【推荐1】Artificial intelligence is being introduced to match NHS hospital patients with home carers, meaning they can be discharged (出院)five times faster than before.

The software, developed by the care provider Cera, contains a database of thousands of social care staff including their availability, location, specific qualifications and language. NHS staff uploads details of patients needing social care and within minutes, the software finds and notifies the most suitable people available via an app. Cera launched the AI tool last month in five NHS regions, covering a population of a million. Dr Ben Maruthappu, a former A&E doctor who is founder and CEO of Cera, said that the technology was a big leap forward in releasing and reducing NHS pressure by freeing beds.

He said, “Every day someone is in hospital when they could be home, which costs the NHS about £1,500. Patients want to be at home, not in a hospital bed. One of the reasons why they aren’t discharged in a timely way is that care providers aren’t able to organise the care quickly enough. Every day tens of thousands of patients need to be matched up with tens of thousands of carers.”

“Organising this carer-patient match just depending on people’s effort is a very complicated process, which is time-consuming and not efficient. Nonetheless, by using AI to tackle this issue, we can rapidly match carers to patients on the same day.”

The platform is being introduced at seven new “digital areas” run by Cera. It operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, unlike the current discharge system which often stops over weekends. Cera employs more than 10,000 staff, delivering 50,000 appointments a day.

The AI takes into account a patient’s specific needs. For example, if they have dementia or do not speak English, it matches them with the most suitable carer. It also schedules visits, aiming to ensure continuity of care, with patients seeing the same carer over and over.

【推荐3】Researchers may have found a way to keep plants from dying of thirst. They developed a soil additive (添加剂). It will steal water from the air to share with plants.

Their invention is a super-moisture-absorbent gel (SMAG高吸海凝胶). It absorbs water from the air during the night. When the sun warms it the next day, that gel releases its accumulated water into the root zone of the plants.

Guihua Yu, an engineer at the University of Texas at Austin, led the team that developed the gel. The gel mixed with soil absorbs water and holds it. The next day, rather than allowing it to evaporate (蒸发), the gel instead slowly releases that water into the soil.

The engineers tested the soil additive to grow carrots. During an experiment, they compared carrots grown in sandy soil alone with carrots grown in sandy soil that had been mixed with the get.The gel-treated soil lost about 60 percent of the water after about a month. In contrast, the untreated soil lost 80 percent of its water in just one week.

Jeff Hattey is a soil scientist. He says similar additives have been used in potting soil for many years. He says the gel works in a similar way. "The big questions for me are first, how much SMAG-soil would you have to use? How long does it last once it's in the soil?"

Yu believes future studies will help his team understand if the gel could be used for larger, outdoor fields. If it can, the water in the air could allow crops to be grown in dryer cli-males, where irrigation is not practical. It shouldn't hurt the bacteria or worms that are needed to keep soil healthy for growing things. The gel also should pose no risks if it washes into lakes or streams. The research team hopes to confirm that in the near future.

【推荐1】If a cat or dog shares your house, I’ll guess that you don’t refer to the four-footed family member who licks(舔) your face and sleeps on your bed as “it”. You probably call them by a name, and refer to them as “he” or “she”.

A group of more than 80 people, including Dr. Jane Goodall, have signed a letter calling on the editors of the Associated Press Stylebook to rewrite their guidance so that animals in news stories would be recognized as “she/her/hers and he/him/his when their sex is known, and they, or he/she, or his/hers when their sex is unknown.” News organizations often follow the guidance of the AP Stylebook. The signers of this letter hope that when we write about animals in zoos, fields, farms, forests, seas and labs, they are recognized as living beings who feel hunger, fear, happiness and pain. “This update would reflect the fact that animals have feelings, and encourage people to respect and protect them and their rights and interests, and to shape a fairer world,” says Jane.

Ben Dreyer, copy chief at Random House, says thoughtful adjustments to our language don’t have to wait for a stylebook. “Writers should write the way they see fit to write,” he says. “The so-called genderless(无性别的) ‘he’ for example is now a thing of the past because writers haven’t used it.”

Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit and other best-selling books, tells us that if we don’t refer to animals in a personal way, we open ourselves to ignoring and abusing(虐待) creatures whose ability of suffering is no less than our own. “We form beautiful relationships with them, and we place animals on a moral plane alongside ourselves and far above that of the stone or the cap, the things we call ‘it’.” she says.

【推荐2】Fiji has become the first country in the Pacific to recognize“waste pickers”,who collect, repurpose and sell rubbish, as environmental champions.

Who are “waste pickers”? These workers are usually women, children and migrants(移民)living in bad conditions. The job comes with many health risks, as workers are exposed to pollutants and poisonous materials,and those who work at open dumps(垃圾场)face risks caused by trucks, fires and surface falls.

They remove millions of tons of CO each year from landfills, yet they are often looked down on and treated poorly. Talking to ABC News, Tikitoro from Fiji said that her children are made fun of at school. “The students laugh and point at them” she shared.

How is Fiji responding? On July 20, 2022, in Lautoka, Fiji recognized the environmental benefits that these workers are providing. Thirty women who took part in informal waste picking were officially registered, given bank accounts and provided with protective gear to make their jobs safer.

A new name was also created for these workers: Collection Pillars of Recycling, The name came from a workshop organized with International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre and the Pacific Recycling Foundation.

Amitesh Deo, founder of the Pacific Recycling Foundation, told the Fiji. Their workshop was about human rights，education,legal literacy and financial literacy. One of the key findings in that workshop was the stigma(污名)attached to waste picking, and one of the contributors to the stigma was the name ‘‘informal waste pickers’’.

With around 20 million people picking waste for a living around the world, it is important that they are treated with respect and recognized for the highly valuable work that they do.