1 . On February 6, 2020, American astronaut Christina Koch arrived back on Earth after 328 days in space. Her time in space is just one of the records set by herself. That’s the longest spaceflight ever made by a woman, and just one of the many things Ms. Koch achieved in space.

Ms. Koch took off from Earth for the International Space Station (ISS) on March 12, 2019. While in space, she made 5, 248 trips around the Earth, travelling 2, 237 million kilometers, which is roughly the same as 291 trips to the Moon and back. During her 11 months on the ISS, Ms. Koch took part in six spacewalks, spending over 42 hours in all outside the station. In October of 2019, Ms. Koch led the first ever all-female spacewalk with Jessica Meir.

But for most astronauts, space travel isn’t about setting records. It’s about doing science. Ms. Koch took part in a wide variety of special experiments, including studying how crystals grow in space, how atoms behave in extreme cold and learning more about growing plants in low gravity. Growing plants in space could be an important way to provide food on future trips. She also tested a new way of separating liquids from gases. This experiment could lead to simple methods of cleaning water and air in space, which could be very important for future space travel.

Ms. Koch isn’t just a scientist and an astronaut. She is also being studied. She’s part of a NASA program studying how astronauts are affected by being in space for long periods of time. Her trip was only 12 days shorter than the American record set by Scott Kelly in 2016. As they did with Mr. Kelly, NASA scientists are looking carefully at ways Ms. Koch’s body has been affected by her time in space. That research is important for the longer space trips NASA hopes to make in the future, such as for a base on the moon or a trip to Mars.

3 . On a Sunday morning in 2008, Vic Gundotra received a call during a religious service. It was from Steve Jobs, Apple’s former CEO. He didn’t answer, but Jobs left a message saying he had something urgent to discuss. Gundotra returned his call almost immediately.

“Hey Steve—this is Vic,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your call earlier. I was in religious services and the caller ID said ‘unknown’, so I didn’t pick up.”

Steve laughed, saying, “Vic, unless the caller ID said ‘GOD’, you should never pick up during services.”

Vic Gundotra laughed nervously. Although Steve used to call him during the week when he was upset about something, it was unusual for him to call on Sunday and ask him to call his home. He was worried what had happened.

“Vic, we have an urgent problem. I’ve already asked someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow,” said Steve. “I’ve been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I’m not happy with the icon (图标). The second O in Google doesn’t have the right yellow color. It’s just wrong and I’m going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that OK with you?”

The CEO of Apple, who revolutionized personal computers, the way we listen to music and the way we think of mobile devices, was worried about the yellow in the second “O” in Google.

Needless to say the problem was fixed, and Vic Gundotra said it taught him a lesson on leadership and attention to detail.

“It was a lesson I’ll never forget,” said Gundotra. “CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday.”

7 . Next time you are struggling with the crossword, try putting the kettle on. Drinking a cup of tea can improve creativity, a study suggests.

Researchers gave participants either tea or water and then asked them to complete a word association game, which was used to measure a form of creativity known as convergent thinking (聚合思维).

In the game, the participants were given sets of words such as “same, tennis, head” and asked to find a meaningful link between them. After analyzing the results in a way that ruled out the potential effects of a person’s intelligence and language ability, the researchers found those who drank the tea performed significantly better in the word association game. The tea drinkers scored an average of 13.89 in the game compared with 12.94 for water drinkers.

The researchers said it was not clear why tea has this beneficial effect. Tea contains special components, which can improve attention, but the participants in the study drank only a small amount of tea — 90 ml, on average — and carried out the tests very soon after consuming it, meaning any effect would have been ignored. This result showed the tea drinking event itself — rather than the biological components of tea — played a positive role, the researchers said.

Previous research has found that people tend to associate tea drinking with a specific set of personality traits(特征), such as smart, creative, elegant, confident, and stable. It may be that when participants are stimulated (刺激) by tea, the mental representation of a tea drinker is also activated, and they unconsciously think that they should be smarter and more creative.

8 . It was Christmas Eve when my elder sister and I decided to open our presents before our mom got home from work. She usually came home about an hour after we got home from school, which we thought was plenty of time to sneak a look (偷看) at the gifts under the tree.

My elder sister opened present after present while I was ordered to stand guard at the big window in our front room. Finally, when my sister’s curiosity was satisfied, we changed places.

After opening a few presents, I found it faster to open one end of a present and look inside. “Cool! Mom and Dad got me headphones!” I pulled the headphones out of the box and was about to put them on when my sister shouted, “Quick! Wrap (包裹) it back up! Mom’s coming!”

I put the headphones back in the box but my hands were shaking. My heart beat faster as I tried to get the tape to stick. I had just finished burying the package with my headphones in it when my mother came into the front room. I jumped up and said, “Hi, Mom!” She smiled at me and said “Hi” back, but didn’t appear to suspect (怀疑) anything. My heart began to slow as I took a deep breath.

On Christmas morning, my sister and I smiled, and gave award-winning performances when we opened our presents—again. “Headphones!” I shouted. “Thanks, it’s just what I wanted.” After everything had been opened, my sister and I looked at each other, and our eyes met. Our secret was safe, but somehow Christmas morning didn’t feel the same.

My sister and I never opened our Christmas presents early again. I don’t know if it was that opening our gifts for the second time just wasn’t as much fun as the first time, or if we came too close to getting caught and didn’t want to think about what our mother would have done to us.

9 . Because people dine out often, there are lots of restaurants in Italy. Most of them are Italian, of course.. _________ , today the European country also has many ethnic(民族风味的) restaurants. Al Borgo Antico in Legnano, a town on the outskirts(城郊)of Milan, is_________ It offers traditional Italian food, but its owners are_________ .In 1989, co-owner Francesco Wu moved with his _________ from China to Italy. His parents opened a Chinese_________ near Milan. “When you move to a different country, you have to_________,”Wu told me during a recent interview. At the beginning, the business was_________ for the brothers. They had to_________ prejudices and the people who said that no one would eat Italian cuisine made by Chinese chefs. “It was_________ when people came in and saw our Chinese__________ and left, ”Wu said.

The brothers__________ it despite all of the doubts,“ __________, the restaurant became one of the best-known in the area,”Wu said, smiling.

In 2012, eight years after opening his restaurant, Wu__________ a business organization for Chinese immigrants(移民).“We__________ that something like this was missing, and that it could be__________ for both the Italian and Chinese community. ”Wu said.

10 . Exploration of Modern Literature

Course description

In this course we explore modern literature from early pioneers such as Dostoyevsky and Rimbaud through to modernism of Virginia Woolf and Hemingway, and beyond to writers including Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison and movements such as magical realism. We focus mainly on shorter novels and poetry, but may also look at longer works such as Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.

We consider not only the meanings of the works but also how they are written to give them their power. Additionally, we pay attention to how literature sounds and how it makes us feel.

Students are expected to write a number of informal reaction pieces, contribute actively to class discussion, take part in a few short creative projects, and prepare short papers and oral presentations on works of their own choice.

Students learn how to read actively, think analytically, present their ideas clearly, and work with others — all skills that will be invaluable to them in college and in their professional and personal lives. No previous knowledge or course work is required.

Instructor: Mark Blacher

Mark Blacher holds a master’s degree in comparative literature from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). While at UCLA he taught classics of world literature, and taught students close reading and expository writing (说明文). Mark’s undergraduate degree is from Columbia University. He has worked with Columbia’s Pre-College Programs for over thirty years.