This Is Life, a documentary film, is set to grace the nation’s big screens on Jan. 13. The film features more than 800 short videos     1     (shoot) by 509 ordinary people from all     2     (walk) of life, especially manual laborers and farmers. The videos     3     (select) by the production crew over the course of a year from     4     total of more than 50,000 video clips (片段).

By gathering the short video footage, the film engages ordinary people in its creation and presents their authentic life experience,     5     (allow) those who are often inadequately represented in mainstream cinemas to take center stage.

According to the film’s director Sun Hong, by gathering, selecting     6     compiling (编辑) video clips from a vast database, the film presents how people record their own lives, which possesses a power of authenticity even     7     (great) than traditional documentaries.

In the film, the audience will see construction workers working out on the construction site during their spare time, fishermen talking to their cormorants and teasing their greediness for fish, or boatmen celebrating a rare day     8     they could use tap water.

“It is our creative effort, as documentary filmmakers,     9     (present) an authentic facet of China, highlighting how each individual establishes themselves in a     10     (rapid) developing society,” says Sun.

3 . Take A Scenic Ride On The World’s Steepest Railway For Passengers—If You Dare!

Originally built for mining in 1878, the Scenic Railway is now a tourist ride that can take your breath away! In the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia, the former mining railway became a tourist attraction in 1945. It currently holds the Guinness World Records as the steepest passenger train with the steepest railway gradient (坡度).

The gradient of 52 degrees is comfortably viewed from inside an 84-seat, glass-enclosed carriage car. The passenger car travels along on a cable-driven system of rails as it navigates the steep terrain. During the tour, passengers will see the train travel through sandstone cliffs and a rock tunnel next to Orphan Rock.

Orphan Rock was once available for trail climbing. Following rock slides in the 1950s, the trail was partially closed. The trail access was completely closed in 1974 and never reopened due to potential risks.

On the Scenic Railway, you will see stunning views from a slightly different angle than Orphan Rock. The railway is open every day of the year, making the trip along the rails every ten minutes.

Sight-seeing passengers can ride the steepest railway up from the Jamison Valley or travel on the cable car. Either option affords incredible scenic views of the Blue Mountains. The glass roof in the passenger cars allows for a fantastic view from every seat on the train.

Just take a look for yourself!

4 . A sheep in Scotland, known as the “loneliest sheep”, was stuck at the bottom of a cliff for over two years. A group of farmers made it their _________ to rescue the sheep. The sheep was first _________ in 2021 by a kayaker (皮划艇运动员) and had been unable to move from that _________ since then. Local agencies were _________ but said the sheep was not in danger and could not be rescued. One of the farmers, Wilson, named the sheep Fiona and provided _________ about her on his social media account.

Wilson explained that it was too _________ to attempt a rescue earlier due to the dangerous location of the sheep. He expressed concerns about the safety of the rescuers and the difficulty of _________ the sheep by boat or with a dog. However, after careful _________, Wilson and four other men successfully rescued Fiona using heavy _________ and a winch (绞车). They __________ brought her to the slope of the cliff.

The Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was present to __________ the welfare of the sheep. They confirmed that Fiona was in good __________ but needed her wool to be sheared (剪).The ownership of the sheep was transferred to the __________ group of farmers.

Wilson __________ the risks involved in the rescue and expressed gratitude for the successful __________.

5 . Plastic, which is now common, contains endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs (内分泌干扰物), that has been linked to increased risk of many chronic diseases. Parental exposure to EDCs, for example, has been shown to cause metabolic (新陈代谢的) disorders, including obesity and diabetes, in the later generations.

Led by Changcheng Zhou, a professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of California, the researchers investigated the impact of fathers’ exposure to a phthalate called dicyclohexyl phthalate, or DCHP (邻苯二甲酸二环己酯), on the metabolic health of first generation (F1) and second generation (F2) in mice. Phthalates are chemicals used to make plastic more durable.

The researchers found that fathers’ DCHP exposure for four weeks led to high insulin (胰岛素) resistance and impaired insulin signaling in F1. The same effect, but weaker, was seen in F2 .

“We found fathers’ exposure to EDCs may have intergenerational and transgenerational detrimental effects on the metabolic health of their later generations, ”Zhou said. “To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to demonstrate this.”

In the case of fathers’ exposure in the study, intergenerational effects are changes that occur due to direct exposure to a stressor, such as exposure to DCHP of fathers (F0 generation) and his F1 generation. Transgenerational effects are changes passed down to later generations that are not directly exposed to the stressor (for example, F2 generation).

“This suggests that fathers’ DCHP exposure can lead to sex-specific transgenerational effects on the metabolic health of their later generations,” Zhou said.

