1 . Fu Cong, a Chinese-born pianist, died on Monday at a hospital in London, where he had lived for many years.

A lover of classical music from a young age, Mr. Fu began taking piano lessons when he was 7. He made his first stage appearance in 1952. The concert caught the attention of officials in Beijing, who selected him to compete and tour in Eastern Europe. Mr. Fu soon moved to Poland, where he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory (音乐学校) on a scholarship. To prepare for the fifth Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955, he practiced so hard that he hurt his fingers and was nearly cut from the first round of the competition.

Mr. Fu was one of the first Chinese pianists to achieve global fame when he took third place in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955. He also won a special prize for his performance of Chopin's mazurkas. Almost overnight, he became a national hero. To China, Mr. Fu's recognition in a well-known international competition was evidence that the country could stand on its own artistically in the West. Chinese reporters came to interview Mr. Fu, while many others went to his father, Fu Lei, for advice on child-raising.

In 1981, a volume of letters written by his father, was published in China. Full of advice, encouragement, life teachings and strict paternal love, the book Fu Lei's Family Letters became a best-seller in China. Besides influencing a generation of Chinese, Mr. Fu's words resonated (引起共鸣) long after his death with the person for whom they were intended.

“My father had a saying that 'First you must be a person, then an artist, and then a musician, and only then can you be a pianist,'" Mr. Fu Cong once recalled in an interview. "Even now, I believe in this order-that it should be this way and that I am this way.”

3 . Having worked for more than a decade in finance in the oil industry in Canada, Tori Fahey found herself wanting more from life. But it wasn't through desperation that her circumstances changed: “I didn't get fed up and storm off, nothing like that; it was curiosity about other interests and wanting to experience something new.”

Fahey left her job and completed an MBA before setting up a move to New York to begin a degree. However, the opportunity of an open year between the MBA and the degree came up, and as a keen touring cyclist, Fahey realised that a much dreamed-about adventure was now becoming a possibility: "The ride in Africa had been on my fantasy list. It was a moment when I realised that I could do anything, so I should."

Fahey rode across Africa, a 7,500-mile trip that took four months. The whole experience had a life-changing impact. Fahey said: “Bicycles provide a literal freedom. You don't allow yourself to feel like that in everyday life because there are so many distractions. But when you' re out on the bike and there's nothing else, you' re really free to experience what life is.”

Post-degree, Fahey worked on projects with the UNDP(United Nations Development Project) in Montenegro with the aim of bringing investment to rural communities.

It was while working on these projects that the seeds were sown for the next new investment. “It was through my trip across Africa that I discovered pannier and rack systems inconvenient and I was never going to use them again.” Little did she know this would lead her to start up her own company.

In 2013, Apidura was born, producing storage solutions for people looking to travel the world by bike, race across continents and carry all they need to do so. It's now a successful global brand, but Fahey remains reflective about what else the company can do for people.

4 . A US government study has found that facial recognition technology is getting better at identifying people wearing masks. The study is part of an ongoing research by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The agency has examined the effectiveness of more than 150 facial recognition systems on people wearing face coverings . The systems are powered by machine learning algorithms (算法).

The first results of the study were announced in July, as health officials across the world urged people to wear masks to limit the spread of COVID-19. New findings were released this week . Police agencies have long used facial recognition technology to search for and help catch criminals. It can also be used to unlock phones or other electronic devices. Some robots use facial recognition technology to recognize the people they are communicating with. However, the wide use of masks in public has created major difficulties for such systems.

The study looked at facial recognition systems already in use before the pandemic. It also looked at systems specially developed to work on masked faces. The NIST said it processed a total of 6. 2 million images for the experiment People in the images were not actually wearing masks. So, the researchers digitally added different mask shapes to faces in the pictures for use in the study. In some cases, up to 70 percent of a person’s face was covered in the images. Overall, the research shows the top-performing facial recognition systems fail to correctly identify unmasked individuals about 0. 3 percent of the time and the failure rate rose to about 5 percent with masked images. Many of the lower performing algorithms, however, had much higher error rates with masked images — as high as 20 to 50 percent.

In the latest findings, researchers included results from 65 new facial recognition systems that have been developed since the start of the pandemic. “Some of these systems performed “significantly better” than the earlier ones，” Mei Ngan, a lead researcher on the project, said in a statement. The study also found round-shaped masks — which cover only the mouth and nose — led to fewer errors than wider ones that stretch across the cheeks. The new study also ran tests to see whether different colored masks would affect error rates. The team used red, white, black and light blue. The research findings suggested that generally, the red and black masks led to higher failure rates than the other colors.

