【推荐1】Daily life has its satisfactions: The perfect reply to a friend’s text message; The first after-work drink; The sound of another government U-turn. But do any really compare to the joy of going to sleep? That moment when the mess of 21st-century existence disappears into the non-judgmental hug of a bed?

Somehow we have pushed this pleasure to the back of the queue. A third of American adults report sleeping less than the recommended seven hours. Many of us feel under-rested. For some, the problem is modern life: emails, to-do lists and screens. For other people, it’s the demands of work or family. Then there are those who can’t sleep when they try. In 1895 the Earl of Rosebery resigned after barely a year as British prime minister, unable to overcome his insomnia (失眠症). Up to 1 in 10 adults meet the criteria for insomnia.

Stressing ourselves out about a lack of sleep can make the problem worse. In his book Overcoming Insomnia and Sleep Problems, Oxford professor Colin Espie writes about “orthosomnia”, where people are so focused with sleeping well that they become too anxious to do so. The marketing of sleeping aids adds to this.

Espie says we each have a sleep pattern that, like a shoe size, we figure out through trial and error. Genetically, some humans are larks (百灵鸟) and some are owls; the larks may just have better cardiovascular (心血管的) health. For an owl to try to fight their natural schedule, and sleep earlier, wouldn’t necessarily help.

Once we weren’t urged to sleep until we were dead. Now we are told to sleep or we’ll be dead. Nowadays sleep is becoming something that people hope to excel at. About that I’m unconvinced. A goodnight’s sleep is a great pleasure. As far as possible, it should also remain a simple one.

【推荐1】Since childhood, London-based artist Josh Gluckstein has been fascinated by the incredible diversity of our planet’s wildlife and inspired to make sculptures of animals from found materials. He often uses abandoned or recycled materials like clothing from junk shops or wood from old furniture. An important aspect of his practice is concern for the environment. “I have traveled through Asia, Latin America and East Africa, and have been fortunate enough to have some incredible wildlife encounters,” he says. “However, on my travels, even in the most remote locations, I was shocked by the huge amounts of plastic waste.”

Mach of the garbage that washes up on shorelines around the world is due to an unregulated (未受监管的) system in which richer countries export waste to developing countries because it is often cheaper than developing better infrastructures (基础设施) to handle it. Many of the thousands of shipping containers exported each year are often dumped illegally.

“I remember going to the Galapagos Islands and visiting a beach famous for a large population of sea lions. It was indeed incredible to see them in the wild, but on every inch of sand not covered by sea lions, there were plastic bottles and cans. It was a heartbreaking sight. I knew I wanted to create artworks that didn’t create waste or harm our planet,” Gluckstein says.

Gluckstein hopes his works will raise people’s awareness about the importance of protecting endangered species. His new series called “Gold” focuses on illegally hunted animals by applying gold leaves to their bodies. He plans to donate some of the sales of his sculptures to the world Wide Fund for Nature.

【推荐2】Over the past few years, a new street art form in Sweden has been opening our eyes to a world we had not given much thought to before. A collection of artists installed tiny buildings, stores and cafes across the streets of Sweden and Europe designed to be inhabited by mice.

The scenes like the fairy tales that inspired them, are dreamy and adorable. A miniature record store, complete with a bottle cap banjo(班卓琴)，a small restaurant, a travel agent, a jazz club-all crafted to the tiniest detail.

“Well, it started with a few of us just wanting to construct something in a public setting, and the discussion narrowed in on our love for the movies of Disney,” said Jim Hanks, one artist of this group. “We like to think of it as something we ourselves would love to meet unexpectedly in an otherwise dull concrete environment.” Now, they’ve completed an estimated 30 installations! Mostly in Malmo and Stockholm in Sweden.

After scouting a location, the group then research the local history of the area they are in to inform their design. Once sketched out, the constructions take up to two months to build before they are installed in the dead of night.

^“We just want to bring a little bit of magic into people’s everyday lives, and maybe inspire someone to create something on their own street,” Jim Hanks said. “We like to imagine a world where small animals live parallel to us, and recycle objects we lose or throw away, so a bottle cap becomes a chair, a box of matches becomes a table, a stamp becomes a painting and a trash can becomes a restaurant.”

Michael Gehrisch, an American photographer based in Lund, Sweden, captured a few of the dream-like miniature scenes on video, which show stunned onlookers bending impossibly low to the ground to take pictures and admire the work.

【推荐3】Many public museums have complex climate control systems to preserve the works in their care. Those technologies,including climate monitors and air conditioning, normally work unnoticed 24 hours a day. But now, as the rising prices of gas and electricity in Europe pose an immediate danger to museum finances, and with a growing awareness of their impact on the climate,some of the world’s biggest museums are beginning to act.

Over the past year,major museums have relaxed their standards and allowed a wider range of temperatures and humidity levels in some galleries,saving them thousands of dollars a month.They have conducted months of trials to prove the changes don’t endanger the items.

Yet in the rooms where borrowed items are on show, the old strict standards still apply.Loan agreements with other museums and private collectors mean those galleries must remain tightly climate-controlled, hampering institutions’ effort to lower energy bills and emissions.

The idea that art must be displayed in a climate-controlled environment is relatively new, said South wick at the Vatican Museums. Masterpieces used to hang in unheated churches or palaces, she said.Some of the first museums to adopt climate-control technologies were in the U.S.,with the Yale University Art Gallery fixing a steam-powered heating system in 1874.

Temperature and humidity controls became commonplace after World War II, especially after conservators at the British Museum and the National Gallery,in London, published a series of influential books prescribing the conditions to protect masterpieces in that chilly, damp city. Soon, those ideas were applied everywhere, eventually becoming the standard for museum loans.

In December,the British government can celled minimum temperature requirements for works covered by its art insurance program, to help museums save money during a cold winter.It’s hopeful that museums will change their tight climate standards for the sake of the planet as well as themselves.