Jersey Boys

    Jersey Boys is a Broadway musical that dramatizes the rise and fall of Frankie Valli and the 1960s rock 'n' roll group Four Seasons. According to Selladoor Worldwide, the group's Beijing tour will see a brand-new production of the musical, which features Luke Sheppard as director, Mark Crossland as music director and Cressida Carre as choreographer（编舞）. Since its 2005 premiere（首演）in New York, the musical has won 57 major awards worldwide.

    2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Jan 5 to Jan 13.Tianqiao Performing Arts Center, 9 Tianqiao Nandajie, Xicheng district. 400-635-3355.

    Ticket: 199-1,299 yuan ($30-200)

    Large-scale immersive show

    The large-scale immersive show Memory 5D +, directed by Ulan Xuerong, is ongoing in Beijing from Jan 4 to 7.

    The show follows the emotional entanglement between black and white spirits, representing yin and yang, and the flora girl. As a demonstration of traditional Chinese art, the show centers on cultural inheritance and includes live performance of guqin, a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument, guzheng, a Chinese plucked zither, konghou, an ancient plucked stringed instrument and horse-head fiddle, as well as acrobatics, Khoomei, shadow play and Mongolian folk song, even chants from The Book of Songs.

    7:30 p.m, Jan 5; 2:30 p.m./ 7:30 p. m., Jan 6; 7:30 p.m.., Jan 7. Beijing Exhibition Theater, 135 Xizhimenwai Dajie (Street), Xicheng district.

    Ticket: 180-1,080 yuan

    London Philharmonic Orchestra set to thrill Beijing

    The London Phiharmonic Orchestra will wrap up its China tour with two recitals in Being on Jan 5 and 6.

    Under the baton of Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko, the orchestra will perform H. Berlioz's overture to Beatrice et Benedict and P. I. Tchaikovsky's Fantasia on Romeo and Juliet and Variations on a Rococo Theme op.33, featuring Swedish-Danish cellist Andreas Brantelid, along with other pieces.

    7p.m., Jan 5-6. Concert Hall, National Center for the Performing Arts, 2 West Chang' an Avenue, Xicheng district. 010-6655-0000.

    Ticket: 380-1,680 yuan

    Russian army's troupe to return after restart

    The Russian army's official dance and choir troupe, the Alexandrov Ensemble, is staging five shows in Beijing from Jan 4 to 7, with a variety of songs, dances and instrumental performances.

The ensemble, also known as the Red Army Choir, was founded in 1928 and has toured the globe performing Russian folk tunes and patriotic songs using Western classical music and traditional Russian instruments.

    The repertoire on Saturday comprises 24 songs and dance pieces, including Song of the Soviet Army, The Sacred War, Moscow Nights and Festival March.

    7 p.m., Jan 5-7; 2:30 p.m., Jan 6. Opera House, National Center for the Performing Arts, 2 West Chang' an Avenue, Xicheng district. 010-6655-0000.

    Ticket: 180-1000 yuan

    One afternoon I toured an art museum while waiting for my husband to finish a business meeting. I was looking forward to a quiet view of the wonderful works.

    A young couple viewing the paintings ahead of me chatted nonstop between themselves. I watched them a moment and decided she was doing all the talking. I admired his patience for tolerating her constant words. Disturbed by their noise, I moved on.

    I encountered them several times as I moved through the various rooms of art. Each time I heard her constant talking, I moved away quickly.

    I was standing at the counter of the museum gift store doing some shopping when the couple approached the exit. Before they left, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white object. He turned it into a long cane (手杖) and then tapped his way into the coatroom to get his wife's jacket.

    "He's a brave man," the clerk at the counter said, "Most of us would give up if we were blinded at such a young age. During his recovery, he made a promise that his life wouldn't change. So, as before, he and his wife come in whenever there's a new art show."

    "But what does he get out of the art?" I asked, "He can't see."

    "Can't see! You're wrong. He sees a lot. More than you or I do," the clerk said, "His wife describes each painting so he can see it in his head."

    I learned something about patience, courage and love that day. I saw the patience of a young wife describing paintings to a person without sight and the courage of a husband who would not allow blindness to change his life.

    And I saw the love shared by two people as I watched this couple walk away arm in arm.

    The search engine Google celebrated on Thursday the 110th birthday of the first Native American woman engineer. Google honored Mary Ross with a special Google Doodle on its homepage.

    Ross was born on August 9, 1908, in the state of Oklahoma. She was the great-granddaughter of John Ross, the longest—serving chief of the Cherokee Nation. Her work is considered important to the early stages of the age of space travel.

    Ross showed special abilities in math and science from an early age. As a student, she developed an interest in aviation, or the practice of flying aircraft. She went on to earn a master's degree in mathematics from Colorado State Teachers College, now called the University of Northern Colorado.

    During World War II, Ross began working for the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation as a mathematician. She earned a special certification in the field from the University of California in1949.Ross was later chosen to join Lockheed's top—secret Skunk Works team that worked on aircraft designs. The name refers to a group that is permitted to work independently on advanced projects. She was the only female engineer among the team's 40 members.

    Early on, she researched defense systems. By the late 1950s, her work centered on satellites and a series of space rockets called Agenda. The rockets were extremely important in the 1960s during the Apollo moon program.

