【推荐2】If you’re eating protein (蛋白质), you could be swallowing hundreds of tiny pieces of plastic each year, research finds.

A new study by researchers with the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy and the University of Toronto found microplastics — tiny particles ranging from one micrometer to a half-centimeter in size — in nearly 90 percent of protein food samples tested.

The researchers analyzed more than a dozen different types of common proteins that could wind up on the average American’s plate, including seafood, pork, beef, chicken, to fu and several plant-based meat alternatives. They estimated that an American adult could consume, on average, at least 11,000 microplastic pieces per year.

The study’s findings provide further evidence of the availability of small plastic particles — which have been discovered everywhere from Antarctic snow to inside human bodies — and how they can end up in the food we eat and the water we drink.

“While we still really don’t have any idea what the human health consequences of this are, if there are any at all, we need to take this seriously because this is a problem that’s not going away on its own, and it’s only going to get worse the more plastic we use and throwaway,” Leonard said. But Leonard and other experts cautioned against using the findings to draw final conclusions about how microplastics can dirty food and the amount of plastic that could be hiding in proteins.

The study’s sample size was not big enough and the researchers noted that there was high variability in microplastic concentrations in the samples. The researchers also only counted microplastic particles that were larger than or equal in size to 45 micrometers. “It just highlights that we need to do more research,” said Bianca Datta, a food scientist not involved in the new research.

【推荐3】When it comes to cooling the planet, forests have more than one trick upon their trees. A new study finds tropical (热带的) forests help cool the average global temperature by more than 1℃. “The effect is largely from forests’ ability to stockpile CO₂. But around one third of that tropical cooling effect comes from several other processes, such as the letting-out of water vapor (水蒸气),” researchers reported on March 24 in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

“We tend to focus on CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, but forests can not only keep CO₂,” said Deborah Lawrence, an environmental scientist at the University of Virginia. “It’s time to think about what else forests are doing for us besides keeping CO₂.”

“Researchers already know that forests influence their local climates through various chemical processes. Trees let out water vapor through their leaves and, like human sweating, this cools the trees and the things around them. But on a global scale, it isn’t clear how the other cooling works compared with the cooling provided by forests’ ability of keeping CO₂,” Lawrence said.

So she and her colleagues studied how over-cutting would affect global temperatures, using data gathered from other studies. For example, the researchers used data to decide how much the letting-out of CO2 stored by those forests would warm the global temperature. They then compared those results with other studies’ results of how much the loss of other aspects of forests.

The researchers found that in forests at latitudes (纬度) from around 50°S of the equator to 50°N, the primary way that forests influenced the global average temperature was through CO₂ store. But other cooling factors still played large roles.

【推荐2】Does it ever seem like something is going on with our attention spans? Gloria Mark, an attention researcher at the university of California, says there is scientific evidence that attention spans have shrunk considerably. “We started studying attention span length over 20 years ago,” Mark said. “In 2003, we found that attention spans averaged about two-and-a-half minutes on any screen before people switched, In the past five, six years, they are averaging 47 seconds on the screen.”

Mark maintains that a shorter attention span has three downsides: The first is that people make more errors when they do attention shifting; second downside is that it takes longer to do something, because we have to adjust to every new task every time we shift; the third downside — maybe this is the worst of all — is that stress increases. When people are working on multiple tasks and they have to shift their attention, their blood pressure rises.

You don’t have to be a professor to guess at the cause of our great distract ability: It’s technology, of course-phones, social media, texting. It might be hard to think of the last time you even had a tech-free hour. So she offered a couple of tips for staying focused: First, when you feel the itch to change tasks, analyze why. If it’s just boredom or procrastination (拖延症), make a deal with yourself to work another 20 minutes, and then treat yourself to a reward.

Second, picture yourself at the end of the day. What do you want to have accomplished? What do you want to feel? “A concrete visualization of yourself sitting on the couch, you know, watching your favourite show is really good motivation,” she said.

The internet has this incredible resource available to us, so rather than be upset by it because it distracts us, how can we turn that around and instead find value from it? And how can we utilize our time best when we use the resources from the Internet without getting exhausted from it? These questions are what Gloria Mark will focus on in her subsequent research.

【推荐3】The transatlantic car carrier, Oceanbird, is being designed by Wallenius Marine, a Swedish shipbuilder,with support from the Swedish government.

With a capacity(容量) of 7,000 vehicles, the 650 foot-long vessel will have a similar size to ordinary car carriers, but it will look totally different. The ship will have five “wing sails”, with each being 260 feet tall. These sails are capable of turning 360 degrees, and it can be shortened to 195 feet in order to pass under bridges or withstand rough weather.

Although the general theory of wing sails is not new, designing the Oceanbird’s sails has been a challenge, says Mikael Razola, the research project manager for Oceanbird. “That’s because these are the tallest sails that have ever been constructed. The top of the sails will be more than 100 meters above the water surface. At such a height, the wind direction and speed change a lot,” says Razola.

To better understand the atmospheric conditions(大气条件) at this height, Wallenius put sensors on top of its existing vessels to gather data of wind. “All of this information has helped us make the most of the power available in the wind and design an efficient wing vessel,” says Razola.

With its special sails, Oceanbird will outperform conventional car carriers in the aspect of exhaust emission. Nowadays, the shipping industry is under pressure to reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. According to the International Maritime Organization, the UN body that regulates global shipping, shipping accounted for 2. 89% of global manmade greenhouse gas emissions in 2018. And in the same year, this organization introduced a mandatory( 强 制 的 ) 50% reduction of total annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Oceanbird is designed to exceed(超过) the target---Wallenious said the ship would emit 90% less CO₂ than other car carriers.

With a stop speed of about 10 knots, Oceanbird will be slower than standard car carriers, which can travel at 17 knots. It will take around 12 days, instead of the standard seven to cross the Atlantic. “This long journey will require some scheduling changes as well as acceptance from carmakers,” said Razola. “But the response so far has been very positive. ”

Researchers in Wallenious have built a 7-meter model of Oceanbird which will sail in Stockholm’s archipelago to gather data that will help finalize the ship’s design. “It will take around three years to launch the full-size version. Our ambition is to see Oceanbird sailing in 2024,” Razola said.