The Beijing Winter Games saw many young athletes shine on the biggest stage for winter sports. Let’s take a look at three Olympic medalists who debuted (首次亮相) at Beijing 2022.

	At just 18, Su Yiming won China’s first gold medal in men’s snowboarding. He took the gold medal in the men’s big air. Also, he won a silver medal in the slopestyle (坡面障碍技巧). Su started snowboarding when he was just 4 years old. Su set his heart on snowboarding in 2015 after Beijing got the chance to host the 2022 Winter Games.
	Gu Ailing’s gold medals in both big air and halfpipe (U型场地), and a silver medal in slopestyle brought her to an even wider international audience. Gu was born in 2003 in the USA. She started to ski at 3 and began professional training at 8. Now she’s an Olympic champion, a fashion model, and going to Stanford University this fall.
	Li Wenlong is a 21-year-old skater. This was his first Winter Olympics. In the men’s 1, 000m short track speed skating, Li skated behind his teammates as a team tactic (战术). He tried to help his teammates to win. With his help, teammate Ren Ziwei won the gold medal. And Li himself crossed the line in second place. Li started to skate at age of 11. He is a good team player and always willing to support his teammates. He sees the team as more important than himself.

On May 23, Shenzhen introduced tough new rules in order to discourage the “Chinese style of crossing the road”. “Chinese people cross roads without thinking about traffic lights, so long as they are part of a crowd,” said a post on Sina Weibo.

A CCTV news program showed that in only an hour, more than 600 people jumped red lights when crossing a road in Shijiazhuang, Hebei.

Many people say that they jaywalk (乱穿马路) because the red light lasts too long. Such an opinion is supported by a research team at Tongji University. The team did research on people’s waiting times at different road crossings for three years. They found that Chinese people would wait for 70 to 90 seconds before they lost their patience. “People are likely to ignore (忽视) the light when the waiting time is longer than they can stand,” said Ni Ying, a member of the research team.

However, a survey on Sina Weibo showed that people jaywalk mainly because they ignore rules. “I always obey traffic rules. Time is important but safety should come first,” someone wrote on his Weibo.

Many countries give out punishments to jaywalkers. In Singapore, the maximum (最高) can be three months in prison (监狱). Some Chinese cities have started taking some actions, too. For example, the first three people in a jaywalking group will be fined 50 yuan in Shijiazhuang.

But calling on people to respect rules is more important. To completely solve the problem, everyone should realize the importance of following the traffic rules.

On Dec.9, 2021, three Chinese astronauts gave a science lecture 400 kilometers above Earth. Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu, who are working abroad the Tiangong space station, showed millions of students their life there. They also did some fun science experiments. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Use it or lose it

The human body grows with the pull of Earth’s gravity. But in space, our bones and muscles (肌肉) don’t need to sustain our body’s weight. This will cause bone and muscle loss. NASA says that astronauts can lose up to 20 percent of their muscles after just a couple of weeks. That is dangerous because they will be too weak to work.

Astronauts have different ways to prevent this. During the lecture, Zhai introduced a special uniform Ye was wearing. It’s called a “penguin suit”. There are many elastic bands (弹力带) inside the suit. Wearing it, astronauts use their muscles to stretch the bands. This keeps their muscles strong.

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During another experiment, Wang made a water film (膜). Then she added more water drops onto the film to make it a water ball. This can never happen on Earth. Why?

We need to first understand the surface tension (表面张力) of water. It is like a “skin” of water. The “skin”is there because water molecules (分子) are drawn to each other. Most of the time, gravity is too strong and it breaks the “skin”. But with zero gravity in space, the “skin” stays strong and the water ball will not break.

Water in space acts differently from water on Earth in other ways. For example, water will not flow downward if you try to pour it into a cup. That’s why astronauts usually drink water through straws in sealed bags.