【推荐1】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.

【推荐2】As reported in the journal Nature, one system can directly remove carbon dioxide from sources ranging from flue gas (烟道气) to the atmosphere by using electricity to induce a water-and-oxygen-based electrochemical reaction. This technological achievement could turn direct air capture (捕获) from edge industry into a promising front for climate change relief.

Most carbon-capture systems involve a two-step process: First, high-pH liquids are used to separate the carbon dioxide, which is acidic, from mixed-gas streams such as flue gas. Next, the carbon dioxide is regenerated from the solution through heating or by injecting a low-pH liquid.

“Once the carbon dioxide is trapped in these solvents (溶剂), you have to regenerate it,” says Haotian Wang, assistant professor at Rice University. “There are literally no chemicals produced or consumed with our process. We also don’t need to heat up or pressurize our device, we just need to put it into a power outlet and it will work.”

Another drawback of current carbon-capture technologies is their reliance on large-scale, centralized infrastructure. By contrast, the system developed in the Wang lab is an extensible, modular, point-of-use concept that can adapt to a variety of scenarios. “The technology can be scaled up to industrial settings-power plants, chemical plants-but the great thing about it is that it allows for small-scale use as well: I can even use it in my office.” Wang says.

Also the reactor can continuously remove carbon dioxide from a simulated (模拟的) flue gas with efficiency above 98% using a relatively low electricity input. Wang notes that the process has “no carbon footprint or a very limited footprint” if powered by electricity from renewable sources such as solar or wind. “This is great news considering that renewablel electricity is becoming more and more cost-effective,” Wang says.

【推荐3】The Cervantino Festival (塞万提斯艺术节) is held every year in the city of Guanajuato Mexico. The festival, which began in 1972, is in honor of Miguel de Cervantes, author of the famous Spanish novel Don Quixote de la Mancha (《堂吉诃德》Cervantino’s international atmosphere).

At its heart, Cervantino is a cultural festival. It takes place during October, lasting a full month. Over the course of the month, hundreds of cultural events are held in the city. The international nature of the festival makes it a popular tourism destination. Each year, one Mexican state and one international community are invited to be guests of honor at the festival. You don’t have to speak Spanish.

The festival is not widely known in the USA and other places where Spanish is not spoken. This is highly unfortunate, because the festival creates an international atmosphere where people from around the world can share their culture. Although many events are in Spanish, there are many others that require no special language, such as visual art exhibits and musical performances. In addition, a few of the performances, including plays, are subtitled in English and other languages, making the Cervantino Festival acceptable to everyone.

【推荐1】Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara were selected as the 2020 Pritzker Prize Laureates (获奖者), announced Tom Pritzker, Chairman of the Hyatt Foundation which sponsors the award that is often referred to as “architecture’s Nobel”. Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara have practiced architecture together for over forty years in a way that clearly reflects the objectives of the Pritzker Prize: to recognize the art of architecture and consistent service to humanity as evidenced through a body of built work.

They were awarded for their generosity toward their colleagues, commitment to excellence in architecture, responsible attitude toward the environment, ability to be cosmopolitan while embracing the uniqueness of each place in which they work, for all these reasons and more, according to the 2020 Jury Citation.

As architects and educators since the 1970s, Farrell and McNamara have created spaces that honor history while presenting their mastery of the urban environment and craft of construction. Their works never repeat or copy, but are decidedly of their own architectural style.

Their native Ireland, an island dotted with mountains and hills, breeds their acute sensitivities to geography, such as the changing climate and nature, in each of their sites. The campus of UTEC Lima, one of their works, for example, is located on a challenging site with a highway sunk in a valley on one side and a neighborhood on the other. The result is a vertical building responding to both site and climate needs. Its open spaces are designed to deliberately welcome the cool wind from the ocean and minimize the need for air-conditioning.

According to McNamara, architecture anchors us and connects us to the world as a framework for human life. She adds that possibly no other space-making discipline(科目) can do this. Farrell continues, “At the core of our practice is a real belief that architecture matters.   It is a cultural spatial phenomenon that people invent. ”

【推荐2】Charles Bridge is a 14th century stone bridge linking the two sides of Prague. This grand bridge is one of the city's finest attractions, and is the main route connecting the Old Town with the Lesser Town and Prague Castle.

From Charles Bridge visitors enjoy fairy­tale views of the Prague skyline. The wide river, with beautiful buildings on both sides, flows below it. Prague Castle towers above not far away.Here you are truly in the centre of the city.

Charles Bridge is full of people during the day.Street artists paint and musicians play here and there.If you are travelling there, look out for the jazz band, which is especially entertaining. But for a truly romantic and less crowded walk, try the early morning or any time in the evening.There are not so many people in the early morning or in the evening.That way you can take a relaxing walk.

King Charles Ⅳ arranged to build the bridge.The foundation stone was laid in 1357. Charles Ⅳ's favourite architect and builder, Peter Parler, watched over most of the work.The first idea was to build a bridge for knight tournaments, and for many years the only decoration on the bridge was a simple cross. Later, the Catholic desire for beautiful designs resulted in 30 statues being erected between 1600 and 1800.

There are now 75 statues on Charles Bridge, but most are copies, as floods and other natural disasters over the centuries damaged the original ones. Perhaps the most interesting, as well as the oldest, is that of John of Nepomuk. It is the 8th from the right as you cross towards Prague Castle.

The entrance to Charles Bridge is marked at both ends by towers: the Old Town Bridge Tower and the Mala Strana Bridge Tower.

【推荐3】In some parts of China, mainly in Anhui Province and Zhejiang Province, spread groups of grey-tiled and white-walled houses, forming one of the most typical scenes captured in traditional Chinese landscape paintings. It is Hui-style architecture, one of the major Chinese architectural styles of ancient times.

Hui-style architecture developed into a significant building school in the Song Dynasty. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, gardens and houses constructed with Hui styles developed very quickly along with the success of Hui commerce (商业). Hui-style architecture soon stepped out from Huizhou and was introduced to big towns.

Hui-style architecture is characterized by the arrangement of villages together with nature, and a simple and beautiful exterior (外观).

Hui-style houses are usually ones with skylights (天井). With a square skylight surrounded by houses from four sides or from left, right and backside, these houses can reduce the beat of sunshine and enjoy ventilation (通风). All the houses gathers water from the skylight which means fortune will not run off outside.

In ancient times, the colors used for buildings were very strict Bright colors could only be used in palaces, temples and for government officials. So people in Huizhou chose the black and white colors to paint their houses.

Generally speaking, the exterior appearance of Hui-style buildings differs little while their interior can vary a lot based on the wishes of the owners. Home decoration is characterized by three types of Hui carving: stone carving, wood carving and brick carving.

To take a look at the Hui-style architecture, Xidi Village in Yixian County, Anhui Province, is the best place to go. It is a site of typical Hui houses, and one of the “Ancient Villages in Southern Anhui” that have been collectively listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO.