【推荐1】Scientists have learned a lot about the kinds of people need. They say that there are several kinds of food that people should eat every day, they are: (1) green and yellow vegetables of all kinds; (2) citrus (柑桔) fruits and tomatoes; (3) potatoes and other fruits and vegetables; (4) meat of all kinds, fish and eggs; (5) milk and foods made from milk; (6) bread or cereal (谷类), rice is also in this kind of food; (7) butter, or something like butter.

People in different countries and different places of the world eat different kinds of things. Foods are cooked and eaten in many different kinds of ways. People in different countries eat at different times of the day. In some places people eat once or twice a day; in other countries people eat three or four times a day. Scientists say that none of the differences is really important. It doesn’t matter whether foods are eaten raw or cooked, canned (罐装的) or frozen (冷冻的). It doesn’t matter if a person eats dinner at 4 o'clock in the afternoon or at eleven o'clock at night. The important thing is what you eat every day.

There are two problems, then, in feeding the large number of people on the earth. The first is to find some way to feed the world’s population so that no one is hungry. The second is to make sure that people everywhere have the right kinds of food to make them grow to be strong and healthy.

【推荐1】For an industry that thrives (蓬勃发展) on creativity, fashion has been slow to introduce new ideas to reduce its distinctly uncool environmental footprint.

On all three fronts in the planetary crisis — climate change, nature loss and waste—manufacturers and retailers (零售商) of clothing could, and must, do better. Their carbon emissions are huge, thirst for raw materials is unsustainable and waste management systems are rubbish. As just one example, every year we send 350,000 tonnes of clothing to landfill in the UK.

There are growing pockets of green creativity in the industry, but for the most part high-street brands seem to double down on the “fast fashion” business model.

We as consumers must also shoulder a large part of the blame, gladly stuffing our cupboards with cheap, bad and unsustainably produced clothes to be worn a few times and then thrown away. Most people on Earth participate in this wasteful cycle, helping to make clothing one of the most environmentally destructive industries.

Unlike some other damaging consumer choices, such as buying animal products, it isn’t really possible to simply choose out of clothes shopping. But of course there are ways of consuming that are less harmful. If patterns of demand change, such as changing to brands that run buy-back schemes for unwanted clothing, the industry will respond. More powerfully, we can simply choose to wear our clothes for longer. Keeping an article of clothing for an extra year can cut its environmental footprint by 30 per cent.

That, of course, requires a change in our mindsets. But such things can and do happen. A few years ago, plant-based diets were the choice of the unconventional few. Now they are commonplace.

We need the same revolution to happen when it comes to clothing choices. Here’s a make-do-and-mend mindset becoming mainstream—and even fashionable.

【推荐3】On May 7, 2022, Merle Liivand broke her own world record for swimming with a single fin. She swam the distance of a full marathon in the rough waters of Biscayne Bay, Florida. She even picked rubbish out of the water as she swam.

Ms. Liivand was born in Estonia. As a child, she had heat problems, and began swimming to help her lungs get stronger. She was soon taking part in open water swimming contests. In 2011, Ms. Liivand moved to Miami, Florida, where she continued swimming in the ocean. In one training session, she nearly wound up swallowing some plastic that was floating in the sea. That experience made her think of all the sea animals that faced similar pollution every day. She decided she wanted to work to make people more aware of plastic pollution, which she call a “plastic pandemic”.

Ms. Liivand first set the world record for swimming with a monofin (单鳍) in 2019, when she swam 6.2 miles off the coast of California. In 2020, she broke the record again by swimming 12.8 miles, this time in Miami, Florida. In 2021, she set a new Guinness World Record by swimming 18.6 miles, again in Florida. Even though it took her 9 hours and 19 minutes to set that record, Ms. Liivand says she knew she could go farther.

So for the year 2021, Ms. Liivand has been getting up at 4 in the morning every day, putting on her monofin, and going swimming. To help improve her strength, she sometimes seven pulled other people in the water. On May 7, 2022, she broke the record once more. This time she got stung by jellyfish. And she kept telling herself that it was not the time to cry.

To keep her energy up, a friend followed her in a kayak (皮艇) and gave her food and water from time to time. Along the way, Ms. Liivand picked up all the rubbish she found and put it in the kayak. By the end of her marathon, the kayak held three bags full of rubbish.

【推荐1】Eradajere Oleita thinks she may have a partial solution for two of our country’s long-standing problems: garbage and poverty. It’s called The Chip Bag Project. The 26-year-old student and environmentalist from Detroit is asking a favor of local snack lovers: Rather than throw your empty chip bags into the trash, donate them so she can turn them into sleeping bags for the homeless.

Chip eaters drop off their empty bags from Lay’s (乐事公司) at two locations in Detroit: a print shop and a clothing store, where Oleita and her volunteer helpers collect them. After they clean the chip bags in hot soapy water, they slice them open, lay them flat, and iron them together. It takes about four hours to sew a sleeping bag, and each takes around 150 to 300 chip bags, depending on whether it’s single-serve or family-size. “The result is a sleeping bag that is waterproof, lightweight, and easy to carry around.” Oleita told The Detroit News.

Since its start in 2020, The Chip Bag Project has collected more than 800,000 chip bags and, as of last December, it has created 110 sleeping bags. Sure, it would be simpler to raise money to buy new sleeping bags. But that’s only half the goal for Oleita—whose family moved to the United States from Nigeria a decade ago with the hope of attaining a better life—and her fellow volunteers. “We are committed to making an impact not only socially, but also environmentally.” she said.

And, of course, there’s the symbolism of salvaging bags that would otherwise be abandoned in the trash and using them to help the homeless. It’s a powerful reminder that environmental injustice and poverty often go hand in hand. As Oleita told www.hourdetroit.com, “I think it’s time to show connections between these issues.”

【推荐3】Nine-year-old Patches the Dachshund was saved by a 3D-printed skull she received after the removal of an orange-sized tumor (肿瘤).

Patches had a small bump on her head for years. Her owner took her to see vets before ending up in the hands of Dr. Michelle Oblak.

Dr. Oblak had been researching 3D-printing uses for dogs. According to Oblak, a dog in Patches’ situation would need an expensive operation where the animal’s tumor and skull would be removed and then replaced. However, Oblak believed Patches was the ideal candidate to receive it.

Dymeck, Patches’ owner, said that she was hesitant (犹豫的), but the potential to help others convinced her. “They felt she could recover from this,” Dymeck said. “And to be part of research was a big thing for me – if they can learn something from animals to help humans, that’s important.”

The brand new method used to save Patches’ life started with a CT scan of her tumor. Then, Oblak and her team digitally removed the tumor in Patches’ skull. After that, they mapped out what the 3D-printed skull piece would look like and where it would fit on the dog. “There’s little room for error,” Oblak explained. “We’re talking less than two millimeters or else the plate wouldn’t fit.”

After everything was drawn out, Oblak sent the designs over to the 3D-printing company and just two weeks later Patches’ customized skull (定制的头骨) was ready. Then Patches went under the knife. After a four-hour operation, the dog was back to herself. Patches is now cancer-free. She has a scar on her head but it seems like a small price to pay for the life-saving operation.

“Our hope is this is something that could be more widely available on a broad scale,” Oblak said. “It went very well.”