3 . There are few places on Earth that humans haven’t messed up. Now even Antarctica, the only continent with no permanent human inhabitants, is being altered by us. A study found that the increasing human presence in Antarctica is causing more snow melt-bad news for a frozen world already battling the effects of human-caused global warming.

Black carbon, the dark, dusty pollution that comes from burning fossil fuels has settled in locations where tourists and researchers spend a lot of time, scientists found. Even the smallest amount of the dark pollutant can have a significant impact on melting because of its very low reflectiveness: things that are light in color, like snow, reflect the sun's energy and stay cool; things that are dark, like black carbon, absorb the sun's energy and warm up.

“The snow albedo (反射率) effect is one of the largest uncertainties in regional and global climate modeling right now,” Alia Khan, a snow and ice scientist at Western Washington University, told CNN. “That’s one of the motivations for the study, to quantify the impact of black carbon on regional snowmelt, which is important for quantifying the role of black carbon in the global loss of snow and ice.”

“Antarctica is sitting there pretty much silently all year. But, if it weren’t there, in the state that it is meant to be, the balance that we have in the climate system will no longer be,” Marilyn Raphael, a geography professor said. “Antarctica’s sea ice is also important to maintain a balance in atmospheric circulation,” he added. As waters get warmer, some Antarctic creatures are finding their homes more and more unlivable.

“Everything we do has consequences,” Raphael said. “We need to educate ourselves about those consequences, especially in systems that we know relatively little about. We have to be careful that we don’t upset the climate balance.”

4 . People have probably observed that stress level can rise due to a lack of typical psychological breaks they get in workplaces. Walking to the tea room to make a cup of coffee, stopping for a chat with one of your colleagues or discussing your plan with your leaders will help you. All of those actions are actually giving our brains an opportunity to recharge.

The workplace banter (打趣) could be worn out when you’re employed from home. The psychological breaks, however, are vital to maintain your stress at the lowest level, so attempt to copy these mini-breaks at home. Besides, you need a proper schedule for yourself. Otherwise, things go against your wishes. For example, one of my friends devoted herself to her business, ignoring her family and her own health. Though she has achieved a lot in her business, now she is in poor health and has a broken home and good-for-nothing children.

One of the toughest issues about working from home is setting boundaries. People tend to overwork at home because they often confuse work and home life. You can moderately end working at a fixed time and have time to get along with your family members. If you begin the day by bearing this in your thoughts, it's completely possible for you to stick to it. At home, you can do a bit of gardening or take a slow relaxing walk within your yard to help increase your memory and overcome depression. Even doing some arts and crafts, reading an e-book or baking a cake may also help. Anyway, you need to take yourself away from the computer screen for a superb couple of hours every day.

As the saying puts it, “Sharpening your knife won’t waste your time for cutting your firewood”. If you have good psychological breaks while working from home, your working efficiency will be improved. Besides, you’ll manage and lessen your stress and create a good family relationship.

6 . Monthly subscription （订阅） educational boxes for students can be a great way to develop an interest in a particular subject. If you want to learn something at home while having fun, you can have educational boxes delivered monthly straight to your house.

Spangler Boxes

The Spangler boxes feature a range of hands-on scientific experiments designed by Steve Spangler, a former TY host of a popular science education program on News for Kids. Projects focus on STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math. Examples of projects include exploring lava（岩浆）science, the sound waves, and physical laws.

Finders Seekers Boxes

After receiving a Finders Seekers box, you’ll explore characters of a new city and culture every month while solving puzzles. Think of Finders Seekers as an escape room challenge that takes place in your living room. Clues and online research tools are available to help in case you get stuck solving the mystery. Each puzzle takes approximately two to four hours to complete.

Creation Boxes

Creation teaches students electronics, digital tips and high-level problem-solving. Each box teaches a lesson and is progressively more challenging. A sampling of the projects includes a mood lamp, an electronic memory game, and a distance detector using an ultrasonic sensor（超声传感器）.

Kiwi Doodle Boxes

Kiwi Doodle Boxes are among the most popular boxes on the market. They feature a variety of themes customized to students aged from 8 to 18. Doodle focuses on art and design with projects such as a felt succulent（肉质植物）garden, a faux（人造的）leather sample set, and handmade soap. Doodle projects introduce students to new crafting materials and techniques and al craft supplies are included in the box.

