Men are spending more and more time in the kitchen encouraged by celebrity (名人) chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, according to a report from Oxford University.
The effect of the celebrity role models, who have given cooking a more mainly picture, has combined with a more general drive towards sexual equality and men now spend more than twice the amount of time preparing meals than they did in 1961.
According to the research by Prof. Jonatahn Gershuny, who runs the Centre for Time Research at Oxford, men now spend more than half an hour a day cooking, up from just 12 minutes a day in 1961.
Prof. Gershuny said, “The man in the kitchen is part of a much wider social trend. There has been 40 years of sexual equality, but there is another 40 years probably to come.”
Women, who a generation ago spent nearly two hours a day cooking, now spend just one hour and seven minutes—a great fall, but they still spend far more time in the kitchen than men.
Some experts have named these men in aprons as “Gastrosexuals (men using cooking skills to impress friends)”, who have been inspired to pick up a kitchen knife by the success of Ramsay, Oliver as well as other male celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Marco Pierre White and Keith Floyd.
“I was married in 1974. When my father came to visit me a few weeks later, I was wearing an apron when I opened the door. He laughed,” said Prof. Gershuny. “That would never happen now.”
Two-thirds of adults say that they come together to share at least three times a week, even if it is not necessarily around a kitchen or dining room table. Prof. Gershuny pointed out that the family meal was now rarely eaten by all of its members around a table—with many “family meals” in fact taken on the sofa in the sitting room, and shared by family members. “The family meal has changed a lot, and few of us eat—as I did when I was a child—at least two meals a day together as a family. But it has survived in a different format.”
GLASGOW—the Chinese super star Lin Dan lost a thrilling men's singles final in straight games at the World Badminton Championships here on Sunday.
The 33-year-old Lin,nicknamed Super Dan by his fans,was 9-13 behind in the first game as the 23-year-old Axelsen,who stands 1.95 meters,took command with powerful attacks.
Lin,who won his fifth and last world title in 2013,managed to reach 13-13 with well-angled shots.They exchanged the lead several times before Lin took advantage at 20-19.Axelsen,the bronze medalist at last year's Rio Olympics,saved the game point and scored three points in a row for a 22-20 victory.The second game became a one-sided affair when Axelsen led all the way to win 21-16.Lin's expectation of winning a sixth world title was dashed by Denmark's Victor Axelsen.
Axelsen became the third Dane to take world men's singles title following Peter Rasmussen in 1997 and Flemming Delfs in 1977.“It was a dream for me to win a world title,”Axelsen said.“I was shaking like a little child inside...Lin Dan is an idol for me.”
Lin suffered his fourth defeat to Axelsen in their seven meetings,but he was satisfied with the result.“I am 34 at the end of this year and 35 next year.I think any player will find it very hard to play a world championships final at this age.I am satisfied with the result.”He added,“We both played well today.I should have killed off the first game when I led 20-19.But I made a mistake at the crucial time.If I won the first game,all the pressure would be at Victor's side.Unfortunately,I have to take all the pressure."
Lin also dismissed any speculations about his retirement.“I will play in the Chinese National Games which kicks off tomorrow and then the Japan Open.I have been making very good preparations for this competition and I have showed that I am still strong enough physically.”
A California wind farm will become the first in the U. S. to avoid charges if a limited number of eagles are injured or die when they run into the huge turning blades(桨叶), the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.
The Shiloh IV Wind Project LLC, 60 miles east of San Francisco, will receive a special permit allowing up to five golden eagles to be accidentally killed over five years. Previously, such eagle deaths could potentially draw criminal charges and discourage private investment in wind farms.
Agency Director Daniel Ashe said the permit encourages development of renewable energy while requiring the wind company to take steps to protect eagles from turbines(涡轮机)and power lines. The move will help California reach its goal of producing one-third of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, he said.
Michael Hutchins of the American Bird Conservancy said he believes the five-year permit for the California wind farm is reasonable, but he said the rapid expansion of wind energy has gotten ahead of the science and regulation to protect all types of birds. Too often, he said, wind farms are built in migratory patterns or near wetlands.
Birds on the hunt can become dizzy by what's on the ground and fly into the blades, Hutchins said.
“Is it really green energy if it's going to kill hundreds of thousands of birds or bats each year?” he said. “The whole system needs a much harder look.”
Shiloh IV Wind Project is a 102-megawatt wind farm operating since 2012 and made up of 50 turbines in Solano County.
