1 . The most important life lesson I’ve learned from running is to run at my own pace. This lesson has guided me in many ways. _________, it made me challenge the fixed expectations of retirement and aging.

Running is a metaphor for life. I realized this while _________ for a marathon to celebrate my 60th birthday. All the other runners being faster than me made me _________. But my coach shared some valuable advice: run at your own best pace. Setting a goal or target time could be a _________. He was right. _________, I ran more easily and faster. I also enjoyed the experience much more.

I have _________ this principle to other areas of my life. Finding a rhythm is not about _________ or how many things I can get done in a day. It has more to do with what I decide to do at this stage in my life.

Running carries its own set of expectations, including what it meant to be a strong runner. But expectations also _________ to other areas of life, including what people at certain life stages should be doing or not doing. Expectations at my age can _________ how leisure time is spent, decisions about employment and even the role of a ____________.

I used to think it was young people who bore the brunt (冲击) of ____________, but older adults can experience it too. This is ____________, because often later in life is a time when we are less inclined to care about the opinions of others.

That is the message my running coach was trying to convey. ____________ what others are doing.

Their pace is not ____________ the pace you should run at. Run in your own way. It’s not better or worse -only ____________.

3 . Some bacteria(细菌)have a superpower that scientists would love to use. These bacteria gain energy from light, just as plants do.Scientists have wanted to use cyanobacteria(蓝藻菌)to make electricity. But in previous research, they didn’t survive long on artificial surfaces. Researchers have now moved them to a living surface — a mushroom. Their creation is the first mushroom to make electricity.

Applied Physicist Simon Jackson and his team turned that mushroom into a mini energy farm. This bionic(生物电子的)mushroom combines 3D printing, conductive ink and bacteria to generate electricity. Its design could lead to new ways of combining nature with electronics.

Like plants, cyanobacteria make their own food from sunlight, releasing electrons(电子). When enough electrons build up in one place, they can create an electric current.

The researchers needed to bring a lot of these bacteria together. They decided to use 3D printing to place them precisely onto a surface.Jackson’s team chose mushrooms for that surface. After all, they realized, mushrooms naturally host communities of bacteria and other microbes. Finding test subjects for their tests was easy. Jackson simply went to the grocery store and picked up white button mushrooms.

Printing on those mushrooms, though, turned out to be a real challenge. 3D printers have been designed to print on flat surfaces, but mushroom caps are curved. The researchers spent months writing computer code to solve the problem. Eventually, they came up with a program to 3D print their ink onto the curved mushroom tops.

The researchers printed two“inks”onto their mushrooms. One was a green ink made of cyanobacteria. They used this to make a spiral pattern on the cap. They also used a black ink made of graphene, which is great at conducting electricity. They printed this ink in a branching pattern across the mushroom top.

Then it was time to shine.

“Cyanobacteria are the real heroes here,”says Jackson. When his team shone light on the mushrooms, the bacteria gave out electrons. Those electrons flowed into the graphene and created an electric current.

4 . Artificial intelligence models can trick each other into disobeying their creators and providing banned instructions for making drugs, or even building a bomb, suggesting that preventing such AI “jailbreaks” is more difficult than it seems.

Many publicly available large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, have hard-coded rules that aim to prevent them from exhibiting racial or sexual discrimination, or answering questions with illegal or problematic answers — things they have learned from humans via training data. But that hasn’t stopped people from finding carefully designed instructions that block these protections, known as “jailbreaks”, making AI models disobey the rules.

Now, Arush Tagade at Leap Laboratories and his co-workers have found a process of jailbreaks. They found that they could simply instruct one LLM to convince other models to adopt a persona (角色), which is able to answer questions the base model has been programmed to refuse. This process is called “persona modulation (调节)”.

Tagade says this approach works because much of the training data consumed by large models comes from online conversations, and the models learn to act in certain ways in response to different inputs. By having the right conversation with a model, it is possible to make it adopt a particular persona, causing it to act differently.

There is also an idea in AI circles, one yet to be proven, that creating lots of rules for an AI to prevent it displaying unwanted behaviour can accidentally create a blueprint for a model to act that way. This potentially leaves the AI easy to be tricked into taking on an evil persona. “If you’re forcing your model to be good persona, it somewhat understands what a bad persona is,” says Tagade.

Yinzhen Li at Imperial College London says it is worrying how current models can be misused, but developers need to weigh such risks with the potential benefits of LLMs. “Like drugs, they also have side effects that need to be controlled,” she says.

5 . For children, space is magical — a whole world is out there, with so many things to learn and stories to read. Here are some children’s books about space and the solar system.

Mae among the Stars by Stasia Burrington

This beautifully illustrated picture book is attractive to young kids. It was inspired by the first African American woman in space, Mae Jemison. It tells the story of Mae as a little girl, who always knew she had big dreams about space. This is a great addition to a young kid’s collection, as a reminder to hold tight to dreams and never give up.

Space by Libby Jackson

This beautifully illustrated book gives kids a look at 50 women from around the world who were involved in exploring space in some way, from the 19th century to the present day. This is a perfect gift for young kids who want to know more about some of the lesser-known scientific achievements related to space exploration.

Chasing Space by Leland Melvin

This is Melvin’s story about being a football player-turned-astronaut, along with his recovery from an injury that nearly left him deaf. Kids will love reading his story about how he faced challenges and advanced ahead, and he also includes DIY experiments for kids to try, and a section of full-color photographs.

