2 . Besides “wow” and “great”, what else would you say when flying over the Earth in space? Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian female astronaut in space, posted several lines of a famous ancient Chinese composition on Twitter to share her joy.

She first wrote in Chinese, and then attached an accurate translation of the lines in both Italian and English to help more people understand. “Looking up, I see the immensity of the cosmos; bowing my head, I look at the multitude of the world. The gaze flies, the heart expands, the joy of the senses can reach its peak, and indeed, this is true happiness,” it says. Two days before she landed on Earth, the beauty of space and Chinese literature resonated on her Twitter account. Before long, her posts went viral on Twitter with thousands of retweets, likes and replies.

The text she quoted is from the Preface to Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion,a Chinese calligraphy masterpiece by Wang Xizhi (303-361) of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420). She also attached three photos taken in space of China’s Bohai Bay and the day-night view of Beijing. “The poem and views are both magnificent as well as healing. If everyone could enjoy the same sight, a lot of pain in the world would be ‘dissipated’,” one user comments.

As the first Italian female astronaut in space, Cristoforetti carried out her first space mission on Nov 23, 2014. In 2022, she started the second mission in April and returned to Earth on Friday night after a 127-day stay in orbit.

Cristoforetti has also been active in Sino-European cooperation in the field of manned spaceflight. She was a working group member with Chinese counterparts to define and implement cooperation in the field of astronaut operations. When not traveling for work, she is an eager reader and has a great passion for languages. Speaking clear Chinese, Cristoforetti once told the media that the teams from China and Europe were working very well together in the field of astronaut training.

3 . Nuclear bombs. That’s the go-to answer for incoming space objects like asteroids(小行星) and comets, as far as Hollywood is concerned. Movies like Deep Impact and Armageddon rely on nuclear weapons, delivered by stars like Bruce Willis, to save the world and deliver the drama.

But planetary defense experts say in reality, if astronomers spotted a dangerous incoming space rock, the safest and best answer might be something more subtle, like simply pushing it off course by crashing it with a small spacecraft.

That’s just what NASA did on Monday evening, when a spacecraft headed straight into an asteroid called Dimorphous, which is around 7 million miles away and poses no threat to Earth. It’s about 525 feet across and orbits another larger asteroid.

In images streamed as the impact neared, the egg-shaped asteroid grew in size from a little spot on screen to have its full rocky surface come quickly into focus before the signal went dead as the craft hit right on target.

Events happened exactly as engineers had planned, they said, with nothing going wrong. “As far as we can tell, our first planetary defense test was a success,” said Elena Adams, the mission systems engineer, who added that scientists looked on with “both terror and joy” as the spacecraft neared its final destination.

The impact was the peak of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) ,a 7-year and more than $300 million effort which launched a space vehicle in November of 2021 to perform humanity’s first ever test of planetary defense technology. It will be about two months, scientists said, before they will be able to determine if the impact was enough to drive the asteroid slightly off course, probably shortening its original orbit.

NASA plans to launch an asteroid-hunting space telescope named NEO Surveyor in 2026. “We’ve tacked lots of space rocks, especially the larger ones that could cause extinction-level events. Thankfully, none currently threaten Earth. But many asteroids the size of Dimorphous haven’t yet been discovered, and those could potentially take out a city if they came crashing down. ” explains Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer.

4 . All 50 states received final approval Tuesday to begin construction on a first nationwide network of EV charging stations (电车充电站) that places one roughly every 50 miles (80 kilometers) along interstate highways, part of the Biden administration’s plan to encourage widespread use of zero-emission cars.

The Transportation Department said it had OK’d EV charger plans from a last set of 17 states, causing the release of $1. 5 billion in federal funds to all jurisdictions (权限) nationwide — or $5 billion over five years — to build or upgrade chargers along 75, 000 miles (120, 000 kilometers) of highway from coast to coast, with a goal of 500, 000 EV chargers nationwide. Plans for the other 33 states and the District of Columbia were approved earlier this month.

By year’s end, drivers could start seeing expansions and upgrades to existing highway EV stations in states such as California, Colorado, Florida and Pennsylvania that now have at least four fast-charger ports, enabling EVs to fully recharge in about an hour.

“America led the original car revolution in the last century, and . . . we’re prepared to lead in the 21st century with electric vehicles,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He said the plans will “help ensure that Americans in every part of the country can be positioned to unlock the savings and benefits of electric vehicles.”

The approval is a major step toward building widespread acceptance and use of electric vehicles among consumers, who most often express unwillingness over EVs’ shorter range and limited use of public chargers. President Joe Biden has set a goal that 50% of new U. S. car sales be electric by 2030, and his administration touts (推销) new tax credits next year of up to $7, 500 as making electric vehicles accessible for everyday Americans. Still, the five-year plans suggest a potentially long and rough road ahead for a highway EV network, with states saying risks such as a lack of electricity grid capacity (电网容量), supply chain shortages and equal rights concerns.

5 . Have you ever considered trading your everyday routine for a different experience and ever a new uniform? Although the world has nearly changed overnight, new opportunities have risen in light of the pandemic. Everyday heroes have appeared and adopted the ways in which they can use their skills and newfound time to help others.

One such hero who has made a career switch is Peter Login from Horsham, England. While previously he worked on a plane as a pilot, he has now taken on his new role as a Tesco supermarket delivery truck driver, bringing food to those who need it most. For many of the customers who live alone, Login is bringing them not only the essentials (必需品) to survive but also something even more important—hope.

In Italy, an experienced driver has also taken to the streets to lend a helping hand during these troubling times. F1 Ferrari team boss, Maurizio Arrivabene, is now transporting sick Italians to the hospital as an ambulance driver. From a racer enjoying the excitement of a race track to becoming an essential part of Italy’s rescue team, Arrivabene didn’t waste a minute putting his stellar driving experience to good use.

Over in Edmonton, Canada, instead of showing off kitchens to potential buyers, house agent Jordan Zabloski is now busy baking hundreds of bread in the kitchen of The Mustard Seed, which supports Western Canada’s homeless population. Zabloski thoughtfully states that there are always some ways to volunteer or help out.

These incredible workers are only three out of thousands worldwide who are finding new ways to apply their skills, experience and free time. As uncertain as our current reality may be, we can take comfort in knowing that people are still trying to do their best and look out for each other.

6 . Each place on this planet has its own unique traits culture and customs. In addition, different locales have their own languages and dialects.     1    

As people travel more frequently, they exchange goods and ideas. Thus, the blending of cultures has become easier and more commonplace. In the age of globalization, one may argue that language acts as a barrier to communication. Individual dialects may divide people even further.     2     Dialects are important for international business. Read on to learn how.

DIALECTS RETAIN IDENTITY

Many cultures use different words or pronunciations for the same thing.     3     Many times, exact translations are impossible. For example, one language may have a specific word for something, while another does not. If each language were standardized with the same set of words and pronunciations, cultures would lose their identities.

DIALECTS HELP SPREAD CREATIVITY

New words spread freely throughout different cultures thanks to world travel and the internet. In our modern society, each person can travel to experience new things. By learning new languages and dialects, a person expands his or her mind. Opening one’s mind promotes creativity.     4     Therefore, as we interact internationally, these exchanges lead to innovations.

DIALECTS INCREASE INDEPENDENCE

    5     Even though a small group is part of a larger whole, their unique form of expression sets them apart. Their uniqueness provides them a sense of independence. Oftentimes, people from a specific area take pride in their dialect. Differences enhance cultural diversity and increase independence. Without diversity, our world would not progress in business or technology.

Our world needs dialects and individual expression to keep cultures alive for future generations. Preserving dialects is good for creativity, innovation, and business.

7 . What are pillows really stuffed with? Not physically, but symbolically? The question occurred to me with the photos in the news and social media from the 50 cities around the world that staged public celebrations for International Pillow Fight Day. Armed with nothing more than bring-our-own sacrificial cushions, strangers struck heavily each other in playful feather from Amsterdam to Atlanta, Warsaw to Washington DC. But why? Is there anything more to this delightful celebration?

As a cultural sign, the pillow is deceptively soft. Since at least the 16th Century, the humble pillow has been given unexpected meanings. The Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu tells a famous story about a wise man who meets a depressed young scholar at an inn and offers him a magic pillow filled with the most vivid dreams of a seemingly more fulfilling life. When the young man awakens to discover that his happy 50-year dream has in fact come and gone in the short space of an afternoon’s nap, our impression of the pillow’s power shifts from wonder to terror.

