【推荐1】Zhang Yufu and some 100 other truck drivers in Yunnan province were given a special assignment on Aug 3, 2021, by the company — to follow a herd of 14 Asian elephants.

Experts said the team’s work marked a significant breakthrough in efforts to guide the animals back to their habitats. Crossing the river meant the herd was heading toward more suitable habitats, which would also help increase stability and security for the animals.

Since the 14 wild Asian elephants left their habitat in 2020 and kept wandering toward the north, they had drawn attention from across China and the world. Authorities in Yunnan had fed the elephants tons of food and used police cars, trucks, diggers and drones to guide the herd away from city areas, and eventually lead them back to their habitat safely.

The Asian elephant is listed as an “endangered” species and is under top-level protection in China. Yunnan is the only habitat for wild Asian elephants in China. By building 11 nature reserves, the population of the Asian elephant in China has risen from 170 in the 1970s to over 300 in 2021, according to the Yunnan provincial forestry and grassland department.

Although climate and a willingness among the elephants to move were key factors in the herd moving toward home, the efforts of scientists and workers also played a major role.

For example, the water flow per second rate of the Yuanjiang River rose greatly in August 2021, compared to May that same year when the herd first crossed it. To avoid danger, the Yuxi headquarters decided to guide the elephants across the Yuanjiang Bridge near National Highway 213. The local government also sent workers to promote safety in areas populated by 73,000 people.

“Although the herd broke away from the designed route a number of times, it finally crossed the bridge, with the safety of humans and the animals secured,” said Yang Yingyong, executive deputy commander of the headquarters.

【推荐2】U. S. film director Spike lee had been awarded the 20th annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for his brilliance and unwavering   courage in using film to challenge traditional thinking.

The film-maker behind hits such as Malcolm X and Inside Man would receive approximately $ 300,000. “I hadn't even heard of it,” Lee said, of the prize. “It was a phone call that came completely out of the blue. It was one of the best phone calls I've ever had,” the 56-year-old man added.

The late actress Lillian Gish, who died in 1993, required that the prize be given every year to a manor a woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life.

Previous recipients include some famous people from different fields—Frank Gehry, Bob Dylan, Arthur Miller and Robert Redford. Chosen from a shortlist of 30 people in the arts, Lee would be presented with the honour on 30 October, 2013 at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

“Would you believe that two of the most important films that impacted me while I was studying at NYU starred Miss Lillian Gish?” Lee said in a statement, citing The Birth of a Nation and 'The Night of the Hunter. “Isn't it funny sometimes how life works?”

Lee made his debut with She's Gotta Have It in 1986 , closely followed by the groundbreaking Do the Right 'Thing in 1989, which landed Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay, Best Film and Best Director. In 2013, he raised $ 1.25 million on the fan funding website Kickstarter towards his next movie project. Lee's latest film, BlacKkKlansman, starring John David and Adam Driver, was released in the U. S. Washington on August 10, 2018.

【推荐3】Noted for his profound description of life along the Chinese railway, Wang Fuchun passed away on March 13th at the age of 79. His engaging photographs capture the substance of China’s ever-changing landscape.

Being artistic and good at painting and calligraphy, Wang found that photography bridged the two worlds: he could make art with his camera and increasingly he felt that his goal was not art, but life.

In the late 1970s, when he started taking his photographs, everyone on a railway platform looked reserved and orderly. By the late 1980s, a great rush to the cities had begun on the trains. He recorded young migrant workers shedding their shirts, running with sweat, seeking coolness on top of the seats. He did not ask anyone’s permission to take them, and he preferred to act secretly, like a thief in a way, as it captured the authentic (真实的) moments of people’s lives—and so mirrored all the more clearly how China was changing.

His project was all-consuming. Over 40 years he estimated he had ridden on 1, 000 trains and covered more than 100, 000 kilometers, on every line in China. Each trip was neatly noted down in a notebook; he took about 200, 000 pictures, and logged each by its place. From those pictures, he felt the migrants’ poverty too keenly, and he preferred to capture the hope that pushed people on to trains.

