1 . One destination is always on trend: the beach, People ready to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life are looking to discover tranquility (宁静) along a picturesque beach. Check out the list below to discover beaches you like.

Baby Beach in Maui. Hawaii   

It scores the top spot for the calmest beach in the world with its calm waters. “Baby Beach is an ideal beach for families with toddlers,” Betts said. “Since the waters are so calm and shallow, it provides the perfect opportunity for children to splash around in the ocean.”

Browne’s Beach in Bridgetown, Barbados

This famous half-mile expanse of white sand draws crowds with its calm, crystal-clear waters. It is celebrated for its natural beauty and historical significance, boasting landmarks like the Barbados Yacht Club and the Barbados Cruising Club.

Mauna Kea Beach on Hawaii Island, Hawaii

Fronting the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on Hawaii Island, Mauna Kea Beach is ideal for visitors to peacefully enjoy the Pacific Ocean. With its calm and clear conditions, it’s an ideal destination for swimming, snorkeling, and sunbathing.

Playa La Entrega in Oaxaca, Mexico

Situated along the Oaxacan coastline in a protected bay, Playa La Entrega offers a peaceful mix of natural beauty and adventure. Translating to “the delivery” in English, the beach was once a delivery point for goods during colonial times. It’s a popular place to snorkel along coral reefs filled with marine life. Visitors can rent snorkel gear or buy fresh fruit from local vendors.

4 . “Is there anything you want from Grandma’s flat?” My uncle, texting me, last week.

His mum had passed away. He’d begun the painful yet necessary task of sorting through her belongings. I required zero thinking time. Yes, I would like her aloe vera (芦荟) plant, please.

Here’s why. Sometime around 1975, Grandma received this plant as a gift. It came courtesy (礼仪) of the local butcher in recognition of her loyal custom. It could, I suppose, just as likely have been a calendar, or a fountain pen, or a box of biscuits. But it just happened to be a pot plant, which Grandma, who always had green fingers, appreciated and placed in her doorway. Five years later, my mum married the butcher’s son. And had me.

When my father’s mother died in 1993, Grandma revealed to me how this particular plant was different to the dozens of others she had in her home. This one had history. It was, she suggested, a living, blooming representation of the relationship that existed between the two sides of my family. As, indeed, was I.

Aloe vera is reasonably hardy, but, as I’ve learned, if you put it above a radiator, it dies. If you under-water it, it dies. If you over-water it, it dies. In short, with my awful agricultural skills, I’m better off with a plastic one. So, straight after I asked my uncle for this treasure, I put in place an insurance policy: the plant will go and live with Ann, my mother-in-law.

Ann, is a genius with a greenhouse. The plan is for Ann to keep hold of the original plant. In time, she can teach me how to care for its cuttings properly. Meantime, Ann will spread cuttings and clippings among her own family. My wife’s two sisters, for example, are both far better at tending plants than I am, so it is quite conceivable that they, too, will spread cuttings of the plant around their partners’ families; that this humble plant might yet spread across my entire extended family. What an amazing outcome!

6 . None of my friends are going to the art camp. Despite my ______ for drawing, I decided not to go because I had a hard time jumping into something with no ______ faces around.

Sitting under the bright sun, I thought about the art camp and wished I felt a little braver. To distract myself, I started sketching a pine. ______ myself I was happy to skip the camp, I drew the pine’s strong trunk and ______ the graceful branches, making sure the upper ones ______ gently toward the sun, At this time, Mr. Weston, my neighbor ______, “You’ve done a great job capturing the strength of that tree on paper.” He added, “Actually, you have to spread out the ______ near the surface so the tree can get enough water and grow tall. If you ______ the root ball too deep, the tree withers (凋零). I learned that root grow out, not down from my experience of planting pine trees.” “That ______,” I said. I made adjustments to the root part and then added shading to the branches to give them depth. “You have a good ______,” Mr. Weston said, and then nodded goodbye.

I thought about what Mr. Weston told me as I ______ at the towering pine. I’d never realized how ______ a tree’s roots stretch outward. It made me think about art camp and my own roots. I wasn’t stretching them out at all. ______, I was planting myself into one deep spot because it felt safer. I ______ realized that if I wanted to grow, I had to start reaching out too. That night, I took a deep breath and filled in the ______ for art camp.

7 . When astronauts land on Mars, a couple of decades from now, perhaps, they’ll need to find a way to communicate-with each other, with equipment on and around the planet, and with mission control back on Earth. Despite living so far from home, they’ll no doubt want to connect with loved ones, or stream their favorite shows or music.

But setting up a Wi-Fi connection to Earth’s internet won’t be a choice. Earth is simply too far away—around 55 million to 400 million kilometers, depending on where the planets are in their orbits. We will need another strategy.

