【推荐1】Driverless（无人的） cars take you from one place to another. Smart robots help to carry heavy things. A small “bandage”（创口贴） checks your body temperature（温度） easily. You can see all these things at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. Cool science makes the Games fantastic and help people stay safe during COVID-19（新冠疫情）.

When you walk in Shougang Industrial Park, you can see different kinds of driverless cars. When you feel tired, you can get in a driverless minibus. When you want to eat something, you can buy food from a “driverless car shop”. Some driverless cars can even send things to you just like a delivery man（快递员）.

People can wear this thermometer（体温计） on their arms. It looks like a bandage. They can check their body temperature by an app on their smart phones. If someone gets a high temperature, the thermometer will tell it. It means people won’t need a doctor to check their temperature any more.

Players have some great “friends”. Smart robots can help them carry their heavy things, such as big sports bags and all kinds of balls. This saves players time and energy（精力）. The robots can also see and keep away from the things in front of them.

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【推荐1】Look around you—how many plastic (塑料) things can you find in your house? Most homes today are almost full of plastic, from water bottles to clothes, chairs, and even computers. Regretfully, so are our rivers and oceans.

According to research, about 583 billion (十亿) plastic bottles were produced in 2021. That is 100 billion more than just five years ago. This year, five trillion (万亿) plastic bags are used. That’s 160,000 every second. Americans alone use half a million drinking straws (吸管) every day.

However, very little of the plastic that goes into recycling bins (回收箱) can make it through the recycling process. It’s said that only around 9 percent of plastic is recycled. About 16 percent is burned for electricity or heat. The rest ends up in landfills (填埋场) or bodies of water.

Not all the plastic things you put in your recycling bin can be recycled and reused. In most cases, plastic things can’t be used again if they have more than one kind of plastic in them. That’s because some plastics can’t be mixed together.

How about those plastic things that are able to be recycled at a recycling center? First, workers make sure that each plastic is clean. After that, the plastic things are made into small pieces. At last, they are melted (熔化) and used to create new things. One of the commonly seen products is new plastic bottles. Recycled plastic can also be used to make clothes, pens, pencils, and building materials!

【推荐2】Today, the world is changing rapidly with the ever-changing technology. There is no doubt that our lives have been enriched by new technologies. Let’s look at four of them together.

You can see different kinds of driverless cars at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. For example, when you feel tired, you can have a rest in a driverless minibus. When you feel hungry, you can buy food from a “driverless car store”. Another kind of driverless car can even send things to you just like a postman. They help to make the Games a bigger success.

On March 23, 2022, three Chinese astronauts gave their second lecture from Tiangong space station. The content (内容) of the second lesture has been chosen from opinions and advice from the public. They did several experiments (实验). They also showed some tools to study science. In fact, the three astronauts gave their first lecture last December. Millions of students watched them and learned many fantastic science facts from the special space lectures.

This May, a middle school in Beijing used 3D printing technology to print graduation photos for Grade 9 students. It took them almost ten weeks to finish this task. Students can touch the “faces” of their classmates. This technology especially can help the blind students “see” their classmates. While a group of sixth-graders used 3D printers to create mini 3D-printed model villages for homeless people in America.

Let’s talk about the latest wonder of AI technology, ChatGPT. Over a million users have started to use ChatGPT within the first five days since it was opened to the public. Of course ChatGPT does well in chatting with you. Amazingly it can write songs, articles, novels, even poems in styles of famous writers from all over the world. Its powerful ability also includes translating.

【推荐3】Every year on 15th October, over 200 million people around the world take part in Global Handwashing Day. But why do we have a day for something we do all the time? Well, research shows that not enough people often wash their hands with soap. Experts believe that this leads to the deaths of millions of people every year.

Sidibe, a public health expert says soap is the most beautiful invention in public health. Washing your hands with soap can have a huge impact on reducing(减少) the spread of diseases. Handwashing with soap prevents babies from getting ill and keeps children healthy in school.

However, washing hands with soap does not happen as often as you might think. This is partly because there aren’t enough resources(资源) in poorer countries, but it’s also because for many people, handwashing is simply not part of their everyday life. It’s not easy to get people to change habits they learned in early childhood --but this is what Global Handwashing Day wants to do.

In 2008, the Indian cricket team joined around 100 million Indian schoolchildren in washing their hands to promote(促进) the first ever Global Handwashing Day. Every year since then, many different events have been held around the world. In 2014, Global Handwashing Day was used in the fight against Ebola, a very serious disease, with events held in affected(受感染的) African countries.

Today, local and national leaders continue to use the day to spread the message about the importance of clean hands. The hope is that handwashing becomes a necessary part of people’s lives and improves the health of millions around the world.

【推荐1】Our Future in Space

Many people believe that one day, we may leave the Earth to make our home among the stars. At that time, many people, including you, might live in a space station 200 miles above the Earth.

Space Cities

There will be cities like the one we are living in now.     1     Hundreds, or even thousands, of people will live, work and go to school there.

In fact, we have explored(探索) part of the Moon, and even sent spaceships to the surface of Venus and Mars.     2    

Go into Space

The Moon is full of valuable metals. These metals—if we got them—could be used to build factories and space stations.     3     In that case, more energy can be turned into electricity—for creating comfortable living conditions.

From space, too, we can look down on the Earth and study the atmosphere, its weather, and the influence of air pollution to save it.

At Home in Space

    4     For example, we have to protect ourselves from the ultraviolet(紫外线) because it can give us bad sunburns. Besides, our bones(骨头) will become weaker if we stay out in space for a long time. But we’ll surely find out the solution.

Yet, these risks won’t keep people from going into space.     5     And people will live there with many different interests—medicine, farming, teaching and so on.

The next hundred years will be filled with other worldly adventures, exciting scientific discoveries, and danger, as humans leave the Earth—perhaps forever.

【推荐3】Astronauts may soon be going to the moon again. NASA plans to build bases (基地) there. The astronauts will not be able to take all the food they will need. So they may have to grow some of it on lunar farms.

But can plants grow on the moon? Maybe. That is according to a new study. Scientists used soil brought back from past moon missions(任务). They used it to grow plants here on Earth. It turns out, success could depend on where on the moon you do your planting.

In the 1960s and 1970s, NASA ran the Apollo program. It sent astronauts to the moon. In the new study, scientists used soil that astronauts collected there.

Scientists put this soil in little cups. Each cup got about a teaspoon of lunar soil. Other cups got Earth soil. The scientists planted seeds. They watered the soil. They put the cups under growth lights.

In the Earth soil, plants sprouted healthy leaves. Moon soil sprouted leaves too. But those plants were smaller. And they were less healthy. The older the moon soil, the worse the plants grew.

Stephen Elardo is one of the scientists. He says it still might be possible to grow plants on the moon. The key(关键) could be finding the right spot. One example may be where volcanoes(火山) once broken. The soil is newer there. Scientists still have much to learn. But this study brings humans one step closer to calling the moon home.