Researchers at the University of Kansas say that people can accurately judge 90 percent of a stranger's personality simply by looking at the person's shoes. “Shoes convey useful information about their wearers”, the authors wrote in the new study published in the Journal of Research in Personality．

    Lead researcher Omri Gillath said the judgments were based on the style, cost, color and condition of someone's shoes. In the study, 63 University of Kansas researchers looked at pictures showing 208 different pairs of shoes worn by the study's participants. Volunteers in the study were photographed in their most commonly worn shoes, and then filled out a personality questionnaire.

    Some of the results were expected: People with higher incomes most commonly wore expensive shoes, and flashier shoes were typically worn by outgoing people. However，some of the more specific results are strange enough. For example, “practical and functional ''shoes were generally worn by more “pleasant" people, while ankle boots were more linked with “aggressive” personalities. The strangest of all may be that those who wore “uncomfortable looking” shoes tend to have “calm” personalities. And if you have several pairs of new shoes or take extreme care of them, you may suffer from “attachment anxiety", spending lots of time worrying about what other people think of your appearance. There was even a political calculation in the mix with more liberal (主张变革的) types wearing “shabbier and less expensive” shoes.

    The researchers noted that some people will choose shoe styles to mask their actual personalities, but researchers noted that volunteers were also likely to be unaware that their footwear choices were showing the deep side of their personalities.

    There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic trash in the world's oceans, and each year, 8 million tons of plastic are added to the figure. Though the oceans seem vast enough to stomach a lot of plastic, the level of waste is starting to reach a crisis point: According to a new report by the Ocean Conservancy, by 2025, the ocean could contain one ton of plastic for every three tons of finfish.

All these floating bits of plastic not only disrupt marine ecosystems, but they also poison the global supply of seafood. “It's reaching crisis proportions,” says Andreas Merkl, CEO of the Ocean Conservancy. “Plastic breaks down into small pieces that look like plankton and is eaten by everyone from plankton to whales.” Plastic acts as a pollution sponge in the ocean, so when wildlife swallow pieces, the plastic might as well be a poison pill.

    The new report calls for a focus on improving waste management systems in a handful of developing countries that are most responsible for the plastic leakage into the ocean. China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam contribute more than half of the oceans' plastic since their waste facilities hasn't kept up with rapid industrialization.

    On average, only about 40% of waste in these countries is actually picked up for disposal. But it's not just uncollected waste floating around-though that is three-fourths of the problem. The other quarter of the oceans' plastic came from post-collection activities. Even when a waste management company picks up waste to landfill it, poorly equipped landfills or illegal dumping mean that trash still ends up in the ocean.

    But how can countries stop the leakage of waste into the ocean? The Ocean Conservancy report suggests five “levers”: waste collection services, closing the leakage points within the collection system, gasification and burning of waste, and recycling facilities. The average waste ends up as litter. Just by expanding collection systems and plugging up their leakage points, the report says plastics leakage could by cut by 50% by 2020.

    It's not just an environmentalist's daydream. Coca-Cola and Dow Chemical, along with some other multinational companies have joined forces with Ocean Conservancy to fight ocean pollution. “We're committed to working toward a future of a plastic-free ocean. Companies don't make plastic with the intent of it ending up in the ocean, and we acknowledge the strong role industry must play in order to help eliminate ocean plastic waste by 2035.” Says Dow Packaging and Speciality Plastics' global sustainability director in a press release.

    Merkl emphasized that the countries can't recycle their way out of the problem. Only about 20% of the waste is valuable enough to be worth recycling: the rest, needs to be sent to sanitary landfills or waste-to-energy plants. “You have to concentrate on the fundamentals of waste management,” he says. And while building landfills and incinerators(焚化炉)across these developing countries might not be pretty, it's far more environmentally friendly than letting waste slide into the world's oceans.

Senses That Work Together

    When we think about how our senses work, we usually imagine them operating separately: you sniff a flower, and the smell is delivered uninterrupted from nose to brain. However, it's more complex than that. Most evidence for cross-modal perception (知觉) comes from studies into sound and vision (视觉). But research that shows other senses crossing over is coming out all the time, and it seems that even sound and smell sometimes form an unlikely pairing.

    When New York researchers, Daniel Wesson and Donald Wilson, tried to find out the truth about a “mysterious” area of the brain called the olfactory tubercle (嗅结节)，they had to deal with this fact. Originally, they only intended to measure how olfactory tubercle cells in mice responded to smell. But during testing, Wesson noticed that every time he put his coffee cup down with a clunk (哐啷声)，the mouse cells jumped in activity. In fact, the olfactory tubercle is well-placed to receive both smell and sound information from the outside world. Later they found that among separate cells, most responded to a smell but a significant number were also active when a sound was made. Some cells even behaved differently when smell and sound were presented together, by increasing or decreasing their activity.

