1 . China has just officially opened its FAST radio telescope to international scientists. Scientists across the world can submit proposals for astronomical observations using the telescope.

FAST is short for Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (球面射电望远镜) and it is also believed to be the world's largest radio telescope and the most sensitive single-dish radio telescope. The receiving surface area of FAST is 250,000 square meters, about the size of 30 standard football fields. Its construction was completed in September 2016 and it officially began operating in January 2020.

The major scientific task of the telescope is the observation of pulsars (脉冲星) – the rotating neutron stars. The study of pulsars can help to confirm the existence of gravitational radiation and black holes, and help solve many other major questions in physics. Another scientific goal of FAST is to search for outer space civilization.

The telescope is located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in southwest China's Guizhou Province. The first advantage of the selected site is the altitude. The average altitude of Guizhou is about 1,100 meters, which maximizes the effectiveness of the observation equipment. Secondly, the radio telescope needs to have a “big pan” to receive better signal. The huge natural depression could reduce the amount of excavation (挖掘) and difficulty of construction. Moreover, the selected site in Guizhou is far away from cities, and has a small population, which reduces the interference (干扰) caused by wireless devices such as TVs, mobile phones and radios from human activities.

FAST has identified over 300 pulsars. Experts predict that the number could reach 1,000 in five years and that the telescope could locate and identify the first pulsar outside the galaxy. With the opening-up to international scientists, China's FAST is expected to make more contribution to astronomical research in the future.

3 . Gibraltar has vaccinated (注射疫苗) its entire adult population, making it a perfect “green list” destination for the coming sunny break. Here are our tips on what you can get there.

Cable car

The views from the Cable Car’s Top Station, located 412 m above sea level, are truly breathtaking and it will take you only 6 minutes to get to the top. You will find our tailless monkey at the Cable Car Top Station. However, please be aware that although they look cute and friendly, they are wild animals and must be treated with caution and respect.

The Cable Car is open 7 days a week from 09:30 to 19:15. No reservation needed.

ADMISSION PRICES: £16 for each adult, £7 for each child, and £14.5 for senior citizens

E-bike

E-bike system was established in July 2019 to provide e-bike guided tours and bike rentals in Gibraltar.

The directors of our tours bring 20 years of experience organizing and operating e-bike and motorcycle tours around the world. Our tour guides are officially licensed by the Gibraltar Tourist Board, are native English speakers and carry first-aid. German and Spanish speaking tour guides are also available on request.

CONTACT: TEL +350 56004948, e-mail info@ebike-gibraltar.com, or visit http://www.ebike-gibraltar.com/

Lower St Michael’s Cave

When the upper section of St Michael’s Cave has been known for over 2000 years and used for various purposes such as a hospital during World War II, it was only in 1942 that Lower St Michael’s Cave was discovered.

The tour into Lower St Michael’s Cave normally lasts around three hours. People are advised to wear shoes and clothing suitable for climbing. Due to the unusual nature of this tour, children under the age of ten years are not allowed. Three days in advance is also necessary for bookings.

ADMISSION PRICE: £25 per person

For details: TEL +350 20076849 or e-mail eltopo@gibraltar.gi

5 . In June 2017, Tiffany Johnson, 34, from North Carolina, was on a ship with her husband, James Johnson, when they decided to take a ten-minute boat ride from Paradise Island to go snorkeling (浮潜) in the sea.

The couple were enjoying their journey, when Ms Johnson was faced with a shark (鲨鱼), which caught hold of her arm and tore it off up to the elbow (肘). Ms Johnson said, “I was able to swim back to the boat with my injured arm lifted up above the water. Once I got to the boat, we used a beach towel as a bandage for my arm.”

She was rushed to the nearest hospital where she underwent an operation that lasted five hours. “Medically, it does not make sense that I am still alive. I didn't even require blood transfusion (输血). When I really had time to digest it all, I cried a lot. Not really tears of sadness, but rather pure thankfulness that I was alive. I had just lived through a near-death experience and I was just so fortunate to still be here,” Ms Johnson said.

In November she had her first robotic hand fitted. She had to learn how to use her arm all over again and admitted that this was very challenging being a mom of three children. “Everything is different. It doesn't function the same way as a hand does; it is more like a tool. So it has been a learning experience and I am still learning more than two years later. This latest version is only a few months old; I can now bring my arm closer to my body. It functions OK, but I'm still learning,” Ms Johnson said.

In the times when she felt unsure, her belief kept her focused on the things she could control. “Finally, I have learned that you don't always have a choice when things happen, but you always have a choice in how you respond. I have been asked to talk with some patients that have had a hard time. It has been good to be able to use this to help, encourage, and spread hope,” Ms Johnson said.

6 . Fritillaria plants should be simple to spot. The usually bright green plants often stand alone amid the rocks that top the Himalayan and Hengduan mountains in southwestern China — easy pickings for traditional Chinese medicine herbalists, who've ground the bulbs （鳞茎) of Fritillaria into a cough-treating powder for more than 2, 000 years. The demand for the bulbs is intense, since about 3,500 of them are needed to produce one kilogram of the powder,worth about $480.

But some Fritillaria are remarkably difficult to find，with leaves and stems that are barely distinguishable from the gray or brown rocky background. Surprisingly, the plants’ camouflage(伪装) seems to have evolved in response to people.