Shiloh is the first to obtain a permit. Marie Strassburger, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service's regional migratory bird chief, said that obtaining one requires a lengthy process, and because this is the first of its kind, officials have carefully made conversation plans with the wind company.
“It's not a quick, efficient process by any means,” Strassburger said.
Federal wildlife officials in California, Nevada and Southern Oregon are working on two more applications for five-year eagle permits and one for 30 years, said Scott Flaherty of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento. Eagles are not listed as endangered, but they are protected under a federal act.
Beijing residents could be rewarded with up to 500,000 yuan if they can provide useful information on spies or related activities, according to a government policy that took effect on Monday.
Under the policy, informants will be offered rewards ranging, from 10,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan, depending on how useful the information is, according to the policy issued by the National Security Bureau(安全局) of Beijing. Informants can pass information to authorities by calling a hotline, sending letters or visiting the bureau.
Informants' privacy and information about spy-related messages will not be disclosed, while information providers can ask authorities for protection if they or their relatives are in danger due to the act of informing, according to the policy.
However, informants will face punishments if they slander (诽谤) others on purpose or invent and spread false information, the policy states clearly.
The bureau said that China is witnessing rapid increases in international exchanges and the number of people entering or exiting the country each year. "Meanwhile, overseas espionage agencies(间谍机构)and other unfriendly forces have also strengthened their disruptive(破坏的) activities in China, including political, economical and military information." it said.
Some Chinese individuals have also betrayed the nation to benefit their private interests, which offers overseas espionage agencies opportunities, the bureau said, adding that Beijing is the primary location for such activities. Therefore, it's necessary to take new measures in anti-espionage investigation, and to encourage the participation of the general public.
One of the most recent cases made public occurred in the eastern province of Jiangsu in January. Two residents in Lianyungang city, surnamed Zhang and Wan, called the national security authorities after they found a device with instructions in foreign languages while fishing in the Yellow Sea. The device was later found to be spying equipment made and used by overseas agencies to collect data, according to an official release.
China has strengthened legislation(立法) on State security in recent years. Facing a more complex State security situation, in 2014, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted the Counterespionage Law.
Scientists in Argentina have created the world's first cow with two human genes that will enable it to produce human-like milk.
Genetic engineering was used to introduce the "mothers' milk" genes into the animal before birth, according to the National Institute of Agribusiness Technology in Buenos Aires.
As an adult, the cloned cow "will produce milk that is similar to that of humans", which will prove "a development of great importance for the nutrition of infants(婴儿)", said the institute. "The cloned cow, named Rosita ISA, is the first in the world with two human genes that contain the proteins present in human milk," said the statement.
In April, scientists in China published details of research showing that they had created dairy cows which produced milk containing proteins found in human breast milk. But the Argentine team said the Chinese only introduced one human gene, while their research involved two, meaning the milk will more closely resemble that of humans.
“Our goal was to raise the nutrition value of cows' milk by adding two human genes, which do good to the immune system of infants,” said Adrian Mutto, from the National University of San Martin which worked with the institute.
Cristina Kirchner, President of Argentina, said that the scientific institute made all Argentines proud. She also said that she had refused the "honor" of having the cow named after her. "They came to tell me that the name is Cristina, but what woman would like to have a cow named after her? It appeared to me to be more proper to call it Rosita.”
Inspired by a 9-year-old cyclist, Lauren Turner, who can only use one hand, a group of University of Guelph students has won an international award for their invention — a bike brake lever (刹车手柄) that pulls both the front brake and the back brake at the same time.
Lauren Tuner was able to ride her bike, but not as confidently and quickly as her friends.
"She couldn't use the front brake. She only used the back brake, but the front brake makes you stop twice as fast," says Micha Wallace, who, with Katie Bell, Anina Sakaguchi and Andrew Morries won second prize in the James Dyson Award for their single-handed bike brake lever.
"Lauren Turner tried the device (装置) first and she used it all last summer. She had no problems. It helped her go faster because she felt more confident in her braking abilities. She felt safer." says Wallace.
The invention was the fourth-year design project for the four students. They designed, tested and created a prototype (模型) within a four-month period.
When Wallace heard about the James Dyson Award on the news, she and her co-inventors entered their project in the U. K. -based contest, which rewards students designers who create products that improve the way we live. The students collected the runner-up prize — £2,000 for them and £500 for their school.