China was rushing to the modern world. Steam was fading; the green-skinned trains acquired fans and air-conditioning. Then came express trains, then high-speed rail. The aisles were clear, the windows sealed. However, in the reclining seats (躺椅座位), everyone reclined. In the ordinary seats, everyone’s noses were buried in their tablets and their phones.

He liked the message of hope; he was proud of what China had achieved. But how sad, he also thought that on that dashing train there was no mess, no collision of life and no good subjects for him, and that Chinese people should once again look so orderly, reserved and unconcerned about each other, even on a train.

【推荐1】Chinese scientists have built a chamber to simulate (模仿) the conditions on the surface of the moon to help make preparations for future lunar exploration.

The specially designed vacuum chamber is equipped with an electron gun to negatively charge dust, deuterium lights to produce ultraviolet (紫外的) rays to generate low-voltage positive electrical charge, and a vibrating screen (振动筛) designed to simulate flying dust. Scientists at the vacuum chamber have made similar dust particles (颗粒) with similar features to those on the moon. These elements together produce a chamber which can test materials and items in simulated lunar conditions.

The facility was developed by the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), based in the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province in northeast China. “The comprehensive lunar surface simulator, which can simulate many environments which are very close to the real state on the moon, helps us understand the lunar dust formation process in such an environment and its effects on spacecraft, spacesuits and astronauts and prepare us for a crewed moon landing in the future,” said Li Liyi, dean (院长) of the HIT’s Institute of Space Environment and Material Science. “At the experiment chamber, we can simulate six major kinds of environmental factors. It is an experiment facility that can simulate the most environmental factors and has the comprehensive performance most similar to the real space environment in the world,” Li added.

A leading Chinese lunar scientist said that China is working to land astronauts on the moon before 2030.The country is actively working on the hardware needed for the mission, including a new launch vehicle, a new generation spacecraft for crew and a lunar lander.

A representative from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the country’s main space contractor, presented an animated film earlier this year giving an impression of what the future Chinese crewed lunar landing might look like.

【推荐3】Tamara Hinson examines why space exploration developments shouldn’t just be of interest to astronauts—they’re helping to change our holidays, too.

In early May 2019 Blue Origin, the space exploration company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, successfully launched and landed the rocket Bezos plans to use for space tourism. In recent years, international space agencies and private space exploration companies have made huge leaps forward in their efforts to explore beyond planet Earth. This isn’t just good news for those of us with a burning desire to visit the Moon, see our planet from space or set up camp on Mars, and if you extremely like travelling, you’ll highly likely eventually benefit from developments relating to space exploration. By travelling in a spaceship sent into orbit, an eight-hour flight in a narrow airplane could become a 30-minute hop, while the entire planet could be circumnavigated in just 90 minutes.

Recent developments suggest such journeys might soon become reality, largely thanks to the number of privately-funded space exploration adventures, like Musk’s SpaceX.

“It’s not just about national space agencies any more and commercial companies all over the world are doing their own thing,” points out Bresnik, who admits to being surprised at the developments made in a relatively short space of time. “In the 1900s we had the first flight, and suddenly all these other people were building airplanes. And now, just over 100 years later, there are generations who think it’s perfectly normal to simply book a flight on their iPhone. And we’re at the same point with space flight; you’ll soon be able to go to space without being a professional astronaut.”

All of these developments and the research and testing which comes before hand serve another purpose. They make getting to Mars— the little red dot our descendants (后代) could very well end up living on much easier, although there are still various obstacles. Bresnik states that he suspects a trip into space will soon be as simple as a trip to Disneyland even if the famous theme park has certain advantages, such as more reliable supplies of food, water, and oxygen, believing we’re close to overcoming all obstacles and pointing out that one potential solution would be to take seeds instead of food, and use regenerative techniques to reclaim water.