1 . In Kenya, two university students from rural villages came up with a system to recharge a cellphone battery using energy generated from a bicycle. They took most of the items from a junkyard. Innovation and leadership strategist Navi Radjou thinks that such frugal(节俭的) innovation enables socially and environmentally responsible economic development through products and services that combine four qualities: affordability, accessibility, sustainability, and quality. He advises that we should use what is rich to handle what is scarce.

It’s an approach that is having a huge impact. Among things becoming rich in developing countries are connectivity and smartphones. A great example of frugal innovation is Peek Retina, a small adapter(适配器) for a smartphone that lets people perform eye exams without any of the fancy equipment you stare into at your optometrist’s. Another great frugal innovation is Foldscope, a microscope that costs 50 cents to make but can do serious diagnoses(诊断). With the wide use of the microscope, people can be easily tested instead of traveling long distances to see a doctor and a real hands-on science education can be provided for all remote health workers.

Frugal Innovation is a new trendy term for something that has been around for a while; in the 1980s it was MacGyver; in the 1970s it was Adhocism. Basically it involves using an available system or dealing with an existing situation in a new way to solve a problem quickly and effectively. It is a method of creation relying particularly on resources which are already at hand. By getting back to basics, frugal innovation allows low-income populations to play a major part in their own progress.

It may be the same as it ever was under a new name, but there are new tools and new ways of sharing. The new smartphone technology and the speed of communication and spread of information really make this a new age of Frugal Innovation. And it’s not just in the developing world, it can work anywhere. So welcome to the new buzzword(流行词), Frugal Innovation.

4 . We know that bully (欺凌) happens a lot and that it can make people feel miserable. And school violence happens all the time.

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Bully is where a person or a group exercise control over another against their will, often leaving the victim feeling powerless and alone. Bullying can take many forms. Children, young people and adults can instigate bullying and be bullied in schools. Bullying is harmful to all involved, not just the person who is bullied, but to those who do the bullying and those who stand by. It can lead to self-doubt, lack of confidence, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, self-harm and sometimes even suicide. Children might bully because they may not have been taught that it is wrong to bully.     2     They are copying older brothers and sisters, friends or people they observe. They don’t know of more appropriate ways of mixing with their school friends.

How does bullying affect people?

New research has found that more than half of young people in the UK have been bullied. Of those who have been bullied, 58 % said it made them want to miss school, 44 % said it made them avoid social events, and 37 % said it had affected their school work.     3     Racism is when people are treated badly because of their skin colour, culture or nationality. Around 32 % of students said that they had heard something racist at school.

What can I do to help?

    4     If someone you know is being bullied it is important to tell a teacher. You could also talk to your parents or an adult whom you trust. If the person doing the bullying is some-one you know, you could talk to them and explain what they’ re doing is wrong. It’s important to support the person being bullied.     5    

5 . An 89-year-old man, Manfred Steiner, has reached a goal he spent 20 years working toward and nearly a lifetime thinking about: earning his Ph. D. And now he is a physicist

Steiner values this degree because it is what he always wanted and because he overcame health problems that could have affected his studies. “But I made it, and this was the most satisfactory point in my life, to finish it,” he said.

When he was young, Steiner wanted to become a physicist after reading about Albert Einstein. But his mother and uncle persuaded him that studying medicine would be a better choice. He earned his medical degree in 1955 and moved to the US soon after.

Steiner studied hematology（血液学）at Tufts University and biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became a full professor and led the hematology department at Browns’ medical school from 1985 to 1994. Steiner helped establish a research program in hematology at the University of North Carolina. He directed that program until he retired from medicine in 2000.

Steiner found medical research pleasing, but it was not quite the same as his interest in physics. “It was something like a wish that was never fulfilled, that always stuck in the back of my head,” he said. At age 70, he started taking undergraduate classes.

Physics professor Brad Marston was surprised when Steiner entered his quantum mechanics class. But he became Steiner’s adviser for his dissertation（学位论文）after realizing how serious Steiner was about the subject and how hard he worked. “He has written many papers in medical science, more papers than I’ve written in physics,” Marston said. “One thing that’s really true about Manfred is that he perseveres.”

After the university published a story about Steiner on its website, people across the US contacted him to ask for advice on how to go after their dreams later in life. His advice is: Do what you love to do.