As well, they had a chance to meet James Dyson, a U.K. famous inventor. Praising the students for their invention, Dyson says the single-handed brake lever could improve safety for all cyclists. By using both brakes at once, you could prevent the possibility of flying over the handlebars and ending up with an injury.
The students hope to sell it to a major company. It may be used in other devices that require two hands for operation.
Every week in China, millions of people will sit in front of their TVs watching teenagers compete for the title Character Hero, which is a Chinesestyle spelling bee (拼写大赛). In this challenge, young competitors must write Chinese characters by hand. To prepare for the competition, the competitors usually spend months studying dictionaries.
Perhaps the show's popularity should not be a surprise. Along with gunpowder and paper, many Chinese people consider the creation of Chinese calligraphy (书法) to be one of their primary contributions. Unfortunately, all over the country, Chinese people are forgetting how to write their own language without computerized help. Software on smart phones and computers allows users to type in the basic sound of the word using the Latin alphabet(字母). The correct character is chosen from a list. The result? It's possible to recognize characters without remembering how to write them.
But there's still hope for the paint brush. China's Education Ministry wants children to spend more time learning how to write.
In one Beijing primary school we visited, students practice calligraphy every day inside a specially decorated classroom with traditional Chinese paintings hanging on the walls. Soft music plays as a group of sixyearolds dip brush pens into black ink. They look up at the blackboard often to study their teacher's examples before carefully trying to reproduce those characters on thin rice paper. "If adults can survive without using handwriting, why bother to teach it now?" we ask the calligraphy teacher, Shen Bin. "The ability to write characters is part of Chinese tradition and culture," she reasons. "Students must learn now so they don't forget when they grow up." says the teacher.
Nearly each country in the world has its official honors reserved (保留) for outstanding people. For instance, in the United State, the highest civilian honor is the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In China, there are also such official honors given to people who have made outstanding contributions (贡献)to the nation's construction and development.
On Sept. 17, 2019, President Xi Jinping signed a presidential decree (主席法令) to award 42 individuals the Medal of the Republic, the Friendship Medal and various honorary titles.
Shen Jilan, an 89 year old farmer, is one of the eight people who were awarded the Medal of the Republic. She is the only person in China who has served at all 13 National People's Congresses (人民代表大会) since 1954. She is the very witness to the development of the People's Congress system. It was she who put forward the clause on "equal pay for equal work" between men and women, which was written into the first Constitution of PRC in 1954.
Tu Youyou, who had received the Nobel Medicine Prize in 2015，was also awarded the Medal of the Republic. She is famous for finding out Qinghaosu, which has helped to save millions of lives. Before the discovery, malaria is a deadly disease to people of tropical developing countries in South Asia, Africa and South America. Therefore, her discovery of Qinghaosu and its treatment of this disease is considered as an important breakthrough in the 20th century.
Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice (杂交水稻), received the Medal of the Republic as well. He is known for his great contributions to hybrid rice research and the wonderful work he has done to improve rice production in many developing countries. Judging from his appearance, he looks like a farmer rather than a scientist, with his sunburnt face and slim, strong body. That is because he always works under the sun for a long time and that is how he developed hybrid rice which produces 1/3 more than normal rice.
Ye Peijian who has been devoted to China's lunar program for twenty years, received the honorary title "the people's scientist". He is well-known as a leading scientist in deep-space exploration at the China Academy of Space Technology.
After the cure of pneumonia, Wuhan Dad reread the letter his daughter left at the bedside, tears filled his eyes. In the second vlog series, make a video call to a friend in Wuhan, China Daily reporter Xiao Peng interviewed three Wuhan residents by video and phone, among whom three have just been released from isolation. Their lives have been transformed by pneumonia (肺炎) caused by the new coronavirus (冠状病毒).
The first interviewee was Tian Fuxin from Wuhan. He was admitted to hospital on January 20 and discharged from hospital on January 30 after 10 days of isolation treatment.
"When I was admitted to hospital, I was very anxious. But after a few days I was OK. And if you're infected by the novel coronavirus, the government covers your medical expenses. Our meals are the same as the doctors' and nurses".
"Every time I saw them in their protective gear, I felt moved because I know that stuff must be awful to wear, with goggles fogged up and so on. I can't thank them enough. Those patients who were discharged early like us are very grateful to the people who helped us, because without them, it's hard to say how we could have survived."
