【推荐1】The production and distribution of food accounts for around a third of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. But as a consumer, it’s difficult to measure the climate impact of what you eat. A Dublin-based startup called Evocco could soon make it a cinch. “It lets you track, improve and offset the climate impact of your food purchases,” co-founder Hugh Weldon says.

Users simply photograph their grocery receipt using the Evocco app, which identifies the food products by reading the printed text and using machine learning. It then calculates the carbon footprint based on the store’s location and by checking the type, weight and origin of a food against a database. The app also gives users the option to offset their shopping by contributing to Go Carbon Neutral, an Irish not-for-profit initiative that plants native woodland.

As well as the immediate impact of offsetting groceries, Evocco hopes to raise public awareness of the carbon footprint of different foods. Some factors are well known — for instance, animal products are typically more resource-intensive than most plant-based alternatives, and importing products increases their carbon footprint — but the app also helps identify other important differences between items, such as seasonality or whether refrigeration was required on the journey to market. It also offers tips on how to reduce shopping emissions. The app has been downloaded more than 1,000 times since its launch.

As well as the personal shopping app, Evocco is developing a digital tool to sell to food retailers, e-commerce platforms and delivery apps that will track the climate impact of a product’s journey through the supply chain. The aim is to help retailers provide climate impact information directly for consumers, while also giving Evocco access to product data to improve its app. “Our vision is to be the go-to digital tool for the food industry when it comes to supplying climate impact information and sustainable consumption insights,” says Weldon.

In a fast changing world, people seldom see a device or equipment that lasts for a long time these days. There are always new inventions, different models, or upgrades cropping up one after the other and as consumers people highly anticipate the faster and better kind than what they already have. Therefore it is quite a surprise that a mini projector(投影仪) is still in use today not only in small scale businesses, schools, or homes but in big corporations and institutions as well. Sure it has a few additional features here and there but the main function is the same.

A mini projector today has been fitted with top of the line parts and high quality materials to ensure its efficiency and performance can meet the demands of whoever it is for. It is so designed that it can be used indoors or outdoors with the same functions. The mini projector, as the name suggests, is handy and compact and can easily be brought anywhere by just one person. It can support a broader scope of signals now; USB and card readers are now installed to cope with the pieces of equipment that people use today to store data.

It can be used at home where it can provide as a form of entertainment or start a conversation during family bonding times. The owner can easily use the mini projector to share with other members the photos and videos of one particular vacation, or just to play a series of beautiful landscapes.

Offices also benefit from a mini projector especially during an important meeting or presentation. With at par resolution(标准的分辨率), employees can easily decipher(辨认) the text or data with the use of a mini projector, its bright LED light is sufficient enough to provide a bright and clear image without distortion(变形). Users can now bring this anywhere with them and can be especially useful on a location where the voltage(电压) is unknown.

Perhaps one of the more common places where a mini projector is used constantly is in schools. Teachers or professors use this as an aid to a lesson or discussion to provide better visual aids than usual and to even deliver their lecture with the use of a mini projector and minimize the use of a board and writing pen. It is often said that children have a very short attention span but they remember things more when things are presented to them visually. This is the perfect use of a mini projector in classrooms where kids easily forget their lesson for the day. Teachers use this to show the class pictures or illustrations that tie with the topics for students to remember.

【推荐1】Not all memories are sweet. Some spend all their lives trying to forget bad experiences. Violence and traffic accidents can leave people with terrible physical and emotional scars. Often they relieve these experiences in nightmares.

Now American researchers think they are close to developing a pill, which will help people forget bad memories. The pill is designed to be taken immediately after a frightening experience. They hope it might reduce, or possibly erase, the effect of painful memories.

In November, experts tested a drug on people in the US and France. The drug stops the body releasing chemicals that fix memories in the brain. So far the research has suggested that only the emotional effects of memories may be reduced, not that the memories are erased.

The research has caused a great deal of argument. Some think it is a bad idea, while others support it. Supporters say it could lead to pills that prevent or treat soldiers' troubling memories after war.

