科普环保类 知识点题库

    In an effort to discourage people from using plastics, scientists have been hard at work inventing alternative packaging products. From water bottles made from seaweed to cutlery(餐具) made from rice and wheat, a number of inventions are set to change the way we eat while we are on the go, or having a relaxing picnic in the park.

    The idea of using seaweed to make eco-friendly water bottles has been around for a few years. Recently, Ari Jonsson took his invention—a water bottle made from red seaweed—to show off at a festival. The bottles will only hold their shape as long as they are filled. As soon as these bottles are empty they will begin to break down, though they would be perfectly safe to eat. Ari Jonsson's bottles are a step closer to a widely used alternative to the current plastic ones.

    The eatable water container is not the only product to add to our image of the future. Narayana Pessapaty has also created eatable spoons. After the success of his spoons, Mr. Pessapaty is ready to expand and introduce forks and chopsticks to his menu. His aim is to largely reduce the amount of plastic waste, which is a huge problem for waste sites all over the world. It is a product that may take up to 500 years to break down, and recycling companies worldwide are struggling to deal with it.

    Aside from the obvious benefits to the environment, this new packaging is also cheap to produce and therefore cheap to buy. Even better is the fact that similar eatable cutlery can be made at home, possibly a science project for children or just fun with friends. Why not experiment and create your own recipes?

    Chinese scientists recently have produced two monkeys with the same gene, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, using the same technique that gave us Dolly the sheep. These monkeys are not actually the first primates(灵长类)to be cloned. Another one named Tetra was produced in the late 1990s by embryo(胚胎)splitting, the division of an early-stage embryo into two or four separate cells to make clones. By contrast, they were each made by replacing an egg cell nucleus(原子核)with DNA from a differentiated body cell. This Dolly method, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer(SCNT), can create more clones and allows researchers greater control over the edits they make to the DNA.

    Success came from adopting several new techniques. These included a new type of microscopy to better view the cells during handling or using several materials that encourage cell reprogramming, which hadn't been tried before on primates. Still, the research process proved difficult, and many attempts by the team failed. Just two healthy baby monkeys born from more than 60 tested mothers. This leads to many researchers' pouring water on the idea that the team's results bring scientists closer to cloning humans. They thought this work is not a stepping stone to establishing methods for obtaining live born human clones. Instead, this clearly remains a very foolish thing to attempt, it would be far too inefficient, far too unsafe, and it is also pointless.

    But the scientists involved emphasize that this is not their goal. There is now no barrier for cloning primate species, thus cloning humans is closer to reality. However, their research purpose is entirely for producing non-human primate models for human diseases; they absolutely have no intention, and society will not permit this work to be extended to humans. Despite limitations, they treat this breakthrough a novel model system for scientists studying human biology and disease.

    This may be music to your ears.

    Researchers P Jason Rentfrow and Samuel Gosling gave 3, 500 people a personality quiz. Then they asked them to name their favourite kind of music. "We found that the musical styles people like are closely linked to their personalities," Gosling says.

    RAP/HIP－HOP

    Known for their quick speech, some rappers can say more than 700 syllables (音节)a minute! If you like rap/hip－hop, you are energetic(精力充沛的)and have a way with words. You put a fresh spin on things, whether it's new moves on the dance floor or your hip style.

    CLASSICAL

    In the 18th century, classical musicians were like rock stars. Beethoven and Mozart, for example, played to packed concert halls.  If you like classical, you are open to new ideas and like debating with friends. Creative and imaginative, you can easily spend many hours scrapbooking, writing or painting.

    COUNTRY

    Country music came from the folk songs of English, Scottish, and Irish settlers of the southeastern United States. If you like country, you express your opinions well, which makes you the ideal class president or team captain. Traditional and loyal, you enjoy spending time with your family.

    POP

    Pop music is designed to appeal to(吸引)almost everyone, and it does. Each year, the industry brings in about 30 billion dollars! If you like pop, you are attractive to your friends. You can make big things happen, like planning for a huge party or inspiring your team to victory.

    ROCK/ALTERNATIVE

    In the 1950s, rock music created a brand－new culture. Teenagers, for the first time, had an identity(身份)separate from adults and children.

    If you like rock/alternative, you are a risk－taker who never accepts no for an answer. You rise to any challenge, like doing very well in a big exam or in the school play.

