【推荐3】What makes a human being? Is it our thoughts? Our emotions? Our behavior?

All of these things make us who we are, but at the center of the matter is the genome (基因组) — the genes inside our bodies that may determine everything from our hair colour to our intelligence. But if we could change our genome, what would it mean to us?

In an online video posted on Nov 26, He Jiankui, a biological researcher from Southern University of Science and Technology in China, said that he had helped to make the world’s first genetically edited babies.

These are twin girls, born in November, with genes edited in an attempt to help them fight against possible future infection (感染) with the AIDS virus.

He said that he chose to do this because HIV infections are a big problem in China. “I feel such a strong responsibility that it’s not just to make a first, but also to set an example,” He told the Associated Press(AP).

The announcement has caused an international storm. Some believe that success will benefit the families of HIV patients. Considering that HIV is “a major and growing public health threat,” attempted gene editing for HIV is justifiable, Harvard Medical School genetics professor George Church told AP.

However, others think that gene editing technology is still unsafe to attempt.

“Gene editing itself is experimental and is still associated with unexpected mutations (突变), causing genetic problems early and later in life, including the development of cancer,” Julian Savulescu, a specialist in ethics at the University of Oxford, told BBC News.

Others fear that this could open the door to using gene editing technology to make designer babies. It might give the parents the choices to choose everything from their baby’s eye color to intelligence.

“You could find wealthy parents buying the latest ‘upgrades’ for their children, leading to even greater inequality than we already live with,” Marcy Darnovsky, director of the San Francisco Center for Genetics, told BBC News.

【推荐2】A woman who lost one leg to cancer broke a world record by completing 102 marathon-length runs in 102 days. A marathon is a race that goes 42 kilometres.

Jacky Hunt-Broersma, who lives in Arizona, set her goal in mid-January in 2022. And every day since then, she has been running the distance of a marathon.

Most of the time, she runs on roads and trails near her home in Gilbert, Arizona. Sometimes she completes her runs on a running machine called a treadmill. Hunt-Broersma averages just over five hours to complete the runs.

She kept successfully completing marathon-length runs every day, reaching her goal by April 28. She would then hold the world record for completing 102 back-to-back marathon runs.

The current world record of 101 marathons was set April 10 by British runner Kate Jayden. The 35-year-old Jayden does not have a disability.

Hunt-Broersma, a native of South Africa, lost the bottom half of her left leg to a rare form of cancer in 2001. Until five years ago, she was not very active. But then she looked into running and decided to give it a try. The sport ended up being quite costly. But Hunt-Broersma says her investment has been well worth it.

However, she faced both physical and mental difficulties during her record-breaking attempt. On one recent day, she felt near collapse at 24 kilometres and began to cry. In that moment, she felt like her planned goal might not happen at all.

One of her recent runs was the world-famous Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts. She finished that race, held April 18, with a time of 5 hours, 5 minutes.

Hunt-Broersma’s main support team is her husband and their two young children. She is documenting her progress online and has also gained a large social media following.

Hunt-Broersma is hoping to inspire a single thought in others, regardless of their own physical limitations. She often tells people, “You’re stronger than you think—and you’re capable of so much more.”

【推荐3】A hot-blooded carnival for football fans is around the corner! FIFA World Cup Qatar(卡塔尔)2022 will be a special treat since it’s the first World Cup held by a country that has not participated in the World Cup FIFA WORLD CUP before, and also the first time to be held in a Middle Eastern country.

First let’s talk about its mascot(吉祥物), La’eeb, shaped like a walking headscarf, is an avatar (化身)with no fixed shape. This Arabic word means a highly skilled player. The mascot wears a rope and is soft, whose body can make various and difficult movements at will-it gives fans full imagination. The design of the mascot is very novel(新颖的)and this playful image is loved by many fans. Its facial expression is full of determination with an inspirational, upward and positive attitude, just like a strong-willed athlete who never gets discouraged in the face of difficulties.

Considering the high temperature of about 50 degrees in Qatar in summer will affect the athletes’ competitive status, this World Cup is the first time to be held in the northern hemisphere in winter. To successfully hold this World Cup, the Qatar government has invested a huge amount of money in the construction of venues and supporting transportation, communication, accommodation, even with over 1, 000 luxurious Bedouin-style tents in the desert, etc. Service facilities, with a total investment of 220 billion US dollars, make it the most expensive World Cup game at present.

