【推荐1】Safer Internet Day is an annual event in which Internet companies, charities and schools team up to talk about how young people can stay safe and avoid having bad experiences online. This year’s event is on 8 February and its theme is “All Fun and Games”. It will focus on respect and relationships in games, social apps and anywhere else that people spend time online.

The UK Government will put an organization called Ofcom in charge of making sure all tech companies follow the new rules. “Any service that is used by children in the UK will have to understand the risks and put measures in place to keep them safe,” says Tony Stower, who is in charge of online safety at Ofcom.

In the meantime, he hopes that Safer Internet Day will be a helpful reminder for young people about how they can help to make the Internet a safe and positive place. “They can be good digital citizens, remembering that if you send a message that might be mean or unpleasant, that’s going to hurt the person receiving it,” says Stower. “It’s also important that if you get those kinds of messages, you can tell a trusted adult — a teacher, a parent or an older sibling, for example — if you see something that worries or scares or upsets you online.”

Ofcom regularly carries out surveys with young people to understand what these problems might be. For example, it has found that 30% of 8 to 15-year-olds say they have been bullied within online games. However, 90% of young people surveyed said they would tell someone if they saw worrying or nasty content. Stower said it is important that young people don’t avoid sharing worries with trusted adults because they think they might get in trouble.

【推荐2】A 3,000-year-old ceremonial gold mask has become an unexpected social media hit in China after its recent discovery in Sichuan province. The artefact was one of 500 Bronze-Age relics found at the Sanxingdui archaeological site. Experts say the discovery could provide new insights on the ancient Shu state, which ruled the area before 316 BC.

But the mysterious half-faced mask has also brought about a popular meme and memorable videos on social media. As soon as the latest group of discoveries was announced on Saturday, users of micro-blogging platform Weibo started making pictures combining the mask with the faces of pop culture figures. The comment “Sanxingdui gold mask photo editing competition” has been viewed nearly 4 million times, and has brought numerous posts as netizens praised the "stunning" and "beautiful" mask. Officials at the museum for Sanxingdui — one of the most important archaeological sites in China — soon joined in on the fun. "Good morning, we've just woken up, apparently everyone's been busy doing some Photoshopping?" the museum said in a recent Weibo post while sharing its own opinion about the meme. The museum also released a promotional animated music video starring the mask and other artefacts, while a rap song created by a TV host praising the ^intelligence⁹⁵ of the ancient civilisation has spread widely.

It is not the first time a Chinese artefact has attracted the attention of social media users — in August, another relic was found to resemble the pig characters in popular video game Angry Birds. In addition to the gold mask, archaeologists at Sanxingdui have found bronze pieces, gold foils as well as artefacts made from ivory, jade and silk. The items were uncovered in six "sacrificial pits", said the National Cultural Heritage Administration, which the Shu civilisation used to offer sacrifices in prayers for prosperity and peace.

The Sanxingdui ruins were discovered by accident by a farmer in 1929. To date, more than 50,000 relics have been unearthed at the site, which is around 60km from the city of Chengdu.

【推荐3】Archeologists said on Wednesday they have unearthed the oldest wooden structure ever discovered, dating from nearly half a million years ago, which suggests that our ancestors may have been more advanced than previously thought.

The exceptionally well-preserved wooden structure was found at Kalambo Falls in the north of Zambia near the border with Tanzania. It dates back at least 476,000 years, well before the evolution of Homo sapiens (智人), according to a study describing the find in the journal Nature.

The wood bears cut-marks showing that stone tools were used to join two large logs to make the structure, which is believed to be a platform, walkway or raised dwelling to keep our ancestors above the water. A collection of wooden tools, including a wedge and a digging stick, was also discovered at the site. The ancestors of humans were already known to use wood at this time, but for limited purposes such as starting a fire or hunting.

Larry Barham, an archeologist at the U. K.’s University of Liverpool and the study’s lead author, said the structure was a “chance discovery” made in 2019 while excavating the site located on the banks of the Kalambo River, above a 235-meter waterfall.

Discoveries involving such ancient wood are rare, because it tends to rot leaving behind little trace for the historical record. But the high level of water at Kalambo Falls is believed to have preserved the structure over the centuries.

Excavations at the Kalambo site in the 1950s and 1960s unearthed some wood, but it was not able to be accurately dated. However, this time around, the researchers used a new method called luminescence dating, which determines age by measuring the last time certain minerals were exposed to sufficient heat or sunlight. This revealed that the structure was much older than the researchers had thought, dating back at least 476,000 years.

The discovery of the wooden structure “changed how I thought about these people”, Barham added. “They transformed their surroundings to make life easier, even if it was only by making a platform to sit on by the river to do their daily chores,” he said. “They used their intelligence, imagination and skills to create something they’d never seen before, something that had never previously existed.”