We produce 500 billion of plastic bags in a year worldwide and they are thrown away polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Researchers have been unsuccessfully looking for a solution.

    The 16-year-old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, from Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade(降解) in as few as 3 months, a finding that won him first prize at the Canada Wide Science Fair, a ＄10,000 prize, a ＄20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.

    Burd's strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms(微生物)．If those microorganisms could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.

    With this goal in mind, he grounded plastic bags into a powder and concocted(调制) a solution of household chemicals, yeast(酵母) and tap water to encourage microbes growth．Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for 3 months．Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control．Sure enough, the plastic exposed(暴露) to the live bacteria was 17% lighter than the control after six weeks.

    The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide.

    “Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have piles of plastic bags falling on top of me．One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags．The answer: not much．So I decided to do something myself.” Said Daniel Burd.

    A handsome man can earn a fifth more than an average-looking colleague but a beautiful woman is not paid a penny more than her average-looking colleague, new research has shown.

    The study by senior economists（经济学家）found that being good-looking meant male workers could earn 22 percent more than average-looking colleagues. Researchers said good looks did not give women a similar advantage.

    Andrew Leigh, a former economics professor at the Australian National University who co-authored the report, said: “Beauty can be a double-edged sword for women.”

    “Some people still believe good looks and intelligence are incompatible(矛盾的) in women, so a good-looking women can't be that productive, but it doesn't affect men's pay.”

    He said that although he believed good-looking women may also earn more, the research did not support his theory.

    The research found that handsome men in all jobs, from manual labour（手工劳动）to highly-paid professional careers, can earn 22 percent more than their colleagues doing the same work.

    Men with below-average looks face a battle in the office, with ugliness reducing a man's earnings by 26 percent compared to an average-looking worker.

    Former male model, Caitlan Mitchell, 28, who has a first class degree in history from Edinburgh University and now works for a cosmetics company, told the Sunday Times:' It gives you confidence, and I suspect people tend to warm to you more quickly.”

    The study, named Unpacking the Beauty Premium, was the largest exercise of its kind and repeated a survey from 1984 to see if the beauty premium（美貌溢价) had changed.

    Leigh said the research showed people in the workplace were “lookist(以貌取人的)”and he hoped the findings would encourage employers to remove their prejudice.

    One Moore Elementary school teacher is showing students the importance of communication through “shout-outs”. Third Grade Moore Elementary teacher Lindsey Winders said a shout-out is a compliment（称赞）that students can say or write down. “Like, 'hey I noticed you doing a really great job solving your math facts yesterday. I wanted to make sure you know that I saw you do that,” Winders said.

    Winders said she makes sure she is giving shout-outs to her students every day. “I might write them a sticky note, or write them a quick little note in their plans. I might just say it to them on their way into the classroom or on their way out of the classroom, but most importantly I try to do it every day,” Winders said.

    In addition to the compliments, Winders has the students greet each other every morning during morning meeting. She will have students give examples to the class of how to communicate in different settings. Third grade student Nayelli Moranchel said she has given at least six shout outs this year. “It makes me happy, because they always write something back,” Moranchel said.

    Recently, Winders took it one step further and wrote a personalized note on each of her students' desk. “In our classroom, sometimes it can be challenging for me to give a compliment or a shout out to each and every one of them in a way that feels equal and valuable at the same time. So I thought what's a better way to be able to do that than leaving a note on their desk that can stay for as long as they want it.” Winders said.

    Winders said it is encouraging when she sees her students copy the act, and give each other compliments without her guidance.

    Parents should stop blaming themselves because there's not a lot they can do about it. I mean the teenager problem, the one I want to talk about as a specialist. Whatever you do or however you choose to deal with it, at certain times a wonderful, reasonable and helpful child will turn into a terrible animal.

    I've seen friends deal with it in all kinds of different ways. One strict mother insisted that her son, right from a child, should stand up whenever anyone entered the room, open doors and shake hands like a gentleman. I saw him last week when I dropped in on them. Sprawling himself (懒散地躺) on the sofa in full length, he made no attempt to turn off the loud TV he was watching as I walked in, and his greeting was no more than a quick glance at me. His mother was ashamed. "I don't know what to do with him these days," she said. "He's forgotten all the manners we taught him."

    He hasn't forgotten them. He's just decided that he's not going to use them. She admitted that she would like to come up behind him and throw him down from the sofa onto the floor.

    Another good friend of mine let her two daughters climb all over the furniture, reach across the table, stare at me and say, "I don't like your dress; it's ugly." One of the daughters has recently been driven out of school. The other has left home.

    "Where did we go wrong?" her parents are now very sad. Probably nowhere much. At least, no more than the rest of that unfortunate race, parents.

    There are so many expressions in American English that sound good but are not.

    "Face the music" is a good example. When someone says they have to face the music, it does not mean they are going to a musical show or concert. To face the music means to accept the bad results of an action.

    Imagine a friend asks you to take care of her beautiful red sports car. She gives you the keys and says, "Thanks so much for watching my car while I'm away. But please do not drive it. It is a very fast car and you are not on the insurance (保险)."

    But you do not listen. You want to show it to some friends and pretend(假装) the car is yours. So, you drive it around town one night. As bad luck would have it, you lose control of the car and drive it into a stop sign. The damage is serious. When your friend returns you must tell her what you have done and "face the music".

    The "music" here is the result of your actions. It could be losing her friendship or paying for repairs to her sports car or both. Whatever the music is, you must face it.

    There are other American expressions that mean the same as "face the music".

    To "take your medicine" means to accept the results from something bad you have done. And if someone says, "You made your bed. Now lie in it." He means you created a bad situation and now you will experience the results, or as we say in American spoken English, you must deal with it!

    "Pay the piper" also means the same as "face the music". But, that expression has its own very interesting beginning. We will talk about that in the next Words and Their Stories.

    Sila Sutharat, a roasted chicken street vendor from Phetchaburi, Thailand, has come up with a unique way of cooking chicken. He uses 1, 000 mobile mirrors that concentrate sunlight into a strong beam(光束).

    Like most other street vendors, Sila used to cook his chicken over a charcoal(木炭)fire. But that all changed in 1997, when an ordinary observation gave him a great idea. One day, he was hit by the sunlight reflected off the window of a passing bus, and he felt its heat. "I could possibly change it into energy," Sila told himself. Then he started working on how to make use of the sunlight to cook his chicken.

    "They said that I'd gone mad, and that cooking chicken like this was impossible," Sila told reporters about how people reacted to his idea. But he didn't let their jokes get to him, and in the end he was the one who had the last laugh. He invented a panel featuring 1, 000 small mirrors that could be moved. It worked exactly as he predicted, allowing him to cook a 1.5 kg chicken in just 10 to 15 minutes. "After a long time passed by, they'd say: "Actually, you could do it," " Sila Sutharat recalls. Sila says that his invention can make the temperature go up to 312'C. This is why he always wears a special mask instead of a cook's hat when operating it.

    Sila's solar roaster is an unusual sight. It has attracted quite a few curious people who are eager to taste Sila's sun-cooked chicken. He's been using this cooking method for two decades now. And he says it's much better than traditional roasting methods. It is free, cooks all parts of the chicken, and best of all, it's 100% clean. Phetchaburi Rajabhat University thought Sila's idea was very good and useful, so they awarded him an honorary science degree.