Recently actor Adrien Grenier has launched(发动)a campaign to reduce the amount of single-use plastic usage in order to protect and save marine (海洋的)wildlife and the environment. Plastic drinking straws are among many single-use plastic products contributing to the great loss of marine life, but they're a great place to start because they're something that are used by millions of Americans who are unaware that they're so damaging.

    Americans use more than 500 million straws daily, which is enough to fill 127 school buses each day and they can't be recycled. That means plastic straws might end up in oceans, where fish and other marine wildlife mistake the small bits for food and swallow them. After seeing a photo of a beached whale with a belly full of plastic, Grenier felt the inspiration to launch the Lonely Whale Foundation, hoping to inspire and educate others on the challenges faced by marine wildlife.

    Along with stopping the use of straws, Grenier hopes to educate consumer on the dangers of other single-use plastic items such as grocery bags and water bottles. While many Americans use these plastic products in their daily life, there are many alternatives that can help protect the environment such as straws made from stainless steel, glass, and even bamboo instead of plastic.

    In addition to quitting your straw habit, you can further help the environment by taking the I Choose to Reuse commitment, and stop your use of single-use coffee cups, checkout bags and bottled water. Instead, take advantage of any number of alternative reusable products.

    Need another reason to stop drinking from straws? Grenier also says using straws can cause wrinkles!

    They wear the latest fashions with the most up­to­date accessories(配饰)．Yet these are not girls in their teens or twenties but women in their sixties and seventies. A generation which would once only wear old­fashioned clothes is now favouring the same high street looks worn by those half their age.

    Professor Julia Twigg，a social policy expert，said，“Women over 75 are now shopping for clothes more often than they did when they were young in the 1960s.In the 1960s buying a coat for a woman was a serious matter. It was an expensive item that they would purchase only every three or four years—now you can pick one up at the supermarket whenever you wish to. Fashion is a lot cheaper and people get tired of things more quickly.”

    Professor Twigg analysed family expenditure(支出)data and found that while the percentage of spending on clothes and shoes by women had stayed around the same—at 5 or 6 per cent of spending—the amount of clothes bought had risen sharply.

    The professor said.“Clothes are now 70 per cent cheaper than they were in the 1960s because of the huge expansion of production in the Far East. In the 1960s Leeds was the heart of the British fashion industry and that was where most of the clothes came from，but now almost all of our clothes are sourced elsewhere. Everyone is buying more clothes but in general we are not spending more money on them.”

    Angela Barnard，who runs her own fashion business in London，said older women were much more affected by celebrity(名流)style than in previous years.

She said，“When people see stars such as Judi Dench and Helen Mirren looking attractive and fashionable in their sixties，they want to follow them. Older women are much more aware of celebrities. There's also the boom in TV programmes showing people how they can change their look，and many of my older customers do yoga to stay in shape well in their fifties. When I started my business a few years ago，my older customers tended to be very rich，but now they are what I would call ordinary women. My own mother is 61 and she wears the latest fashions in a way she would never have done ten years ago.”

    Feelings often run high where insects are concerned, with many people even sick when seeing them, let alone touch or swallow them. And yet insects present a huge nutritional opportunity as an increasing global population seeks more sources of food and feed.

    Insects have generally high levels of animal protein and key micronutrients with lower environmental footprints than traditional alternatives, and they can be raised on leftovers. But cultural, social and economic problems remain, reports an article published today in Nutrition Bulletin.

    “Insects present a nutritional opportunity, but it is unclear how their nutritional quality is influenced by what they are fed,” says Darja Dobermann, a researcher at the University of Nottingham. “In ideal conditions, insects have a smaller environmental impact than most traditional western forms of animal protein; less known is how to raise insect production while maintaining these environmental benefits.”

    “Studies overall show that insects could make valuable economic and nutritional contributions to the food or fed systems, but there are no clear regulations in place to bring insects into such supply systems without them turning into a more expensive version of poultry（家禽）for food,” says Dobermann.

    The article highlights how insects have been a source of food for hundreds of years in more than 100 countries with over 2,000 species that can be eaten; in central Africa, up to 50% of dietary protein has come from insects, with their market value higher than many alternative sources of animal protein.

    Insects need to be large enough to make the effort of catching them worthwhile and easy to locate, preferably in predictably large quantities. They are consumed at various life stages, as raw, fried, boiled, roasted or ground food.

    Do students learn as much when they read digitally as they do in print? Investigators have been trying to determine whether students do as well when reading an assigned text on a digital screen as on paper.

