For years, scientist and others concerned about climate change have been talking about the need for carbon capture and storage(CCS).

    That is the term for removing carbon dioxide from, say, a coal-burning power plant's smokestack and pumping it deep underground to keep it out of the atmosphere, where it would otherwise contribute to global warming.

    However, currently, only one power plant in Canada captures and stores carbon on a commercial scale (and it has been having problems). Among the concerns about storage is that carbon dioxide in gaseous or liquid form that is pumped underground might escape back to the atmosphere. So storage sites would have to be monitored, potentially for decades or centuries.

    But scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and other institutions have come up with a different way to store CO₂ reacts with the rock to form a mineral call calcite(方解石). By turning the gas into stone, scientists can lock it away permanently. Volcanic rocks called basalts(玄武岩) are excellent for his process, because they are rich in calcium, magnesium and iron, which react with CO₂.

    The project called CarbFix started in Iceland, 2012, when the scientists pumped about 250 tons of carbon dioxide, mixed with water, about 1,500 feet down into porous basalt. Early sings were encouraging: The scientists found that about 95 percent of the carbon dioxide was changed into calcite. And even more importantly, they wrote, the change happened relatively quickly—in less than two years.

    “It's beyond all our expectations,” said Edda Aradottir, who manages the project. Rapid change of the CO₂ means that a project would probably have to be monitored for a far shorter time than a more conventional storage site.

    There are still concerns about whether the technology will prove useful in the fight against global warming. For one thing, it would have to be scaled up enormously. For another, a lot of water is needed—25 tons of it for every ton of CO₂—along with the right kind of rock.

    But the researchers say that there is enough porous basaltic rock in Iceland, including in the ocean floors and along the margins of continents. And sitting a storage project in or near the ocean could potentially solve the water problem at the same time, as the researchers say seawater would work just fine.

    I was never very neat, while my roommate Kate was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place, but mine always hid somewhere. She even labeled(贴标签) everything. I always looked for everything. Over time, Kate got neater and I got messier. She would push my dirty clothing over, and I would lay my books on her tidy desk. We both got tired of each other.

    War broke out one evening. Kate came into the room. Soon, I heard her screaming, “Take your shoes away! Why under my bed!” Deafened, I saw my shoes flying at me. I jumped to my feet and started yelling. She yelled back louder.

    The room was filled with anger. We could not have stayed together for a single minute without a phone call. Kate answered it. From her end of the conversation, I could tell right away her grandma was seriously ill. When she hung up, she quickly crawled(爬) under her covers, weeping. Obviously, that was something she should not go through alone. All of a sudden, a warm feeling of sympathy rose up in my heart,

    Slowly, I collected the pencils, took back the books, made my bed, cleaned the socks and swept the floor, even on her side. I got so into my work that I even didn't noticed Kate had sat up. She was watching, her tears dried and her expression one of disbelief. Then, she reached out her hands to grasp mine. I looked up into her eyes. She smiled at me. “Thanks.”

    Kate and I stayed roommates for the rest of the year. We didn't always agree, but we learned the key to living together: giving in, cleaning up and holding on.

    Could the device, smartphone or PC, which you are using affect the moral decisions you make when using it? To test it, researchers presented multiple dilemmas to a sample set of 1,010 people. The participants were assigned a device at random.

    One case of the questions participants were asked is the classic “trolley(有轨电车) problem”: A runaway trolley is headed towards five people tied up on a-set of train tracks. You can do nothing, resulting in the deaths of five people, or push a man off a bridge, which will stop the trolley. The practical response is to kill one man to save five lives, which 33. 5 percent of smartphone users chose, compared to 22.3 percent of PC users.

    “What we round in our study is that when people used a smartphone to view classic moral problems, they were more likely to make more unemotional, reasonable decisions when presented with a highly emotional dilemma, “Dr Albert Barque-Duran, the lead author of the study, told City, University of London. “This could be due to the increased time pressure often present with smartphones and also the increased psychological distance which can occur when we use such devices compared to PCs.”

    As for why the researchers started this study, Dr Barque-Duran noted, “Due to the fact that our social lives, work and even shopping take place online, it is important to think about how the contexts where we typically face moral decisions and are asked to engage in moral behavior have changed, and the impact this could have on the hundreds of millions of people who use such devices daily. “It's clear that we need more research on how our devices affect our moral decision making because we're using screens at an ever increasing rate.

