It’s a sad story: someone keeps failing an exam for four years. It’s the story of Torobo, a robot from Japan.

Torobo has been trying to enter the University of Tokyo in Japan. The university, also called Todai, is one of Asia’s top universities. Since 2013, Torobo has taken the national college entrance exam with other Japanese students. However, the robot has failed to get the required (必需的) score for Todai every year. This year was no exception.

Torobo is part of a project called “Can a Robot Get into the University of Tokyo?” Japan’s National Institute of Informatics started the project in 2011. Torobo does not walk around. It is a robot brain that has arms to complete the test.

Researchers of the project want to find out what intellectual abilities (智能) will be replaced by machines. Results show that Torobo has grown in ability year by year. This year it got a score higher than Japan’s national average(平均分), which is enough to enter other good universities, but not Todai. With its big database, Torobo is good at solving knowledge-based problems and mathematical calculations (数学运算). That’s why it got good scores in physics, history and math. But Torobo has a hard time thinking independently (独立地). As a result, it got weak scores in language and writing.

Luckily, after four years of suffering, researchers have decided to free Torobo from taking the test. They will grow Torobo’s ability in the fields it’s doing well in, so that it can be used in those industries(工业) in the future.

So while Torobo will never graduate from Todai, it can still look forward to a bright future!

Reading people’s minds seems to be a superpower that only happens in movies. But scientists have now made it possible to read people’s mind!

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco developed a new instrument. It can turn brainwaves into words on a screen in front of the user. In the study, they tested it with a paralyzed (瘫痪的) man. “To our knowledge, it’s the first time to directly decode (解码) full words from the brain of someone who is paralyzed and cannot speak,” said Edward Chang, the senior author of the study. Each year, thousands of people lose the ability to speak because of accidents or illnesses. With up to 93 percent being correct the new instrument shows “strong promise” to let these people fully communicate in the future.

One problem with such mind-reading machines, however, is that they have to put electrodes (电极) into people’s brains. It’s inconvenient and has health risks. But scientists from the University of Texas, US, have taken steps to change this. They tried to read people’s thoughts without even touching their heads, reported Live Science.

The new brain scanning (扫描) method is called FMRI, it’s a safer way of “reading” brain activity. Since active brain cells (细胞) are easier to be read. By tracking them, scientists can read brain activity.

The team asked people in the test to listen to 16 hours of radio shows while scanning their brains. Then they used a computer algorithm (算法) to create a story based on the FMRI recording. It matched the radio shows pretty well.

In other tests, the algorithm could basically explain the story of a silent movie that the people in the test watched. It could even retell a story that the people imagined in their heads. Although it’s not a word-for-word translation, the method-FMRI shows many possibilities.

Dr. Jack Tod is very interested in cleaning water. 【小题1】 So it’s natural that he is to develop a small and affordable system (系统) to clean waste water. 【小题2】

【小题3】 The waste water goes into a big plastic tank where bacteria (细菌) start to break down the waste. A few days later after it is dealt with, the water is brought into a greenhouse filled with plants and fish. With the help of sunlight, the plants and animals remove (去掉) more chemicals from the water, making it cleaner.

【小题4】 It can not be used for drinking or cooking, but the water is clean enough for watering the flower, washing the dog, or even for bathing or swimming.

【小题5】 If enough homes and business use “Live Machines”, it can help to use less fresh water, and it can help keep the water supply unpolluted.