Zhou stressed that the impact of exposure to DCHP on human health is not well understood, even though DCHP is widely used in a variety of plastic products and has been detected in food, water, and indoor particulate matter.

“It’s best to minimize our use of plastic products,” Zhou said. “This can also help reduce plastic pollution, one of our most pressing environmental issues.”

6 . Face blindness, a mystifying condition that can trick us into believing we recognize people we’ve never met or make us fail to recognize those we have, has been previously estimated to affect between 2 and 2.5 percent of people in the world.Now, a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the VA Boston Healthcare System is providing fresh insights into the disorder, suggesting it may be more common than currently believed.

Published in February 2023 in Cortex, the study findings indicate that as many as one in 33 people may meet the criteria for face blindness, or prosopagnosia (面孔失认症).“This translates to more than 10 million Americans,” the research team said.

The study found similar face-matching performance between people diagnosed with prosopagnosia using stricter vs looser criteria, suggesting that diagnostic criteria should be expanded to be more inclusive. That could lead to new diagnoses among millions who may have the disorder but don’t realize it.

The study results are based on a web-based questionnaire and tests administered to 3,341 individuals.First, the researchers asked participants whether they experience difficulties recognizing faces in their everyday lives.Then they administered two objective tests to determine whether they had difficulties learning new faces or recognizing highly familiar famous faces.

The results showed that 31 individuals out of the 3,341 had major prosopagnosia, while 72 of the 3,341 had a milder form. The researchers also observed that there were no neatly divided separate groups of people with poor or good ability to recognize faces. Rather, the ability to recognize faces appeared to lie on a continuum (连续体).

Finally, the researchers compared face-matching scores among people with prosopagnosia diagnosed using different criteria and found that using stricter diagnostic cutoffs did not correspond with lower face-matching scores.

In the new study, the researchers provide diagnostic suggestions for identifying mild and major forms of prosopagnosia based on guidelines for major and mild neurocognitive disorders in the DSM5, the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

8 . When romantic partners argue over things like finances, jealousy, or other interpersonal issues, they tend to employ their current feelings as fuel for a heated argument. But thinking about the future helps overcome relationship conflicts, according to a University of Waterloo study just published online in Social Psychological and Personality Science. Alex Huynh, a doctoral candidate in psychology is the lead author of the study, which he published with Igor Grossmann from the University of Waterloo, and Daniel Yang from Yale University.

Previous research has shown that third-perspective reasoning can be a positive strategy for reconciliation (调解) of interpersonal struggles. Huynh and his collaborators investigated whether similar benefit can be induced by simply thinking about the future. Study participants were instructed to reflect on a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a close friend. One group of participants were then asked to describe how they would feel about the conflict one year in the future, while another group was asked to describe how they feel in the present.

The team examined participants’ written responses through a text-analysis program for their use of pronouns — such as I, me, she, he. These choices of pronouns were used to capture participants’ focus on the feelings and behaviour of those involved in the conflict. Written responses were also examined for forgiveness and reinterpreting the conflict more positively, both of which implied the participants’ use of reasoning strategies.

The researchers found that envisioning future relationship affected both participants’ focus on their feelings, and their reasoning strategies. As a result, participants reported more positivity about their relationship altogether, especially when study participants extended their thinking about the relationship a year into the future.

“Our study demonstrates that adopting a future-oriented perspective in the context of a relationship conflict — reflecting on how one might feel a year from now — may be a valuable coping tool for one’s psychological happiness and relationship well-being,” said Huynh.

9 . Academically, I was an average B+ student, shy and awkward. In my personal life, there was no one to encourage me to pursue my talent, nor acknowledgement that I even had a talent. Luckily, Miss Judge, my English teacher, introduced me to literature that initially inspired me to write. It was she that saw the potential in me that I didn't even know existed.

Miss Judge was a kind and lovely person. She first recommended me some classic works, like To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men and Greek Mythology. Then came The Horror, the one sparking my love of fantasy and magic and everything supernatural, which will always remain on my bookshelf.

Once in class, we were assigned to write a scene inspired by Hamlet, the play we were reading. Excited about the chance to write, I worked extra hard on it. After I handed it in, Miss Judge was really impressed and asked if she could read it to the whole class. I refused. Even today, I still regret that decision. At the time, I felt like everyone would think I was deliberately trying to impress them by rubbing my great story in their face.

In my senior year, Miss Judge asked us to write journal entries, which she would read. I was still nervous about others reading my writing. To break from that fear, I decided to just be funny. My journal was filled with my humorous observations, kind of like what you see on the blog today. And she loved them, saying I had a natural talent as a writer. Nothing was more fulfilling. So, I kept writing. She wrote me many encouraging notes, pushing me to pursue a career as a writer. I still have those notes, hoping that next time she hears my name, it's because I'd have won the Pulitzer Prize.