【推荐1】You may have heard the term self-awareness, but what is it and why does it matter?

Being self-aware can influence how you feel in your job and in your personal life. Daniel Goleman takes that connection much further, saying self-awareness is the key to success. He describes self-awareness as “knowing one’s internal (内在的)states, preference and resources”, and then monitoring that “inner world” information as it comes up. If you can be as aware of your feelings and thoughts, you’ll be better able to deal with new situations. Because you know yourself better, you’ll be more accepting of yourself, your thoughts and your feelings, Goleman says.

But self-awareness doesn’t stop at how you see yourself. It’s also understanding and acknowledging how others see you. Tasha Eurich, an organizational psychologist, explains that self-awareness has two parts — internal and external (外部的). Internal self-awareness means we can clearly see our own values, thoughts, passions and feelings. External self-awareness is clearly seeing how others see us. People who are externally self-aware tend to be better leaders.

So how do you know if you’re self-aware or not? Eurich developed a short online quiz to help. You’re not the only one who has to take it. Someone who knows you well also has to answer questions about you.

In a recent TED Talk, Eurich refers to self-awareness unicorns. This group makes up only a small part of all the people she has studied. These are people who not only believe they are self-aware, but other people who know them would agree. Additionally, these unicorns would say they have improved their self-awareness in their lives and again, those who know them well would agree.

Thankfully, anyone can become more self-aware, as long as they’re willing to devote some time and effort to the cause.

【推荐2】Prague is the capital of Czech Republic (捷克共和国), and it’s in the center of Europe. Prague is a place where the eastern and western parts of Europe meet. The cultures of Eastern and Western Europe are quite different, but both of them have greatly influenced Prague. And of course, Prague has its own culture as well.

During World War Ⅱ, many European cities were highly bombed. However, Prague suffered very little damage during the war. As a result, all of its ancient buildings remain undamaged.

Old Town Square is the number one stop for tourists visiting Prague. The square is more than 800 years old; if you go there, remember that some amazing things have happened there in the past. For example, on the ground you can see 27 crosses. That’s because 400 years ago, enemy soldiers killed 27 local leaders on that spot.

Old Town Square has several very old and giant churches. The churches are huge and their old, dark style is a little bit scary. One of the ancient buildings there is the old town hall building. Inside the building there’s a 600-year-old clock. The clock has beautiful religious carvings (雕刻图案), and it still works. According to the story, the government hired a man to build the clock, and after the man was done, the government blinded him. Why? They didn’t want him to build a clock for anybody else!

Another famous part of Prague is the Jewish Quarter. In the past, Jewish people were forced to live in this area. Other parts of Prague have huge castles and churches. Those areas are beautiful, but they might not seem real to some people. In the Jewish Quarter, the streets are narrower and the buildings are smaller. It helps visitors understand how ordinary people lived hundreds of years ago. It also has a simple but very beautiful synagogue. A synagogue is a Jewish temple.

Here is another piece of advice for you, just in case you ever visit Prague. Try the beer. The Czech Republic is famous for the best beer in the world!

【推荐3】NASA’s Lunar Flashlight (the CubeSat), a small satellite, was launched on Dec. 1, 2022, to demonstrate several new technologies, with the goal to map ice near the Moon’s South Pole. Since then, the briefcase-size satellite’s propulsion （推进） system—the first of its kind ever flown—proved unable to generate enough force to get into lunar orbit, despite months of effort by the operations team. Because the CubeSat cannot complete operations to stay in the Earth-Moon system, NASA has called an end to the mission （任务）.

NASA relies on technology demonstrations to fill specific knowledge gaps and to test new technologies. Used for the first time beyond Earth’s orbit, Lunar Flashlight’s propulsion system and green fuel were such demonstrations. Although the propulsion system was unable to produce the desired force, the newly developed propulsion system components went beyond performance expectations.

“Technology demonstrations are, by their nature, high risk and high reward, and they’re essential for NASA to test and learn,” said Christopher Baker, the program executive. “Lunar Flashlight was successful from the standpoint of being a testbed for new systems that had never flown in space before. Those systems, and the lessons Lunar Flashlight taught us, will be used for future missions.”

The mission’s four-laser reflectometer, a science instrument that had never flown before, either, also tested successfully, giving the mission’s science team confidence that the laser would have been able to detect ice if it were present at the lunar surface.

“It’s disappointing for the science team, and for the whole Lunar Flashlight team, that we won’t be able to use our laser reflectometer to make measurements on the Moon,” said Barbara Cohen, the mission’s principal investigator. “But like all the other systems, we collected a lot of in-flight performance data on the instrument that will be incredibly valuable to future application of this technique.”