1 . For all of human history, eating meat has meant killing animals. But scientists behind lab grown meat say that’s no longer necessary. They produce meat by growing cells obtained from an animal’s body.

Lab-grown meat, also called “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat, is made by feeding a mix of nutrients to animal cells in steel tanks in labs. The idea is to create an alternative to agriculturally raised meat. And unlike other meat substitutes which are made from plant proteins and other ingredients, lab-grown meat is real meat. When ready, the meat is formed into shapes such as sausages or nuggets (块), and looks, smells and tastes like any other grocery store version.

Recently, the U. S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) has given two companies approval to sell lab-grown chicken. The approval launches a new era of meat production aimed at eliminating harm to animals, and reducing the environmental impacts of grazing(放牧) and growing feed for animals. Scientists warn that the typical way meat is produced now, in concentrated animal feeding operations, is a risk factor for the emergence of diseases. Lab-grown meat is more sustainable and can be produced without antibiotics, and without producing greenhouse gas emissions linked to animal agriculture.

“Everything we know about how meat can be made is going to change. But don’t expect to see cultivated meat in grocery stores just yet,” said Uma Valeti, CEO of UPSIDE Foods. Lab-grown chicken is much more expensive, because it cannot yet be produced on the scale of traditional meat.

“To make cultivated meat, energy use needs are high,” said Bruce Friedrich, president and founder of the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit group that promotes alternative proteins. However, the disadvantage of high energy needs will be offset by the reduction in land and water use and other benefits. If cultured meat is produced on a large scale, it could also offer a solution to feeding the world’s growing population.

4 . I checked my equipment one final time. It was my first ______to climb the highest volcano in the world, Ojos del Salado, in South America.

I’d ______ to climb with a local guide. I left camp just after midnight. “You go first and I’ll be behind you,” he said. As the hours passed and the terrain (地形) became more dangerous, I wondered if I’d made a huge ______ . Looking into the_______ behind me, I listened out for the sound of my guide’s steps but I was all_______ . Finding my way by ______, I knew the icy conditions were merciless. Breathing heavily, I realised I’d run out of ______ soon.

Back home, 11,000 km away in Melbourne, my dad was following my ______with my GPS tracker. ______ , now alone on the side of a volcano, all I could do was to ______ my energy as I climbed higher and higher.

Reaching the top was the ultimate goal, but really it was only half the ______ . As my breathing became more laboured, ______ set in. Had I gone too far this time? I knew all too well how frightening it was to be ______ , for I’d suffered from chronic asthma (慢性哮喘) as a child.

Pushing on, I ______ made it to the top, where I ______ the breathtaking views. But I only spent a few minutes taking photos before I went down the mountain. I was ______ to see my guide on the way down and it turned out that he had______ a climber in danger and had to ______ our exploration to save him.

Through blood, ______ and frozen tears, the last 10 years had taken me all over the globe. And with every high and painful low, I learnt more about myself. I’d pushed my ______ , both in body and mind.

5 . Under normal situations, falling asleep during a paid tour is a waste of money or an offense to your guide. But that’s not the case with this new experience coming out of Hong Kong. As its name shows, the Sleeping Bus Tour is designed to help passengers catch some sleep, and rides are already selling out.

A 2022 survey by the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Center of Communication and Public Opinion notes almost 70% people experiences some form of sleep disorder. Hong Kongers have much stress from work and need a space for sleeping, but their living spaces are too small. Some may not live alone and have to share apartments with their family, which may not be a good environment for a proper rest.

After noticing passengers falling asleep on their buses, the Hong Kong tour company, Ulu Travel Agency, recently launched such an innovative way for adults to sleep: the Sleeping Bus Tour. The five-hour bus ride takes passengers on an 83-kilometer journey aboard a regular double-decker bus. Not only is the Sleeping Bus Tour the first of its kind, it's also the longest bus route in Hong Kong, ensuring that tired passengers have plenty of time to enjoy some sleep.

When passengers board the bus, they are treated with a goodie bag complete with an eye mask and earplugs to help them sleep and they are allowed to bring their own blankets and slippers. The long ride includes a few stops for scenic spots and bathroom breaks. Passengers can also get off the bus if they’d prefer to continue their sleep at home rather than complete the entire journey. Tickets for the Sleeping Bus Tour are divided in four kinds from the “Zero-decibel (分贝) Sleeping Cabin“ to the ”VIP Cabin.” Prices range from about $17 USD to $115 USD per person. For more information on this unique experience, head to the Ulu travel company website.

6 . Sugar-free cookies, reduced-sugar cereal, sugar-free candy, diet soda... are these better for you? Since sugar became a taboo (禁忌) in the nutrition and wellness world, sugar-free food items and drinks have acted as alternatives for once beloved sweet drinks and snacks. Claiming to be ZERO sugar means it is healthier, better for diabetics, and helps you slim down... Right?

In fact, sugar-free is worse. Sugar-free means that artificial sweeteners (甜味剂) are used instead of real sugar. The problem: these sweeteners do not come from natural sources and they can cause you more harm than good.

Let’s get into what these artificial sweeteners actually are. Sugar-free sugar sounds wrong and that’s because there is no such thing as sugar-free sugar. Some of these sugar-free alternatives still contain sugar and the ones that don’t contain sugar have chemicals your body often does not know how to process.

