Students undergo physical examinations ahead of the entry exam for a senior middle school in Changzhou, Jiangsu province. [Shi Kang/For China Daily] Like many nearsighted people, the first thing Chen Xu does when she wakes in the morning is grab her glasses and put them on. Other people might say the first thing should be to dress or brush her teeth, but Chen disagrees. She doesn't want her first view of the world every morning to be blurred. The 35-year-old, who teaches English at a junior middle school in Shanghai, started wearing corrective lenses when she was about the same age as the 13-to 15-year-old children she teaches. At first, my nearsightedness was only-3 or-4 diopters (a low level). It then grew with my educational background, joked Chen, who has a master's in education studies. Before I graduated from college in 2006, it had risen to-7 diopters and has stayed at that level ever since. Recalling spending her adolescence at her desk - often for hours without even a short break - to finish assignments or read novels, she said: The academic workload was just too heavy at the time. As far as I am concerned, most people my age became myopic at about the same age as me and for the same reason. Things don't seem to have improved. A 2016 report by the World Health Organization showed that with 600 million nearsighted people - almost half the population - China has the world's highest rate of adolescent myopia. More than 70 percent of high school and college students and almost 40 percent of primary school students have problems with their eyesight. Li Aoyu, chief ophthalmologist at the Eyecare Beaucare Clinic, a private hospital in Beijing's Chaoyang district, has worked as an optometrist for decades. In recent years, he has noticed a change in the age of the patients coming to see him. Primary school students now account for at least one-third of my patients. It's an obvious rise. he said. There were not so many before. Wang Ningli, director of the Ophthalmological Center at Beijing Tongren Hospital, a public hospital renowned for eye treatment, has also noticed the trend. More children are developing myopia at an earlier age. Some are already nearsighted, even though they are only 5 or 6 years old, he said. silicone bracelet manufacturerbracelet en silicone nikemake rubber braceletscustom rubber wristbands canadawarfarin silicone bracelet
China's space authority has announced plans to build a manned scientific research station on the moon.In a video shown at a ceremony in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, on Tuesday to mark China's Space Day, the China National Space Administration listed the construction and operation of a lunar scientific research station in its development road map for the space sector.It was China's third Space Day, with the date chosen because China launched its first satellite on April 24, 1970."We believe that the Chinese nation's dream of residing in a 'lunar palace' will soon become a reality," the administration said in the video.The video shows the lunar outpost will have multiple, interconnected tube cabins. One of the facility's major energy sources will be solar power, according to the video.The administration did not reveal a schedule for the construction and operation of the outpost in the video, which also said China plans to explore the two lunar poles.It is the first time China has made public a plan for a manned lunar outpost. In November, officials from the administration said at an international space forum in Shanghai that China was studying the feasibility of "a robotic outpost on the lunar surface to conduct scientific research and technological experiments".