Worried about his daughter's safety, the family had her back to the university in Shanghai before the closure. She was quarantined in Shanghai on the first day of the lunar New Year and was recently confirmed to be well enough to end the quarantine. The daughter left her father a letter in which she read between the lines her guilt not being able to accompany him and her love for him.
"I can't look after you every time you are in hospital. I was right with you, though I didn't realize how ill you were. Nothing could be done except get away." "Dad, I love you. After growing up, I think I've never said that. You must hold on. I can't live without you, Dad." "Don't be pessimistic. Little psychological tricks are helpful. You have to tell yourself I am feeling better."
Because of infectious virus as well as its outbreak Tian Fuxin fell ill, experiencing a period of fighting the disease. However, he received the words his daughter had not long been able to speak out "Dad, I love you."
As globalization continues to make the world a smaller place, and goods become more accessible across borders, concerns about food safety in the AsiaPacific region have steadily risen over the years. An APEC forum is being held in Beijing, to find ways to better address the problem.
156 participants from 19 APEC economies and 4 non-APEC members attended the APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum. Created 7 years ago, the forum has been actively looking for ways to strengthen food safety standard in the region, without affecting trade.
"As consumers are faced with more varieties of food, the potential food safety risk also becomes bigger. This forum has helped APEC economies to cooperate in supervision (监督), exchange information, and improve the overall food safety standard in the AsiaPacific region," said director of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision Wu Qinghai.
For the first time the forum has brought together highlevel regulators, academics, and industry stakeholders to talk about their respective roles in safety supervision. They say governments alone cannot shoulder this heavy duty.
In China, the continuous food safety problems have greatly hurt consumers' confidence in domestic products; therefore more turned to imports. However, problems related to quality of those imported goods also began to show. In July this year, more than 400 batches (批)of food imports from 35 countries and regions were found substandard by the country's top quality supervisor.
Governments and industries have been brought closer by this forum. As food moves more freely beyond borders, this forum is hoped to promote safety control cooperation, so APEC members can better benefit from the economic integration (经济一体化).
A rare hole has opened up in the ozone layer above the Arctic, in what scientists say is the result of unusually low temperatures in the atmosphere above the north pole.
The hole, which has been tracked from space and the ground over the past few days, has reached record dimensions, but is not expected to pose any danger to humans unless it moves further south. If it extends further south overpopulated areas, such as southern Greenland, people would be at increased risk of sunburn. However, on current trends the hole is expected to disappear altogether in a few weeks.
Low temperatures in the northern polar regions led to an unusual stable polar vortex(极地漩涡), and the presence of ozone-destroying chemicals such as chlorine(氯) in the atmosphere – from human activities – caused the hole to form.
"The hole is principally a geophysical curiosity," said Vincent-Henri Peuch, director ofthe Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. "We monitored unusual dynamic(动态的) conditions, which drive the process of chemical depletion of ozone. Those dynamics allowed for lower temperatures and a more stable vortex than usual over the Arctic, which then triggered the formation of polar stratospheric(平流层的) clouds and the catalytic(催化的) destruction of ozone."
The hole is not related to the Covid-19 shutdowns that have dramatically cut air pollution and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. It is also too early to say whether the unusually stable Arctic polar vortex conditions are linked with the climate crisis, or part of normal stratospheric weather variability.
Peuch said there were no direct implications for the climate crisis. Temperatures in the region are already increasing, slowing the depletion of ozone, and the hole will start to recover as polar air mixes with ozone-rich air from lower latitudes. The last time similar conditions were observed was in spring 2011.
While a hole over the Arctic is a rare event, the much larger hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic has been a major cause for concern for more than four decades. The production of ozone-depleting chemicals has been dramatically reduced, under the 1987 Montreal Protocol(蒙特利尔协议), but some sources appear still to be functioning--in 2018, unauthorized emissions were detected from some areas .
New sources of ozone-depleting chemicals were not a factor in the hole observed in the Arctic, said Peuch. "However, this is a reminder that one should not take the Montreal Protocol measures for granted, and that observations from the ground and from satellites are central to avoid a situation where the ozone-destroying chemical level in the stratosphere could increase again."
Have you ever noticed that after about 6 months your perfectly new 1,000 dollar smartphone begins to slow down? What if I told you that it's a sales strategy that pretty much all phone companies use to force people into buying new phones?
