China Daily—Last week, the Beijing municipal government released a list of 192 areas in the capital where spring blooms, including peach, magnolia, apricot and winter jasmine, can be enjoyed from March to May.  The recommended spots cover an area of 22 square kilometers.  Apart from admiring blooms, folklore performances, botany exhibitions and other activities will be put on. 20 travel routes for tourists looking to appreciate floral beauty in the countryside are issued in Hubei, too.

    South Korean drama Descendants of the Sun《太阳的后裔》 has collected more than 200 million views on iQiyi, the Chinese streaming website said Tuesday.

    "Descendants of the Sun", the first Korean show to premiere simultaneously in South Korea and China (中韩同步首播), is a love story between an Army captain (Song Joong-ki) and a doctor (Song Hye-kyo) who find themselves in a fictional war-torn country called Uruk, where both try to save lives.

    "The show has become the talk of the town everywhere. Some shows even had live phone conversations with viewers to discuss its popularity," a Chinese entertainment official said.

    To put things into perspective, a f ifth of South Korea's population is 10 million people. Just a little over that number tuned in to watch Descendants of the Sun.

    Enthusiastic customers snapped up(抢光) the first batch of tickets in just five minutes on Monday for the opening day of the Shanghai Disneyland park on June 16, temporarily crashing the official website.

    "Within half an hour, clicks on the website (www.shanghaidisneyresort.com) reached more than 5 million. The massive volume resulted in our ticketing system temporarily malfunctioning."

    Most drinks stating that they are fruit-flavored (水果味道的) contain no fruit at all, while most of the rest contain only a small quantity of fruit, according to a study carried by the British Food Commission.

    “Shoppers need to check the labels (标签) before buying drinks, though sometimes the actual content can be non-existent,” said Food Commission spokesperson Ian Tokelove. “Food production is highly competitive. It will increase profits, and consumers won't always realize they are being tricked.”

    Flavorings are focused on the flavors of natural food products such as fruits, meats and vegetables, or creating flavor for food products that do not have the desired flavors. Researchers analyzed the contents of 28 strawberry-flavored products sold in stores. Of the 11 products that did contain strawberries, five of them contained less than one percent real fruit. In addition, each juice box contained nearly eight teaspoons of sugar.

    Let's take jam as an example. Some strawberry-flavored jam was labeled as containing no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners, but it contained absolutely no strawberries at all.

    Consumers have the rights to know clearly about what they have bought. Under current UK law, food packages do not have to distinguish between natural and artificial flavoring. “Describing a product as strawberry flavor and covering the surface of the packet with pictures of strawberries is misleading. Unfortunatly, it is also legal and widespread,” Tokelove said. “It's time to take measures to protect the consumers' rights.”

    It is not easy getting the attention of tourists away from the well-known white sandy beaches of Byron Bay. But in this relying Australian surf town, a solar (太阳能的)-powered train might just do a good job.

    Opening to the public in December 2017 along a 1.9-mile-long stretch (一段) of track that sat abandoned for more than a decade, the Byron Bay Rail Company has breathed new life into a pair of disused railcars dating back to the 1940s. They're now used to transport passengers between Byron Bay's central business district and the North Beach area. After remaining in service as part of a regional passenger rail network until the early 1990s, the aging railcars were out of service and sat uncared for — almost destroyed by time and unpleasant Aussie climate — in a railyard for more than 20 years. You'd never know it by looking at these nearly 70-year-old workhorses today, though: they've been decorated, equipped, topped with custom-made photovoltaic panels (定制的光电池板) and rearranged to accommodate up to 100 seated beach goers.

    It's those train-top PV panels that truly set the Byron Bay Rail Company's flagship train apart from other heritage rail restoration projects.

