【推荐1】It’s a boring thing when we step (踩) on the gum on the road. Now a shoe company Explicit Wear in Amsterdam finds a good way to help people keep away from the boring thing. And it can also help keep the streets clean.

Explicit Wear thinks up a good idea. They can make sports shoes with the recycled gum. They put the recycled gum into good use. Every year, people throw more than 1.360 tons of gum on the street. It costs much money to clean up the streets. With the good idea, the city gets a lot of help.

It needs nearly 1kg of gum to make every four pairs of shoes. There is a map of Amsterdam under the shoe. The shoes can remind ( 提醒) people of the littering problem. Even better the shoes smell good.

According to reports, a hotel in Xiacheng District, Hangzhou, has put chips (芯片) in all its hotel linens (酒店布草) such as sheets (床单) and towels (毛巾). The chips are like the ID cards of the linens. They record the information about the number of the linens in guest rooms and when they are washed and changed. Guests can check the cleanliness (清洁) of the linens by scanning a QR code (扫描二维码) in their rooms. Workers in the hotel can learn about the information by scanning the chips with a tool on their mobile phones, the linens in a room are not washed or changed, they will quickly act.

At the same time, another hotel in the district has even put chips in dusters (抹布) to make sure they are used properly. In recent years, many hotels, even some five-star hotels have been caught using dusters to clean cups. That has caused the rise of worries about guests’ health. ________ The chips are connected with a smart bracelet (手环) worn by the workers. If they use the dusters to clean the wrong things, the bracelet will sound an alarm.

The two hotels are among the test hotels of the “transparent cleaning intelligent supervision system (透明保洁智能监管系统)” in Xiacheng District. Since December 2020, the system has been tested in twelve hotels and by two hotel chains. Actually, some hotels in cities like Xi’an and Wuhan are doing something similar. Lots of people give the thumbs up to the efforts from the hotels, and they hope more and more hotels will take action.

【推荐2】

Tom Smith is a reporter from America. Many days ago he spent a very special day in Beijing without a wallet. How could he do that? At the beginning, Tom was worried about what to do. But later he was excited to find it so easy.

By scanning a QR code (扫描二维码) on the window of a street restaurant, Tom bought a pancake for his breakfast. It only took him a few seconds to buy the pancake with six yuan. He just put in a password. It includes numbers and letters.

After breakfast, Tom used his phone to ask for a taxi to meet Gu Yu. He used a new payment app. The app can help the users to save money when they ask for taxis. Tom planned to interview (采访) Gu Yu about his life. It took them about eight hours.

When Tom got back to his hotel by taxi again, he was tired but happy because he spent a special day in Beijing.

【推荐1】A new contact lens（隐形眼镜片） has been developed by scientists from America, Britain and China. It can check for illnesses at any time by examining chemical in tears. A new sensor（感应器）is used to achieve the purpose.

Scientists hope that the improvement could help to deal with sudden medical events. Dr Zhao Yunlong said. “COVID-19 has had a great influence on the scientific world. And we are doing research to help people deal with similar events in the future.”

When introducing the new contact lens, Dr. Guo Shiqi, a researcher at Harvard, said. “In the past, the sensor was put between the layers（层）of the lens. It didn’t have direct contact（接触） with tears. But our new sensor is smaller and smarter, it can be fixed to a lens and keep direct contact with tears. What’s more, it causes no discomfort to the eye.”

The contact lens has not been put to the market, but researchers are quite sure that it will be welcomed. It is especially useful for the old and those who may experience sudden medical events.

As society develops, scientists are supposed to develop more products that provide care and convenience（便利） for people. The contact lens is one of what they are researching on. Earlier, a California company developed another kind of contact lens using LED technology. It can show the health information on the mobile phone. Steve Sinclair, head of the company, said, “We have to build something that helps you when you need it and stays off when you don’t need it.”

【推荐2】Shanghainese is a dialect(方言) which is completely different from Mandarin(普通话), Shanghai is part of the Yangtze River Delta region. This region is home to some 220 million people. At first, the region was made up of the Wu people, who spoke a family of dialects known as Wu Chinese, with 80 million native speakers. Shanghainese is one of them.

Way back in 1950, Mandarin, a dialect from Beijing, became China’s official language. Then in 1992, Shanghainese was banned from use at school when the government pushed for a Mandarin education system.

Many local children today can understand the language, but they can’t speak it well. That’s mainly because Shanghainese is passed on only through family and not formal education.

Luckily, there is the only school in Shanghai still teaching the dialect, LTL Mandarin School. The teacher, Alex Wang, says that, the best way to learn Shanghainese is to find some local friends and make them your personal teacher every time you meet up with them.

Since 2005, efforts have been made to protect Shanghainese. They include more TV programs in Shanghainese, more study of the language, and even use of Shanghainese on some public transport.

One of the people helping pass the language on to today’s youth is Wang Yuanchao who writes and records songs in Shanghainese for school children. “I realize that fewer and fewer kids can speak Shanghainese,” he said.“So I want to give them more opportunities to sing and act out Shanghainese.”

【推荐3】If drones (无人机) have feet like birds, could they fly further and do more things? Scientists from Stanford University in the US have made such drones.

They added robotic (机械的) “claws” to some drones. If the drone is helping people collect data (数据) in forests, for example, they can stand on tree branches (树枝) instead of flying all the time. This saves lots of power (电量).

Making drones fly and land like birds is not easy. Branches are all different in size and shape. They might also be slippery (滑的) from rain. The team used high-speed cameras to study how birds land and take off. They found that birds curl (卷曲) their claws around a branch. They also have soft toe pads (肉垫) to help them hold more easily.

The team then 3D-printed the claws. They have motors (发动机) that act like muscles (肌肉), and wires (导线) that act like tendons (肌腱). The grabbing action takes 20 milliseconds(毫秒).

Once the drone grabs the branch, the balancing system (平衡系统) starts. It tilts (倾斜) the drone forward so that the drone won’t fall, just like real birds.

Now if you throw things like bags or balls at the “birdbot (仿生鸵鸟机器腿)”, it can successfully catch them. It can land in forests, too.

Scientists hope the new tool can help people study the natural environment more easily.