1 . 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.

2 . “Motasharefon bema’ refatek!” is often heard in Arabs’ daily talks. This greeting in the language Arabic means “Nice to meet you!” You may find Arabic difficult to understand, but the following facts can offer you some basics.

Arabic is s language of over twenty countries across the Middle East and North Africa, It’s also one of the six official languages of the UN. Now about 400 million people worldwide speak Arabic.

Arabic has different varieties. One of them is Modern Standard Arabic. It is taught at schools in all Arabic-speaking countries and used formally over media. Colloquial Arabic is another variety which people in the Arab world usually use in their everyday life.

Arabic is written from right to left in a beautiful and flowing script. Written Arabic is formed from eighteen different curves with dots () above or below. The curve () with one dot below is pronounced /b/, two on top is /t/, and three on top is /th/, while the curve () with two dots below is pronounced /y/.

A main feature of Arable is the throe letter root system. Almost every Arabic word is based on a root of three letters. If you take a root and add other letters to it, you can create many words related to the meaning of that root. For example, “k-t-b” is a common root in Arabic. Some words from that root are kitaab (“book”) and maktaba (“library”).

There are more facts about Arabic for you to explore. You’ll find that learning about it helps open up door to a different culture and provides a new way of thinking about the world.

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3 . Good photographers are like reporters. They record people’s lives with cameras. They are also like artists or writers. Their photos can make people think or feel something.

About 50 percent of food in the US is wasted. Wasted food produces gas that will cause global warming, and brings other problems like energy emergency. To reduce food waste, people in the food packaging industry are working to develop products for longer shelf life.

Jonathan Deutsch, a professor of food science, says, “All food packaging is designed to explain the contents, protect the quality, and make sure the safety of the product. “When packaging keeps food safe and fresh for a longer time, less waste happens.

Making food last longer is not easy because different foods need different packaging. Fats, for example, change when meeting air and light. That’s why fatty foods, like potato chips, are always kept in packages which light can’t get through. And cookies are afraid of getting wet. Keeping those snacks in a fully closed package will help them stay fresh and tasty longer.

Packaging can extend shelf life by keeping out gases in the air, like oxygen*. Oxygen causes problems for many different foods. So many food packages are designed to solve the air problem. Vacuum-sealed packaging takes off any oxygen between the food and packaging, which can increase shelf life from a few days to a few weeks. Modified atmosphere packaging is another solution. Unlike vacuum-sealed packaging, which takes off as much air as possible, this packaging replaces the air with a right mixture of gases. Red meat needs some oxygen to keep its colour, but too much oxygen can make it go bad. This kind of packaging can extend shelf life while keeping the product’s colour.

While packaging can help reduce food waste, people also need to consider the environmental influence of the packaging itself. Scientists are working to develop more proper materials. And more people get to know the importance of reducing food waste. “Unlike many of the challenges we face right now on our planet,” said Shukla from Food & Wine magazine, “Food waste is something that every single person can do something about.”

6 . Parades, music, art, and food from many different cultures…if this sounds fun to you, then you can’t miss the Mombasa Carnival, a huge multicultural street party that takes place every November in Mombasa, Kenya. It’s a festival that celebrates not only African culture, but also cultures from other countries.

Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya, Africa, and since the 12th century, it has been a stopping place for many foreign traders. Indians, Arabians, as well as the Spanish, all came there and left pieces of their cultures behind.

During the festival, businessmen line the streets, selling products. Some traditional artists show and sell their works, and local bands play Afropop and other types of music while traditional and modern dancing all take place on stage and in the streets.

Men and women wear traditional clothing, such as the kikoy. It’s a large piece of cloth that covers around the body and is tied at the waist or below the armpits with bright colors, usually worn by both men and women. The cloth can also be a skirt or even be used as a bag to carry babies. This type of clothing represents African culture.

There’s plenty to eat and drink for sale, like mnazi, a drink made from coconut, and madafu, which is fresh coconut milk. There are vegetables or meat dishes, often very hot and served on rice. Or try nayama choma, made by beef over a fire.

The festival is Mombasa’s celebration of all the cultures that have combined to make the city special. It’s an excellent way to experience some different cultural influences on Mombasa while having a great time!

