【推荐1】The captain hadn’t even turned off the “fasten your seat belt” light and Matthew Bahani was already having a rough time.

Matthew, a 9-year-old with autism(自闭症), was growing increasingly anxious even as his parents hugged and kissed him.

“He gets nervous and he can’t control himself. He gets loud. He makes noise. It isn’t easy,” said his father, Sam Bahani, 48. “You can’t imagine what he goes through. He can’t express himself.”

The Bahanis were among the ten families who participated in a program at Newark Liberty International Airport intended to help familiarize autistic children with air travel — a confusing, complex process that, with loud noises, uniformed screening agents and lines of passengers they don’t know, can be frightening to them.

The “Autism Explores” program — which takes participants through all aspects of the flying experience without leaving the ground — also helps parents, who often find themselves in the position of dealing with a difficult child, as well as with scare from other adults who may have no idea of the child’s particular difficulty.

“When you’re in a public situation and that happens, people are not always kind,” said Matthew’s mother, Jennifer Bahani, 42, who avoids even the shopping mall with Matthew.

Each aspect of the program, from check-in to baggage claim, related to the flying experience, except for the actual flying. While the pilot and other flight crew made the usual announcements about flying conditions or the weather on the ground, the plane never actually pulled back from the gate.

“It’s a beautiful day for flying. Sit back and enjoy the flight,” announced the pilot, Geoff Bender, whose 13-year-old daughter, Teresa, is also autistic.

“Normalizing activities like flying for children with autism is important in making sure they will lead as full and independent a life as possible,” he said.

【推荐2】Since Cynthia Florio was a lifeguard at Tobay Beach in the 1990s, she has watched the ocean approach the shore and draw closer to the dunes (沙丘). It’s what forced Florio, 53, of Massapequa, to take part in the Town of Oyster Bay’s annual dune grass planting event on March 30 — an effort to help stabilize the beach dunes against shoreline erosion (侵蚀).

Along with other volunteers, Florio had spent hours with her daughter, Kyra Florio-Marinello, 15, and her daughter’s friend Tatum Brennan, 15, planting the native plants that were intended to absorb water and prepare the sand against heavy wind. But four days later, a storm on Wednesday hit Long Island and washed the new plants away. “The latest dune planting event drew more than 150 volunteers who planted a lot across 2.7 acres of Atlantic Ocean sand dunes,” said Marta Kane, an Oyster Bay spokeswoman. “The dune grass cost the town $32,000.”

The event, centered on volunteerism, drew some families whose elders were looking to share a message with a younger generation about the importance of protecting the environment. While the outcome resulted in a wave of disappointment, for some volunteers that was coupled with a sense of renewed motivation. Maria Rizzi, 70, of Massapequa, participated in the planting session with her grandson, Andrew Lepsis, 10. She said she would go back for another event with even more family members. “I’d be willing to do it again,” she said. “I’d even talk the older grand kids into coming.”

While the storm swept the new plants away, Florio said Tobay Beach’s appearance aftermath serves as a powerful reminder of the need for more volunteer work on that stretch of sand. “Maybe it will inspire more people to volunteer and understand the need for us to protect our beaches,” Florio said.

【推荐3】A major new facility to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere started operating in Iceland on Wednesday. The carbon capturing plant is the biggest of its kind, its builder says, increasing global capacity for the technology by more than 40 percent. Many climate experts say that efforts to suck CO₂ out of the air will be key to making the world carbon neutral(碳中和)in the coming decades.

By 2050, humanity will need to pull nearly a billion metric tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere every year through direct air capture technology to achieve carbon neutral goals according to International Energy Agency recommendations in 2021. The plant in Iceland will be able to capture 4,000 metric tons annually—just a tiny amount of what will be necessary, but it can grow rapidly as efficiency improves and costs decrease.

For now, the plant in Iceland is an unlikely global protector. Human-sized fans are built into boxes that are the size of standard 40-foot shipping containers. They sip CO₂ out of the air, catching it in sponge-like filters(过滤器). The filters are heated at a high temperature needed to boil water freeing the gas. Then it combines with water to produce a mixture, which is pumped deep underground, where over time it cools down and turns into dark-gray stone.

