【推荐2】“Luckily, I have some outside space on my balcony (阳台). I love surprising myself with what I can successfully grow there. It is a not so-secret trick: going vertical (垂直),” said Song, a college student from Shandong Province, when interviewed by a local media.

According to a recent report, the sales of vegetable seeds online in the first quarter doubled compared with the same period last year. Sales of products like gardening tools have increased by three times since April of last year. Out of all the people buying farming tools and seeds, most were born after 2000, like Song.

Song, a young “balcony farmer”, said his passion for planting was formed in his childhood when he lived with his grandma in the countryside, who liked to plant seasonal vegetables in her backyard garden. Now, Song lives in the city without a yard, but he continues his hobby with a balcony garden. “Growing fruits and vegetables not only brings delicious food, but also reminds me of the happy times with my grandma,” said Song.

Song is not alone. Fang Hua, from a computer company, considers planting a garden a good way to relax and develop patience. Bearing many working responsibilities, the 26- year old girl sometimes feels stressful. To relax herself, she started planting seeds and waited patiently on her balcony in 2021. After half a year, her balcony has become a “small garden”, including different flowers and herds.

“I need a space to escape from my daily duties,” Fang said, seeing the various colors and breathing fresh air. “I feel closer to nature on my balcony.” The vegetables and herbs may not be main foods on our table, but they will surely add a touch of taste to our busy days.

The youth like Song and Fang believe being a city farmer means a lot to their life. In fact, the young people of the new era seem to know life better than their parents.

【推荐1】Five times stronger than steel, spider silk’s unique qualities were recognized by the Ancient Greeks—and more recently, scientists have looked at applications from medicine to engineering. Now, a Japanese startup, Spiber, has begun to change the textile industry with this remarkable material.

The company started by making a substitute in the lab that is similar to spider silk in structure. After studying thousands of different spider species and other silk-producing life forms, Spiber successfully produced an alternative to spider silk. This breakthrough was achieved by fermenting (发酵) a mixture of water, sugar, and nutrients with special microbes to produce protein polymers (聚合物). These polymers are then made into fibers, paving the way for a range of innovative fabrics.

However, shifting from lab to practical application presented challenges. In 2015, Spiber partnered with The North Face Japan to produce a limited-edition run of 50 “Moon Parka” jackets to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landings. But during the design process, the team discovered that spider silk became smaller when exposed to water, and had to transform the protein to make the fiber suitable for an outdoor jacket, which took them four years to perfect.

Currently, the company uses sugarcane and corn for its fermentation process—crops that use large volumes of land and change food resources. To reduce its environmental impact, Spiber is developing a process called “biosphere circulation” that will transform deserted clothes made from natural materials like cotton into the sugars needed for fermentation.

With approximately 100 billion yen ($783 million) in funding, Spiber plans to significantly speed up its production of protein polymers by the end of 2025. “Mass production will help bring the price of fibers down and allow Spiber to expand beyond the high-end designer market and thus we have the means to create solutions to enable more circular fashion,” says Higashi, head of business development at Spiber. “It’s our mission to bring those solutions to the world.”

【推荐3】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.