    If these personality profiles don't match you, that's OK. These are just for fun.

    A team of international scientists is due to set off for the world's biggest iceberg in a mission aiming to answer fundamental questions about the impact of climate change in the polar regions. The scientists, led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), are trying to reach a newly revealed ecosystem that had been hidden for 120,000 years below the Larsen C ice shelf.

    Last year, part of the Larsen C ice shelf calved (崩解) away, forming a huge iceberg-A68—which is four times bigger than London, and revealing life beneath for the first time. Now scientists say it is a race against time to explore these new ecosystems before they are transformed to the light. Marine biologist Dr Katrin Linse from the BAS is leading the mission.

    "The calving of A68 provides us with a unique opportunity to study marine life as it responds to a huge environment change," she said. "It is important that we get there quickly before the undersea environment changes as sunlight enters the water."

    Professor David Vaughan, science director at the BAs, said, "We need to be bold (大胆的) on this one. Larsen C is a long way south and there's lots of sea ice in the area, but this is important science, so we will try our best to get the team where they need to be. He said climate change had already affected the sea around Antarctica and is warming some coastal waters. "Future warming may make some habitats warm. Where these habitats support unique species that are adapted to love the cold and not the warm, those species are going to either move or die."

    There is growing concern about the possible impact of climate change in the Antarctic. Earlier this month, a report revealed that melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of the sea level rise. The research, published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, said, "At the current rate, the world's ocean will be, on average, at least 60cm higher by the end of the century." However, it found that the process is accelerating, and more than three quarters of the acceleration since 1993 is due to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the study shows.

    Can you trust your very first childhood memories? Maybe not, a new study suggests.

    Past researches show that people's earliest memories typically form around 3 to 3. 5 years of age. But in a recent survey of more than 6,600 people, British scientists have found that 39 percent of participants claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger. These first memories are likely false, the researchers said. This was particularly the case for middle -aged and older adults.

    For the study, researchers asked participants to describe their first memory and the age at which it occurred. Participants were told they had to be sure the memory was the one that had happened. For example, it shouldn't be based on a photograph, a family story or any source other than direct experiences. Then the researchers examined the content, language and descriptive details of these earliest memories and worked out the likely reasons why people would claim to have memories from an age when memories cannot form.

    As many of these memories dated before the age of 2, this suggests they were not based on actual facts, but facts or knowledge about their babyhood or childhood from photographs or family stories. Often these false memories are fired by a part of an early experience, such as family relationships or feeling sad, the researchers explained.

    "We suggest that what a rememberer has in mind when recalling fictional early memories is …a mental representation consisting of remembered pieces of early experiences and some facts or knowledge about their own babyhood or childhood," study author Shania Kantar said in a journal news release, "Additionally, further details may be unconsciously inferred or added. Such memory-like mental representations come over time, to be collectively experienced when they come to mind, so for the individual, they quite simply are memories, which particularly point to babyhood."

    "Importantly, the person remembering them doesn't know this is fictional," study co-author Martin Conway said "In fact, when people are told that their memories are false they often don't believe it."

    Next autumn when you see wild geese heading south for the winter flying in a V formation you might think about what scientists have discovered as to why they fly that way.

    As each bird flaps(拍打) its wings, it creates an uplift(升力) for the bird immediately following. By flying in V formation the whole group adds at least 71% greater flying range(航程) than if each bird flies on its own.

    People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are traveling on the push of one another. When a wild goose falls out of the formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance(阻力) of trying to go alone and quickly tries to get back into the formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front. When the head goose gets tired, it flies back into the formation and another goose flies to the front. It is wise to take turns doing difficult jobs whether it be people or wild geese flying south.

    Wild geese honk(发出雁叫声) from behind to inspire those up front to keep up their speed. When a wild goose gets sick or wounded by gunshots, and falls out of the formation, two other geese will fall out with that goose and follow it down to lend help and protection. They will stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly or until it dies, and only then will they go on with their own or with another formation to catch up with their group.

    People often think that blue light before bedtime can make it harder to sleep. It's true that the screens on phones, computers and televisions send out plenty of blue light. But if you're focused on blue light as a major problem affecting your sleep or your eye health, it's time to look at it from another aspect.

