【推荐2】After you finish your fries, eat the ketchup packet. When you add your pasta to boiling waler, put the bag into the pot, too. If these instructions sound confusing to you, it’s only because you haven’t yet heard of Notpla, a London-based startup company that is designing a seaweed-based replacement for single-use plastic packaging. Notpla design director Karlijn Sibbel says they look lo nature as inspiration for the ideal packaging like the skin on a fruit. “A peel will eventually be used as nutrients by nature, and disappear and become a part of the cycle.” she said.

According to the UN, 9.15 billion tons of plastic has been produced since the early 1950s, and about 60% has been land-filled or abandoned outdoors. Micro-plastics, which are often the result of larger plastics breaking down, pollute the ocean, the air and our bodies. Over the past few years, there has been a growing movement against single-use plastics as many experts have argued the products are unnecessary and harmful. In the US, some places have taken action: New York banned most plastic shopping bags, and in Miami Beach, plastic straws have been outlawed. “Overseas, the European Union put a broad ban on single-use plastics into effect this summer.” the government announced in August.

Notpla’s founders, Rodrigo Garoia González and Pierre Paslie, initially looked to seaweed as the solution to the world’s plastic problem because “it is abundant, grows quickly, doesn’t compete with land crops.” Sibbel explained. There are also many different seaweed species, and it can be harvested or farmed. Seaweed doesn’t use land; it doesn’t use pesticides. It can grow into the ocean and the sea, where it actually has a lot of positive benefits so it can create new ecosystems for other organisms to thrive in.

“As they scale up, Notpla’s team hopes seaweed could replace single-use plastic in the supply chain more broadly.” Sibbel said. But with the volume of plastics used around the world, she understands the enormity (巨大) of such a task. “I don’t think one material or one solution is going to solve everything, but we think that seaweed really ticks the right boxes.” she said.

【推荐3】Malin Pinsky had the first of two lightbulb moments in 2003 while crossing Drake Passage. He was then standing on the bridge of a research ship and was scanning the sky for seabirds, which was one of his duties as a research technician on the cruise (海上航游). Just five months earlier he had finished college, where he studied biology and environmental science.

As the ship entered nutrient-rich Antarctic waters, whales suddenly showed up all around the ship. That moment on the bridge helped him realize that the ocean looks featureless from the top, but there’s so much going on underneath.

The second lightbulb moment hit him several months later. Pinsky was then an intern (实习生) in Washington, D.C. His job was making photocopies. It was around the time when two big reports had come out. Both focused on what policies might best preserve U.S. ocean resources. “I realized we have all these laws and policies that determine how we as a society interact with the ocean. But they’re far out of date. We don’t yet have the science to know what the new policy should be,” Pinsky said.

Today he runs a lab with about 20 workers. His team wants to seek how our changing climate, as well as overfishing and habitat destruction, might be driving changes in fish and other animals in the sea. To find out, team members travel each year to coral reefs near the Philippines. There, they carefully catalog populations of different fish. They collect data on the growth and mating of these fish, their diversity and other factors.

“Pinsky’s broad approach to the problem — looking at species, where they live and how fisheries are managed — is setting the pace for other scientists,” says Kimberly Oremus, a fishery economist at the University of Delaware in Newark. “Pinsky is pushing the whole field to respond to his growing body of research.”

【推荐3】Despite his complex mind, Einstein was known to be a lot of fun. You must have seen his iconic (标志性的) photo, but you might not know the backstory. The photo was taken by Arthur Sasse, on March 14, 1951, Einstein’s seventy-second birthday. In the photo, we can see Einstein sitting in a car, between his wife, Elsa, and Dr. Frank Aydelotte, the head of the Institute for Advanced Study.

The story goes that as they were leaving his birthday celebration for their home in Princeton, New Jersey, Einstein was repeatedly asked to smile at the camera. But when Snsse asked for one last photo he made a funny face. Einstein liked the resulting image so much, that he immediately ordered multiple copies so he could sign and send them to friends as a joke. Later on, he used this photo to make greeting cards.

Einstein rarely let others get in the way of his fun. He was quick to joke. He rarely wore socks thinking that the shoes should do the job. He let his mustache and hair grow and gave interviews on his porch (门廊) in pink slippers. His commitment to fun ran deep — and yet when Sasse sent his photo to editors for publication, they debated whether it was even appropriate to make it public, given Einstein’s eminence. It only saw the light of day because Sasse related how much the great scientist himself loved the image.

According to Walter Isaacson’s biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe, the personalities that contributed most to Einstein’s greatness were curiosity and non-conformism (不墨守成规). Scientific Lo studies suggest that humor and intelligence are associated. People who show a gift for lun also seem have superior cognitive abilities. Fun has so many levels. The best part is that no matter what fun means to you, it can lead you to stand out from the ordinary.

【推荐2】There is no magic method for living longer and better. But a certain character makes getting older a lot more meaningful: having an open mind and heart.

David Starbuck, an archaeologist (考古学家), continues digging up history in New York despite a diagnosis (诊断) of cancer. Last August, a doctor told 70-year-old David Starbuck he had cancer, and that he had only six months to one year to live. David had a ready comeback. “I would prove that the doctor wrong and live for years,” he says. “It's the stubborn (固执的) ones who survive. We, archaeologists, are like that. I live for whatever I will discover next.”

For the past three decades. David has devoted his life to the dig of one of North America's most important eighteenth-century sites. Fort Edward, near Glens Falls, New York. You might think that the archaeologists would be satisfied resting on their laurels. “A lot of archaeologists never want to retire,” he says. “We are programmed toward the love of discovery.” In addition to directing yearly digs at Fort Edward and nearby Rogers Island, David keeps busy writing research reports and laying the groundwork for what he hopes will become a visitor-friendly site at Fort Edward. “Some people have families to live for,” he says. “I live for archaeology.” David has published almost twenty books and been written up in newspapers and magazines.

“Archaeologists are storytellers,” he says. A single small artifact (手工艺品) can tell us about a whole world from the past. “It's no longer abstract history. You are connecting with someone from hundreds of years ago.” Finding and sharing these moments keeps David alive-physically and spiritually. “The best site,” he says, “is always the one you are

【推荐3】World famous physicist Stephen Hawking died peacefully at his home in Cambridge on March 14th, 2018.

Hawking was born in Oxford, England on January 8th, 1942. He went to school in a small city near London. As he himself admitted, he wasn’t very serious about studying. He did very little work, he was never top of his class. However, he still achieved good marks. After leaving school, Hawking first went to Oxford University to study physics. Then he went to Cambridge University to study cosmology (宇宙学).

At the age of 21, Hawking noticed something wrong with him. He had a bad illness that stopped him from moving and talking. He couldn’t communicate except by blinking (眨眼). He sat on a wheelchair with a computer by his side. To communicate with others, he moved two fingers to control the computer’s mouse. He chose his words from the screen, which were then spoken by a voice synthesizer (音响合成器). “I’ve had the disease for most of my life,” Hawking once said, “Yet it has not stopped me from being successful at my work.”

Although Hawking was a disabled man, he made great achievements. He received many awards and prizes for his work, including the Albert Einstein Award—the highest achievement in physics.

Hawking worked at Cambridge University as a professor. His story shows that nobody, however bad their situation is, should lose hope. “Life is not fair,” he once said, “You just have to do the best you can in your own situation.”