The Best Eco-Friendly Gifts
For the eco-conscious, we've rounded up our favorite eco-friendly gifts to send to your love.
Reusable Bags(Price:$33) Website: Sears.com
This pack of seven reusable bags are free from plastic and made from 100 percent biodegradablbe cotton. The set includes one cotton net bag, three produce bags, and three food bags. Double stitching and durable seams mean these bags are durable machine washable.
Wooden Bookmarks with Tassels(Price:$25) Website: Etsy. Com
Teachers often like to hand out small gifts to students at the end of the year, and this set of wooden bookmarks is a sustainable, affordable way to let students know your care. (Plus, they're a great reminder to read over holiday breaks!) The bookmarks come with colorful tassels as well, making it easy to mark your place while reading.
Personalized Notebook( Price:$13)
Website: Journal. Com
This customizable journal is a great gift to jot down notes, which can be used as a daily thought journal, or as a place to keep travel memories or even grocery lists. The cover is made from eco-friendly heavy cotton paper. The pages are recycled cartridge paper that's perfect for pens and ink.
Greener Bamboo Cutting Board(Price: $90)
Website: Amazon. Com
This bamboo cutting board is naturally bacteria resistant and made from 100 percent bamboo that's grown in organic soil. One side of the board has a deep juice-catching groove that's perfect for capturing juices as you cut. After cutting, simply flip the board to the other side for a beautiful presentation large enough for veggie arrangements, watermelon, and so on.
When I was young, I loved going for a trail(小路) run. It was my favorite way to escape stress. So, when I was back in my hometown after a tough first year of my Ph. D. program, I thought a trail run was just what I needed. But instead of helping me relax, the run did just the opposite.
After I moved to the city for college, where my runs were on flat concrete paths instead of winding dirt trails, I used a GPS watch. When I went for a trail run again in the country, the watch constantly reminded me of the fact that I wasn't keeping up my usual pace. I turned my watch off, thinking that would allow me to enjoy my surroundings and find the peace I expected, but I still worried that I was underperforming. "Why can't I let go and just enjoy myself?" I wondered. After some introspection(反省), I realized why I was struggling — both on trail runs and in graduate school.
When starting my Ph.D., I had thought that my solid postgraduate track record would set me up for instant success. To my surprise, I was wrong. I lacked confidence in my research abilities which I thought stopped me performing well and I constantly felt my progress was too slow. Other students' self-confidence and their excellent results made me feel insecure. Finally, one day I broke down in tears in my tutor's office.
Then came my visiting home. I was having trouble because I hadn't properly adjusted my expectations to the differences between an urban run and a trail run.
A Ph. D. is like a trail run. Sometimes you can run fast. Sometimes you might find yourself climbing up a steep, winding trail at a snail's pace. But that's OK. Barriers are unavoidable, and success looks and feels different on a challenging trail than it does on a smooth, flat path.
Sometimes it's best to take a deep breath and do your best to meet the challenge.
Elephants are often seen comforting upset individual elephants with a gentle touch of their trunks reportedly. It's one thing to witness something that looks like comforting behavior, but another thing to prove that this is what elephants are doing. Now, scientists have shown that Asian elephants do indeed get upset when they see others in trouble, and they reach out to comfort them. Elephants, thus, join the list of other animals, including dogs, wolves and some birds, which have been shown to do so.
Elephants' responses to stress are difficult to explore because one has to wait for opportunities for these arising naturally in the wild. However, Joshua Plotnik, a scientist at Mahidol University in Thailand got around this problem. He compared Asian elephants' behaviors during times of stress to those during periods when little upsets them. For 1 to 2 weeks every month for nearly a year, Plotnik spent 30 to 180 minutes daily watching and recording the behavior of 26 Asian elephants living in Elephant Natural Park in northern Thailand.
Other researchers have previously shown that when upset, an elephant moves its ears and raises its tail; it may also make a low sound to show its stress. "When elephants in the park see an elephant behaving in this manner, they typically respond by feeling the same emotion," Plotnik said, "just as we do when watching a scary movie together. If an actor is frightened, our hearts race and we reach for each other's hands — a reaction known as ‘emotional contagion(情绪感染)'."
"But more studies are needed, preferably in wild populations," Plotnik said. "What is unclear is whether these responses primarily benefit the upset animals, or the responders," Shermin de Silva, a behavioral ecologist, said. However, the study "provides a very interesting first exploration into the behavior of elephants suffering from stress," said Graeme Shannon, a scientist at Colorado State University.
The Food and Drug Administration(FDA),citing an epidemic of diet-related illness, released new guidelines(指导方针) on Wednesday
The Food and Drug Administration(FDA), citing an epidemic of diet-related illness, released new guidelines(指导方针) on Wednesday aimed at reducing the amount of salt that Americans consume at restaurants, school cafeterias and trucks, or when they are eating packaged and prepared foods at home. The guidelines targeted manufactures that sell foods made from grains as well as potato chips and French fries.
The recommendations, issued after years of delay, seek to reduce the average daily sodium(钠) intake step by step—sodium is the chemical name for salt— by 12% over the next two and a half years by encouraging food manufacturers, restaurants and food service companies to scale back their use of salt.
