Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that helps computers to think, learn and create in a way similar to humans. The last year has seen a lot of great developments of new AI apps and tools.

ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot are two examples of AI chatbots that you can have a conversation with. You could ask them about a subject that you’re studying at school, or a part of history that you’re interested in, or tips for good places to visit on holiday.

Teachers might be able to use these apps to create lesson plans but they have other uses, too, like helping people be more creative. For example, the AI could help invent characters and write stories.

There are also “text-to-image” AIs, like DALL-E and Mid journey, which can create pictures for you based on your ideas (or “prompts”). For example, you could ask them to make a photo of a cheese-eating space dog having a picnic on the Moon, or a crayon drawing of a goat playing football in the field.

“Text-to-music” AIS like Splash Pro, Cassette and Stable Audio work in a similar way, turning your prompts into music. You could ask the AI to make a fast pop song that’s a soundtrack for your gaming video, or a relaxing slow song that helps you focus on homework.

Creative AI technology is developing very fast, but there are some worries. Some writers, artists and musicians are worried that these AIs are being “trained” using their work without their permission. One thing that’s important to know is that these AI tools are not designed for young people to use alone. If you want to use or explore them, make sure you do it with an adult.

These days schools don’t allow students to bring mobile phones to schools. Many parents are worried. How can they connect with their kids? Well, smart watches may be the answer to their worries. Smart watches are like small computers. They usually tell time and count(计算) a person’s steps(步数). Most smart watches connect with smartphones and they let the users make calls, and send and receive messages. Often smart watches have microphones and speakers. Some even have cameras.

Many parents buy smart watches for their children because they are too young to have a mobile phone. They are less worried because they can call their children at any time through smart watches. Also, many smart watches have GPS trackers(追踪器). These trackers allow parents to know where their children are, so they know if everything is OK.

But now some groups in Europe say many smart watches are not as safe as what we think. Some watches allow more than parents to track where the children are. They also allow anyone to send the children a message. People can also control the watches from far away to watch and listen to the children. To be safe, any time a smart watch makes a call or sends a message or GPS information—the information should be processed(数据处理) so no one else can get the information.

What will astronauts (宇航员) eat when a space trip takes years?

“Lots of fresh vegetables,” says Dr. Janet Williams, whose team has spent the last 10 years learning how to grow plants in a space station. And it’s a good thing that she has already started her work, because space gardening can be really hard.

As usual, astronaut George White looked into the closed plant room. He had planted Dr. Williams’s quick-growing seedlings in it, but none of the stems were showing. He opened the room to check and found the problem. The stems weren’t growing upward and the roots weren’t growing downward. On Earth, gravity (重力) helps a plant’s stems and roots to find “up” and “down”. However, in the space station, there was almost no gravity.

Dr. Williams suggested a solution: give the plants more light, as plants also use sunlight to find their way. And it worked. When the plants had more light, the stems turned up and the roots went down.

Now Dr. Williams was free to worry about the next problem: Would her baby plants live to flower? Can we grow food on a space journey?

Many plants died in the space station. Dr. Williams thought she knew why: the space plants were hungry for air. Plants live by taking up CO₂ from the air. Since a plant uses it up in the air around, the plant needs moving air to bring more CO₂ close to its surface. On Earth, the air is always moving. Gravity pulls down cold air, and warm air rises. And with these air movements, plants get enough CO_2.

Many earlier experiments with plants in space had used closed rooms. Dr. Williams tried a new greenhouse that had a fan to keep the air move. The plants loved it. They flowered and even produced more seeds. Using Dr. Williams’s method, astronaut George completed the first seed-to-seed experiment in space, and moved one plant closer to a garden in space.

“And this,” says Dr. Williams, “is good news for long-term space travel.”