In late 2015, when Lisa Young was in charge of iOS security and beta software testing teams, her boss revealed a dark secret to her, saying that they were using a new strategy that would purposely slow down older phones every time the phone would upgrade to the latest operating system. This new method would force customers to buy the latest phone model, increasing sales by 70％.
She was a little disturbed to hear the news, but she just kept her head down and continued to do her job. After a while, the guilt of being involved with such a shady sales model started to weigh heavy on her. "How could a multi-billion dollar corporation continue to take advantage of the public like this?" she thought. In March of 2017, she contacted a reporter from CNN to finally leak the information concerning Apple slowing down phones.
The scandal (丑闻) went viral overnight, and every media outlet in the world, in every language was talking about it, making it one of the biggest controversies in consumer electronics history. A week later, she was secretly let go after her 8 years of service. Although she was taking a huge risk going against one of the most powerful corporations in the world, she felt a sense of relief exposing them. The public deserved to know and the fear became her motivation to find a way to destroy their shady sales model.
Several of her colleagues were fired with her. They quietly united, and after a year of extensive research they designed a unique product called CircaCharge that would reverse the negative effects of "software updates". Phone companies have recently caught wind of their overnight success with CircaCharge and are trying to do everything they can to make this product illegal and ban it forever. Lisa and her team have made unbelievable progress in increasing battery life, battery health, and optimizing phone performance, and they will continue to develop new technology that will beat phone companies at their own game until they change their ways.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on Dec 29 that Guinea was Ebola—free, which means the Ebola outbreak has officially ended in West Africa.
"The fatal disease broke out in Guinea in December 2013, and then spread to neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia," salon. com writer Ben Norton wrote. "A handful of Ebola cases were subsequently reported in Nigeria, Mali, the US and some European countries, yet were all contained.
The WHO declared the end of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in November, just after Liberia was declared Ebola - free in September. However, Liberia has had new cases since the declaration, reported the BBC.
The disease killed more than 2,500 people in Guinea, and a further 9,000 in Liberia and Sierra Leone. It is the largest Ebola epidemic (流行病) in history, according to the WHO.
Children were especially vulnerable (脆弱的) to the disease. During the outbreak, more than 22,000 kids lost one or both parents in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to UNICEF. In Guinea alone, 6,220 children lost a parent or both, and 519 more were killed.
A salon. com article says when a few cases of Ebola were found in the US, the media went hysterical (歇斯底里的) , But since the disease was contained in the West Africa in 2014, Western governments and media outlets have devoted little attention to it.
"This reaction", says the article, has "led critics and activists to accuse the Western media of prejudice and racism. When white people were threatened by the disease, there was more concern and interest. When they were no longer threatened, there was silence."
The 1953 painting" Goyita" by Rafael features his mother with a red scarf on her head, a determined look on her face, and heavy expression lines, a portrait(画像) of a working-class woman that broke from traditional ones of the time that focused largely on wealthy men.
“Goyita" is one of more than 350 paintings from Puerto Rico that Google Arts&Culture digitized(数字化) for the first time with help from" Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who started the online exhibition that features works from four Puerto Rican art institutions.
The aim is to expose the world to Puerto Rican art, preserve it, and help museums in the U. S. that are struggling to exhibit paintings because of limited space and budget cuts.
Puerto Rico's artwork joins Google's current online exhibitions and stories from around the world. As part of the project, Google brought its so-called" art camera" for the first time to Puerto Rico. The camera has an extremely high resolution(分辨率) thanks to a 400 millimeter zoom(镜头) that uncovers details invisible to the human eye, including brush strokes(笔法). It also allowed those at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture to find the signature of a pioneering female artist.
The camera took thousands of pictures to digitize 48 pieces of Puerto Rican art as it went inches by inches to cover an entire painting, a job that took 30 minutes to several hours depending on the size of the artwork, said Simon Delacroix, U. S. lead for Google Arts&Culture.
As Mr. Delacroix showed the power of the zoom on a painting called" El Gobernador Don Miguel Antonio de Ustariz", a collective" Wow" escaped from the audience attending the project at the Museum of Puerto Rico. The crowd could appreciate details in the background including someone that appears to be laughing from a balcony.
Google Arts&Culture already allows users to explore more than 2, 000 museums and historic sites including Nelson Mandela's prison cell. In total, it offers more than 6 million photos, videos, and other documents.
An American cancer survivor has become the first person to swim across the English Channel four times on end.
