【推荐1】Every day, 15-year-old Martha wrote on the Internet about the meal she ate at school. She also took pictures of the food. However, Martha was very honest about the food. She did not just describe the food. She judged the taste and health of the food.   

Martha also began to use her blog for an important reason. She began to raise money for the organization Mary’s Meals in the East African country of Malawi. It provides food for children in schools for free. Martha encouraged her readers to send money to Mary’s Meals to help build a kitchen.

But then, Martha began to have a problem. Many people read her blog. She became big news. The news stories showed that the food at Martha’s school was not always healthy. And that made some people angry. So the school officials decided to stop Martha’s blog. They said that she could not take her camera to school.   

But an amazing thing happened. Many people began sending messages of support across the Internet. Martha’s story was even bigger than before. Now the officials had to change their minds. A few days later, Martha was again writing her blog. But more than that, people had sent a lot of money for the Malawi school children. Martha had hoped to raise about 10,000 dollars. But the total reached 10,000 dollars and still kept on growing!

Martha’s blog also helped to improve meals at her school. One day she wrote: As we waited for dinner we were told that we are allowed to eat as much fruit and bread as we want.

No one knows what will happen to Martha’s blog in future. But already this little girl has helped to change the eating experience of many children just by sharing on the Internet pictures of her school meals.

【推荐2】Preparing healthy and fresh meals three times a day takes a lot of time.     1     But how do we still keep healthy when we eat out? There are a few simple things we can do.

The first thing to consider is the portion size (分量). Many restaurants provide larger portions than you normally need in one meal.     2     One way to achieve this, if you’re at a restaurant, is to ask only half your meal to be brought out and the other half boxed to take home later. If you’re eating fast food, order a Kids Meal that has a smaller portion.

However, we all want to be satisfied at the end of a meal.     3     We can achieve it by controlling our appetite (食欲). One way is to carry around healthy snacks that you can take between meals to help with hunger.     4     Not only is water important to your health, but it'll help you become full faster.

    5     Most menus now have meals with low fat. Order those meals when you eat out. Also think about healthy soup instead of sods drinks.

【推荐1】Imagine a future where science has created your twin. Not a flesh-and-blood twin, but one that recreates your flesh and blood, your bones, your heart, your brain — your whole body, in fact — as an extremely complicated computer model.

Your doctors can use this digital twin to work out how you will respond to a particular drug or medical procedure. They can even look further into the future, creating a “healthcast”, to forecast what diseases might happen to you or how your lifestyle will affect your health as you age. It is the ultimate in personalized medicine. This is the bold vision set out in Virtual You: How building your digital twin will revolutionize medicine and change your life by Peter Coveney, director of the Centre for Computational Science, and Roger Highfield, science director of the Science Museum Group, UK.

Digital twins are already in widespread use in industries such as civil engineering. But these model systems are much simpler than the complex human body. Imagine all the parts that come together to make you work: from the 3 billion letters of your genome (基因组), the numerous molecules (分子) that make up your cells, the trillions of cells building your tissues and organs, and the environment having its input too. Now, imagine trying to create a model of this that is made to each unique individual and that predicts the changes that will take place over a lifetime. This is easier said than done. Changes in the systems biologists want to describe are usually different from what mathematicians describe as “non-linear” (非线性的). Another complication is “emergence”: where the whole of a system is greater than the sum of its parts. This complexity challenges mathematics and pushes computing to the limit too.

But getting to the next level — a whole human individual — is going to require yet more data and a revolution in computing technology far beyond what is currently possible. Whether we will get there is an open question, but Virtual You shows us what scientists from different fields can achieve when they all work together.

【推荐2】Next time you’re having trouble solving a tricky puzzle, consider asking a nearby bumblebee. A new study in the journal PLOS Biology finds that these humble insects can actually learn to solve puzzles from one another, suggesting that even some invertebrates(无脊椎动物) have a capacity for what we humans call “culture.”

“Nobody’s really thought that invertebrates like bumblebees show evidence of culture,” says Alice Bridges, an ecologist at Anglia Ruskin University. “People assume that they’re mostly driven by inborn factors.” Bridges set out to prove them wrong. To study culture in bumblebees, she first drilled some bees to solve puzzle boxes. She trained some bees to head-butt the red switch to get the sugar water and trained others to push the blue switch. Then, Bridges placed these tutor bees into different colonies, along with the puzzle boxes.

It wasn’t all fun and games: Bridges got stung multiple times and the fourth sting sent her to the hospital. Bridges persevered, however, and the experiment ultimately played itself out. In colonies where the tutor bee had learned to push the red switch, the other bees usually pushed the red switch. In colonies where the tutor bee was trained to push the blue switch, their fellow bees tended to do the same. In the control colonies where there were no tutors, the bees sometimes learned how to open the boxes, but never as efficiently or reliably.

The conclusion, Bridges and her colleagues report in their new study today, is that bumblebees can transmit certain behaviors—culturally. “Maybe culture isn’t that unusual,” she says. “Maybe it’s not some pinnacle(顶峰) of cognition that only a few species have.”

“Many of us consider ourselves special because we have culture and we can learn,” says Jessica Ware, an entomologist. “The truth is that all we have found about animal culture means that human culture, once thought unique, did not appear ‘out of the blue’ but has obviously built on deep evolutionary(进化的) foundations.”

【推荐3】The FIFA World Cup Trophy (奖杯) is arguably one of the most iconic prizes in the sporting world. So far, two different trophies have been used in the history of the FIFA World Cups.

The Jules Rimet Trophy was the first trophy awarded to the winners of the FIFA World Cups. Initially, the old trophy was originally named “Victory”. However, this trophy was renamed “the Jules Rimet Trophy” in 1946. This change was made to honor former FIFA president Jules Rimet, who voted to organize the first FIFA World Cup in 1930. French sculptor Abel Lafleur designed the trophy in 1930. The trophy was 14 inches in height and weighed 8.4 pounds. It was comprised of a winged representation of Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory and was inspired by the Nike of Samothrace statue.

Uruguay became the first champion and kept the trophy in 1930. The trophy was eventually retired when Brazil won the World Cup final for the third time in 1970. Following their success in Mexico, Brazil was allowed to keep the trophy permanently. However, the original trophy was stolen for a second time in 1983. It was never recovered, and it was claimed that it had been melted down into gold bars. Following the retirement of the Jules Rimet Trophy, FIFA needed a new cup. Eventually, Italian artist Silvio Gazzaniga’s design was selected as the new World Cup trophy.

The modern FIFA World Cup trophy describes two human figures holding the earth on top of their heads. The base of the trophy has “FIFA World Cup” engraved (刻). Furthermore, following every World Cup, the name of the winning team and the winning year is also engraved at the base. The trophy weighs 13.61 pounds. Unlike the Jules Rimet Trophy, the winning nations and future winners don’t get to hold the original trophy anymore. The new regulations state that it remains in FIFA’s possession. Instead, winners are given a gold-plated bronze replica (青铜复制品) provided by FIFA. West Germany was the first nation to lift the modern World Cup trophy in 1974.

The new trophy can hold up to seventeen names and years and is likely to be retired following the 2038 World Cup.