无人驾驶 &孟母三迁的现代诠释.pdf

              原汁原味的Sci & Tech News weekly

Volume 3  19年5月22日

Editor: Dr. Collin F. Hu

卷首语：本期在遗传学领域选择了一篇关于合成生物学的新闻。合成生物学是近年来涌现出的新学科，它试图利用人造的遗传密码表，再用已有的细胞机制，创造出全新的人造生物系统（Artificial BioSystem）。它离应用还比较远，但在科学上，可以带给人们无尽的科学想象。在人工智能领域，无人驾驶汽车是这个领域中最炫目，利润最多，目前最引人关注的题目。本期选择了一篇BBC的记者乘坐Google无人驾驶汽车后，对这种未来技术的展望。在最后选择了一篇有趣的TED演讲，TED是目前世界上最负盛名的演讲会。这个演讲通过现代的心理学实验，告诉了我们孟母三迁是有科学道理的。

Genetics：

目前，这组英国科学家创造出的Syn61，它的遗传密码与它在自然界的表亲E. coli 不一样。导致了病毒根本入侵不了这种新型的人造生物系统。它离现实的应用还很远，比如这种Syn61是否具备E. coli的全部生物功能？

但即使这样，它能够激发出我们最大胆的科学想象。到底在什么程度上，人类可以通过自己创造的遗传密码表（加上生物的细胞机制来合作），以此完成一个人造-生物系统？它最终可以为人类服务吗，比如移植器官？合成生物学制造的所谓人工生命，与外星人有差异吗？

Artificial life form given ‘synthetic DNA’

By Roland Pease BBC 16 May 2019

[What is it?] UK scientists have created an artificial version of the stomach bug E. coli that is based on an entirely synthetic form of DNA. At the same time, Syn61 as they are calling it, has had its genetic code significantly redesigned.

redesigned:重新设计。我们知道在生物学中心法则中，DNA通过三联码传递信息，过程中有RNA的参与，最后合成蛋白分子，这是一个自然界design的非常复杂的过程。现在，redesign就是在这个基础上进行的，比如后文提到的增广三联码的含义等，它所形成的DNA的这种形式，被称为synthetic form of DNA。

请大家注意，黄色标记的这句话的动词是 create（不是produce），与Bible中上帝造人用的是同一个词。后面跟的从句that is based on … ，表示以 … 做为基础，是很常见的写法。

[How to do it？] Syn61's 4 million genetic letters make this the largest entire genome to be synthesised from scratch. They were ordered in short segments from a laboratory supplies company, before being assembled into half-million-letter lengths in yeast cells by natural cellular machinery. At this point, the genome engineers' job became a bit like a railway engineer's maintenance programme - replacing the E. coli genome piecewise - section by section - rather than all at once.

programme：英国英语，表示工作程序，步骤；

人类基因组测序也是这样完成的。不可能一下子就把整个基因组的组成测出来，太大了，必须piece by piece Or section by section。但此后必须确保拼接的正确性。

[Why it matters?] The new genome has also been recoded, as a first step allowing the synthetic biologists to incorporate components into biomolecules that do not exist in nature. But although nature relies on only 20, the DNA code could accommodate up to 64. DNA biologist Francis Crick, who worked at the LMB （Laboratory for Molecular Biology） in its early days, called this a frozen accident.

incorporate components into biomolecules：把这些成分组装成大分子；

a frozen accident：DNA由4种核苷酸构成，A，C，G，T，根据生物学的中心法则，原则上可以构成4³=64 （允许碱基的重复排列），可以编码成64中氨基酸分子；但是自然界中只有20种，Crick把这种现象称为frozen accident。

[Future research] Syn61 turns out not to be quite so vigorous as its natural E. coli cousin - it grows about 60% slower. Until now, organisms have been able to swap genes, often via viruses, because they all share the same basic language. Now, a virus trying to infect Syn61 will find the host cell lacks the tools to translate the viral DNA; the attempt would fail.

