1 . McCormick Place in Chicago is the largest convention center in North America. It’s covered in glass, which is enjoyable for humans but deadly for birds. On Oct 5, nearly 1000 birds were found dead after having collided (碰撞) with the building’s glass walls. Most of them died on the spot because of broken bones in their heads.

One key reason is the glass. The birds get fooled by it. During the day, the birds fly toward it as it reflects (反射) a perfect image of the sky and nearby trees. As night falls, the bright light from glass buildings attracts (吸引) the birds, who are usually guided by the light of the moon and stars. The recent collision occurred between the night of Oct 4 and early next morning, when the lights in the building were on for an event.

Every year, nearly one billion birds collide with glass in the US, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In China, bird collisions are also common. In the autumn of 2022 and the spring of 2023, the National Anti-bird Collisions Action Alliance reported a total of 190 cases of bird collision, which included several types of birds listed as second-class protected wildlife.

These sad stories could have been avoided if action had been taken. Many countries and regions have put forward building design ideas to help keep birds safe. These include using less glass in building walls and adding bird-friendly materials and stickers (贴纸) onto the buildings’ walls. Turning off lights at night also helps avoid bird collisions.

Apart from regulations (规定) for bird-friendly building design, we can also do our part to save birds by putting stickers on the glass windows in our homes and closing the curtains (窗帘) at night.

3 . On June 5, 2022, China sent the Shenzhou-14 spaceship into space successfully. Cai Xuzhe, one of the three astronauts in the flight, became the first astronaut in Hebei Province to go into space to perform a space task.

Cai Xuzhe was born in 1976, in the countryside of Hebei Province. As a child, every time he heard a plane flying past, he would run outside and stare up at it till it flew away.

Cai went into an Air Force flight college in his final year at school in 1995. After graduating from college, he volunteered to work at an airport which has few pilots and poor condition. He studied and trained his flying skills there really hard. Cai became a member of China’s second-generation astronauts in May, 2010.

Since then, he has got hard training that is a big challenge to him. The training in the desert in northwest China in 2018 had a great influence on him. During the 48-hour training, he endured (忍受) heat above 40 degrees, sandstorms, heavy rain, and cold below zero degrees at night. He seemed to experience all four seasons in the 48 hours. His outstanding training performance finally made him become a member of Shenzhou-14 group.

Dreaming of flying high since childhood, Cai Xuzhe, a new face of the Shenzhou-14 group, has spent many years as an astronaut to prepare for his debut in space. “I feel proud to have this chance to go into space,” he said.

On that day, Cai Xuzhe’s hometown was boiling. The villagers beat gongs and drums in the village cultural square and celebrated lively. “I hope he will successfully complete his first space task and return safely,” Cai Xuzhe’s father said excitedly.

Welcome back home! On Sept 25, Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer（首席财务官）Meng Wanzhou, 49, arrived in Shenzhen, Guangdong, after being illegally held（非法拘留）for nearly three years in Canada, Xinhua reported.

“After more than 1, 000 days of suffering（痛苦）, I finally returned to the motherland,” Meng said after she got off the plane. She described the motherland, the Party and the government as the shining（闪亮的）light that led her on the long journey home.

On Dec 1, 2018, Meng was held in Canada because the US charged（指控）her with fraud（欺诈）. The US wanted to take her to the US for trial（审讯）. Meng pleaded not guilty（不认罪）to the charge and finally was free to leave Canada on Sept 24 local time.

“This is a political case（政治案）trying to break Chinese high-tech companies（such as Huawei）,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Sept 25. Meng’s safe return shows that the Chinese government has the will and ability to protect the rights（权力）of Chinese people and companies, according to Hua.

“A strong China under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China will always be the strong backing（后盾）of each one of us,” said Hua. She added that China’s development will not be stopped by any force.

7 . Water shortages influence so many lives. The company Watergen produced a new machine to help solve this problem. The machine, called GENNY, is small enough to be used in a home or office but can produce up to 30 liters of water a day. More importantly, it can produce clean water out of air.

GENNY takes air in and passes it through a filter（过滤器）to remove dust and dirt. The filter is powerful enough to work even in areas with high air pollution. The air then passes through a room where heating and cooling turns steam in the air into water. This water is then passed through several more filters, and minerals are added to make it healthier and better tasting. Finally, the water is kept in a tank where it is continually recycled to keep it fresh.

The heating and cooling process, called GENius, is far more energy-efficient than other technologies that produce water from air. It produces four to five times more water per kilowatt-hour（千瓦时）. Watergen has other products that use this same technology in a larger size, the largest of which can produce up to 5,000 liters of water per day.

As a company, Watergen aims to provide drinking water to the billions of people who don’t have safe drinking water at home. Last year Watergen’s large-size products were given to the local government in Brazil, Vietnam and India.

Watergon tries to help the environment by reducing waste caused by plastic bottles. People can put the water from GENNY into reusable bottles so that plastic ones don’t get used and thrown away. It also calls for saving energy. There are even two types of GENNY: one that uses the electrical power supply and another that runs on energy from solar power. The latter one is particularly useful for villages or other areas not connected to an electrical network.

Watergen’s technology is sure to help many people around the world as well as help take care of our planet.

10 . A Japanese technology company has created Japan’s first virtual (虚拟的) male influencer (网红), a young music producer named Liam Nikuro.

Following the success of digital social media stars like Miquea and Imma, a Japanese technology company began to create the Asian country’s first virtual male model. The result of their hard work is Liam Nikuro, a young heart-throb (万人迷) who reportedly works in the fields of music, fashion and entertainment.

Liam is too perfect-looking to be an actual human being, but at the same time he is proved to be the advancement of computer produced modeling (模特行业). For example, he is more realistic-looking than Miquela, the hottest virtual influencer on Instagram (照片墙) right now, but he still has a long way to go to reach his 1.6 million fans, so his looks can only take him so far.

Luckily, Liam’s creators are working hard to develop a believable personality to match his ultra-realistic (逼真的) appearance. Besides cool job in the music industry and an interest in fashion, makeup and entertainment, Liam also has favourite foods, movies and future plans. Liam will be combined with artificial intelligence technology.

The child of a Japanese mother and an American father, Liam was born in the United States, lives in California, stands at 180 cm and weighs 72 kg.

“Liam may be virtual, but we are aiming to create content that is just as fascinating and cool as what his real counterparts (对手) have to offer, and to entertain people all over the world,” Genie, producer of the Liam Nikuro project, said. “We are working on a lot of projects that we are going to bring to the world in the near future.”Liam only has 8,700 followers on Instagram. He is not exactly the most successful influencer on the popular social network, but there’s no doubt that he’s more successful than a lot of humans on it. What’s more, he’s just getting started.