The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics was a great success. China has kept the promise to hold a green Olympics. Many green actions made it possible, like providing environmentally friendly smart beds, using new energy (能源) cars, supporting sporting places with 100% clean energy and reusing rain and snow water.

Take making ice as an example. China didn’t use R507, a common material to make ice, because it isn’t friendly enough to the environment. Through 18 months’hard work, China independently developed the CO₂ direct cooling technology.

A net of tubes (管网) runs under the ice. High-pressure liquid (高压液态) CO₂ goes through them to create heat exchange. The CO₂ evaporates (蒸发) under the ice surface. The evaporation takes in heat and turns water on the surface into ice. And the CO₂ goes into another circle. This technology helps to make ice better and faster. And above all, it is much greener because there’s no new CO₂ produced. Among all the 15 ice sporting places in the Winter Olympics, 7 used the CO₂ direct cooling technology to make ice. As a result, much less pollution was caused.

Beijing did so much more to save energy. Beijing built the new sporting places with green materials. As for the old ones, Beijing used new glass walls to take the place of traditional walls to let more natural light in. 70% of the waste heat was also reused to keep warm and dry. And a large number of new energy cars were used at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is the first to truly achieve carbon neutrality (碳中和), and it has set new standards (标准) in green technologies. Some newspapers say China has set an example for the world in environmental protection and green development.

【推荐2】Robots are playing an important role in our life. They can help people a lot.

In our homes, robots are useful. They can help us do some cooking. They can help the blind (盲人) read newspapers and help the old people move some heavy things. They can play chess with children.     1     They are people’s best friends.

    2     They work faster and do not need a rest. People will get bored if they do the same work over and over again. But the robots will not. And they can do some work in the dangerous or dirty places.     3    

However, robots are not as clever as people.     4     If we do not “teach” them how to do things first, they can do nothing.

【推荐3】Nowadays the intelligent parcel lockers like Hive Box（蜂巢） started to play an important role in our life.

Before the introduction of intelligent parcel lookers, although a large part of the delivery（派送）process started to use machines and technologies, last-mile delivery mainly depends on couriers（快递员）. With the increase in the number of express orders, there are more problems such as shortage of couriers and too much work pressure. At the same time, because of different addresses and the uncertainty of the picking time as well as other reasons, the speed of couriers was very low. What’s worse, second deliveries often took place. Under such situation, intelligent parcel lockers were put into use. They greatly improve users’ experience and delivery speed.

However, some serious problems actually impede the development of it. That’s why it doesn’t develop as fast as we expect. The cost of using the lockers at the early stage is expensive. Although the free storage with no time limit once attracted a large member of users, such kind of method is not practical in the long run and has caused losses these years.

Take Hive Box, the leading company as well as the owner of the China’s largest self-service parcel locker in this industry, as an example. In 2019, the intelligent parcel lookers of the Hive Box led to a wide-spread discussion. Because the locker put up a notice that tried to let the users pay 1 RMB to get their parcels without informing at first. On April 30, 2020, Hive Box began a membership system. It also caused dissatisfaction.

It seems that the intelligent parcel lockers industry has been exploring its way to make more money and reduce losses, but so far, there has been no perfect solution. So some actions should be taken and more studies should be done to guide it to the correct path to a better development.

【推荐2】Can you believe that one day you can visit other countries without your paper passport (护照)? That might come true. And the paper passport will become history. People may use a new kind of passport called the cloud passport in the future.

It’s reported that Australia will be the first country to use the cloud passport, and Australians can travel without a paper passport between Australia and New Zealand.

How does it work? Australian people’s names, photos and other information will be stored (存储) in a cloud. As a result, passengers will no longer need to carry their paper passports. Each year, tens of thousands of Australian passports are lost or stolen. With the cloud passport, people don’t have to worry about that any more.

Although the cloud passport hasn’t been worked out yet, questions are being asked about the safety of a cloud system that stores people’s information. “The idea of a cloud passport would of course be grounded on safety (以安全为基础). We are proud (自豪的) that we have one of the safest passports in the world. But by trying new things, we might be able to do even better,” said Julie Bishop, the minister (部长) of Australia Foreign Affairs.

【推荐3】When we think of the most respected awards in the world, the Nobel Prize must be on the list.

Created by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel in 1895, the prize recognizes achievements in sciences and the people behind them. Every year in October, the announcement (宣布) of winners catches the world’s attention.

But what is the importance behind this award? According to founder Nobel himself, the prize is for people who have provided “the greatest benefit (好处) to humankind”.

A number of Nobel Prizes have rewarded discoveries that have led to cures for diseases and health problems. A lot of parts in telephones, computers and telecommunication systems are also the fruits of Nobel Prize—awarded work. Other prizes have recognized those who have helped to create a more peaceful world.

The individuals chosen and the contributions (贡献) they made show how science, literature (文学) and peace efforts improve and change the world and better our lives.

