【推荐1】The idea of billions of people going through a few masks a week during this pandemic definitely rings alarm bells, but a team of researchers in Melbourne may have the solution.

They’ve discovered that adding millions of discarded face masks to road-paving (铺路) mixtures would actually lower the cost of the road, while preventing billions of them from landfills. Just one kilometer of road would need three million masks, and the polypropylene (聚丙烯) plastic used to make single-use surgical face masks also increased the flexibility and durability of the road.

The new material is a mixture of about 2% torn masks, with recycled concrete aggregate (RCA)—a material obtained from waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. This recycled material was found in the study to be ideal for two of the four layers generally required to create roadways. Paving a kilometer of two-way road with the RCA and three million face masks would result in a change of 93 tons of waste from landfills.

The final product then is more resistant to wear than asphalt (沥青), as well as being cheaper too, provided there was a method for collecting masks. The research team did a cost-analysis and found that, at $26 per ton, the RCA was about half the cost of mining raw materials, and as much as a third of the cost of shipping the used masks to a landfill.

The widespread application would be ideal for large infrastructure (基础设施) projects. For example, Washington has the 11th worst roads in terms of unaddressed repairs in the U.S. If the damaged roads in Washington state were repaired with the RCA/mask mixture, it would reuse nearly 10 billion masks, sparing American landfills hundreds of millions of tons of trash.

It’s said that the team is looking for private industry partners or governments willing to give their plastic mask road an opportunity for a large-scale test.

【推荐3】It’s increasingly becoming clear that depression and insomnia(失眠)are often linked as interrelated disorders, and that they are often related in a variety of ways. In fact, some scientists have gone so far as to suggest that medical practitioners should be wary of diagnosing depression without evidence of sleep complaints by the individual.

According to a study from Harvard Health, as many as 75% of individuals with depression suffered from insomnia while 69% of people with insomnia also struggled with depression later on, suggesting that the two disorders often go hand in hand. Issues with sleep due to depression can happen in various ways, including changes to sleep regulation processes or side effects of prescription medicine. This, in turn, may worsen symptoms of depression, but experts note that depressive disorders without insomnia or other sleep disorders are increasingly rare.

Both depression and insomnia are common disorders that cause people some disturbance worldwide. When dealing with either of these issues, the person can have difficulty maintaining a good quality of life. Scientists estimate that 40% of Americans will struggle with insomnia at one point in their life, while an estimated 17.3 million U.S. adults will deal with the symptoms of a major depression episode at least once per year.

But the good news is that treating one condition may improve symptoms of both. “You don’t need to rush off to see a specialist; but there are other things we can do to take care of ourselves.” says Dr. Chisholm. “Physical exercise is very important for good sleep and protective against depression, as are healthy eating habits and staying off alcohol. Make sure you stay active and go back to the things that interest you and give you pleasure. Opening up to a trusted friend about your struggles with insomnia or a depressed mood may also help. And sleeping pills should be taken only for a short time, if at all, because you may develop a dependence. Plus, the medicine won’t address underlying causes of your insomnia.”

【推荐1】It’s no surprise that wasting things is a nightmare for the environment — everything that we eat, wear, and consume takes up natural resources.When it comes to food waste, the environment has a double whammy — water, packaging,transportation,and agricultural resources get used up, and leftover sandwich or expired (过期的) broccoli you bought in hopes of healthy eating releases greenhouse gases as it decomposes in a landfill.

A new study from the UN Environment Program has found that a fair amount of food may never reach our mouth. Some get lost in production process, but it is mostly households that are to blame: the major waste results from our kitchen. 11 percent of the food in our fridges ends up in the trash, compared to a mere 2 and 5 percent respectively, from grocery stores and fast-food restaurants. These data madden almost half of the world’s population who are still struggling for healthy food. But surprisingly, the new study found that even less-developed countries are guilty of astonishing food waste, which is previously being thought of only as a rich-nation issue.

So what can we do? Something crucial is being more considered and prepared when going to the grocery store. Make a list of meals you want to cook, and then only buy fresh produce that you will 100 percent be eating in the next few days.

Societally, enhancing education on food preservation, food recycling and composting (堆肥), and pushing companies to sell smaller quantities food for one or two persons could all play a helpful role in bringing down the massive pile of food waste, says Edward Jaenicke, a professor of agricultural economics.

While some climate change related issues seem above our individual choices to solve, like the sea level rise,food waste is something we can actually make an impact on, by shopping smart, learning how to compost, and even getting creative with ingredients in the kitchen.We can actually make a difference by making some efforts or good choices or even changes in life.

【推荐3】Some people say that we are reading less than ever. In a sense, that’s true, at least for certain forms of writing. However, you might be reading a lot more than you think.

Although printed publications (出版物) still enjoy large sales, you can read many of the same materials online. Some books, magazines and journals can be found online. Blogs and other information resources (资源) can also be easily found. There are lots of materials to read on computer screens.

Reading habits are generally measured by the number of minutes spent in reading. You can also measure these habits by the number of pages. You might think that new television channels and online games, along with the Web surfing, might make people read less. The Internet does influence reading, but the results may be a bit of a surprise.

The Internet has influenced people’s reading habits. However, the time spent in reading books for pleasure doesn’t change a lot, although people are managing to read fewer books every year. In addition, many magazines and newspapers can be read online at any time. Many publications that are weekly or monthly in print form are updated (更新) much more quickly on the Web.

There’s no doubt that online reading has changed what we read and how long we read, and now we read most things less carefully. However, when you consider how much we read, we are still doing a lot. The biggest change is that the medium that we use to read has changed.