    Despite an advertisement campaign suggesting wall-to-wall special effects, “Bridge of Terabithia” is grounded in reality far more than in fantasy. Adapting Katherine Paterson's award-winning novel, the screenwriters David Paterson and Jeff Stockwell have produced a thoughtful and extremely affecting story of a transformative friendship between two unusually gifted children. The result is a movie whose emotional depth could appeal more to adults than to their children.

    Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson) is a sixth grader with four sisters, financially tensed parents and a talent for drawing. An introverted(内向的) kid who is regularly picked on by the school buses, Jess forms a bond with a new student named Leslie (Anna Sophia Robb), a free spirit whose parents, both writers, are fondly neglectful. An attraction between outsiders, their friendship feeds on her words and his pictures; together they create an imaginary kingdom in the woods behind their homes, a world they can control and where their minds can wander free.

    Beautifully capturing a time when a bully in school can occur as large as a monster in a nightmare and the encouragement of a teacher can alter the course of a life, “Bridge to Terabithia” keeps the fantasy in the background to find magic in the everyday. Gabor Csupo directs this, his first feature, like someone close to the pain of being different, fascinated in tiny, perfect details.

    With strong performances from all the leads, “Bridge to Terabithia” is able to handle adult topics with sensitivity. As the emotional landscape darkens, those who haven't read the book may be surprised at the sorrow the filmmakers cause without ever resorting to horror or terror. In other words, your children may cry, but they won't be traumatized so badly.

    Consistently smart and delicate as a spider web, “Bridge to Terabithia” is the kind of children's movie rarely seen nowadays. At a time when many public schools are being forced to cut music and art from the curriculum, the story's insistence on the healing power of a cultivated imagination is both welcome and essential.

    Kirby Wildlife Park — Keeper Experience

    Due to the large number of inquiries from people interested in working with animals, Kirby Wildlife Park has set up the unique 'Keeper Experience' package. The fantastic experience is available to anyone over the age of 18 who is reasonably fit. We regret that for health and safety reasons, participants who are pregnant, in a wheelchair or suffering from illnesses cannot take part.

A typical day

9:15        Arrival

9:30         Health and Safety Briefing

10:00        Apes and Monkeys

    While cleaning out the enclosure (围场) you will find out about how enclosures are enriched with novel items and new smells to stimulate (刺激) the animals' senses and imitate their natural environment.

12:00       Lunch

14:00        Big Cats

    On the highlight of most volunteers' day, you will feed the cats and learn about their nutritional needs. The keeper will give you an introduction to how cat behaviour can be read to get an idea of their welfare and health.

16:30        Meet the Team

    Meet more of the staff and learn how you can get further involved with work at the park. Learn about our animal adoption plan, what it takes to be a good keeper and where to obtain the right qualifications for a career in animal welfare.

Booking and cancellation

    The Keeper Experience is available on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, and must be booked at least two weeks in advance. Full payment is needed when booking.

    Cancellations must be made more than fourteen days before the event, or you won't receive a full refund.

    A single dose(剂量) of an experimental vaccine(疫苗) can protect mice against the Zika(寨卡) virus, raising renewed hope of a vaccine for humans, say scientists. The US team say the results, published in Nature, are "striking" and should encourage research efforts.

    Tests in humans could begin in months. But even if these go well, a licensed vaccine for widespread use to protect those at most risk ­ such as pregnant women ­ would still be years away, experts advise. Zika has been spreading across Central and South America and, most recently, Africa. More than 60 countries and territories now have continuing transmission(传播) of the disease, which is carried by mosquitoes. The virus causes serious birth damages during pregnancy and has been declared a global public health emergency.

    Now, developing a vaccine for pregnant women to protect their unborn babies is an international research priority(优先事项). US scientists from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School tested two types of Zika vaccine in mice – one based on bits of genetic(基因的) code from the virus and another that is an inactive (and therefore harmless) copy of Zika. Both worked well, protecting every mouse that was immunised against the virus. In comparison, all of the mice not given the vaccine caught Zika after they were exposed to it.

    Researchers say they will push ahead with developing the needed virus vaccine. There are many existing vaccines for other disease that use this type of technology, while there are relatively few DNA­based vaccines. Of course, future tests will need to check the vaccine is safe and effective in humans, as well as how long the immunity might last.