As Philip Yuhas, a professor of vision, writes at The Conversation, blue light isn't a uniquely technological evil. It's part of sunlight, and your eyes are exposed to plenty of it all the time. You're fine. There are studies in mice that have found blue light can damage their eyes, but mice are nocturnal creatures (夜行动物) whose eyes are different from ours. Then pigments (色素) and the lenses (晶状体) of our eyes actually block blue light fairly well—so in a sense, we already have built-in blue blocking protection.

    Adding more protection isn't likely to help, though. You can buy glasses and screen filters (滤光片) that block blue light, but Yuhas points out they are probably a waste of money. These products do not block out much blue light. The leading blue-blocking anti-reflective coating, for example, blocks only about 15% of the blue light that screens send out. You could get the same reduction just by holding your phone another inch from your face.

    The American Academy of Ophthalmology doesn't recommend blue blocking products, either. Instead, if you're concerned about your eye health or your ability to get to sleep on time, you already know what to do.

    Put the screens away at bedtime. Read a book or find something else to do. While you're using screens, take a 20-second break every 20 minutes to look at something 20 feet away (the "20-20-20"rule). If you get dry eyes when you look at screens for a long time, use eye drops labeled artificial tears.

Feel the Music

    We've all heard of smart phones, but how about smart clothing? The CuteCircuit company has stepped up the technology beat and invented the SoundShirt, which was designed specifically for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. How does this incredible shirt work?

    First, let's talk about a little science. People who have either all or some hearing loss don't actually listen to music the way that hearing people do, but they can feel it. Sound is made up of vibrations, called sound waves, which hearing people can hear through their ears with the help of the brain. What's really cool is that deaf people sense vibrations in the part of the brain that others use for hearing!

    So how is this remarkable technology able to function? First, CuteCircuit had to figure out a way to send signals to the body, kind of like how you can feel when your phone vibrates in silent mode. Those connections the body can feel are called haptics, a use of technology that simulates the senses of touch and motion. The SoundShirt has tiny sensors woven into the shirt to pick up sound and transfer signals to the brain and body.

    To test this music-to-shirt-to-wearer's brain connection, CuteCircuit set microphones around the stage of a symphony orchestra. The shirt's computer system digitally received the sounds coming from the instruments. Then the sensors, working like little motors, changed the signals into vibrations and the shirt wearer's brain did the rest.

    The SoundShirt lets people who are deaf or hard of hearing enjoy music in a unique way. The very deep musical sound, or pitch, of instruments like drums and basses vibrates in the lower part of the shirt. Higher pitched sounds from instruments like the flute or violin vibrate higher, around the neck and arms. As the music plays, the sensations combine while the brain gets to work putting together all the different vibrations, allowing the wearer to "hear" the concert.

    You might think this innovation would look like something out of a science fiction movie, but in fact, these shirts are wireless! And the decorative laser-lined design on the shirt looks like an image of sound waves.

    Technology's purpose is to help people and make life better. Think of all the amazing things designers, engineers, and producers of wearable tech will be able to do for humankind.

    Not long ago, Egypt marked the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Suez Canal. The canal connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It helped speed world trade between the East and the West. But the man-made waterway has also helped speed the rise of other things, such as invasive (入侵的) non-native species (物种). Scientists say the invasive creatures have damaged the Mediterranean's environment and caused native species to disappear.

    The number of non-native creatures has risen since the Suez Canal was widened in 2015. The "New Suez Canal" has raised concerns in Europe and brought disagreement from many Mediterranean countries. Bella Galil is an Israeli biologist who has studied the Mediterranean for over 30 years. She says much of the ecological (生态的) damage cannot be repaired. She said urgent action is needed to ease the effects of the invasive fish and other sea life.

    Galil works at Tel Aviv University's Steinhardt Museum of Natural History. She noted that the widening and deepening of the Suez Canal has created a "moving aquarium" of species. These creatures could make coastal waters almost unusable for human beings. Galil believes the number of invasive species has reached 400. That is twice the number 30 years ago. She said this is a "historic example of the dangers of unintended consequences."

    Israel is now dealing with huge numbers of poisonous (有毒 ) jellyfish that affect coastal power centers and keep people from visiting the seashore. Other poisonous species, such as the lionfish and silver-cheeked toadfish, are also appearing.