Most artificial sweeteners are a lot sweeter than sugar, so only a tiny amount is needed. That’s why they can market sugar-free alternatives as “low-calorie” or “no-calorie”. It also means that you get no nutritional value from consuming them, which is why many sugar-free substitutes are classified as “non-nutritive”. These artificial sweeteners tend to hide under sneaky names. Actually, they are 200-600 times sweeter than sugar.

When you eat sweet stuff, your body continues to desire it and, even though your body cannot metabolize (代谢) these sugar-free alternatives, your brain does not know the difference. In turn, sugar-free alternatives connect to weight gain and type 2 diabetes (糖尿病).

Artificial sweeteners also damage your gut’s ability to break down sugar, which impacts everything you eat. In other words, your body doesn’t know how to handle artificial sweeteners because they have nothing real to process.

A good rule of thumb: stay away from artificial sweeteners and look for non-sugar, natural sweeteners like Stevia or date sugar. In the war against artificial sweeteners and real sugar, both lose. Satisfy your sweet tooth with natural sugars that come from fruits and stay away from products claiming to be sugar-free or diet!

8 . In the blue-green depths of the sea off the coast of Tuscany, Italy, an unusual seafloor sculpture park is defending its watery setting.

Since fisherman Paolo Fanciulli’s teens, he has been heading out daily to fish in these coastal waters along the Maremma coastline. It was in the 1980s that he began to notice the clear signs: a seabed that was becoming barren (贫瘠的), with exhausted fish stocks. Until recently, he has been forced to share catches with a threatening part: illegal “bottom trawlers (拖网捕鱼的人)”, who randomly spoil a large quantity of ocean life as they fish, dragging a weighted net along the seafloor behind their boats.

Fanciulli’s style of artisanal fishing (手工捕鱼), in contrast, needs to be friendly to nature as damaging the ecosystem could reduce fishermen’s income. Fanciulli understood that the success of his fishing activity was linked to the good state of the environment. The underwater “House of Fish” sculpture park, which was started in 2015 was encouraged by this fisherman. “One of the most effective solutions is to physically prevent trawling through artificial reefs…so I started working on this project, trying to combine the protection of the seabed with something that could also give an added value to our environment, something as beautiful as a sculpture,” he said.

Rocks or sculptures can break weighted trawler nets. They can also play a role as artificial reefs, giving corals and other sea life a place to live. Thanks to the underwater sculptures, some species not seen in a long while such as groupers and lobsters have returned. The sculpture park represents both an artistic statement and a physical barrier to seafloor trawling.

Today, 39 huge stone sculptures dot the seabed along an area of Tuscan coastline near the town of Talamone. In the immediate future, Fanciulli hopes to continue his great solution in coastal waters. “Man is still destroying the seas,” he says, “and my task continues.”

9 . We often see beautiful butterflies flying around us. If you have ever tried to catch a resting butterfly, you know it is surprisingly difficult. A new study helps explain why.

Previous research had suggested that a butterfly’s overhead wing clap forces the insect forward. Researchers thought the wing clap likely formed a pocket of air that shoots out like a jet. But no one had tested that until now.

To analyze their flight, they placed six butterflies one at a time inside a wind cave which was filled with smoke and then used a laser (激光灯) to light up the smoke just behind the butterfly. Four high-speed cameras were placed in the cave to take photos of the movement of the butterfly and the smoke as the butterfly was taking off. This let the researchers create a 3D picture of that air movement as the insect flapped its wings.

They analyzed a total of 25 takeoffs by six butterflies. Each included up to three wing beats after takeoff. The butterflies proved more likely to clap their wings together during the first few wing beats than later in flight.

The photos show that forces created by the wings give rise to a flight path. The butterflies rise as their wings move down and shoot forward as their wings move up. A wing clap on takeoff, paired with a quick turn, allowed the butterflies to fly away quickly. They also noticed the wings formed an air pocket just before clapping and that the wings’ flexibility and this pocket improved the jet force created by the clap.

“The study is exciting,” says Ayodeji Bode-Oke, a mechanical engineer in Charlottesville. That means “we have solved the longtime puzzle about how butterflies fly, and it proves nothing is impossible on the road of scientific research. I can’t wait to learn about how the study might inform designs for small flying vehicles.”

10 . Years ago, if a teenager had some problems in his or her life, he or she might write in his or her diary. Now a teenager with the same problems might go onto the Internet and write about them in a blog. In many ways, a diary and a blog are almost the same. So, what makes a blog different from a diary?

The biggest difference is that a blog is much more public than a diary. Usually, a teenager treats his or her diary like a book full of secrets. Both diaries and blogs tell what happened to the writer that day.

I have a little sister, and sometimes I go online to read her blog. She writes about things like waking up early for swimming practice and not studying enough for her chemistry exam. When I was her age, I wrote about the same things, but only in my diary. Then, after I finished writing. I would hide my diary in a secret place because I was worried that my sister might read it!

Because a blog is such a public way of writing. It has both good and bad points. The biggest problem with a blog is that anyone can read what you write. If I am angry with a friend during school and write something bad about her in my diary, she will never know. However, if my sister writes something bad about a friend, that friend may read her blog and get angry. So we have to be very careful of what we write.

A blog has good point, of course. People choose to write in blogs because they know that their friends will read what they write. If I am feeling sad one day and write in my diary, “Nobody cares about me.” No one will know about it. However, if my sister writes the same words in her blog. Her best friends will quickly and tell her how much they like her.

If people are careful about what they write, blogs are a very good way to write about everyday life. However, I still prefer my old diary!