While there is growing consumer     1     (realize) of the environmental impact of fast fashion, can the same be said about fast furniture? The chairs and tables that fill many of our homes and everyday spaces are manufactured on a mass scale, and the cheaper items often end up     2     landfills.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in 2020 over 12 million tons of furniture     3     (throw) out in America and some into the forest illegally. Buying furniture can be     4     (incredible) expensive. Many of us switch over to cheaper, instant brands like IKEA,     5     manufacturers use materials harder to recycle, which is likely to damage the environment.

With growing calls for sustainability, many brands are announcing to change though it remains     6     (see) whether they will keep these promises. In     7     (it) current sustainability strategy, IKEA commits itself to using only recyclable materials in all its products in an effort to practice “circular” design and cut emissions to net-zero. The concept of circular design     8     (win) increasing concern up to now. In     9     circular system, furniture products would be designed to last longer and be fully recyclable, thus forming a     10    (close) loop (环).

3 . People have come to understand the enormous impacts-beneficial as well as harmful- plastics have on human lives and the environment. As polymer (聚合物) scientists committed to inventing sustainable solutions for real-world problems, we set out to tackle the issue of plastic waste by rethinking the way polymers are designed so we could make plastics with recyclability built right in.

Everyday items including milk jug, grocery bags, and takeout containers are made from a class of polymers called polyolefins. These plastics are really durable (耐用的) because the chemical bonds in those polymers are extremely stable. In a world set up for disposable (一次性的) items, durability is no longer a design feature but rather a design drawback. Imagine if half the plastics used today were recyclable through twice as many processes as they are now. Also conventional recycling requires careful sorting of all the collected materials, which can be challenging with so many different plastics. For example, separating paper from metal doesn’t require complex technology, but sorting a container from a milk jug of a different polyolefin is difficult to do without the occasional mistake.

In a study published in Science in October 2023, we described a series of polymers with only two building blocks-one soft polymer and one hard polymer-that behave like polyolefins but could be chemically recycled. Connecting two different polymers multiple times until they form a single, long molecule (分子) creates what’s called a multiblock polymer. By changing how much of each polymer type goes into the multiblock polymer, our team produced a wide range of materials with properties that covered all polyolefin types.

Using the same strategy but by adding hydrogen, we could disconnect the polymers back into their building blocks and easily separate them to use again. When we made new polymers out of these recycled plastics, they performed just as well as the original materials even after several rounds of chemical recycling. So we were able to create materials with similar properties of the plastics the world relies on. We believe this work is a step toward more sustainable plastics.

4 . Researchers in Australia have identified enzymes (酶) in the body of certain beetle larvae (甲虫幼虫) that can degrade or break down plastic. In a study published in Microbial Genomics, they write that these “superworms” could help reduce plastic waste in the future.

“Superworms are like mini recycling plants, cutting up the polysyrene (聚苯乙烯) with their mouths and then feeding it to the bacteria in their stomach,” said Chris Rinke from the University of Queensland in Australia. “The breakdown products from this reaction can then be used by other microbes to create high-value chemicals.”

In the study, scientists divided beetle larvae into three groups, feeding one group wheat bran, one polystyrene and one nothing. Over three weeks, they monitored their growth. “We found that superworms fed a diet of just polystyrene not only survived, but even had marginal weight gains,” said Rinke. “This suggests the worms can get energy from the polystyrene, most likely with the help of their stomach bacteria.”

On the other hand, the plastic-fed worms gained much less weight and were overall much less healthy than the bran-fed ones, though better off than the starvation group. After three weeks, some larvae were also set aside to grow into beetles, according to the study. About 93% of the bran-fed larvae formed adult worms, while about 67% of the plastic-fed larvae and 10% of the starved larvae formed adult worms.

The researchers investigated the superworm’s stomach bacteria to find the specific enzymes linked to plastic degradation, writes Fionna M. D. Samuels for Scientific American. The enzyme that degrades the polystyrene appears to live with the stomach bacteria, not the worm itself.

Polystyrene is one of the most common plastics used today. But it’s not very chemically reactive, and breaking it down with industrial recycling methods takes high heat. So, researchers have been looking for plastic-degrading enzymes and bacteria for years.

Further research will still need to be done to figure out how to employ these worms, bacteria and enzymes in recycling facilities.

5 . For Cruz, who grew up in Peru’s mountainous region of Cuzco, fog represents a massive opportunity. As a boy, he had to hike for more than an hour every day across hills to collect water from the nearest source. But over time, he realized that during the rainy season, droplets of water would gather in the large leaves of banana trees. So one day he and his father tried to build a canal system with the leaves to collect water and it turned out a success. But afterwards, he moved to Lima at the age of 25.

