On Nov. 7, 2020, Chris Nikic did something incredible. He became the first person with Down syndrome (唐氏综合征) to complete one of the toughest athletic competitions in the world—the Ironman triathlon.

Nikic started the triathlon just before 6 a, m. on Nov. 7, entering the water in Panama City, Florida, for his swim. During the biking section his bike crashed and he skinned his knee. And during a water break, he was bitten by fire ants. But he never gave up. He finished the triathlon in 16 hours, 46 minutes and 9 seconds with just 14 minutes to spare before the cut-off time.

For two years, Nikic trained for the event, using a strategy he developed with his father which they call the “1% better each day principle.” Every day, Nikic and his father would strive to become one percent better. Nikic’s father said it works well for “a young man with Down syndrome.” On his website, Nikic outlines six strategies that helped him achieve his goal of completing the Ironman triathlon: Health (body), health (mind), friends (soul), focus on the positive, help someone else and pass it on.

Nikic originally started exercising in order to recover from ear surgery and get in shape. Now he has other goals: to live independently and one day have a big house and a nice car and to get married.

Training for the Ironman triathlon has helped make his dream come true. In fact, he recently bought a white Chevy and has been offered speaking gigs that may enable him to save up enough money to buy a house.

His next goals are to learn how to drive and he has been invited to compete in the US Special Olympics in 2022.

A 16-year-old Kansas boy will soon earn his high school diploma (文凭) and a few days later, he’ll travel to Harvard to collect his bachelor’s degree. The senior named Braxton Moral will attend both grand ceremonies in May, becoming the only student to successfully pursue a four-year high school degree and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard at the same time. The Hutchinson News reported he seemed famous overnight and many people were surprised at what he has achieved.

Harvard has changed the rules, said Braxton’s father, Carlos Moral, so his son will be the one and the only young one who can reach that milestone. And Braxton will be 17 when he gets his diplomas. His father also said the Ulysses school district allowed him to take some high school classes while he was still in middle school. Before high school, he had taken a class offered at Fort Hays State University. Then he was admitted into Harvard. Braxton studied at the high school and the Harvard Extension School simultaneously. The Harvard program typically serves the adults who work and can’t attend classes on campus full time. Therefore, it is the first time that a high school student has done it successfully. Ulysses High School math teacher Patsy Love served as the proctor for the Harvard program in Kansas, so he was responsible for Braxton’s tests and grades.

“We constantly are monitoring Braxton to make sure he is not too stressed,” said Julie Moral, Braxton’s mother. “No achievement is worth him being unhappy. However, we still let him do his own things, including making plans for the studies of different levels.”

China and India are leaders in improving global (全球的) tree cover, a new study based on NASA research showed.

They took a 31.8 percent part together of the total global new leaf area between 2000 and 2017. China played a major role, adding 25 percent to this increase, and India added 6.8 percent, followed by Canada and Russia.

The study in the Nature Sustainability journal shows that more than 5.5 million square km of green leaf area was added globally. Since 2000, there has been a five-percent increase in global green cover, it said.

“The greening over the last twenty years shows an increase in leaf area on plants and trees which is as large as the area of the entire Amazon rainforest,” Chi Chen, a Boston University researcher and lead of the study told Nature Sustainability. Large plantation activities to protect forests in China contributed nearly 42 percent to the country’s green cover, and agriculture (农业) added another 32 percent. In India, 82 percent of the increase in leaf area was because of agriculture.

“China and India take up one-third of the greening, but hold only nine percent of the planet’s land area covered in green plants,” Chi Chen told NASA Earth Observatory. “That is a surprising finding, considering the land degradation (退化) in countries with large populations.”

Boston University’s research team first detected (检测)an increase in global green cover in the 1990s but were unsure about what contributed to (导致) the increase. Finally, with the help of NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites research, they managed to find out the increase in leaf cover from different areas and places.