The baguette, a long, thin French bread, is being added to UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH,非物质文化遗产) list. UNESCO experts gathering in Morocco this week decided that the simple French bread — made only of flour, water, salt, and yeast — was worth U.N. recognition, after France’s culture ministry warned of a “continuous drop” in the number of traditional bakeries (烘焙坊), with some 400 closing every year over the past half century.

The UN cultural agency’s chief, Audrey Azoulay said, “The decision honors more than just bread; it recognizes the ‘graceful skills of bakers’ and ‘a daily ritual (仪式)’.” Azoulay added, “It is important that such baking knowledge and social practices can continue to exist in the future.”

With the bread’s new status (地位), the French government said it planned to create a baguette day, called the “Open Bake house Day”, to connect the French better with their heritage. Bakers in France seemed proud, if unsurprised. “Of course, it should be on the list because the baguette symbolizes the world. It’s universal,” said Asma Farhat, a baker at Julien’s Bakery. “If there’s no baguette, you can’t have a proper meal. In the morning you can toast it, for lunch it’s a sandwich, and then it accompanies dinner.”

Despite the decline in traditional bakery numbers, France’s 67 million people still buy baguettes at a variety of sales points, including in supermarkets. According to France’s “Bread Observatory”, the French eat 320 baguettes of one form or another every second. The problem is, observers say, that they can often be poor in quality. “It’s very easy to get bad baguette in France. It’s the traditional baguette from the traditional bakery that is in danger. It’s about quality not quantity,” said one local resident, Marine Fourchier.

Mattel has announced the latest release in its “Inspiring Women” series, releasing a doll on Tuesday dedicated to conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall. Goodall, 88, began her ground-breaking research on chimpanzees in East Africa more than 60 years ago.

“My entire career, I’ve wanted to help inspire kids to be curious and explore the world around them,” Goodall said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to partner with Barbie and encourage young children to learn from their environment and feel a sense that they can make a difference.”

The new doll’s launch coincides with the 62nd anniversary of Goodall’s first visit to Tanzania’s Gombe National Park, where she conducted ground-breaking research on wild chimpanzees. It also comes just ahead of World Chimpanzee Day on July 14.

Her figurine (小雕像) wears a khaki shirt and shorts, a pair of binoculars and holds a notebook. It also comes with a miniature replica of David Greybeard, the first ma le chimp Dr. Goodall named and discovered making tools out of sticks. Goodall’s doll is made from ocean-bound plastic and is part of Mattel’s Inspiring Women Series, which pays tribute (致敬) to courageous and risk-taking women. Prior dolls in the collection include Ida B. Wells, Dr. Maya Angelou and Eleanor Roosevelt.

“Kids need more role models like Dr. Jane Goodall, because imagining they can be anything is just the beginning — seeing it makes all the difference,” Lisa McKnight, executive vice president and global head of Barbie and Mattel dolls, said in a statement. Barbie has also teamed up with the Jane Goodall Institute to launch its 2022 Barbie Career of the Year Eco-Leadership Team, a line of dolls with “green careers” such as a Chief Sustainability Officer and Renewable Energy Engineer. The company hopes the collection can inspire kids to learn more about green careers.

Mona Lisa, the mysterious woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th century masterpiece, had just given birth to her second son when she sat for the painting, a French art expert said on Tuesday. The discovery was made by a team of Canadian scientists who used special infrared (红外线的) and three-dimensional (三维的) technology to study the paint layers on the work, which now sits in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Bruno Mottin of the French Museums’ Centre for Research and Restoration said that on very close examination of the painting it became clear that Mona Lisa’s dress was covered in a thin transparent gauze veil (透明面纱) .

“This type of gauze dress was typical of the kind worn in early 16th century in Italy by women who were pregnant or who had just given birth. This is something that had never been seen up to now because the painting was always judged to be dark and difficult to examine,” he told a news conference.

“We can now say that this painting by Leonardo da Vinci was painted in memory of the birth of the second son of Mona Lisa, which helps us to date it more precisely to around 1503.” The young woman with the ambiguous half smile has been identified as Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo. She had five children.

“People always wrote that Mona Lisa had allowed her hair to hang freely over her shoulders. This greatly surprised historians because letting your hair hang freely during the Renaissance was typical of young girls and women of poor virtue”, he said.

The team had hoped to discover more details about Leonardo’s painting techniques, which the artist used to create a hazy (朦胧的) effect. But scientist John Taylor said the team had been disappointed by the lack of brush stroke detail on the painting.