1 . To reduce coffee cup waste, Cup Club is already replacing millions of takeaway cups in the UK, while Recup in Germany, has performed a deposit system that simply adds a small extra fee to any coffee cup which is returned to the buyer after the cup is deposited in any registered collection point.

......

2 . Nick Verel, a 53-year-old kidney transplant (肾脏移植) recipient in Ohio, should have been near the top of the list to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (疫苗). Yet like millions of others, he wasn’t having any luck scheduling an appointment. Nick would sit with computers on his lap trying for hours to book an appointment on different sites, which ended up in vain no matter how concentrated he was. “I felt hopeless,” Nick says.

Then he heard about Zwinggi, a 40-year-old mother of three who was helping to secure appointments for vulnerable individuals like Nick. So he messaged Zwinggi on Facebook: Can you help? Thirty-five minutes later, Zwinggi reported back — Nick successfully had an appointment to get the vaccine.

3 . Bennett, 57, held on through 60 tomorrows, far longer than any previous patient who’d received a heart from another species. His remarkable run offered new hope that such procedures, known as xenotransplantation (异种移植), could help relieve the shortage of replacement organs, saving thousands of lives each year.

......

4 . But Oreos don’t attract you with taste alone; scents have a huge impact on the eating experience. When you bite into an Oreo, chemicals in the cookie release odor ants into the air inside your mouth. These scents flow to your nasal cavity (鼻腔), where they interact with smell receptors (感受器) and enter your brain’s decoding (解码) process. Your brain is likely to find those smells delightful, says Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at the UK’s University of Oxford. Spence says chocolate and vanilla are two of the world’s most liked smells.

......

5 . At the end of each day, the participants showed high activity in a brain area called the midbrain. The scientists were interested in two, small areas within it. Both areas produce dopamine, a chemical that is important in craving and rewards. The two areas activated when hungry participants saw pictures of tasty pizza or juicy hamburgers. After the volunteers had been isolated, those brain areas became active when they saw social activities they missed. It might be playing sports or chatting with friends.

......

6 . Regulatory limits for how much PFAS food packaging should contain can vary greatly. For instance, a new law in California set the limit at less than 100 ppm. “Compared to America, Denmark sets a much lower regulatory limit of 20 ppm with great success,” said Xenia Trier, an expert at the European Environment Agency. “It does work to set limits and enforce them. PFAS do migrate from the paper into the food. Even though it was not 100%, we still saw considerable transmission. In general, transmission from packaging to food is increased as the temperature of the food rises. It is the same with the time spent in wrapping materials.” Trier told NBS, one of the major American mass-media companies.

7 . Parents often think that their kids should be good at studies and do well in sports. That’s usually the case because parents feel that could get their children admission to top colleges. However, Melissa and Mark Wimmer think differently.

Their 14-year-old son, Mike, is a prodigy. He is a member of Mensa, which is the world’s top IQ club. He completed his high school, associate’s and bachelor’s degrees all in three years. That’s not all. He also ran two tech companies, founded a third one that works towards controlling the population of lionfish, an invasive (入侵的) species.

8 . I have watched good lives get put on hold because someone told a lie. I have seen people put in jail because of a lie. I have held the hands of a kind-hearted dying man who only wanted to know the truth about why his children were turned against him. Lies only hurt. Let’s remember that. Let’s not forget the damage that can be done, and maybe we will all get to live better lives, even though we are sharing a very difficult time. Lies are always uncovered. Always.

That may not help you right now, but it is something to hold onto.

9 . Energy drinks aren’t technically a “food”. That’s not to trash them — it’s just a fact, and an important one at that. The Food & Drug Administration regulates all products defined as food to ensure they’re safe for human consumption. Coffee drinks and soda, for instance, aren’t allowed to be too high in caffeine in case they cause heart problems. But energy drinks are classified as supplements, which means they’re unregulated. Hence, manufacturers are free to add as much caffeine inside a single can as they please. They can even mix caffeine with other stimulants (兴奋剂) in such a way that could cause cardiovascular or nervous system problems.

That’s why physicians have been trying to investigate what the health effects of these caffeinated drinks might be. A new study showing that a single drink can diminish blood vessel (血管) function is making headlines, but similar findings have been increasing for years now.

10 . Viewers are deserting awards shows in groups and something needs to be done. But what? Reorganize them to celebrate really popular work? That’s what the Oscars put forward last year when it suggested a best popular film category — and it was swiftly booed (喝倒彩)out of town.