TransNatura International Nature Photo Competition

    The application is open, and all photographers are invited from all over the world, except the jury (评委会) and the organizers. The basic requirement is that the recordings have to be made of natural habitats without disturbing the wildlife. On the photos only wild animals can be included.

    Two categories:

    A Category: Open—any type of nature photography, representing animals, plants, landscape, and so on

    B Category: The art of flying—nature pictures that represent the movement of flying animals and the beauty of flying

    The assessment by the jury: 16th September〜10th October

    Announcement of results: 30th of October

    Exhibition Opening: 23th of November

    The works received will be evaluated and decided upon by an international jury made up of the five persons from Hungary and Romania.

    A total number of competition prizes will be awarded:

    Grand Prize—1,000 Euro;

    1st Prize—600 Euro;

    2nd Prize—400 Euro;

    3rd Prize—200 Euro.

    Entry requirements:

    A participant may enter the competition with at most four pictures per category.

    The pictures for the competition have to be submitted before 15th of September in the form of digital images, in jpg format.

    The participant must have full copyright over the submitted photos.

    The entry fee is 10 Euro for a category, 15 Euro for two categories.

    Additional information can be obtained by e-mail at: transnatura@vadon.ro.

    He wishes the holiday season would end already. His back aches, his red suit feels like a spacesuit, his cheeks have gone tight from smiling for 12 hours—and still the kids keep coming and coming, like ants at a picnic. As Christmas becomes more commercialized (商业化) across the U. S. and Canada, so must Santa Claus. As the holiday begins earlier each year, so must its spokesmen.

    The questions from children these days are harder than ever. Now, with thousands of children expecting a father or mother serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the questions are as heart­breaking as they are unanswerable. For example, “Can you please bring Daddy home from the war in time for Christmas morning？”

    Santa Claus; also have a pretty good chance of getting sued (指控). A professional Santa Claus in Canada told a story: A Santa had a girl on his knee, and he commented, “You have nice eyes and nice hair.” The girl later said it was sexual harassment (骚扰). When a Santa feels anxious, he often shows it in the same ways ordinary people do. The Santa Claus were always seen to hang around at the dinner table when the show ended. Many of them just sleep in bed for several days and don't see other children again.

    British scientists have discovered the willow trees planted at an angle could increase sugars for biofuel production.

    Willow is a fast-growing species. It is already used to produce fuels for the renewable heating and power market. In future it could also help to produce biofuel to power vehicles. It has been known that when willows growing in the wild are blown sideways, they tend to produce more sugars. But for a while it has not been known why this happens.

    Researchers at Imperial College London, led by Dr Nicholas Brereton and Dr Michael Ray of the Department of Life Sciences, have now solved the mystery. When the tree is blown sideways, its genes (基因) produce large numbers of sugar molecules (分子) to straighten the tree upwards.

    “This is an important breakthrough. Our study now shows that natural genetic changes are related to these differences. And this could well be the key to unlocking the future for green energy from willow,” said Dr Brereton.

    The research was carried out under lab conditions. The willows were grown at an angle of 45 degrees. They were compared to willows which grow naturally straight upwards. The team then looked for the same effect among the willows growing on the Isle of Orkney where strong winds cause the trees to bend at extreme angles. They discovered that the Orkney trees produce five times the amount of sugars found in willows grown in sheltered conditions.

    Willow is widely planted across the UK. The results show that biofuel crops such as willows could be grown in climatically changeable conditions where chances of growing food crops are limited.

    The study is published in Biotechnology for Biofuels.

    If you find yourself checking your phone first thing in the morning, if you find you're text-messaging while driving, checking your phone instead of working on an important assignment—you are addicted.

    Don't worry. The new NoPhone might be just the thing you need. It looks and feels exactly like a smartphone, but it does nothing. It's just a piece of plastic that you can carry around in your hand to fool yourself.

    NoPhone is currently a prototype(手机模型) that will cost only $12 once it hits the market. Its makers are trying to raise $30,000 in order to cover the production and marketing costs.

    Dutch designer Ingmar Larsen, who helped create the NoPhone, said that he had the idea as a joke along with his friends Van Gould and Ben Langveld. To their great surprise, the idea received a lot of attention online and people from all over the world started placing requests for NoPhone of their own, so that's when the three friends decided to raise money for mass production.

    David H said," I used to sleep with my phone in my hand, but my night terrors would cause me to throw it across the room in an unconscious panic. With the NoPhone, I can still enjoy the comfort of holding a phone in my sleep, without waking up to a broken screen, thanks, NoPhone."

    If you're interested in NoPhone, but concerned about not being able to take selfies anymore, don't worry. The makers do have an update at no extra charge—the mirror sticker. That way, they say, you can enjoy "real-time" selfies with your friends when they're standing right behind you.

    There's a new frontier in 3D printing that's beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook, and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn't stopping there.

    Food production

    With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that — it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to "re-create forms and pieces" of food that are "exactly the same," freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed, rather than farm to table.

    Sustainability(可持续性)

    The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydrocolloids (水解胶体) from plentiful renewables like algae(藻类) and grass to replace the familiar ingredients(烹饪原料). 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock "food" that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.

    Nutrition

    Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, "Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday's bread from the supermarket, you'd eat something baked just for you on demand."

    Challenges

    Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing, the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste(糊状物) before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are skeptical about 3D food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurants than homes and high-end restaurants.

What will you do if you can't eat everything bought in the canteen(食堂)? {#blank#}1{#/blank#} According to a survey, what students waste every year could feed over 10 million people. 

{#blank#}2{#/blank#} According to Xinhua News Agency, the food wasted by Chinese people is about 50 million tons of grain every year, which could feed 200 million people. 

Food waste, which has become a global issue, serves as a mirror that reflects various cultural and social issues in different countries. In the west, for instance, consumerism, the belief that it's good to use a lot of goods and services, is often to blame for food waste. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}Chinese people are well known for being hospitable and generous. Many even feel that they lose face if their guests have eaten all the food. On campus, a generation of single children is less aware of the food waste issue. Students nowadays are well protected by their families and hardly have any concept of how much toil (辛劳) others go through in order to provide them with the food they eat. 

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}There are 925 million hungry people in the world. They don't have enough food to eat. And farmers work very hard to grow the crops. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}It's also important that everyone thinks about how they can do their bit to reduce food waste. Recently a campaign against food waste launched on line in China might make you think twice about being so wasteful.