Have you heard of community fridges? These are spaces     1     locals can share food with one another and save fresh food     2     going to waste. The Community Fridge Network     3    (connect) 300 community fridges across the UK. It offers guidance to people     4     (look) to set up their own fridges, and support to groups running fridges. The fridges are open to everyone. Of course, there are some rules for what can and cannot     5    (share) in order to keep things safe. But otherwise, you’re welcome     6     (take) what you need, and leave anything that might otherwise end up in the waste bin.

According to     7     survey by the Food Foundation, in April 2022, 15. 5 percent of UK households were food insecure, meaning that they ate     8     (little) than normal or went a day without food because they could not access     9     afford food.

The benefit of community fridges has never been clearer. In difficult times, with pretty much all costs increasing greatly, it is reassuring to know that     10    (community) are coming together and helping each other as much as they can.

8 . A survey by the American Psychological Association shows that one in ten adults reads online news at least once an hour. A lot has been written about the mental health influence from news addiction, and in particular from reading negative reports. Just like junk food, “junk” news can be bad for our health.

In recent years, things have been getting increasingly more negative. A study of the content of New Zealand’s largest newspaper showed that while in 1973 the average number of stories about death on the front page was 0.75, by 2013 it was 4.1(and no, there weren’t five times more people dying).

What’s more, online news, and the stories we read on mobile phones in particular, tend to be even more negative than print. A 2019 study of 50 U.S. newspapers showed that mobile versions of newspapers report three times more stories about disasters and accidents than paper ones.

Such negative reports lead people to believe that things are worse than they really are. They can lead to stress, worry and lower spirits.

Experiments also suggest that loneliness and poor relationships have been connected with reading negative reports. After reading negative reports, people are less likely to help others. Even worse, when we check news on smart phones, we may “phub” our loved ones, which leads to lower relationship satisfaction.

Negative reports attract our attention far more than positive ones. That’s a global happening. I hope, however, that if we realize that negative news is spoiling our moods, we might all be more willing to change.

9 . “When I was 14, I'd pick my younger brother up from school," Jen says. "I'd be in charge of checking his homework and making sure that he was fed until our parents got home. " That is one of the things that led Jen, a Stanford Graduate School of Business student, to become interested in how people's perception of their own age can influence their actions.

That curiosity led her to team up with Szu-chi Huang, an associate professor at Stanford, on a series of experiments in which they shifted participants' perception of their own age in order to study the effects on their willingness to help strangers in need.

In one study, researchers set up a stand at a sports event and invited passers-by to write thank-you cards to people they knew. In the process, the researchers shifted participants' subjective age by informing them about the average age of others who had participated in the event. In another, they organized a food-bank donation drive at local farmers' markets. In some instances, they asked teenage volunteers to collect the money, a trick to make participants feel older. In other instances, the volunteers were in their 50s.

The researchers found that when participants perceived themselves as older, they were more willing to do things for others with whom they didn't have a personal connection. “We found that when people are led to feel older, they feel more responsibility," Huang says. "It's like the society is on our shoulders. We feel like we're expected to make this world better for the next generation. ^w

Organizations involved in social causes might take advantage of the new insights about subjective age to make their recruiting （征募）and fundraising efforts more efficient. "If you want to create an older subjective age among the audience you're trying to reach, recruiting younger volunteers might help," Huang says.

10 . When you throw something in the recycling bin, do you think about what it could become? And when you do, does it make you more likely to use that recycling bin? Recently, a study was conducted in an effort to decide whether or not explaining to people what their recyclables are transformed into would help increase recycling rates.

The researchers started with a group of 111 college students, asked to draw on paper before watching one of three ads.One was a public service message that showed paper going into recycling bins.The other two also showed the paper either being transformed into new paper or a guitar.After completing a survey, the students were asked to deal with the paper when they left. Half of those who saw the first ad recycled their paper, while the recycling rate jumped to 80% for those who'd seen the other ads.

After doing a few more lab experiments, the researchers headed into the real world.At a party, volunteers spoke with attendees (出席者) about recycling, with half mentioning transformed products and half keeping it general.They discovered the subject of the talks came into play.After the game, the recycling and trash bags were weighed.Those who received a message recycled over half of their waste, while those who did not recycled less than a fifth.

All this is to say that details matter.People want to know what treasures their trash can become, and when that's laid out clearly, they' re more likely to do it.Perhaps recycling companies should redesign signs to describe the items being created.Recycling is far from a perfect solution,but it doesn't hurt to manage to improve its rates.