Subsequent writers have likewise seized upon the pillow. When the 19th-Century English novelist Charlotte Bronte poetically observed “a ruffled (不平的) mind makes a restless pillow”, she didn’t just change the expected order of the adjectives and nouns, but instead she made unclear the boundaries between mind and matter — the thing resting and the thing rested upon.

It’s a trick perhaps Bronte learned from the Renaissance philosopher Montaigne, who once insisted that “ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head”. On Montaigne’s thinking, intelligence and happiness confront each other forever in a pillow fight that only one can win.

With the words of Tang. Bronte, and Montaigne, we can perhaps more easily measure the attraction of the global pillow fight. Like a ritual of release, the annual international pillow fight amounts to a kind of cleansing, a brushing off of daily worries: an emptying of the world’s collective mind. Rather than a launch-pad for weightless rest, the pillow is a symbol of heavy thought: an anchor that drags the world’s soul down — one that must be lightened.

8 . Though researchers have long known that adults build unconscious (无意识的) preferences over a lifetime of making choices between things that are essentially the same, the new finding that even babies engage in this phenomenon demonstrates that this way of justifying choice is intuitive (凭直觉的) and somehow fundamental to the human experience.

“The act of making a choice changes how we feel about our options,” said Alex Silver, a Johns Hopkins researcher. “Even infants who are really just at the start of making choices for themselves have this preference.”

The findings are published today in the journal Psychological Science. People assume they choose things that they like. But research suggests that’s sometimes backwards: we like things because we choose them. And, we dislike things that we don’t choose. “Adults make these inferences unconsciously,” said co-author Lisa Feigenson, a Johns Hopkins scientist in child development. “We justify our choice after the fact.”

This makes sense for adults in a consumer culture who must make random choices every day, between everything from toothpaste brands to styles of jeans. The question was when exactly people start doing this. So they turned to babies, who don’t get many choices so, as Feigenson puts it, are “a perfect window into the origin of this tendency.”

The team brought 10-to 20-month-old babies into the lab and gave them a choice of objects to play with; two equally bright and colorful soft blocks. They set them far apart, so the babies had to crawl to one or the other — a random choice. After the baby chose one of the toys, the researchers took it away and came back with a new option. The babies could then pick from the toy they didn’t play with the first time, or a brand new toy. Their choices showed they “dis-prefer the unchosen object.”

To continue studying the evolution of choice in babies, the lab will next look at the idea of “choice overload.” For adults, choice is good, but too many choices can be a problem, so the lab will try to determine if that is also true for babies.

9 . Honeybees rely heavily on flower patterns not just colors when searching for food, new research shows.

A team led by the University of Exeter tested bee behaviour and built bee’s-eye-view simulations (模拟装置) to work out how they see flowers.

Honeybees have low resolution vision, so they can only see a flower’s pattern clearly when they are within few centimeters. However, the new’ study shows bees can very effectively distinguish between different flowers by using a combination of colour and pattern.

In a series of tests, bees rarely ignored pattern, suggesting colour alone does not lead them to flowers. This may help to explain why some colours that are visible to bees are rarely produced by flowers in nature.

“We studied a large amount of data on plants and bee behaviour,” said Professor Natalie Hempel, from Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour. “By training and testing bees using man-made patterns of shape and colour, we found they relied flexibly on their ability to see both of these elements. Showing how insects see colour and learn colour patterns is important to understand how pollinators (传粉者) may, or may not, create evolutionary ‘pressures’ on the colours and patterns that flowers have evolved (进化). Our findings suggest that flowers don’t need to evolve too many different flower colours, because they can use patterns to vary their displays so bees can tell them apart from other flowers.”

One typical feature identified in the study is that the outside edges of flowers usually contrast strongly with the plant’s leaves while the centre of the flower does not have such a strong contrast with the leaf colour. This could help bees quickly identify colour differences and find their way to flowers.

While flowers may be beautiful to humans, Professor Hempel stressed that understanding more about bees and the threats they face meant we need to see the world “through the eyes of a bee and the mind of a bee.”