1 . The scientists who re-engineered the plastic-eating enzyme (酶) PETase have now created a new enzyme called “cocktail”, which can digest plastic up to six times faster.

PETase breaks down PET back into its building blocks, creating an opportunity to recycle plastic and reduce plastic pollution. PET is the most common thermoplastic (热塑性塑料) used to make single use drinks bottles, which takes hundreds of years to break down in the environment, but PETase can shorten this time to days. The initial discovery set up the prospect of a revolution in plastic recycling, creating a potential low-energy solution to tackle plastic waste.

Now, the same trans Atlantic team have combined PETase and its “partner”, a second enzyme called MHETase, to generate much bigger improvements: simply mixing PETase with MHETase doubled the speed of PET breakdown, and engineering a connection between the two enzymes to create a “super-enzyme” increased this activity by a further three times.

The team was co-led by the scientists who engineered PETase, Professor John McGeehan and Dr Gregg Beckham. Professor McGeehan said: “Gregg and I were chatting about how PETase attacks the surface of the plastics and MHETase chops things up further, so it seemed natural to see if we could use them together. Our first experiments showed that they did work better together, so we decided to physically link them. It took a great deal of work, but it was worth the effort—we were delighted to see that our new enzyme is up to three times faster than the separate enzymes.”

The original PETase enzyme discovery indicated the first hope that a solution to the global plastic pollution problem might be within grasp, though PETase alone is not yet fast enough to handle the tons of PET bottles. Combining it with a second enzyme and finding they work even faster together means another leap forward has been taken towards finding a solution to plastic waste. PETase and the new combined MHETase-PETase both work by digesting PET plastic. This allows for plastics to be made and reused endlessly, reducing our reliance on fossil (化石) resources.

4 . Everyone was shocked as I placed my son Ilias’s first birthday cake in front of him. He loved Sesame Street, so I made him an Elmo cake in rich red icing. I’d worked for hours to perfect my design and make the most delicious and jaw-dropping cake. I enjoyed every minute of it.

I started baking when Ilias was born. At that time, I struggled with the pressure of being a new mum and was diagnosed with postnatal depression. So to help walk out of that dark hole, at night when Ilias slept I ran into the kitchen and decided to bake a cake.

Then, with my mum’s birthday coming up, I saw a handbag cake in a shop. I threw my all into copying it and finally I made it. Mum was so blown away by my creation that she didn’t cut the cake. Instead, she kept it in a glass cake stand on display at home for a month.

Over time I created many delicious delights. The best part was seeing Ilias’s face light up when he saw them. “You should do this for a living,” my husband, Michael, suggested. I laughed it off, but it wasn’t a bad idea.

After Ilias’s third birthday, I set up a shop for my cake baking, calling it Cake Queen Oz, and orders started to come in. As time passed, the bakeshop became my full-time job. Once, I made a Titanic cake that was the length of a table for a lady whose family loved ships. It’s been seven years since Cake Queen Oz was born.

Cake baking brought me joy when I was going through a tough time. Every day I feel lucky that I’ve been able to turn my hobby into my job.

5 . Four Free Mobile Apps to Help You Learn English Faster

Have you realized that you can put your smartphone to really good use for learning English? Here are 4 free mobile apps that will help you do just that.

Hello English

It covers all the aspects of language learning, including vocabulary, translation, grammar, spelling, speaking and reading skills. It uses interactive games to teach different English lessons and offers new audiobooks, the latest news, and books. However, you should already understand basic English structures and the alphabet, for the app can’t help you learn English from scratch(从零开始).

Duolingo

If you want to learn English from scratch, then this is the app you are looking for. Duolingo uses interactive games to help you learn English. For beginners, the app focuses on helping you learn verbs, phrases and sentences.

Lingbe

If you are ready to practise your spoken skills in the real—world communication, you’ll need Lingbe. It’s a community-based app where people help each other and share their native languages. It connects you with real people on call who are native English speakers.