6 . When Howard Bisla was tasked with saving a local shop from financial ruin, his concern was energy efficiency. He approached his electricity provider about upgrading the lights. The provider had another idea. An experimental cooling system: panels (面板) that could stay colder without consuming energy.

The panels now sit on the shop's roof, their mirrored surfaces coated with a thin cooling film and angled to the sky. They cool liquid in pipes underneath that run into the shop and, together with new lights, have reduced electricity bills by 15%.

The panels came from a discovery at Stanford. Researchers there created a material that stayed colder than its surroundings in direct sunlight. Since then, they have made a host of materials, including films, paints and treated wood, that stay cool in the heat.

These materials all rely on improving a natural effect known as passive radiative (辐射的) cooling. They reflect light in much the same way as mirrors or white paints do, but they can do far more. When the materials point at the sky, the rays can pass through the atmosphere and into space. That links the materials to a heat sink, into which they can keep dumping (倾倒) heat without it coming back. As a result, they can stay a few degrees cooler than surrounding air. Scientists have termed them super-cool materials.

These materials might also reduce the increasing demand for power-hungry refrigeration and air conditioning. Researchers have even suggested they might help Earth respond to global rising temperatures. But many more are cautious. So far, how much electrical power can be saved has been based on data from small samples. There are also doubts about their ability to work in a variety of climates and places. Another unknown is whether consumers will embrace the idea. Even replacing worn-out roofs with reflective white ones has not been widely adopted. However, this modelling work suggests that use of a super-cool paint might double the energy savings. “It’s a bit of a game-changer, in a sense,” according to researchers.

9 . The following are four once-in-a-lifetime mountain hikes.

The Inca Trail, Peru

The Inca Trail offers a seven-day hike focusing on unique Peruvian culture. Led by our well-informed guides, you'll see some historical villages, visit an old-fashioned coffee farm, and attend a traditional offering to "Pachamama". After a long day on your feet, relax with a traditional Peruvian meal and have a night's rest in a local cottage（村舍）

The Dolomites, Italy

The On Foot Holidays' self-guided hike through the Dolomites covers the grassland of South Tyrol, the famous peaks of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo and the amazing town of Cortina d'Ampezzo. You'll climb from the Falzarego Pass, cross through to the Col dei Bos and up Mt. Lagazuoi, with its network of World War I tunnels.

Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

More than 19,000 feet above sea level, Mount Kilimanjaro, an inactive volcano, is Africa's highest mountain. Climbing it is a multi-day trip through five climate zones. Duma Explorer offers several different routes（路线）up Kilimanjaro—the most popular are the seven-day Machame route, eight-day Lemosho route and a nine-day trip via the Northern Circuit. Hikes include camping equipment, meals and guides.

Chilkoot Trail, Alaska

In 1897, the Chilkoot Trail was changed from a sleepy trade route into a busy road, as part of the Gold Rush. The rush dried up within a year, but you can follow in the boomers' footsteps with Alaska Shore Hikes, through thick forest and up the Sainly Hill. Then it's a peaceful raft（木筏）ride along the Taiya River. A six-hour hike provides tourists with transportation, safety equipment and guides.

10 . Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are working to create a special chewing gum that could help reduce the spread of COVID-19 by "trapping" the virus so a person can't transmit it to someone else.

Experts agree that vaccinations are the best way to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, but its also known that vaccinated people can still transmit the virus. The University of Pennsylvania researchers are hoping that their chewing gum will give people a low-cost way to further prevent COVID-19 from spreading.

"This gum offers an opportunity to break down the virus in the saliva (唾液), giving us a simple way to possibly cut down on a source of disease transmission，"said Henry Daniell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and leader of the research.

The gum contains plant-grown ACE2 proteins, which showed in laboratory studies to break down the SARS-CoV-2 virus. When researchers exposed saliva samples from COVID-19 patients to the chewing gum, they found the levels of viral RNA were sharply reduced to the point that the virus was almost undetectable.

The research is still in its early stages, and the researchers are working on getting permission to conduct a clinical trial in humans to determine if the gum is safe and effective. Should the gum work, Penn Today reported it could be used in situations where people need to be close to each other-such as a dental cleaning, for example-to reduce the risk of passing the virus to others.

Before researchers can bring their chewing gum to market, they have to determine how much of it should be used per day, which will be based on how long it takes the virus to reproduce. However, if it does prove to be an effective tool at fighting coronavirus, Daniell told "hundreds of millions of chewing gum" could be produced within three months.