1 . Grace Choi, whose nickname is Sunny, is a gymnast in America. “I remember her doing cartwheels (翻跟头) when she was a kid,” her brother Jin says.

One night at college, Choi saw members of a breaking (霹雳舞) club dancing by accident. She was immediately attracted to the dance and came to a class. Choi’s gymnastics skills gave her an advantage. After graduating from business school, she began working in the cosmetics (化妆品) industry. But on the side, she kept breaking.

Breaking was added to the Paris Olympics program in 2020. In late 2021, Choi attended a camp. It was for the top U. S. breakers. A coach there asked those who wanted to become Olympians to raise their hands. Everyone’s hand went up except Choi’s. Working full-time while training to make the Olympic team seemed impossible.

But after finishing second at the World Games in July 2022, Choi left the cosmetics industry. In 2023, she was chosen for the 2024 Paris Olympics by winning the Pan American Games.“I’m so much happier,” she says. “I feel lighter. I have more energy for the things I want to do.”

Thirty-two breakers will go to Paris. “Choi has power moves,” says Mary Fogarty, a professor of dance at York University, in Toronto, Canada. “Choi is someone who has enough material to go all the way through.” Choi struggles with self-doubt. She’ll work on her mindset. She’ll lift weights with a strength coach. And she’ll eat a healthy diet.

Choi is confident about one thing: If you give breaking a chance, you won’t be disappointed. “You feel the energy,” she says. “You feel the excitement. You feel the happiness or the anger or whatever emotion that the dancer is expressing in that moment. What’s so cool about breaking is that you get to be really you.”

2 . Do you know the following fun holidays?

Yellow Pig Day

The unofficial holiday that falls on July 17 was created in the early 1960s by Princeton mathematics students, David Kelly and Michael Spivak, while they were working on the special properties (属性) of the number 17, which is a prime number (质数) that has significance in mathematics.

Mole Day

It’s celebrated every year with a theme by scientists and chemistry students throughout the United States and around the world between 6:02 am and 6:02 pm (18:02) on October 23 because when written in the month-date format (格式), the date and time 6.02, 10/23 include the digits (数字) in Avogadro’s number (602×1023) in honor of the mole, a measuring unit in chemistry.

Tau Day

This has much to do with Pi Day (圆周率日). It has been held every year since 2010 on June 28. The day began as a way to recognize tau. Tau is equal to 2π or 6.283. In recent years, some mathematicians and physicists have argued for the replacement of pi(π) by tau, but it is not yet widely accepted within the scientific community.

Palindrome Day

Palindrome (回文) is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards as forwards, for example madam. Palindrome Day happens when the day’s date can be read the same way backward and forward. Because date formats vary from country to country, not all dates that are palindromic in one kind of date format are Palindrome Days in another. For instance, April 21, 2024 or 4-21-24 is a palindromic date in the m-dd-yy format, but it isn’t if you write the date as dd-m-yy yy (21-4-2024) or dd-mm-yyyy (21-04-2024).

3 . In June 1938, writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster introduced Superman to readers. Since then, the Superman has become a cultural symbol, appearing in films, novels, TV series and more.

On April 4, 2024, a copy of that original 1938 Superman comic (漫画) book — called Action Comics No. 1 — sold for $6 million during a Heritage Auctions sale. It’s now the most valuable comic book in the world.

“Thursday was a historic day for a historic comic book, and we expected no less,” says Barry Sandoval, vice president at Heritage Auctions.

The comic has been given a “very fine” grade of 8.5 out of 10 by CGC, a third-party grading service for pop culture collectibles. It’s one of just 78 copies CGC has graded, though the company thinks around 100 still exist. Just 200,000 copies of Action Comics No. I were published in 1938. The price beats out the previous record-holder, a 1939 issue of Superman No. I that sold privately for $5.3 million in 2022. Until then, the record had belonged to a copy of Amazing Fantasy No. 15 — which introduced readers to Spider-Man in 1962 — that sold for $3.6 million in 2021.

Action Comics No. 1 tells the story of a baby boy who was born on a dying faraway planet. His father places him in a space capsule (太空舱) and sends him away just before his home planet gets destroyed. Finally, the capsule lands on Earth, where a passing driver discovers the sleeping baby and saves him. The child — Clark Kent — grows up and realizes he has superhuman strengths and abilities.

Superman’s popularity skyrocketed in the following decades, and Action Comics continues to this day. “Without Superman and Action Comics No. 1, who knows whether there ever would have been a Golden Age of comics — or if the medium would have become what it is today?” says Sandoval.

