【推荐1】The Photographer of the Year contest, supported by companies in various fields, is based in the UK and attracts worldwide photography lovers. Though the first award was given out in 1965, the official contest didn’t really start until 2015. With wonderful pictures from thousands of photographers, the 2020 contest rewarded its winners in February.

Octopus (章鱼) Training

This photo was taken by Pasquale Vassallo of Italy and won in the group of “Behavior”. Vassallo said when he came up after a dive, he noticed a soccer ball floating on the surface. When he checked it out, he witnessed a rare scene—an octopus hanging from the ball. He didn’t understand what the octopus was doing, but wondered if it was training for the World Cup.

Lemon Shark Nursery

Taken by Anita Kainrath of the Bahamas, it shows young sharks swimming around in the protection of a beautiful thick forest. Kainrath said she spent nearly an hour standing in knee-high water being bitten by mosquitoes to get her picture, which won the Up & Coming Photographer of the Year 2020 award.

Angry Seahorse

Though Rooman Luc of Belgium didn’t win the “Portrait” category, his photo; titled “Angry Seahorse”, is quite striking. The close-up shot of a seahorse staring into the camera was named the runner-up. Mr. Luc said that after first hearing about the seahorse, he went looking for it every week for two months before finally finding it.

Last Dawn, Last Gasp

Vassallo also took the prize in the “Marine Conversation” division with Last Dawn, Last Gasp, an appropriately breathtaking shot of a tuna fish tapped in a net, struggling in vain to escape. To take this photo, Vassallo went diving with some local fishermen and followed the path of the fishing nets from the bottom to the surface.

【推荐2】An Art Class

When Kelly was twelve, she started taking classes at Miss Grace’s School for Art. She didn’t like it at first: the “novice artists”—the kids who hadn’t really done art before-worked mostly with clay, and Kelly was a terrible sculptor.

It wasn’t until her third year that Kelly found something she was really good at-charcoal drawing (素描). She loved watching the lines spread unevenly across the page as she moved the bits of charcoal back and forth over the paper.

One day, Sophia, the best artist in her class, sat down and set up her easel (画架) next to Kelly. Kelly felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She’d actually found an art form that she enjoyed and was good at-and now Sophia was going to outshine her again? Kelly fought back tears when Miss Grace entered the room.

“Hello class, Miss Grace said.” We’ll continue to work on the project today. What masterpiece would Sophia have come up with?

Kelly looked at Sophia’s easel and she couldn’t believe it-it was a mess! For a brief moment, Kelly couldn’t actually believe her drawing was better than Sophia’s.

But then she looked at Sophia, who was watching Kelly with an anxious expression. “I…. I couldn’t decide what to do,” Sophia said. “And you’re so good. Sometimes I feel like my stuff is just so bad in comparison.”

Kelly looked to see if Sophia was joking, but she seemed completely serious. Now Kelly was shocked. “I’m not talented ... Miss Grace seldom praises me. You’re the best one in our class!”

Sophia raised her eyebrows. “I might be a really good copier of the stuff, but I have no idea what to do when it comes to making up my own images. You are so great at making new things out of the old stuff. I’ve loved your works.”

“I’ve loved yours, too,” Kelly said.

“Well, definitely not this one,” Sophia said.

Kelly smiled. “Maybe not right now. But if you move these lines up...” she said, pointing her finger on Sophia’s paper.

Sophia was quiet for a moment. “That’s a great idea!” she said finally.

Kelly smiled and turned back to her drawing, looking every so often at Sophia’s work to see that she was taking her advice, down to the last line.

【推荐1】Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) have grown wood-like structures from cells taken from the leaves of a flowering plant.

The results were recently reported in a study. Velasquez-Garcia, the lead researcher, said the process is still in the early stage. But if it can be perfected, it could simplify and speed up the production of wood products. “The way we get these materials hasn't changed in centuries and is very inefficient,” Velasquez-Garcia said.

For example, the current process of making a wooden table can take many years. First, a tree has to grow. Then, it must be cut down, transported, processed, etc. Velasquez-Garcia says lab-grown wood could combine all those steps into one. “you want a table, then you should just grow a table.” he said.

