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Vocational School Student Stuns China by Besting University Competitors in Math Contest

Students review their exam preparation materials in the last minutes before the National College Entrance Exam, or Gaokao, outside an exam venue in Hai'an city in east China's Jiangsu province Friday, June 7, 2024. (Chinatopix via AP)
Students review their exam preparation materials in the last minutes before the National College Entrance Exam, or Gaokao, outside an exam venue in Hai'an city in east China's Jiangsu province Friday, June 7, 2024. (Chinatopix via AP)
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Vocational School Student Stuns China by Besting University Competitors in Math Contest

Students review their exam preparation materials in the last minutes before the National College Entrance Exam, or Gaokao, outside an exam venue in Hai'an city in east China's Jiangsu province Friday, June 7, 2024. (Chinatopix via AP)
Students review their exam preparation materials in the last minutes before the National College Entrance Exam, or Gaokao, outside an exam venue in Hai'an city in east China's Jiangsu province Friday, June 7, 2024. (Chinatopix via AP)

A 17-year-old vocational school student from rural China became a celebrity on social media after reaching the final round of a math competition, beating many others from top universities and raising questions about the education system.

Jiang Ping, who is studying fashion design, finished 12th in the Alibaba Global Math Competition, one of 802 who made it to the final round — an eight-hour test that takes place Saturday.

A video that included an interview with Jiang got more than 800,000 likes and 90,000 comments after it was posted on social media by Damo Academy, the organizer of the contest. Most expressed their amazement, while some questioned if it was real.

Jiang says in the video interview that she didn’t think she deserved to join the competition, even though she enjoys working on advanced math as it "brings out my desire to explore."

Congratulations poured in. People visited her parents’ home in a village in Jiangsu province on China’s east coast with money to show support. Her pictures were shown on the walls of shopping malls in her hometown, Lianshui. Zhejiang University and Jiangsu University praised her on their Weibo accounts.

While it was unclear how Jiang ended up in vocational school, her story still reminded some in China of the inequality between rural and urban areas and how that can make it harder for even talented students to climb the economic ladder.

"While Jiang Ping is openly celebrated, many Chinese feel deep down inside that her story highlights the hopelessness of Chinese education," said Jiang Xueqin, a China-based education researcher.

"The odds are fundamentally stacked against ordinary Chinese, without power, wealth, or ‘guanxi,’" the Chinese term for connections.

Inequality in education appears to have worsened in recent years. Spending on education in rural areas was 17% less than in cities in 2019 for the nine years of compulsory education in China, which does not include high school. It was only 2% lower in 2013, based on calculations from data in a Peking University report on the urban-rural gap in per capita expenditure.

Ministry of Education data show that 70% of students in China's vocational schools are from rural areas. The high percentage suggests that the education system works like a caste system, Jiang, the researcher said.

Jiang, the math whiz, is the only vocational school student among all the finalists. The others, who are mostly Chinese, mainly come from top-tier universities such as Cambridge, MIT and Caltech, as well as China’s top two, Tsinghua and Peking University. Winners will be awarded $2,000 to $30,000 in prize money.

The competition was started six years ago by Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce giant. Jack Ma, then-executive chair of Alibaba Group, said the goal was to find students who enjoy math and encourage and support them.

Jiang did well enough on the entrance exam to go to high school, the Communist Party secretary of her vocational school told state broadcaster CCTV.

The secretary said she applied to the vocational school instead of a high school because her older sister and good friends were students there. Other Chinese media said it was because she came from a poor family, and vocational school gave her a scholarship.

Attempts to reach Jiang were unsuccessful. A call to her school was unanswered and Damo Academy, an affiliate of Alibaba, didn't respond to an email.

Jiang says in the video interview that her plan is to get into a good university. It's not impossible, though vocational school students only have access to certain institutions.