There, shocked by the water shortages and expensive water supply that some of the city’s poorest residents were faced with, Cruz set up El Movimiento Peruanos sin Agua in 2005. The idea was to deploy the method he learned in his hometown on a larger scale, which would provide free, independently sourced and easily accessible water to those who needed it most. He began installing (安装) a traditional fog catcher model developed in the 1980s.

At the highest point of Los Tres Miradores, there is a curious set of large structures that resemble a fleet of ships in the sky. They are so-called “fog catchers”. Netted devices, made of high density Raschel polyethylene and spanning several meters wide, are lined up at the top of a misty mound and linked by a network of tubes that lead to storage containers. The 40 fog catchers there provide enough water for 180 families, whether to bathe, clean, drink or to irrigate crops on small garden patches.

Supporters believe that fog catchers have the potential to improve water supply for communities around the world among the ever-challenging circumstances. German researcher Lummerich says, “They are cheap, easy to construct.” In a world searching for water supply systems, it is one important puzzle piece that can make an essential difference locally.

However, there are some issues. For one, fog catchers require space, which is not always easy to come by in cities, let alone urban slums. At the same time, fog catchers must be properly cleaned and maintained to stay effective. Most crucially, appropriate climate conditions are required. Fog isn’t everywhere.

Earthquakes are one of the most destructive natural disasters. They can happen just about anywhere. Earthquakes cannot be stopped,     1     your chances of survival are much better if you know what     2     (do) when an earthquake strikes.

If you are in     3     building, drop, cover, and hold on. This     4     (be) the national standard for earthquake safety in the United States. The advice is to get next     5     a strong piece of furniture (家具) so that if a wall falls, it will create something     6     (call) the “triangle of life” to help you survive. Use your     7     (hand) and arms to protect your vital areas like your head and neck. Do not move     8     (immediate) unless it is safe to do so.

Remember that aftershocks are possible at any time and are     9     (likely) after a bigger earthquake. Take good care of     10     (you) when you leave the building.

8 . Finding a California condor in the wild would be the most unusual treat. perhaps even more unusual than finding a wolf in Yellowstone National Park. In fact, the wolf was what opened my eyes to the fact that humans could bring an animal back to the place where it had disappeared.

In 1987, there were only 27 California condors left, none of which were in the wild, only in captive breeding programs, It was those breeding programs that contributed to their population rise, enough that by 1991 some of them could be freed into the wild.

Still, the hope of seeing a California condor, which remains an endangered species, is very low, let alone getting a photo of one. California condor population dropped mostly due to human factors, such as poaching and living areas destruction-these are challenges California condors still face today.

Although this is just a bird’s-eye view of the challenges California condors face and there are many others, it is part of why the opportunity to work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service team and their partners helping their recovery is so special to me as a photographer. I am not only able to photograph the birds in their wild living areas, but also understand and record how difficult the work is of those people on the front lines of the protection.

I am grateful for the work of the team, and my hope is that California condor population will continue to rise allowing future generations an opportunity I never had when I first got here-to look to the sky and see one flying around.

9 . Scientists have reported that the sea ice in Antarctica (南极) is at a record low level. Antarctica is a great, icy land, surrounded (围绕) by the huge Southern Ocean. The ice in Antarctica doesn’t just cover the land. There’s also a large area of sea ice on the ocean’s surface.

Every year, the sea ice at the South Pole goes through a cycle. In the summer, the huge sea ice melts (融化) to its smallest point. Over the colder winter months, the sea ice grows and grows until it covers a wide area. Usually, the sea ice covers the greatest area around September 23, as winter ends at the South Pole.

Scientists have been measuring the area of the sea ice in Antarctica since 1979. For most of this time, Antarctica has seemed to be almost unaffected by the changing weather conditions experienced in other parts of the globe. That began to change around 2016. Now, for several years, the area of Antartica’s sea ice has been shrinking.

This year, the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) reported that Antartica’s sea ice covered its greatest area on September 10 — almost two weeks earlier than normal. And the sea ice was at a new record low-not just by a little bit, but by a lot.

The last time Antartica’s low sea ice set a record at the end of winter was in 1986. And this year, there’s about 398, 000 square miles less sea ice than in 1986.

Scientists are still trying to understand what is driving the change in Antarctica. One likely direct cause for the change is the rising temperatures of the world’s oceans. Ted Scambos, a research scientist at the University of Colorado, says Antarctica’s ice levels have always changed some, but the sharp loss this year is “pointing towards warmer ocean conditions around the continent.”

The new low record has concerned the scientists. Scientists are working hard to better understand Antarctica. They don’t know yet if this is just a short-term problem, or part of a long-term shift (转变) towards less sea ice in Antarctica.