    A number of researchers have sought to measure learning by asking people to read a passage of text, either in print or on a digital device, and then testing for comprehension.

    Most studies have found that participants scored about the same when reading in each medium, though a few have indicated that students performed better on tests when they read in print.

    Since in standardized testing, reading passages and answering questions afterwards may tell us little about any deeper level of understanding, some researchers are beginning to pose more subtle questions.

    When people were asked to read d story in print or on a digital device and then to reconstruct the plot development, the answer is: Print yielded better results. When people were asked to read by choosing how much time to spend on each platform, the researchers found that participants devoted less time to reading the passage on screen and performed less well on the following comprehension test.

    So, how does the learning question relate to educational goals?

To become skilled in critical thinking, students need to be able to handle text. The text may be long, complex or both. To make sense of it, students cannot skim, rush ahead or continually get distracted. So, does reading in print versus on screen build critical thinking skills?

    When asked in which medium they felt they concentrated better, 92 percent replied “print”. For long academic reading, 86 percent favored print Participants were also reported to be more likely to reread academic materials if they were in print

    What's more, a number of students indicated they believed print was a better medium for learning. By contrast, in talking about digital screens, students noted “danger of distraction” and “no concentration”.

    Evidently, it's not too hard to tell that a pattern did emerge: Print stood out as the medium for doing serious work.

    Two hundred years ago the English poet William Wordsworth wrote "I wander'd Lonely as a Cloud", a poem that expresses a basic spirit of early English Romanticism.

    What makes this poem an example of Romantic thinking? It isn't just that Wordsworth chooses to write about natural scene：it is the way he describes the scene as if it had human emotions. For him, nature is not only a neutral (无感情色彩的) mixture of scenery, colours, plants, rocks, soil, water and air. It is a living force that feels joy and sadness, shares human pain and even tries to educate us human beings by showing us the beauty of life.

    Wordsworth's home, Dove Cottage, is now one of the most popular destinations in the Lake District. You can go on a tour of the garden which William planted with wild flowers and which survived in his backyard even after they disappeared from the area "He always said that if he hadn't been a poet, he would have been a wonderful scenery gardener," says Allan King of the Wordsworth Trust.

    The place near Ullswater, where Wordsworth saw the daffodils(水仙花), is at the southernmost end of the lake. The lake is wide and calm at this turning point. There's a bay where the trees have had their soil eroded(侵蚀)by lake water so that their roots are shockingly exposed. You walk along from tree to tree, hardly daring to breathe, because you are walking in the footprints of William from two centuries ago. The first group of daffodils appear, but they aren't tall yellow trumpets(小号状的花)proudly swinging in the gentle wind. They're tiny wild daffodils, most of them still green and unopened, in groups of six or seven. They're grouped around individual trees rather than collecting together.

    But as you look north, from beside a huge ancient oak, you realize this is what delighted Wordsworth: group after group of the things, spread out to left and right but coming together in your sight so that they form a beautiful, pale-yellow carpet. What you're seeing at last is nature transformed by human sight and imagination.

With such a strong artistic heritage, it's no surprise that England knocks it out of the park when it comes to world-class art galleries. These are the galleries you need to add to your must-visit list.

Royal Academy of Arts (RA), London

Not your standard gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts is led by artists to promote not just the appreciation of art, but its practice. It is world-famous for hosting some exhibitions that get everyone talking. Besides, what sets the RA apart is its engagement with the public through participatory experiences, allowing visitors to not only view art but become part of it in innovative ways.

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich

Sitting on the edge of the University of East Anglia's campus, the Sainsbury Centre holds a collection of remarkable works of art spanning over 2,000 years. Inside the seminal Norman Foster building, you'll find artworks from around the world, including some stunning pieces of European modern art by Degas, Francis Bacon, and Alberto Giacometti.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Yorkshire

Tearing up the rulebook when it comes to how we traditionally view art, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park strives to break down barriers by showing works from British and international artists in the open air. Set in hundreds of acres of West Yorkshire parkland, you'll see sculptures by some of the leading artists of the 20th century.

Whitworth, Manchester

After a sky-high £15 million development, the Whitworth is becoming one of the premier galleries in the north of England. Making full use of its picturesque park setting, the gallery has a beautiful art garden and a sculpture terrace (露台), all waiting to be explored. Inside the gallery, you can view an exciting programme of ever-changing exhibitions.