    Drawing additional power from a 30-kilowatt solar array (阵列) located atop the train's storage building, the tain is said to be the first in the world to be completely powered by the sun. Solar energy caught by the 6.5-kilowatt train-top solar panels is stored directly in an onboard battery system that powers motors, lighting and the like. When stopped at its home platform, the train pushes into chargers for quick battery top-offs with electricity produced by the storage building's rooftop solar array. The 77 kilowatt-hour battery can hold enough juice for 12 to 15 runs on a single charge. During long periods of cloudiness when the solar arrays don't get enough sun, the train uses the main electric network, supply using renewable energy sold by community-based service Enova Energy.

    The Byron Bay Rail Company's first-in-the-world folly solar-powered train is a good example of historic rail preservation with a 21^st century development. Operating as a not-for-profit company, the Byron Bay Rail Company also expected the AU$4 million line to be a way to relieve traffic jam between downtown Byron Bay and the rapidly growing North Beach area. Really, there's no bigger unpleasant thing than sitting in bad traffic for 40 minutes trying to get to the beach.

    Many people may not find the idea of visiting Beijing's Forbidden City just to see its cultural relics(遗迹)very exciting. But what if you got to see deer there too? That certainly sounds like a better day out.

    Nine deer were introduced into the Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum, on Sept. 26 and would make it their home until February. The beautiful animals are part of an exhibition on deer-related relics, including furniture, clothes and artworks. In ancient China, deer patterns(图案)could be seen on lots of items since lu—deer—were considered to be a lucky animal because the Chinese word shares the pronunciation(发音)of the character that means “official salary(俸禄)”.

    The deer in the Palace Museum are not only to be part of the exhibition, but also to act as ambassadors(大使)to attract visitors. “It's a better way to bring cultural relics closer to the people,”explained Wang Yamin, a deputy director at the Museum, according to ChinaDaily.

    Turning itself into a zoo is the latest effort that the museum has made at introducing academic(学术的)art to ordinary people.

    In 2014, for example, the museum's online store started to offer products such as T-shirts featuring the pattern of an emperor's coat, and earphones looking like the necklaces worn by ancient officials. These products soon gained popularity on social media because they allowed people to wear a piece of history.

    Two years later, the TV series MastersintheForbiddenCity(《我在故宫修文物》)lifted the mysterious veil(面纱)on the experts who work in the museum—people whose job is to repair the relics within it. And while many of us may have imagined these workers to be old and boring, they're actually quite young and interesting. Some are even in their 20s. They lead a peaceful career, although it can sometimes be dull. Workers aren't allowed to wear any make-up or do their nails(指甲)because the chemicals(化学物质)may damage the relics they're working on, for example.

    Little by little, the Palace Museum is shaking off the stereotypes(刻板印象)of being an old-fashioned academic institution. As Shan Jixiang, the museum's director, once said, “Academic research is not alien from the public's interest. We'd like to make visiting the museum a part of people's daily lives. ”

    It looks like the Forbidden City isn't so forbidden after all.

    Reintroducing beavers (海狸) to Britain could help clean up rivers, prevent flooding and minimise soil loss, an expert has claimed.

    Professor Richard Brazier, a researcher at the University of Exeter, said unpublished results from a trial area in Devon showed muddy water entering an area where beavers were living was three times cleaner when it left. "Our trial has shown that the beavers are able to dam our streams in a way that keeps soil in the headwaters of our catchment (流域) so it doesn't block up rivers downstream and pollute our drinking and bathing waters. If we bring beavers back it's just one tool we need to solve Britain's crisis of soil loss and agricultural pollution of waterways, but it's a useful tool," he said.

    Prof Brazier's claims were disputed by the National Farmers' Union (NFU), which warned that the reintroduction of beavers to Scotland had led to fields and forests becoming damaged. Spokesman Mark Pope said: "The knowledge of the impacts beavers have had on farmland, riverbanks and flood defences in Scotland is concerning. We await the results of the Devon trial and will analyse the outcomes then."

