【推荐2】Most of us get our earliest life lessons from fairy tales, like “True love can overcome anything”, and “Even a frog can turn into a prince”. However, at a certain age, we start to learn new things about life, particularly that love doesn't always win, and that a frog is just a frog. But somehow, our love for fairy tales never dies. Just look at animated films like The Lion King and Frozen, which have millions of fans, young and old.

“Fairy tales stay here because they are the stories of our lives in the simplest form,” wrote US author Laura Packer on the National Storytelling Network website. “They are stories of love and loss, desire and death, riches and ruin.” Fairy tales are all about reality. But if children only see just one side of reality, adults usually see the other.

For example, in the 2014 film Maleficent, we’re told the tale of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective (视角) of the evil queen. Unlike the children's version of the story, we see that the queen wasn’t born evil. Instead, she suffers great losses growing up, leading to the creation of her “evil” side.

It looks as if fairy tales aren’t just stories our parents read us at bedtime. They may usually start with “Once upon a time…”, but as we grow older, we learn that every story doesn’t always need a “Happily ever after” to be a good one.

【推荐3】Since the dawn of human history, the moon has influenced myth, religion, and poetry. But as the moon’s bright presence is over us in the sky, we wonder of its creation and existence. Lunar exploration and research in the 20th and 21st centuries have expanded our knowledge of our natural satellite and nearest neighbor, the moon.

The moon is so close (some 240, 000 miles away) that, with the help of telescopes, it is easy to see many details on the near side of the moon that is always facing the earth. The moon is airless because its gravity is too weak to capture and retain atmosphere; therefore, there is no weather and no life. It is also waterless. The moon’s dark plains, once believed to be stretches of water and still known as maria (“seas”), are really vast flat basins, created by thick volcanic lava. The surface — despite the radiance (光辉) of a full moon — is made up of dark grey rock that reflects only a tiny amount of the sunlight that hits it.

Lunar exploration has stripped away some of the moon’s mysteries. In 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 3 revealed the far side that is hidden from the earth’s view. In 1969, Apollo II astronauts on the first manned flight to the moon brought back rock samples some 3,700 million years old —older than any rocks on earth. Samples from later missions indicate the moon may have been formed at about the same time as the rest of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Analysis of the moon rocks suggests an end of intensive meteor crash of the surface about 4 billion years ago and an end of volcanic eruption about a billion years ago. The moon appears cold and dead — yet it still may be active. Observers report the flickering glow of what could be eruptions at the edges of the maria and in certain craters.

【推荐3】A China plane struck a bird after taking off in Chengdu, Sichuan, and had to immediately return to the airport last October, and it wasn’t the first accident between an aircraft and a bird last year.

In fact, more than 20,000 wildlife strikes with aircraft were reported worldwide in 2023 — the vast majority of those animals being birds. The strikes can also include run-ins with bats or creatures on the ground, such as deer or turtles. Expanding wildlife populations, increases in number of aircraft movements, and a trend toward faster and quieter aircraft all have contributed to the increase in wildlife strikes.

Bird strikes are a hazard not just to commercial airplanes, but to all sorts of aircraft. However, historical data shows that damage is reported in a small percentage of incidents. Last year, 95% of the global strikes involved some kind of damage — and only 5% of those caused “substantial” damage.

Some of the most disturbing types of strikes can happen when one or more birds go into a plane’s engine, which might cause a lot of damage to the aircraft. The pilot would need to return to the airport or find a safe place to land.

In last October’s China plane incident, the Beijing-bound flight was able to land normally in Chengdu after taking into account what the airline described as security concerns. Senior captain Chen Jianguo said pilots are trained on how to respond if they have a bird strike in flight. The pilot in this case did exactly what he was trained to do.

“There are lots of things that are being used by airports to try to manage the habitat and birds around the airport,” said Chen Jianguo. Airports need to manage bird habitats to reduce or get rid of trees and plants that shelter birds, or address wetlands that can attract birds. Collecting data on what kinds of birds are involved in strikes is equally important so the risks can better be managed. Many airports also use audible signals to scare birds away, such as the sounds of fireworks.