【推荐2】Why Can’t People Stop Touching Museum Exhibits (展品)?

When visiting the British Museum, you can see visitors touch ancient bowls even though the museum rules say no touching is allowed. Museum guards say it’s impossible to stop people from breaking the no-touch rule.     1    

Most museum-going is still a mainly visual (视觉的) experience for visitors to admire the artworks.     2     But over the past few years, more and more museums have been working to include additional senses, like sounds and smells. But touch, especially, is only allowed in certain areas, like the Louvre’s Touch Gallery, or the British Museum’s Hands On Desks.

    3     Before there were museums, there were curiosity rooms filled with a collection of interesting objects from around the world. When people visited the collection, the objects were passed around. Museums continued with this spirit of openness at first.

But as museums grew, the spirit no longer existed. When you’ve got 4 million visitors a year, you can hardly have every body touching something. People are awkward and likely to damage the artworks. So the rule against touching artworks makes great sense. Smaller museums still sometimes encourage visitors to touch their objects.     4    

Why are we so unwilling to keep our hands to ourselves? Some people just want to make sure the artworks are real. But there’s a larger truth.     5     Visitors say that they want to feel how deep an engraving (雕刻) goes, so as to better understand the artistic skills. In this way, touching is part of trying to somehow make contact with the past.

【推荐1】On November 4th, 2020, the draft that math should be listed as a major national project during the 14th Five-Year Plan(2021—25)period was adopted at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, reported China Daily.

Katherine Johnson (1918—2020), a former NASA mathematician who calculated and analyzed flight paths for many missions, once said: “Some things will drop out of the public eye and go away, but there will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics.” This may be one of the reasons why our country has listed math and its applications as a major national project into the next Five-Year Plan.

“The policy and financial support for the field of mathematics will be greatly improved between 2021 and 2025 compared with the past five years—it’s unprecedented,” said Yuan Yaxiang, a mathematician and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He also stressed that mathematical research matters because it can help overcome some current technology bottlenecks.

According to Science and Technology Minister Wang Zhigang, basic scientific research, including mathematics, will have a larger focus during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, with funding expected to reach over 8 percent of all research and development (R&D) expenses.

The math project is expected to receive 1.5 billion yuan in funding, according to Yuan. The funding will be used to build new institutions for scientific research and support the current ones with new experimental equipment. More training for young mathematicians has also been urged.

Thịs year, Tsinghua University carried out a leading talent training program in math. It recruits hundreds of outstanding middle and senior high school students from across the country to cultivate leading talents in mathematics and related fields. The “strengthening basic disciplines plan” was launched in 2020 at 36 top universities.

According to the German newspaper Die Welt, China leads the way as far as those with an aptitude for math. Of all those born in China between 2005 and 2009, 24 million have exhibited a talent for math. The number is 1.8 million and 940,000 in Japan and South Korea, respectively. That's why many international companies like Apple have set their research centers in China.

【推荐2】Internet Explorer (IE) has finally been withdrawn from the market.

As of Wednesday, Microsoft would no longer support the once-dominant browser (浏览器) that the legion of web surfers loved to hate - and a few still claim to adore. The 27-year-old application now joins BlackBerry phones, dial-up modems and Palm Pilots in the dustbin of tech history.

IE’s exit was not a surprise. A year ago, Microsoft said that it was putting an end to Internet Explorer on June 15, 2022, pushing users to its Edge browser, which was launched in 2015. The company made clear that it was time to move on. “Not only is Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer, but it is also able to address a key concern: compatibility (兼容) for older, legacy websites and applications,” Sean Lyndersay, general manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise, wrote in a May 2021 blog post.

Users marked Explorer’s passing on Twitter, with some referring to it as a “bug-ridden, insecure POS” or the “top browser for installing other browsers.” For others it was a moment for 90’s memory, and The Wall Street Journal quoted a 27-year-old who was sad to see IE go. A Chinese user said that IE is nothing but corresponding with the changing tide of technology, as new things emerge in an endless stream on the Internet, and people are more likely to pursue advanced technical services, but IE’s presence could not be erased. While there are also netizens that believe that IE sitting back for another five years would not be a problem, just leave IE for those certification examinations, as some exams in China appointed IE registration website because of its compatibility.

“Welcome to Microsoft Edge from now on,” the official account of Microsoft Edge browser announced. Today, the Chrome browser dominates with roughly a 65 percent share of the worldwide browser market, followed by Apple’s Safari with 19 percent, according to internet analytics company Statcounter. IE’s heir (继承者), Edge, falls behind about 4 percent, just ahead of Firefox.

【推荐3】Spain’s three-month-long lockdown order issued to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 was finally lifted. To celebrate the joyous occasion, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona—one of Europe’s most famous opera houses—staged its first live performance since March. While every seat was occupied, there was not a human to be found. Instead, the sold-out audience comprised 2292 potted plants carefully selected from local nurseries.

Featuring the UceLi Quartet (四重奏), the performance, made available to human listeners via live-stream, was a prelude (序曲) to the opera house’s upcoming season. In a nod to its leafy audience, the string quartet played a moving performance of Giacomo Puccini’s Crisantem. Inspired by the beautiful yellow flowers, it is among a handful of instrumental works—and one of only four compositions for string quartet—penned by the famous Italian opera composer. Written in a single night, the musical arrangement was intended for King Amadeo of Spain—a close friend of Puccini’s—who died in 1890.

Unfortunately for the musicians, the audience was unable to give the amazing 8-minute-long performance the standing applause it deserved. However, its thunderous “applause”—the sound of leaves and branches blowing—could be heard across the opera house.

Eugenio Ampudia came up with the brilliant idea of the unusual audience when he was inspired by nature during the lockdown. The Spanish artist says, “I heard many more birds singing and the plants in my garden growing faster. Without doubt, I thought maybe I could relate in a closer way with people and nature.”

Following the concert, the “guests” were gifted to 2292 healthcare workers at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona. The opera house officials said they wanted to show their appreciation for the brave men and women who have served “on the toughest front in a battle unexampled for our generations”.