Scientific publishing has long been a license to print money. Scientists need journals in which to publish their research, so they will supply the articles without monetary reward. Other scientists perform the specialized work of peer review also for free, because it is a central element in the acquisition of status and the production of scientific knowledge.

With the content of papers secured for free, the publisher needs only find a market for its journal. Until this century, university libraries were not very price sensitive. Scientific publishers routinely report profit margins （利润）approaching 40% on their operations, at a time when the rest of the publishing industry is in an existential crisis.

The Dutch giant Elsevier, which claims to publish 25% of the scientific papers produced in the world, made profits of more than £900m last year, while UK universities alone spent more than £210m in 2016 to enable researchers to access their own publicly funded research; both figures seem to rise unstoppably despite increasingly desperate efforts to change them.

The most drastic, and thoroughly illegal, reaction has been the emergence of Sci — Hub, a kind of global photocopier for scientific papers, set up in 2012, which now claims to offer access to every paywalled （有付费墙的）article published since 2015. The success of Sci — Hub. which relies on researchers passing on copies they have themselves legally accessed, shows the legal ecosystem has lost legitimacy （合法性）among its users and must be transformed so that it works for all participants.

In Britain the move towards open access publishing has been driven by funding bodies. In some ways it has been very successful. More than half of all British scientific research is now published under open access terms: either freely available from the moment of publication, or paywalled for a year or more so that the publishers can make a profit before being placed on general release.

Yet the new system has not worked out any cheaper for the universities. Publishers have responded to the demand that they make their product free to readers by charging their writers fees to cover the costs of preparing an article. These range from around £500 to $5,000. A report last year pointed out that the costs both of subscriptions and of these “article preparation costs" had been steadily rising at a rate above inflation （通货膨胀）.In some ways the scientific publishing model resembles the economy of the social internet: labor is provided free in exchange for the hope of status, while huge profits are made by a few big firms who run the market places. In both cases, we need a rebalancing of power.

It is William Shakespeare, the great coiner, who is given credit for the word. Coriolanus, one of his characters, compares going into exile (流放) to a "lonely dragon" retiring to his cave. He was talking about a physical state: someone who was lonely was simply alone. Then, thanks to the Romantic poets, the word took on emotional meanings. Loneliness became a condition of the soul. For William Wordsworth, who famously "wandered lonely as a cloud", the natural world offered an escape from negative feelings of loneliness—a host of flowers could provide "cheerful company". Today, loneliness is often seen as a serious public-health problem, creating the feeling of disconnection.

In his book Solitude, Netta Weinstein, a psychology professor wonders the rewards of time spent alone. He begins with an account of stories of solitude created by figures such as Michel Montaigne, a writer, and Edward Hopper, a painter. Netta then draw on laboratory work, interviews and surveys to clarify how being alone really affects the human mind.

It is common to treat loneliness and solitude as synonyms (同义词) but they are not. The author suggests that what is negatively described as one state can be positively expressed as the other. Loneliness, often perceived as negative, can potentially be transformed into a positive experience of solitude. To this end he emphasizes how being alone can help restore people and offers practical advice. In a noisy world, he argues, people should make time to be alone, away from attention-grabbing motives.

The book's interviewees mostly regard a lack of company as a contributor to autonomy. But this depends on whether solitude is desirable or not. Enforced solitude, such as that experienced by prisoners, typically leads to nothing but suffering. Elective solitude, by contrast, affords space for self-reflection. It can open the door to "peak experiences" such as wonder, harmony, and happiness. In a highly-connected digital age, however, many readers do not fancy their chances of ever taking a long enough break to have such experiences.

21-year-old Jasmine Harrison completed the 2020 Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge in 70 days, 3 hours and 48 minutes — a new world record for the youngest female to row alone across the Atlantic.

Harrison, who's from North Yorkshire, England, didn't have loads of experience in rowing long distance. In her childhood, she could not even dream of such an ambition. She'd only gotten the idea three years earlier when she happened to be in Antigua, teaching swimming, and saw the end of the 2017 Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge. "Talking to a family member of a young man that had just completed it, I got to know just how amazing a thing it was. I didn't say ‘not a chance I would do that', but it was more a fact of why not do it?" she said.

Every day, Harrison would row for about 12 hours, pushing her 550-pound boat she bought with some money across the ocean, covering roughly 90 kilometers. The journey left her with much time all by herself, which she said she enjoyed. But things got a little harder after her speaker fell in the water and she could no longer listen to her music.

She had other company along the way. She saw lots of sea life, including several whales. One even rose out of the ocean right next to her boat. "I'm in their environment," she said. "It's just amazing."

Twice, her boat was turned over in the night by large waves. The second time, she hurt her arm quite badly. Another time, she nearly ran into a ship. When her food ran out, she lived on cookies and chocolate. In the face of great hardship and loneliness, she kept going.

On February 20, 2021, she reached the island of Antigua—the end of the journey. She celebrated her arrival with a burger and fries.