Scientists understand why summer leaves are green and why they change to yellow or orange in the autumn. But autumn reds are different. Some leaves turn red. Others don’t. It’s amystery. Scientists want to find the answers.

All summer long, a green chemical called chlorophyll catches energy from sunlight for photosynthesis, a process that makes food for the plant. Yellow and orange chemicals called carotenoids are there through the summer, hidden by the chlorophyll. In the autumn, photosynthesis stops, and chlorophyll breaks down.Then carotenoids show through in the leaves. This explains the autumn colours of yellow and orange, but not the reds of trees. The source of the reds is anthocyanin which the leaf doesn’t start making until autumn.

But why do trees use a lot of energy to make anthocyanins in the leaves as the trees are preparing to drop them for the winter?Perhaps anthocyanins help a leaf save nutrients it stored up in the growing season. Dr.Eppes and her students ran a study to test that idea. In a protected area in North Carolina, they counted the types of trees that live in rich soil low on the hillsides, and the types that live in poor hilltop soils. Low on the hillsides, they found more birches and other trees that can’t make anthocyanins. These trees have yellow or brown autumn leaves. On the hilltops, most of the trees were red maples and others that can make anthocyanins, giving them red leaves in the autumn.

“Trees that don’t make anthocvanins seem to naturally live at places where nutrients get added to the soil every time the river floods, ” Dr.Eppes says. “Trees that make anthocyanins seem to live in places without this special ‘meal’.” She guesses the anthocyanins may lie in the soil after he leaves drop, fertilizing the tree in the spring,

Other scientists find that for trees that make anthocyanins, the leaves that get more sun tend to turn redder than those in shade. They think the anthocyanins work like sunscreen, protecting the leaf when it moves nutrients into the tree and stores them for the winter.

Scientists are not sure about why nature paints some autumn leaves red yet, but they are a few steps closer!

8 . The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on December 25, 2021. It’s a space telescope developed by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Agency. Named after James E.Webb, who created Apollo program, this telescope is a replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope, which headed to space in 1990.

Webb is different from Hubble in some ways. It can see infrared light which makes it possible to look through clouds of gas and dust in the universe and explore the very distant galaxies.With a 6.5-meter-wide golden mirror, it can collect more than six times as much light as the Hubble mirror, so it can see tiny objects more clearly. To “see” faint galaxies in infrared light, Webb needs to be extremely cold, or it would only see its own infrared light. Made of a thin plastic, the heat shield is five layers thick, and it keeps the mirror at minus 234°C. Besides, Hubble moves only about 550 km above Earth while Webb orbits the sun, 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth. This lets Webb stay in line with Earth, allowing the moon to protect it from the light and heat of the sun and Earth.

As the most powerful telescope ever made, Webb is a giant step forward in human space exploration. With it, scientists can observe the very distant galaxies to see how the first galaxies forming out of the darkness. By comparing the earliest galaxies with today’s, they may understand how galaxies have changed over time. It’s also possible for them to study the atmospheres of the faraway planets and search for possible signs of life. Above all, seeing through and into clouds of dust also allows them to find out where stars and planetary systems are being born. This is the primary goal of Webb.

Webb is scheduled to work in space for between five and ten years, so it has enough time to send back fascinating data and images and give us a big surprise.

①Swifts live mostly in the air. These small birds are among the fastest animals on Earth. In fact, swifts can go two or three days without touching the ground! To get used to life in the sky, swifts use their speed and the saliva in their mouths.

②Swifts can fly faster than 100 miles per hour. That’s because their wings are like boomerangs. This shape of the wings helps them to fly much faster. They can also move one wing faster than the other, which allows them to make sharp turns without slowing down. Making fast, sharp turns helps swifts catching flying bugs to eat.

③The saliva helps swifts catch bugs to feed their young. It is sticky, like glue. Swifts often fly into clouds of bugs such as mosquitoes and open their wide mouths to catch as many insects as they can. The bird collects insects in its mouth graduallyand holds the insects in a sticky ball of saliva. One food ball can contain nearly 1,000 bugs.

④Swifts also use their saliva as glue to build their nests. The birds catch feathers in the air and stick the feathers together to build a strong nest on the side of a cliffor building. Swifts’ short feet are not good for walking or standing on land for long. But their sharp claws allow them to stick to rocks and walls so they can take a brief rest before returning their lives in the sky.

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