System and Beyond by David A. Aguilar

The book is full of beautiful illustrations of space, and is perfect for kids of all ages, exploring various planets and the solar system. Unlike other kids’ space book, this is a National Geographic book written and illustrated by an award-winning astronomer and space artist. Aguilar is also the former Director of Science Information and Public Outreach at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

6 . The topic “slash youth”,   referring to those refusing to be defined or bound by just one personal identity and choosing to undertake multiple careers, has fueled heated debate on social media. On Douban, a Chinese social networking platform, the topic has attracted about 11,000posts and has been viewed over 400 million times. China’s young people are keen to share their slash youth stories online, presenting themselves as multiple and sometimes distinct identities, such as a nurse and model, a teacher and stand-up comedian, and an engineer and musician.

Xing Eryang, a 31-year-old female resident in Beijing, founded the Douban topic in 2021.While staying diligent about her daytime work, she is developing her hobbies, including stand-up comedy and vlogging, into secondary careers during her spare time. And she is amazed to find her “slash life” philosophy followed by so many of her peers.

Weiheng, a 26-year-old woman in Guangzhou, and Tang Yuhan, a 27-year-old man in Xuancheng city, Anhui province, are both participants in the topic, with their stories earning thousands of likes so far. The two are both musicians in their spare time, even though they are thousands of miles apart and have different jobs in media and finance. Their passion for music has grown since college and they didn’t abandon their enthusiasm, even after entering the workplace.

Their reaction showed the gap between the young and former generations. “My parents used to say,   ‘music cannot earn you money’,   so the band thing was regarded as a waste of time. However,   we want to pursue whatever we love and are willing to pay for it.” says Weiheng.

“The ‘slash life’ mania(狂热)shows that, along with China’s economic development, our society is becoming more and more diversified and inclusive, and it welcomes everyone’s self-fulfillment,” says Shi Yanrong, an   associate researcher from Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences. “Young people no longer have to rely on work and money for their sense of self-worth. They tend to practice a carpe diem(活在当下)philosophy and create their own identities.”

7 . Last summer holiday, Aunt Emily took us to a safari park (野生动物园), not far from Liverpool.

I was very happy to go as I had never been to a safari park before. It’s a very interesting park, full of wild animals running freely.

When we got there, we bought our tickets and drove into the park. We were very excited at the thought of going to see the lions. But to get to the lions’ place we had to go through the monkeys’ land first. And that was an unforgettable experience because they climbed all over the car, ate apples and bananas, and threw all kinds of things at us. They seemed very unfriendly.

Anyway, we went on our way to the lions’ place where we had to lock ourselves in the car as we knew lions could be dangerous. A lion came up very close to us. Then it was on the bonnet (车盖). It looked calm but we felt terrified. Aunt Emily, who isn’t very brave, started to call for help. The kids started crying. Only my brother, George, stayed cool. I sounded the horn (喇叭) but nobody heard us.

In the end a guard arrived in his car, and the lion just got off our car and started smelling the guard’s hand as if nothing was the matter.

8 . Thanks For Giving 4 Miler

Thurs. November 23, 2023

Sign up today for the 2023 Thanks For Giving 4 Miler and Kids Dash that will take place this Thanksgiving in New Albany! Come out and join us for a fun kick off to Thanksgiving Day festivities! As always, 100% of our net proceeds go to help those in need.

All are welcome, including competitive runners, joggers, and walkers wanting to enjoy time with friends and loved ones. Registration ends on November 22, 2023.

There is no official race fee. You can give as much or as little as you want. However-a $40 minimum donation is required to get our soft T-shirt. Our goal is to feed as many families in Central Ohio as we can. You can help by running our race, spreading the word, or making a donation. You may bring any donation you want, from a can of soup to cash. Let’s make a difference.

6:30 am: Race day check-in begins.

8:00 am: Opening ceremony (仪式) begins!

8:15 am: Kids Dash begins!

8:30 am: The Thanks For Giving 4 Miler kicks off!

The top three overall male and female finishers will receive a gift certificate. The top three male and female finishers in each of the following age groups will receive a pumpkin (南瓜) pie: 14 and under, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70 and above. Every participant of the kids race receives a finisher’s medal!

For safety, please no bicycles, skateboards, inline skates, or participation with pets.

10 . “The silence is killing me,” I thought as I locked my phone, hoping a new message would light up the screen. After 27 messages, two phone calls and a voicemail, I’d just sent my final text to the person who _________ to be my best friend at college.

The two of us met freshman year and, since we _________ almost all the same core classes, rapidly became inseparable throughout college. We _________ stayed up together for studying, and were each other’s partner for late-night pizza runs. Then one day after graduation, she suddenly _________ responding, apart from claiming she “didn’t have enough time for herself”. That breakup was the most _________ I’d experienced. After four years of building such a _________ relationship, I thought I’d at least receive a(an) _________ for why she wanted to end things. _________, I received only a brief, indirect message about self-care and-what hurt me most-a(an) _________.

Over the past few years, the concept of “drawing boundaries” has __________ in the pop psychology. Discussions of cutting people off and protecting your energy__________ dominate social media. And after nearly three years in __________, the ways the Covid-19 pandemic has __________ many of us to reevaluate our relationships with others show up everywhere in pop culture.

The __________ of self-care are fairly obvious: by prioritizing our own well-being, we’re able to engage in emotional healing, build confidence, __________ anxiety and simply rest. However, an extreme focus on self-care can lead to a(an) __________ perspective of the world in which we always put ourselves first, even when we’re in the wrong. This doesn’t just __________ us-it can have real, painful consequences for the people around us.

Sometimes it can feel __________ for us to remove ourselves from conflict or discomfort under the mask of __________. However, walking away from these relationships without a real conversation actually__________ us and our loved ones of an opportunity for growth.