Pumping CO₂ into the ground is just one way to dispose of it. It can also go to other uses, as well. Energy companies can mix the carbon dioxide with hydrogen to make fuel. Farmers can feed their plants with it. Soda manufacturers can use it to make their drinks bubble when there is a carbonation shortage.

At the moment, the costs are high: about $600 to $800 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, Gebald, the cofounder of Climeworks, said far from the levels around $100 to $150 per ton that are necessary to turn a profit without any financial help of the government. In the long term, Gebald thinks prices will be half that by the late 2030s—about the price where it will be a competitive method of reducing global emissions.

【推荐1】A group of students at Tongji University made a power box to aid relief work in quake-hit areas of Turkiye, which would be sent to Turkiye by air.

Two earthquakes, measuring 7.8 and 7.5 in magnitude, struck nine hours apart in southeastern Turkiye and northern Syria on Feb 6. Scores of strong aftershocks added to the damage as more than 6,000 buildings collapsed. The death toll has climbed past 30,000, and millions have been made homeless.

After learning that the earthquake-stricken area urgently needed mobile power, the students thought they might design a power box to aid the post-quake rescue and recovery work. And soon a seven-strong research and development team was set up. The team was divided into online and offline groups. Students living in Shanghai were responsible for the offline purchases and assembly of the power box. Other students online shared ideas for the design, compilation of equipment instructions and user manuals (用户手册) in Chinese and English, and were responsible for communication with the Turkish contact person for donations.

Though portable power boxes are available on the market, their design is tailor-made as the students have taken into consideration local sunshine and disaster relief needs to determine the power, capacity, size and other parameters of photovoltaics (太阳能光伏参数) and batteries.

The best use of the power box, which weighs around 15 kilograms and is equipped with a 10-watt LED light bulb, is its ability to provide 30 to 40 straight hours of light if fully recharged. That should guarantee the power box to be a reliable light source for a whole night even if it can’t be fully charged when the sunshine is not enough in the day. Their teachers also offered advice whenever the team encountered difficulties. They included a manual in Turkish, with the assistance of a student from Turkmenistan.

When the sign “humanitarian donation”was posted on the package, Bai Haoran, one of the students said,“It is worth the hard work over the past few days. We come to realize what the common community of mankind means”.

【推荐3】Accompanied by commander Jing Haipeng and flight engineer Zhu Yangzhu, Gui Haichao, a university professor who specializes in spacecraft dynamics and control technology for aerospace systems, took off on the Shenzhou–16 spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China on May 30th. His long-held dream of flying to space has now become a reality.

Gui grew up in a regular family in southwest China’s Yunnan Province. His interest in aerospace began at the age of 17 when he tuned in to the campus radio and got the news of Yang Liwei’s historic first manned spaceflight for China in 2003.

“I wasted no time in applying,” said Gui, referring to the moment he found that China was recruiting(招收)its first group of payload(载荷) specialists in 2018.

Over the past few years, Gui was trained to handle highly complex equipment carried aboard a space shuttle and to conduct experiments in space.

However, the training initially proved challenging for him.

“I felt intense dizziness and disorientation(迷失方向) after the training, so I added extra exercises, sought guidance from instructors, and adopted some of the training methods used by pilots. Finally, my ability to endure vestibular(前庭的) sensations gradually improved,” said Gui during an interview with China Media Group(CMG).

Gui is a sports enthusiast who finds joy in activities like long-distance running, cycling and swimming. He has consistently maintained a fitness lifestyle.

In May 2018, China started the selection process for the third panel of astronauts for the space station project. In addition to astronauts, this round introduced two new categories: aerospace engineers and payload specialists.

“Such division of responsibilities allows, professionals to effectively manage their respective tasks, ensuring the safety and reliability of large quantity of scientific payloads and experiments during long-duration flights,” said Gui.

“Since entering the application and development phase, the space station has witnessed an increase in the number of scientific experiments,” Gui said, noting that the level of expertise required for specific specialized operations has become more advanced.