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Designers are increasingly using different kinds of materials to produce products that do not harm the environment. Reused plastic bottles, wood, plant fiber, and even seaweed are being used in place of traditional materials for household goods and clothing. 设计师越来越多地使用不同种类的材料来生产对环境无害的产品。重复使用的塑料瓶、木材、植物纤维，甚至海藻都被用来代替传统的家居用品和服装材料。 Ni...

For many time-poor, health-conscious people, the must-have kitchen gadget at the moment is an air fryer. From top chefs to humble students, many are singing the praises of the device that seems to be flying off the shelves at shops and online. One British department store reported sales increased by 400% in 2021. But are they really the best thing since sliced bread, or is the hype all just h...

A huge 3D printer is working to create what is believed to be the first two-story home built with the technology in the United States. The home is currently taking shape in Houston, Texas. The 3D printing machine working on the project weighs more than 12 tons. The 3D printer is using concrete to produce the home, which will be about 371 square meters. Some parts of the home will also have wood el...

Scientists said this week that they used a high-powered laser to change the direction of lightning strikes for the first time. The laser was aimed at the sky atop Mount Santis in northeastern Switzerland. Lightning is a powerful electrical discharge between a cloud and the ground, within a cloud or between clouds. It kills thousands of people and causes billions of dollars of damage to communicati...

Sweden’s government has promised to remove the “red tape” that restricts dance in some public places. It recently considered a 10-year-old legal requirement for restaurants, bars, and clubs to get a government permit to offer dancing at such businesses. The permit costs about $67. A restaurant, bar, or club that permitted dancing without possession of such a document could lose its right to do bus...

The President of Vietnam Nguyen Xuan Phuc resigned Tuesday as an anti-corruption campaign spreads in the national government. The state-controlled Vietnam News agency reported the resignation took place during a meeting of the ruling Communist Party Central Committee. The agency said the meeting was held “to consider and give opinions on Comrade Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s wish to stop holding positions, q...

A new study has found that a lizard that once lived in forests has gone through genetic changes to survive in city environments. Researchers studied a lizard called the crested anole. The lizard’s official name is Anolis cristatellus. It is commonly found in the American territory of Puerto Rico. The team said it discovered the lizard had grown special scales that helped it climb more easily on sm...

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the number of people in the United States who speak a language other than English at home increased by three times between 1980 and 2019. About one in five people in America speak a second language at home. That is 68 million people. 美国人口普查局报告称，在 1980 年至 2019 年期间，美国人在家中使用非英语语言的人数增加了三倍。大约五分之一的美国人在家中使用第二语言...

A grilled cheese is a simple and well-loved sandwich. It is a favorite food of many American children. But food writer and professional cook Christopher Kimball urges people to add some Korean flavor into their next grilled cheese. He suggests throwing kimchi into the mix. The spicy fermented cabbage is a traditional Korean food. 烤奶酪是一种简单而深受喜爱的三明治。它是许多美国孩子最喜欢的食物。但...

Back in 2010, an international research team fitted tracking devices to birds they believed to be special – Arctic terns. And it turns out they were right, as described in US journal, PNAS. The Arctic tern has an extraordinary year-long migration from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle and back again. 早在 2010 年，一个国际研究团队就为他们认为很特别的鸟类——北极燕鸥安装了跟踪装置。事实证明他...

Our environments can affect the way we feel. This is not a new concept – after all, the traditional practice of feng shui has been with us for thousands of years. More recently, scientific research concluded that the design of healthcare environments could support patients in their recovery. Increasingly, however, it is our homes that are being seen as places we can improve our wellness. 我们的环...

Inflation has caused Argentinian artist Sergio Guillermo Diaz to create an unusual kind of art. He paints on money and sells it. With yearly inflation that likely neared 100 percent last year, Argentina’s 1,000-peso bill is worth around $5.60 officially and only $3.00 on private markets. Diaz, in a talk with Reuters in the northern city of Salta, said, "... it makes sense for me to paint on the la...

California has been hit with a series of powerful storms that began late last month. The storms have brought the state an extreme amount of rainfall. More than 17 people have died from the storms and over half of California’s 58 counties have been declared disaster areas, the governor said. There are even more storms expected in the coming days. California has also experienced a multi-year drought...

