【推荐1】On December 17, 1903, two men flew. They were brothers from Dayton, Ohio, and they owned a bicycle shop. They had attended school, but neither had graduated from high school. Their names were Wilbur and Orville Wright. Before they built the plane they studied all that was known about flying. They built a wind tunnel（风洞）and tested many wings. Then they drew plans and built carefully.

When they flew, it was from Kill Devil Hillat Kitty Hawk. That day, Orville won the toss（投）of a coin. He got to fly first. Wilbur ran beside him；the plane lifted a few feet above the sand and stayed in the air for 17 seconds. The brothers flew four flights that day. The longest lasted 59 seconds. The men from the lifeboat station had taken a picture.

The headlines in the morning newspaper in nearby Norfolk told of the flight, but most of the details in the story were wrong. The brothers were worried, but it didn't matter: no one paid attention. And other newspapers didn't carry the story.

Orville and Wilbur went home and set to improve（改进）their plane. In 1904 newspaper reporters came to see for themselves. The Wright brothers checked and tested everything again and again.

When the reporters arrived, the brothers were having mechanical problems with the plane. The reporters stayed two days. The Wright brothers wouldn't fly on those days；the plane wasn't ready. The reporters left. One writer did stay and see them fly. He wrote down the first long article about the Wright brothers' flight in a beekeepers' magazine!

In 1908, in Virginia, Orville showed Americans that people could fly. The crowd of watchers rushed forward shouting as loudly as they could and couldn't believe what they saw.

【推荐2】You might have seen the news about the first robot ever to get a citizenship of a country. Her name is Sophia. She has become a citizen of Saudi Arabia.

Sophia is the latest robot from Hanson Robotics, a HongKong-based company, and she was designed to interact (互动) with people, go into the world, learn and be a smart and compassionate (富有同情心的) robot. The creator and founder of Hanson Robotics, Dr David Hanson, wanted to incorporate three human features to his robots, with the three, being creativity, empathy (同理心) and compassion. This is, of course, the addition to their most important role-solving difficult problems and working with people to create a better world.

As for Sophia, she is by far the most advanced (高级的) robot that came out of the company. Her human features are what make her so easy to fall in love with. As for the looks, they included an Audrey Hepburn’s beauty. Besides being very popular in the media, Sophia got a chance to meet and be interviewed by important people in different industries.

Sophia is developed to have a sense of humour. She can express feelings, can make over 50 facial expressions and wants to protect humans. Thanks to cameras and an advanced AI software, Sophia can keep an eye contact and is able to recognize people.

Sophia gave a speech while being honored as a citizen of Saudi Arabia. She showed thankfulness, saying, “I am very honored and proud. It is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with a citizenship.”

【推荐1】For many people, the taste of coffee is rather common, while for others it seems sour or bitter . But for hearing-impaired barista Zeng Zheng and his workmates in Chongqing, coffee means a rich and pleasing variety of taste experiences.

There is even some variety in the different forms of sweetness, according to Zeng, with some hitting the palate from the start, while others firstly seem bitter but finally turn into sweetness. It seems to reflect Zeng’s life experience. Together with several hearing-impaired workmates, he works at a coffee shop named Yijiao Cafe, which located at Songshan General Hospital. It is one of two branches with the same name, which translates as One Corner Cafe. The name was inspired by a famous children’s book called The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein. The spirit of the story is that one can find happiness by accepting one’s personal imperfections.

Zhu Jiayun , head of a charity for people with disabilities in Chongqing’s Yuzhong district, founded the brand in May 2022. In September 2022, Yijiao held a free barista training program for the hearing -impaired. The program interested Zeng and others who used to make a living by doing low-skilled jobs. Four out of the 15 people were then chosen to work at the coffee shop by Zhu after a strict examination. In the same month, the first Yijiao Café shop, located in Yuzhong district, opened its doors.

In February 2023, the second coffee shop opened in Songshan General Hospital. In just a month, the new coffee shop sold more than 3,700 cups of coffee. For every 10 yuan made by the store, 0.1 yuan is given away to others in need, said Zhu.

Zhu plans to open three more coffee shops in 2023. “I hope that Yijiao Cafe is more than just a coffee shop, but can also serve as a model space, where the healthy people and disabled people can make coffee, drink coffee, or live and work together,” Zhu said.

【推荐2】In November, Focus Features will release a new movie, The Theory of Everything, which describes what happened to the famous physicist Stephen Hawking.

The movie is based on a book by Jane Hawking, Stephen’s first wife. When they met in the early 1960s, Jane was studying literature and got a Ph. D in Spanish poetry, while Stephen was just 21, looking for an interesting physics problem to explore.

Not long after they began dating, he developed balance problems, then speech issues. He was told that he had ALS, a disease that would kill him in two years. Jane’s friends warned her not to stick with a boy with so little time ahead of him. But he and Jane didn’t quit each other. Instead, they willfully pushed on. It wasn’t like they didn’t believe the diagnosis (诊断). They did. They just ignored it.

“We did not want to think about that,” she wrote. “Also, we had this very strong sense at the time that our generation lived anyway under this most awful nuclear cloud — that with a four-minute warning the world itself could likely end. That made us feel that we should make the most of whatever gifts that were given to us.”

They had one child. Then another. He, meanwhile, kept losing ground. He needed help with dressing, then washing, then eating. She tried to keep up.

“I had two babies. I was running the home and looking after Stephen alone. One of the greatest battles was getting Stephen to use a wheelchair,” she continued. “I’d be going out with an adult on one arm, carrying a newly-born baby in the other, with an older baby struggling alongside.”

As Stephen Hawking became more celebrated and dependent, Jane had a third child and he had to allow others to help him. But he fell in love with a nurse and left his wife.

Hmmm, I wonder how they are going to handle this one. It’s a messy story.