On September 7, 1930, Yuan Longping was born in Beijing. Fluent in English, his mother often read Friedrich Nietzsche's works to him. Influenced by his mother, Yuan Longping liked English, geography and chemistry at school. After graduating from university, he became a teacher in the countryside of Hunan in 1953.

With lots of crop failures, nationwide hunger hit China in the 1960s, making many people live a bad life. Yuan was sad and felt he must do something. Since the climate in Hunan was not friendly to growing wheat. He decided to devote himself to studying how to increase the production of rice, a basic food for over 60 percent of Chinese people. From then on, he began a lifelong connection with rice.

Yuan Longping succeeded in growing the world's first high production hybrid rice (杂交水稻) variety in 1973, which could reach a yield of over 500 kg per more than 200 kg than before. For the next four decades, he continued to work on the research of hybrid rice. In 2020, hybrid rice developed by his team achieved 1,500 kg per mu in two growing seasons, a new world record.

Nowadays, the hybrid rice is grown in almost half of China's rice fields and its production accounts for 60 percent of the total rice production in China. The hybrid rice production is 20 percent more than the common kinds , the yearly increase of which feeds up to 100 million people.

In 2019, Yuan Longping, known as the “Father of hybrid rice”, was awarded with Medal of the Republic, China's highest honor.

Yuan Longping's biggest dream in life was to develop more hybrid rice varieties, which could be grown all over the world to help solve the global food problem. So far, the hybrid varieties he developed have been grown in over 40 countries, including the USA, Brazil and India.

The 17 Sustainable (可持续) Development Gosls of the United Nations give us opportunities of our time-opportunities to terminate extreme poverty, to make sure that everyone can get food and clean water. In fact, there are many space services that can help us pursue the Sustainable Development Goals.

Communication satellites make it possible to make a phone call and have Internet service on Earth. This is particularly important during times of disaster recovery, When Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, the local communication networks needed to be repaired, and teams brought in communication tools that could connect with satellites. This was useful during the time of repair and recovery.

In space, we have a laboratory on the International Space Station. The vehicle and everything inside are in a form of free fall around the earth, and they don’t experience the effect of gravity. And because of this, we call it “microgravity (微重力)”. When astronauts are in the microgravity environment, their bodies react as if they’re aging rapidly. Their bones and muscles weaken, and the systems of their bodies change. As scientists study how to keep astronauts healthy in space, we can take the exercises and techniques we use for astronauts and transfer (转用) them to improve our health here.

Often, as we develop technology for astronauts and exploration for spacecrafts, we can also transfer those inventions to help people on the earth. Filtration (过滤) system is one of the examples. It is a tool that liquid is passed through in order to remove any materials that are not wanted. With the help of filtration system, drinking clean water became possible for astronauts in space. The system is now being used around the world.

Space is also a great source of inspiration, through education, research and astronomy (天文学). Now, countries around the world are working at advancing their own development by increasing their local knowledge of engineering, science and space.

For decades sleep scientists have thought over the link between dreaming and creative inspiration. They have long thought the insight came from the stage of rapid eye movement sleep, which is rich with dreams and begins around 90 minutes after one falling asleep. But new evidence puts the spotlight on a much earlier phase — the period that separates sleep and wakefulness. In a study by MIT, researchers show that people who take brief naps (小睡) that bring about the beginning of sleep score higher on several measures of creativity than those who undertake the tasks after staying awake.

The findings suggest researchers could even exercise some measure of control over the dreaming process by directing people's dreams toward a specific topic. The more frequently people dreamed about that, the more creative they were on tasks related to it. “We can come to the conclusion that dreaming about a topic enhances your subsequent creativity on it,” says Robert Stickgold, a member of the study team.

The experiment took advantage of a glovelike sleep detector, which charts sleep by monitoring one's muscle tone, skin conductance and heart rate through contacts on the wrist and hand. It communicates with an app that issues voice prompts (提示) for dreams and records dream reports.

More than one famous thinker has capitalized on the phase called non-rapid eye movement sleep stage 1,or N1, illustrating the point about generating creative insights. The painter Salvador Dalí would deliberately nap, holding a set of keys above a metal plate, when thinking over an idea for a painting. As he nodded off, he'd drop the keys, which would hit the plate and wake him up, and he'd hold onto the image from his dream. Thomas Alva Edison is said to have used a similar technique with metal balls to gain insights.

“It's exciting because,   in principle, people could use the technology themselves to develop creativity,” says Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California. There seems to be no shortage of folks coming to try it. “So many different kinds of people have visited, knocking on the lab door and asking to have dreams,” co-lead investigator Haar Horowitz says.

Communication is important in all families. Families with healthy communication form strong connections with one another.     16    .

Actually talk.

    17     For instance, in addition to answering “Fine” when your parents ask how school went, try adding an anecdote (轶事) about the day. This will help when you need to talk about the big things.

Ask them about their day.

This one can help you with the first point.     18    . If they’re stay-home parents, ask them about how the day at home went. Such small talk won’t be small to them. It’ll be a big deal, and they’ll appreciate it.

Do the small things.

When we say small things, we mean things like helping clear the dinner table, helping put away groceries, and not leaving personal belongings around the house. Those are little things, all of them.     19    , which can make things between you and your parents better.

Do the big things.

What we mean here is the basic stuff you hear from adults all the time — show up for school, or be respectful to teachers.     20    . That will be okay, because — based on tips 1-2 — you’ll be able to communicate about those things, clear up misunderstandings, and do better next time.

Tell them you love them

If you say that and hug them, well — you win.

Every Saturday, Grandpa and I walked to a nursing home. “Whoever visits the sick gives them life,” Grandpa ______ believed.

One day Grandpa was suddenly ______ to hospital. Worse still, we were told he was ______ to recover, deep sadness over our family.

Saturday came. I had not ______ to go there, but Grandpa’s words rang in my head. So alone I went. Everyone was happy to see me but ______ when not seeing Grandpa. When told his ______, they comforted me in tun, “Do your best and God will do the rest.” They all tried in their unique way to cheer me up and ______ for Grandpa.

For days, neither could Grandpa sit up, nor would he speak or eat. The atmosphere was awfully ______. Suddenly the nurse came in, saying, “You have visitors.” I ______. The guys Grandpa and I visited every Saturday were all present.

They all showcased their best to the fullest, thus making grandpa’s day. Visiting hours went so fast that they had to ______ and told grandpa they would come again soon. I was ______ in tears.

That evening, Grandpa sat up and asked the ______ what he could eat. Day by day he ______ for the better. Grandpa’ recovery was a medical ______, the doctors thought. But I knew the truth: His friends’ ______ had made him well.