    Prof Brazier, an expert in Earth Surface Processes, insisted the animals could even play a useful role in preventing flooding. He told BBC News: "The public is currently paying people to build leaky dams to keep storm waters in the uplands. The beavers can do it free of charge and even build their own homes."

    However, Professor Jane Rickson, a soil specialist from Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, joined the NFU in sounding a note of caution. She agreed that in some places in the UK there was evidence of worrying soil loss, and said new policies were urgently needed. Beavers may in fact reduce the river channel and remove vegetation, exposing banks to greater erosion (侵蚀) and increasing, rather than decreasing, the risk of flooding, she warned. And she said beaver dams should be "leaky" to avoid build-ups of large volumes of water.

    The audiences of the UK will have an opportunity to enjoy a feast of Chinese culture when the China National Peking Opera Company returns to the country for the fourth time for a series of workshops and performances. Events will be held at the British Library, Oxford's Ashmolean Museum and the world-famous dance theater of Sadler's Wells, featuring artists including Lisa Lu, Yu Kuizhi and Li Shengsu.

    On Thursday at the British Library, Lisa Lu, who also played a role in recent cinema hit Crazy Rich Asians, will lead a group of artists from China, the US and the UK to discuss their experiences of working across a variety of artistic fields in different cultures over many decades.

    The series of activities also include interactive workshops, which explain the intricacies（错综复杂）of the attractive art of Peking Opera. The secrets behind a great opera, from music to instruments, from make-up to martial arts, will be revealed at the British Library workshops on Saturday and Sunday.

    Events end on Oct 19 and 20 at Sadler's Wells in North London, with two performances of The Emperor and the Concubine, one of the most celebrated operas, as well as The Crossroads Inn and The Monkey King and The Leopard.

    Li Shengsu, who led the cast of The Emperor and the Concubine, explained that the show is the beautiful love story championed by Peking Opera Master Mei Lanfang, and it is one of the very few works from the Master Mei's that had been handed down since 1920s.

    The productions are being presented in partnership with London-based Sinolink Productions, a company that promotes Chinese art, culture and performance to British audiences.

    Zhang Kewei, producer and director of Sinolink, said, “It is delightful to see that the China National Peking Opera Company returns to London for the fourth time with another two masterpieces this year. The performances so far have received very positive comments from audiences and the United Kingdom's media and we are looking forward to further expanding our program.”

    Bargain hunters spent a record of 168.2 billion yuan ($25.3 billion; 21.7 billion euros; ￡19.3 billion) during the 2017 Singles Day on Nov. 11, the world's largest daylong discount festival, as e-commerce giant Alibaba Group took online shopping to offline stores and beyond(超越) the nation's borders(边界).

    Spending climbed by 39.3 percent during this year's sale, as consumers from 225 countries and regions scooped up goods from 140,000 brands (品牌)that offered promotions during the annual event.

    Alibaba surpassed last year's 120.7 billion yuan total shortly after 1 pm, as overseas shoppers joined in the afternoon, seeking good deals from China. Expanding at a faster-than-expected pace, the total eclipsed (使黯然失色) the combined sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States last year. Nine out of ten people used mobile wallet apps for payment, says Alibaba, with its Alipay app having handled 1.48 billion transactions (转账) in 24 hours and processed them at a peak rate of 256,000 transactions per second.

    Meanwhile, some offline shops also joined in, turning into smart stores that allowed shoppers to track product availability at other locations and get timely delivery to their doorsteps while paying with their phone. "Using big data analytics powered by Chinese tech firms can help us locate customers in a precise manner, something we wouldn't have achieved using old-school retailing," says Gary Chu, e-commerce general manager.

    The Nov. 11 shopping event represents a China-branded business model that can also be spread to other countries, creating opportunities for businesses worldwide. As Singles Day grows, shoppers have used the opportunity to try out new items rather than simply bagging a bargain, says Tommy Hong, vice-president of Nielsen China.