That goal translates into 3,000 milligrams of salt — slightly more than 1 teaspoon — compared to the 3,400 milligrams that Americans typically consume in a day. Americans' love affairs with salty foods has been linked to alarmingly high rates of high blood pressure, a leading risk factor for heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure.
Much of the excess sodium that Americans consume, about 70% comes from processed and packaged food and meals served at restaurants, according to researchers. The guidance will apply to 163 categories of processed and packaged food and provide different targets for rye bread, salad dressing and baby food.
Nutritionists and public health experts praised the FDA for taking on the problem of excess sodium, saying the effort would help sharpen the public's focus on the dangers of taking in too much salt and create pressure on food companies to reduce their reliance on salt as a cheap flavour booster.
But many said that voluntary measures were unlikely to move the needle very much. Some experts have suggested compulsory reductions. Dr Dariush Mozaffarian from Tufts University said a recent study in China suggested the FDA should be firmer with its guidelines. The study showed people who used a salt replacement reduced their chances of stroke and heart problems compared to those who used regular salt. Mozaffarian said the effect of the sodium guidelines will depend on how well the FDAmonitors food companies and their progress.
When a new school semester begins, many children fell very bad about it. They feel very nervous about going back to school. According to the experts, it's totally normal. Transitions(转变) are hard for everyone, . That's because routines are healthy for us, and changing into a new one can throw us off.
For parents, it's really important to know that it's very normal for their children to have a whole range of feelings about going back to school — from excitement, to anxiety and sadness, to evenanger. . They might have stomachaches or headaches when thinking about returning to school in September. And that's all normal, too.
One of the best ways to ease into a new routine is to help the children focus on what they are looking forward to, . It could be one friend they're excited to see or even the idea of walking to school every day.
.Walking or biking by the school can help. Hanging out with a kid who's going to be in the same grade is a better way to relieve anxiety.
Getting enough sleep, exercising, and talking to reliable adults and friends are other effective ways to cope with anxiety and negative feelings..
"If bedtime is now super late, or there is no bedtime, try to move it an hour earlier every night leading up to your first day of school," said an expert.
A. whether you're a kid or an adult
B. rather than what makes them feel nervous
C. instead of returning to school without preparation
D. For some kids, those feelings can even be physical
E. Most parents don't have empathy for their children's feelings
F. Besides, getting used to the new environment before school starts is also a good idea
G. It's also suggested that kids should get their bedtime back on track a week ahead of school
After graduation I managed to work at a news organization. As I was new to the world of 1, I was often sent to finish 2 assignments, but I was eager to 3 myself in tough things. All I wanted was to make a4 impression on my seniors.
5a senior colleague named Joy to let me follow him to his meeting with a major leader. Joy6me with recording the process on tape. It was simple, but I was 7. I would learn a little about how interviews were done.
After we got back to the office, Joy asked me to 8 the tapes for editing. To my 9 , they were all blank! Was this going to cost me my job? Tears welled up in my eyes, with my hands 10 . I didn't know how I'd face Joy. He had 11me, and I'd let him down. I could imagine him angry at my12and asking me to leave.
WhenJoy 13and asked me for the tapes, I 14 and cried, apologetic and embarrassed. "Ithink I save them, but ... " I said. However, Joy, with a lot of 15 as a journalist, had strange16on his face. He sat down and looked me in the eye. "You have to make 17to learn how you can do the job better next time, right?" he smiled.
I stared at Joy 18 . He taught me the most important lesson in my life: Mistakes are 19, and what we learn from them is what 20 the course of our success.
Early detection of visual impairment iscrucial frequently missed in young children, who are capable of only limited cooperation with standard vision tests.
Recently, Chinese scientists(develop) a smartphone-based deep learning system for early detection of visual impairments in young children. was reported in the international science journal Nature Medicine last week, the research was conducted by a team (lead) by Lin Haotian, professor at the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center of the Sun Yat-sen University.
The system is designed to induce a steady gaze in children by using cartoon-like video imagery. Cameras capture features of the subjects for (far) analysis, using deep-learning models. For capable of identifying 16 ophthalmic (disorder), suchas congenital cataracts, congenital ptosis and congenital glaucoma, the systemdelivers an average screening (accurate) of more than 85 percent,said the report.
In the study, more than 25 million frames of videos from 3,652 children were collected (base) on deep-learning software used in the Tianhe-2 super computing center in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. (consequent), the system has the potential to be used by healthcare professionals, parents and caregivers for identifying young children with visual impairments.
Today I tried cooking a simply dish myself. I like eating frying tomatoes with eggs, and I thought it must to be easy to cook. My mom told me how to preparing it. First I cut the tomatoes into pieces but put them aside. Next I broke the eggs into a bowl and beat them quickly with chopstick. After that I poured oil into a pan and turned off the stove. I waited patiently unless the oil was hot. Then I put the tomatoes and the beaten eggs into pan together. "Not that way," my mom tried to stop us but failed. She was right. It didn't turn out as I had wished.