basic language：这儿指的是DNA的构成A，C，G，T，以及它们三个一组和RNA一起翻译出的氨基酸（最后构成蛋白质分子）。但是这批科学家把这种自然界中的通用语言改变了，将来可能发生什么事，这是科幻作家的好题材了。也许刘慈欣在《流浪地球》后，可以考虑写一部关于用合成生物学创造出异类生命的科幻电影。

推荐读13遍的英语句子：

1.   UK scientists have created an artificial version of the stomach bug E. coli that is based on an entirely synthetic form of DNA.

2.   They were ordered in short segments from a laboratory supplies company, before being assembled into half-million-letter lengths in yeast cells by natural cellular machinery.

3.   But although nature relies on only 20, the DNA code could accommodate up to 64.

4.   Until now, organisms have been able to swap genes, often via viruses, because they all share the same basic language.

Autonomous cars：

原来我估计无人驾驶汽车在明年左右会上闹市区的马路，看来太乐观了。在一些特定的路段上，比如中国深圳和英国伦敦的几条公交的路线上，甚至一些地区，如美国亚利桑那州的凤凰城，这种无人驾驶汽车已经出现。但是，它们现在融入到市区的中心区，人车混杂的地带还有些困难。

突然想到前几天看到的软件工程中的10-90规律，即最后10%的工作会耗费90%的时间。这最后的10%不容小觑。行百里者不是半90，而是应该当作刚刚开始。

我毫不怀疑，在近未来的道路将是无人驾驶汽车主宰。因为好处太诱人了，1，几乎是零伤亡的马路事故，2，驾驶汽车上省下了巨量的驾车劳动。但近未来是多久，3年，5年，可能最后的进程要更加艰辛一些。

Robots on the road - how close is our driverless future?

By Rory Cellan-Jones BBC 20 May 2019

[Summary] It was on the motorway near Phoenix, Arizona, that I realised fully driverless cars might be quite a distant dream. And that was because our Google Waymo robo-taxi seemed incapable of leaving that motorway.

fully driverless cars：在美国，driverless cars是分等级的，最低级别一切人工驾驶，最高级别，就是这儿的fully driverless car，不管什么天气，什么路段，一切机器驾驶。

[Background] Google leads this race at the moment and for the past six months has been offering a robot-taxi service, Waymo One, to a select few early adopters in and around the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Our first ride with Waymo took us through the quiet suburban streets, where traffic is sparse and drivers well mannered.

Here, the minivan, fitted out with a battery of sensors and high-definition cameras, performed very impressively, handling slightly tricky left turns, spotting other road users and slowing down as it passed a school. While a Google engineer sat behind the wheel, she never intervened and soon we relaxed and forgot that we were effectively being driven by a robot.

“ where traffic is sparse and drivers well mannered”,Google的无人驾驶车号称已经在社区的路上行驶了几百万英里，并且在美国凤凰城提提供了一些无人驾驶的“早鸟”项目服务，看来是在一些特殊的地段。

[What is it?] But as we headed along the motorway on the 20-minute ride to his office, things began to go wrong. As we approached our exit, there was a solid line of traffic to our right. An assertive human driver would probably have squeezed over and made it to the exit lane - but the robot, which cannot exceed the speed limit, was more cautious. The car missed that exit and the next one before finally leaving the motorway. And when we were back on the suburban streets, it appeared to freeze at a junction where it needed to turn left across traffic - after a while, the engineer behind the wheel had to take over and complete the turn. Mr Metz told us that in his experience this was a very rare occurrence.

对于这种人和车如何相处的问题，一直是无人驾驶领域中最棘手的问题。机器人的首要原则是“不能伤害人类”，可是碰到这种assertive human driver 应该如何处理，这种司机在日常生活中随处可见。我们对机器人是否要求得过于严厉了？如果放开，这个度该如何把握，由谁来把握？这个问题，在中国这种人口密度大的国家，尤为重要。看来，有时候真的不是技术上的事情。

但即使这样，对这种交通事故，也请注意Mr Metz的那句话（本段最后），“this was a very rare occurrence.”

