For people who bet in the future of electric vehicles, this will be an exciting piece of news. Researchers in Arkansas, a state in the Midwest of the US, have announced that they have found huge reserve of lithium （鋰的儲備區）in southern region of the state. Lithium is a valuable, scarce raw material that’s needed to make batteries for electric vehicles. According to the scientists involved, there might be five to nineteen million tons of lithium （鋰）buried in that geological area, which will be more than enough to make the world‘s demand（需求）. However, they need to figure out how to extract lithium without causing too much destruction （破壞）on the environment. Most of us probably don’t know that lithium is tough to mine and has been linked to pollution, water depletion （水源浩劫）and other environmental problems. So actual mining of it won’t take place any time soon.

Remember back in elementary school days, you are asked to memorize that there are seven continents in the world. And they are Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica, Africa, Oceania. You are even asked to do some worksheets to help you memorize all of the seven. Well, that number might change in the future. According to an October article in the New York Times, based on any maps, one can clearly see that Asia and Europe are connected, which is why they are often called Eurasia. If this observation is true, shouldn’t there be just six continents? Moreover, North America and Asia are connected by Bering Sea Shelf, which was once dry land 15000 years ago, and that was how prehistoric humans migrated transcontinentally. Looking from this perspective, aren’t Asia, Europe, and North America technically one continent? So we would end up with only five continents? The disagreement occurs partly because there are two definitions of continents：those recognized by cultures around the world and those recognized by geologists. Both of these two don’t offer clear cut explanations and definitions. One group of geologists even go as far to say that there are only two continents on Earth, Antarctica and everything else. If this train of belief becomes mainstream, imagine how we will all have to relearn everything.

Imagine discovering a lost city while you are pulling an all-nighter to finish your history paper. That’s what happened to an archeology student studying in Tulane University in Louisiana. Luke Auld-Thomas, a doctoral student at Tulane spotted the ancient Mayan site in the scans collected by NASA using lidar, a technology that uses airborne lasers to penetrate dense vegetation. The ruins were unknown to archaeologists, but some farmers living in that region of Mexico were aware of the site‘s existence. Luke and his colleagues named the lost city Valeriana, after a nearby lagoon. They estimated the city may have had a population of as many as 50,000 people at its peak between AD 750-850. Researchers expect to discover more ancient Mayan cities in the future. The findings will make the collapse of Mayan civilization even more mysterious: The more people there were, the more difficult it is to explain the massive depopulation later on.

故事頗荒唐的但卻又很富英式幽默的文字，但，仔細想想，用這樣直球對決、一針見血的文字來敲醒執迷不悟的腦袋，不是也挺過癮的嗎🤭

When we think of elite mountaineers, the people that come to mind tend to be Caucasian white men. However without Nepal‘s ethnic Sherpas‘ assistance, their record-breaking achievements would not be possible. Sadly, Sherpas‘ contributions to this sport remain largely unseen and unrecognized . Naturally they also rarely receive the lucrative endorsement that foreign mountaineers are able to garner. One young Sherpas has made up his mind to change the narrative and status quo. In October this year Nima Rinji became the world’s youngest person to scale the fourteen highest peaks on the planet. All fourteen are 8000 meters above sea level. He’s only 18. He beats the previous record holder by a mile. The holder before is also a Sherpa, who didn’t summit all fourteen peaks until he was almost 30. Nima comes from a family of mountaineers. In fact, his family runs one of the largest mountaineering expedition companies in Nepal. His father became the youngest person to summit Mt Everest without using any oxygen support. His uncles were the first pair of brothers to scale all fourteen highest peaks. Despite all the prestige, many Sherpas want their offspring to shun the career of mountaineering because Sherpas are often viewed as guides rather than athletes. They need to fix ropes, carry food and supplies, and pave the way for their foreign clients to fulfill their dreams and break their records. Even though they shoulder all the responsibilities and face higher risks of mortality, their foreign clients receive more recognition and financial endorsement. Outdoor wear and gear companies like North Face and Patagonia don’t pay a Sherpas to endorse their products. Nima Rinji wants to change that by positioning himself as an athlete rather than a guide. He wants to show his community that mountaineering can be a prestigious job, instead of just a pathway out of poverty.

