1 . A couple has recently placed their garbage can out for collection for the first time in 14 months, all thanks to their recycling skills. Richard and Louise Arnold have established such an effective routine that they only need to put their garbage can on the side of the street once a year.

Louise explained that making small monthly changes in her life has resulted in her family producing very little waste. She said, “It’s not as difficult as you might think if you start with small steps. We began with soap, switching from bath cream to natural soap without packaging. These bars are large enough that we cut them in half, using one for the sink and the other half for the shower. It’s both cost-effective and environmentally friendly.”

“So it’s actually quite easy. Just go around your house and think of little things you can do gradually, and you’ll start noticing the difference,” Louise added. Currently, the couple takes recyclable waste to the tip, donates clothes to charity shops, and brings soft plastics and batteries to a shop that accepts them.

In 2017, the couple established No Waste Living, which initially started as a weekend stall at the local market and has since developed into a website. Louise regularly writes a newsletter for her hundreds of subscribers. They also started selling eco-friendly products, ranging from non-chemical household cleaning and washing solutions for a “less toxic home” to bamboo washing-up brushes. Louise mentioned, “I started No Waste Living because I wanted to show our achievement s and lead by example.”

Although the family occasionally faces criticism, Louise remains determined. She said, “The main point of contention(争论) for people regarding new waste rules is having to drive their waste to a recycling center, which adds to their already busy lives. However, in the long run, you will create more space in your home, save money, and spend less time dealing with garbage cans.”

Yu Jingjing, a security guard at a children’s hospital in Dalian, has been called “Toy Hero” by Chinese netizens after going viral on social media on Monday.

The video shows the security guard patrolled (巡逻) with tiny dolls on his uniform,     1     (offer) them to children and guiding patients’ families. “I see the hospital staff occupied     2     duties every day, and parents are worried about their sick children.” said Yu, “In the waiting area,     3     there is a familiar atmosphere of boredom and tension, people sit anxiously and look through old magazines, all of which     4     (read) hundreds of times. I am delighted to do something to help ease the     5     (anxious) of parents and children during their hospital visits.”

Yu has been working here for three years. Initially, he started to tie toys lost by children on his back, making     6     easier for the owners to find them. But rarely anyone returned     7     (claim) them. Nevertheless, these dolls proved to be     8     (incredible) effective in cheering anxious children patients up. So, Yu decided to buy some dolls with his money to give to the children.

Yu has become     9     hit at the children’s hospital. In addition to the two or three dozen dolls tied to his uniform, he also wears a small red sign that reads, “Please call me if you need help”. As is often the case, he     10     (devote) to comforting hospital visitors and healing them in a mental way.

7 . OpenAI’s automated AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT has taken the internet by storm, but not without creating a few issues on the way. With writers, marketers, and seemingly everyone else in between using ChatGPT to generate content, companies worldwide are staring down a tsunami of AI-generated content, With issues of safety and stolen contents constantly swirling around ChatGPT and its output, OpenAI has now released GPT-Classifier, a tool designed to detect whether the text you’re reading was generated by ChatGPT or one of its other GPT tools.

GPT-Classifier attempts to figure out if a given piece of text was human-written or the work of an Al-generator. While ChatGPT and other GPT models are trained extensively on all manners of text input, the GPT-Classifier tool is fine-tuned on a dataset of pairs of human-written text and AI-written text on the same topic. In other words, the GPT-Classifier attempts to compare similarities between known human text and known AI text to find inconsistency that reveal the source writer.

While the idea of easily spotting AI-generated text will be music to the ears of editors and educators, OpenAI has warned that its classifier is not fully reliable.

A test of the GPT-Classifier spotted a human-generated example and marked it very unlikely to be AI-generated, and also correctly indicated that a ChatGPT-generated piece on USB issues was possibly AI generated. Currently, GPT-Classifier correctly identifies 26%of AI-written text while labeling 9%of human text as AI-written. OpenAI also notes that the tool’s accuracy typically improves as the length of the input text increases. For now, although GPT-Classifier is up and running and available for testing, it’s best to take its labeling with a pinch of salt

Even with the GPT-Classifier’s limitations, the demand for reliable ChatGPT detection is likely to see many people turn to this tool. OpenAI’s commitment to building and releasing a free GPT detection tool is important because as more students, Writers, programmers, and others use AI-text generation tools, understanding and detecting this input will become vital.

