1 . Filming in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest

The Kamas Ranger District handles film permits for the Kamas district of the Wasatch- Cache National Forest.

To ensure that permits are issued in time for filming, the Forest Service requests that application form be handed in three to four weeks prior to filming.

The fee structure for filming in the National Forest is as follows:

1 to 10 people-$150 per day

11 to 30 people-$200 per day

31 to 60 people-$500 per day

Over 61 people-$600 per day

Film Monitoring Fee

1 day filming-FREE

Extra days-$200 per day

Additional fees will be charged in the following situations:

Large production (greater than 100 people), multiple site filming that may require additional film monitoring to protect natural resources and a performance agreement in the form of a deposited check.

Upon approval, a Special Use Permit will be issued with a bill for collection. Checks should be made payable to “USDA Forest Service, ” and payment must be received before filming.

Some areas of the forest are especially sensitive to impacts from vehicles, domestic animals, and people. These areas include wetlands, streams, lake shorelines, and most meadow areas. Filming requests in these sensitive areas will require special surveys to determine possible environmental impacts. The request may be denied.

2 . In early October, Travis Gienger transported an enormous pumpkin (南瓜) from his home in Minnesota to the World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in California. His pumpkin set the record for the biggest one ever grown in North America. How do competitive growers get their pumpkins to grow to massive sizes?     1    

Gienger, who teaches horticulture (园艺学) at Anoka Technical College, begins growing his pumpkins in mid-April, starting with seeds that he grows indoors for the first few weeks, when Minnesota’s soil is too frosty.     2     They can absorb sunlight, nutrients from the soil, and water there. “At their peak, you’re watering them with at least 600 liters a day, ” he says.

Depending on the variety, pumpkin plants can grow up to a dozen fruits on a single vine (藤曼) . But to maximize size, growers remove all but one or two of these pumpkins in order to decrease each individual fruit’s competition for resources.     3    

But what exactly happens inside a pumpkin as it grows? Two factors drive natural growth: cell division and cell expansion. Cell division accounts for most of the growth at the beginning of a fruit’s life. This period lasts for about 20 days in pumpkin plants.     4     Pumpkin cells will expand until around 50 or 60 days after pollination (授粉).

    5     Some varieties of pumpkins have been bred specifically to maximize their size. Still, there is genetic variation even among pumpkins of the same variety. This has led to competition for the best seeds. Following each harvest, many growers auction off (拍卖掉) the seeds from their biggest pumpkins, which will then be used for the following year’s plantings.

3 . The human voice is a delicate thing. Each person’s distinctive voice is produced when air from the lungs causes the vocal cords (声带) to vibrate (震颤). These vocal cords can easily get damaged. According to a 2005 study, 30% of the population will experience a voice disorder at some point in their life.

In a study published in the journal Nature Communications this week, a group of bioengineering researchers from the University of California have put forward an attractive solution. They have designed and tested a soft patch (小片) that can be stuck onto a person’s neck, where it will pick up muscle movements and, with the help of machine-learning algorithms (算法) that process the signals, translate them into speech.

When a person loses their voice today, the easiest fix is to turn to typing, texting, or writing notes to communicate. Typing can be slow and convenient, says Jun Chen, the paper’s lead author, and writing notes is only possible in good lighting. The new solution would therefore be able to clear all these hurdles.

Dr. Chen’s device works based on something called the magnetoelastic effect. Essentially, when tiny magnetic (磁性的) bits are placed into soft materials, their magnetic properties can change as the material is stretched.

When the throat muscles move under the soft patch, the resulting magnetoelastic effects can be changed into electrical signals. In a test with eight participants, the variations can be changed by electrical signals.

Researchers recorded the signals as the subjects spoke and mouthed five different sentences. They then trained a machine-learning model which was then able to predict which of the five sentences the participants spoke-whether aloud or in silence-with more than 90% accuracy.

There is a way to go yet, for now the device can only recognize the five phrases it was trained on. Plus, to make it practical at scale, the researchers will need to collect a lot more data.

5 . In recent years, much of my life as a consumer has shifted to what I like to call background. As I’ve subscribed to more apps and streaming platforms, significant sums of my money tend to slip away each month without my ever thinking about it.

Think of it as an automated trade. Spending without the trouble of spending. Acquaint ion without action. Or thought.

But while this flood of subscriptions was sold to me on the condition that it would make my life more trouble-free, there was a certain shock I felt upon discovering how much I was spending without realizing each month ($179.45).

You see, the thing about background spending is that it tends to happen, well, in the background without your full attention. And there lies the point.

“Hand over your credit card details and let us take care of the rest,” these companies promote. But by again sing their name, we’ve become lazy, positive consumers. And this laziness breeds (导致) more laziness because most of us can’t be bothered with conducting regular reviews of our subscription spending. We’re too lazy to even notice or cancel it!

I know it’s not just me who is suddenly living life as a smart-braised subscriber. The average consumer spends $273 per month on subscriptions, according to a 2021 study of 2,500 by digital services firm West Morose. Not a single person surveyed knew what his actually monthly spending was.

It’s understandable why this model is so attractive to businesses. As companies questioned traditional advertising models, subscription offered the promise of “selling once and earning forever.” And while subscription services have been around for decades (think Wine of the Month Club), more customers have been willing to sign up thanks to the widespread availability of smartphones and the increasing ease of home delivery.

While these subscription promise ease and happiness, not all of us are satisfied. Last year, the Kameny Institute found 40 percent of consumer believe they have too many subscriptions. Almost half of us also think we pay too much for streaming video-on-demand subscriptions.