Hello Talk

Hello Talk is similar to Lingbe as it connects you with native speakers to help improve your language skills. However, it adds a few extra functions that might interest you. You can view the information about users to find a match that interests you. Additionally, you can also send text and audio messages, and even make video calls with other people.

If you are a beginner, start from Duolingo and then use Hello English to have a good command of the language. For fluent spoken English learners, you can try out Lingbe or Hello Talk.

7 . Today was my first day at senior high and it was hard. In high school, we have 4 minutes to get to our next class. My high school is very big and those 4 minutes to go from one class to another really isn’t a lot of time. Today I had to go from one end of the building to the other to get from science class to math class. I wanted to go to my locker (储物柜) first and leave my science book there, but that took time. I was worried about being late, and I was. The math teacher said, “Just be on time tomorrow, or you’ll have detention(放学后留校).”

After math, I went to art class. I like my art class a lot because I get to create things. The teacher there showed us how to make portraits(肖像). He explained, “A portrait is a way of communicating with a person. It does not just show how the person looks but what is important to understand the person.” We just did drawings today, but I know it’s going to be great. I like drawing.

I like my English class, too. I think the teacher is really supportive. Today we wrote about ourselves. The teacher said that we just needed to write what we thought, and we would pay attention to punctuation(标点) later. We could write a paragraph or a poem, and I wrote a poem about myself. I thought it was a good poem, and the teacher said I had used good images (意象) to communicate my feelings.

Lunch was very hurried. I arrived at the dining room with 12 minutes to eat. I sat with people I didn’t know, and everyone was eating quickly. After lunch I signed up for a computer club. I needed to learn how to use a computer well because my social studies teacher said it is the one skill we need in every class.

8 . Math had never been something I was good at since middle school. Classes became harder in high school, and I was even further from a math teacher’s dream student. So at the start of my freshman year, I had an aversion to math. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do well, but simply that I didn’t think I was able to do well. “I can’t” became my state of mind in all things related (有关的) to math.

However, I was soon to learn that “I can’t” was not a choice in Mr. A’s class.

Mr. A always greeted (迎接) us with open arms as he said, “Welcome! Smile! It’s a great day to be alive!” It was clear that Mr. A had a true passion (热情) not only for math but for teaching. If Mr. A ever experienced bad days in life, he never showed it. Mr. A greeted us with that same smile every day. He encouraged each student, from the top achiever to the “I can’t” student.

I found myself looking forward to math class, although I still hated the subject itself. Being in Mr. A’s presence made me feel good, as if I had the chance to succeed. As the year progressed, I spent increasingly more time on my homework, and I met with Mr. A weekly. My classmates began to do the same, and it became “cool” to have lunch and talk with Mr. A. We didn’t know it at the time, but he was changing our attitudes (态度).

Though my story is not one of overnight success and I didn’t become a straight-A math student, my hard work did begin to pay off and my grades slowly began to climb. There were hard times, of course. Difficult math questions sometimes succeeded in bringing me down, but Mr. A kept reminding (提醒) me, “Kate, smile! It’s a great day to be alive!”

10 . Standing on the top of Mount Tai, I watched the sun rising through the cloud and appearing in the sky. I have seen many _______, but I can feel that seeing one from the top of Mount Tai must be one of the best ways to _______ the beauty of nature.

When I left for China, the _______ of climbing Mount Tai had not even hit me. I was going to China to _______ its language, history and culture and have a better understanding of international agricultural trade between my country and China.

Now I have _______ in China for a few weeks. In Beijing, my group has _______ friendship with many Chinese students. Through our broken Chinese and their _______ English, we can still teach each other about our cultures. We _______ that we are all just students working towards the same_______ of having careers, families and lives and trying to make the world better. Cultural differences seem ________—even the language almost differs from our own. But their daily lives are similar to ours. ________, people are concerned about the same things we do here. They ________ food safety and feel the effects of the economic markets.

This ________ makes me realize how many cultures my country has in common with other countries. More importantly, it offers me a sudden ________ for travel, and I’m looking forward to having more ________ to engage in cross-cultural communication and learning.