Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta

    Ibn Battuta is considered one of the world's greatest travellers. During the 14^th century, he travelled about 75, 000 miles in search of knowledge and for the love of travel. To share the learning and research so highly valued by Islamic (伊斯兰教的) culture, the ruler of Morocco, Abu Inan Faris, wanted Ibn Battuta's worldwide travels recorded and published when he returned home to Morocco after almost 30 years. Ibn Juzayy, a Moroccan Court Secretary, was appointed to write down Ibn Battuta's experiences. His travel journal, The Rihla, documents this extraordinary achievement. It gives us a first-hand account of life in the 14th-century Muslim world. The original book, handwritten in Arabic, can be viewed today at the National Library in Paris.

    The early 14^th century was a favorable age for a Muslim traveller. It was nearing the end of the Golden Age of Islam, one of the great explosions of scientific and cultural achievements in world history. Caravans and sea lanes created transportation and communication networks that spread across continents, including Europe, Africa and Asia. Towns and cities were regularly visited by merchants, traders, doctors, artists, craftsmen, scholars and pilgrims (朝圣者) carrying goods and ideas. All of these promoted the exchange of goods and ideas on a scale not seen previously in world history. As an educated man with professional legal skills, Ibn Battuta enjoyed kindness, companionship and offers of employment throughout the Islamic world.

    Journey to Mecca describes the 5, 000-mile journey Ibn Battuta made in 1325 and 1326 from his hometown Tangier, Morocco, to reach Mecca, in what is now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to make the pilgrimage. During this dangerous and awesome 18-month pilgrimage, he met many hindrances as he was attacked by robbers, troubled by thirst, and forced to go back to his route due to war along the Red Sea. Joining the legendary Damascus Caravan with thousands of pilgrims leaving for Mecca, he completed the final section of what would be his first of six journeys to Mecca.

    The goal of the film, Journey to Mecca, was to tell the remarkable story of Ibn Battuta and to promote a better understanding of Islam in the West, said the producers.

    Most students, when asked about their best graduation(毕业) gift, would probably reply, “ A car”, or “Money for a house”. Cai Kaiyuan, 21, made a difference choice. As a graduation gift to himself, he decided to work as a volunteer teacher in a distant village in Tibet.

    Cai, a student at Huan Railway Professional Technology College, at first planned to cycle from Sichuan to Tibet. It turned out cycling on a plateau(高原) was quite difficult. And it has kept changing his opinion on life. Cai's hands even became painful while cycling up a 5008-meter-high mountain, where temperatures often dropped to 18 below zero. At night, the ice covered the road and he fell off his bike three times. Little oxygen made him feel sick and weak. “At the most serious moment, I felt that was on the line,” said Cai.

    However, he also gained something unexpected. At Ya' an, a city in Sichuan, he met a group of tourists who are also university students. A girl called Wu Ling told him that she planned to work as a in a primary school in Tibet after her journey. He was impressed by the idea as she looked weak.

    It was not until he reached a family-run hotel in Shigatse that Cai's spirits began to rise. The hotel manager's two daughters enjoyed talking with him. The kids asked about his experiences on his trip, and showed him the beautiful local lakes. “They told me that they always liked to talk to guests, as they wanted to improve their Mandarin,” he said, “Their parents and many locals can only speak Tibetan.”

    Cai was moved by the girls' story. Their situation is worse and the local people have little chance to learn Mandarin because the schools are short of teacher. “1 want to do something to improve the situation for kids like them,” said Cai. His parents finally gave their agreement and his teachers also supported him.

    The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has welcomed home two paintings by the Dutch master, more than 14 years after they were ripped (抢) off the museum's wall in a nighttime theft. Museum director Axel Rueger called their return “one of the most special days in the history of the museum.”

    The paintings were discovered last year by Italian police while they were searching suspected Italian criminals' farmhouse near Naples for evidence of drug dealing. The two paintings were wrapped in cotton sheets. They were stuffed in a box and hidden behind a wall in a toilet when they were found.

    The paintings were considered among the artworks most searched for in the world. After years in darkness, they can now shine again. They are back on display at the museum before being taken to the conservation studio for repair. Fortunately, they suffered remarkably little damage as thieves who had climbed up a ladder and broken a window to get into the museum in 2004 rip them out of their frames.

    “It is not only a surprise that the works have been recovered but it's even more surprising they are in relatively unharmed condition,” Rueger said.

    The museum director was on vacation when the call came last year from Italian authorities who believed they had recovered the paintings. He didn't celebrate right away. He'd had calls like this before.

    “I was hopeful but also a little hesitant. Over these years, we had so many occasions when people phoned us, contacted us, claiming that they knew something about the whereabouts (下落) of the works and each time it was false, the trace went cold,” he said. “So...the way has been till of disappointment.” But museum experts sent to Italy to check the authenticity(真实性) of the works quickly turned Rueger's doubts into delight.

