Compost (堆肥) is one of the most wonderful things in the world. You take organic matter that would otherwise end up in landfills and create a nutrient-rich material that will help make gardens grow, flowers bloom and make it easier to feed the world. Thanks to Tipa, an Israeli start-up, you will soon be able to add plastics to your compost mix. 

Plastic is one of the most challenging problems on the planet. As No Camels reports, it often takes 500 years for plastic to break down, and even then, microplastics remain in water or on land. Furthermore, according to Inc. Com, even though plastic can theoretically be recycled, less than 5 percent of flexible plastic packaging that is put into recycling by consumers is actually recycled. 

But that doesn't need to be the case anymore.

Now, Tipa and other companies have begun to create plastics that are able to biodegrade like any organic matter does. When asked how she got the idea of creating compostable flexible plastics, Dafna Nissenbaum, the CEO and co-founder of Tipa, said, "Nature also packs its products, like bananas, apples and oranges, but with a compostable material. Our plastics will break down exactly like any other organic material and turn into solid fertilizer (肥料)."

Unlike other compostable plastics on the market, Tipa's plastics can be fully composted in home composts. This means that the average person with a garden compost could use their packaging and just throw it in the compost instead of the recycling bin when they are done with it.

Another thing that Tipa has been doing is to create partnerships with existing producers instead of creating their own factories. The company's materials are purposefully designed to be compatible (兼容的) with machinery that already exists and produces non-compostable plastics. Tipa says that fits in with its goal of creating a sustainable future.

Tipa has partnered with some high-end designers. Both Stella McCartney and Mara Hoffman use Tipa's products to package their products. Many brands are now aware that using sustainable packaging will endear them to customers, and Tipa helps them do that.

If you've ever started a sentence with, " If I were you…"or found yourself scratching your head at a colleague's headache over a decision when the answer is crystal-clear, there's a scientific reason behind it. Our own decision-making abilities can become declined over the course of the day causing indecision or poor choices, but choosing on behalf of someone else is an enjoyable task that doesn't suffer the same trouble.

The problem is "decision fatigue (疲劳)", a psychological phenomenon that greatly damages the quality of your choices after a long day of decision making, says Evan Polman, a leading psychologist.

Physicians who have been on the job for several hours, for example, are more likely to prescribe antibiotics (抗生素) to patients when it's unwise to do so. "Presumably (据推测) it's because it's simple and easy to write a prescription and consider a patient case closed rather than investigate further," Polman says.

But decision fatigue goes away when you are making the decision for someone else. When people imagine themselves as advisers and imagine their own choices as belonging to someone else, they feel less tired and rely less on decision shortcuts to make those choices. "By taking upon the role of adviser rather than decision maker, one does not suffer the consequences of decision fatigue," he says. "It's as if there's something fun and liberating about making someone else's choice. "

Getting input from others not only offers a fresh perspective and thought process; it often also includes riskier choices. While this sounds undesirable, it can be quite good, says Polman. "When people experience decision fatigue-when they are tired of making choices-they have a tendency to choose to go with the status quo, " he says. "But it can be problematic, since a change in the course of action can sometimes be important and lead to a positive outcome. "

Like the rest of us, scientists have long suspected the healing capacity of a good hug. Unlike the rest of us, they' ve gone about trying to prove it.

" Laboratory studies suggest that things like hugs help us feel safer. They can also make us less sensitive to physical pain and less reactive when we' re faced with threatening experiences, " says Michael Murphy. He is a research professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Texas Tec h University. " This lab work has shown that hugs and other touch behaviors are related to stress. The more stress we have, the more our heart rates and blood pressure go up. At this time, hugs and other forms of personal touch may give off all sorts of feel-good chemicals, so that stress can be reduced." 

" There' s a lot that we still need to learn, and there' s a lot we don' t know, " Murphy says. " However, what seems to be rising up is that hugs, as well as other forms of loving and gentle touch, are really powerful. They remind people that they' re cared about and that they have someone in their corner." 

" We expect touch. When we were born, we were placed in our mothers'  arms almost immediately. In that first year of our life, we spend a lot of time being held by other people. And as we grow up, we seek out hugs and touch as a way of connection. I think what we have lost in the past few years are these really easy opportunities to be reminded of connection." 

While he was at Carnegie Mellon, Murphy was the lead author of a hug-centered 2018 article in the scientific journal PLOS One. In a series of interviews with 404 adults over a two-week period, the researchers found that receiving a hug is associated with the attenuation of negative emotions that occur on days with interpersonal conflicts. That is to say, generally, hugs help to reduce the negative impacts that personal conflicts may cause in our daily lives.