【推荐1】Sperm whales（抹香鲸）live in every ocean on the earth. Their large heads help them stand out from other whales.     1    

They have the biggest brains on Earth. Human brains weigh about 1.4 kilograms. However, a sperm whale’s brain can weigh up to 9 kilograms! They are clever sea animals. Sperm whales are good at diving（潜水）. These huge animals can get to around 2,000 meters deep and can go for over 60 minutes between breaths.     2     They make special high sounds to send information to one another from hundreds of kilometers away. The sounds are even louder than those made by planes. What’s more, each whale makes its own sound.     3    

They produce Ambergris（龙涎香）that is worth as much as gold.     4    Ambergris is thought to protect the whale from the sharp things that it eats. Sperm whales release（释放）ambergris into the sea as a sweet-smelling, egg-shaped ball. Because ambergris is often used in fine perfumes（香料）but so hard to get, so a kilogram of it can sell for up to $50,000.       5     Sperm whales are amazing animals on Earth.

【推荐3】Known as the “Olympics of Skills”, the WorldSkills Competition is held every two years by WorldSkills International. They planned to have it in Shanghai last year. But they finally gave it up because of COVID-19. Then they came up with the idea of holding the World Skills Competition 2022 Special Edition.

The WorldSkills Competition 2022 Special Edition took place in 15 countries and regions(地区) in Asia, Europe and Africa from the middle of September to late November. There were 62 events. Competitors from different countries and regions took part in it. 36 Chinese players took part in 34 events. They won 21 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze medals.

On October 15th in Switzerland, Li Dexin won China’s first gold in cabinetmaking(家具制作). On October 16th and 17th in South Korea, Yang Shuming won the gold in mobile app development, and Luo Kai won China’s first gold in the 3D digital(数字的) game art event. On October 25th in Finland, Dong Qing, a teacher from Hunan Arts and Crafts Vocational(职业的) College, won the gold in fashion technology…

Nowadays, people are paying more and more attention to vocational education. It is as important as academic(学术的) learning.

【推荐1】Have you ever been asked to remember a list of words? If so, you might find that it’s easier to remember the very first words and the very last words on the list, but you cannot remember the middle part very clearly. This is because the “primacy effect” (首因效应) is at work. The primacy effect means that you tend to (倾向于) remember the very first and very last things on a list better than the things in the middle.

________ The main reason is that people tend to rehearse (默诵) things in order to remember them. This means people find it easier to remember what is shown early because they have practiced the beginning more than things in the middle. In one piece of research, when people are told not to rehearse or are not given enough time to rehearse, the primacy effect disappears.

Another reason is related to attention span (注意力时长). People tend to pay attention at the beginning and at the end of the presentation (演讲) , and so things in the beginning are more likely to be remembered. Thinking back to the last conversation you had, the paragraph you read or the show you watched, you probably focused on both the beginning and the end, but in the middle zoned out at some points.

Knowing the power of the primacy effect might help you a lot in life. If there is something that you want to stress: say it first, say it last, or both! This is when it is most likely to be remembered. As a student, you can change the order of the words on a list so that you can finally store everything to your long-term memory. Also, try paying attention to the difficult point at the beginning of your study and summarize each time span with another quick review of that point.

So the next time you want to make a good impression, or prepare for an exam, remember to put the above to good use.

【推荐3】① Can you imagine being at school and home at the same time? What about you thinking of a sentence, and your friend knows it just by a feeling?

② These may sound crazy in real life. But in microworld of quantum physics (微观量子) they could all be possible! This year’s Nobel Prize in physics was given to three quantum physicists. They are Alain Aspect from France, John Clauser from the US and Anton Zeilinger from Austria. They did a great job studying quantum entanglement (量子纠缠), which prepares the way for new technologies such as quantum computers and quantum communication.

③ What is quantum entanglement? When two particles (粒子) are entangled, everything about them-from their speed to the way they move-is perfectly connected. If you know the state of one particle, then you know the state of the other, even when the two particles are very far from each other.

④ Thanks to the winning scientists’ finding of this secret, quantum entanglement has now been used in some high technologies. For example, it can provide completely safe encryption (加密) in communication. Here’s how it works: changing one entangled particle influences another. So anyone trying to take a secret look at secret quantum information would break the particles’ entanglement. That means nobody can take a secret look at a quantum message without getting caught.

⑤ Another use is called “quantum teleportation (量子传输)”. This isn’t the same as people showing up from one place to another like in science stories. But it can send information from one place to another in the quantum state. It’s faster and safer than the traditional way of technology.

⑥ Quantum computers are another example. Normal computers (普通计算机) works by using ones and zeroes. Quantum computers would use bits of information that are both one and zero. Such computers could do counting that no normal computer can.

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