In 1996, John Tierney suggested in the New York Times Magazine article that “recycling is garbage.” He wrote, “The money spent on recycling programs should have been spent on real social and environmental problems. Recycling programs not only increase energy use and pollution, but also cost more money than the disposal (处理) of plain old garbage. Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America.”

Environmental groups were quick to express their disagreement. They wrote reports on how recycling programs in cities can reduce pollution and cost less than regular garbage pickup and disposal. Michael Shapiro, an official of the US Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), said that “recycling can be good value for money, although there's still room for improvements.”

But in 2002, New York City, a pioneer of recycling, found that its recycling program was losing money, so it stopped glass and plastic recycling. Other major cities watched closely to see how New York was dealing with its remaining program (the city never stopped paper recycling). But then it closed its last landfill (垃圾填埋地), and private companies out of New York raised prices due to the increased workload of carrying away and disposing New York's garbage. As a result, glass and plastic recycling became profitable for the city again, and New York brought the program back. According to Cecil Adams of The Chicago Reader, the lessons learned by New York are relevant everywhere. He believes that, if managed correctly, recycling programs should cost cities less than garbage disposal.

    Even though the benefits of recycling over disposal are many, keep in mind that it better serves the environment to “reduce and reuse” before recycling is even considered as a choice.

    Top 4 Amusement Parks in the World

    It's summertime! That means parents have extra time to spend with their children, and what better way to engage in classic fun with family and friends than to visit an amusement park? Take a look at these fun choices — perfect summer trip ideas to fit every budget(预算).

    Cedar Point

    Tickets: $280 for adults, $120 for children

    Praising itself as the roller coaster capital of the world, Cedar Point's 18 coasters will ensure you're riding all day. Reader Alicia Goettemoeller describes the park as a “paradise for excited thrillers” while reader Nick Schuyler says it is “built for grown-up kids.”

    Knoebels

    Tickets: $120 for adults, $10 for children

    This old-fashioned amusement park is a must for your old memory games as well as money saving - admittance and parking are free of charge. Reader Tracy Ginsburg Maier says “a family of 4 can enjoy special offer to eat, swim and ride all day for $100” at Knoebels.

    Kings Island

    Tickets: $340 for adults, $160 for children

    Kings Island is one of the most visited theme parks in the US, with more than 3 million visitors per year. The park is especially known for its family-friendly attractions, such as Snoopy Island. Tickets to the main park also include admission to the nearby water park, Boomerang Bay.

    Dells Water Parks

    Tickets: $140 for adults, $80 for children

    Wisconsin Dells is a water park with dozens of indoor and outdoor water parks to spread around in. One of them, Noah's Ark, is the largest outdoor water park in the US. Many are open year-round and no charge for children under five.

    There were no people on the park bench as I sat down to read beneath the branches of an old willow tree, with good reasons to sigh, for the world was dragging me down. At this time, a boy approached me. He stood right before me, and said with great excitement, “Look what I found!”

    In his hand was a flower, and what a pitiful sight, with its petals (花瓣) all worn. Wanting him to take his flower and go off to play, I managed a smile and then turned to the other side.

    But instead of leaving, he sat next to my side and placed the flower to his nose and said firmly and clearly, “It really smells pretty and it's beautiful, too. That's why I picked it. Here it's for you.”

    The flower before me was dying or dead. But I knew I must take it, or he might never leave. So I reached for the flower, and replied, “Just what I need.”

    But instead of placing the flower in my hand, he held it in mid-air. It was then that I noticed that the boy was blind.

    I heard my voice quiver (轻微颤抖), and at the same time my tears shone like the sun. As I thanked him for picking the very best one, he smiled and said, “You're welcome.”

    And then he ran off to play, not knowing the influence he'd had on me.

    I sat there and wondered how he managed to see a self-pitying woman beneath an old willow tree. Perhaps from his heart, he'd been blessed with true sight.

    Through the eyes of the blind boy, I could see the problem was not with the world; the problem was me. And for all of those times I had been blind. From now on, I promised to see beauty and appreciate every second. Then I held the flower up to my nose and breathed its fragrance and smiled as that young boy.

