【推荐3】There are many people out there who want to be “part of the crowd.” If you want to be the leader and stand out from the crowd instead, then this article is for you.

Be yourself and love yourself. In order to be as different as possible, you have to beyou — not a carbon copy of someone else. If you don’t know who you are, that process can seem a bit scary.    1    If you’re not comfortable with who you are, you’ll inevitably end up trying to be someone else.

Try new things. We are naturally raised as part of a group,    2    These thing are good — they can open us up to things we’re not even aware of—but it’s also important to try things that are brand new to you that other people haven’t already accepted.

    3    From a very young age, we’re sort of brainwashed to ft into our society. We wear clothes, go to school, do things to match our gender, and so on. It’s hard to realize that this is a box you can get out of. There are lines that you can color outside. It just hasn’t occurred to most of us.

Know the world works in opposites. Nothing is really as it seems. So many people are trying to be different, and it results in them all being the same! Being quiet may mean that when you talk, people hear you louder. When you’re not trying to attract that boy or girl, they become attracted to you.    4    

Know you’ll bump heads. Society isn’t super good at accepting what isn’t trendy. People are praised for being fashionable and pretty—few are praised for expanding our limits and coloring outside the lines.    5    Think of it as a good thing! By getting criticism, you’re doing something. You’re getting noticed. You’re exposing people to other things. You’re different.

【推荐1】Art museums are filled with centuries-old paintings with details of plants that today give us clues about evolution and breeding practices.

Exhibited at an art museum in New York City, The Harvesters created by Pieter Bruegel in 1565 shows farmers cutting wheat nearly as tall as they are. “Nowadays, if you walk through a wheat field, you basically see that wheat is about knee-height. The short wheat is essentially a consequence of breeding from the second half of the 20th century. ” said biologist Ive De Smet.

According to De Smet, wheat is just one example of how historical artwork can allow us to track the transformation of food crops over time. He teamed up with art historian David Vergauwen to seek similar kinds of artwork around the world.

Friends since childhood, their interest in plants in artwork began with a visit to a museum in Russia, where they noticed an odd-looking watermelon in an early-17th-century painting. A watermelon usually is believed to be dark red on the inside. But that one appeared to be pale and white. De Smet assumed the painter had done a poor job. But Vergauwen had a different idea. He says, “This is one of the best painters ever from that era. So, if he painted it like that, that’s the way it must have looked like. ”

Other paintings revealed that there were both red and white watermelons grown during the 17th century. The color is determined by a gene that controls the lycopene（番茄红素）. “There must have been some sort of genetic change preventing the accumulation of that color. Now, with all the genetic knowledge that we have from various plant species, we can look in more details how something comes about. ”

The team hopes to create an online research database of historical plant artwork. They call for contributions of art enthusiasts around the world via the social media. But they caution, the source paintings need to be realistic. “If you’re going to use, for example, Picasso’s paintings to try and understand how a pear looked like in the early 20th century, you might be misled. ” Indeed, such an attempt could be fruitless.

【推荐2】Starch(淀粉)is the main component of flour, rice and corn among others, while carbon dioxide makes up the vast majority of greenhouse gases. One day, humans may be able to “eat” carbon dioxide, and global warming could be “eaten away” by carbon lovers. Although it sounds wild, the day is coming.

Chinese scientists have created starch using carbon dioxide, hydrogen and electricity, according to a study published in Science in September, 2021.

“Plants create starch through photosynthesis(光合作用), which is a complex and inefficient (效率低得)process,” Ma Yanhe, the director of the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told China Daily. He added that it would take a plant about 60 steps to turn carbon dioxide, water and sunlight into starch.

“Our breakthrough shows that making starch is achievable in a lab. This method makes it possible to produce food in factories and there are many industries that can benefit from this technology,” Ma told China Daily.

The team has been working on the process for 6 years. “The first step of the method is to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen into methanol(甲醇), which is a molecule(分子)that contains a single carbon atom,” Cai Tao, one of the first authors of the study, told China Daily.

Scientists then piece these single-carbon molecules into bigger and more complex molecules.   With the help of supercomputing, Chinese scientists have simplified the natural starch-making process from about 60 steps into 11.

“The new process has made it possible to turn starch production from traditional agricultural fanning to industrial production. And it may be possible to satisfy our needs without farming in the future. This will not only help save water, fertilizer and land but also help recycle carbon dioxide to deal with climate change,” a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Sciences told the Global Times.

The study can also benefit space exploration in the future. The starch may provide a secure food source for astronauts as they travel long distances in space by simply turning the carbon dioxide they breathe out into food.