During the 2023 Lanzhou International Marathon, all eyes were on the elderly couple—Hu Yingfu, 86, and his wife Wang Zhangmin, 77. Many doubted their ability to finish the race,     1     Hu completed the half marathon in two hours and twenty minutes.

Against initial struggles, Hu found a way to motivate himself by counting electric poles while running. “The distance between each electric pole is 50 meters. I run as fast as I can, passing a dozen or so poles.” said Hu.     2     (gradua), his endurance improved, along with his physical condition.

The couple’s love for running started as a way     3     (improve) their fitness, but it quickly became a passion, They participated in a national athletics event     4     the elderly in 2004,     5     (mark) their first-ever national competition. To their surprise, Wang achieved     6     impressive result—the fourth place.

Since then, the elderly couple have become regular     7     (participate) in national athletics events, consistently winning medals, and they     8     (recognize) as well-known figures in the running community.

With a     9     (combine) age of 163, the couple have participated in over 100 marathon races nationwide, whose impact has motivated     10     (count) young individuals to become part of the running community.

2 . On February 17th, the Clermont County Animal Shelter, Ohio, shared a story. A woman met with her missing dog Will again.

While ________ the shelter’s Facebook post forwarded by friends in her community, Hannah saw a dog named Rome that was to be available at the shelter’s weekend ________ event and that dog looked quite ________.

Hannah explained in her Facebook post that Will, a six-year-old went missing from her home in 2019. Although her family looked everywhere, they couldn’t ________ their missing baby.

A shelter volunteer said, “Just yesterday we ________ a message accompanied by photos with a detailed description of Will’s ________ in the hope that the dog brought to our shelter and renamed Rome was ________ Will!” But Rome was scheduled to be at the Take Me Home event today! Learning this, the volunteer, in a bit of ________ quickly sent a message back that Rome would be at the event! “We would love this family to be ________ and we just had to ________ whether this was Will after all these years!” It turned out a big yes. The volunteer continued, “The ________ story serves as a reminder of the incredible impact that the Internet can have in bringing communities together, especially in times of ________. Thank you all for ________ Will’s post.”

It was nothing short of a ________ and we are sure Hannah and her family are ________ to have their dog back!

3 . For eight years, Sophie created realistic-looking limbs (肢) for those who wanted to fit in. But she longed to work on more odd designs that would stand out. Then she met Pollyanna Hope, a young amputee (被截肢者).

“She wanted something a little different on her leg: pictures of a cartoon she loved, Peppa Pig,” said Sophie, who is now based in London. So she designed a unique leg covered in tattoo-like images of Peppa and other pigs riding a bicycle and eating ice cream. Working with Hope made Sophie realize there was a potential market for limbs.

Since then, Sophie founded the Alternative Limb Project (ALP) to make artistic limbs. Her work includes an arm wrapped in sculpted snakes and a leg that looks like porcelain (瓷器) covered in a painted flowery vine. She makes about six limbs per year, always including clients’ ideas so that they receive a personal piece they can celebrate rather than hide.

Of course, a fancy-looking limb won't suit everyone. For Sophie, the basis is that each limb must satisfy a combination of comfort, beauty and functionality, and pushing too hard in one direction can weaken other areas. But for amputees who appreciate novelty, Sophie has some amazing ideas.

“I’d really like to make a candy-dispenser leg with colorful candies inside it” she says. “Or a cuckoo-clock leg with a wooden bird that pops out every hour.” Her goal is to fashion a striking limb.

“It’ll transform the limbs from an elephant in the room into a conversation piece.”

4 . Upcoming Events in Essex County Environmental Center

Join us for explorations of nature as we study plants and animals and observe the colors, shapes, and sounds in the Center’s forest habitat. Please come dressed and prepared for all weather conditions; all classes include an outdoor adventure. All children must be walking and accompanied by an adult. Maximum of two children per adult. All sessions are limited to 10 children. Fee: $15 per child per session.

We’ll explore the forest to investigate nature in our wooded wetland habitat. Together we hope to raise our children’s nature responsibilities and offer an opportunity to take part in hands-on conservation projects. Fee: $12 per child per session.

Take a walk in the forest to identify and discuss the variety of forest groceries available for harvest. You’ll meet Spice Bush, Mountain Mint and others. Learn some folklore (FIA) behind the plants and we’ll discuss proper identification, growing environment and methods of preparation while walking. Fee: $40 per family (up to two adults and two children) or $12 per child, $15 per adult.

Have you ever wondered how vegetables and flowers grow? How to find a rainbow in a garden? The 4-H Young Gardener’s Club can guide you to find the answers to these questions and more. Learning and fun happen all the time here. Meet in Garibaldi Hall. Advanced registration required; please call 973 3531337.