5 . Though the harmful effects of plastic on wildlife and human health are well-documented, this material is hard to avoid. Nearly everything we touch, from grocery bags to drink bottles, to food packaging, contains plastic. Now, Amsterdam’s Ekoplaza supermarket is making it a little easier for consumers to reduce consumption of single-use plastic bags and containers, which are blocking our landfills at alarming rates, with a special plastic-free aisle (通道). Believed to be the world’s first, the aisle has 700 products on sale including rice, beans, yogurt, chocolate milk, cereal, snacks and meat.

While items still require packaging, everything is housed inside reusable or recyclable containers made of glass, metal or cardboard. The unique idea was given to the grocery-chain officials by UK-based environmental group A Plastic Planet, which takes the lead to advocate for at least one plastic-free aisle in supermarkets around the globe. The non-profit has even created a signature “plastic-free” mark to help consumers identify eco-friendly packaging. “This is a consumer-led campaign,” said a group co-founder Sian Sutherland. “We’re a grassroots organization. So obviously we’re working with industry and the government, but most importantly, we represent the public.”

Ekoplaza, which plans to roll out the plastic-free aisles across its 74 stores by the end of the year, is not the only company trying to reduce plastic waste. In Berlin, the Original Unverpackt grocery store has been trying to change customer habits since 2014 by selling everything, from grains to produce and even soaps without plastic packaging. The supermarket, which requires customers to bring their own reusable containers, even sells chewable toothpaste that needs no tubes.

Though it is encouraging to see companies trying to make a difference, for real change to happen, consumers have to avoid products encased in plastics, even if it means giving up their favorite food or drink. As Sutherland put it, “Plastic food and drink packaging remains useful and yet a destructive presence on the earth for centuries afterwards.”

6 . There is more that comes with older age than greying hair and wrinkled skin When humans reach their later years, they favour more established friends and their social circle is reduced.

Now, for what appears to be the first time, scientists have seen the same behaviour in another species. Twenty years of observations of chimpanzees (猩猩) reveal that older males choose to hang out with their long-term friends at the expense of other relationships.

The researchers studied 78, 000 hours of observations made between 1996 and 2016 that followed the social interactions of 21 male chimpanzees between the ages of 15 and 58 years old. They classified the chimps’ relationships depending on the amount of time they sat with others and groomed (梳毛) them. They then rated the various pairings as mutual (相互的) friendships, where both chimps seemed to enjoy the relationship; one-sided friendships, where one chimp was more keen to be friends than the other; and non-friendships, where neither chimp showed interest in the other.

When the scientists looked at the patterns of friendships, they found that the older chimps had more mutual friendships and fewer one-sided friendships than younger chimps. Another feature seen in older humans was also spotted in the chimps. As the males got older, their levels of aggression (挑衅) tailed off, meaning they started fewer fights and tended to intimidate others in their group less often.

The observations have left the researchers puzzled. According to an idea in psychology known as socioemotional selectivity theory, or SST, older humans prefer more positive relationships because they are aware time is running out. But many animal experts argue that chimpanzees lack the human sense of mortality (死亡), suggesting something else is driving the behaviour.

Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, said in humans, the decline in social circles with age is due to declining social motivation to get out and meet people combined by lack of opportunity. In chimpanzees, as older males compete less for mates, they may focus on close, reciprocal (互惠的) relationships with trusted partners, she said.

7 . That morning, I dropped our eldest at kindergarten and returned home to let our two younger children play while I worked on my medical report. It was a wonderful chance to work from home, but it hit me that my career in hospital wasn't making a difference in anyone's life. I needed something that would stretch my limits and push me to grow. My career enabled me to work from home. I could work from home, and become a foster mother, providing safety for a child who needed it desperately.

On Monday morning. I picked up the phone and dialed the number I had Googled for the nearest Department of Children's Services. The man on the other end was receptive to my questions and explained the next step of training, involving eight weeks of classes designed to prepare and educate foster parents. We continued through all the classes, the home visits, background checks, and seemingly endless steps.

