1 . New York University (NYU) surgeons have performed the world’s first transplant of an entire human eye, an extraordinary addition to a face transplant, although it’s far too soon to know if the man will ever see through his new left eye.

An accident had destroyed most of Aaron James’ face and one eye. His right eye still works. But the surgeons hoped replacing the missing one would produce better cosmetic (整容的) results for his new face. The NYU team is doing just that. James is recovering well from the dual (双重的) transplant last May and the donated eye looks remarkably healthy.

Today, transplants of the cornea (眼角膜) are common to treat certain types of vision loss. But transplanting the whole eye—the eyeball, its blood supply, and the critical optic nerve (视神经) that must connect it to the brain—is considered a moonshot in the search to cure blindness.

Whatever will happen next, James’ surgery offers scientists a window into how the human eye tries to heal. “We’re not claiming that we are going to restore sight,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the transplant. “But there’s no doubt that we are one step closer.”

Some specialists had feared the eye would quickly become dry and wrinkled. However, when Rodriguez opened James’ left eyelid, the donated eye was fat and full of liquid. Doctors see good blood flow and no sign of rejection.

Now researchers have begun analyzing scans of James’ brain that detected some puzzling signals from that all-important but injured optic nerve. Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, who has long studied how to make eye transplants a reality, called the surgery exciting. “It’s an amazing confirmation of animal experiments that have kept transplanted eyes alive,” he said. “The difficulty now is how to regrow the optic nerve, although animal studies are making progress.” He praised the NYU team’s “boldness” in even aiming for optic nerve repair and hopes the transplant will promote more research.

2 . Growing up on a farm, Tori James spent much of her early years outdoors, building shelters and playing in muddy streams. She describes herself as an ambitious, adventurous child who went to bed reading the survival guides that lived on her bedside table. Even so, James says she could never have predicted that, one day, she might be the youngest British woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Today, James is a professional adventurer. Yet ahead of her first expedition at the age of 18, which she spent mapping the cracks of Iceland’s Vatnajökull glacier with the British Exploring Society, James recalls doubting her ability to last a month out in the cold without the comfort of a hot bath. “It’s only by stepping out of our comfort zone that we understand our true potential,”she explains. “That’s when the magic happens.”

Although James has spent a significant part of her life exploring some of the most remote landscapes in the world, when it comes to traveling, she believes that there are numerous ways for everyone to push their boundaries, other than by undertaking physical challenges. James also encourages would-be adventurers not to be put off by the stereotypical image of the rugged, hardy explorer. “I am such a believer that, with the right support and skills, everyone can bring something to an expedition,” she says.

Sometimes, she adds, it’s only out in the field that someone’s hidden talents emerge. A diverse team can be key to a successful trip, particularly given the role of exploration in today’s world. “Historically, exploration has been about people finding nature’s hardest obstacles and trying to either overcome them, or beat them,” says James. “But now, for me at least, exploration is about connecting, not conquering. It’s about our connection to the living world around us, it’s about sharing its importance once we’ve returned and it’s about figuring out how to do adventure sustainably.”

3 . In years past, many people would travel over New Year’s Eve and immerse (沉浸) themselves in a different culture. Countries around the world celebrate the new year with unique customs and traditions carried out at the celebration.

Japan: Eat toshikoshi soba

Shiwasu is the end-of-the-year period in Japan. To celebrate New Year’s Eve, people eat “year-crossing” soba, which can symbolize having a long and fortunate life along with a clean break from the year. However, when eaten at midnight, there’s a certain cross of the old and the new year, thus you cannot “break off” all of last year’s troubles properly but instead carry them over to the following year.

Russia: Burn, then drink your wishes

After a year of ruined dreams and canceled plans, set your sights on a fresh start with this Russian tradition. Before midnight, write down your wishes on a piece of paper, then light the paper on fire. Once it’s stopped burning, spread the wish-filled ashes into a glass of champagne and drink up shortly after the clock completes striking midnight.

Spain: Eat 12 grapes

Perhaps the easiest tradition to carry out is eating grapes for good luck. When the clock starts striking at midnight, eat one with each ringing sound. Better if you’re wearing special New Year’s Eve underwear while eating your grapes. A pair of red underwear can bring you a new year of love, while yellow may bring joy and fortune.

Greece: Hang some onions

If you’ve been cooking throughout the pandemic, maybe you have some onions around the house to spare for this tradition. In Greece, onions symbolize rebirth, so people hang them up on their doors on Dec. 31 to encourage a year of growth. Keep the Greek traditions going by baking a special cake on New Year’s Day. Hide a coin in the cake and share it with your loved ones-whoever finds the coin is said to have a year of good luck.

4 . From the time he was a young boy, Jim Haskins always had a book in his hand. While other kids were outside playing ball, Jim was usually reading. He could be found in one of his favorite places: curled up underneath the kitchen table or up in the tree that grew in his front yard.

Jim was born in Demopolis, Alabama, during the time of segregation (隔离). Because Jim was Black, he was not allowed to check out a single book at the public library. Libraries were for whites only. The laws of segregation separated Jim from all the books he longed to read. But Jim was determined. He convinced a teacher at school to lend him books of her own. He even managed to get some public library books through a white woman whom his mom worked for doing laundry.

When Jim was a teenager, Black Americans’ struggle for equal rights was becoming the civil rights movement. Many brave people were taking risks by refusing to follow unfair segregation laws. Jim went to Montgomery, Alabama, and joined a civil rights group. The group was headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Jim believed in King’s nonviolent approach to change. Once, during a peaceful march, Jim was arrested. Because of that, his college expelled him.

He did graduate from another college. Afterward, he went on to teach school in Harlem, a part of New York City. As a teacher, he had trouble finding books that interested his Black students. So he decided to write his own books about successful Black Americans. Through his writing, he met and interviewed many of the people he admired, including Rosa Parks.