This World Cup will even be the very first carbon-neutral tournament, and the organizer has prepared a total of 8 stadiums, all built to be energy efficient. One of our favorites is Stadium 974, the first fully demountable(可拆卸的)stadium, built using 974 shipping containers, whose number also happens to be Qatar’s country code. The opening game and the final match will be held in the same stadium-Lusail Stadium. Moreover, thanks to Qatar’s efficient public transportation, football fans will need just under one hour of traveling time between stadiums.

And the World Cup final will take place on December the18th, also Qatar’s National Day. So, expect fireworks all around. And let’s have a blast together!

【推荐2】Growing up in Joilet, Illinois, in the 1930s, George Mikan often felt everyone was staring at him. Tall and awkward (笨拙的), with thick glasses, he tried to hide by lowering himself when walking and sitting. But someday, everyone would know his name, The Tall Kid. By age 16, Mikan made the high school basketball team. Now 6 feet 8 inches tall and broad-shouldered, his specialty was guarding the basket and blocking shots.

At 6 feet 10 in a sport then dominated(主导) by much smaller men, George Mikan was the model for the dominating tall players of later decades. Towering over most of his competitors, he was one of the most effective scorers of his day, averaging 22.6 points over a professional career that lasted nine seasons. How dominant was Mikan? In his nine seasons, his teams won seven titles and in 1950 he was selected the greatest player of the half-century.

One of the legendary stories about Mikan concerns a game played on Dec. 13, 1949, between the Lakers and the New York Knicks. The grand screen over Madison Square Garden read: “Geo. Mikan vs. Knicks”. When Mikan walked into the locker room before the game, he found his teammates sitting around in their street clothes. One of them greeted Mikan by saying, “They’re advertising you're playing against the Knicks, so go play them. We’ll wait here.”

Mikan was so dominant that the NBA made two big rule changes during his career. They tried to make it more difficult for him to score by expanding the width of the key from 6 feet to 12 feet and they started the 24-second clock after a game in 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons decided that the only way they could win was to hold onto the ball and not let the Lakers have it. They ended up winning, 19-18, in the lowest-scoring game in NBA history.

Mikan was in the first class elected to the basketball Hall of Fame in 1959. “Frankly, without George Mikan, the Los Angeles Lakers would not be the organisation we are today,” Lakers owner Jerry Buss said. Magic Johnson also paid tribute to Mikan: “He started the championships. You’ve got to start with Mikan first before you name any Laker. He paved the way for all of us who came after him.”

【推荐3】At almost every Olympic Games, one athlete is named as the greatest star, and good-natured debates follow for years to come. Usually, there’s no certainty about who is really the most memorable one.

But in 1948, everyone who attended the London Olympic Games agreed on who was the greatest legend: Fanny Blankers-Koen, a 30-year-old Dutch housewife.

Before the Games, many people suggested she was too old to succeed, while others said she should stay at home with her children. When she arrived at the track, she pointed at one of them and said simply, “I’ll show you.”

And she did it.

Fanny Blankers-Koen won the 100m race with ease. With an Olympic gold medal to her name, she wanted to give up and return home because she missed her children so much. But her husband, Jan Blankers, who was also her coach, asked her to stay. The hurdles (跨栏) gold came next, followed by a championship in the 200m, which she won by 0.7 seconds—a huge margin (差额) that has not been matched since.

Blankers-Koen celebrated those victories with a big shopping tour, and only arrived back at the stadium ten minutes before the start of the 4×100m match. Without any warming up, she ran the last leg. When she started to run, the Dutch were in the third. But Blankers-Koen won the race by a foot.

If she hadn’t been limited (限制) by the IOC rules to four events, she could have won two more golds. IOC rules forced her to drop two of her strongest events, the long jump and high jump, both of which she held the world record.

On her return to the Netherlands, Queen Juliana gave her a bicycle, saying she wouldn’t have to run so much.

But she kept running until she finished her sport life as an athlete in 1955 with a 58th championship and went to three more Olympics as a coach.

In 1999 when she was honored the greatest female athlete of the 20th century, Blankers-Koen asked, “Is it really me?” When she got a positive answer, she jumped up and did a little dance.