5 . “Sating from now on, to be healthy, I will NOT eat any snacks besides granola bars (燕麦棒),” is what I told myself yesterday, and yet here I am today chewing a Chocopie. I’m aware that I’m breaking my own promise to myself. Instead of eating this, I should be working out or something. But the thing is, chocolate is too good at this moment for me to refuse it!

As I type this, I’m experiencing what’s called instant gratification — the desire to experience pleasure or fulfillment without delaying it for a future benefit. Essentially, when you want it, you get it.

Instant gratification is also the exact opposite of what we’re taught to do-delayed gratification: deciding to put off satisfying our current want to gain something better in the future. We’ve all encountered instant gratification before. Should I sleep in or wake up early to work out? When I get home, should I rest and watch TV first or get started on my homework?

All humans have the tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain, which is a basic but fundamental concept known as the pleasure principle. Originally coined by Sigmund Freud, it clearly states that all humans are driven, to some extent, by pleasure.

Constantly seeking quick pleasure may bring subsequent troubles. However pleasant not doing your homework may seem pleasant right now, it only results in pleasure plagued by guilt and last-minute panicking late at night. An inability to resist instant gratification may result in underachieving in the long term and failure to meet certain goals.

Instant gratification, however, is not necessarily a bad thing. You don’t always have to say no to things you want at that moment, and it’s good to treat yourself when you need it. In other words, times where you “treat yourself” are only valuable in combination with delayed gratification. While my Chocopie may taste good now, it’ll taste even better if I only eat it after I’ve worked out or done something healthy.

6 . Researchers at the Tokyo University of Science (TUS) have developed a groundbreaking sweat biosensor that opens up new possibilities for real-time health monitoring.

Wearable sensors, typically worn directly on the skin, can monitor vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle activity. However, designing chemical sensors for detecting substance in bodily liquid, like sweat, has proven more complex due to issues of skin irritation (刺激) and accuracy when integrated into clothing.

Addressing these challenges, the research team at TUS used a technique called “heat-transfer Printing” to fix a thin, flexible chloride ion (氯离子) sensor onto a clothing base and then integrated it into clothes such as T-shirts. Further, health signs such as chloride ion concentration in sweat can be measured by simply wearing them. By moving the sensor outside of the clothing piece, skin irritation is prevented. The wicking effect (芯吸效应) of fiber helps distributing sweat evenly between the sensor’s electrodes (电极), ensuring stable electrical contact and therefore improving the accuracy.

Additionally, the team carefully selected skin-friendly materials and conducted various experiments using artificial sweat to prove the sensor’s accuracy in measuring chloride ion concentration. To assess its practicality, the team tested the sensor on a volunteer who engaged in a 30-minute exercise on a still bicycle. Measurements of bodily liquid were taken every five minutes and compared with the data collected by the sensor. The wearable sensor reliably measured the concentration of chloride ions in sweat. Moreover, the sensor has the capability to deliver data wirelessly, enabling real-time health monitoring.

This breakthrough can boost the development of advanced healthcare devices that offer precise and convenient monitoring of important health indicators. With the power of these tiny electronics, researchers are pushing the boundaries of healthcare innovation to improve disease prevention and overall well-being.

7 . “It’s not unusual for guests to feel emotional when they discover the story behind our food,” says Patrick Navis. “Not to mention when they taste it. One even cried with happiness.” The setting for these tearful scenes? Navis’s restaurant in a Dutch city. Here, the owner and his team create experimental food using herbs, roots, flowers and nuts — some common, others less so.

Most of these ingredients (食材) come from the Ketelbroek Food Forest nearby. To the untrained eye, it’s like an ordinary wood. But there’s one key difference: everything in it is edible. It was set up in 2009 by Dutch botanist and environmentalist Noah Eck as an experiment in slow farming, to see what would happen if the right combination of food plants were left to grow together like a natural forest, without chemicals.

“It’s the first ‘food forest’ of its kind in Europe and we’re one of the few restaurants around the world cooperating in this way,”says Navis.“We have over 400 different species of edible plants we plan our menus around, including some we previously knew little about.” He harvests the ingredients and, with his fellow chefs, works them into beautifully presented tasting menus, served in a dining room hidden in the backstreets of the city,

“To us, fine dining is not about the fame of a restaurant, its location, expensive decoration, fancy cooking and wine list,”says Navis.“It’s about adding value through creativity and using ingredients nobody knows of, which are grown with great attention.” However, he adds, luxury cooking can be about enhancing everyday ingredients, too.

“When looking at cooking in this way, who can argue that caviar (鱼子酱), for example, is more valuable than a carrot grown with specialist knowledge?”

Experimentation is extremely important to Navis. In the next five years, he hopes to open an outdoor restaurant. But for now, the most important thing is to continue focusing on how plants are being grown and the perennial system used in the Food Forest, reducing the need for replanting each season.