    Galil said the problems of invasive species can be compared to those of climate change, pollution and over-fishing. She argues that the new species have caused a major "restructuring" of the environment. This has endangered native species.

    Some experts have suggested that increasing salt levels in the canal itself could create a barrier (障碍物) that would keep invasive species out.

Having your nose in a book might seem a little anti-social at times—but reading could actually make you a kinder, more considerate person, a study has found. Readers were more likely to act in a socially acceptable manner, while those who preferred watching television came across as less friendly and less understanding of others' views, researchers said.

123 participants in the study were quizzed on their preferences for books, TV and plays at Kingston University, London. They were then tested on how much they considered people's feelings and whether they acted to help others. Researchers told the British Psychological Society conference in Brighton yesterday that fiction fans showed more positive social behavior.

Readers of drama and romance novels were also empathetic, while lovers of experimental books showed the ability to see things from different directions. Comedy fans scored the highest for relating to others. The study suggested reading allows people to see different points of view enabling them to understand others better.

The researchers added, "Exposure to fiction relates to a range of empathetic abilities. Engaging with fictional prose and comedy in particular could be key to improving people's empathetic abilities."

However, the authors warned the study did not prove cause-and-effect. So it could be that reading causes positive behavior, or it could be that thoughtful, well-mannered people are more likely to prefer reading. So it is a good idea to pick up a book to begin your travel with the author. Each author will show how they would react to certain situations through their characters. Everyone can view the same situation differently, and from 1,001 different angles. The more you read, the much better you can understand other peoples' opinions.

In Australia, the bilby (兔耳袋狸) project is seen as an important part in protecting the nation's wildlife. Bilbies are known for their long ears and large back legs. They usually sleep during the day, and are awake at night. They look a lot like rabbits and grow to about 2. 5 kilograms.

For the first time in 2018, bilbies are running wild in Southeastern Australia. The small animals were once widespread across much of Australia, but were last observed in the wild in New South Wales state in 1912. Every year bilby populations continue to decrease. Wildlife experts are afraid that the bilby, a small marsupial, could eventually disappear forever, either because of land clearing or fires. Another reason is a threat from cats and foxes, which hunt down and kill bilbies.

In northern New South Wales state, environmentalists are celebrating what they are calling a historic moment. Thirty bilbies from a captive breeding program have been released into a large predator-free enclosed area north of Sydney. Without the protection of a 32-kilometer fence, experts say the animals probably would not survive.

Tim Allard heads the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, which is involved in the project. He says the release of these beloved animals is a big deal. "There are some remaining wild bilby populations, but they get predated upon heavily by feral cats and foxes. Bilbies only really survive behind fenced areas." Allard said the point of doing this project is to return the countryside to what it used to be before Europeans arrived. "So in the not-too-distant future, you will be able to go inside the fenced areas and it will be like stepping back before Europeans turned up," he said.

If plastic had been invented when the Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth, England, to North America—and their Mayflower had been stocked with bottled water and plastic－wrapped snacks, their plastic waste would likely still be around four centuries later. Atlantic waves and sunlight would have worn all that plastic into tiny bits. And those bits might still be floating around the world's oceans today, waiting to be eaten by some fish or oysters, and finally perhaps by one of us.

Because plastic wasn't invented until the late 19th century, and its production only really took off around 1950, we have a mere 9.2 billion tons of the stuff to deal with. Of that, more than 6.9 billion tons have become waste. And of that waste, a surprising 6.3 billion tons never made it to a recycling bin—the figure that shocked the scientists who published the numbers in 2017.

No one knows how much unrecycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean, the earth's last sink. In 2015, Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia engineering professor, caught everyone's attention with a rough estimate: between 5.3 million and 14 million tons of plastic waste each year just come from coastal regions.

Meanwhile, ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. Some are harmed visibly, stuck by abandoned things made of plastic. Many more are probably harmed invisibly. Marine species of all sizes, from zooplankton (浮游动物) to whales, now eat microplastics (微塑料), the bits smaller than one－fifth of an inch across.

"This isn't a problem where we don't know what the solution is, " says Ted Siegler, a Vermont resource economist who has spent more than 25 years working with developing nations on garbage. "We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to deal with it. We know how to recycle." "It's a matter of building the necessary institutions and systems, " he says, "ideally before the ocean turns into a thin soup of plastic."

