Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a big bronze beast. It’s one of the most highly     1     (anticipate) treasures of the Sanxingdui Ruins. The bronze was discovered in July last year, but archaeologists successfully lifted it out of the pit a year later,     2     they were sorting out all other bronze objects piled on the top of the statue.

The bronze animal is the     3     (big) ever found in decades of digging at the Sanxingdui Ruins. It weighs around 150kg and has a large mouth, small waist, huge ears and four feet. A small human statue     4     (attach) to the creature’s head and appears     5     (ride) or controlling the animal. According to Zhao Hao, a Peking University archaeologist in charge of the pit that contained     6     object, all other bronze animals uncovered at the site in the 1980s measured around 20 to 30cm “But this one is very large in size, with height and width both     7     (measure) about one metre. It’s the only one at the whole site,” Zhao said.

The bronze beast can be seen as a cultural relic nonexistent before not just in China,     8     in the world. UNESCO sent     9     (congratulate) on the amazing new discovery through a video. Meanwhile, governors of Sichuan Province are preparing an application     10     (include) Sanxingdui Ruins on the World Cultural Heritage List.

3 . “Going wireless is the future for just about everything!” That is a quote from scientist Sreekanth Chalasani, and we can’t help but agree. Realizing this, a team of scientists has made a breakthrough toward wirelessly controlling human cells using sound, in a technique called “sonogenetics (声遗传学).” This concept may seem strange but let us explain.

Basically, the term “sonogenetics” means using ultrasound (超声波) to change the behavior of cells in a non-invasive manner. “We already know that ultrasound is safe, and that it can go through bone, muscle and other tissues, making it the ultimate tool for controlling cells deep in the body,” says Chalasani.

Low-frequency ultrasound waves can target a particular protein that is sensitive to the signal. This research, published in Nature Communications, focused on TRPA1. When this protein is stimulated through the ultrasound waves, it also stimulates the cells which carry it. What type of cell is being stimulated depends on the outcome. For example, a muscle cell may contract with stimulation, or a neuron (神经元) in the brain will fire. In this experiment, scientists genetically marked cells with an increased concentration of TRPA1, making them the key targets of the ultrasound waves.

Currently, treating conditions like Parkinson’s disease requires scientists to implant electrodes (电极) in the brain which stimulate certain disordered cells. Researchers hope that sonogenetics can one day replace these invasive treatments.

In the future, the team wants to adjust the placement and amount of TRPAI around the body using the gene treatment. Gene delivery techniques have already been shown to be successful in humans, such as in treating blindness. Therefore, it’s just a case of adjusting this theory to a different sound-based setting.

“Gene delivery techniques already exist for getting a new gene—such as TRPA1—into the human heart,” Chalasani says. “If we can then use an external ultrasound device to activate those cells, that could really change pacemakers.” There is still a while to go before this treatment can become a reality. The future for sonogenetics, though, looks bright.

4 . How long have you been going to the same hairdresser or barber? It’s a question that gets us thinking about the unique friendship we _______ with our stylists over the years.

You have confidence in each other. You have a laugh together and regularly _______ each other’s news. Plus they try to make you look and feel your best. That’s a(n) _______ not only for a great friendship, but also for the perfect relationship with your hairdresser. When you find a good barber, it’s something to _______.

Many people have _______ experiences with their hairdressers. I’ve had my hair cut by Claire Miller for more than 15 years. She’s taken me through all kinds of _______, and she’s helped me find a totally new look now during the post-chemotherapy (化疗后) period with dyed blonde hair! _______ hairstyles, there have been communications about the joys and trials of motherhood, the _______ of health problems and changes in our careers and lives — the stuff of 15 years that we have _______ in the three salons Claire has worked in.

While she cut my hair recently, we chatted about that special __________ that forms between hairdressers and their clients. “You hear so many stories from them, and sometimes you feel like a counselor __________ a hairdresser. You assess their needs, and you know how to react to them,”says Claire.

For Claire, the customer interaction is something she loves about the job and that she has __________ developed throughout her working life. “It’s about being human and __________ about people. A lot of my clients are my friends and like family now. It’s my __________ to cut their hair, making them look and feel good, but I also want them to feel __________ by the experience,” laughs Claire.

5 . China’s first group of e-sports major graduates will emerge in the summer of 2021,with data showing that even though this major has been underestimated by the public, the future appears promising as there are hundreds of thousands of related jobs available.

After the Ministry of Education decided that “electronic sports and management” should be listed in colleges’ major departments in September 2016, around 30 Chinese universities kicked off their e-sports major courses in the same year, to meet the needs of the rise of e-sports related industries in the Chinese market.

“The major is designed to meet the demand,”said Zheng Duo,co-founder of Tianjin Hero Sports Management and a visiting professor from the Communication University of China(CUC).

