1 . Accompanied by her father, using a combination of aid and free climbing and taking advantage of some special equipment and ropes for protection, 10-year-old Selah made it to the top of El Capitan on June 12 after five days of big wall climbing.

Climbing the challenging and adventurous Nose route of El Capitan was a labor of love for Selah in more than one way. Her parents , Mike and Joy Schneiter, fell in love on this 3,000- plus-foot huge rock and she has always wanted to feel the way that her parents felt when they were up there together. Selah showed great interest in rock climbing at an early age. She wore her first rock-climbing equipment shortly after she learned to walk. She first dreamed of climbing El Capitan when she was 6 or 7.

El Capitan is a famous mountain-sized rock in Yosemite National Park. Getting to its top is no easy task. It's taller, as reported, than the tallest building in the world-Dubai^’s Buri Khalifa. El Capitan and its difficult Nose route, which runs more than 3,000 feet high up the center of the rock's face, is considered one of the world's hardest big wall climbs and has attracted the best climbers over time. But never before had a youngster accomplished it.

Selah's achievement caught national attention. Outside Magazine called her the youngest documented person to climb the Nose. Ken Yager, president of the Yosemite Climbing Association, said he also couldn't think of anyone younger who has done it.

Selah is humble about her El Capitan accomplishment. "I'm not necessarily a special kid or anything like that, she said. "There were a few times when I would be so worn that it would kind of discourage me from holding on. But overall, it was just great to keep plugging away.”

Selah shared this advice for other young climbers dreaming of big walls, "It doesn't take necessarily a super special person to do something like that. You just have to put your mind to it.”

2 . Raffles EL Week

Be absorbed in the world of words, metaphors and imagery in our annual Raffles EL Week! Come and participate in the exciting activities we have for you!

The learning adventures begin from 20 May 2021 to 24 May 2021. Read on to find out where the actions are!

Activities that add fun to your recesses!

Organized by: The English Department     Partners: Writers’ Association

5 . The future of space exploration may depend on an art form from the past: origami (折纸艺术), the ancient art of paper folding.

Researchers from Washington State University (WSU), US, have used origami to possibly solve the problem of storing and moving fuel to rocket engines, a key challenge in space travel, according to Newswise. They’ve developed a foldable plastic fuel “bladder (囊状物)” resistant to super cold temperatures, which could be used to store and pump fuel in spacecrafts of the future. Their findings have recently been published in the journal Cryogenics.

“Folks have been trying to make bags for rocket fuel for a long time,” said Jake Leachman, one of the lead researchers. “We currently don’t do large, long-duration trips because we can’t store fuel long enough in space.”

Meanwhile, NASA is also looking to paper folding to help observe distant planets. The agency is currently developing Starshade, a foldable, sunflower-shaped piece of hardware that would help block starlight and enable telescopes to view distant objects more clearly in space.

“A huge part of my job is looking at something on paper and asking, ‘Can we fly this?’” Manan Arya, a technologist in California, said. “Once I realized this is how you fold spacecraft structures, I became interested in origami. I realized I was good at it and enjoyed it. Now, I fold constantly. ”

Using origami for space purposes isn’t new, however. Solar arrays (太阳能阵列), experimental wings for space shuttle programs and an inflatable (可充气的) satellite were also inspired by origami in both past and present space projects.

“With most origami, the magic comes from the folding,” Robert Salazar, who helped design the Starshade and now works on the Transformers project. said in a statement. “There are so many patterns to still be explored.”

6 . There are around 100 tribes that live in global isolation, mostly in South America and India.

The Sentinelese(250 people)have lived on one of the Andaman Islands in Eastern India for 60, 000 years. They protect their island by fighting against people from outside. Their language is different from any other known language.

Another Andaman tribe is the Jarawa(300 people). In the past, they were independent and fought against anybody trying to make contact with them. But in 1998, the Indian govemment built a road across their land, and since then, they’ve had more contact with the outside world.

Some Amazon tribes avoid contact because of unhappy memories. The Mashco—Piro left their vegetable gardens after rubber companies killed most of their tribe at the beginning of the 20th century. Those who survived became nomadic(游牧的)and started hunting animals in the forest.

The Awa live in the Amazon forests of Brazil. Out of 350 members, 100 have no contact with the outside world. They left their villages and adopted a nomadic lifestyle around 1850 to escape attacks by Europeans. In the following years, farmers in nearby communities started cutting the trees to expand their farmland. The Awa lost most of their hunting land.

The few Amazon tribes that still exist are fighting to keep their traditional way of life.

Survival, an organization that fights for the rights of tribal people, says that uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable(弱势的)humans on the planet and that’s why their environment should be unavailable to the rest of us.

After years of pressure, the organization got Brazil’s government to clear invaders from the Awa land. All non-Awa people are leaving so the tribe can get their forest back. But some think it’s impossible for tribes to stay isolated forever in a connected world. Contact will be made one day. So the question is：Whose choice should it be, ours or theirs?

7 . In 2018, I wanted to do something to bring change for people in my community. I carried out research to understand the problems affecting them and found that climate change was the greatest threat. When I realised many people in the rural areas faced fatal impacts such as landslides, floods and droughts, I decided to stand up. Seeing climate change threaten the availability of food and water in my country was a wake-up call.

