Tu Youyou, 84, honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Oct 5, 2015. She was the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize in science for her work in helping to create an anti-malaria(疟疾) medicine. In 1967, Communist leader Mao Zedong decided there was an urgent national need to find a cure for malaria. At the time, malaria spread by mosquitoes was killing Chinese soldiers fighting Americans in the jungles of northern Vietnam. A secret research unit was formed to find a cure f or the illness. Tw o years later, Tu Youyou was instructed to become the new head of Mission 523. Researchers in Mission523 pored over ancient books to find historical methods of fighting malaria. When she started her search for an anti-malarial drug, over 240,000 compounds(化合物) around the world had already been tested, without any success.Finally, the team found a brief reference to one substance, sweet wormwood（青蒿）, which had been used to treat malaria in China around 400 AD. The team isolated one active compound in wormwood, artemisinin（青蒿素）, which appeared to battle malaria-friendly parasites（寄生虫）. The team then tested extracts（提取物） of the compound but nothing was effective until Tu Youyou returned to the original ancient text. After another careful reading, she improved the drug recipe one final time, heating the extract without allowing it to reach boiling point.

After the drug showed promising results in mice and monkeys, Tu volunteered to be the first human recipient of the new drug. “As the head of the research group, I had the responsibility.” she explained.

Things to Do in Atlanta This Weekend

    Start the year off by experiencing something new this weekend! Here are our favorite events picked for this weekend.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra at Spivey Hall, Saturday

    The music of Glenn Miller has an unusual sound. Combine that with the perfect sound affects at Spivey Hall, and you get a concert that is sure to have your toes tapping. And really, who doesn't love Challanooga Choo Choo?

Garden Lights at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Saturday

    This is the last night for this annual light show at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. It is particularly unusual that the magical sound of frogs in the conservatory(温室) is not from a recording. That magic is coming from the real frogs that live there. If it's no too crowded, stop along the way, close your eyes and just listen.

    Children's Workshop: Egyptian Hieroglyphs(象形文字), Saturday

   Does your child dream of becoming a historian when he grows up? If you answer “yes”, you will want to take him to the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Participants will learn how to read and write ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs from Egyptologist Annie Shanley. Children will have an opportunity to discover the meaning of hieroglyphs on tomb reliefs and statues.

Colin Mochrie at Dad's Garage Theatre, Saturday and Sunday

    Set the tone for a great 2017 with laughter. Colin Mochrie comes to Dad's Garage Theatre and brings his lightning-quick creativity and humor.

    If you want to look at all the events happening this weekend, check out our full events calendar.

    Louis Pasteur was born in Dole, France on December 27, 1822. His family was poor, and during his early education Pasteur was an ordinary student who enjoyed art and singing. However, when Pasteur was exposed to science as a teenager, he knew he had found his career.

    In 1838, Pasteur went to college to become a science teacher. He then became a chemistry professor at the University of Strasbourg. He got married in 1849 and had five children. However, three died young from typhoid fever (伤寒症). It was the deaths of his children that drove Pasteur to investigate the infectious disease in order to find a cure.

    During Pasteur's time, people believed that bacteria (细菌) appeared due to “spontaneous generation (自然发生)”. They thought that the bacteria just appeared out of nowhere. Pasteur earned out experiments to see if this was true. Through his experiments he proved that germs (细菌) were living things that came from other living things. They didn't just spontaneously appear. This was a major discovery in the study of biology and earned Pasteur the title of Father of Germ Theory.

    As Pasteur learned more about bacteria, he began to think they may be the cause of diseases in humans. When the French silk market was threatened by a disease to silkworms (蚕), Pasteur decided to investigate. He discovered that this disease was caused by germs. By killing them from the silkworm farms, he was able to cease the disease and save the French silk business.

    Today Louis Pasteur is known as one of the most important scientists in history. His discoveries led to an understanding of bacteria and diseases that has helped save millions of lives.

    Imagine a school where self-awareness is celebrated, students are encouraged to solve maths problems by writing on the walls and applying learned lessons to real life is more important than homework. These are a few of the concepts that makes Space of Mind School unique.

