1 . Science is a process that builds upon existing theories and knowledge by continuously revising them. Every aspect of scientific knowledge can be questioned, including the general rules of thinking that appear to be most certain. So why is science trustworthy if it is always changing? If tomorrow we will no longer see the world as Newton or Einstein found it to be, why should we take seriously today’s scientific description of the world?

The answer is simple: Because at any given moment of our history, this description of the world is the best we have. The fact that it can be made better can’t diminish (降低) the fact that it is a useful instrument for understanding the world.

Consider a folk healer’s herbal medicine. Can we say this treatment is “scientific”? Yes, if it is proven to be effective, even if we have no idea why it works. In fact, quite a few common medications used today have their origin in folk treatments, and we are still not sure how they work. This does not imply that folk treatments are generally effective. To the contrary, many of them are not. What distinguishes scientific medicine is the readiness to seriously test a treatment and to be ready to change our minds if something is shown not to work. A research doctor in a modern hospital must be ready to change his theory if a more effective way of understanding illness, or treating it, becomes available.

What makes modern science uniquely powerful is its refusal to believe that it already possesses ultimate truth. The reliability of science is based not on certainty but on a complete absence of certainty. As John Stuart Mill wrote in “On Liberty” in 1859, “The beliefs which we have most warrant (依据) for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.”

3 . It’s no secret that non-alcoholic beer tastes much worse than regular beer, but scientists in Denmark now claim to have developed a way of making it taste just as satisfying.

What non-alcoholic beer lacks is the flavor from hops (啤酒花). When you remove the alcohol from the beer, for example by heating it up, you also kill the flavor that comes from hops. Other methods for making alcohol-free beer also lead to poor flavor because alcohol is needed for hops to pass their unique flavor to the beer.

“After years of research, we have found a way to produce monoterpenoids (单萜), which provide the flavor, and then add them to the beer at the end of the process of making beer to give back its lost flavor. No one has been able to do this before, so it’s a game changer for non-alcoholic beer,” the Danish professor added.

This method of artificially recreating the flavor of hops using monoterpenoids is currently being tested in factories producing across Denmark, and the plan is to have a plan ready for the country’s entire beer industry by the end of October.

Although non-alcoholic beer has been growing in popularity at a very rapid pace, the new thing announced by Sotirios Kampranis and his team could have major meaning for the entire beer industry and our environment. Growing hops is a very wasteful process, with one kilogram of hops requiring no less than 2.7 tons of water.

“With our method, we skip hops and the water and the transportation. This means that one kilogram of hops can be produced with more than 10,000 times less water and more than 100 times less CO₂,” Kampranis said. “When the monoterpenoids are released from yeast, we collect them and put them into the beer, giving back the taste of regular beer that so many of us know and love.” he added.

4 . On April 18—the International Day for Monuments and Sites, China Daily’s digital employee Yuanxi and Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes’ official virtual cartoon figure Jiayao together introduced an interactive digital platform that hosts a virtual copy of the Mogao Grottoes’ Library Cave(藏经洞) to the world.

The platform was developed jointly by the Dunhuang Academy and the Chinese tech firm Tencent. It uses gaming technologies to show the historical scenes of the Library Cave in the digital world.

The Library Cave in Mogao Grottoes was discovered in 1900, with more than 60,000 cultural relics dating from the 4th century to the 11th century unearthed. It was one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the 20th century.

On the platform, visitors can role-play and “time travel” to ancient dynasties and talk with eight historical figures. The public can enter the platform through the Digital Dunhuang website and its WeChat mini program.

In the digital age, the model of “culture+technology” has been introduced to promote the development of Chinese culture. The digitalization rate of China’s precious cultural relics is now over 70 percent, according to the 2022 China Digital Collection Industry Research Report released by iResearch.

Institutions such as the Palace Museum have also started online digital services of their own. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology allows the public to view the interior of the buildings through the Palace Museum’s WeChat mini program.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism has also encouraged the development and transformation of cultural intellectual property(知识产权) by digital means. China Central Television has created a series of digital collections with different Dunhuang themes, such as the Dunhuang divine deer(神鹿) Youyou. It was created based on the image of the nine-colored deer from Dunhuang murals(壁画). The public can see the divine deer on CCTV’s own digital platform.

Digital collections cater to the consumption habits of young people, who grow up in the information age. They not only protect the intellectual property of the collections but also bring the public closer to China’s “excellent traditional culture”, noted Dunhuang Art Institute.

Su Bomin, director of the Dunhuang Academy, told Xinhua that more efforts will be made to explore new forms for showing cultural relics and offer the public greater cultural experiences to develop Dunhuang culture.

6 . Going to the hospital can be difficult for anyone. Between all of the machines and being in a strange environment, it can be a (n) _______ experience—especially for a child.

Ella Casano, a 12-year-old Connecticut girl who often gets an IV (输液) for a rare disease, _______ how uncomfortable this environment can be for a kid and decided to create some _______ that would make it less _______ by placing them over the IV machine.

“When I had my first IV, I was very nervous at the _______ of so many medical machines,” Casano said. “As I saw more children experiencing the same feelings, I became more interested in creating a _______ experience for young IV patients. So I _______ Medi Teddy. I hope Medi Teddy helps you just as much as it does me.”

At age seven, Casano was diagnosed (诊断) with a serious disease. Most children recover by themselves, but Casano is in a _______ situation because her disease has never gone away. Every eight weeks she spends a day in the hospital _______ an IV. Without the ________ , Casano can’t even do daily ________ like running, playing soccer or riding her bike.

The girl’s kindness ________ the hospital staff. “Yes, I am proud of her, but ________ that I feel happy for her,” her mother said. “She has ________ so much, and I’m so happy to see her so excited that her ________ is taking off.”

7 . China launched a Long March 3B carrier rocket on May 17 to transport a satellite into space for the country’s Beidou Navigation Satellite System, marking the first deployment (部署) of a Beidou satellite in three years.

The satellite has typical functions for a third-generation Beidou satellite — positioning, navigation and timing. Compared with previous Beidou satellites, it has some upgraded hardware and features a stronger signal, faster transmission speed and higher operational stability, said Chen Zhonggui, chief designer of Beidou’s third-generation satellites.

Despite being called a backup, the satellite is designed to start working as soon as it enters orbit. Its primary tasks are to expand the service areas of Beidou’s short-messaging function, enhance Beidou’s positioning accuracy as well as improve the network’s operational continuity and reliability, he noted.

“Before the end of this year, another two backup Beidou satellites are scheduled to be launched to further strengthen the reliability of the network,” said Wang Dong, deputy project manager of the third-generation Beidou network.

Beidou is currently China’s largest civilian satellite system and one of four global navigation networks, along with the United States’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo.

Since 2000, a total of 60 Beidou satellites, including the first four experimental ones, have been lifted on 45 Long March 3 series rockets from Xichang. In June 2020, the final satellite to complete Beidou’s third-generation network was lifted by a Long March 3B rocket at the Xichangcenter. The following month, President Xi Jinping announced that the system had been completed and had begun providing full-scale global services.

Currently, there are 46 satellites in active service, including the latest one. And China plans to establish the next generation of the Beidou system by 2035. The new version will be “omnipresent (无处不在的), smarter and more integrated” and upon its completion, there will be Beidou service not only on land and sea, but also in the sky, outer space and deep within the oceans, according to the China Satellite Navigation Office.