【推荐1】Great Barrier Reef Choking on Pollutants

Attempts to protect the Great Barrier Reef are failing. A report released Monday by the government in Australia says water quality in the Great Barrier Reef is far below what it should be. It showed that pollution have decreased, but not enough to reach environmental targets.

Sediment (沉淀物) and chemicals can weaken coral, hurting its ability to feed and grow. Coral are live animals that take root in the ocean floor, but they are not plants. Reefs are the hard skeletons (骨架) left at the bottom of the sea by small marine creatures called polyps (珊瑚虫). The polyps then form the larger structure of a reef. Corals also are some of the most diverse ecosystems on the entire planet. They can make a home for invertebrates, crustaceans, fish, and sea snakes.

Steve Miles is Queensland’s environment minister. He says the research shows the Reef needs more protection. “Over that five-year period, we did see some progress towards our targets. Sediment is down 12 percent and pesticides (杀虫剂) loads are down 30 percent. But what is most disturbing is that these results are far from our targets. Progress towards these targets flat-lined in the period 2013-2014. If one of my kids came home with a report card like this, I would be a bit disappointed. There is more bad news here than good news. ” said Steve Miles.

The report also found that fewer than one-third of Queensland’s sugar plantations used techniques to reduce the use of pesticides. Only 28 percent of land managers managed their land properly. They had reduced harmful water run off to protect the health of the Reef. The official target is a 90 percent reduction in pesticide use within three years.

Scientists at the University of Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences published their findings Wednesday, July 18 in the journal Science Advances. It found between 1992 and 2010, the recovery rate dropped by an average of 84 percent. But there is hope. The study also found some corals can recover quickly if “acute and chronic stressors” are lessened.

Meanwhile, the Australian government released its updated reef protection plan Friday. It clearly states global temperatures must be stopped from rising in order to save the world’s largest living structure.

【推荐2】About 97% of the world’s water is salty and is found in our oceans and seas. But, as we can’t drink sea water, how can it be important?

Every part of our seas and oceans contains an amazing number of animals and fish that live at different ocean depths. Most of the different species of animals and fish depend on simple plants for their food. These simple plants called algae (海藻) drift near the surface of the ocean and use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into food and oxygen. In fact, algae produce over half of the oxygen people breathe. How important sea water is!

Each plant or animal in our seas and oceans is an important link in a food chain. The algae are eaten in large amounts by microscopic animals, which are in tur consumed by larger animals. These food chains are delicately (微妙地) balanced.

The bad news about the food chains in the oceans is that they are under threat because of man. People once thought that the oceans were so big that it didn’t matter if we dumped rubbish into them or caught huge quantities of fish and whales for food. But we now know this is not true and fish stocks in the oceans have started to drop.

Thankfully, the world is taking steps to protect the future of our oceans by introducing international agreements to protect marine habitats. Most counties have introduced fishing restrictions (限制) to protect fish stocks in the oceans and new techniques are being pioneered to cope with pollution. Finally, the importance of protecting oceans is being made known to more people. This is just the beginning of a long process to protect the oceans for our future. We depend on the oceans for fish which are an important part of the human diet. How important sea water is!

【推荐3】Zulema Munoz collects seaweed in a small coastal town 100 miles south of Santiago, Chile. A good week may see her cut 1,100 pounds of seaweed from the rocks where it grows.

Muftoz is one of the 30, 000 people for whom Chilean seaweed industry provides a livelihood. Throughout Latin America, the cultivation (种植) and collection of seaweed are gaining a support both as a source of food and as a means of ensuring food security in a region where 34 million people are food insecure and poverty affects 47 percent of the rural population. Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela have all explored seaweed production for food. Yet as demand outpaces production and wild stocks have declined， more attention is being paid to sustainable cultivation and harvesting methods that can keep the industry surviving.

Seaweed has a long history in South American style of cooking. The native cooking of Chile made frequent use of cochayuyo, the most abundant of the country 750 types of seaweed. Today, cochayuyo is commonly found in place of meat incharquican, a traditional dish cooked slowly in a closed pan.

Kelp, a type of large brown seaweed, as the new vegetable is a global trend too, and for good reason. Nutritionally, seaweed is packed with iodine and other nutrients, and appears on trend-making menus in Google's New York cafeteria, though it used to be thought difficult to get people to eat it.

While 83 percent of cultivated sea vegetables are produced for human consumption, we aren’t just eating it. Seaweed is used in fertilizers and animal feed, and seaweed-based food additives are likely in many products in your kitchen and bathroom right now. Carrageenan, made from red seaweed, is in everything from shampoo and toothpaste to ice cream and some hot dogs.