    Located in a home built in 1896 in Florida, US, the program serves students in grades 2 through 12 and will accept kindergarten students next year. It also offers an after-school program for students who attend traditional schools, as well as evening programs for adults and educators and weekend events for families.

    There is a different atmosphere from that of a traditional school building. Tables and brightly colored walls are white boards. In the science room, students are studying climate changes at a weather station, while in the music room, a student is solving an equation (等式) with his academic coach while he connects music theory and maths.

    The daily schedule at the school also stands out. "We don't assign boring or exhausting homework." said Space of Mind founder and CEO Ali Kaufman. "Instead of homework, we ask that they go home and take a video of themselves applying a lesson they learned or cooking a meal for their family that they learned how to make at school."

    For lunch, instead of traditional cafeteria dishes such as pizza, the school offers organic meals made out of products from local gardens and farms. "Our students also run a business at the Delray Beach Green Market on Saturdays so they can understand sustainable living practices and how to run a business," Kafman said.

    " We are also the first school program in Florida to start and end each day with 15 minutes of meditation (冥想)," Kaufman said. "The positive results we have been seeing in the students from meditation are amazing. We are really about infusing social, emotional and creative skills with academic and life skills."

Natural selection is the process by which one type of animal within a species develops well because of certain characteristics that make it more likely to live than others in its group. The history of the peppered moth(桦尺蛾) is an example of the natural selection process.

In nineteenth-century England, certain types of peppered moths were able to better blend (融合) into their surroundings. During that time period, great changes were happening in Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was part of this change, and with it came air pollution. Natural selection usually takes hundreds or even thousands of years to occur. For the peppered moth, this process occurred relatively quickly .

At the beginning of the Industrial Age, most peppered moths in England were light-coloured and covered with black markings, although a few moths had dark-coloured wings. Because the light-coloured moths blended into the light-coloured bar k on the trees, they could not be easily seen by birds that would eat them. As the air grew more polluted, however, tree trunks (树干) became covered with soot (煤烟) and became darker. The light-coloured moths became easy for birds to see against the dark tree trunks. Since the dark-coloured moths now had the advantage, their numbers grew. Within 50 years, the peppered moth went from being mostly light-coloured to being mostly dark-coloured.

In the twentieth century, the air cleared up, and the peppered moth population changed again. As tree trunks lightened due to less soot in the air, light-coloured moths once again had an advantage. Their numbers increased as soot levels declined. Depending on their environment, the colouration of the moths helped them to be "naturally selected" to survive.

The language Centers first Trivia Night tested students' knowledge on different languages and their histories last Friday at Douglass commons.

"We have decided to conduct this event when the weather is bad so that students who have nowhere to go and stay on campus can come and find a comfortable shelter during a cold winter day," Language Center Director, Teresa Valdez said. According to Valdez, the idea for Trivia night came a year ago from a junior and team-member called Elizabeth de Los Reyes. The event engaged students' interest in languages and showed the high-quality services that the Language Center provides.

Participants competed in small groups that each represented a different language and country. There were five teams in total: Russia, China, Japan, Spain and France. The competition consisted of four rounds with each round consisting of three questions relating to the following topics literature, language, geography, culture and history.

After a few warm-up questions about how people greet each other in different languages, what continent Turkey is found in, and who is the first man to fly to the moon, the questions became increasingly difficult. Each round offered an increasing amount of points a team could receive. The final question was worth 20 points. If a team did not answer it correctly, the points were taken from the total.

In the meantime, students enjoyed pizza, snacks, and drinks while sharing their linguistic (语言的) interest. Most of the participants knew two or three languages. Others knew more, such as first-year Bartek Jezierski from Poland, who can speak English, Polish, German, Spanish, and Russian.

The winners from first to third place were France, Japan and Russia respectively. All five teams were given some prizes—a blue shopping bag, a cup and stuffed toys. However, students believed the most important prize of the evening was the process of the competition—how students from diverse backgrounds and cultures were able to participate in a friendly competition, and shared their mutual (相互的) love of languages.