2 . Beijing will provide COVID-19 vaccinations (接种疫苗) for certain groups in nursing homes, including the elderly and caregivers, on a voluntary basis to prevent a renewed outbreak at nursing homes during autumn and winter, the local government said.

Those who will receive the vaccines include nursing home kitchen workers, security guards and cleaners, Beijing Daily reported on Friday.

Xing Yinli, director of Jingkangyuan, a nursing home in Fengtai district with about 290 elderly residents (居民), said they have received the document (文件) recently and will strictly follow its guidance.

“It’s our top duty to strengthen prevention and control,” Xing said, adding they have been using methods such as keeping detailed records of resident contacts outside the nursing home, and encouraging online visits for family members.

As to vaccinations, she said they will ask for permission from residents, their family members and workers before giving vaccines.

In late October, Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province carried out an emergency COVID-19 vaccine program, allowing the public to ask for injections (注射) in advance, with key groups first. A similar program was also organized in Jiaxing, Ningbo and Yiwu in Zhejiang.

Nationwide, emergency use of home-grown COVID-19 vaccines was approved in June and launched in late July. China now has four coronavirus candidate vaccines in the third stage clinical trials (临床试验).

The document from Beijing also said nursing homes should conduct nucleic acid testing (核酸检测) every month among kitchen workers and residents who leave the nursing homes to see a doctor. Tests will cover all people in nursing homes considered at high risk if new infections are reported in the city. Besides, routine disinfections (消毒) should be strengthened in kitchens, storerooms and restrooms, it said. The document also recommended non-contact visits from family members.

5 . Tracking wildlife is a tough job. Take the case of a one-eared leopard named Pavarotti.

Kasim Rafiq, a wildlife biologist at Liverpool John Moores University. “So I used to get up at the crack of dawn, follow his tracks and try and find him. So one day, I went out, and I was looking for him. And his tracks took me off road through this woodland area...and...”

Before he knew it, the wheel of his Land Rover was stuck in a deep hole. He wasted several hours getting it out. And then, on the way back to camp, he came across some local tour guides and their safari (观赏野兽的旅行) guests, who’d had way better luck spotting Pavarotti. “Basically, they laughed and they talked to me that they’d seen him that morning.”

Rafiq then realized that tourist wildlife sightings might be an untapped source of information about wild animals.

So he and his team worked with a safari lodge in Botswana to analyze 25,000 tourist photographs of wildlife. They compared those data to the estimates they made with traditional wildlife biology methods.

It turned out that the estimates from tourists’ photos were just as good as those gleaned (四处搜集) from traditional methods. And the tourists were actually the only ones to see elusive (难以捉摸的) leopards — the researchers would have missed the cats without the citizen science data. The results are in the journal Current Biology.

The idea is not to put wildlife researchers out of a job. “The reality is there are so many interesting things we still have to find out about these large carnivores (食肉动物) and so many conservation (保护) projects that need to be carried out that we don’t have the time or resources to do them all.” And tourist photos might help make sure that all the local carnivores are spotted.

Thanks for listening for Scientific American-60-Second Science. I’m Christopher Intagliata.

6 . Have your parents ever told you any strange or alarming things about protecting your eyes? For example,they might have said that you'd go blind from reading in the dark, but you could make up for it by eating a lot of carrots. This is just one of the misunderstandings you may have heard of. Below are picked out scientific explanations for three mistakes that people often make about eyes. Let's take a look.

Can eating carrots improve your vision? If eating carrots helps us see better, why do so many students end up wearing glasses? Carrots are rich in vitamin A, which is essential for our eyes' general health. Vitamin A helps the eyes to make light into signals, allowing people to see in low light conditions. However, eating more carrots doesn’t help you see better. A certain minimum amount will help, but a large number of carrots will not give you superhuman vision or allow you to get rid of your glasses.

If your parents have bad eyesight, will you have bad eyesight, too? Parents are often concerned about the causes of nearsightedness (近视).Many people believe that if parents are shortsighted, their children will suffer from the same problems. Nearsightedness can be genetic (遗传的). A study by the American Optometric Association found that if both parents are nearsighted, there's a 33 to 60 percent chance that the child is. For children who have one parent with nearsightedness, the chance is 23 to 40 percent, and it's down to 6 to 15 percent for kids with non-nearsighted parents. So no matter how bad your parents' vision is, you still have the chance of good eyesight.

Is it true that people who are color blind can't see colors? Color blindness doesn^’t mean that someone can't see colors at all, like a black and white movie. Most commonly, it means that someone has difficulty telling certain colors apart, usually green and red or blue and yellow.

7 . Make the world your classroom!

Travel fuels curiosity, offers fresh perspectives, and gives students the opportunity to discover life beyond their backyards. Our educational tours keep students aged 11-15 interested and actively learning with specially-designed, hands-on activities in exciting destinations.

Explore Italy

Duration: 9 or 11 days

Destination: Venice, Florence, Rome

Italy has always been an icon of rich culture and traditions. This interactive tour includes Italy's top hits. Discover the country's ancient past in sites such as the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, stare up at Michelangelo's masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel(小教堂), walk across Florence's famous medieval bridge, and take a ride down Venice's winding canals.