Chinese passion for e-sports is not in doubt, with more than 18,000 e-sports companies registered as of 2021, according to corporate database Qichacha.The number of e-sports users in China reached 500 million in 2021, and the market had a value of more than 145 billion yuan as of 2020, according to Chinese consulting group iResearch. Meanwhile,the industry chain is becoming more complete.

Jobs in areas such as supervision and content production require talent and training. The number of available jobs is estimated at 500,000,and could reach 3.5 million in the next five years, according to China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Well-known universities such as CUC and the Shanghai Theatre Academy have responded to the country’s call and are preparing graduates for the e-sports market.Yet not every major graduate is qualified for the positions available, as the jobs normally require practical experience,which is something a lot of graduates lack.

Industry insiders have indicated that e-sports is an industry with rapid iteration(迭代), and some companies prefer to hire people with experience instead of spending time training recruits.

Roughly half of the graduates will enter the gaming industry, said Xiao Pi, an e-sports major graduate from CUC. “Some of the rest will pursue further studies for their master’s degree.”

“Even though e-sports majors have advantages in finding jobs, students need practical experience to better suit the different positions,” said Gu Liming, president of Perfect World Games.

6 . A new study focused on birds examines how the movements of rivers in the Amazon have contributed to that area’s exceptional biological diversity.The research team, led by the American Museum of Natural History, found that as small river systems change over time, they spur the evolution of new species. The findings also reveal previously unknown bird species in the Amazon that are only found in small areas next to these dynamic river systems, putting them at high risk of extinction.

The lowland rainforests of the Amazon River basin harbor(藏匿) more diversity than any other ecosystem on the planet. It is also a globally important biome(生物群落) containing about 18 percent of all trees on Earth and carrying more fresh water than the next seven largest river basins combined. Researchers have long wondered and hotly debated how the Amazon’s rich biodiversity arose and accumulated.

“Early evolutionary biologists like Alfred Russel Wallace noticed that many species of primates and birds differ across opposite riverbanks in the Amazon,”said the study’s lead author Lukas Musher. “Moreover, accumulating geological evidence has suggested that these rivers are highly dynamic, moving around the South American landscape over relatively short time periods, on the order of thousands or tens of thousands of years.”

To investigate how the movement of rivers across the landscape has influenced the accumulation of bird species in the Amazon, the researchers sequenced the genomes(基因组) of six species of Amazonian birds.

Because these rivers move around the landscape at different time scales, their movements can have varying outcomes for bird species: when river rearrangements occur quickly, populations of birds on each side can combine before they’ve had time to differ; when river changes happen slowly, species have a longer time to diverge from one another.

7 . A new research led by University of Pittsburgh psychologists shows that older adults may be able to prevent declines (衰退) in a certain kind of memory by sticking to regular exercise.

From the study, exercising about three times a week for at least four months is how much people need to obtain the benefits in episodic memory. Episodic memory, which is supported by a part of the brain that’s known to benefit from exercise, is the kind that deals with events that happened to you in the past. It’s also one of the first to decline with age.

Exercise that gets the heart pumping has shown promise in increasing brain health, and experiments in mice show that it improves memory — but studies looking at the same link in humans have come out mixed.

During the research, the team read 1,279 studies carefully, eventually narrowing them down to just 36 that met specific criteria (标准). Then they used specialized software and no small number of Excel spreadsheets to transform the data into a form where the different studies could be directly compared. That work paid off when they found that pooling together those 36 studies was enough to show that for older adults, exercise can indeed benefit their memory.

Past analyses looking at connections between exercise and memory didn’t find one, but the team took several extra steps to give them the best chance of finding a link if one did exist. They limited their search to particular groups and age ranges as well as a specific kind of strict experimental setup. Another key was focusing specifically on episodic memory.

With that much larger pool of participants, the team was able to show a link between exercise and episodic memory. The team also found the greatest effects of exercise in those who hadn’t yet experienced any cognitive (认知的) decline.

8 . What do Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, Sir Richard Branson, Billionaire investor Charles Schwab, Walt Disney, and Henry Ford have in common? All are or were successful entrepreneurs with dyslexia — a learning disorder that makes it very difficult to read, write, and spell. People with dyslexia have trouble connecting the letters they see to the sounds they make and as a result, often struggle in school.

But in the real world, they make great achievements. They’re behind some of the most successful companies on Earth.

Richard Branson is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. He created numerous businesses under the Virgin umbrella and has a net worth of $5 billion. Branson once admitted that Virgin which now employs 90,000 people would not have been successful had he not been dyslexic. Branson had a hard time keeping up with his peers because of his dyslexia and dropped out at the age of 16. Yet he transformed his weakness into an advantage. He understood the importance of communicating well. And his dyslexia also forced him to delegate tasks to those who excelled in the areas where he was weak.

Research has found people with dyslexia are more likely to delegate authority and also twice as likely to own two or more businesses. A study out of Cass Business School in London found more than a third of American entrepreneurs surveyed showed signs of dyslexia. Another commissioned by the BBC found 40% of that country’s self-made millionaires showed some signs of the learning disability. That’s significantly higher than the estimated 5% to 10% of the general population with some degree of dyslexia.

