Thomas Edison was famously opposed to sleeping. In an 1889 interview published in Scientific American, the ever energetic 【小题1】 (invent) of the lightbulb claimed he never slept more than four hours a night. Sleep was, he thought, a waste of time.

Yet Edison may have relied on sleep 【小题2】 (advance) his creativity. Edison is said to have napped while 【小题3】 (hold)a ball in each hand, thinking that, as he 【小题4】 (fall) asleep, the balls would fall to the floor and wake 【小题5】 (he). This way he could remember the sorts of thoughts that come to us as we are nodding off, 【小题6】 we often do not remember.

Sleep researchers now suggest that Edison might have been on to something. Published 【小题7】 (recent) in Science Advances, a new study reports that we have a brief period of creativity and insight in the half awake state that occurs just as we begin to fall into sleep, 【小题8】 sleep stage called N1, or non-rapid-eye-movement sleep stage 1. The 【小题9】 (discovery) show that if we can use that liminal haze between sleep and wakefulness — known 【小题10】 a hypnagogic (催眠的) state — we might recall our bright ideas more easily.

Chinese scientist Yuan Longping is so famous for developing the first hybrid rice strain that almost every Chinese knows 【小题1】 (he). Much to our sorrow, he died of illness at 91. According to the reporters at the site, “Father of hybrid rice”, the top rice scientist in China, Yuan Longping passed away at 13:07 p. m. on May 22 in 【小题2】 hospital in Changsha of Hunan province. Family members 【小题3】 (gather) and hummed songs to Yuan in his final hours.

Having spent over five 【小题4】 (decade) in hybrid rice research, the academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering (中国工程院) has helped China work a great wonder, feeding 【小题5】 (near) one-fifth of the world’s population with less than 9 percent of the world’s total land.

【小题6】 impresses people most about Yuan Longping is his ongoing ability 【小题7】 (fulfill) his dreams. On China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo, the news 【小题8】 (view) more than a billion times so far, with netizens 【小题9】 (express) sadness at the death of the great man. “Three times a day, when we enjoy the fragrance of rice, you will be dearly remembered.” said a comment 【小题10】 has been liked more than 600,000 times.

Yuan Longping, 【小题1】 Chinese scientist who developed many high-yield rice 【小题2】 (variety) that helped feed people around the world, passed away on Saturday at a hospital in the southern city of Changsha. On Saturday afternoon, large crowds honored the scientist by marching past the hospital, calling out “Grandpa Yuan, have a good journey!”

Yuan spent his life researching rice and was a household name in China, known by the nickname “Father of Hybrid Rice.” It was in the 1970s that Yuan achieved the breakthroughs, 【小题3】 made him a household name. He developed a hybrid strain of rice that recorded an annual yield 20% 【小题4】 (high) than other species — meaning it could feed an extra 70 million people 【小题5】 (annual).

Worldwide, 20 percent of all rice now comes from species 【小题6】 (create) by hybrid rice following Yuan’s breakthrough discoveries. His work helped transform China from “food deficiency” 【小题7】 “food security” within three decades, according to the World Food Prize, which was started in 1986 【小题8】(recognize) scientists and others who have improved the quality and 【小题9】 (available) of food.

Yuan 【小题10】 (award) “the Medal of the Republic” for his outstanding contribution to China’s food security, agricultural scientific development and world food supply.