Total cost: $3, 519

Hello London

Duration: 7 days

Destination, London

Royal traditions? Check. Picturesque landmarks? Check. World-class museums? Check. Mysterious ring of heavy rocks that's puzzled historians for ages? Check. London has it all. Discover the complex history of this international city at sites such as the Tower of London, which also houses the famous Crown Jewels. Take a day trip to Wiltshire to get a glimpse of Stonehenge, and try to guess how the giant monument first appeared.   

Total cost: $3, 085

New York City: The Big Apple

Duration: 5-7 days

Destination: New York

Bursting with an energy all its own, New York City provides a unique look into American life and culture. Explore the very best of the Big Apple, from the bustle of Times Square to the skyline view from the Empire State Building. Get to know one of the most exciting cities even better!

Total cost: $2,746

Click here for more information about: Language &culture in Spain, Rome and Pompeii, Washington D. C.: The Capital Tour...

8 . Every week in China, millions of people will sit in front of their TVs watching teenagers compete for the title Character Hero, which is a Chinese-style spelling bee. In this challenge, young competitors must write Chinese characters by hand. To prepare for the competition, the competitors usually spend months studying dictionaries.

Perhaps the show’s popularity should not be a surprise. Along with gunpowder and paper, many Chinese people consider the creation of Chinese calligraphy(书法) to be one of their primary contributions to civilization. Unfortunately, all over the country, Chinese people are forgetting how to write their own language without computerized help. Software on smart phones and computers allows users to type in the basic sound of the word using the Latin alphabet. The correct character is chosen from a list. The result? It’s possible to recognize characters without remembering how to write them.

But there’s still hope for the paint brush. China’s Education Ministry wants children to spend more time learning how to write.

In one Beijing primary school we visited, students practice calligraphy every day inside a specially decorated classroom with traditional Chinese paintings hanging on the walls. Soft music plays as a group of six-year-olds dip brush pens into black ink. They look up at the blackboard often to study their teacher’s examples before carefully attempting to reproduce those characters on thin rice paper. “If adults can survive without using handwriting, why bother to teach it now?” we ask the calligraphy teacher, Shen Bin. “The ability to write characters is part of Chinese tradition and culture,” she reasons. “Students must learn now so they don’t forget when they grow up.” says the teacher.

9 . The holiday season is upon us and though they may feel a bit different this year — without large get-togethers, the holidays themselves are certainly not canceled. December is filled with celebrations. Here are some of the most unusual ways people bring the festivities home — all around the world.

Kentucky Fried Christmas

Japan

Kentucky Fried chicken might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Christmas, but over the years, it has become quite the holiday tradition in Japan. In order to ensure you get your hands in a holiday bucket, it is suggested that you order in advance, as nearly 4 million people choose KFC as their Christmas dinner.

Throwing of the Shoe

Czech Republic

This Christians tradition has nothing to do with trimming trees or singing carols. Rather, young women step outside their homes on Christmas Eve and instead of waiting for Santa, they throw a shoe over their shoulders. How it land is said to predict if the woman will marry next year.

Burning Effigies

Ecuador

New year's Eve comes with a whole set of traditions and customers to symbolically leave the previous year behind. Here, “monigotes” — figures that represent what went wrong in the last year, sometimes politicians are then burned into the night.

Sauna Visit

Estonia

This is a holiday tradition most people would happily get behind. On Christmas Eve, after spending the day setting up for the following day's festivities, it is traditional to sweat it out in sauna with your family.

10 . British birdwatcher are used to bad news. House sparrow numbers have fallen from an estimated 30m to 10m since 1966. Curlews （杓鹬）have become a rare sight, their numbers sharply declining by 50% in 15 years. Cuckoos（布谷鸟）， once-frequent visitors from Africa, have decreased by 63% in the south-east in the past two decades. Earlier springs that confuse migrant birds, more efficient farming and the transformation of ruined buildings (good for nesting) into modern homes have all contributed to these woes.

But data released by the British Trust for Ornithology(BTO), a research charity, suggest some are rising. Tracking bird populations by means of regular surveys, the figures give the clearest picture of 49 species across Britain.

Blackcaps（黑顶林莺）, small woodland birds native to Germany and eastern Europe, are unwilling to return after their summer short visits: Since 1967 numbers have increased by 177%. The little egret（小白鹭）, a white heron-like bird, arrived from continental Europe in 1989 and now numbers over 5,000. Wood pigeons（斑尾林鸽）, once found shyly singing in forests, have bravely moved into cities and suburbs.

Environmental and agricultural changes have helped as well as confused birds. Modern farming techniques allow grain to be planted in the autumn rather than the spring; that helps wood pigeons feed in winter. Warmer winters mean rivers and ponds are less likely to freeze, providing the little egrets with food. James Pearce-Higgins of the BTO says that blackcaps benefit particularly from the increasing popularity of berry bushes in people’s gardens.

Birders complain nonetheless. Some of the species booming, such as carrion crows（食腐乌鸦）and buzzards（秃鹰）, are disliked. And migrant birds that extend their visits may provide competition for some bird natives. They are “muscling in and getting the first claim on breeding sites”, says Richard Cowser of the Sussex Ornithological Society.                                        I like their human counterparts（同行）, residents of a small island stricken by global winds, British birds will have to learn to compete.