Recently, Ma Xiaohui, a famous Chinese erhu     1     (perform) and composer with the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra, held     2     erhu concert with the theme of “Erhu Holding Hands with the World, New Music Trend, New Cultural Tour” in the Delegates’ Room at the UN headquarters in New York City.

Attendees from different backgrounds and participants in the World Madam Global Awards Ceremony were     3     (deep) moved by the unique charm of traditional Chinese musical instruments     4     (display) during the concert.

The concert began     5     the song “Woman Flower”. In the first movement, “Seven Colors of Erhu, Walking with Beauty, Colorful Silk Road,” melodies from Chinese and Western songs created an “ink painting” of the Silk Road.

In the next three     6     (movement), a classical repertoire (曲目) including “Butterfly Lovers”, “Thoughts on a Silent Night”     7     “The Spirit of My Erhu” attracted the audience. Next     8     (come) the theme song from the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”,     9     beautifully celebrated the classic dialogue between erhu and cello (大提琴).

“This beautiful and     10     (inspire) concert wonderfully mixed classical, Chinese, and cross-cultural themes. It was a feast (盛宴) for the ears and souls,” multimedia artist Ranjit Bhatnagar said.

2 . No matter how successful—or lately, unsuccessful—Manchester United has been on the court, which has always prided itself on an incredible ability to generate the game’s brightest young stars. The latest breakthrough talent, it seems, is 18-year-old midfielder Kobbie Mainoo.

The teenager’s emergence from the youth academy (学院) has been one of the few satisfying points in an otherwise difficult season for the team, and the highlight of his fledgling (刚刚起步的) career came during United’s 4—3 win against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Thursday.

After the host had seemingly got a draw in the 95th minute of the match, Mainoo showed his considerable potential by scoring a winner in the dying moment. The English youngster received the ball under pressure outside of the opposition’s box before rushing his way towards the goal, hitting against a Wolves defender on the way. Then, when other players might have panicked, Mainoo was composed and guided a perfect shot into the far corner of the net.

While his teammates celebrated wildly, Mainoo knelt down and slid towards the crowd after scoring his first Premier League goal. It was a sensational moment and a goal which might change the teenager’s life forever.

“I’ve still not come down from it. I still feel like I’m dreaming, to be honest,” Mainoo told TNT Sports after the match. “To start playing in the Premier League for my boyhood club has been amazing. Now I am just trying to play more games and win more games.”

There have been moments this season, though, where his inexperience has shown, but the future looks bright for the young midfielder who seems to have his feet firmly on the ground. “He is making incredible progress. He has great abilities as a modern midfield player,” Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag told reporters after the game. “He can defend and attack but also he has the physicality to do both ways.”

Manchester United is currently ranked seventh in the Premier League and they are working hard to secure the top four, which will ensure qualification for next season’s Champions League.

4 . “I still cannot believe it!” said the newest Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, Diébédo Francis Kéré, who had already received numerous accolades in his field, including the Aga Khan Award and the Thomas Jefferson medal. But he was still as surprised as anyone else to be selected for the field’s most famous prize.

Most of the architects and critics had openly supposed that 2022 would be Sir David Adjaye’s year, who is best known for designing such notable buildings as the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Kéré, who is based in Berlin but centers much of his practice in Africa, has been far lesser known, with signature buildings that include primary schools and a health care clinic.

Kéré said his architectural practice was inspired by his own experience attending school with around 100 other children in a region where temperatures were regularly higher than 38℃.

“It’s very hot inside and there was no light, while outside, the sunlight was abundant. So I dreamed of making it better one day,” he said.

When he was twenty, in 1985, Kéré earned a scholarship to study carpentry (木工) in Berlin. While studying roofing and furniture making, he also attended night school and was admitted to Technische Universität Berlin, from which he graduated in 2004 with an advanced degree in architecture. He was still a student when he designed and built the Gando Primary School. The recognition it earned helped Kéré open his own office in Berlin.

In his designs for Gando Primary School and Naaba Belem Goumma Secondary School in Burkina Faso, Kéré drew on traditional building materials such as local clay mixed with concrete, and emphasized shade and shadows with well-aired spaces that reduce the need for air conditioning.

5 . A recent study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society suggests that Leonardo da Vinci was more experimental with his well-known “Mona Lisa” than previously thought and was likely the creator of a technique seen in works used a century later.

A team of scientists in France and Britain has detected a rare mineral compound (矿物化合物), plumbonacrite, within the piece. Plumbonacrite forms when lead oxides (铅氧化物) combine with oil. Mixing these two substances is the technique that later artists like Rembrandt used to help the paint dry, according to the study.

Detecting the rare compound in the “Mona Lisa” suggested that Leonardo could have been the original user of this approach, said Gilles Wallez, an author of the study. “Everything that comes from Leonardo is very interesting, because he had lots of ideas, and he was an experimenter, attempting to improve the knowledge of his time,” Wallez said, “Each time you discovered something in his processes, you discovered that he was clearly ahead of his time.”