The question is: Are their entrepreneurial strengths a result of nature or nurture? A dyslexia expert believes they are naturally better at certain things, like picking up social cues. In an article in The Sacramento Bee about California governor Gavin Newsom who has dyslexia, Dr. Marilu Gorno-Tempini of UC San Francisco said, “He can understand what people need and their emotions more than others. I don’t think that’s a compensation. I think that’s the superpower of his dyslexic brain.” She and other scientists at UC San Francisco recently discovered children with the disorder had greater changes in heart rate and facial behavior when they viewed video clips of others experiencing emotions compared to children without dyslexia.

Eleanor Palser, one of the researchers who conducted the study, concluded to Newsthink, “This tells us that dyslexia might be associated with biological differences in empathy(移情)...”

9 . After midnight, when the crowds of revellers (饮酒狂欢者) have gone, Choi Young-soo crouches (蹲) in a shabby alley in Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district. This is the only time that the 35-year-old, a part-time food delivery rider, dare leave his tiny room at a cheap hotel he shares with about 30 other people. The rooms, he says, are “only slightly bigger than coffins(棺材)”.

Choi’s desperate situation is real. He is one of a large and growing number of ordinary South Koreans who find themselves choked by debt. “I feel like other people sense that I’m a failure, so I only come out at night to smoke and watch the lost cats,” says Choi.

Choi’s serious debt came with alarming speed. Just two years ago, he was working as an IT engineer for a firm. Years of punishing overtime and late nights seriously damaged his health. After lengthy discussions and a year spent planning and saving, he and his wife decided to open a pub in Incheon.

After an encouraging start, their business fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic. After bars and restaurants were ordered to close as early as 9 pm to prevent the virus from spreading, the number of customers reduced to a trickle (细流), and then dried up altogether. After failing to pay their rent for four months, the couple sought help.

Securing a bank loan was surprisingly easy, but the interest rate was a steep 4%. Within months they had taken out loans from all five of South Korea’s high-street banks. Unavoidably, they had to borrow more to pay off existing loans, joining long queues of troubled business owners eager to secure cash from commercial lenders with interest at more than 17%.

Household debt in South Korea has risen in recent years and is now equal to more than 100% of GDP, a level not seen elsewhere in Asia. The rising household debt has gone hand in hand with a dramatically widening income gap worsened by rising youth unemployment and property prices in big cities beyond the means of most ordinary workers.

According to Lee In-cheol, the chief executive of the think tank Real Good Economic Research Institute, the total amount of debt run up by ordinary South Koreans exceeds GDP by 5%. In individual terms, it means that even if you saved every single penny you earned for an entire year, you would still be unable to repay your debt. In response, the country’s financial services commission and financial supervisory service recently decided to prevent more South Koreans from falling into debt. “That is why major banks have acted to limit borrowing,” says Lee.

10 . Rain is vital to life on Earth. However, rain isn’t just made of water anymore—it’s partly made of plastic.

Millions of tiny pieces of plastic, called microplastics, are wandering around Earth’s atmosphere and traveling across entire continents, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 12. Another study, published in the journal Science in June 2020, has revealed that every year more than 1,000 tons of the particles (颗粒)—equivalent to over 120 million plastic bottles—fall in rain.

Microplastics are plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in diameter (直径) and come from a number of sources. Plastic bags and bottles released into the environment break down into smaller and smaller bits. Some microplastics are manufactured deliberately to provide abrasion (研磨) in a host of products, such as toothpaste and cleansers, according to the Daily Mail. Another major source is your washing machine. When you wash synthetic (合成的) clothing, tiny microfibers get flushed (冲掉) away with the wastewater. Even though the water is treated by a wastewater plant, the microplastics remain, and they are released into the sea, according to American magazine Wired.

Plastic rain may remind people of acid rain, but the former is far more widespread and harder to deal with. The tiny particles, too small to be seen with the naked eye, are collected by the wind from the ground. They are so light that they stay in the air to be blown around the globe. As they climb into the atmosphere, they are thought to act as nuclei (核心) around which water vapor (水蒸气) condenses (凝结) to form clouds. Some of the dust falls back to land in dry conditions, while the rest comes down as rain, according to the Daily Mail.

Microplastics have been found everywhere you can imagine. From fish and frogs to mice and mosquitoes, their bodies have been found, on average, to contain 40 pieces of microplastic, reported Daily Mail. As the top of the food chain, humans are exposed to microplastics, too. “We live on a ball inside a bubble,” microplastic researcher Steve Allen at University of Strathclyde, Scotland, told Wired. “There are no borders, there are no edges. It (plastic rain) raining on the land and then getting blown back up into the air again, to move somewhere else. There’s no stopping it once it’s out.”