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Varieties

Antarctica's Tourism Boom Raises Concerns about Contamination and Disease

This handout photograph released by The British Antarctic Survey on April 8, 2026, shows Emperor Penguins on Antarctica on November 13, 2010. (Photo by PETER BUCKTROUT / BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY / AFP)
This handout photograph released by The British Antarctic Survey on April 8, 2026, shows Emperor Penguins on Antarctica on November 13, 2010. (Photo by PETER BUCKTROUT / BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY / AFP)
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Antarctica's Tourism Boom Raises Concerns about Contamination and Disease

This handout photograph released by The British Antarctic Survey on April 8, 2026, shows Emperor Penguins on Antarctica on November 13, 2010. (Photo by PETER BUCKTROUT / BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY / AFP)
This handout photograph released by The British Antarctic Survey on April 8, 2026, shows Emperor Penguins on Antarctica on November 13, 2010. (Photo by PETER BUCKTROUT / BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY / AFP)

Driven in part by fears that the frozen landscapes of Antarctica may be irreversibly melting away because of climate change, tourism to the bottom of the world is soaring. And experts warn that with more visitors comes an increased risk of contamination, illness and other damage to the continent.

While visitor numbers are still small — in part due to the high costs and time it can take — they are growing so fast that scientists and environmentalists are sounding alarms.

A deadly outbreak of the rare hantavirus aboard a Dutch ship on a weekslong polar cruise has brought attention to the growing tourism trend, The Associated Press said.

Most expeditions head to the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest-warming places in the world. From 2002 to 2020, roughly 149 billion metric tons (164 billion tons) of Antarctic ice melted per year, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

A common route is to voyage south from Argentina toward Antarctica before heading north up the coast of Africa — the same route taken by the cruise ship MV Hondius.

“The sites you will see in Antarctica are extremely unique and not replicable anywhere else on the planet — the whales, the seals, the penguins, the icebergs — it’s all really stunning and it makes a huge impression on people,” said Claire Christian, executive director of the environmental group Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition.

Explosive growth of trips to the southern continent

In 2024, more than 80,000 tourists touched down on the vast ice-cloaked continent and 36,000 viewed from the safety of ships, according to data collected by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators.

The International Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that tourism to Antarctica has grown tenfold in the past 30 years.

That number could rise further in the next decade as costs fall with more ice-capable hulls hitting the water and technological advances, said Hanne Nielsen, a senior lecturer of Antarctic law at the University of Tasmania. Her colleagues at the university estimate the annual figure could triple or quadruple to over 400,000 visits in that time.

Some tourists come to Antarctica for “last chance tourism,” knowing the melting landscape is rapidly changing, Nielsen said.

Risks of contamination Officials have not indicated any evidence of contamination from the MV Hondius.

However, flocks of migratory birds brought avian flu from South America to Antarctica in recent years, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That outbreak prompted the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators and others to harden rules for tourists’ conduct and hygiene to protect visitors from being contaminated. To protect the fragile ecosystem from invasive species large and microscopic, visitors are told to stay away from animals and to avoid touching the ground with anything but their feet.

“There are rules that people are bound by when they’re heading south,” Nielsen said, describing her five voyages as a former guide. Crews and passengers use vacuums, disinfectants and brushes to scrub shoes and equipment clear of bugs, feathers, seeds and microbe-carrying dirt.

“Between the tongues and the laces of the boots you can find a lot of things,” she said.

Cruise ships have been struck by outbreaks of diseases like norovirus, which can spread quickly in a ship's close quarters. In 2020, a COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess turned the cruise ship into an incubator for the then-mysterious virus.

Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings.

The Hondius' island hopping cruise The World Health Organization said Tuesday that MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and visited Antarctica and several isolated islands.

WHO is investigating possible human-to-human transmission on the cruise ship, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness. Officials suspect the first infected person likely contracted the virus before boarding, she said, and officials have been told there are no rats on board.

Antarctica is governed by the Antarctic Treaty, which in 1959 enshrined the territory as a scientific preserve used only for peaceful purposes. A series of rules that followed “aim to ensure that all visits, regardless of location, do not adversely impact the Antarctic environment or its scientific and aesthetic values,” according to the treaty’s secretariat.

Companies and scientific ventures voluntarily comply with biosecurity guidelines and submit environmental impact assessments for Antarctic operations.

The treaty was written when tourism numbers were much lower, Christian said.

“Activity needs to be regulated appropriately, as you would with any of the world’s sensitive and precious ecological sites,” Christian said from Hiroshima, Japan, where she was preparing for an Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting. There she'll join calls to strengthen protections for Antarctica's penguins, whales, seabirds, seals and krill — tiny creatures at the base of the food chain.

