【推荐1】Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is road testing a new way to keep winter roads ice-free — by spreading on them cheese brine, the salty liquid used to make soft cheese, like mozzarella.

Wisconsin, also called “America’s Dairyland”, is famous for its cheese. The state produced 2.8 billion pounds of cheese last year! a result, there was a lot of leftover cheese brine. Disposing of(处置)the brine can be expensive. So what should cheese makers do with the waste?

Normally, towns use rock salt to de-ice streets. The salt lowers waters’ freezing point, causing ice to melt (融化). But using cheese brine could help both cheese producers and cities save money, while keeping roads safe. Cheese brine has salt in it, which, like the rock salt, helps lower water’s freezing point.

In addition to saving money, cheese brine could also be a more environment-friendly option. Many people suspect that all the rock salt used every winter is harming the environment.

Rock salt is made of sodium chloride, the sane con-pound (化合物) in ordinary table salt. Sounds harmless, right? But while you probably add only a small amount of salt to your food, road crews spread about 20 million tons of salt on U.S. Roads every year!

The chemical washes off roads and goes into the ground. There it can pollute drinking water, harm plants. and eat away soil. By spreading cheese brine on streets before adding a layer of rock salt, Milwaukee may be able to cut its rock salt use by 30 percent.

Cheese brine has a downside too — a shell similar to that of bad milk. “I don’t really mind it,” Emil Norby told Modern Farmer magazine. He works for one of Wisconsin’s county highway commissions and came up with the idea of using cheese brine. “Our roads smell like Wisconsin!” he said.

【推荐2】The United States rose to global power on the strength of its technology, and the lifeblood of that technology has long been electricity. By providing long-distance communication and energy, electricity created the modern world. Yet properly understood, the age of electricity is merely the second stage in the age of steam, which began a century earlier.

“It is curious that no one has put together a history of both the steam and electric revolutions.”writes Maury Klein in his book The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America. Klein, a noted historian of technology, spins a narrative (叙述) so lively that at times it reads like a novel.

The story begins in the last years of the 18th century in Scotland, where Watt perfected “the machine that changed the world”. Klein writes,“America did not invent the steam engine, but once they grasped its possibility they put it to more uses than anyone else.”                                

Meanwhile, over the course of 19th century, electricity went from mere curiosity to a basic necessity. Morse invented a code for sending messages over an electromagnetic circuit. Bell then gave the telegraph a voice. Edison perfected an incandescent bulb (白炽灯泡) that brought electric light into the American home.

Most importantly, Edison realized that success depended on mass electrification,which he showed in New York City. With help from Tesla,Westinghouse’s firm developed a system using alternating current (交流电), which soon became the major form of power delivery.

To frame his story, Klein creates the character of Ned, a fictional witness to the progress brought about by the steam and electric revolutions in America during one man’s lifetime. It’s a technique that helps turn a long narrative into an interesting one.

【推荐3】The Intelligent Transport team at Newcastle University have turned an electric car into a mobile laboratory named “DriveLAB” in order to understand the challenges faced by older drivers and to discover where the key stress points are.

Research shows that giving up driving is one of the key reasons for a fall in health and well-being among older people, leading to them becoming more isolated (隔绝) and inactive.

Led by Professor Phil Blythe, the Newcastle team are developing in-vehicle technologies for older drivers which they hope could help them to continue driving into later life.

These include custom-made navigation (导航) tools, night vision systems and intelligent speed adaptations. Phil Blythe explains: “For many older people, particularly those living alone or in the country, driving is important for preserving their independence, giving them the freedom to get out and about without having to rely on others.”

“But we all have to accept that as we get older our reactions slow down and this often results in people avoiding any potentially challenging driving conditions and losing confidence in their driving skills. The result is that people stop driving before they really need to.”

Dr Amy Guo, the leading researcher on the older driver study, explains, “The DriveLAB is helping us to understand what the key points and difficulties are for older drivers and how we might use technology to address these problems.

“For example, most of us would expect older drivers always go slower than everyone else but surprisingly, we found that in 30mph zones they struggled to keep at a constant speed and so were more likely to break the speed limit and be at risk of getting fined. We’re looking at the benefits of systems which control their speed as a way of preventing that.

“We hope that our work will help with technological solutions (解决方案) to ensure that older drivers stay safer behind the wheel.”

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【推荐2】New bio-plastics are being made in laboratories from straw, wood chips and food waste, with researchers aiming to replace oil as the source of the world’s plastic.

The new approaches include genetically modifying bacteria to eat wood and produce useful chemicals. But the bio-plastics are currently significantly more expensive to make than fossil fuel-based plastics.

Land and seas around the world, from high mountains to deep oceans, have become polluted with plastic, prompting major public concern. The world has produced 8bn tons of plastic since the 1950s and demand is still rising.

While some waste plastic is recycled, much of it is burnt to produce electricity, resulting in carbon emissions that drive climate change. In contrast to plastic made from oil, plastics made from plant-based materials only release the carbon the plants absorbed from the air as they grew. Bio-plastics will also give more options for products that biodegrade (生物降解) in the environment, although they can be made very long-lasting if required.

“Plastics are an incredible enhancement to our daily lives,” said Paul Mines, CEO of Biome Technologies in the UK, which has spent t5m in the last five years on bio-plastics research. “But we can’t go on using fossil fuel-based materials. About 6-7% of every barrel (桶) of oil is used to make plastics.”