They say that there are many people who suffer from terrible memories. “Some memories can ruin people's lives. They come back to you when you don't want to have them in a daydream or nightmare. They usually come with very painful emotions,” said Roger Pitman, a professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "This could relieve a lot of that suffering.”

But those who are against the research say that changing memories is very dangerous because memories give us our identity. They also help us all avoid the mistakes of the past. “All of us can think of bad events in our lives that were horrible at the time but make us who we are. I'm not sure we'd want to wipe those memories out, " said Rebecca Dresser, a medical ethicist.

Some people fear that although the drug would first be used in only very serious cases, it would become more and more common. “People always have the ability to misuse science," said Joseph LeDoux, a New York University memory researcher. “All we want to do is to help people have better control of memories.”

【推荐2】I want to talk about the economy. Not "the economy" we hear about endlessly in the news each day and in politicians' speeches. I want to talk about the real economy, the one we live in day by day.

Most people aren't particularly interested in "the economy". "Share prices are flying high； interest rates are soaring(猛增的); the Dow Jones Index closed sixty-three points down on 8472.35. " We hear this and subconsciously switch off.

Notice that "the economy" is not the same as the economy, "The economy" is what men in suits play with to make vast personal wealth. The economy is where the rest of us live on a daily basis, earning our living, paying our taxes, and purchasing the necessities of life.

We are supposed to be benefiting from all the advantages of a well-off society. So why do we feel tired and stressed? We have no time for anything other than work, which is ridiculous given the number of labor-saving devices in our lives. Our towns become more and more crowded. We poison our air and seas, and our food is full of chemicals. There's something wrong here. If times were truly good, then you may think we'd all feel optimistic about the future. Yet the majority of us are deeply worried. More than 90 percent of us think we are too concerned about ourselves and not concerned enough about future generations.

The term "economic expansion" suggests something desirable, but expansion simply means spending more money. More spending doesn't mean that life is getting better. We all know it often means the opposite—greed, crime, poverty, pollution. More spending merely feeds our whole economic system, which is based on production and consumption. Unless money keeps circulating, the economy breaks down. If we don't keep consuming, the whole system goes into stalemate(僵局).

How do we break the cycle and make some changes? We need to become far more aware of the results of our actions. We buy clothes that are made in sweat shops by virtual slaves in poor parts of the world. We create mountains of waste. We demand cheap food, mindless of the fact that it totally lacks taste and is produced using chemicals that poison the land.

The consumption culture makes us unaware of the effect of our own behavior. Our main problem is not that we don't know what to do about it. It is gathering the desire to do it.

【推荐3】When it comes to writing work emails, there are many rules to follow. In the past, people always wanted to come across as someone who’s calm and professional, which workplace manners experts say means they wanted to hold back their love for emoticons while on the job.

But language is always changing, and a recent national survey in the US found that 76 percent of Americans said that they had used emoticons in digital communication at work. The most popular emoticon is the happy face.

Lindsey Pollak, a US career coach who works with Millennials (千禧一代), has also noticed that emoticons have gone from being inappropriate for the workplace to being accepted. The reason behind this, according to her, is largely due to the changing of people in a particular age group of the workforce. Millennials are now the biggest generation in the American workforce. “A few years ago, emoticons were absolutely seen as very young and very personal,” Pollak said. “Over the past few years... I've seen emoticons become more acceptable. I see them more frequently not just from Millennials but from all generations at the workplace.”

“People tend to use emoticons to just add that little bit of extra change in the tone when there's something awkward or potentially offensive, or when they might take in things in the wrong way,” explains Lauren Collister, a sociolinguist. In life and work, many of us have used emoticons to send positive atmosphere or soften statements.

Pollak, however, warns against being too casual at work. Her advice is to be aware of who the audience is. “Frankly, I wouldn’t use a happy face with any CEO in the US. I wouldn’t use a happy face with the people of a certain level no matter how commonplace and acceptable it has become,” she said. “You can make or break a relationship with one email these days.”