Throwing away unwanted food has become a big issue in the developed world. While some of us do this, people in other parts of world are short of food. It's a shocking fact that a third of the world's food is wasted each year and that the actual figure is 1.3 billion tons of food, which is enough to feed a billion hungry people.

You may think supermarkets are the main contributors to this mountain of food. After all, they do threw away food that's past its sell-by-date and they often refuse to sell vegetables or fruit that are the wrong shape or look damaged. They've also been criticized (批评) for encouraging customers to buy more than they need through promotions (促销) such as "buy one get one free".

But the biggest responsible person for creating food waste is us. In Europe an incredible 53%of food waste comes from familes, which results in 88 million tons of food waste a year. So instead of filling our stomachs, our food is filling up landfill sites. Unfortunately this causes greenhouse gases which finally leads to global warming and climate change.

In Denmark, a woman called Selina Juul has been working hard to stop this problem. She moved from Russia many years ago and was amazed to see so much food in the supermarkets. But to her surprise，she found that people were buying more than they needed and throwing too much away.

She persuaded some supermarkets to stop selling their items in large amount so that people bought only what they needed. She produced a leftovers (剩菜) cookbook and she's now set up an education programme in schools. This has helped reduce by 25%in food waste, which shows that something can be done.

Clearly, we need to think twice when we put something in our shopping cart, and when we're at home we should make the most of the food we have—using recipes that use up our leftovers or even sharing them with our friends and neighbours.

New findings clearly show the Anglo Saxons were a melting pot of people from both migrant and local cultural groups and not one group from Western Europe.

Prolessor Keith Dobney at the University of Sydney said the team 's results state that "the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of early Medieval Britain were clearly similar to modern Britain—full of people of different ancestries sharing a common language and culture.”

Published in PLOS ONE, the cooperative study by Professor Dobney at University of Sydney and Dr Kimberly Plomp and Professor Mark Collard at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. looked at the three-dimensional shape of the base of the skull (头盖骨).

“Previous studies have shown that the base of the human skull holds a shape signature that can be used to track relationships among human populations in a similar way to ancient DNA,” Dr Plomp said. "Based on this, we collected 3D data from suitably dated skeletal collections from Britain and Denmark, and then analysed the data to judge the ancestry of the Anglo-Saxon individuals in the sample.”

The researchers found that between two-thirds and three-quarters of early Anglo Saxon individuals were of continental European ancestry, while between a quarter and one-third were of local ancestry. When they looked at skeletons dated to the Middle Anglo- Saxon period (several hundred after the original migrants arrived), they found that 50 to 70 percent of the individuals were of local ancestry, while 30 to 50 percent were of continental European ancestry, which probably indicates a change in the rate of migration and local adoption of culture over time. "These findings tell us that being Anglo- Saxon was more likely a matter of language and culture, not genetics," Professor Collard said.

The ongoing and unresolved argument is whether a lot of European invaders largely replaced the existing Romano- British inhabitants, or did smaller numbers of migrants settle and interact with the locals, who then rapidly adopted the new language and culture of the anglo-Saxons?" Our new data suggests that early Anglo Saxon society was a mix of both newcomers and locals and, instead of whole population replacement. a process of acculturation resulted in Anglo- Saxon language and culture being adopted largely by the local population.

How do you turn “dumb” headphones into smart ones? Rutgers engineers have invented a cheap and easy way by transforming headphones into sensors that can be plugged into (插入) smartphones, identify their users monitor their heart rates and perform other services.

Their invention, called HeadFi, is based on a small plug-in headphone adapter that turns a regular headphone into a sensing device (装置). Unlike smart headphones, regular headphones lack sensors. HeadFi would allow users to avoid having to buy a new pair of smart headphones with sensors to enjoy sensing features.

“HeadFi could turn hundreds of millions of existing, regular headphones worldwide into intelligent ones with a simple upgrade (升级),” said Xiaoran Fan, a HeadFi primary inventor.

A Rutgers-led paper on the invention, which results in "earable intelligence", will be formally published in October at MobiCom 2021, the top international conference on mobile computing and mobile and wireless networking.

Headphones are among the most popular wearable devices worldwide and they continue to become; more intelligent as new functions appear, such as touch-based gesture control, the paper notes. Such functions usually rely on aiding sensors, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and microphones that are available on many smart headphones.