Today, libraries have more than one hundred books written by Jim Haskins, the boy who loved to read, and today, children of all races can walk through the doors of any public library and find interesting books that inform, entertain, and inspire them.

5 . The Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration（ETA）supports a wide variety of programs to ensure that all youth have the skills and training they need to successfully make the switch to adulthood and careers. These programs include:

Apprenticeship is a combination of on-the-job training and related classroom instruction in which workers learn the practical and theoretical aspects of a highly skilled occupation. Applicants for apprenticeship programs must be at least 16 years old and meet the program sponsor's qualifications.

YouthBuild programs give at-risk youth ages 16-24 the opportunity to transform their lives by earning their high school certificate of graduation or an equally state-recognized degree, learning to be community leaders, and preparing for college and other post-secondary training opportunities.

Job Corps is the nation's largest and most comprehensive residential, education, and job training program for at-risk youth, ages 16 through 24. Private companies, state agencies, federal agencies, and unions recruit young people to participate in Job Corps, where they can train for and be placed in jobs.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act（WIOA）of 2014 is carrying out a comprehensive youth employment program for serving qualified youth, ages 14-24, who face barriers to education, training, and employment.

For more information about youth programs, visit ETA's Division of Youth Services page.

6 . The age-old chore of dusting could soon be a thing of the past. Scientists are developing “self-cleaning” surfaces that make dust particles unable to stick to them. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin say the particles instead stick to each other and simply roll off the surfaces with nothing more than the assistance of gravity.

The scientists altered the geometry (几何构造) of flat surfaces at a level invisible to human eyes. The team made a tightly-packed nanoscale (纳米级) network of pyramid-shaped structures on the surfaces which made it difficult for dust particles to stick to the material. Instead, the particles stick to each other before rolling off the material due to gravity.

The study, funded by a grant (拨款) from NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program, tested the material by piling lunar dust on their engineered surfaces before turning them on their sides. The team found that just two percent of the surface remained dusty, compared with more than 35 percent of an unaltered smooth surface. The new surface could provide a passive solution to removing dust, as opposed to more active methods like using wipers and fluid to clear dust from a car windscreen.

“What we’ve demonstrated here is a surface that can clean itself,” says lead study author Chih-Hao Chang. “Particulates aren’t able to stick to the surface, so they come off using just the force of gravity.”

Study authors hope the material provides a solution to space dust, which can be extremely harmful in such a high-risk environment and is almost impossible to clean out. Space dust has previously caused great damage to NASA’s human spaceflight Apollo missions and has even caused rovers on Mars to malfunction and fail. “There’s not much you can do about lunar dust in space—it sticks to everything and there’s no real way to wipe it off,” says Samuel Lee, a lead author of the study. “Dust on solar panels of Mars rovers can cause them to fail.”

However, the researchers also believe the discovery could prove useful on Earth, preventing solar panels from collecting dust and losing efficiency. These surfaces may even protect our screens and windows from irritating dust.

8 . Released on Aug 30, a three-episode web series titled Escape From the British Museum has gone viral online for its touching and innovative narrative (叙事). The series follows the journey home of a Chinese jade teapot that has come to life as a girl. She runs away from the British Museum and comes across a Chinese journalist who helps the artifact return to China. The series, created by two Chinese vloggers, aims to raise broader awareness of Chinese artifacts that were stolen or looted (掠夺) from China and are displayed or stored in the British Museum.

The video series echoes the Chinese people’s call for the British Museum to return these Chinese artifacts. However, some UK media outlets said that the video series promotes nationalism (民族主义). In fact, every country whose artifacts are displayed or stored in the British Museum wants them back. These countries, such as Greece, Nigeria and Sudan, have already issued their demands for the return of artifacts. It’s fair enough to say these demands are shared. They can correct centuries-old wrongs by having the UK return artifacts to their rightful homes.

An opinion in the UK newspaper The Telegraph said that if the British Museum gives back its collection of artifacts, then nationalism will win over humanity’s common heritage. It also said that the artifacts were “lawfully acquired (合法取得)” by the UK. By “lawfully acquired”, does the writer mean the artifacts were acquired with the “help” of machine guns and warships? Or does he mean that the cultural artifacts of African, Asian and American countries should be kept in the hands of looters, rather than in their land of origin?

10 . A giant origami (折纸艺术) “snail” gets a Guinness World Record. Filled with ________ and craftsmanship, origamist Pei Haozheng and his team have created the world’s ________ origami “snail”, according to Guinness World Records.

This ________ “snail” is a single but complete structure made from a 9.21-meter-long square sheet of gold foil (箔) paper without any ________ or pasting (粘贴). It stands proud at 4.1 meters in ________ , 1.47 meters in width and 1.3 meters in height.

Making a giant paper “snail” isn’t ________ . Since the ________ used was so large, during the folding (折叠) process, it soon became a lopsided (向一侧倾斜的) 3D object. “This added much ________ in practice. Even the ________ part could easily become deformed (变形的),” Pei said to China Daily.

Another ________ was the deviation (偏差) the final version took from the prototype (原始模型), which can ________ many unexpected difficulties. For example, when the paper becomes ________ after folding, it may suddenly spring (弹开) open and create gaps. Pei added that the stylistic difficulty of this artwork lies in the need to ________ spinal (螺旅形的) shell layer (层) by layer. Pei did many ________ , finally overcoming these difficulties in the end.

“Gold foil paper symbolizes the beauty deep within people’s hearts. Therefore, I hope that everyone who sees this artwork can feel the ________ within their own hearts, pursue their passions, and cherish (珍惜) every moment in their lives,” Pei said.