Tennis super star Naomi Osaka lit the 2020 Tokyo Olympics flame. The Games     1     (official) started, although a year late. A possible fifth wave (波) of COVID-19 in Japan’s capital put in doubt     2     or not they would go ahead. COVID-19 greatly influenced the event. There     3     (be) no fans and several athletes couldn’t attend the Games after testing positive (阳性的). Japan hoped the Games would show     4     (it) culture to the world. The opening ceremony (仪式) ended at midnight with     5     amazing fireworks show.

Only 950 people attended the opening ceremony. Attendees     6     (include) Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and the US First Lady Jill Biden. Emperor Naruhito declared (宣布) the Games open. President of IOC Thomas Bach said: “It is very     7     (difference) from what we imagined, but let us value this moment because finally we are all here together. Today is a moment     8     hope.” Naomi Osaka posted a message on Twitter after     9     (light) the flame. She said it was “undoubtedly the     10     (great) honour (荣誉) I will ever have in my life.”

4 . One 18-month-old welcomes her big brothers home from school in the most beautiful way possible.

Having spent most of her ________ in the COVID-19 pandemic, Emelia “Emmy” Muddamalle has grown used to always having her three ________ brothers- Liam, 10; Levi, 8; and Lucas, 6—around.

With the school year in Charlotte, North Carolina, now in full ________ her brothers are back in school for in-person learning, ________ Emmy at home with their parents.

“She never ________ her brothers gone,” said Emmy’s mother, Brittany Muddamalle.

“This is the ________ time. She’ll wake up from her nap (小睡) like, Where in the world are my brothers?’ and ________ them all day.”

In a video recently posted online, Brittany ________ her kids’ lovely reunion (团聚) one day after school. The video has since gone viral (走红), and has had over 4 million ________ and 75,000 comments.

The video shows Liam, Levi and Lucas on one side of a road and Emmy on the other as both run to ________ in the middle while ________ each other’s names. At the end, the boys ________ their schoolbags and give Emmy a group hug (拥抱).

“It’s such a ________ family moment,” Brittany said. “They just dote on (宠爱) her. They just do everything with her all day long, so when they were ________, she was like “What am I supposed to do?”

“One of the things in Indian culture is that________ is everything,” Brittany explained. “I’ve worked really hard at teaching our kids that kind of love.

5 . Get Digital Scotland, Simon Community Scotland’s digital inclusion programme, is proud to announce the start of Get Connected 100! This is a Scotland-wide project giving 100 people experiencing homelessness access to the digital world.

Our Get Connected 100 project will connect and support 100 people to get online. Each participant (参与者) will receive a free digital device (设备) and unlimited connectivity for 12 months. In addition to free digital technology, frontline workers at Simon Community and in our partner organisations are trained as digital champions to provide person-centred support based around a digital skills learning framework (框架). The project will give people easy access at all times, right in their pocket, and support to build skills and confidence to get online.

Research from the University of the West of Scotland shows us that people who experience homelessness are among the most digitally excluded (排斥的) groups in our society. This is a great disadvantage in life which has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to COVID-19 we depend even more heavily on digital technology for many daily activities: socialising with friends, managing finances (资金), getting the latest news, accessing health services and having fun. Digital technology has never been so important to our lives.

The project is being funded by the Scottish Government. Housing Minister Kevin Stewart said: “I am glad to fund this project to support 100 people experiencing homelessness in getting connected to the digital world. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that access to digital equipment, data and skills is a basic necessity. The funding, as part of our £100 million winter support package, will certainly help people deal with the additional financial pressures of winter and COVID-19.”

Last year, Simon Community Scotland funded a “Get Connected Pilot” in Edinburgh to develop and test this approach. We wanted to make sure people facing loneliness during lockdown could get support and be connected with loved ones and professional services. The results for the people who were part of the pilot were life changing. 100% of participants said that getting a connected device and support through this pilot positively affected their lives. Our pilot showed that digital access opens up a whole world of opportunities!

6 . Nowadays, we are very worried about such COVID-19 variants as Delta and Omicron. To relieve our anxieties, we should have a look at our own cell and the original COVID-19 virus.

First of all, our cell isn’t stupid. If any virus wants to enter our cell, it must figure out a way for its spike (触手) to hold tightly to the spike on the cell’s surface. You can imagine this connecting as a secret handshake.

At the early stage, the COVID-19 virus figured out a way to connect to a specific spike on the surface of human cell, called ACE2. But the connecting wasn’t perfect. However, it was good enough to trick the ACE2 to let it in.

Once the virus was inside the cell, it kept copying itself in order to find more cells to infect. During this time, the immune (免疫) system started making antibodies to fight back. Some of those antibodies acted like little caps that stick to the ends of the virus’s spike. Once “capped”, the infection couldn’t move forward, and the body won!

But every time the virus copies itself inside a cell, it has the chance of changing its spikes slightly. Most of the variations are actually harmful to the virus. So these variants disappear. However, once the virus hits upon a set of variations that actually help the virus to connect more tightly to the cell or more quickly, a person’s cell gets infected more easily.

Then what about the antibodies? Aren’t they coming to save us again? Well, yes... and no.

Scientists found that a person who was infected with the earlier version of the virus may not be protected as well against these new variants. He still can be infected, again. However, the antibodies’ spikes come in different shapes, too. So even though some antibodies become less useful, others will get the job done—or at least, hold back the infection long enough so the body can make new antibodies that fit perfectly on the changed spike.