates 10% of AilicCandy’s profits to Big Smiles. With her talent and determination, it appears that the sky could be the limit for Alice Moore.

What would you do if you walked up to a robot with a human-like head and it smiled at you first? You’d likely smile back and perhaps feel the two of you were genuinely interacting. But how does a robot know how to do this? Or a better question, how does it know to get you to smile back?

While we’re getting accustomed to robots that are expert at verbal (口头的) communication, thanks in part to advancements in large language models like ChatGPT, their nonverbal communication skills, especially facial expressions, have fallen far behind.

The Creative Machines Lab has been working on this challenge for more than five years. In a new study, the group unveils Emo, a robot. To train the robot how to make facial expressions, the researchers put Emo in front of the camera and let it do random movements. After a few hours, the robot learned the relationship between their facial expressions and the movement orders — much the way humans practice facial expressions by looking in the mirror. This is similar to our human ability to imagine what we look like when we make certain expressions.

Then the team ran videos of human facial expressions for Emo to observe them one after another. After training, which lasts a few hours, Emo could predict people’s facial expressions by observing tiny changes in their faces as they begin to form an intent to smile. It can not only make a wide range of facial expressions but also knows when to use them.

“I think predicting human facial expressions accurately is a revolution. Traditionally, robots have not been designed to consider humans’expressions during interactions. Now, the robot can integrate human facial expressions as feedback,” said Yuhang Hu. “When a robot makes co-expressions with people in real-time, it not only improves the interaction quality but also helps in building trust between humans and robots. In the future, when interacting with a robot, it will observe and understand your facial expressions, just like a real person.”

Concrete (混凝土) is one of the most common building materials in the world. It’s used to build many things, including roads, sidewalks, and buildings. But making concrete creates a lot of pollution. And it uses a lot of sand. Mining for sand creates other problems for the environment. Siswanti Zuraida from the University of Kitakyushu in Japan had an unusual idea. What if some of the sand in concrete could be replaced (代替)with used diapers (尿布)?

Diapers are a huge source of pollution. In the US alone, over 8 billion pounds(3.6 billion kilograms)of them are thrown away each year. In other countries, dirty diapers can end up in rivers and roads. One 2018 study in Indonesia showed that diapers made up more than 20% of the rubbish pulled from waterways in 15 cities.

So Ms Zuraida and her team collected used diapers, cleaned them up, and killed any bad germs (细菌) in them. Then the diapers were dried and cut into small pieces that could be added to concrete.

The team made different mixes of concrete with different numbers of diapers. They found that this new kind of concrete was just as safe and strong as normal concrete. The researchers think their idea could make it less exorbitant to build homes. After all, sand needs to be mined, which costs money. Used diapers are basically free, and there’s no shortage of them.

Ms Zuraida and her team are excited about their results. However, if diapers are really going to be used in concrete, someone will have to think about how to safely collect, clean, and store lots and lots of used diapers. The team is also studying how well diaper concrete is able to block out heat and sound. Perhaps the biggest challenge will be encouraging people to use concrete made with diapers.