【推荐1】If you had to choose one word to describe Kevin, it might be “slow.” He didn’t learn his ABCs as fast as other kids. He never came first in the schoolyard races. However, his smile was bright and he showed great interest in everything. So when discovering that Randy was putting together a boys’ basketball team, Kevin immediately joined.

At practice, Kevin worked so hard that you’d have thought he was preparing for the NBA. And the whole team truly loved basketball. But just loving the game doesn’t help you win. They lost every game that season by very large margin(差距), except one …that night it snowed and the other team couldn’t make it to the game.

At the end of the season, the boys unfortunately played against the first-place team. The game went pretty much as expected, and near the middle of the fourth quarter Kevin’s team stood nearly 30 points behind. At that point, one of Kevin’s teammates called time-out. “Coach, this is our last game but Kevin has never made a basket. We should let him try,” said the boy. With the game completely out of reach, the idea seemed reasonable. So every time Kevin’s team had the ball, they would give it to Kevin. His first shot missed and he missed another shot again. This continued a few more times until the player from the other team grew wise. Instead of running off down the court, he threw the ball to Kevin who shot... and missed again.

Soon, all players were circling Kevin, throwing the ball to him. The whole gymnasium thundered with the clapping, chanting, “Kevin! Kevin!” Finally, after amounts of tries, the ball went in. Kevin’s arms shot high into the air and he shouted, “I won! I won!” The first-place team remained unbeaten, but on that evening, everyone left the game truly feeling like a winner.

【推荐1】We’re all familiar with the idea of climate change and how our planet is warming. Extremes in temperature have become more commonplace, making parts of the world difficult to live in. But one place where extreme heat is making life very uncomfortable is our cities. Luckily, innovation might be keeping it under control.

As thermometers(温度计) record temperatures, sometimes above 50 degrees Celsius, solutions are being sought to cool the air in our cities. In India, for example, heatwaves and rapid urbanization have led to a big rise in the use of air-conditioning units, adding to CO2 emissions. So, architects, looking for a sustainable cooling solution, are copying an ancient lattice (框架) design, used in old buildings like the Taj Mahal, to construct comfortable,low-carbon buildings. Yatin Pandya told the BBC: “Traditional architectural forms have proven their performance in combating environmental conditions.”

In America, about 80% of the population lives in cities, and it’s these cities that suffer from an urban heat island effect, caused by factors such as trapped waste heat, concrete structures and pavements absorbing the sun and tall buildings blocking the wind. Residents and developers have tried to cool these places by planting large trees that offer shade and putting plants and gardens on top of roofs to help trap heat. And in Los Angeles, there’s a experiment to cover street s with light-coloured material that reflects rather than absorbs the sun and so they remain cooler than typical black roads.

But it’s satellites in space that are really giving us the best picture of our over-heated cities. Glynn Hulley, who is leading an image-capturing project, called the Land Surface Temperature Monitoring mission, told the BBC: “The data can be used to identify hot spots, weak regions, and assess the cooling impacts of heat mitigation (缓解) approaches.” It’s already found how green spaces, white roads and water features, have helped prevent our cities from boiling over. But with extreme heat still posing a threat to our lives, more solutions are still needed.

【推荐2】Dr. Joseph Dituri, who is 55 and known as “Dr. Deep Sea”, has just finished an amazing adventure. For 100 days, the University of South Florida scientist lived in a small room underwater. He set a new world record, beating the old record of 73 days.

The farther you go below the ocean’s surface, the greater the pressure. The mission, known as Project Neptune 100, was a scientific attempt to study the effects of living in a high-pressure environment for a continuous period. In his undersea room, Dr. Dituri was living with pressure that was about 66% greater than the pressure on the surface. He believed that high pressure could help people live longer and stay healthier as they get older and that it could also help doctors treat different medical problems, including brain injuries.

Actually, Dr. Dituri went through several big changes. For one thing, he became 1.3 centimeters shorter during his time at the higher pressure undersea. He was also able to sleep much better. His physical conditions greatly improved in a couple of other ways, too.