8 . Biomedical breakthroughs sometimes happen in the most unlikely places. Take the deep sea for an illustration. Under extreme conditions, at times of no oxygen, microbes (微生物) not only survive there, but they thrive. This incredible adaptation offers insight into how life evolved billions of years ago and how modern humans may be able to fight infections and diseases — tests used to diagnose (诊断) some viruses were developed with the help of enzyme (酶) separated from microbes found in ocean.

“We’ve found marine microbes that produce antimicrobials — basically chemical weapons that help them fight off other organisms and resist viruses,” says Virginia Bdgcomb, a microbiologist investigating deep-sea bacteria. These microbes feed on tough substances and produce antimicrobial chemicals.

The deep sea has already given us chemicals to treat certain cancer or nerve damage. Breakthroughs have also come from the ocean depths in the form of diagnostic tools.

The pathway to developing tests started back in 1969 when some heat-loving microbes were found in the depth of 5000 meters beneath the sea. By mid-1980s, the humble microbes

had enabled a major advance in the emerging field of genetics, Scientists found that their enzymes remained stable enough to make millions of copies of a single DNA sequence (序列) in just a few hours, essentially upgrading geneticists’ tools.

“A lot of people think of the deep sea as a desert,” Virginia says. “To our naked eye, it looks like there’s nothing there but there’s huge potential. What I can do as a science researcher is record the remarkable diversity of microbes and make their gene sequence available, which may help lead to treatment or diagnostic tool in the future.”

“We need to have people constantly exploring the fascinating habitats in order to continue uncovering a new page of medically-relevant enzymes,” Virginia says. “This is tough, but I do hope people realize that the more we can learn about microbes, the better off we are.”

9 . To help you plan a memorable 2024 winter vacation trip with the best travel experiences, we specifically designed Featured China Winter Tours including winter-featured destinations suitable for in-depth exploration. Travel with us!

Xishuamgbanna

Nicknamed “Litle Thailand”, Xishuangbanna owns awe-inspiring scenery, unique Dai minority culture and an all-year-round pleasant climate.

What to do:

●Enjoy tropical botanical landscape, and experience an exciting walk on the “air corridor” hanging 100 meters above the original rainforest.

●Visit local markets and step into some best-preserved Dai villages and royal gardens.

Chengdu

Whether you want to enjoy a short break in Chengdu, or extend to the impressive sites in its west, you are spoiled with many choices.

What to do:

●Get to Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda to see over 100 giant pandas.

●Travel a little further to Huanglong National Park. During the winter season, it’s less visited and full of poetic atmosphere with all previous colors turning into silver. To relieve altitude (海拔) sickness, you need sleep well and keep a calm mood.

Harbin

Having the most bitterly cold winters among major Chinese cities with average daytime temperatures as low as —13°C, Harbin is referred to as “Ice City”.

What to do:

●Visit Ice and Snow World to appreciate ice snow sculptures, enjoy the featured architecture capped with snow, or take part in some activities on the ice.

●Add two days to China Snow Town, where you can immerse (沉浸) yourselves in the fairytale world and enjoy various snow activities. Since the shuttle bus to Snow Town is subject to change in winter, please check out the link for real-time schedules.

10 . In the forest of New Mexico, scientists are carrying two ten-day-old Mexican wolf pups (幼崽) riding in a backpack, searching for a Mexican wolf pair that has just given birth to six pups.    1    

Mexican wolves were extinct in the USA by the 1970s, but there was a plan to bring them back. The first step was to trap five wild Mexican wolves and breed them with two caged ones. In 1998, the first caged-born adult Mexican wolves were released into forests.     2    If animals have to pair up with family members, then their pups will have unhealthy genes, making them sick.

    3     Let wild wolves adopt caged-born pups-that’s how these two pups end up in backpacks. While the adult wolves are out hunting, the scientists gently place the pups with their new brothers and sisters. They rub the caged-born and wild pups together, ever letting them pee (小便) on each other to mix their smells!     4     This result makes the scientists optimistic about the plan.

The idea is that the caged pups will grow up and breed with wild wolves.     5     Thanks to this ongoing work, 250 wild Mexican wolves wander Arizona and New Mexico today.