4 . On the surface, Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert might appear calm. But deep underground, blind moles (鼹鼠), also called kakarratul, covered in silky yellow fur are “swimming” through the sand. These creatures that are considered elusive spend so much of their lives below the surface that they remain largely unknown to wildlife biologists.

Now, Aboriginal rangers (护林员) have made a sight of one of the kakarratuls by the Martu, the local people of central Western Australia. This marks the second kakarratul sight in just six months. Historically, people only see the species five to ten times every decade.

Kakarratuls are very small and can’t see very clearly. Their bodies are covered in soft fur, and they primarily eat worms (蠕虫). They’re also perfectly adapted for life in the tough Australian land. Rather than living in the hot sun, they live almost entirely underground — digging holes as far as 8.2 feet below the surface — where they move through the sand in a unique way. The kakarratul is an amazing creature that “swims” through the sand of Australia’s western deserts. They carve a path and fill it in as they go forward through the sand.

“The creatures can survive by just breathing the air that moves between sand,” wrote Joe Benshemesh, a biologist with the National Malleefowl Recovery Group, for Australian Geographic. “They save energy and resources by allowing their body temperature to reflect that of the surrounding sand,” he added.

The moles periodically come to the surface, especially during periods of cool, rainy weather. But they don’t appear often, so wildlife scientists don’t know their population size. They are regarded as a species of “least concern”. “Local rangers try their best to take good care of kakarratuls, but they aren’t easy to find,” said Lynette Wildridge, a senior Nyangumarta ranger.

5 . The saying goes that a dog is man’s best friend, but this companionship isn’t unique to dogs. Even though rabbits are smaller and quieter than dogs, they are also intelligent, outgoing, active, and social and they make great pets. Here are five reasons for adopting (养) a rabbit.

Rabbits are budget-friendly.

Rabbit care is much less expensive than the budget (预算) required for taking care of a dog or cat.     1     And they also require less pet doctor checkups than larger animals.

It’s easy to fit a rabbit into the schedule.

Rabbits are awake in the early morning and early evening, and spend most daytime and nighttime sleeping.     2     The rabbit is ready for playtime in the morning before work and after getting home from work, and the owner doesn’t need to feel guilty (内疚的) about leaving the rabbit home during the daytime, because it spends those hours sleeping.     3     There’s no need to take it for daily walks, so it’s a great choice for a busy pet-lover.

Rabbits are clean, quiet, and contained.

Rabbits are clean animals that generally don’t make large messages. Rabbits don’t require as large living spaces as a dog or cat does, so they are apartment-friendly.     4     So they won’t bother the owner or the neighbors.

Rabbits are intelligent and lovely.

    5     They are also friendly. Rabbits quickly come to recognize their owners. They will follow them around the house and show them all sorts of love. They love to be petted and are eager for attention although they don’t like being picked up.

9 . Sunday sadness is real, for tomorrow is the start of working days.     1    

An excellent choice is exercise. Breaking a sweat has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, boost mood and improve sleep, all good ways to fight Sunday stress. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, just five minutes of aerobic exercise can reduce anxiety.

Actually, any form of exercise or movement can increase your fitness level while decreasing your stress.     2     One study published in April found a simple 10-minute walk in an urban park three times a week reduced levels of the stress in study participants. A 2013 study in the UK found simply walking in green spaces helped move the brain into a state of meditation.

Some folks turn to drinking alcohol, even crazily, to cope with the Sunday night blues. That’s a poor choice: Alcohol rattles your normal sleep patterns, trapping you in lighter stages of sleep and dramatically reducing the quality of your rest at night.

“It continues to pull you out of rapid eye movement and the deeper stages of sleep, causing you to wake up not feeling restored,” said Rebecca Robbins, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health, in a previous CNN interview.

This is going to sound impossible, but try to avoid your cell phone and work email on Sunday. Being constantly connected keeps us excited even on our days off, discouraging relaxation.

Does the idea make you even more nervous?     4     The National Sleep Foundation suggests “at least 30 minutes of phone-free transition time before going to bed.”

Unconsciously worrying about all the things you have to do Monday brings you restless sleep, even insomnia(失眠), so write down a list of all the things you have to do Monday – or even the entire week. You can go so far as prioritizing them if you like. Not only will putting the tasks on paper jump-start your Monday morning, you’ll feel like you’ve purged your worries.     5