Recently a group of archeologists discovered a painting on a wall of a cave on an island of Indonesia. The painting depicts a boar, a wild pig, and three human shape figures. Because of its age, it’s hard to see clearly, but it looks like the humans are hunting the pig. Scientists believe the painting might be more than 51000 years old. They are thrilled about the finding because the drawing appears to be telling a story. So even in prehistoric times, our ancestors had this inborn desire to tell stories and think in creative ways. The discovery might also change our idea toward evolution and how humans have changed over thousands of years ago.

What’s the worst nightmare that parents might have when taking their kids to a museum? Off the top of my head, it will be accidentally damaging a piece of priceless artwork or artifact 有歷史價值的手工藝品 and that’s exactly what happened to a family in Israel. Anna Geller and her husband took their three kids on a museum trip one day in early September. Their four-year-old son, Ariel, was looking at a 3500-year-old jar from the Bronze Age and when Anna looked away for a second, she immediately heard a loud boom sound. Then she saw Ariel standing next to a pile of broken jar pieces, looking absolutely fear-stricken 受挫的，因為恐懼而受挫 The jar was the one of the only containers of its size from that period that was discovered intact. It may date back to 2200 BC. Ariel’s dad said that Ariel was exceptionally curious and the moment he heard the crashing sound, he was praying really hard that it wasn’t Ariel. Unfortunately his prayer wasn’t answered. Upon discovering that their son had damaged the artifact, Anna and Alex first tried to calm Ariel down and then approached the security guard to own up to 面對their mistake. After checking the surveillance camera監視器and making sure it was not an act of vandalism, the museum decided to turn this disaster into a teachable moment and invite the family back again. This time, they joined an organized tour and learned about the restoration process behind the artifacts. The restoration 修復 expert behind putting the jar back said that artifacts should still remain accessible to the public even though accidents may happen. He said, “I like that people touch. Don’t break, but to touch things, it’s important.”

Faced with aging and declining population, the Chinese government is doing everything they can to coax women into motherhood. Mr. Xi, the leader of China, has repeatedly said that promoting childbirth is a national priority which ensures that women “always walk with the party”. According to a China correspondent working for the New York Times, the measures taken by the government have been quite invasive, including sending officials going door-to-door to ask women about their plans, and sometimes even the date of their last menstrual cycle. We all know that this is not the first time for the communist party to impose its will on women’s reproductive rights. However, the in-your-face approach taken by the ruling party might have backfired this time. Most women believe that whether to have kids is a private decision. And nagging at women is just not going to cut it now.

As autumn is in full swing, flu, COVID season comes on the heels of it. The CDC of the US says while there’s evidence showing rampant COVID cases, the current variant, an offshoot of omicron, is not causing an increase in serious illnesses and deaths. One more welcome news on the vaccine front is that a group of scientists in University of Texas may have discovered the antibody that will rein in every known form of coronavirus variants. They are now working to mass manufacture the new vaccine. With this breakthrough, more lives will be spared against future spikes of the virus.

Imagine being the first human to see things that others in the world have never seen and trying to convince others around him that the invisible organisms are real. That person is Anthony van Leeuwenhoek. Leeuwenhoek was born in 1632 in the city of Delft, Netherlands. By day, he made a living by selling clothes. By night, he made lenses used in microscopes and telescopes, which were invented by fellow Dutch during his times. Unlike others in this field, Leeuwenhoek never went to university, was not a trained scientist. Despite the lack of training, he taught himself to make lenses with a skill that no one else could match. His lenses could magnify objects up to 270 times. In his day, his instruments were unrivaled. But Leeuwenhoek was not just a good microscope maker, he was also an outstanding microscopist. Even though he was an amateur, he conducted his experiments with scientific methods. He was incredibly curious about everything around him. One day, his curiosity took him to explore one drop of lake water. What he saw took him by surprise. That one drop of water was teeming with life. He became the first person to see microorganisms. From then on, almost every thing he saw, he became the first human to see it. By the time he died at the age of 90, he, an amateur, had become one of the Royal Society’s most famous members. Due to his suspicious attitude, he never shared or taught his lens-making technique to anyone. In one letter, he complained that students were more interested in money or reputation than making discoveries. His bias almost destroyed his legacy because when others looked through their inferior microscopes, they saw nothing, so the interest in microbiology declined. It would be a century and a half later until new discoveries were again made in the field of microbes.