1 . An artist in Oakland, California is using his skills to help the homeless. Greg Kloehn builds very small shelters that make life on the streets a little more comfortable. The structures offer the homeless some safety and protection from bad weather. Each little house also has wheels on the bottom so it can go wherever its owner goes.

Greg Kloehn has given away at least 20 tiny houses. Several are on the roadside near an active railroad. On a recent day, Mr.Kloehn stops at one to visit Oscar Young. The two men hug. Inside his little shelter Mr.Young gets relief from cold nights on the streets. Mr.Kloehn also visits Sweet­Pea, another friend who also lives in one of the little homes the artist built. She says it keeps her safe and protects her belongings.

In the mornings, Mr. Kloehn searches the streets for building materials. He gathers what he can and takes it to his studio. There, he puts the houses together. Empty coffee bags become roof material. A washing machine door and refrigerator part become windows. Nails,screws and the sticky glue hold all the pieces together. The artist also attaches a small electrical device to the house. The device is powered by the sun.

Some of the people living on the streets once had normal houses of their own. But some of the people say they have learned to live with less and they are thankful to that man.

Mr.Kloehn says his work is not a social project. He says he is just someone using his skills to help his homeless neighbors.

2 . Pangolins (穿山甲) are the most trafficked (非法交易) mammals in the world and are facing extinction. To draw attention to these scaly (有鳞片的), anteater-like animals, a new wildlife documentary, Eye of the Pangolin, is attempting a unique way to inspire action and conservation. Partnering with the non-profit organization Pangolin. Africa, the documentary was made available on YouTube in May 2019. The intention is to reach communities wherever the Internet is available, especially African communities, who live near the animal’s habitats.

Over two years, the documentary crew traveled to South Africa, Ghana, Central African Republic and Gabon in search of the four unique species of pangolin, which has never been achieved before. Filmmakers Bruce Young and Johan Vermeulen say that they went into the shoot knowing relatively little about pangolins, but grew to respect and appreciate the animals. Getting close to the creatures over two years was a crash course in these secretive creatures. Johan Vermeulen said, "One thing however that might seem unimportant is that they are actually quite fussy eaters. You would think they would eat any type of ant, but they all prefer a specific type ant."

Pangolins are hunted illegally across Africa for their scales, which are used for traditional medicine, and their meat. In April 2019, Singaporean customs officials conducted two separate seizures of 24 tons of pangolin scales, which equals to the death of 69,000 pangolins.

Though the documentary focuses less on the trafficking of pangolins, and more on the animals in their natural habitat, the aim of the documentary is to inspire viewers around the world to call for action to end trafficking and protecting these unique creatures.

Filmed on location in South Africa, Ghana, Central African Republic, and Gabon, this powerful documentary is the story of two men on a mission to get all four species of African pangolin on camera for the very first time.

4 . Standing in my office 25 years ago was an unknown young astronomer with a half-smile on her face. She had come with an impossible request that my team modify (修改) our thoroughly tested software to make one of our most important scientific instruments do something it had never been designed for, and risk breaking it. All to carry out an experiment that was basically a waste of time and couldn’t be done-to prove that a massive black hole lay at the center of our Milky Way.

My initial “no way” gradually gave way in the face of her cheerful but firm determination. Andrea Ghez, one of three winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics，impressed me with her work on providing solid evidence of a supermassive black hole with the mass of four million suns living at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

That determination and the willingness to take calculated risks has always characterized Andrea. For 25 years she has focused almost completely on Sagittarius (人马座) A *—the name of our own local supermassive black hole. It is remarkable that an entire field of study has grown up in the quarter century, of searching for and finding evidence of these monsters thought to lie at the heart of every large galaxy.

Andrea did her work at the W. M. Keck Observatory’s twin telescopes on Maunakea, Hawaii, in the calm and clear air almost 14000 feet above the Pacific Ocean. She started using the very first instrument fixed on Keck Observatory’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRC), now gracing the lobby at our headquarters.

Andrea is fond of pointing out that one of the reasons for her success has been this tight and rapid loop (循环) between the needs of the astronomers and the engineers who respond to the challenge.

This is my friend and longtime colleague, the one who refused to take “no” for an answer: Andrea Ghez, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics.

7 . Make 2020 your most adventurous year yet by signing up for one of these trips of a lifetime. Sail to Aldabra Atoll for a fascinating journey, hike along the frontiers of Georgia, explore different habitats of human and animals: These journeys are unlike any trip you've ever taken before.

Exodus Travels

This once -in-a- lifetime journey visits Aldabra Atoll, one of the most remote UNESCO World Heritage sites on the planet. Hidden away from the impact of humans, Aldabra has managed to sustain a population of 152,000 giant tortoises. This is the trip for wild life enthusiasts: The clear waters of the Seychelles are home to 850 species of brilliantly colored fish that you'll visit on snorkel and dive excursions （旅行）.

Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel

Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel's Georgia Walking Tour showcases the country's wild side, with plenty of hikes in the Svaneti Mountains mixed with cultural experiences like a visit to the remote village of Adishi, home to just 12 families.

