【推荐3】By the end of the century, if not sooner, the world’s oceans will be bluer and greener thanks to a warming climate, according to a new study.

At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny microorganisms (微生物) in the ocean called phytoplankton. Because of the way light reflects off the organisms, these phytoplankton create colorful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean color varies from green to blue, depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas, while reducing it in other spots, leading to changes in the ocean’s appearance.

Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface, where they pull carbon dioxide into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die, they bury carbon in the deep ocean, an important process that helps to regulate (调控) the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean’s warming trend. Warming changes key characteristics of the ocean and can affect phytoplankton growth, since they need not only sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow, but also nutrients.

Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a scientist in MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, built a climate model that projects changes to the oceans throughout the century. In a world that warms up by 3C, it found that multiple changes to the color of the oceans would occur. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions more suitable for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener. “Not only are the quantities of phytoplankton in the ocean changing.” she said, “but the type of phytoplankton is changing.”

And why does that matter? Phytoplankton are the base of the food web. If certain kinds begin to disappear from the ocean, Dutkiewicz said, “it will change the type of fish that will be able to live on.” Those kinds of changes could affect the food chain.

Whatever color changes the ocean experiences in the coming future will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes. “It’ll be a while before we can statistically show that the changes are happening because of climate change,” Dutkiewicz said, “but the change in the color of the ocean will be one of the early warning signals that we really have changed our planet.”

【推荐1】The Indian government may use 3D paintings as virtual speed breakers(减速带) on major highways and roads, in order to check speeding and careless driving, and finally make its deadly roads a little safer. ''We are trying out 3D paintings used as virtual speed breakers to avoid unnecessary requirements of speed breakers, '' India's transport minister Nitin Gadkari wrote.

The optical illusions(视觉错觉) are supposed to encourage drivers to slow down automatically. Earlier, India had ordered the removal of all speed breakers from highways, which are considered to be a safety hazard for high-speed vehicles. India has the highest number of road accident deaths in the world. According to the World Health Organization, over 200,000 people are killed by road accidents.

The use of optical illusions as speed breakers was first pioneered in the American city of Philadelphia in 2008, as part of a campaign against speeding motorists. The technique has also been tried out in China to create floating 3D crossings. In India, cities such as Ahmedabad and Chennai have already experimented with 3D zebra crossings in the last one year. In Ahmedabad for instance, a mother and her daughter, both artists, have painted 3D crosswalks in the first few months of 2016. The artists say their motto is ''to increase the attention of drivers'', and that the concept has been successfully tested in accident-prone zones on a highway.

However, critics argue that once drivers know that these speed breakers are visual illusions, they may ignore them. Others also point out that India's decision does not consider the safety of a large number of pedestrians. In the end, the new policy may be just one step towards improving road safety.

【推荐2】Both low-fat and low-carbon diets work equally well to help people lose weight over two years, a new research has shown. In addition, the low-carbon diets may also improve levels of HDL cholesterol(胆固醇), although it's not clear how much difference this would make to your overall health.

The search for a diet that helps people lose weight goes back decades. In recent years, there's been much discussion about the strong points of low-fat diets, compared with low-carbon diets. And some claim that the low-carbon diets work well for short-term weight loss, but there isn’t enough evidence to show how well the two types of diets work and what the effects are on people's health in the long term.

In addition, it's been recognized that weight-loss programs are better if they include some support to help people make changes to their eating and exercise habits. This is often called behavioral therapy, because it works through changing people's behavior.

The new study has researched people who followed a weight-loss program over two years, all of whom had behavioral therapy. According to the actual situation of different people, half the people followed a low-carbon diet, and half followed a low-fat diet. And the result shows: people on both diets did equally well in losing weight. After two years, they had lost on average 7 kilograms. This amount of weight loss is enough to have positive effects on the health of fat people. What’s more, the group who had the low-carbon diets had much better levels of HDL cholesterol than people on the low-fat diets.

If you need to lose weight, this study shows that the behavioral therapy is able to work effectively. You may find it easier to lose weight as part of a supervised weight-loss program that can help you break bad habits and make healthy changes to your diets and lifestyle.