[Near Future View] Far from the orderly roads of Arizona, I stood with the transport writer Christian Wolmar at the hectic crossroads outside Holborn Tube station, in central London. He pointed out that pedestrians would have no hesitation in stepping out in front of driverless cars, knowing they were programmed to stop, and the result would be gridlock. "Once you set the rule that driverless cars have to effectively kowtow to any pedestrian in the street, and pedestrians begin to learn that, then the whole balance of power in our streets will change," he said.

“whole balance of power in our streets will change”，指的是行人过马路再也无需担心了（所有机器人的守则1），所以整个街道的权利完全由行人掌控。面对无人汽车，你会如何表现？但是否会使得人类对于机器人车辆过于粗鲁。一个好的办法是立法进行人为的干预。

推荐读13遍的英语句子：

1.   It was on the motorway near Phoenix, Arizona, that I realised fully driverless cars might be quite a distant dream.

2.   Google leads this race at the moment and for the past six months has been offering a robot-taxi service, Waymo One, to a select few early adopters …

3.   An assertive human driver would probably have squeezed over and made it to the exit lane - but the robot, which cannot exceed the speed limit, was more cautious.

4.   He pointed out that pedestrians would have no hesitation in stepping out in front of driverless cars, knowing they were programmed to stop, and the result would be gridlock.

TED talks：

古代的孟母为了给孩子找到一个好的读书环境，特别是周围小朋友是否也喜欢学习，不惜搬了三次家。

这个TED视频，心理学家一共讲了三个实验，其中后两个实验与人的行为与周围的环境（context）的关系。有一个经典的老实验，把一块果汁糖放在一个小孩面前，告诉他必须等待一下，然后可以吃两块。在这儿，这位心理学家给这个经典实验加了一个小的修改，她告诉那些等待的孩子们，有一群小伙伴也在等待。实验结果是，那些相信他和其它的小伙伴一起等待的小朋友要做的好一些（演讲中没有给出实验数据）。

也许你会说出一些“出淤泥而不染啊”的反面例子。Come on，这是心理学实验，如演讲中提到的学习西班牙语的例子，我相信context确实会有作用。曾经在网上看到过一位汉语说得贼溜的老外给出的他学习汉语的第一条经验就是，选择趣味相同的同伴。

 How your brain executive function works - and how to improve it

By Sabine Doebel 18 May 2019 (TED Online)

So we use executive function every day in all aspects of our lives. And over the past 30 years, researchers have found that it predicts all kinds of good things in childhood and beyond, like social skills, academic achievement, mental and physical health, making money, saving money and even staying out of jail.

aspects of our lives，生活的方方面面。

making money, saving money and even staying out of jail：注意是动名词形式，和前面的成分是一致的。

Now, I don't want to make it sound like context is everything. Executive function is really complex, and it's shaped by numerous factors. But what I want you to remember is if you want to improve your executive function in some aspect of your life, don't look for quick fixes. Think about the context and how you can make your goals matter more to you, and how you can use strategies to help yourself in that particular situation. I think the ancient Greeks said it best when they said, "Know thyself." And a key part of this is knowing how context shapes your behavior and how you can use that knowledge to change for the better.

这个研究者最后引用了苏格拉底说的“认识你自己”，估计她如果知道中国古代孟母三迁的故事，用这个故事结束更符合她的实验精神与结论。

推荐读13遍的英语句子：

1，And over the past 30 years, researchers have found that it predicts all kinds of good things in childhood and beyond, like social skills, academic achievement, mental and physical health, making money, saving money and even staying out of jail.

2，Executive function is really complex, and it's shaped by numerous factors.

无人驾驶 &孟母三迁的现代诠释.pdf