    "That changing attitudes (toward Singles Day) is also consistent with China's shifting focus from quantity(数量) to quality growth," Gary Chu says.

    Five thousand square meters of old damaged cars, motorcycles and boats fill this junkyard. For a casual onlooker, this might be a very sad sight. But for Andy, it's a real treasure. “I've been a junk hoarder(囤积者)for my whole life and I like fixing up what shouldn't be thrown away. Around 200 old cars end up in this junkyard every week. Some of them are sold for parts, others get repaired, and still others are beyond repair.”

    His father Bobby started the business some 50 years ago and still spends every morning there. The father and son have very different approaches to their work. They got a Dean cab that was getting thrown away and that was the father's project, which Andy did not want him to do.“ He did basically the opposite of everything I told him and I think he did it just to make me mad. He dumped a ton of money into this car, but in the end it wouldn't run.” Andy said jokingly.

    The unusual family business attracted the attention of a TV crew. That's how the show Janka Empire came to be featured on a network of the Discovery Channel. This show, five years of shooting, five seasons and 60 episodes(集), is popular. “There are hundreds of junkyards throughout the United States. I think what's interesting is that it is a family business. My father and I started the business and we joke very well back and forth and I think that's what people like. The cars that end up at the junkyard come out with endless surprises. See, this was a junk car and we restored it with a blown motor. Yet I don't get a chance to ride around it too often. Because despite its shining appearance, the noise of the engine is truly deafening and I worry my neighbors will not put up with it.”

    Nearly 20 U.S. states have started carrying out former president Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which places limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in an effort to reduce the impacts of climate change. The plan has been in legal limbo (边缘) for the past year. Yet scientists have now calculated another outcome of the policy: harm to crop yields (产量) if the plan is cancelled. Along with carbon pollution, coal-fired power plants spew (喷出) pollutants that form what we know as smog. The contribution of smog to increased rates of asthma (哮喘) and premature deaths was already known. The new research estimates the extent to which smog, under air-pollution policies-4n place before the Clean Power Plan, would limit production in 2020 of four major crops: corn, cotton, potatoes and soybeans.

    Led by environmental engineer Shannon L. Capps, now at Drexel University, the team also sketched the extent to which those crop production losses would reduce under three nationwide scenarios (方案). One improved the efficiency of individual power plants. Another modeled a policy similar to the Obama plan, setting state CO₂ emissions goals for the electricity department. A third established a tax on carbon emissions, under which emissions fell the most. But the greatest drop in smog-forming pollutants—and greatest gains in crop yields—came from policies such as the Clean Power Plan.

    Researchers calculated how well each scenario would reduce the potential productivity loss (PPL) of each crop. PPL is a projected value for 2020 and indicates how much crop growth would suffer because of smog. Scenario 2 most closely agrees with results expected from the Clean Power Plan.

    When HarmonyOs, the Chinese self-developed operating system for Huawei mobile devices, was released on Aug 9, it quickly became a hot topic on social media. Many believe it not only represents the rise of the country as a tech power, but also shows respect to classical Chinese culture by naming the system "Hongmcng" in Chinese.

    "Hongmeng" is a classical word from Zhuangzi. In the ancient times of Chinese legend and myths (神话),"Hongmeng" was used to describe the original state of the universe before matter existed. For HarmonyOS, "Hongmeng" indicates the developers' aim to make an innovative operating system, unlike any other.

    Besides "Hongmeng'", Hunwei has also registered many of its products under the names of legendary creatures from Chinese myths. For example, the company's Kirin mobile chip got its name after a lucky monster called "Qilin". And its server chip is calked "Kunpeng", a creature that changed from a fish into a giant bird.

    Many Chinese Internet users and media have praised Huawei's use of these names," as they stand for Chinese wisdom and ancient people's imagination and spirit of exploration", Global Times noted.

