Train travel can be a very fun experience. You can take in the beautiful scenery and have a relaxed travel experience without the trouble of air travel. Besides, trains are an environmentally friendly choice. Now, train travelers have an additional justification to go by rail. Deutsche Bahn, the national railway company, just cut the price of long-distance travel by 10 percent—a move which has drawn comparisons to the United Kingdom, where millions of people are now trying hard to deal with a 2.7% price increase.

This move, according to the company, came from the climate law passed by the government including a cut in the VAT—value added tax (增值税) -on train travel from 19 percent to 7 percent.

The new prices apply to trips over 50 kilometers, only if the passenger travels from one railway region into another one. Prices are also cut on special offers and additional services, such as fees for traveling with your bicycle.

Deutsche Bahn said, “We do not make any money from the tax cut, and are passing on all savings directly to ticket buyers.” According to Deutsche Bahn, this change is expected to bring in another 5 million passengers a year who’ll change to train traveling for the lower prices.

What actually causes it? Climate protection action. Decreasing the release of carbon from transportation is a key part of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and Germany is trying to meet its requirements to keep global wanning below 2℃.

In an effort to follow the new rules, Deutsche Bahn has planned on buying new trains by 2026 at a cost of $13.46 billion. Germany has already been greening its transportation. Hydrogen (氢) trains were introduced in Germany in 2018. The country is also testing power lines for eTrucks on the motorway.

Astronauts(宇航员) aboard the International Space Station (ISS) recently tested an oven they used to bake(烘烤) five chocolate chip cookies. The cookies that came out best required two hours of baking time inside the International Space Station. The baking time for cookies on Earth is generally only about 20 minutes.

The American company Nanoracks designed and built the cookie oven. Hilton DoubleTree hotels provided the cookie dough(生面团). The makers of the oven did expect some difference in the baking time in space, but they were surprised that difference was so large.

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano took charge of the baking experiment. He reported that the first cookie stayed in the oven for 25 minutes at 149℃. When it came out of the oven, it was seriously under-baked. For the next two cookies, Parmitano more than doubled the baking time. Those cookies came out better, but were still under-baked.

The fourth cookie stayed in the oven for two hours, after which Parmitano was able to report success. “I can’t tell you whether it’s cooked all the way or not, but it certainly doesn’t look like cookie dough anymore.” he reported to controllers back on Earth. For the fifth cookie. Parmitano turned the oven temperature up to 163℃ and baked it for 130 minutes. This time, he reported the best baking results.

The astronauts could smell the cookies when they removed them from the oven, except for the first. No one has tasted the space-traveling cookies just yet. Organizers of the experiment say additional testing needs to be carried out to determine whether they are safe to eat.

Mike Massimino, former NASA astronaut, said, “We have never been able to cook food from raw ingredients before, As we journey further away it is going to be harder to get things we need in space and food, for example, is one of the most important things.” Eating something other than dehydrated(脱水)or prepackaged food will be especially important as astronauts head back to the moon and on to Mars.