    Rueger said the paintings are now back permanently at the museum, which is home to dozens of works by Van Gogh. “I'm very confident that everything is safe in the museum from now on,” he said.

    Researchers in China and the United States have developed a new cataract(白内障)treatment with cells that has restored vision in babies in a trial and may eventually be used in adults.

    The treatment-by doctors and staff members at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Sichuan and Sun Yat-sen universities in China-was published in March 9 edition of the scientific journal Nature.

    A cataract is a clouding of the normally clear lens(晶体)of an eye. Typical cataract operation involves the removal of the cloudy lens and the insertion of an artificial one. The new operation has been tested in animals and during a small, human trial. It resulted in fewer complications(并发症)than the current harmful operation, and in regrown lenses with superior visual function in all 12 of the baby cataract patients who received the procedure.

    A congenital cataract-lens clouding that occurs at birth or shortly after- is important cause of blindness in children. In the new research, K and Zhang, head of ophthalmic genetics at US San Diego's Shiley Eye Institute, and his colleagues relied on the regrown potential of endogenous(同源的)stem cells.

    According to Zhang, endogenous stem cells are different from other stem cells that are typically grown in a laboratory, transplanted into a patient, and can have risks of immune（免疫的）rejection, infection or cancers. Zhang told CBS News, “We invented a new operation to make a very small opening at the side of a cataractous lens bag, remove the cataract inside, allow the opening to heal, and promote potential lens stem cells to regrow an entirely new lens with vision.”

    The human trial involved 12 babies under the age of 2 who were treated with the new method, while 25 babies received the standard operation care. The latter group experienced a higher incidence of post-operation danger, early- onset eye high blood pressure and increased lens clouding. The scientists reported fewer complications and faster healing among the 12 babies who has the new procedure.

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology have-in just two years-nearly doubled the number of materials known to have potential for use in solar fuels.

They did so by developing a process that promises to speed the discovery of commercially viable (商业可行性) generation of solar fuels that could replace coal, oil, and other fossil fuels.

Solar fuels, a dream of clean-energy research, are created using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. Researchers are exploring a range of possible target fuels, but one possibility is to produce hydrogen by splitting water.

Each water molecule (分子) consists of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen atoms are extracted, and then can be reunited to create highly flammable hydrogen gas or combined with CO 2 to create hydrocarbon fuels, creating a plentiful and renewable energy source. The problem, however, is that water molecules do not simply break down when sunlight shines on them-if they did, the oceans would not cover most of the planet. They need a little help from a solar-powered catalyst (催化剂).

To create practical solar fuels, scientists have been trying to develop low-cost and efficient materials that perform the necessary chemistry using only visible light as an energy source.

A new method was developed through a partnership between the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) and Berkeley Lab's Materials Project, using resources at the Molecular Foundry and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSCC). JCAP focused on developing a cost-effective method of turning sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into fuel. It is led by Caltech with Berkeley Lab as a major partner. The Materials Project is a program based at Berkeley Lab that aims to remove the guesswork from materials design in a variety of applications.

"What is particularly significant about this study, which combines experiment and theory, is that in addition to identifying several new compounds for solar fuel applications, we can also learn something new about the basic electronic structure of the materials themselves." says Neaton, the director of the Molecular Foundry.

For a number of Indians who for over half a century have replayed a race again and again, Milkha Singh's 400 metres final run at the Rome Olympics should be among the greatest heartbreaks in global sporting history. In fact, they hoped it would throw up a different result.

However, continued praise for the man decades later is due to the effort by India's greatest track athlete on that September day in the Italian capital, though he still missed out on becoming India's first Olympic track medallist.

As he was growing up, he used to run barefoot daily on hot sand to school, which was situated 20 kilometres from his house. He thinks this was good training but knows it is not possible to ask children to do this today. However, he does feel that the early identification of talented athletes is also important for India's athletic teams to shine.

India has in the last few years judged success purely in terms of medals, but looking into the past reveals how a more generous generation saluted Milkha as a pioneer. Milkha is India's finest track athlete of all time. He remains the only Indian male to win an individual Commonwealth Games athletics gold—he won the 400 metres at Cardiff in 1958，the first athlete from independent India to do so.

Since retiring from athletics, the former champion athlete has set up the Milkha Singh Charitable Trust, which helps poorer families survive if an athlete in their family has died. A percentage of the profits from the film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag are going to his trust.

Finally, let's read a quote from Milkha himself: "There is no shortcut to success." A scene in the film shows Milkha Singh running with injured feet—this actually happened. "I haven't found an alternative to hard work. You need to be patient, dedicated and true to yourself and your work."