    In fact, Huawei is not alone in using traditional culture for modern ventures. Ne Zha, the new film, also portrays traditional culture in a modern context. The movie is loosely based on the well-known work of classical Chinese myth The Investiture of the Gods. Earlier this month it became the biggest animated movie in China and was called "the glory of domestic anime (国产动漫)".

    Indeed, the long history and splendid classic works have given China a profound culture. Myths and legends are the creative works of tremendous imagination. As Global Times put it, today by revisiting a modern context, "ancient myths has the power to inspire imagination in young people". After all, imagination is the beginning of creation.

    A designer is recently creating floral installations (花篮)on the streets of Manhattan, New York, that are meant to brighten the days of healthcare and other important workers.

    Lewis Miller s most recent creation is an arrangement popping out of a rubbish can at the corner of W 58th Street and 10th Avenue. "They were very simple. It was just cherry branches. " Miller said. " We didn't disclose the location(位置）so nobody could necessarily go and find them. But plenty of people did find them and then they found his Inslagram information. A post with pictures of the "flower flash" as Miller calls them has gotten more than 16,000 likes in less than a day. u Listen, Pm kind of bored. I'm a creative person. I did something new and it took off, '' Miller said. 44 It still surprises me reading the comments from yesterday like really how much it feeds peopled souls.

    Miller has been dotting Manhattan with floral sunrises for a few years with his arrangements popping out of those New York City hot dog carts (推车）and even construction equipment.

    " And the combination of which is so hard aggressive, compared with flowers which are the exact opposite of that, " Miller said.

    Vogue magazine once wrote about him but it's the reaction from the public many of whom have been restricted inside for weeks that he values most.

    "If you can just stop, pause and just have one second of joy — that's amazing because that's one of the things that's so lacking and it's hard," Miller said.

    As one person on Instagram put it, New York City rubbish has never looked so pretty.

    Chinese female scientist Tu Youyou won the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine on October 5 for her discoveries concerning a novel treatment against Malaria(疟疾). This is the first Nobel Prize given to a Chinese scientist for work carried out within China.

    Tu shared the prize with Irish-born William Campbell and Satoshi Omura of Japan, who were honored for their revolutionary anti-roundworm treatment. 84-year-old Tu is awarded this prize for her contribution to cutting the death rate of malaria, reducing patients' suffering and promoting mankind's health. Although she received several medical awards in the past, the 2015 Nobel Prize is definitely the most privilege reward that recognizes Tu's dedication and perseverance in discovering artemisinin(青蒿素), the key drug that battles malaria-friendly parasites(寄生虫).

    However, her route to the honor has been anything but traditional. She won the Nobel Prize for medicine, but she doesn't have a medical degree or a PhD. In China, she is even being called the "three-noes" winner: no medical degree, no doctorate, and she's never worked overseas. No wonder her success has stirred China's national pride and helped promote confidence of native Chinese scientists.

    The fact that Tu has none of these three backgrounds reminds us that science should be more accessible to all. One shall be able to become a scientist no matter what kind of background he or she comes from, as long as one dives into scientific research. There have been discussions on people who really love science but are never able to achieve much during their whole life. Their contributions can never be ignored. They work so hard to prove the wrong way so that the future researchers will be closer to the right one.

    As the first Chinese mainland Nobel Prize Winner of natural science award, Tu's record-breaking winning also serves as a reminder to those who are too eager for instant success. Science is never about instant success. Tu spent decades on scientific research before its value is officially acknowledged. There is no way to measure how much one devotes to science and compare it with how much reward he or she may get.

    The city-state of Dubai that is home to the world's tallest building is fast improving its reputation as the city of the future. On May 22, Dubai officials added to their list of futuristic accomplishments with the introduction of the world's first robot police officer.