    Of course, mice aren't people, so research team has been carrying out further experiments. They pulled together a group of people and gave them various drinks to smell. Participants were asked to sniff the drinks, and then match them to appropriate musical instruments and produce the notes at different levels. The results were interesting: piano was regularly paired with fruity fragrances; strong smells sounded like the instruments that are made of metal.

    Further research found that listening to different sounds can change your perceptions. Studying taste this time, the team ordered some special toffee (太妃糖)and put together “soundscapes” corresponding to bitterness and sweetness. Participants tasted similar pieces of toffee while listening to each soundscape, and found the toffee more bitter or sweeter, depending on which soundtrack they were listening to.

    Studies like this are helping scientists correctly describe our understanding of the senses, and how the brain combines them with its advantage. The consequences are worth considering. Could we see musicians work together with chefs to produce sound-improved food and drink? Will you be ordering a coffee with a soundtrack to bring out your favorite smell? Come to think of it, that could be one thing you hope coffee shop chains don't get round to.

    Chinese New Year has been welcomed in Britain with its biggest ever program of events and celebrations.

    From London's Trafalgar Square to major cities across Britain, tens of thousands of British people have joined Chinese communities to celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Rooster.

    In Manchester there was a Dragon Parade, led by a spectacular 54-meter long dragon, ending is Chinatown where there was traditional Chinese entertainment, more than 6,000 lanterns, street food villages and a fireworks show. Celebrations also took place in Liverpool. Birmingham, Lake District, Durham, Edinburgh. Leeds and Newcastle.

    Academic Dr. Wu Kegang said that the Chinese New Year event in Britain “is now bigger than ever and it is growing every year.”

    When Wu arrived in Britain 26 years ago from Guangdong, south China, the first thing he noticed was that Chinese New Year was celebrated mainly in towns and cities with big Chinese communities. “You would go to London Chinatown and join your countrymen to celebrate, or to Chinatowns in places like Liverpool and Manchester for what were events almost exclusively held for Chinese people,” Wu recalled.

    “Now it is so different, and we are seeing local communities all over the country taking part alongside their own Chinese populations,” he said. “It is clear to me that the celebrations will continue to grow in Britain. Chinese New Year has earned its place in the calendar of events in Britain, and is here to stay.”

    The clock always seems to be ticking rather too fast in the doctor's office and the queue of patients outside the door seems to be pressing rather too hard. Some say it's high time for the model of short, sharp one-to-one appointments to give way to shared medical appointments (SMAs共享医疗预约).

    SMAs are doctor-patient visits in which a group of patients receive patient education and counseling (咨询), physical examination and medical support in a group setting. Typically SMAs are designed to have one or more doctors attend to a group of patients who share a common illness or medical condition. In contrast to one-to-one visits, SMAS provide a longer appointment time-frame as well as the opportunity for patients to have improved access to their physicians and meanwhile pick up additional information and support from peers.

    However, doctors who have pioneered the shared appointment approach report that there are significant challenges involved. Dr. Sumego, director of shared medical appointments, Cleveland Clinic, identifies culture change as the most significant challenge. Physicians and nurses are trained in a model of personal service and privacy; the SMA approach is a fundamental challenge to those fixed ideas. They need shared goals and a way of testing the innovation against agreed standards. Dr. Sumego says, "The physicians may be worried about the possible chaos and efficiencies that are marketed. They also have to make the patients understand what their appointment is, and what the expectation is."

    "So, if an organization was looking to start shared medical appointments, I would advise them to start the buy-in from a few champion physicians, develop the work-flow and develop some experience. Provide some support behind what that best practice should look like. Create some standards so that, as the concept spreads, you can employ that experience to start the next shared medical appointments and the next."

Insect numbers have decreased by half in some parts of the world due to climate change and intensive agriculture,a study has found.The combined pressures of global heating and farming are driving a "substantial decline" of insects across the globe,according to the UK researchers.

Lead researcher,Dr Charlie Outhwaite of UCL,said losing insect populations could be harmful not only to the natural environment,but to human health and food security,particularly with losses of pollinators(传粉昆虫)."Our findings highlight the urgency of actions to preserve natural habitats,slow the expansion of high-intensity agriculture,and cut emissions to reduce climate change," she added.

In the latest study,the researchers pulled together data on the range and number of nearly 20,000 insect species,including bees,ants,butterflies,grasshoppers and dragonflies,at about 6,000 different locations.In areas with high-intensity agriculture and substantial warming,insect numbers have decreased by 49%,compared with relatively untouched places that have so far avoided the most severe impacts of climate change,according to the research published in Nature.

But the researchers said there was some cause for hope.Setting aside areas of land for nature creates a refuge(庇护所) for insects,which need shade to survive in hot weather."Careful management of agricultural areas,such as preserving natural habitats near farmland,may help to ensure that vital insects can still survive," said Dr Tim Newbold,also of UCL.

Study researcher,Peter McCann,added,"We need to acknowledge how important insects are for the environment as a whole,and for human health and well being,in order to address the threats we pose to them before many species are lost forever."