For now, the lure of the frozen frontier continues to draw visitors.

“You can put a footprint in Antarctica and it’s still there 50 years later,” Christian said.

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Bear Attack Injures 2 Hikers in Yellowstone National Park in the US

FILE - This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File)
FILE - This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File)
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Bear Attack Injures 2 Hikers in Yellowstone National Park in the US

FILE - This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File)
FILE - This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File)

Two hikers were injured in a bear attack on a popular hiking trail near Yellowstone National Park's Old Faithful geyser, park officials said Tuesday.

The attack was described by officials as a single event Monday afternoon along the Mystic Falls Trail.

A large area of the park near the Midway Geyser Basin was temporarily closed pending an investigation, The Associated Press reported. The area includes at least five trails and several backcountry campsites.

Park officials said one or more bears were involved, but did not specify which species. The park has populations of both grizzly bears and black bears, which can be difficult to tell apart at times. Grizzlies can be more aggressive and they grow much larger — as much as twice as big as black bears. Black bears usually have darker coloring.

Further information — including whether the victims were hiking together and whether they were hospitalized for their injuries — was not being immediately released, said Yellowstone spokesperson Ashton Hooker.

Yellowstone gets more than 4 million visits by tourists annually and attacks by grizzlies or black bears are rare.

In September, a hiker suffered injuries to his chest and arm in an attack on the Turbid Lake Trail northeast of Yellowstone Lake, and a grizzly killed a woman just west of Yellowstone in 2023. The last fatal bear mauling in the park was in 2015 when a 63-year-old Billings, Montana man was killed while hiking alone in the park's Lake Village area.

The fate of bears that attack humans is typically dictated by the circumstances of the encounter.

Following the 2015 fatal attack, officials captured and killed an adult female grizzly because it had eaten part of the victim's body and hid the rest, which is not normal behavior for a bear defending its young.

By comparison, last year's attack on the Turbid Lake Trail happened during a surprise encounter between the victim and the bear. The animal's reaction was considered natural, so it was not relocated or killed.

The heavily traveled Mystic Falls trail where Monday's attack occurred includes a loop that leads to a 70-foot (21-meter) tall waterfall. The trailhead is about two miles (three kilometers) northwest of Old Faithful.

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Saudi Space Agency Launches 2nd Edition of 'SARI 2' Initiative in Partnership with Aramco Digital

Saudi Space Agency Launches 2nd Edition of 'SARI 2' Initiative in Partnership with Aramco Digital
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Saudi Space Agency Launches 2nd Edition of 'SARI 2' Initiative in Partnership with Aramco Digital

Saudi Space Agency Launches 2nd Edition of 'SARI 2' Initiative in Partnership with Aramco Digital

The Saudi Space Agency (SSA), in partnership with Aramco Digital, announced on Tuesday the launch of the second edition of the “SARI 2” initiative, as an extension of ongoing efforts to empower national talent and foster innovation in the space sector.

The initiative aims to attract undergraduate students from universities across the Kingdom and enable them to develop and launch small satellites, contributing to the advancement of national capabilities and reinforcing the Kingdom’s position in space science and technology.

SARI 2 also seeks to achieve a set of strategic objectives, including supporting scientific research and experiments, providing hands-on opportunities in satellite development and industrial space communication solutions, fostering an innovative environment among universities, and strengthening students’ technical and engineering skills in space-related disciplines and technologies.

The initiative offers participants the opportunity to form student teams to work on advanced projects, including the design of satellites for applications that support various technology sectors.

The SSA, in strategic partnership with Aramco Digital, also provides an integrated educational ecosystem to support participants through expert mentorship, intensive training programs, and workshops that enhance scientific and engineering skills, in addition to providing the technical resources necessary to ensure high-quality project execution.

The SARI 2 initiative serves as a national platform that contributes to preparing a new generation of innovators and researchers in the space sector by offering university students the opportunity to engage in advanced applied environments and execute practical projects, while also strengthening partnerships between the agency, universities, and the private sector, in support of the Kingdom’s space sector development objectives.