The Beijing 2022 Olympics was the most gender-balanced (性别平衡的) Winter Olympic Games in history, with more than 1,300 female athletes — a record number — competing at the events, making up more than 45 percent of all athletes. Here are some female athletes whose achievements in Beijing amazed the world.

Team China’s teenage hero Gu Ailing, 18, is the youngest athlete to win three medals at a Winter Olympics. The freeski player won two gold medals and a silver in three events.

Russia’s skating silver medalist Alexandra Trusova, 17, amazed the world with five quadruple jumps (四周跳) during free skate at the Beijing Winter Olympics. No other woman has ever finished five quadruple jumps in an Olympic competition.

British women’s curling (冰壶) team won the country’s only gold medal by having a 10-3 win against Japan on the last day of the Beijing Winter Olympics. This was also the country’s first curling gold after 2002.

Almida de Val, a 24-year-old Swedish IT engineer, together with her teammate, took the third place in curling mixed doubles. She took a leave from her company to take part in the Olympics.

Scientists are looking for ways that we can effectively use the light and heat from the sun. One idea that has caught their imagination is solar roads. They are expected to produce clean and renewable energy.

With solar panels on the surfaces, solar roads cost more than traditional roads. However, besides the functions of traditional roods, they have the panels to receive sunlight and change it into the energy to supply power to homes, factories and street lighting. There are four layers in a solar panel:

•Base layer: It is made of insulation material and forms a good grip with the road below this layer.

•Middle layer: This is the most important layer. It holds all kinds of power lines connecting all the solar parts in the panel, like LED lights and the heating system.

•Top layer: This layer is super-strong glass. It allows the panel to hold the weight of the heaviest vehicles.

•Capping: This is the topmost layer used to offer extra protection to the solar parts in the panel. The layer must be rough enough to provide the traction for the safety of vehicles.

With the smart design, solar roads can successfully charge the vehicles on them. And the roads have inbuilt LED lights to replace the traditional rood signs and lines, which are usually painted and harmful to humans. What’s more, the heating systems in the solar roads can take care of the snow and ice on the roads for drivers.

Test solar roads have been built in several countries (France, China, USA, etc.) since 2014. The first word solar road project, Metrics of Watt Way in France, was set up by a French company called Construction Colas. It was an example of low effectiveness. In the first year, it had been expected to produce around 767 kWh of energy a day, but it only produced 409 kWh. Even so, the production could increase with design improvements. Of course, more time is needed before this technology is put into use.

Solar roads may not be widely used in the near future, but they are indeed great for an environment-friendly and energy-saving world.

Have you ever thought about why you are the way you are? And what does your personality（性格）connect with? Recent research has showed that the position in which we are born in our family plays a very important role in forming personality.

The eldest child

Being the only child, the eldest enjoys all their parents’ attention. However, new parents usually expect to see their child do well. And the eldest child generally tries to meet these expectations. As a result, the eldest children are usually polite and traditional. The problems come with the birth of another child. Suddenly the attention they’re used to receiving becomes weaker. Then, they don’t feel safe and will try to do all they can to make their parents happy.

The second child

The second child has no experience of life without a brother or sister, so they never know how their brothers or sisters feel when they suddenly have to share the attention. The second children are often more outgoing（外向的）and always looking for ways to get attention. One of the most common ways to achieve this is by making people laugh and the second children are often the jokers of the family. Again, problems can appear when another baby arrives. Suddenly, the second child becomes the middle child and may lose a clear sense of where they are.

The third child

With the birth of their third baby, parents will often feel this is their last chance to bring up a child. This means the youngest child, more often than not, is spoilt（溺爱）with attention and love. This can lead them to be very self-centered, believing that the world moves around them. They are always treated as the “baby” of the family so they don’t do as well as they could do. They like doing things in unexpected ways, so they are also likely to be creative.