“Using plant materials is feasible,” said professor Simon, at the University of York. “Replacing half of the nation’s plastic bottles could be done using just 3% of the sugar beet crop, 5% of wheat straw or 2.5% of food waste,” he said.

Currently, just a few thousand tons of bio-plastic are used in the UK each year, compared to millions of tons of conventional plastic. Mines said this could rise to about 20,000 tons in the next five years.

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【推荐3】Two hundred years ago, the clock began to control the world of work. Paid on the basis of how many hours they worked, people rushed to and from work.

The clock’s power may at last be weakening. Flexible working existed well before the pandemic?(疫情). Now remote working has brought a greater degree of freedom. A survey of 4,700 home-workers across six countries conducted by Slack, a corporate-messaging firm, found that flexible working was viewed very positively, improving both people’s worksite balance and productivity. Flexible workers even scored more highly on a sense of belonging to their organization than those on a nine-to-five schedule.

It is hardly surprising that workers prefer flexibility. Working an eight-hour schedule is restricting. Those are also the hours when most shops are open, and when doctors will take appointments. Parents on a conventional routine may be able to take their children to school in the morning but are unlikely to be able to pick them up in the afternoon.

It is also not astonishing that home-workers feel they are more productive. After all, few people can concentrate for eight hours on end. There are points in the day where people feel like staring out of the window or going for a walk; these may be moments when they find inspiration or recharge themselves for the next task. When they do this in an office, they risk the boss’s disapproval; at home, they can work when they are most motivated.

What is striking about Slack’s study is the widespread support for home-working. Overall Just 12% of the workers surveyed wanted to return to a normal office schedule. In America black, Asian and Hispanic employees were even more enthusiastic than their white colleagues. Women with children were generally happy about it, reporting an improvement in their work-life balance.

Of course, the new schedule carries dangers: people may lose all separation between work and home life. To maintain some human contact, companies may adopt a mixed model in which workers go into the office for part of the week. But overall office-workers’ freedom is to be welcomed. The clock was a crud master and many people will be happy to escape its control.

【推荐1】Zero waste was a radical lifestyle movement a few years back. I remember showing my parents a video of Bea Johnson, sharing how cool I thought it would be to buy groceries with jars, and have so little trash! A few days later, I came back with my first jars of zero waste groceries, and my dad commented on how silly it was for me to carry jars everywhere. It came off as a bit discouraging.

Yet as the months of reducing waste continued, I did what I could that was within my own reach. I had my own bedroom, so I worked on removing things I didn’t need. Since I had my own toiletries (洗漱用品), I was able to start personalising my routine to be more sustainable. I also offered to cook every so often, so I portioned out a bit of the cupboard for my own zero waste groceries. Perhaps your household won’t entirely make the switch, but you may have some control over your own personal spaces to make the changes you desire.

As you make your lifestyle changes, you may find yourself wanting to speak up for yourself if others comment on what you’re doing, which can turn itself into a whole household debate. If you have individuals who are not on board, your words probably won’t do much and can often leave you feeling more discouraged.

So here is my advice: Lead by action.

【推荐2】Preparing Cities for Robot Cars

The possibility of self-driving robot cars has often seemed like a futurist’s dream, years away from materializing in the real world. Well, the future is apparently now. The California Department of Motor Vehicles began giving permits in April for companies to test truly self-driving cars on public roads. The state also cleared the way for companies to sell or rent out self-driving cars, and for companies to operate driverless taxi services. California, it should be noted, isn’t leading the way here. Companies have been testing their vehicles in cities across the country. It’s hard to predict when driverless cars will be everywhere on our roads. But however long it takes, the technology has the potential to change our transportation systems and our cities, for better or for worse, depending on how the transformation is regulated.

While much of the debate so far has been focused on the safety of driverless cars (and rightfully so), policymakers also should be talking about how self-driving vehicles can help reduce traffic jams, cut emissions (排放) and offer more convenient, affordable mobility options. The arrival of driverless vehicles is a chance to make sure that those vehicles are environmentally friendly and more shared.

Do we want to copy — or even worsen — the traffic of today with driverless cars? Imagine a future where most adults own individual self-driving vehicles. They tolerate long, slow journeys to and from work on packed highways because they can work, entertain themselves or sleep on the ride, which encourages urban spread. They take their driverless car to an appointment and set the empty vehicle to circle the building to avoid paying for parking. Instead of walking a few blocks to pick up a child or the dry cleaning, they send the self-driving minibus. The convenience even leads fewer people to take public transport — an unwelcome side effect researchers have already found in ride-hailing (叫车) services.

A study from the University of California at Davis suggested that replacing petrol-powered private cars worldwide with electric, self-driving and shared systems could reduce carbon emissions from transportation 80% and cut the cost of transportation infrastructure (基础设施) and operations 40% by 2050. Fewer emissions and cheaper travel sound pretty appealing. The first commercially available driverless cars will almost certainly be fielded by ride-hailing services, considering the cost of self-driving technology as well as liability and maintenance issues (责任与维护问题). But driverless car ownership could increase as the prices drop and more people become comfortable with the technology.

Policymakers should start thinking now about how to make sure the appearance of driverless vehicles doesn’t extend the worst aspects of the car-controlled transportation system we have today. The coming technological advancement presents a chance for cities and states to develop transportation systems designed to move more people, and more affordably. The car of the future is coming. We just have to plan for it.

What is the author’s attitude to the future of self-driving cars?