【推荐1】Here’s a recipe for a good animal rescue story: Take one residential creek (小溪), add one lone dolphin and then bring in 28 determined biologists. Mix well and enjoy the happy ending.

A young dolphin wandered off its usual path and ended up in a creek in Clearwater, Florida. Biologists with Clearwater Marine Aquarium had been monitoring it since Jan. 1. It appeared reluctant to return to open waters via a small opening under a bridge. “Since monitoring began, the dolphin had not left the creek,” the aquarium said last week. “This posed potential long-term problems. Dolphins are naturally sociable creatures, so if they are isolated from other dolphins, they may turn their attention to human interaction.” This can be dangerous, both for dolphins and humans. Humans who get too close to dolphins can find themselves with injuries such as broken bones.

Clearwater Marine Aquarium partnered with NOAA Fisheries and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission to guard the dolphin to safety. A team of 28 biologists got into the water to form a human chain, creating a visual and sound barrier to aim the dolphin out of the creek. It’s not easy to pull off a human chain in a creek. The biologists had to stay shoulder to shoulder and navigate trees and docks without giving the dolphin an opportunity to slip by. The human encouragement worked, though there was a moment of uncertainty as the team members neared the bridge and weren’t sure if the dolphin went through.

The biologists celebrated the dolphin’s arrival on the other side.“It was very exciting after almost 20 plus days for him to finally be out of the canal,” said senior rescue biologist Brittany Baldrica.

The wandering dolphin stands a good chance back out in the wild. “We noted that the animal was in good body condition with normal breathing rates and was displaying normal behavior during observations” the aquarium said.

Happy ending achieved.

【推荐2】A bike repairer at Beijing’s Peking University has won respect from many for remaining dedicated to his work over the course of the past 16 years. Lin Qinggang, from Xingtai city, north China’s Hebei Province, started his business in 2006. Before that point, he had been a migrant worker at a construction site and a bicycle salesman in Beijing. In 2017. Peking University built a repair shop for Lin, which had been transformed from a 32-square-meter container. Lin tells people that he starts work at 8:30 a. m, but that for most of the time, he’s available as early as 8 a.m.

Because students always come over to Lin’s shop to have their bicycles repaired before and after lunch and dinner breaks, the man is often busy during these hours. This means he has to finish his meals quickly.

“During the busiest time before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I never had lunch on time, usually having supper at about 8 or 9 p.m., and sometimes even at 10 p.m.,” Lin recalled, saying that he once repaired 180 bicycles on his busiest day.

Lin’s services has won recognition from teachers and students at Peking University, who would often share food with him during holidays such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Dragon Boat Festival. Such gestures of goodwill have deeply touched Lin.

“Some of the services that I provided were for free, but the students insisted on giving me money or paying me extra. I think this is the way they expressed their encouragement,” Lin said.

When Lin just started the business, some young people had doubted his abilities as a bike repairer. He just worked very hard to prove himself. Eventually, most of the people changed their opinions.

Lin has repaired nearly 500,000 bicycles in 16 years. He has gained the trust of teachers and students at Peking University with all the good qualities he possesses, including his dedication and reliability.

【推荐3】Chinese scientists have created the world's first light-based quantum(量子) computer, called Jiuzhang, opening a new era of quantum computation. It's a breakthrough in the field after Google completed its quantum computer last year.

Compared with today's best supercomputers, Jiuzhang can calculate 100,000 billion times faster. For example, it takes Jiuzhang 200 seconds to perform Gaussian boson sampling(高斯玻色取样问题), an extremely challenging calculation, while the fastest classical supercomputer, Fugaku, would need about 600 million years to complete the same task.

Quantum computers can take computational shortcuts (捷径) when simulating (模拟) extremely complex scenarios(场景), whereas conventional computers have to find a solution step by step, taking significantly more time in the process.

Quantum machines' amazing computing power arises from their basic building blocks, called quantum bits, or qubits, according to the University of Science and Technology of China. Usually, classical computers handle data in binary (二进制的) bits, presenting data as either 0s or ls. However, quantum computers process data using qubits, which can be identified as 0s, 1s or everything in between. As a result, as the number of qubits increases, the computing ability of quantum computers increases too.

With advantages over traditional computers, quantum computers have a wide range of applications. The calculations carried out by Jiuzhang can potentially be applied to machine learning, quantum chemistry and graph theory, according to Pan Jianwei, a key researcher behind Jiuzhang.

According to Pan, quantum computing has already become a fierce competition ground among the United States, Europe, and other developed regions. “The feat(壮举) cements(巩固) China's position in the first echelon( 梯队)of nations in quantum computing,” the university said in a news release.

Jiuzhang is currently only programmed to do boson sampling. “In the near future, scientists may increase Jiuzhang's possible output states- a key indicator of computing power,” Lu Chaoyang, another key researcher behind Jjuzhang, told China Daily.