    Nicknamed Robocop after the 1987 action movie,the 1.7-meter tall humanoid (类人的) robot was introduced at the 4th annual Gulf Information Security Expo and Conference. First introduced in 2011 as REEM by Barcelona-based PAL Robotics, the robot was built to entertain guests at conferences and serve as an information booth at public places. However, the forward-thinking officials of the Dubai police force saw another potential application and partnered with the Spanish company to build a version that would help improve public safety.

    Locals and visitors can get help from Lieutenant Robocop which is currently on duty at the Dubai Mall, using the touchscreen on its chest. Armed with technology from Google and IBM's supercomputer Watson,the "policeman" can provide visitors with directions and other information regarding the mall in one of six languages, including Arabic and English and also accept payment for any fines, like parking tickets. It can also detect criminals with an 80 percent accuracy from 100-feet away and send the information real-time to command center through its camera eyes. While Robocop cannot physically protect people in trouble, an SOS button on its touchscreen can connect them to a human member of the Dubai police force instantly. When not assisting people or seeking out lawbreakers, Robocop brings smiles to people's faces by posing for selfies or showering them with compliments.

    Once the robot officer has been thoroughly tested, the Smart Services Department at Dubai Police plans to "hire" more Robocops to patrol (巡逻) other public areas and also act as receptionists at police stations.

    Deciding to get her money's worth out of the wedding dress on which she spent over $1,000, an Australian woman has been wearing her wedding dress, a year after her wedding.

    43-year-old Tammy Hall adopted a new lifestyle-anti-consumerism (反消费主义) lifestyle in 2016, after a trip to India opened her eyes to how much we as a society consumed. She decided not to buy any new clothes or footwear for a whole year after she returned home to Adelaide, in Southern Australia, and she managed to make it.

    But last year, as her wedding day approached, she faced a dilemma. She wanted to look good on the most important day of her life, but how could she spend a small fortune on the wedding dress she would only wear on that day?

    "In the end I decided that if I was going to get a wedding dress, I'd make sure I could get my money's worth," Hall tells PA Real Life.

    "The first time I wore it after the wedding was to vote in the Australian election in early 2019," the 43-year-old adds. "Since then, it's been to all sorts of places. Wearing it on a crowded train was especially funny, but I've worn it to do housework, to football games and to the gym."

    Hall says that she has gotten some strange looks from people, but no irritating comments. It may have something to do with the fact that the dress is not the fanciest, but she believes people are just too reserved to say anything. Anyway, she doesn't really care, because she knows she has to hit the goal she has set and wearing the dress multiple times is the most reasonable way she could think of to make the most of her wedding dress.

    Hall now plans to wear her wedding dress on a trip to Iceland that she and her partner will take next summer.

It's a land where winter darkness is long, and summers bring continuous sunlight.

However, people are very happy in Finland, despite the country's natural challenges. Last month, the nation was named the happiest on Earth, according to the 2018 World Happiness Report released by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

The Finns certainly have a high range of happiness, Eric Weiner wrote in his 2008 book The Geography of Bliss.

There's a stereotype (刻板印象) that Finns are introverted (内向的) and shy, because they often stay silent. But in fact, “for Finns, it is extremely rude to interrupt someone. This leads to us making pauses or taking our time to talk”, Krista Huhtala-jenks, a senior officer at Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications, explained to CNN.

Perhaps Finland's love for heavy metal music and tango reveals the country's true personality, however. Indeed, young Finns love heavy metal, while tango remains a huge part of Finnish culture for the older generation. The passionate dance started in Argentina, but it's Finland that became the tango capital of the world. Every July, the Finnish town of Seinajoki draws thousands of people from all over the world to a four-day tango festival. During the festival, a tango king and queen are chosen.

Another trademark (特征) of Finnish culture is the sauna (桑拿). According to CNN, the nation has about 3.5 million saunas – roughly one for every 1.6 people. And 99 percent of Finns take at least one sauna a week, BBC News reported.