While he was living underwater, Dr. Dituri stayed busy. He used the project as an educational experience for the youth. “I have communicated with thousands of young people to get them interested in science, technology, engineering and math,” he said. He had online chats with over 5,500 students from 15 different countries. Meanwhile, he kept teaching his college classes and worked with other marine experts to figure out ways to protect and take care of the ocean.

Dr. Dituri said his favorite part of the project was talking with young people. “If we can get people excited about science, that would be a great success to me!” he said. “Maybe one day, one of them will come back and break the record I just set. My greatest hope is that I can inspire a new generation of researchers to push back the boundaries.”

【推荐3】While the homeless population is rising in the United States, the death rate among them is also rising. Alameda County in California is looking into the deaths of more than 800 homeless people from 2018 to 2020 and how they happened.

According to a “homeless death report” issued last Tuesday by the county’s Health Care for the Homeless Program, 403 of 809 deaths were due to medical conditions, led by heart disease, followed by cancer, liver disease, cerebrovascular disease, respiratory (呼吸系统) disease and others. A quarter of the deaths were caused by drug overdoses (服药过量), making drug overdose the leading single cause of death among the homeless.

The report found the death rate rose significantly for the homeless: 195 homeless people died in 2018, compared with 368 in 2020, a rise of nearly 90 percent.

Accidental injuries caused 10 percent of the deaths, homicides (他杀) caused 7 percent and suicides 4 percent, COVID-19 had no major direct impact on the homeless, with just six deaths from the virus reported in 2020.

According to the figures the average homeless person in Alameda County dies at the age of 52, while the average resident in the county lives until the age of 75.

Seventy-seven percent of the people who died were men. Sixty-six percent of deaths were outside a medical setting, such as in the street, in a park, or in a vehicle, shelter, motel, or other locations. More than 140 people died on the street.

It is the first homeless death report for Alameda County, home to more than 1.5 million people in cities that include Alameda, Oakland, Fremont, Piedmont, Berkeley and Pleasanton. The report shows that most of the deaths, 56 percent, happened in Oakland. On the day after the report was issued, Berkeley was awarded $16.2 million through a state program that aims to house the homeless.

“A responsible and just community must work to be closely aware of the deaths of all its members, try to learn from those deaths, implement policies and practices to reduce preventable deaths, and work to reduce the harm that preventable deaths create for families, friends, caregivers and the community,” the authors of the report said.

【推荐1】The world held its breath when the scene of a car crash was broadcast on five television and the name Tiger Woods flashed across the screen. The Los Angeles Times reported the car rolled over many times and Woods was not able to get out of the car on his own. Fortunately, he was wearing his seat belt, which very likely saved his life. Woods was saved from the badly damaged car with the "jaws of life" by firefighters. Then he was immediately transported to Harbor-UCLA, the busiest hospital in Los Angeles, and was undergoing surgery for leg injuries, as recent reports said.

Thankfully, his injuries aren't   life-threatening. We do have some clues in the released statements as to what injuries Woods has suffered. First, we heard about open fractures, in which the broken bones poke (露出)through the skin. Woods is said to have had a rod (杆) placed down a bone, which is one way to treat a fracture and allow the bone to heal in a better position. Given the multiplicity of fractures, Woods may have also   had an external fixator, something kept outside the skin. Moving forward, he will also need to heal and strengthen his muscles, which can take a year or longer

Woods, 45, is one of the most successful professional golfers of all time. He has won 15 major championships and most recently won The Masters in 2019 after missing a good deal of lime recovering from a back injury. It is far too early to say whether he will play professional golf again, and there is no doubt his injuries are a severe obstacle to his chances of ever returning to the tour, particularly because he is in his 40s, and has suffered other career-threatening injuries.

Woods's tragedies are what makes him human, but his comebacks are what make him inspirational. Woods's legendary story has been marked by several peaks and valleys. Let’s hope this is the deepest valley before the greatest peak.