As the time and cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars,

由于制造一块芯片的时间已缩短至几天，费用也只有几百美元，

Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches which are of such general and fundamental nature that it is a positive advantage to them not to keep them secret.

某些大公司进行的研究属于一般和基础性的研究。因此不保密对他们才有利。

It is fairly clear that sleeping period must have some function,

很清楚，睡眠必然具有某种作用。

This is done by a great number of ring-shaped air jets on the bottom of the craft.

船底装上大量环状喷气嘴以实现这一目的。

This shows how long it was before we deemed it necessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accumulated by the'happy few' during the past centuries.

这说明，经过了多么漫长的时间之后，我们才认识到，有必要确保我们的孩子享有多少个世纪以来由‘少数幸运者’所积累起来的知识。

When it is eating normally, its own training begins.

当它进食正常了，训练就开始。