In Finns' eyes, saunas are closely related to well-being. For example, if a person gets sick, he or she will take a sauna. Many women also prefer to give birth in a sauna, because "the walls of traditional smoke saunas were lined with naturally bacteria-resistant soot (抑菌的煤烟灰), making them the cleanest room in the house", BBC News noted.

Medical benefits aside, the sauna is also seen as a place to collect your thoughts. "Sauna is for your mind. It really helps you to calm down in a modern society where it is never quiet," Jarmo Lehtola from the Finnish Sauna Society, told BBC News. "If somebody wants to understand what it is to be a Finn, they have to understand what a sauna is. If you do not experience sauna, you do not experience Finland."

Government in Tibet have denied the permanent(永久的) closure of Mount Qomolangma National Nature Reserve.

The announcement came after a report went viral online claiming the base camp of the world's highest mountain was "permanently closed due to heavy pollution" and caused a universal misunderstanding.

Mount Qomolangma National Nature Reserve was set up in 1988. Covering an area of more than 33, 800 square km, it is home to one of the world's weakest ecosystems.

Kelsang, deputy director of the reserve administration, said ordinary tourists are allowed to visit areas around Rongpo Monastery, almost 5, 000 meters above sea level. As for travelers who have a climbing permit, they can go to the base camp at an altitude of 5, 200 meters. The mountaineering activities have been permitted by the regional forestry department.

To protect the environment surrounding Mount Qomolangma, China carried out three major clean-ups at an altitude of 5, 200 meters and above last spring, collecting eight tonnes of household wastes, human wastes and mountaineering trash. This year, the cleanup will continue, and the remains of mountaineering victims(受害者) at above 8, 000 meters will be centrally dealt with for the first time. Meanwhile, the number of people who stay at the base camp will be kept under 300.

Recently, there are 85 wildlife protectors in the reserve, and 1, 000 herders have part-time jobs going around and cleaning up garbage.

These measures aim to strike a balance between various demands such as environmental protection, local poverty relief, mountaineering and education, said Wang Shen, county chief of Dingri at the mountain foot.

Recently, the organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics have suggested that breakdancing be included in 2024, making it closer to becoming an Olympic sport. The other 3 sports-surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing-will all make debuts in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. That is to say, audience will be able to watch these three sports as Olympic events for the first time.

The organizers stressed that four sports had been chosen since they would reflect the city's identity and help take the Olympics to the street. They added that the purposes were to deliver a Games that was able to keep up with the times and encourage new audience and attract young people. Breakdancing is a typical example which can be played without the limitations of time and places in urban and other environments.

As one of the sports at the Young Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018, breakdancing now could see its popularity greatly raised. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) needs to approve the French suggestion before it can be formally added to the 2024 Paris Olympics sports programme.

With new IOC rules first introduced to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Host cities can select sports and propose them for inclusion in those Games if they are popular in that country and add to the Game's appeal.

Antonio Espinos Ortueta, the president of the World Karate Federation said, "Our sport has grown rapidly over the last years. We believe that we have met all the requirements and that we have the perfect conditions to be added to the sports programme. However, we have learned today that we still haven't had the chance to prove our value as an Olympic sport."

Chinese young gun Yang Qian claimed the first gold of the Tokyo Olympics with a victory in women's 10m air rifle(气步枪) on July 24 in Tokyo, Japan. Russian markswoman Anastasia Galashina took the silver and Nina Christen of Switzerland bagged the bronze. Yang, who was ranked sixth in the qualification, scored 251.8 points in the final, beating Galashina to set off Team China to a fine start in Tokyo.

Trailing by a mere 0.1 point ahead of the final two shots, Yang saw the gap widen despite a 10.7-point shot, as her rival made an impressive 10.8. However, when it came to the last shot, Galashina surprisingly shot for 8.9 points, and lost the Olympic title to Yang who had a 9.8.