In wide open areas with little cover, like mountaintops, blending in can help the plants avoid hungry herbivores, says Yang Niu, a botanist at the Kunming Institute of Botany in China. But after five years of studying camouflage in Fritillaria, he did not spot any animals feeding on the plants.

So Niu, his colleague Hang Sun and sensory ecologist Martin Stevens of the University of Exeter in England decided to see if humans might be driving the evolution of the plants’ camouflage.

During their research, local herbalists noted the total weight of the bulbs harvested each year from2014 to 2019 at seven study sites. These records indicated contemporary harvesting pressure on the plants. In the meantime, the researchers assessed the ease of harvesting by recording how long it took to dig up bulbs at six of those sites. On some slopes, bulbs are easily dug up, but in others they can be buried under rocks. Both measures have revealed a striking pattern: The more harvested a site is, the better the color of a plant matches its background.

However, camouflage can present some challenges. Pollinators(花粉传播者) might have a harder time finding the camouflaged plants, and the gray and brown coloration could impair photosynthetic(光合) activity. Still, these Fritillaria show how adaptable the plants can be. The plants can better change their appearance than we might have expected.

7 . In 1918, my wife’s grandfather Karel Bondy, a Czech officer was on his way back to the barracks one evening when he encountered a drunk German colonel. Karel asked the officer whether he needed help. It turned out he was lost. So Karel took the colonel back to his tent.

When they arrived, the colonel insisted they have a drink together. At the end of the night the colonel decided to reward Karel with an Iron Cross for his act of kindness. Naturally, Karel protested, but his refusal was to no avail. Not only did the colonel stop him giving it back, but he handed a certificate to him. “Now it’s official, ” he said.

In 1939, the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. Realizing he and his family were in mortal danger, Karel planned to relocate the family to England. But to leave he needed four exit visas, so he submitted his application to the German authorities and awaited an interview.

However, one afternoon two Gestapo officers turned up at his house. Accusing Karel of being a British spy, the officers ransacked his home looking for secret documents, only to find the Iron Cross. “How did you get this?” one officer demanded. “I got it for bravery during the First World War,” Karel replied, showing them the certificate with his name on it. The two officers marvelled at the medal they both longed for. “How much do you want for it?” the other officer demanded. At this point, Karel had to think on his feet. Should he trade the Iron Cross for the exit visas?

“Tm sorry, but l cannot part with it. I was proud to serve my country and l accepted that on behalf of the men in my unit.” This speech impressed the officers. Their attitude began to change and even tried to clean up the mess they'd made. Rubber stamps and ink pads were quickly produced and the exit documents were authorised.

Eventually, Karel and his family left for England, and started a new life there.

9 . Lithium(锂) batteries power many of what we use today — from smartphones and laptops to electric toothbrushes and hand-held vacuum cleaners. But as we know from our phones, which hold less and less juice the older they are, lithium batteries have their limitations. In extremely hot or cold weather, their performance also falls. And there are also concerns around the safety and sustainability (可持续性) of lithium batteries. Mining the metals needed for them comes with a high social and environmental cost.

This has urged scientists around the world to try and develop new types of battery that can overcome these problems. One group are not only trying to find new ways to power our devices, but also settle the issue of food waste at the same time. Vincent Gomes, a chemical engineer at the University of Sydney, and his team, including Labna Shabnam, are turning waste from the world’s smelliest fruit, durian(榴莲果) into a super capacitor (电容器) that can charge mobile phones, tablets and laptops within minutes.

They heated, freeze-dried and then baked the inedible spongy core of each fruit in an oven at temperatures of more than 1, 500C (2732F). The black, highly porous, ultralight structures they were left with could then be fashioned into electrodes of a low-cost super capacitor. The super capacitors can be charged in 30 seconds, and could be used to power a range of devices.

The researchers’ dream is to use these sustainable super capacitors to store electricity from renewable energy sources for use in vehicles and houses.

10 . Think back to the last time you pooped. Was it hard or soft? Was it dark or light brown? You might find these questions uncomfortable. Yet the wastes our bodies shed can say a lot about our health. And it is hard to remember past poops and pees well enough to describe to doctors. There's something in those wastes not visible to the eye. But smart toilets can help.

Scientists hope that one day such toilets will be able to diagnose cancer and viruses. But that’s for the future. The smart toilet being developed at Stanford University can take pictures of your feces, track how often you go and measure how long each poop takes. It also can measure the number of white blood cells and types of protein in urine (尿), which could indicate an infection of the urinary tract or bladder. The data will move through the Internet to a secure computer. An artificial-intelligence program then will assess the data. If it finds a problem, the program can notify a patient's doctor.

But how will the toilet know who is on the seat? Seung-min Park, a biomedical engineer on the project, and his team use a scanner to image the butt. The user just sits down on the seat. An image of the butt will later be used to identify data obtained from that person’s toilet visit.

However, potential users may not want to have a camera underneath their butts, Park says. So on the next model, his team will replace the camera with an infrared or laser scanner.

Scanning one’s privates is hardly the only privacy issue with smart toilets. The data could be misused by insurance companies or others. And some toilets might one day be able to test your DNA, containing details you don't want to share with anyone.

Park appreciates such privacy concerns. However, he also thinks the benefits may outweigh the risks. “The more you expose your privacy,” he believes, “the better the health care.”