Earlier this week, I watched some online videos that were both sickening and inspiring. They showed a team of surgeons conducting colorectal, cardiac and neurological procedures—scalpels, blood and all. But instead of crowding around the patient in an operating theatre, as shown in TV shows such as ER, the surgeons were scattered: some were beside the patient; others were many miles away, guiding their colleagues with a (virtual) hand, thanks to augmented reality.

Call this, if you like, Zoom for surgeons—instead of conducting an office meeting via video, they are inserting a scalpel into a brain. Or as Naine Hachach-Haram, a plastic surgeon in the UK’s NIS and the founder of Proximie, the platform I watched, says, “The idea is to bring virtual healthcare workers together—we are digesting the operating theatre and bringing it to people around the world.”

Welcome to another unexpected story arising from Covid-19. Hachach-Haram first proposed the idea of doing virtual surgery a decade ago. Like many doctors in the west, she did volunteer medical work in war-torn regions of the world and became frustrated by the lack of access to surgeons there. To correct this, in 2016 she founded Proximie as a training tool. However, in those early days, she said she faced an uphill battle persuading other doctors to embrace the idea: most had been trained to believe that “proper surgery involved proximity to the patient”. The roadblock “was a cultural issue as much as an issue of technology”, she tells me.

This reflects a bigger pattern that has benefited many telemedicine start-ups. “Covid-19 caused a rapid increase in virtual healthcare use,” says a recent report from consultancy McKinsey, who predicts this level of growth will decline when lockdown ends, but says telemedicine “is expected to stabilize at higher than pre-pandemic levels and continue growing”. To put it another way now that the cultural resistance to virtual medicine has been broken down, we are unlikely to forget this lesson. “Zoom surgery” is likely to remain a feature of modern medicine.

This might just be a lucky accident. Or maybe not: a similar pattern has played out in pockets of finance too. In 2007, a telecoms company in Kenya launched M-Pesa, a mobile payment system, to get around the lack of established banking infrastructure in Africa. The concept, which was embraced in Kenya, faced cultural resistance in the West but would come to be eventually adopted later. When historians look beck at the Covid-19 era, they may not just conclude that it changed how we work but that it also accelerate the movement of skills, ideas and money. Those videos of “Zoom Surgery” are one tiny symbol of a new type of globalization.

Bioluminescence, unlike other sources of light（the sun, fire, light bulbs）, which produce energy from heat, is defined as “the emission of light from living organisms（such as fireflies and bacteria）as the result of internal chemical reactions”. It is one of the wonders of nature that just about any of us can witness.

While a few organisms can produce bioluminescent light outside of the oceans（think fireflies）, most of the bioluminescence going on is in salt water. In fact, the vast majority of bioluminescent organisms evolved in order to provide light in deep sea marine ecosystems—either to light up prey or as a warning against predators（捕食者）—far below sunlight's reach into the water column.

Humans have been putting natural bioluminescence to work for a while—19th century coal miners would trap fireflies（instead of open-flame candles or lanterns that could cause explosion）in jars to light their way. But nowadays researchers are hard at work synthesizing（合成）the chemical reactions behind bioluminescence for a range of modern-day applications.

Using bioluminescence to help cure disease is a big focus of some biomedical research companies, given the promise of using heat-free organic light to detect metastasizing（转移的） cancer cells, stem cells, viruses or bacteria within living tissue. The military also has big hopes for applying the chemical reactions of bioluminescence to create light that won't cause the heat-seeking sensory equipment of the enemy whether on land，at sea or in the sky. Some other practical applications of bioluminescence include an effort to connect genes from bioluminescent organisms into trees that would light up when the sun sets.

While none of these “technologies” is yet ready to become mainstream, it's good to know that the future looks bright.

Jumbo Supermarket is tackling shoplifting by laying hands on new technology: Artificial .Intelligence (AI). Smart cameras, equipped with software from French company Veesion, detect questionable behaviour and help report thieving from shops. With 100 million euros lost to shoplifters last year, Jumbo is starting a trial in its own shops this week.

The smart AI technology uses complicated software connected to the existing cameras and security network through the Internet, It then automatically monitors all the cameras at the same time for potential shopping activity. The technology is not faultless, but it significantly increases the chances of being caught. When a customer puts a product in his pocket or bag, the smart camera notices and reports it. This ensures that shoplifters can be caught in the act.

At Jumbo’s supermarket in Hengelo, Netherlands, 47 cameras have been fitted. AI is also being applied at other Jumbo locations. The cameras are strategically placed to identify questionable behaviour as effectively as possible. The system doesn’t actually label people as thieves; rather, it reminds the staff to check on those people as they might steal things. Sometimes the system raises an unjustified alarm. Nevertheless, it has proved a valuable tool for staff.

More than 110 supermarkets in the Netherlands have already used Veesion’s technology. According to the Personal Data Authority, supermarkets are allowed to use such technologies, provided they can properly justify why it is necessary.

The use of AI in stores is not just limited to stealing prevention. Globally, various AI. technologies are being used to improve the shopping experience and take full advantage of business processes. Also, shops use them for customized marketing. Michaels Stores, for example, a shop selling handmade goods, uses AI to tailor its advertising to each customer, which makes them feel more engaged and more likely to receive special offers that suit them. The company has created a system that helps create advertising copy and understand s which messages work best for different types of customers.