“I am very happy and proud to win this gold,” said the 21-year-old in a calm tone. The result set the bar for future Olympic competitors as Tokyo 2020 is the first games under new competition rules for the event. “I was extremely nervous before the final shot, and all I could do was to calm down,” the young Olympic champion recalled. “I wasn't as calm as I appeared to be. During the qualification and the final I kept adjusting my mentality gradually, trying to shake the pressure off me, and I think I did well in doing so.”

Yang had to stand up to a long wait for other shooters to finish their shots before reaching the final. The favored Indian duo, world record holder Apurvi Chandela and world No.1 Elavenil Valarivan, bowed out after the 60-shot qualification round. Norwegian Jeanette Hegg Duestad was the dark horse in the qualification, setting an Olympic record of 632.9 points. But the 22-year-old narrowly missed the medals in the final.

Long ago, writing was done on parchments一thin, dried animal skins specially prepared for writing. But the parchment wasn't easy to make and it wasn't cheap. Then, ancient people removed the original writing from a parchment and then used it again for another piece of writing. That's what creates a palimpsest.

The writing removed from the parchment can't be seen directly. Generally, finding hidden writing on very old documents is so unusual, but for scientists, it is just the opposite because they have learned ways to use special lighting to discover it. For young college students, doing this is a different matter. Last year, some students at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) took part in a class that brought together many students from different areas to do a project as a group, which was to build a special camera system that could take pictures by using different kinds of light. But just as the students were finishing up their project together, COVID-l9 hit and the students could no longer work on the project in person. Instead, they broke into smaller groups to try to finish parts of the project remotely. Although they met many tough problems, they communicated, sometimes fiercely, with each other timely online to settle them.

Over the summer, they got special permission to continue working on the camera system, and they managed to finish it. Then they borrowed several old parchments from the collection at the school's Cary Graphic Arts Collection. When they put one of the pages under their camera system with ultraviolet( UV) light(紫外銭), the hidden writing appeared suddenly. The students are even more excited because even though the parchment is no longer part of a book, the students know where other pages from the same book are. They hope that these, too, will have hidden writing.

Sitting straight at his desk, Sami Sabeaallil turns on the lights, places his mobile phone on a selfie stick and starts greeting his viewers. "Hi everyone, this is Sami,"he says in Chinese. "I will recommend you some toys tonight…"

Every day, Sami livestreams (网络直播) on Douyin (China's domestic version of TikTok) for one or two hours, promoting his toys to Chinese buyers. Based in Yiwu City, the world's largest trading center for daily consumer goods in East China's Zhejiang Province, the 22-year-old said he is likely the first foreigner to get into livestream selling in Yiwu and take advantage of China's skyrocketing e-commerce industry.

Sami has been selling his toys on his Douyin account since last June. Most of his videos are about his products or show him hanging around Yiwu's markets and cracking jokes. For a video he published last October, he invited dozens of foreigners from various countries to express their love for China, which got nearly 30,000 likes.

As a young Chinese-speaking foreigner, Sami attracts much attention on China's social media. He now has only about 28,000 followers on Douyin but his goal is to have 10 million followers within two years.

The COVID-19 pandemic is severely hitting the economy of many countries and has caused great losses among Yiwu's producers and suppliers. Sami decided to try livestreaming and look for more Chinese domestic buyers via Douyin. As an owner of a Yiwu-based toy company, Sami used to have half of his orders from overseas. However, overseas orders have not been satisfactory in the past year, so he is gradually shifting his business to Chinese market as the epidemic situation in China has largely improved.

A few potential buyers have reached Sami and one of them bought over 100,000 yuan ($14,860) of toys from him, which Sami described as "a good beginning. "

Sami is not the only foreigner in Yiwu interested in livestreaming promotion. According to Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College, quite a few of its 140 overseas students say they will try livestreaming e-commerce industry after graduation.

The college is offering its overseas students courses on China's livestream selling market, which include how to attract more followers, how to select suitable products, how to interact with audiences and how to shoot and edit short videos.