"The Greatest Night in Pop" Makes a Trip Down Memory Lane for You and Me

Being of a certain age will surely enhance the pleasure in watching "The Greatest Night in Pop", a documentary on the making of "We Are the World" nearly 40 years ago. Lionel Richie serves as the tour guide for this trip down memory lane, which fulfills its promise to make a better day for you and me.

For those who don't remember, the song and video to benefit starving people in Africa was pulled together in 1985, cleverly gathering nearly four dozen influential musical stars after they appeared at the American Music Awards. As Richie notes, organizers knew they had "one night only to get this right," with producer Quincy Jones famously posting a sign outside that read, "Check your ego (自负) at the door."

Directed by Bao Nguyen, the whole thing is pretty exciting, drawing from the enough footage (连续镜头) shot that night to provide plenty of fly-on-the-wall moments, added by interviews with musicians and the production crew. 

There are plenty of amusing details, like Diana Ross asking Daryl Hall for his signature, which opened the floodgates to these performers releasing their inner fans and moving around the room collecting signatures. 

Granted, the trade-off to watching is you'll likely be humming or singing "We Are the World" for the next several days. Consider that a relatively small price to pay for a front-row seat to this remarkable gathering of musical royalty, and the magic that happened during one long night when, at Jones' request, they left their egos outside.

Chinese singer Gong Linna released her new song, titled Return Home, which describes the overseas Chinese people's longing for their homeland.

Performed in Chaoshan dialect, the song is part of Gong's music project, which has the singer perform songs in different Chinese dialects. "It is very challenging to sing in Chaoshan dialect, which is a new language to me, and thanks to the songwriter Danny Sim and the song's producer Wesley Tan, who speak the dialect, I received intensive training and practised very hard," says Gong. "The beauty of dialects lies in telling stories of different places. It's like a music al map, allowing me to explore different places through dialects."

The idea of the song came from Qiaopi, a unique form of mail that served as both a letter and a remittance (汇款) sent by overseas Chinese people to their families in provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in the 19th and 20th centuries. At that time, many of those emigrants, particularly from Guangdong and Fujian, sent money back home to support their families, as well as communicating with their beloved ones and expressing their longing to be reunited.

"Dialects are a source of knowledge, traditions and the country's cultural heritage. When I listen to a song performed in a dialect, I feel the local culture instantly even though I never go there and know nothing about the place," says Sim, who wrote lyrics for the song, adding that there are a growing number of musicians in China performing in dialects, which allow listeners to get an emotional touch.

"Chaoshan dialect links people from the region. However, like many languages, it's dying. Many young people, especially children, rarely speak the dialect, which is a sad thing." Sim says, explaining why he is keen on writing songs by using the dialect, "I love my hometown and by writing songs in the dialect, I feel close to my home. Maybe that is, culture identity."

More plants are growing and expanding around Mount Everest (local name Mount Qomolangma) as the area continues to experience the consequences of global warming, researchers have found.

Scientists from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom used satellite data to establish increases in subnival vegetation-plants that grow between the tree line and the snow line.

Using NASA Landsat satellite data from 1993 to 201& scientists measured "small but significant" increases in vegetation cover between 4, 150 and 6, 000 meters above sea level.

''There are now more areas that are covered in plants than there were in 1993, " said Karen Anderson, a remote sensing scientist who led the research.

"We don't know what the impact is. It may be that plants trap snow and might cause it to melt more slowly. It might be that the plants cause the snow to melt more quickly, " she added.

1.4 billion people depend on water collected in the region, and changes to water cycles and supplies could have far reaching impacts, their research, published in the Global Change journal, said.

"We know that plants and the water cycle are coupled?" Anderson explained. "Wherever you have plants growing, it changes the way the water cycle behaves in those areas. "

"This is particularly important in the Himalayas because glaciers are receding (后退), and we know from lots of scientific work that this is already affecting water supplies in this region, " she added.

Climate change is already having an impact on Himalayan communities. A 2019 study from Columbia University found that Himalayan glaciers have been losing almost half a meter of ice each year since the start of this century. This is already resulting in flooding for local communities, and could ultimately result in drought.

Last year, an assessment from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development found that at least a third of the ice in the region could melt by the end of the century.