【推荐1】Someday soon an emoji (表情符号)might really save lives.

Hiroyuki Komatsu is a Google engineer who suggested adding a series of new emojis to the standard emoji library. It could help those with food allergies (过敏)understand what they are eating anywhere in the world. Emojis should cover characters representing major food causing allergies. They make people understand what are used in foods even in foreign countries and safely select meals.

Emojis are universal because they are chosen and developed by the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit company that oversees, develops and maintains how text is represented. This is in regards to all software products and standards. It's thanks to the Unicode Standard that when you text a friend six pizza emojis, they’ll see those six pizza pieces on their phone. This is true regardless of whether they use an iPhone or an Android.

Because emojis are everywhere and visual(视觉的),they could be helpful for restaurants and food packaging designers. They can communicate whether a product is made with common causing-allergy food. But as Komatsu’s advice argues, many of the most common causing-allergy foods are missing or poorly represented by the present emoji library. For example, there is an emoji for octopus, but nothing for squid. There is a loaf of bread that could symbolize grain, but a picture of wheat could be clearer. The emojis can be more direct when symbolizing foods.

It’s not uncommon for the Unicode Consortium to add new emojis to the library: several food-related emojis were put into use last June, including some long-waited food emojis. Apple included support for multiracial emojis in a recent iOS update. An artist even recreated Moby-Dick in emoji characters. Some might be sorry for the continuing death of the written word if Komatsu’s suggestion is accepted, but look on the bright side: if you ever see that happy poop on a box, you’ll know to stay away.

【推荐2】All day long, litter builds up between brain cells.A study now finds that trash(垃圾)is washed away by fluids in the brain during sleep.That's potentially good news because such garbage(废物) includes a substance linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Evidence of this brain washing emerged in a study on mice.But the finding gave researchers an idea of what may happen in the brains of sleeping people.

A sleep researcher at the University of Wisconsin­Madison, Chiara Cirelli called the new finding “eye­opening and exciting”.

Maiken Nedergaard is a neuroscientist.Her team had been studying a drainage process in the brain that acts like a sewer system(排水系统). What the scientists hadn't expected was to find that this system performs a different role during sleep than it does while animals are awake.As animals slept, fluids began flowing from the brain into the spaces between brain cells.These fluids washed away the junk that had built up while animals were awake.

Other studies had shown that during waking hours, brain cells pump out bits of protein and other substances.The longer someone stays awake, the more litter builds up.That trash includes proteins that gather in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, which causes people to lose the ability to think, learn and remember.

Once mice fell asleep, fluids flowed into their brains.“It was almost like you opened a tap”, Nedergaard said.As the fluid passed through the spaces between brain cells, it washed away the litter.The tap slowed to a trickle(涓流) when mice woke up.

The scientists then looked closely at the brain cells.They found that the cells shrank during slumber(睡眠)—enough to open space through which the fluid can flow freely.When mice were awake, the cells swelled, lessening the fluid's flow.

The newfound house­cleaning activity occurs in a part of the brain that few people study, noted scientist Houzel.“That space between brain cells is usually disregarded.It's considered just space, ”she said.

The new discovery also may help scientists solve an age­old mystery：Why do animals sleep？Every animal does it.Without it, they die, although no one knows why.Some studies suggest that the brain solidifies memories during sleep.However, Nedergaard notes, “You don't die from forgetting what you learned yesterday.”

【推荐3】The world produces around 359 million tons of plastics each year. Plastics are certainly a big problem, but they don’t necessarily have to be. There are many ways we could set plastics on a different lifecycle. One that I have been working on is turning plastics into a hardy, reliable and sustainable building material.

Most people believe that plastics recycling is severely limited: only a few types can be recycled at all. This is unsurprising. The proportion(比例)of plastics that are recycled is minimal. But all polymers(聚合物)are, technologically, recyclable. Some of them can be used again and again to produce the same goods. Some can technically be reprocessed into new materials for different applications.

The problem is that recycling much of this plastic waste is currently unprofitable. But the amount of these materials all over the world is large and keeps on growing. What if this plastic waste could be used to produce something useful to the society? Many universities and business people are attempting to do this. Most solutions target mixed plastic waste and suggest applications different from the original ones. For example, several groups have developed building materials made of plastic waste. Plastics are strong, durable, waterproof, lightweight and recyclable—all key properties for construction materials. So what if all of this plastic waste could be turned into building materials for low-income populations? Existing initiatives are promising, but not yet reproducible on an industrial scale.

I study plastic waste with the aim of finding interesting ways to remove it from the environment. From agricultural waste to concrete waste, mixed with recycled plastics, there are many ways to obtain materials to produce bricks and other useful elements for buildings. So perhaps plastics are not necessarily the problem. They can be part of a pathway towards a more sustainable way of living.