HeadFi turns the two drivers already inside all headphones into a versatile (多功能的) sensor, and it works by connecting headphones to a pairing device, such as a smartphone. It doesn't require adding aiding sensors and avoids changes to headphone hardware or the need to customize headphones, both of which may increase their weight and size. By plugging into HeadFi, a converted headphone can perform sensing tasks and play music at the same time.

The engineers conducted experiments with 53 volunteers using 54 pairs of headphones with prices ranging from $2.99 to $15,000. HeadFi can achieve 97.2 percent to 99. 5 percent accuracy on user identification, 96.8 percent to 99.2 percent on heart rate monitoring and 97.7 percent to 99.3 percent on gesture recognition.

When a leafy plant is under attack, it doesn't sit quietly. Back in 1983, two scientists, Jack Schultz and Ian Baldwin, reported that young maple trees getting bitten by insects send out a particular smell that neighboring plants can get. These chemicals come from the injured parts of the plant and seem to be an alarm. What the plants pump through the air is a mixture of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, VOCs for short.

Scientists have found that all kinds of plants give out VOCs when being attacked. It's a plant's way of crying out. But is anyone listening? Apparently. Because we can watch the neighbours react.

Some plants pump out smelly chemicals to keep insects away. But others do double duty. They pump out perfumes designed to attract different insects who are natural enemies to the attackers. Once they arrive, the tables are turned. The attacker who was lunching now becomes lunch.

In study after study, it appears that these chemical conversations help the neighbors. The damage is usually more serious on the first plant, but the neighbors, relatively speaking, stay safer because they heard the alarm and knew what to do.

Does this mean that plants talk to each other? Scientists don't know. Maybe the first plant just made a cry of pain or was sending a message to its own branches, and so, in effect, was talking to itself. Perhaps the neighbors just happened to “overhear” the cry. So information was exchanged, but it wasn't a true, intentional back and forth.

Charles Darwin, over 150 years ago, imagined a world far busier, noisier and more intimate (亲密的) than the world we can see and hear. Our senses are weak. There's a whole lot going on.

Every summer, the calls of thousands of swamp sparrows can be heard across North America's wetlands. These little brown birds know only a few songs, but they know them very well. In fact, their musical set list probably hasn't changed much for centuries.

Like humans, baby swamp sparrows learn to communicate by copying adults. From a young age, they learn to copy, or mimic, songs sung by their elders. "Swamp sparrows very rarely make mistakes when they learn their songs," says biologist Robert Lachlan. In fact, their mimicry is so accurate that the music changes little between generations.

Just like children, the sparrows don't remember every song they hear. Lachlan says. "They don't just learn songs at random; they pick up commoner songs rather than rarer songs." In other words, they learn songs they hear most often. It's an example of a strategy that scientists call conformist bias. Until recently, this learning ability was thought to be special only to humans.

Between 2008 and 2009, Lachlan's research team recorded the calls of 615 male swamp sparrows across the northeastern United States. The researchers used computer software to break each song into a collection of notes, or syllables. They then measured the differences between the tunes.

The research revealed that only 2 percent of male sparrows sang a different song from the standard tune. The combination of accurate mimicry and conformist bias allows the birds to create traditions that last for centuries. "With those two ingredients together, you end up with traditions that are really stable," says Lachlan. "The song-types that you hear in the marshes（湿地）of North America today may well have been there 1,000 years ago." Lachlan's study is also among the first to measure the longevity of song traditions within a bird species.

The findings are really exciting, says scientist Andrew Farnsworth. He hopes that future research will evolve from these studies. For example, scientists may be able to identify how other animals are able to preserve their cultural traditions. "Seeing the potential for it in other organisms is super cool," says Farnsworth.

Boredom is such a large part of day-to-day existence. Perhaps because it's common in our lives, scientists have been slow to explore it. John Eastwood is one of the first scholars to take an interest.

One of the most common false views is that "only boring people get bored".

Yet as Eastwood set about exploring the reasons for boredom, he found that there are two distinct types of personality that tend to suffer from the feeling of boredom, and neither are particularly dull themselves.