In the series of books about the Nobel Prize, the author says, “many everyday things would be impossible without the work of the winners of the Nobel science prizes”.

Think about the plastic bags. Plastic wouldn’t have been invented without Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald’s research. The German scientist won the Nobel Prize in 1909.

In recent years, Chinese people have paid more attention to the results of the Nobel Prize. Chinese scientists and writers are known to the world by their achievements, such as 2012 Nobel literature prize winner Mo Yan, and Tu Youyou, China’s first Nobel winner in physiology or medicine in 2015. It’s an uplifting thing. Not only for the individual achievements, but also for the national confidence.

The Paper noted that the prize can encourage the young to do scientific research. Do you have any ideas about this?

【推荐2】Look！Here is a blue box in the classroom.It's Miss Green's.In the box are a red schoolbag，a purple notebook and an English­Chinese dictionary.The schoolbag is Lisa's.It is nice.You can see a pencil box，some books and three keys in it.Look at the notebook！Is it Bob's？No，it isn't.It's his sister Sally's.Her name is on the first page (页)．Whose is the dictionary？Oh，we don't know.Miss Green found it in the school library this morning.Is it yours？Ask Miss Green for it.

【推荐1】Some kids wonder what they will be when they grow up. But Lois Lowry always knew. "I wanted to be a writer, as a kid." she told a kid reporter earlier this year. "It was my only dream."

Lowry is a famous writer. She has written more than 40 books for children and teenagers. Two of her books - The Giver and Number the Stars - won the Newbery Medal. It's the top prize for children's book writers.

Number the Stars came out about 25 years ago. It's a famous book about Denmark during World War Ⅱ. It's popular among American children. To celebrate its success, a reporter is going to have a chat with Lowry online. People can learn more about Lowry and her books.

Students from South Carolina, New Jersey, and Canada are interested in her books. On October 20, they received free digital(数字的) copies of Number the Stars through the Google Play for Education store. They can join the chat from their classroom to ask questions about the book. Everyone is looking forward to it because they can learn a lot from the famous writer.

【推荐2】After the surgery, Sun suffered intense pain, but insisted that he didn’t need any medication. One evening, he found Law, his wife, crying on the balcony of their apartment in a rare outburst of frustration. "If you don't help yourself, no one else can," she said.

Sun started a list "How to Help Myself", and on it he wrote, "Keep communicating with the doctors, even if they are darker thoughts." On Oct. 20th, a few days before his 33 birthday, Sun wrote in a Facebook post, "It's been hard to get along with having aggressive and incurable Grade 4 brain cancer; it's been hard not to get angry and sad about it; it's been frustrating that every pathology（病理）test after my surgery came back with the worst possible result; and it's been hard to accept that modern medicine isn’t able to fix me." At the same time, he wrote, "Every day I wake up not-dead is a gift."

Sun and Law had other lists, detailing the things that they hoped to accomplish in life, which included a trip to Wimbledon; climbing Mt. Snowdon in Wales; and a range of musical aspirations（愿望）—from learning the Bach sonatas（奏鸣曲）and partitas（变奏曲）to performing the first violin part in a concert. Sun started working on Bach’s six sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin, the most difficult parts, which George Enescu, a world-famous violinist, once described as the Himalayas for violinists. Sun practiced every day, even if he could manage only fifteen minutes between medical treatments. As he mastered each piece, he posted his performances on Facebook. He finished on November 12th, then turned to the even more difficult Paganini caprices（随想曲）, which he had often listened to in a recording by Itzhak Perlman. "It's something I always wanted to play when I grew up, like wanting to be a great baseball player," he said.

【推荐3】No one can deny（否认）that Jennifer Lawrence is one of the most popular stars in the world. From collecting an Oscar to being chosen as Favorite Movie Actress at the US Kids' Choice Awards, she has many fans of all ages.

But as successful as she is, Lawrence has worked hard to stay natural and down-to-earth. She has a cheerful nature, saying things most actresses would keep to themselves. Wearing a beautiful outfit and jewelry at a big event, she told the reporters, “None of this is mine. I have to give it back.” She was also caught on live TV asking one of her co-stars “Is your rash（疹子）doing OK?”.

As part of the Hollywood “machine”, Lawrence plays the game as much as she has to, but still tries to stay real and think critically. In January 2013, she won Best Actress at the LA Critics Awards. While she was giving her speech, Lawrence refused to read the last part of her speech. She thought the speech written by her publicist didn't make sense. “The publicist said something I don't understand so I'm not going to say it.” she told the audience.

She has also criticized TV shows that promote an unrealistic body image. She said it is wrong to call people ugly or fat. In her opinion, girls should have a healthy relationship with food. “You look how you look. You have to be comfortable. What are you going to do? Be hungry every single day to make other people happy? That's just dumb （愚蠢的）,” she said.