    Scientists around the world are striving for effective detection of cancer in the early stages, which is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body, and a Chinese scientist may have found a quick way of knowing whether malignant tumors (恶性肿瘤) exist in a patient's body, with just one drop of blood.

    Malignant tumors in early phases can be cured. However, it's extremely difficult to be aware of cancer in its early stages, as patients don't show obvious symptoms and thus it can only be found in its later stages, which is already too late, so to detect cancer early remains a global challenge for scientists.

    Back in 1989, scientists have found a kind of heat shock proteins (HSP), named Hsp90α, which existed in human bodies and can be used as a cancer biomarker detection kit. Scientists around the globe have been working on it since then, and more than 10, 000 journals have been published on accredited magazines, yet no one has actually turned their research results into medical products.

    However, Luo Yongzhang and his team in Tsinghua University's School of Life Sciences in Beijing seemed to have cracked the code, after working on the problem since 2009.The team has produced an artificial Hsp90α protein for clinical use that gains structural stability by regrouping proteins. The test kit can diagnose multiple kinds of cancer by analyzing a drop of human blood. This means they are able to "create" the protein, in any quantity, and at any time they wish to.

    The kit has since been used in clinical trials involving 2, 347 patients at eight hospitals in China. It was the first clinical trial in the world to test if the protein could be a useful tumor biomarker for lung cancer, and it succeeded. Now, the kit has been approved to enter the Chinese and European markets, 24 years after Hsp90α was discovered.

    Scientists are attempting to extract (提取) cells from a 40,000-year-old horse in hope of using the sample to clone the extinct (灭绝的) species back into existence. The male baby horse was discovered in 2018 in permafrost (永冻土) in northeastern Siberia of Russia.

    A team of scientists from South Korea and Russia believes the young horse, called the Lenskaya or Lena horse, was about 20 days old when it died. The species of horse, now extinct, is between 30,000 and 40,000 years old. Thanks to the terrible coldness, the animal's tissue was preserved enough for the scientists to obtain samples.

    Semyon Grigoriev, head of the lab at the Mammoth (猛犸象) Museum of the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, said the horse was "well - preserved" and a "great find". There is no damage to the horse's body and even its hair is undamaged. The unfortunate animal, according to Gngo-riev, "could have drowned after falling into some kind of a natural trap."

    Hwang Woo-suk, a researcher from South Korea working on the project, said, "If researchers find a cell, they will do their best to clone the animal. If we get live cells from this ancient baby horse, it would be wonderful in terms of cloning."

    After that, they will make a cloned embryo (胚胎) and a female horse carry it as its mother. Hwang said modern-day horses are "very similar to the ancient one," so there would be no problem getting help from a modern-day female horse.

    The scientists are hoping the experiment on the baby horse will give them experience in progressing toward their ambitious goal-bringing back the extinct woolly mammoth.

    "If we manage to clone the horse-it will be the first step to cloning the mammoth." Hwang said.

What better way to experience the history of a site than to have a hand in actually preserving it? This was the thought behind the founding of Adventures in Preservation (AIP) in 2001. The nonprofit's founders. Judith Broeker and Jamie Donahoe, were both long time preservationists and world travelers. They had seen a great many buildings in poor condition, as well as buildings that had been "restored" without the benefit of conservation expertise.

Twelve years on, they are still involved in the day-to-day management of the organization, supported by a volunteer staff located around the world, Judith's favorite projects have long been the ones in Eastern Europe, and she enjoys opportunity to travel there each year. She, along with anyone else who's joined an adventure, always quotes their fellow jammers, as they're called, as the highlight of each project. The groups are made up of people from all different ages, occupations, and cultures. Yet each time, they form a strong bond and work so well together that the work becomes fun. Which, after all, is the point of a working vacation, no?

Raising understanding of people's own heritage(遗迹) is another part of AIP projects. In many places, there is so much focus on the news that not only are heritage buildings being lost but so are the traditional building skills needed to keep them. By providing training and raising awareness of the importance of their heritage, AIP is helping keep both alive.

Next year, AIP has projects in Europe and the US. There will be even more projects the following year as projects currently under development in Ghana, Armenia, Ukraine and the US come on line. Each project is also an opportunity for travel, adventure, and personal growth, and AIP welcomes people from around the world to join a project and" "jam" with them.