Messaging service WhatsApp has added support for a tool to help users stay online when governments block the internet. The company – owned by Facebook’s parent Meta – recently announced it would let users connect to WhatsApp through proxy servers. 消息服务 WhatsApp 增加了对一种工具的支持，以帮助用户在政府封锁互联网时保持在线。该公司由 Facebook 的母公司 Meta 所有，最近宣布将允许用户通过代理服务器连...

Do you get your best ideas when you are bored, or when you are out doing new things? What should we look for when we want to be more creative? Boredom and stimulus may be opposites, but studies into creativity suggest that actually we might need both. 当你感到无聊时，或者当你出去做新事物时，你会得到最好的想法吗？当我们想要更有创意时，我们应该寻找什么？无聊和刺激可能是相反的，但对创造力的研究表明，...

Whether you love to belt out tunes at karaoke or just sing in the shower, it turns out that singing can be good for both physical and mental health. And you don't even have to be good at it! 无论您是喜欢在卡拉 OK 中大声高唱还是只是在淋浴时唱歌，事实证明唱歌对身心健康都有好处。而且您甚至不必擅长它！ The physical and mental advantages of singing are caused by a combination of factors, according to B...

Many of us were told from an early age that, be it at school or in life, "you learn from your mistakes". But is this actually true? 我们中的许多人从小就被告知，无论是在学校还是在生活中，“你从错误中吸取教训”。但这真的是真的吗？ The short answer is 'yes' – failure can be a teachable moment. But learning from our mistakes is, in reality, very hard because we don't like to fail. It doesn't feel good,...

We've all been there – staring at a pile of books, desperately hoping that what we study will stick in our mind. Many of us have probably asked if there's any way that we can get better at remembering things. So, why don't we look at what memory experts say about this? 我们都去过那里——盯着一堆书，绝望地希望我们所学的东西能牢记在心。我们中的许多人可能会问，是否有任何方法可以让我们更好地记住事物。那...

Do you ever struggle with choosing your outfit in the morning? If you have a full wardrobe yet still feel you don't have anything to wear, you might want to build yourself a capsule wardrobe! 您是否曾经为早上选择衣服而苦恼？如果你的衣柜已经装满了，但仍然觉得没有什么可穿的，你可能想为自己打造一个胶囊衣橱！ So, what is this? Put simply, a capsule wardrobe is a small selection of items of clothing th...

Are you a good judge of character? Can you make an accurate judgement of someone's personality based only on your first impression of them? Ironically, the answer lies as much in them as it does in you. 你能很好地判断人品吗？仅凭第一印象就可以准确判断一个人的性格吗？具有讽刺意味的是，答案在他们身上和在你身上一样多。 One of the first people to try to identify good judges of character was US psychol...

The weather affects all of us. An unexpected downpour or hot spell can be annoying, but when conditions are more extreme, it can severely impact agriculture, transport infrastructure and our homes. It's no surprise that for centuries scientists have tried to control the weather – but is it really possible? 天气影响我们所有人。一场意想不到的倾盆大雨或炎热天气可能会令人讨厌，但当情况更加极端时，它会...

Are you the kind of person who hated school? Or are you more like Michael Nicholson, who can't stop learning? He currently has 30 degrees including 22 master's and a doctorate! If you're also passionate about studying, you might be a philomath – a person who loves to learn and study. The word comes from Greek with 'phil' meaning 'a lover of' and 'math' meaning 'learning'. 你是那种讨厌上学的人吗？...

Is there anything nicer than a cooling ice cream on a hot summer's day? This traditional treat is centuries old, but our tastes and consumer habits are evolving. How is the ice cream production process changing, and who is driving this change? 有什么比在炎热的夏日来一杯清凉的冰淇淋更惬意的呢？这种传统美食已有数百年历史，但我们的口味和消费习惯正在不断发展。冰淇淋生产过程发生了怎样的变化，谁在推动这...

How's your eyesight? From the moment we're born, our eyes grow, our vision becomes clearer and some of us will have normal or even 20:20 vision. However, others will become short-sighted and end up wearing glasses or contact lenses to help them see everything clearly. And some experts claim that more of us will be wearing them in the future because of our lifestyle when we were younger. 你的视力怎...

Milk, it comes from cows, right? Well, not all the milk you see on supermarket shelves is from an udder. These days we see many plant-based alternatives to dairy, such as oat, pea and soya milk. But why would someone stop drinking their full-fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed cow’s milk and trade it for one of these? 牛奶，它来自牛，对吧？好吧，并非您在超市货架上看到的所有牛奶都来自乳房。如今，我们看到...