Sarah Thomas, a 37-year-old woman, completed the great achievement on Tuesday after over 54 hours of swimming. Her record-breaking achievement comes just a year after she completed treatment for breast cancer.
In a video on Facebook, a small group of people could be seen cheering on the swimmer from Colorado as she made her final arrival to beach at Dover. Supporters congratulated Ms. Thomas on her non-stop swim, handing her chocolate and other gifts. In the video, Ms. Thomas admitted to feeling “a little sick" but said she had been encouraged to keep going by her husband and her team.
Before the start of her challenge, Ms. Thomas wrote that she was “fearful" and admitted she was “going to need some luck".
In a Facebook post made on Saturday, she dedicated the swim “to all the survivors out there", adding: “This is for those of us who have wondered hopelessly about what comes next, and have overcome the pain bravely. "
After her swim, Ms. Thomas said, “I'm really tired and I'm losing my voice from all the salt water. " Asked what the worst part of her challenge was, she said, “Probably dealing with the salt water over two days, it really hurts your throat, your mouth and your tongue. " She praised her support team for helping her stay strong, adding that she was very prepared for the weather, currents and cold water. “I feel just mostly stunned right now. I just can't believe that we did it. "
Singapore uses about 430 million gallons of water every day- a number it expects could double in the next four decades. That kind of consumption is piling pressure on the Asian city state to address growing concerns about global water shortage. So it's building new technology to prepare itself for a future where obtaining clean water will be even more difficult.
Rapid urbanization and rising global temperatures are making access to natural water sources increasingly hard to come by. Today, a quarter of the world lives in areas of high water stress. Singapore is home to more than five million people and is covered in fountains, landscape pools and other water features(水景设计). But it has no natural water sources of its own, instead relying heavily on recycled water and imports from its neighbors.
Snyder's research facility is one of several places developing solutions for Singapore's water dependency. The hope is to create projects that could be used across the city. One development: a small, black sponge(海绵) called carbon fiber aerogel can clean waste water on a mass scale. The material is being further developed for commercial use by Singapore-based startup EcoWorth Technology. According to CEO Andre Stoltz, the company will first enter Singapore's waste water market before eventually developing this material for use on a global scale.
Another company, WateRoam, is already taking innovation from Singapore to the rest of the region. Founded in 2014, WateRoam says it has developed a lightweight, portable filtration (过滤) device that they say has already provided clean drinking water to more than 75, 000 people across Southeast Asia.
The water filtration device is no bigger than a bicycle pump, yet it can provide clean water to villages of 100 people for up to two years, according to the company.
"We've been very blessed to have access to clean drinking water, "Pong said. "It's a privilege that we should be able to bring forth to the rest of the region, and advocate that clean water is an essential aspect for life on earth."
A months-long rescue operation to save giraffes from Longicharo Island's rising water in Kenya recently concluded after delivering the last two stranded giraffes to safety at the Ruko Community Wildlife Conservancy. Save Giraffes Now partnered with Northern Rangelands Trust and local conservation agencies to transfer the Rothschild's giraffes, one of the most endangered populations of giraffe.
To get the giraffes from the sinking island to the mainland nearly one mile away, community members built a "giraft", a custom-made ship with tall sides, supported by 60 empty drums. The giraffes were transferred one at a time. "Water levels in Lake Baringo have been rising for some time, but in 2020 the rate of rise increased — flooding lakeshore homes, businesses, and threatening the lives of a small group of Rothschild's giraffes on Longicharo Island, in Ruko Conservancy," Northern Rangelands Trust said in a statement.
"At last, they can safely breed (繁殖) and bring back the population of the free-ranging Rothschild's giraffes to their former home ranges in Baringo. It's such a relief for all involved to have gotten them safely across to the mainland and we are sure they're enjoying the space in their new home," he said.
Rothschild's giraffes were once widespread across Kenya, Uganda and southern Sudan, but numbers have decreased by 80%, leaving only 3,000 in the wild today. But there is hope, given by innovative (创新的) conservation teamwork such as this.
"Working with the communities in the area over the next several years, we will keep this combined group of giraffes safe, and as they breed, their numbers will grow over time, eventually rejoining their cousins in Uganda," Save Giraffes Now said in a statement.
China Science Daily announced Thursday that it has used software to automatically generate news stories about the latest discoveries from the world's leading science journals.The robot science reporter，called "Xiaoke"，was co-created by the newspaper and researchers from Peking University in about half a year.
