A young man whose good looks and innocent smile have turned him into an internet celebrity has brought a surge in interest in his hometown among tourists.

Ctrip, an online travel agency, said that after a video of Tamdrin, a 20-year-old ethnic Tibetan man from Litang county in Sichuan province's Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture, became popular online recently, the number of searches for Litang increased quickly.

Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, featured Tamdrin in three tweets in a row on her Twitter account on Monday. “The channel of Sicfiuan TV has a new ‘anchor’, Tamdrin, who broadcasts news in his native Tibetan language as a guest,” she wrote. “Tamdrin recently became a social media star after a photo of his bright, sunny and innocent smile had become popular.” She also posted a short clip of Tamdrin riding a horse and introducing himself in subtitling: “They call me ‘prince on a horse’. The happiest thing for me is to race horses with my brothers. Tm really good at horse racing and often rank first in our village. ”

Tamdrin has now been hired by Litang Culture Tourism and Sport Investment Development Co. to promote tourism for the county. Du Dongdong, the company’s general manager, told China Central Television he hoped the young man could grow and develop alongside local tourism, which has just started to take off.

Tamdrin said in a CCTV interview that he didn’t know why he had become so well-known, but he was happy that so many people knew of him, and he was excited to help people learn more about his hometown. He added that he planned to learn many things and hoped he would do well in his work for the company. "At the same time, I still want to race horses and continue to be a champion,” he said in Tibetan.

The International Space Station (ISS) has existed above Earth for more than twenty years. But its role as the only place for a continuous human presence in space, scientific research and a testing ground for future space exploration is coming to a close. China successfully launched the first module (舱) of its planned space station on April 29 from the Wenchang launch site in the southern island of Hainan.

The major module, the largest spacecraft developed by China, was launched by a Long March-5B rocket, marking the first step of China’s efforts to build its own station in two years. The module has a total length of 16.6 meters, a diameter (直径) of 4.2 meters and a living space of 50cubic (立方) meters, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

It’s expected to operate for 10 years. Eleven launches are scheduled in the next two years. A mission is expected to be launched in June of this year — sending three astronauts to orbit (巡航) for about three months, during which the life support system will be tested.

China’s space station wont launch all at once; it will be assembled (组装) from several modules which will be launched at different times. Chinese state media reports that the country’s space station will be fully operational by the end of 2022. The space station — known as Tianhe, which means harmony of the heavens — will allocate (分配) space and resources to a number of international experiments. Six projects have been fully accepted so far including one on the impact of spaceflight on cancer tumors (肿瘤) conducted by researchers from Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

China launched its first manned space flight in 2003 — more than 40 years after NASA. But as the nation has grown richer and more powerful in recent years, its space program has accelerated.

Researchers believe they have found an unknown kind of whale in waters off Mexico's western coast. If others verify the finding, the new whale will be an important discovery among giant animals.

The team of researchers came upon three unusual whales while following a rare group of beaked whales. The whales were near Mexico's distant San Benito Islands, about 500 km south of the U. S. border. Beaked whales usually avoid meeting humans.

Jay Barlow studies sea animals. He noted that it was a very unusual meeting. "It's very rare to even see a beaked whale, and to find a group of friendly beaked whales, it's even rarer, " he said.

Barlow said he and other researchers did not realize they were seeing a possible new kind of whale until later. The group saw something different about the whales' teeth when they studied the photos they took of the animals. The underwater recordings of the whales' calls also suggested they were different from all others.

The researchers are now waiting for test results on water they collected near the whales. There could be skin cells in the water from the whales. If so, they will examine the DNA to make sure whether the whales are a new species.

Though up to 5 meters long, the whales can be hard for scientists to see. That is because they usually swim and eat at depths of around 914 meters. They only come up at times for air. In the deep water, the animals can stay away from their main enemy—killer whales.

Barlow said that finding a new species is a rare event. His team has evidence about the whales that looks like a new discovery. He said the DNA testing would help determine it and he hoped the whales could be determined as a new species. That would bring the number of known beaked whale species to 24.