    Ross also helped develop early design ideas for space travel between planets, including flyby space flights to study Venus and Mars. Ross retired from Lockheed in 1973.But she continued to give talks at high schools and colleges to encourage more women and Native Americans to study engineering. She died in 2008, a few months before her 100th birthday.

    Many celebrated Ross' life on social media. Twitter user Aaron Perez, for example, wrote: “Mary Ross was an engineer who pioneered in the field of satellites. I never would have known if it wasn't for the doodle. Women engineers deserve more recognition.”

    Self-driving cars have been backed by the hope that they will save lives by getting involved in fewer crashes with fewer injuries and deaths than human-driven cars. But so far, most comparisons between human drivers and automated vehicles have been unfair. Crash statistics for human-driven cars arc gathered from all sorts of driving situations and all types of roads. However, most of the data on self-driving cars' safety have been recorded often in good weather and on highways, where the most important tasks are staying in the car's own lane and not getting too close to the vehicle-ahead. Automated cars are good at those tasks, but so are humans.

    It is true that self-driving cars don't get tired, angry, frustrated or drunk .But neither can they yet react to uncertain situations with the same skill or anticipation of an attentive Unban driver. Nor do they possess the foresight to avoid potential dangers. They largely drive from moment to moment, rather than think ahead to possible events literally down the road.

    To a self-driving car, a bus full of people might appear quite similar to an uninhabited field. Indeed, deciding what action to take in an emergency is difficult for humans, but drivers have sacrificed themselves for the greater good of others. An automated system's limited understanding of the world means it will almost never evaluate (评估)a Situation the same way a human would. And machines can't be programmed in advance to handle every imaginable set of events.

    Some people may argue that the promise of simply reducing the number of injuries and deaths is enough to support driverless cars. But experience from aviation(航空)shows that as new automated systems are introduced, there is often an increase in the rate of disasters.

    Therefore, comparisons between humans and automated vehicles have to be performed carefully. To fairly evaluate driverless cars on how well they fulfill their promise of improved safety, it's important to ensure the data being presented actually provide a true comparison. After all, choosing to replace humans with automation has more effects than simply a one-for-one exchange.

    City: Hangzhou

    Launched: 2008

    Size: 2,965 stations/ 69,750 bikes

    Price: $32.61 deposit（押金）+ time charge

    While taking a look at this city, you may see the best bike sharing in the world. As the second on the planet by size, the Hangzhou Public Bicycle System is one of the most common and useful shares, largely because it's combined with public transportation: a single card can be used in subway, bus, taxi and bike sharing. Residents and tourists can put down a deposit of 200 Chinese Yuan （about $33）and ride for an hour for free in this scenic city. Each additional hour costs only $0.15. It was also the first new﹣generation bike﹣sharing system in China. By 2020 it's projected to have 175,000 bikes.

    City: Barcelona

    Launched: 2007

    Size: 420 stations/ 6,000 bikes

    Price: $61.93 per year

    Barcelona's Bicycling Program developed Spain's bike﹣sharing business in a big way. This program took off like wildfire on wheels, and because four times bigger in one year. It inspired different copycat programs all over the country. Today, Spain has 132 bike﹣sharing systems. The program is one of the world's most respected and popular shares. But it is only open to residents and tourists are not allowed to use it.

    City: Paris

    Launched: 2007

    Size: 1,751 stations/ 23,900 bikes

    Price: $38.52 per year/ $2.26 per day

    Paris's bike﹣sharing is the star of the world. Launched in 2007, it is the world's largest outside of China. Cheap by American standards, you can ride around Paris on a €1.7 day pass— the first half hour of each trip is free. Because this system covers the city with an average of 50 stations per square mile, it's a favourite with both locals and tourists.

About 50 feet from shore, two brothers were fighting for their lives, their mouths barely able to stay above the water. Thick fog made it difficult for beach goers to see the guys, but the screams were unmistakable and every second counted. The brothers, aged 15 and 20, were wearing shorts and T-shirts, unsuitable for a November day, let alone the 50-degree water. Keven Harder, a supervising ranger, told the North Coast Journal that swimming in such a temperature "will take the fight right out of you."

Luckily, four surfers in wet suits were nearby. Narayan Weibel, Spenser Stratton, and Adrian York, all 16, along with Taj Ortiz-beck, 15, were on their surf boards riding on waves when they heard the cries. They turned and saw two bobbing heads and four flailing arms. "We looked at each other and knew they were about to drown, " Weibel said.

Weibel, Stratton, and Ortiz-beck paddled toward the distressed swimmers while York headed to shore to call 911. As the surfers drew close, the brothers were struggling. "It was pretty stressful, but there wasn't any time to think about it," Ortiz-beck said. He pulled up alongside the younger brother. Grabbing him under his arms, he raised him up onto the board. Stratton and Weibel, meanwhile, were straining(竭力)to help the elder brother. He was large, about 250 pounds, and panicked. Fortunately, York arrived in time to help get the elder brother atop the second board. The surfers then paddled several minutes through rough water to the medical help waiting onshore. The brothers were scared but fine.

"When we get a call like this one, it's usually too late by the time we get there, " said Dillon Ceavenger, the first responder. "I can't say enough about what these boys did. They were willing and prepared to risk their lives."