Cardiac arrest (心脏骤停) happens when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops pumping blood. 90% of the people who have a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital die—often within minutes. That is because they do not receive treatment quickly enough to survive. Cardiac arrest is a common cause of death. It causes about 300,000 to 450,000 deaths in the United States each year.

If cardiac arrest happens, rapid treatment with a medical device called automated external defibrillator (AED) can be lifesaving. Many AEDs can be easily seen in public places, including offices, schools, shopping malls, grocery stores, and airports. An AED system includes an AED and its necessary accessories (配件), such as a battery and pad electrodes (片状电极). The AED gives verbal instructions to users, which means it gives voice instructions to tell users how to use it.

This is how an AED works. First, the user turns on the AED and follows the recorded voice instructions. Second, the user puts two electrodes on the chest of the person in cardiac arrest. Third, the electrodes send information about the person’s heart rhythm (心律) to the AED, and then it decides whether an electric shock (电击) is needed. Fourth, if a shock is needed, the AED tells the user when to press a button to give a shock. In some AEDs, the user doesn’t need to press any button. The AEDs will give a shock themself.

The first robots were invented in the 1920s. Robots have appeared in many American films. In some films, they are stronger, faster and cleverer than people. In real life, robots are mainly used in factories. They do some dangerous and difficult jobs for humans. Robots also help disabled people, for example, blind people. Today many blind people have guide dogs to help them. In the future, guide dogs might be robot dogs.

One kind of robot guide dog has wheels. It moves in front of the owner. It is very clever. It knows the speed of its owner’s walk. The owner wears a special bell (带子). This belt sends instructions to the owner from the dog, such as “Stop here”, “Turn left” or “Turn right”.

In the United States, another kind of robot helps disabled people to take care of themselves in their daily lives. The robot hears the sound of its owner’s voice. It follows instructions, such as “Turn the page” or “Make a cup of coffee”.

Robots are also used in American hospitals. They can do simple jobs. At one hospital, for example, a robot takes meals from the kitchen to patients’ rooms. It never gets lost because this robot has a map of the hospital in its computer memory. Though robots can help people in many different ways, they will never take the place of humans.

The International Space Station(ISS) is a science lab in space, where there are six people now. Usually astronauts stay in the ISS for five or six months. Can you imagine how boring it is to live in a tight(紧凑的) space with just five other people for six months? CIMON 2, a floating(浮动的) computer, was created to work there for three years to help astronauts. It was sent to the ISS on December 5th, 2019.

CIMON was created with two jobs in mind. One is helping astronauts with tasks. The other is trying to be “someone” astronauts can talk to. It is a robot with a face which was created by the European airplane company, Airbus. It has no arms or legs, but it can move where it needs to go.

Helping astronauts is easy for CIMON—it can see, hear, understand, and speak. Its “mouth” is a loudspeaker that can be used to talk or play music. The brains behind CIMON were provided by IBM, a computer company famous for training computers to understand human speech. CIMON can understand not just what people say, but what they mean. If astronauts ask it for instructions or information, CIMON can answer the astronauts, or use its screen to display pictures or documents(文件), if needed. CIMON also has several cameras, which can take pictures and videos to help astronauts keep records of experiments or other important actions.

The more difficult part of CIMON’s job is being a companion for the astronauts. The first CIMON could understand what people were saying and mastered more than 1,000 sentences, but it was not enough. CIMON 2 has been improved so that it can find out how people are feeling. The creator hopes CIMON will be a calm, trusted friend that astronauts can talk to when they don’t want to talk with others. This could be especially important if tension(紧张气氛) in a group of astronauts causes them to stop thinking clearly.

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