Boredom often goes among people who are constantly looking for new experiences. For these people, the steady path of life just isn't enough to hold their attention. The second kind of bored people have almost exactly the opposite problem: the world is a fearful place, and so they try not to step outside their comfort zone. While this might offer some comfort, they are not always satisfied with the safety it offers and boredom results.

Emotions should evolve for our benefit. "The very fact that boredom is a daily experience suggests it should be doing something useful," says Heather Lench at Texas A$M University. Feelings like fear help us avoid danger, after all, while sadness might help prevent future mistakes. So, if true, what does boredom achieve?

Reviewing the evidence so far, Lench suspects that it lies behind one of our most important characters—curiosity. Boredom, she says, pushes us to try to seek new goals or explore new ideas which stimulate innovation(激发创新).

Eastwood is less enthusiastic about boredom's benefits, but admits we should be cautious about looking for an immediate escape. "The feeling is so disgusting that people rush to remove it," he says. "I'm not going to join that war on boredom and come up with a cure, because we need to listen to the emotion and ask what it is trying to tell us to do."

The Land Under the Sea

Ten thousand years ago, as the last ice age ended, sea levels around the world were far lower than they are today. Much of the land under both the North Sea to the east of Britain and the English Channel which now separates France and Britain was part of a huge region of forests and grassy plains. Then the climate gradually became warmer and the water trapped in large masses of ice was released.

Now the development of advanced sonar（声呐) technology, known as bathymetry（水深测量法）, is making it possible to study this flooded landscape in extraordinary detail. A special echo （回声）sounder is fixed to the bottom of a survey ship and it makes wide sweeps across the seabed. While previous technology has only been able to produce two-dimensional(二维)images, bathymetry can now use computers, satellite-positioning equipment and special software to create accurate and remarkably detailed maps. For the first time, an ancient riverbed jumps out of the three-dimensional image . The site of pre-historic settlements can now be pinpointed.

According to expert Linda Andrews, this technological development is of huge significance "We now have the ability to map the seabed as accurately as we can map dry land, "she says.

Once bathymetric techniques have identified sites where people might have built their homes an villages, divers can be sent down to investigate further. Robot submarines（潜艇）can also be used and researchers hope they will find stone tools and wood from houses as proof of human activity. The idea shared by many people in Britain of their country as a natural island kingdom will be challenged by the findings:Britain has been inhabited for about 500, 000 years and much of this time it has been linked on and off to continental Europe. It remains to be seen how far this new awareness is taken on board, however.

In fact, the use of bathymetry will not be limited to the study of lost landscapes and ancient settlements. It will also be vital in finding ships that have been destroyed in accidents. In addition, commercial applications are a real possibility. Aggregates（骨材） for the construction industry are becoming increasingly expensive, and bathymetry can be used to identify suitable sites for digging for this material. Mapping the seabed will also identify places where rare plants and shellfish are living. Digging at such sites should be prevented, either to work for a profit or to make deeper waterways for massive container ships.

Going through social media can quickly convince you that everyone's life is more interesting than yours. During a particularly adventurous week on social media some months ago, I saw water skiing in Maui, and swimming with wild pigs in the Bahamas. Wild pigs! I started searching flights to new places online, imagining adventures. Then I ordered food from the place I eat at every week and... felt bad about not trying somewhere new.

Recent research about repeat and novel experiences suggests that we ought to reconsider those negative feelings associated with repetition. Ed O'Brien, a professor at The University of Chicago, launched a series of studies on this topic. "There's a general belief that if you want to seem like an interesting, cultured person, the best thing you can do is to showcase that you're open to new experiences," he says. "That may be true, but I think we take for granted the value of really digging deep into one field."

To test this hypothesis (假设), O'Brien and his team exposed all participants to the same stimulus (刺激), including museum visits, movies, and video games. Next, some people were asked to imagine repeating the experience, while others actually did repeat what they had done. The researchers found that on the whole, participants said that repeating experiences was often far more enjoyable than they had predicted.

There is joy in repetition partly because every human mind wanders. Consequently, we miss a good part of every experience. Repeating things can really be seen as another opportunity to actually experience something fully. O'Brien's studies show that people are too quick to assume that they've "seen all the layers" even in those cases where they haven't. It's safe to assume there are more explorable layers in any experience. When we're noticing new things in any experience, our brain becomes engaged. All we need to do is approach whatever task is at hand by searching for the things that we didn't see in it the first time around.