Establishing good communication equipment is essential for human missions to Mars. Researchers are testing ways to upgrade existing networks, along with some far-out alternatives. For example, NASA’s Psyche mission, which lifted off in October with the job of exploring an asteroid (小行星) between Mars and Jupiter, will also test the communication using lasers. Lasers could carry far more data than the radio waves that have been used from the earliest days of space travel.

There is no strategy which can get rid of the time lag in communications between Earth and Mars; a message moving at the speed of light takes anywhere between 4 and 24 minutes for a one-way trip. In other words, a quick ping to mission control is out of the question, not to mention a WhatsApp call home.

There’s also the issue of solar conjunction (聚合), says Parfitt, when the sun comes between Earth and Mars. This happens for a couple of weeks every two years or so, cutting off communications between the planets. The last one took place in November.

But new approaches could open possibilities that make communications on Mars more like what we experience here on Earth. At least one research team has wondered: What if Mars had its own internet?

9 . Extremely authentic-looking prosthetic (假体的) eyes can now be 3D-printed in a fraction of the time it would normally take to produce the eyes by hand, scientists demonstrate in a new study.

The new technology can create a prosthetic eye in just 90 minutes, compared with the eight hours it would normally take a skilled technician, or ocularist, to produce one by hand. The 3D-printed eyes require five times less labor to make than traditional methods, the scientists behind the technology wrote in a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

The 3D-printed eyes also look more natural than traditional prostheses; this could help improve a patient’s self-confidence in using the devices. “Patients are very conscious about wearing a prosthesis, and they don't want others to notice,” Johann Reinhard, lead study author and a researcher at the Fraunhofer

Institute for Computer Graphics Research in Germany, told us. “With these more realistic eves, it might help them to participate more in society,” he said.

The new printing approach involves taking a specialized image of a patient’s empty eye socket and of their healthy eye. These images are then processed and used to draft blueprints that can be sent to be 3D-printed in the lab. These 3D-printed eyes closely replicate the color, size and structure of the patient's healthy eye and are particularly good at capturing the colored part of the eye, known as the iris, and the white part of the eye, called the sclera. Once finished, the eyes take 15 to 30 minutes to be installed by an ocularist, Reinhard said.

“About 80% of adults in need of prosthetic eyes could theoretically have one made this way, either due to a birth defect that causes an eye to be small or missing or because they’ve lost an eye,” the team said. “However, this wouldn’t be possible for all patients, such as those who have a very complex eye socket, as the software wouldn’t be able to find a matching shape for the prosthetic eye,” Reinhard said.

“More data are needed to see if this technique could also be used to make prosthetic eyes for children,which would require more regulation,” Reinhard said.

10 . An Art Class

When Kelly was twelve, she started taking classes at Miss Grace’s School for Art. She didn’t like it at first: the “novice artists”—the kids who hadn’t really done art before-worked mostly with clay, and Kelly was a terrible sculptor.

It wasn’t until her third year that Kelly found something she was really good at-charcoal drawing (素描). She loved watching the lines spread unevenly across the page as she moved the bits of charcoal back and forth over the paper.

One day, Sophia, the best artist in her class, sat down and set up her easel (画架) next to Kelly. Kelly felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She’d actually found an art form that she enjoyed and was good at-and now Sophia was going to outshine her again? Kelly fought back tears when Miss Grace entered the room.

“Hello class, Miss Grace said.” We’ll continue to work on the project today. What masterpiece would Sophia have come up with?

Kelly looked at Sophia’s easel and she couldn’t believe it-it was a mess! For a brief moment, Kelly couldn’t actually believe her drawing was better than Sophia’s.

But then she looked at Sophia, who was watching Kelly with an anxious expression. “I…. I couldn’t decide what to do,” Sophia said. “And you’re so good. Sometimes I feel like my stuff is just so bad in comparison.”

Kelly looked to see if Sophia was joking, but she seemed completely serious. Now Kelly was shocked. “I’m not talented ... Miss Grace seldom praises me. You’re the best one in our class!”

Sophia raised her eyebrows. “I might be a really good copier of the stuff, but I have no idea what to do when it comes to making up my own images. You are so great at making new things out of the old stuff. I’ve loved your works.”

“I’ve loved yours, too,” Kelly said.

“Well, definitely not this one,” Sophia said.

Kelly smiled. “Maybe not right now. But if you move these lines up...” she said, pointing her finger on Sophia’s paper.

Sophia was quiet for a moment. “That’s a great idea!” she said finally.

Kelly smiled and turned back to her drawing, looking every so often at Sophia’s work to see that she was taking her advice, down to the last line.