It is the latest case of Chinese news organizations using computer technology to create the content.According to its inventors，Xiaoke has generated over 200 stories based on the English abstract of papers published in journals such as Science ， Nature ， Cell and The New England Journal of Medicine.
Before publication，the automatically generated articles will go through a review process.A group of scientists and the newspaper's editors will check the content or give supplementary(补充的) information.
Zhang Mingwei，head of the program and vice editor-in-chief of the newspaper，said inventors would make Xiaoke a "cross-linguistic(跨语言的) academic secretary" to help Chinese scientists overcome language barriers and have easy and quick access to the latest scientific advances in English-language publications.Lead researcher Wan Xiaojun of Peking University，in charge of the system's design and technology，stressed that the content generation tool could do far more than translation.According to Wan，Xiaoke is good at selecting complex words and sentences，which can help turn articles full of confusing technical terms into easy and readable news reports.
The readers of the robot reporter are not limited to professionals and they also include the general public，the inventors said.Science reporting is important in spreading information about discoveries and in popularizing knowledge to people.
Niu Yu, 24, became a shining star at Shanghai Fashion Week for her confident and leisurely attitude while striding down the runway sporting a prosthetic leg. Niu's minute in the spotlight has acquired many
compliments (费扬) on social media-a punch in the nose for prejudice against disabled people.
When the other models appeared, the audience cheered and applauded; but when it was Niu's tum, the venue suddenly fell silent. Niu recalled that after four or five seconds, she clearly heard a female audience member next to the stage sigh in admiration, "So cool!"
Niu attended Shanghai Fashion Week at the imitation of a sports brand Pony. "I was touched by something they said and agreed. They said that traditional views have always connected sports with healthy legs, but sports should be a kind of spirit. Even if I do not have a leg, I still deeply love sports and will do so forever," Niu said.
Niu lost her right leg after she was trapped under debris for three days during the 2008 Wenchuan
Earthquake, when Niu was only 11 years old. This is not the first time that Niu has been in the public spotlight. She first grabbed the public's attention when she completed a marathon in 2018. The marathon was held in Wenchuan, Southwest China's Sichuan province, on May 12, 2018, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the devastating earthquake. The day was also Niu's 21th birthday.
Niu works as a photographer and often uploads video clips from her life on short video platforms such as Douyin, where she has more than 850,000 flowers." China had 85 million disabled people with licenses in 2020, and we have no idea about the number of those who do not have licenses. However, it is rare for disabled people to be seen on the streets. I always thought about the reasons for this and then I realized it's because they hide themselves."
Are you the only child in your family? If so, do you enjoy it or do you want more siblings （兄弟姐妹）? On May 31, a key meeting of the Communist Party of China unveiled a policy that would allow all couples to have up to three children.
The move is expected to maximize the population's role in driving economic and social growth, since this is a critical time for China to transform the world's most populous country into a powerhouse（强国）with a quality workforce, according to the National Health Commission.
The three-child policy is also expected to prevent the decline in the nation's birthrate and address the challenge of a rapidly aging population, China Daily reported.
China's annual number of newborns has fallen for four years in a row. The country's total birthrate － the average number of children born to each woman － stood at 1.3 in 2020. The number is below the rate of 2.1 that would maintain a stable population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
The declining birthrate has also brought a sharp increase in the proportion of the population aged 60 or above, rising from 10.3 percent to 18.7 percent in the past decade. An increasingly elderly population will increase the cost of labor and the pressure on the social security net. It also means there will be a lack of young labor force. Therefore, it's not good for economic growth, according to Chen Youhua, a professor at Nanjing University.
In fact, the new birth policy is a step to further relax the family planning policy. The one-child policy was introduced in the 1970s and aimed to control the fast-growing population. Then in 2013, China allowed couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child, and in 2016, all couples were allowed to have two children.
However, not all people have shown their support for this latest policy. Many couples complained about the rising costs of raising a child. A netizen named Qinfeng commented, "High cost of education and both the physical and mental exhaustion stopped me from having more than one child." Also, many women are reluctant（不情愿的）to give birth because that could mean sacrificing their career prospects, according to Mu Guangzong, a professor at Peking University.
In that case, Mu noted that it is better to implement supporting measures with the three-child policy, such as more preferential（优惠的）policies for couples that would ease their parental burden.