Natural Habitat Adventures

A nine-day adventure centered around Natural Habitat's unique luxury base camp near the edge of the Greenland ice sheet. You'll be in one of the world's most remote locations （with a maximum of only 11 other travelers in your group）, but still have access to hot showers and well-prepared meals. You'll spend your days exploring the surrounding water, meeting the local Inuit villagers, kayaking （独木舟）,and more.

Mountain Travel Sobek

Accompanied with expert guides, you'll track gorillas through Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park, getting a rare chance to see these majestic creatures up close. You'll also focus your search on another rare creature—the golden monkey.

8 . Designing a winter coat that transforms into a sleeping bag for people living on the streets would have been enough for most folks to sit back and revel（陶醉）in a kind deed done well. Others would call it good if they managed to take the attempt a step further by creating jobs for homeless people to sew the garments.

But Veronika Scott, the founder of the Empowerment Plan, wants those achievements to be just two of many stepping stones on the path to dreams fulfilled for single parents struggling to provide homes for their kids. Her vision has grown far beyond the design-school project thought up five years ago, when she was a 21-year-old student and people on the streets started calling her”the crazy coat lady”. Now The Empowerment Plan, is a fully developed business that has provided convertible（可变的）coats to more than 20,000 globally, given jobs and education to more than 40 parents, and helped move more than 80 children out of shelters.

Scott said she’s proud of the sleeping-bag coat she designed, but her main goal is getting people to the point where they and their families would never need one. That means locking past merely giving homeless parents jobs, but also helping them gain the education and skills needed to leave. The Empowerment Plan after a couple years and pursue their dreams.

Scott’s drive comes from her own upbringing as the scared child of parents who both struggled with unemployment and addiction. “The Empowerment Plan was a way of creating something I wish my own family had had growing up: an employment opportunity that would allow them to stabilize and get the financial stability they never had.”

Scott wanted to show parents and their kids “that living in a homeless shelter isn’t a defining （定义性的）characteristic, nor a life sentence.” Her employees all have been able to move into permanent housing with their children within the first four to six weeks of working for The Empowerment Plan, she said.

9 . Artificial intelligence (AD) technology may soon be a useful tool for doctors. It may help them better understand and treat diseases like breast cancer in ways that were never before possible.

Rishi Rawat, who teaches AI at the University of Southern California's (USC) Clinical Science Center in Los Angeles, is part of a team of scientists who are researching how AI and machine learning can more easily recognize cancerous growths in the breast.

Rawat provides information about cancer cells to a computer. He says this data helps the machine learn. “... You can put the data into them and they will learn the patterns and the pattern recognition that's important to making decisions"" David Agus, another USC researcher, believes that machines are not going to take the place of doctors, but they will help make certain decisions and look for things that the human brain can't recognize.

Once a confirmed cancerous growth is removed, doctors still have to treat the patient to reduce the risk of cancer returning. The form of treatment depends on the kind of cancer. Currently, researchers take a thin piece of tissue, put it on a small piece of glass and add color to better see the cells. The process could take days or even longer. Scientists say artificial intelligence can do something better than just count cells. Through machine learning, it can recognize complex patterns or structures, and learn how the cells are organized. They hope that machines will soon be able to make a quick identification of cancer that is free of human mistakes.

"All of a sudden, we have the computing power to really do it in real time...We couldn't have done this, but now it's all changed."" Agus adds that the process could be done for almost no cost in the developing world." He says that having a large amount of information about patients is important for a machine to effectively do its job in medicine.

The USC researchers are now only studying breast cancer. But doctors predict artificial intelligence will one day make a difference in all forms of cancer.

10 . From radiocarbon dating in the 1940s to remote sensing techniques (RST) in the 1960s, archaeologists have long been early users of technology. Now, experts can use robots to explore ancient cities underwater. Imaging technologies can show the true colors of ancient statues, and protein analysis tells us what diseases ancient people had. Here are three more of the main tech tools used in archaeology.

LiDAR

Ancient sites and buildings may be hidden under trees, water, soil and other things, making them difficult to find for archaeologists. However, with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), archaeologists can scan different areas and find previously hidden sites. It works by sending laser pulses and receiving data from the surface below. The data can then help produce a 3D image of a buried city. In the early 2010s, archaeologists used LiDAR to find a lost Mayan city of which there used to be little evidence.

Virtual reality

Rebuilding ancient sites is an important part of archaeology. But it's never an easy job, as the original materials are hard to find, and rebuilding may also cause harm to the site. VR technology helps to bring old sites back to life. For example, British archaeologist Morgan rebuilt a Neolithic site in Turkey with VR. She collected data from the site and “rebuilt” the site brick by brick on a computer. Then by wearing a VR headset, she “walked around” the site. “It allowed me to look at the site in ways I’ve never done before,” she told Slate, an online magazine.

Artificial intelligence

There are many mysterious words on the oracle bones of the Shang Dynasty that lake a lot of time for archaeologists to understand. AI can help with this. By quickly analyzing a huge amount of data, AI can find patterns and learn to “read” these words.