Five long months after we were approved, the phone rang. In the middle of the night, I woke my husband and rushed to East Tennessee Children's Hospital. Our placement was waiting for us in the emergency room, sick and lack of nutrition. It didn't take long for us to realize the full depth of her suffering. Six months later, her half-brother came to us by our request. We now had five children under our care.

On August 12, 2016, our family of seven walked into a small courtroom. The children's lawyer and social worker were there. With just a few words, our adoption was finalized. These two amazing children weren't going home, because they were already home. We are their forever family, and they are our forever children. We may not be able to change the entire world, but we have changed the world entirely for our new children.

8 . One day about eight years ago in the departure lounge (休息室) of a flight from New York's LaGuardia airport to O'Hare in Chicago, I found a young boy in tears and his mother at his side also appeared upset, I walked to them and invited them to our VIP lounge.

As it turned out, the boy, Miles and his mom were returning to their home in Kansas City. Miles has had some health problems. Though he had received more than thirty operations in a Jewish Hospital in New York, he would be back for more.

Miles enjoyed spending his time in our VIP lounge looking at the entire wall filled with the pictures of many celebrities (名人) who often came to our office. We soon added Miles' picture to the wall among those celebrities.

Among the celebrities, Miles like the country singer Garth Brooks best. Miles would just sit and stare at Garth's picture,

One day, Mr. Brooks was waiting in the lounge for his flight. As he looked at the collection of photographs, Garth asked about the youngster with the big smile. We told him about Miles. We also told him how much Miles loved and respected (尊重) him. He nodded and left.

About six months later, Garth was going to be performing in Kansas City and he asked our workers to help him get in touch with the family. He wanted Miles to be his guest. That evening, not only did Miles sit in the front row, but he and Garth also had a private meeting after the performance.

Although Miles would receive many more treatments after that special evening, his smile greeted us with every following visit. The face of a sick boy was changed by the joy of a stranger.

9 . When we were very small, we realized that having friends was important.Some of us even had imaginary (想象中的) friends.The need for friends continued as we grew into our teens.Friends played a big part in forming our personalities.As adults, it is still important for us to have friends.

True friends are people who like us though we made mistakes and who listen to us and tell us the truth.Friends support our decisions and tell us when we're foolish.They laugh with us and share our sadness.They are our partners and share interests with us.They stimulate us when we are feeling down.They are people we aren't afraid of telling our secret wishes to or what is really on our minds.

Friends are our supporters.When you can depend on friends, you feel safe and warm.Friends offer   acceptance and emotional (情感的) support.At   times, they also help with our everyday lives, cooking a meal, doing chores, or giving us a lift when we need one.Friends also are there to offer advice，an ear to listen, or a shoulder to cry on.

Friends also help us reduce stress.Not only do they listen to us when we feel stressed, but they also discuss what is stressing us.Sharing interests and doing activities with friends help us forget about problems at work or at home.For a short time, we can lose ourselves in a pleasant activity and perhaps laugh and breathe more easily.

10 . Aunt Fannie was Blueberry Jam Woman. Of course she wasn’t really my aunt, and out of fear, I never called that to her face. The name always made my father chuckle (轻笑) and my mother look sternly (严厉地) at both of us—at me for being disrespectful, and at my father for encouraging my bad behavior. I enjoyed both reactions, so I looked for every opportunity to work for the name into conversation.

As a young woman, my mother had worked in the kitchen of a large Victorian farm house owned by Fannie Cratty. Fannie was the last of the Cratty line; she had never married, and had no living heirs(继承人). My father once told me that it was because she was too mean to share her family wealth or pass it on. Aunt Fannie was noted for her jam, and for never sharing the recipe with another living soul. Even though my mother knew it by heart, as long                    as Aunt Fannie was alive, she never made the jam without Miss Cratty in our kitchen to direct the process and preserve the secret.

One year, after I had been particularly helpful with the jam-making process. Aunt Fannie gave me a quarter and then made me promise I would never spend it. “Hold onto this quarter,” she said, “and some day you will be rich. I still have my first very quarter.” It had obviously worked for her, so I put that 1938 quarter in a small box,put it in my dresser drawer, and waited to become rich.

I now have the blueberry-jam recipe and the quarter from Aunt Fannie. Neither has significantly contributed to my wealth, but I keep them to remind myself to hold onto the valuable things in life. Money can make you feel rich for a while, but it is your relationships, and your memories of time spent with friends and family, that truly leave you wealthy. And that is a fortune that anyone can build.