While seaweed grows readily—there are concerns that humans are taking too much of the wild stuff. It is possible that overexploitation of natural seaweed resources could lead to significant ecological, economic, and social consequences at local, regional, and even global scales. In Latin American countries like Brazil and Peru, where the seaweed industry is based on harvesting wild seaweed rather than cultivated, the need for environmentally friendly models is urgent.

【推荐2】We’ve all experienced that feeling that comes when your phone makes a sound to tell you that its battery level is low. It often comes at the worst times – when you’re out on a trip and don’t have a charger, or when you’re expecting an important phone call.

Indeed, this feeling is so common that South Korean electronics manufacturer LG has given it a name: low battery anxiety.

According to a survey of 2,000 US adults conducted by the company last year, 90 percent of respondents said that they panic if their battery level reaches 20 percent or lower.

And last month, UK telecommunications service provider 02 found that around 15.5 million Britons live in “constant fear” of their mobile phones running out of power, according to a survey by the company.

“The problem is not about being unable to make calls, but is rooted in the fact that smartphones are now where we store digital memories,” noted the Daily Mail.

However, battery worries don’t just affect smartphone lovers. Many owners of electric vehicles also suffer from so-called “range anxiety”. This refers to the concern that the vehicle may not make it to its destination before the power runs out.

Meanwhile, it isn’t just low power that people worry about. A study carried out by South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan University and China’s City University of Hong Kong found that many of us also worry about not having constant access to our phone.

This condition is known as nomophobia, short for “no mobile phone phobia（恐惧症）”. Symptoms include feeling uncomfortable when access to one’s phone isn’t possible, being unable to turn off your phone, and constantly topping up the battery to make sure it never dies.

So, why do so many people treat their smartphone with such importance? The underlying reason may be that they keep us connected to the people around us, and if we’re unable to use our phone, we feel like we’re cut off from our social life.

With products with bigger batteries being released all the time though - such as Xiaomi’s Mi Max smartphone range or Tesla’s Model S cars – battery anxiety may hopefully soon be a thing of the past.

【推荐3】Two new studies have investigated why fewer women, compared to men, study and work in the so-called STEM subjects in the United States: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The American Association of University Women(AAUW) examined existing research. Its report “Why So Few?” suggested ways to interest more girls and women in the STEM fields. The researchers found that cultural and environmental factors make a difference.

Researcher Christiane Corbett says more boys than girls score very high on math tests in most countries, but Iceland and Thailand are exceptions. “This is something that we point out in our report—that cultural factors and societal factors can make a difference in who achieves at the very high levels and whether girls are achieving or not.”

Another study carried out by the Campos Company for the Bayer Corporation in the United States asked more than 1,000 women and minority members of the American Chemical Society about their experiences. 77% said not enough women and minorities are working in STEM today, because they were not encouraged to study those subjects in school.

The study, producing results similar to the AAUW research showed there’s still a lot of work to be done. “They say their interest in science begins before the age of eleven. So we need programs that get in front of kids while they’re young in elementary school.”

Increasing diversity in professions leads to better products, better science. And developing this science and engineering workforce is important to the nation’s economic development.

“No matter what career you go into, whether it’s accounting, human resources or science career, it’s important that you can think creatively, you can work in teams, you can adapt to change and that’s important for everybody,” says Rebecca Lucore.

【推荐1】An immigrant is a person living in country that is not their own, often in a culture with which they are not familiar. There are, of course, translation and interpretation services available to recently arrived minority groups in most host countries. However, it is more important to provide motivations for language learning for immigrants to accelerate their integration.

The language barrier increases intercultural misunderstandings. Those seeking work are at a disadvantage due to subjective factors such as employers fearing migrants are unable to learn a trade because of language problems. In workplaces where the majority of employees are from the same linguistic background, which is other than the host language, there is the danger of apathy setting in and it is therefore necessary to encourage immigrants to take advantage of whatever language tuition not only to help integration but to achieve self-improvement.

The general tendency is to acknowledge that the government should provide money for the teaching of the language. The British Advisory Board on Naturalization and Integration stated that some of the pressure for English language classes could be reduced by employers taking responsibility for the language needs of migrant workers. As for their children, a high percentage speak languages at home other than that of their country of adoption which increases the burden on schools to provide an adequate standard of linguistic education.

The goal is for immigrants to become “anonymous”. For example, many Turks in Germany have lost their “visibility” as poor workers to become “invisible”---thus not immediately recognized as foreigners--- but as professionals (doctors, engineers, etc.).

Apart from the responsibility of governments and education authorities, the duty also lies with the individual migrant families. Of course they should not lose sight of their own cultural identity and cross-cultural exchanges should be promoted to improve the understanding between immigrants and the host population. At the same time, parents must be ready to adapt to their new situation and not influence their children who, through the host country education system, will learn the language quicker and wish to integrate into the local society.