As early as 1894, the newly formed International Olympic Committee (IOC) considered ice skating as a possibility for the first modern Olympic Games which would be held in 1896.

In 1911, a member of the IOC suggested that winter sports should be staged as part of the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. Some opposed the idea. At last, the IOC decided to hold Winter Olympic Games in 1916. However, World War I broke out in 1914. After 1920, the national governing bodies for winter sports in several countries began talking about the possibility of a separate Winter Olympics.

The town of Chamonix, in the French Alps, planned to hold a winter sports festival in 1924; at the same time Paris was to host the Olympics. The Marquis de Polignac, a member of the IOC, suggested that the festival be formally recognized as the “Winter Olympic Games”. The IOC didn’t go that far, but did agree that Chamonix could call its festival an “Olympic Winter Carnival”.

The festival drew 258 athletes from 16 countries to compete in bobsledding (雪橇比赛), figure-skating, hockey, Nordic skiing and speed skating. Charles Jewtraw from the United States won the first gold medal in the 500-metre speed skating, but the festival’s hero was Claus Thunberg from Finland. He won five medals, three of which were gold in speed skating.

Weather has often been a major story at the Winter Olympics and so it was at Chamonix. The festival opened with rain and the unseasonably warm temperature turned snow and ice to mud. Then temperature dropped as far as 25 below zero and the mud became ice.

Despite the weather, more than 10,000 people showed up. In 1926, the IOC recognized the Chamonix festival as the first Winter Olympics and decided that the Winter Games would be held every four years, just like the Summer Olympics.

In the west of the city Seville in Spain, a sea of giant mirrors is reflecting the sun’s energy to provide “concentrated solar power (CSP)” while brightening the path to a new wave of green energy projects.

The 624 carefully positioned mirrors reflect the sun’s heat towards a 50-meter-tall central tower where it is concentrated and used to boil water into steam. The superheated steam is then used to turn a turbine (汽轮机) that can produce up to 11 megawatts of electricity—enough power for 6,000 homes—according to Solucar, the Spanish company that has built the power plant.

The Spanish tower, known as PS10, is the first stage of an ambitious development. By 2025 it is hoped that additional towers will create “a solar farm” with an output of 500 megawatts, which would be enough power for 180,000 homes, almost the entire population of nearby Seville.

CSP produces no greenhouse gases and the only pollution is visual. There is also the possibility that production can keep going around the clock-even when the sun has gone down. Solucar is currently testing technology at a plant near Granada that will pump 50 percent of the electricity generated in the day into the Spanish national grid (国家输电网), and use the other 50 percent to melt salt, which will then act as a kind of battery, storing the sun’s power. When dusk falls, the heat stored in the molten salt can be used to generate power through the night.

The Sahara, the world’s largest desert, has always been seen as a problem. But with large-scale CSP projects, suddenly all that empty space, with its year round clear skies and hot sun, has a value that could transform local economies. It could potentially turn Africa into an exporter of energy to power-hungry Europe.

The researchers say a person loses two months for every kilogram overweight they are — and seven years for smoking a packet of cigarettes a day.

Unusually, a team from the University of Edinburgh found their answers by researching differences in people’s genetic code or DNA. Finally they thought they would show new ways of helping us to live longer.

The group used the DNA of more than 600,000 people who are taking part in a natural experiment. If someone smokes, drinks, drops out of school and is overweight, it can be difficult to find out the impact of one specific unhealthy behavior.

Instead, the researchers turned to the natural experiment. Some people carry mutations（变异） in their DNA that increase appetite or make them more likely to put on weight, so researchers were able to compare those programmed to eat more with those who were not. The research team also found specific mutations in human DNA that could change lifespans（寿命）.

·Mutations is a gene that is involved in running the immune system（免疫系统） could add seven months of life on average.

·People with a mutation that increased levels of bad cholesterol knocked eight months off lifespans.

·A rare mutation in a gene — APOE — related to dementia reduced lifespans by 11 months.

·And one that made smoking more attractive cut lives by five months.

Dr Joshi says that while genes do influence lifespans, you’ve got even more influence through the choices you make. Dr Joshi said, “We hope to discover genes affecting lifespans to give us new information about ageing and construct treatment for ageing.”

There are also some disease mutations that clearly affect lifespans and bring destructive effect for people, such as the Huntington’s gene. People with Huntington’s even die in their 20s.

However, in order to follow people until the end of their lives, many of the people studied were born before 1940.