The “Mona Lisa”, like many other paintings from the 16th century, was created on a piece of wood that required a thick base layer. The researchers believed that Leonardo had made his mixture of lead oxide powder with linseed oil to produce the thick coat of paint needed for the first layer, while unknowingly creating the rare compound.

Nowadays, researchers aren’t allowed to take samples from the masterpiece, which resides at the Louvre in Paris and is protected behind glass. Using a microsample that had been taken from an area of the artwork just behind the frame, however, scientists were able to analyze the paint by using a high-tech machine. “These samples have a very high cultural value,” Wallez said. “You can’t afford to take big samples on a painting.”

6 . Clarence DeMar would train for races by running to and from his job in Boston, up to 14 miles a day. His hard work paid off. He won the 1911 Boston Marathon and competed in the next year’s Olympics.

But at the time, many people and medical experts thought prolonged (持续很久的) exercise was dangerous. A doctor, detecting a heart murmur (杂音), warned DeMar to quit the sport.

DeMar proved them all wrong—both during his lifetime and after—in ways that helped change people’s minds about the benefits of exercise.

He became one of the most noticeable distance runners of his day, competing in two more Olympics and winning the Boston Marathon a record seven times between 1911 and 1930. He kept winning races well into his 40s. The press called him “Mr. DeMarathon”.

After he died of cancer at age 70, two Boston-area experts took a look at his heart. What they found were different from all those terrifying warnings. Not only was DeMar’s heart in good shape, but his arteries(动脉) were also two to three times the size of a typical person’s — reducing the risk of a fatal blockage. As for that heart murmur the doctor warned DeMar about? Experts say, “We now know that highly trained athletes often have a heart murmur, and it’s normal.”

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1961, made the front page of The Boston Globe. “It was one of those first studies that taught us that the human body can really handle, very healthfully, lots and lots of exercise,” said Dr. Aaron Baggish, a professor at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and the former medical director of the Boston Marathon.

The popularity of running exploded in the decades after DeMar’s death, as further research backed that up. It’s now well-established that regular exercise makes us healthier and prolongs our lives.

The current national guidelines recommend at least two and a half to five hours of moderate exercise like walking each week, or an hour and fifteen minutes to two and a half hours of vigorous activity like running—and research suggests more is generally better.

8 . Simone Biles is a remarkable athlete, having won 7 Olympic medals across two Olympic Games. However, in 2020, she shocked the world when she quitted from the Tokyo Games due to some mental problems. Many praised it as a brave decision, as mental health is just as important as physical health. The athlete said she often suddenly lost the sense of direction during the Games, which meant she could no longer sense her body move in the air. It is dangerous for any athlete.

Since then, Biles has focused on her personal life, marrying the love of her life in the process. Recently, USA Gymnastics announced that Biles is ready to return to gymnastics. She is scheduled to compete at the coming US Classic in August, and fans are waiting eagerly to see her in action. Joining Biles in the upcoming competition are 12 Olympic and 16 World Championships roster members. Some notable names include Olympic gold medalist Sunisa Lee and 2020 Olympic floor champion Jade Carey, among others.

Before Simone Biles became a successful athlete, she and her siblings experienced a “hungry” childhood. Biles’ love for gymnastics began on a field trip. They visited a local gymnasium, where she was given a flyer (传单) to join the program. Biles was a natural, but she didn’t see her potential right away. Little did she know, but everybody else around her did. Her difficult beginnings set the stage for Biles to become one of the most successful sportswomen. Her parents gave their 100% support for her to grow up in the environment she was great at.

Biles has everything she could need to live a golden life— a supportive family, a loving boyfriend and a passion, which also happens to be her career. At 26 years old, she has her whole life ahead of her and is expected to continue dominating (统治) the gymnastics world in the coming years.

9 . Michelle Yeoh, a famous name in Chinese cinema, made history on Sunday night by becoming the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress.

The Malaysian-born actress took home the celebrated award for her extraordinary performance in the multiversal comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The film, where Yeoh plays a struggling laundromat(洗衣店) owner who ends up saving the multiverse(多元宇宙), swept the Oscars with a total of seven awards, including for best picture and best director, making it the biggest winner of the night.

“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities,” the actress said in her acceptance speech in Los Angeles, to emphasize that one must dream big as dreams do come true.

The actress also used her speech to honor her 84-year-old mother, Janet Yeoh. “I have to dedicate this to my mom and all the moms in the world because they are really the superheroes, and without them none of us would be here tonight,” she said.

After taking off in kung fu cinema in Hong Kong, Yeoh first appeared in Hollywood in the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. She gained international recognition for her role as a swords-woman in Ang Lee’s famous film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which won three Oscars in 2001.

Yeoh has been heavily in demand since her role as a controlling matriarch(女家长) in Crazy Rich Asians(2018). She has become one of the most influential stars of Chinese descent(血统) globally, said Shen Dan, a senior critic of the Beijing International Film Festival.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once seems to be specifically crafted for Yeoh because the movie reflects her decades-long efforts to raise the cultural significance of Asian-themed films worldwide,” Shen added.