【推荐3】The first word on an ancient Roman scroll carbonized by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E. has recently been decoded, opening the door to eventually decoding the rest of the texts which haven’t been read in the past 2,000 years.

The scroll, along with some 800 scrolls unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, looks more like a burnt log. It’s so fragile (易碎的) that it would fall apart if researchers tried to unroll it. Early attempts to unroll and read it caused irreversible (不可逆的) damage and no such attempts have been made since the 19th century.

Brent Seales, a computer scientist from the University of Kentucky has been perfecting CT scan technology to see what’s inside the scrolls without actually touching them, a process he calls “virtual unwrapping”. Because commonly the ink contains metal, it can be seen on Seales’ CT scans. Unfortunately, the Herculaneum scrolls were written in carbon-based ink made from charcoal (木炭) and water. When Seales scanned them, nothing appeared to the naked eye.

Earlier this year, Seales’ team launched “the Vesuvius Challenge”, encouraging people to use AI to further explore researchers’ scans. In early August, a contestant called Casey Handmer got a reward of $10,000 for being “the first person to find substantial, convincing evidence of ink within the unopened scrolls.” As a follow-up, a 21-year-old computer science student Luke Farritor drew inspiration from his discovery and created a machine-learning algorithm (算法) that identified ten clear letters spelled as the English word “purple”, marking the first dive into an unopened ancient book.

These discoveries are critical steps toward decoding the remaining unopened scrolls. “Some 95 percent of the material from this important philosophical periods of humanity is lost,” says Robert Fowler, a classicist at the University of Bristol. “Recovering them would transform our knowledge of the ancient world in ways we can hardly imagine. The impact could be as great as the rediscovery of manuscripts during the Renaissance,” he adds.

【推荐1】I'd never heard of the yangqin - an 18^th century Chinese stringed instrument — until this past Sunday, when I had the pleasure of hearing Eastman graduate and music performer Zhang Wenzhuo perform on it in a virtual concert.

Wenzhuo, a Chinese native, began her training on the yangqin at age five. When she was only 13, Wenzhuo was awarded a scholarship to the Arts School of Hebei Province; the highly competitive program only accepted a single yangqin student every two years. After graduation, she placed first in nationwide competitions and was admitted into the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing, where she was awarded her bachelor's in yangqin performance in 2005. She obtained her doctorate from Boston University in music education in 2015 and studied ethnomusicology at Eastman from 2017 to 2019. Wenzhuo has performed with countless orchestras and groups of musicians and won countless awards for her performances.

Before Wenzhuo performed on her yangqin, she presented a brief historical background of the instrument's origin, and discussed its continued usage up to the present day. Determined by musicologists to be based on the similarly-structured English hammered dulcimer (大扬琴), the yangqin was first used in Chinese folk music performance and operas. As time went on, performances began to be sponsored by the country, and yangqin performers were given a path to higher levels of social mobility.

Wenzhuo performed four pieces, three tracing their origins to centuries' old Chinese composers, and one from the modern era. Needless to say, Wenzhuo's performances sounded fantastic. The yangqin is a unique and beautiful instrument and its sound, coupled with Wenzhuo's musical ability, allowed the four greatly differing pieces to stand together as a wonderful introduction to the instrument.

It was fascinating to learn about the yangqin and a joy to watch Wenzhuo perform on it.

【推荐2】How to Choose a College When You Can’t Visit

College tours and overnight visits have always been necessary parts of the college selection process. How do you choose a college when you can’t visit? You can get much information online.

Visit colleges virtually. Many colleges and universities have created official virtual tours for students who are unable to visit in person. Besides, YouTube is home to thousands of college video tours.     1    

    2     When evaluating colleges, you don’t want to rely entirely on their official descriptions. You’ll also want to learn what the students who actually attend the college think about their experience. Fortunately, there are many excellent resources for getting the student opinions on everything.

    3     If you want to study in a college, you’ll obviously want to make sure which fields of the school you’re considering are strong in. Individual college websites, of course, always have an “academics” area that lists all majors and minors, and you’ll be able to drill down to get information about specific majors.

Pay attention to after-class opportunities.     4     Be sure to visit college websites to look over the clubs, student organizations, athletic teams, musical bands and other opportunities for staying involved outside of the classroom. Also look into opportunities for internships(实习), conducting research with professors, studying abroad, tutoring and other experiences that will help you gain valuable hands-on experience and strengthen your skills for your future career.

Look at the school’s outcomes. The end goal of college, of course, is to give you the knowledge and skills you'll need to succeed in whatever you do later in life.     5     PayScale provides salary data for the US colleges and universities, so you’ll be able to see median early- career and mid-career pay.