Plastic is easy, convenient, cheap and long-lasting, but it does great harm to the environment.

    Since plastic entered mass production, 8 billion tons have been produced – and we aren't very good at recycling. By 2015, 6,945 tons of plastic waste had formed, with around 9 percent of it getting recycled. About 79 percent of it ends up in landfills or around the environment, including the ocean. We may end up drowning in plastic before long.

    Chemists at Colorado State University have found a polymer（聚酯）that has many of the qualities of plastics – it's light, strong, durable and heat-resistant – but that can be changed back to its original small-molecule（分子）state for complete recycling. Even after being recycled, the polymer can be turned back into its plastic-like state, and this can be done quickly and cheaply.

    This new polymer has all the good qualities of plastics, yet it is relatively easy to make and to recycle. Making it requires room temperature conditions, a short reaction time to bond the monomer（单体）into polymers and only a small amount of the catalyst（催化剂）remains in the end product. It has a high molecular weight, stands up to heat and generally behaves like plastic. Recycling it requires similarly little effort. Mild lab conditions are required and so is a catalyst. Once applied, the polymers are once again monomers in a matter of minutes and can be used to create another product.

    But don't get too excited about this just yet. Scientists stressed that the polymer isn't ready for mass products just yet. There's still plenty of development to do, including making it more economical to produce and recycle.

    Camberwell College Swimming Pools

    Camberwell College of Arts has one 50m (Olympic sized) pool with a depth of 2m throughout, and one 25m pool with a 1m shallow end and a 4m deep end. Both pools may be used by the general public at certain times.

    50m Pool

    The pool is often used for classes, but the general public may use two lanes（泳道）for lane swimming at the following times.

    Monday:        06:30-11:30 and 19:00-21:00

    Tuesday:        06:30-11:30 and 18:00-21:00

    Wednesday:    06:30-13:30 and 17:30-21:30

    Thursday:    06:30-13:30

    Friday:        06:30-13:30

    Weekends:    09:00-17:00

    Children under the age of 14 must be accompanied by an adult.

    Please note that during College holidays, these times will be different. Call 04837 393560 for up-to-date information.

    25m Pool

    The 25m pool is available for recreational (non-lane) swimming from 07:00-09:00 and 12:30-13:30 on weekdays, and 10:00-16:00 on Saturdays.

    Children aged 12 and under must be accompanied.

    We regret that the 25m pool will be closed for redecoration between 21st July and 18th August. The men's changing rooms will be closed for the week beginning 19th August, and the women's changing rooms will be closed the following week. Alternative（可选用的）changing rooms will be made available. We're sorry for this.

    One night about nine o'clock, Dr. Eyck, a surgeon, had a phone call from Dr. Haydon at the hospital in Clens Falls. The surgeon was asked to go there at once to operate on a very sick boy who shot himself while playing with a gun.

    The doctor was soon on his way to Clens Falls. It was 60 miles away. And it was snowing heavily in the city. The surgeon thought he could get there before 12 o'clock.

    A few minutes later, the doctor was stopped by a man in an old black coat. Gun in hand, the man ordered the doctor to get out. Then the man drove the car down the road, leaving the doctor in the falling snow.

    It was after 2 o'clock in the morning when the doctor arrived at the hospital in Clens Falls. Dr. Haydon told him that the boy had died an hour before. The two doctors walked by the door of the hospital waiting room. There sat the man in the old black coat with his head in his hands“Mr. Cuninghan,”said Dr. Haydon to the man, “This is Dr. Eyck. He is the surgeon who walked all the way from Albany to save your boy.”

    Believe it or not, the size of the human brain has become smaller over the past 20,000 years. Scientists argue over whether this means we are becoming more or less intelligent as a species.

    “I'd call that a major downsizing in an evolutionary eye blink (眨眼),” John Hawks told Discover magazine.

    Why is the brain becoming smaller?

    There are different theories to explain it. One is that tens of thousands of years ago, before the decline began, to survive in cold and dangerous conditions, humans needed a stronger and larger body and therefore, a larger head. Also they had to chew the tough meat of rabbits, foxes and horses. As conditions improved, the brain stopped growing, according to supporters of this theory.

    Another theory comes from a recent study by David Geary and Drew Bailey. They found that brain size decreased as population density(密度) increased.

    “As complex societies appeared, the brain became smaller because people did not have to be as smart to stay alive.” Geary told AFP.

    But smaller brain size does not necessarily mean that modern humans are less smart than their ancestors. “Modern humans simply developed different, more complex forms of intelligence,” said Brian Hare.

    Hare's studies focus on two types of great apes: chimpanzees and bonobos. Both are much like humans, but are physically quite different from one another. The bonobo has a smaller brain than the chimpanzee, and is also much less aggressive and more tolerant.

    “When it comes to working out a problem,” Hare said, “chimpanzees are much less likely to accomplish it if it involves working together. Not so with bonobos.”

The smaller brain in modern humans may be evidence that we can cooperate,” Hare told the US National Public Radio.

    Pizza is a pretty universal treat, but where did it start? Here are three things you probably didn't know about pizza.

    1: Pizza's Origins Are Half-Baked.

    The Neapolitans（那不勒斯人）in Italy are proud of saying they invented pizza, but it's probably more accurate to say, they perfected it. The idea of putting toppings on a flatbread and baking it started in the 6th century B. C. But the people of Naples were the first to put tomato on a flatbread in the 16th century. From its start, pizza was a food of the poor, as it was cheap, filling and easy to eat on the run. In Italian, the word “pizza” refers to anything that is made and then pressed flat.

    2: Pizza Margherita Is Not Exactly a Symbol of Italy.

It was said some day in 1889, a local baker named Raffaele Esposito created three pizzas for Queen Margherita when she was on a tour of Italy. The queen loved the version that had tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese— and just happened to match the colors of the Italian flag. So Esposito named the pizza after her.

    But Pizza historian Scott Wiener points out that Italy was unified in name only in 1889 so it was unlikely any Neapolitan baker would want to celebrate “the Northern conquerors.” Further, the letter of gratitude for the pizza from the royal household that Pizzeria Brandi displays appears to be a fake（赝品）and may just have been a marketing plan.

    3: Hawaliian Pizza Invented by a Canadian.

    Sam Panopoulos, from Greece originally moved to Canada at the age of 20. In 1962, he decided to put some ham and pineapple on a pizza at one of his restaurants in Ontario.

    “We just put it on for fun to see how it was going to taste,” he told the BBC in 2017. Panopoulos named it the Hawaiian pizza after the brand of canned pineapple he used. The mix of sweet and savory toppings caught on with a certain part of the pizza-loving public. The inventor died in 2017.

    It is quite reasonable to blame traffic jams, the cost of gas and the great speed of modern life, but manners on the road are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men would become fierce tigers behind the wheel. It is all right to have a tiger in a cage, but to have one in the driver's seat is another matter altogether.

    Road politeness is not only good manners, but good sense too. It takes the most cool-headed drivers great patience to give up the desire to beat back when forced to face rude driving. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of quarrelling and fighting. A friendly nod or a wave of thanks in answer to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of good will and calm so necessary in modern traffic condition. But such behaviors of politeness are by no means enough. Many drivers nowadays don't even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.

    However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. Typical examples are the driver who waves a child crossing the street at a wrong place into the path of oncoming cars that may be not able to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they want to. It always amazes me that the highways are not covered with the dead bodies of these grannies (奶奶).

    An experienced driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if drivers learnt to correctly join in traffic stream without causing total blockages that give rise to unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately, modern drivers can't even learn to drive. Years ago, experts warned us that the fast increase of the car ownership would demand more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.