We are focused and very clear with our demands. We are not afraid of holding governments and corporations accountable for the climate crisis because the science is clear. We will not give up because our future is at stake. We need to demand for climate action as our lives depend on it too, because we do. Farmers in Ontario stood up against a proposed mega quarry (采石场) in their land. They held festivals to draw attention, they spoke up against corporate mining which threatened their groundwater and soil, they mobilised many people to stop it and in 2012, Highland Company withdrew their plans.

I hope to see the end of the fossil fuel industry, and we need renewable energy. We need sustainability in every sector through green building and clean transportation. I hope to see recovery of our ecosystems through planting more trees, having urban forests and protecting wildlife. Our existence depends on that of our ecosystems. I hope to see more recovery projects built in the most affected communities.

There are many climate movements all over the world and most have social media accounts. Find a local group that you can work with to demand climate action. When people are united, they cannot be defeated. Earth is our home to protect. Everyone is needed.

8 . It's a typical morning: you wake up, take a shower, brush your teeth, and then prick(刺)your arm with a tiny needle. Wait, what? Unless you have a serious disease such as diabetes,you probably haven't ever tested your own blood. But in the future, that might change.

The company Cor already sells a system for home blood testing. You stick your arm using a supposedly painless cartridge. Then you stick the cartridge into a device that looks like the base for an electric toothbrush. A few minutes later, an app on your phone offers you updated information, including your current health status and tips on what to eat and how to exercise.It's true that blood provides abundant information about a person's health. Specific tests can reveal if a person is infected with a disease or at risk for a variety of problems. But most people don't test their own blood often. Healthy young adults get blood tests approximately every five years. Cor and similar companies are trying to change the situation. They think people deserve access to more information about their health.

But not everyone is convinced."The best-case scenario(情景)here is that you lose much money and then you're reminded to get more sleep and to eat more fruits, vegetables and fish,"Pieter Cohen of Harvard Medical School told The New York Times. Plus, the results of a home blood test might be wrong. It's hard to get accurate results from a tiny amount of blood. One company, Theranos, said it could perform medical blood tests on a fingerprick's worth of blood.But the company was soon stuck in a controversy((争议)and accused of cheating because its technology didn't work as promised. Thus, there's still a long way to go before the technology becomes advanced.

9 . China's historic 23-day Chang'e 5 mission has not only obtained precious rock and soil samples from the moon, but has also brought back a group of seeds that traveled the furthest in the nation's agricultural and forestry histories. More than 30 kinds of seeds, including that of rice, oats etc., were placed inside the multi-module Chang'e 5 spacecraft and orbited around the moon for about 15 days.

Scientists wished to check what would happen to the seeds after being exposed to extraterrestrial (地外的) forces in lunar orbit and also hoped that they could develop beneficial mutations (突变). This mission offered good opportunities to scientists, which enabled them to deepen their studies on the effect of cosmic rays on the growth and evolution of life on Earth.

Space-based mutation breeding refers to the process of exposing seeds to forces such as microgravity, vacuums and cosmic radiation during a spaceflight and then sending them back to Earth for further observation and planting. Researchers observe and examine several generations of plants grown from space-bred seeds and investigate their mutations-some are positive and desirable while others are negative. Those with positive mutations will be kept and analyzed, and will be introduced to farmers after their certification and approval.

Space breeding can generate mutations faster and more conveniently than ground-based experiments and can bring about some desirable traits that are otherwise hard to introduce. Compared with natural or conventionally bred types of plants, space-developed versions with positive mutations usually feature higher nutritional content, greater annual yields, shorter growth periods and better resistance to diseases and insect pests.

China conducted its first space breeding experiment in 1987, using a satellite to carry seeds into space. Since then, hundreds of kinds of seeds and seedlings have traveled with dozens of Chinese spaceships. Space breeding has helped to produce more than 200 new types of mutated plants in China that have been approved for large-scale cultivation, ranging from grains to vegetables and fruits. The Chang'e 5 robotic mission returned 1,731 grams of lunar rock and soil to Earth, marking a historic accomplishment 44 years after the last lunar substances were taken back.

10 . Doug Falter, an American photographer, returned home, teary-eyed and exhausted. He pouted online that evening, "I lost my baby." That "baby" referred to a surfboard that had been custom-made for him. Hours earlier, a big wave had separated Falter from this prized possession.

Months passed with no sign of the surfboard. Falter saved money to buy a new surfboard for $ 1,500. But Falter never completely forgot the surfboard, which - six months later and more than 5,000 miles away from where it disappeared-floated to the southern Philippines.The local fisherman who found it didn't have much use of his unusual catch of the day, so he sold the board for s 40 to Giovanne Branzuela, an elementary school teacher. Branzuela hoped to learn to surf and one day share the skill with his students,who regularly accompany him on beach clean-ups.

The once-blue board had faded to a pale straw color during its journey, but its distinctive markings were still there: two elephants, one at either end. Underneath the elephants were the words "Doug Falter Surfboard".

Branzuela couldn't believe it on realizing how far the surfboard had traveled. He reached Falter online and sent him a photo of the surfboard. Falter was shocked to learn that his "baby"had drifted(漂流) across the world's largest ocean and survived. He was overjoyed.

But the story was far from over. Falter wanted to thank Branzuela with some surfing supplies for his kind act, but the teacher asked for school supplies instead, such as backpacks for his students and materials to help them learn English.

Falter said it made him raise money for the kids. So far, he has collected $ 2,500,which he has used to buy and ship maps, puzzles, classroom posters, textbooks, and workbooks.