The process is similar in some ways to lab-produced meat, which is grown from live animal cells. But in the wood experiment, the MIT team collected live cells from the leaves of a zinnia plant.

The plant cells were then kept in an environment designed to support growth. Plant cells can become anything if they are induced to.

The experiment was carried out indoors, without soil or sunlight. During the process, the researchers used a mixture of two plant hormones that helped the cells grow a thick, strong wood-like structure. With further study, the researchers say they could use the same process to grow wood in specific shapes, such as a table.

Such a lab-based farming method “promises to improve yields while reducing plant waste and competition for arable land,” the research study states.

David Stern is a plant biologist, who was not involved in the study. He said one big question is whether the technology can remain economically competitive since the method would require major financial and intellectual investments. And he said new issues would arise when parts of forestry and agriculture were brought into the lab. “Agriculture uses the sun's energy through photosynthesis, and…natural rainfall. It does not require buildings, heat, or artificial light,” Stern said.

【推荐1】London-based artist Sarah Ezekiel has won international recognition for her vivid, life-filling images. But her work is more remarkable for the fact that she has a medical condition that has left her unable to move her arms.

Ezekiel’s pictures are painstakingly produced, using the movement of her eyes and specialized technology that relays those movements to a computer. The eye-tracking technology gives Ezekiel a platform for artistic expression, otherwise denied by her disease—amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS).

Ezekiel showed no signs of the condition until 2000, when she was aged 34. Pregnant with her second child, she noticed some weakness in her left arm and that she was unable to produce each word clearly. Within months, she was diagnosed with incurable ALS.

Ezekiel describes her first five years living with ALS as “very lonely”. Today, she can neither speak nor move but says “technology has made my life worth living”. She uses a system made by Tobii Dynavox, a company specializing in “Eye Gaze” devices that help people with medical conditions communicate. Its technology adopts projectors, cameras and algorithms to track the tiny movements of the user’s pupils and control a cursor on a screen.

To interview Ezekiel, CNN sent her questions and she prepared her answers letter by letter, using predictive text. The technology also lets her surf the net, shop online and use social media.

Ezekiel, who studied art when she was younger, began painting using the Eye Gaze device in 2012. Her first artwork. Peaceful Warrior, took its title from a book by Dan Millman. “It was originally supposed to illustrate despair, but the finished result had a totally different feel,” she recalls.

“Being an artist because of technology has totally improved my general attitude towards life and opened up many other possibilities for me,” says Ezekiel. I couldn’t create pictures for years and it’s fantastic that technology has made it possible again.

【推荐2】Chinese singer Gong Linna released her new song, titled Return Home, which describes the overseas Chinese people’s longing for their homeland.

Performed in Chaoshan dialect, the song is part of Gong’s music project, which has the singer perform songs in different Chinese dialects. “It is very challenging to sing in Chaoshan dialect, which is a new language to me, and thanks to the songwriter Danny Sim and the song’s producer Wesley Tan, who speak the dialect, I received intensive training and practised very hard,” says Gong. “The beauty of dialects lies in telling stories of different places. It’s like a music al map, allowing me to explore different places through dialects.”

The idea of the song came from Qiaopi, a unique form of mail that served as both a letter and a remittance (汇款) sent by overseas Chinese people to their families in provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in the 19th and 20th centuries. At that time, many of those emigrants, particularly from Guangdong and Fujian, sent money back home to support their families, as well as communicating with their beloved ones and expressing their longing to be reunited.

“Dialects are a source of knowledge, traditions and the country’s cultural heritage. When I listen to a song performed in a dialect, I feel the local culture instantly even though I never go there and know nothing about the place,” says Sim, who wrote lyrics for the song, adding that there are a growing number of musicians in China performing in dialects, which allow listeners to get an emotional touch.

“Chaoshan dialect links people from the region. However, like many languages, it’s dying. Many young people, especially children, rarely speak the dialect, which is a sad thing.” Sim says, explaining why he is keen on writing songs by using the dialect, “I love my hometown and by writing songs in the dialect, I feel close to my home. Maybe that is, culture identity.”