Sharing tableware reduces waste generation, emissions and water consumption in China’s takeaway packaging waste dilemma

China has a rapidly growing online food delivery and takeaway market, serving 406 million customers with 10.0 billion orders and generating 323kilotonnes of tableware and packaging waste in 2018. Here we use a top-down approach with city-level takeaway order data to explore the packaging waste and life-cycle environmental impacts of the takeaway industry in China. The ten most wasteful cities, with just 7% of the population, in terms of per capita waste generation, were responsible for 30% of the country's takeaway waste, 27-34% of the country's pollutant emissions and 30% of the country's water consumption. We defined one paper substitution and two sharing tableware scenarios to simulate the environmental mitigation potentials. The results of the scenario simulations show that sharing tableware could reduce waste generation by up to 92%, and environmental emissions and water consumption by more than two-thirds. Such a mechanism provides a potential solution to address the food packaging waste dilemma and a new strategy for promoting sustainable and zero-waste lifestyles. The online food delivery and takeaway market is growing in China, serving 406 million customers with 10.0 billion orders in 2018. Here, data from an online food delivery platform, life-cycle environmental impacts of packaging and tableware waste generated across 353 cities in China, and scenarios for paper alternatives and tableware sharing are presented

COVID-19 causes record decline in global CO2 emissions

The considerable cessation of human activities during the COVID-19 pandemic has affected global energy use and CO2 emissions. Here we show the unprecedented decrease in global fossil CO2 emissions from January to April 2020 was of 7.8% (938 Mt CO2 with a +6.8% of 2-{\sigma} uncertainty) when compared with the period last year. In addition other emerging estimates of COVID impacts based on monthly energy supply or estimated parameters, this study contributes to another step that constructed the near-real-time daily CO2 emission inventories based on activity from power generation (for 29 countries), industry (for 73 countries), road transportation (for 406 cities), aviation and maritime transportation and commercial and residential sectors emissions (for 206 countries). The estimates distinguished the decline of CO2 due to COVID-19 from the daily, weekly and seasonal variations as well as the holiday events. The COVID-related decreases in CO2 emissions in road transportation (340.4 Mt CO2, -15.5%), power (292.5 Mt CO2, -6.4% compared to 2019), industry (136.2 Mt CO2, -4.4%), aviation (92.8 Mt CO2, -28.9%), residential (43.4 Mt CO2, -2.7%), and international shipping (35.9Mt CO2, -15%). Regionally, decreases in China were the largest and earliest (234.5 Mt CO2,-6.9%), followed by Europe (EU-27 & UK) (138.3 Mt CO2, -12.0%) and the U.S. (162.4 Mt CO2, -9.5%). The declines of CO2 are consistent with regional nitrogen oxides concentrations observed by satellites and ground-based networks, but the calculated signal of emissions decreases (about 1Gt CO2) will have little impacts (less than 0.13ppm by April 30, 2020) on the overserved global CO2 concertation. However, with observed fast CO2 recovery in China and partial re-opening globally, our findings suggest the longer-term effects on CO2 emissions are unknown and should be carefully monitored using multiple measures

Prognostic and therapeutic significance of microbial cell-free DNA in plasma of people with acutely decompensated cirrhosis

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Although the effect of bacterial infection on cirrhosis has been well-described, the effect of non-hepatotropic virus (NHV) infection is unknown. This study evaluated the genome fragments of circulating microorganisms using metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in cirrhosis patients with acute decompensation (AD), focusing on NHVs and related the findings to clinical outcomes. METHODS: Plasma mNGS was performed in 129 cirrhosis patients with AD in study cohort. Ten healthy volunteers and 20, 39, and 81 patients with stable cirrhosis, severe sepsis and hematological malignancies, respectively, were enrolled as controls. Validation assays for human cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivation in a validation cohort (n = 58) were performed and exploratory treatment instituted. RESULTS: In study cohort, 188 microorganisms were detected in 74.4% (96/129) patients, including viruses (58.0%), bacteria (34.1%), fungi (7.4%) and chlamydia (0.5%). Patients with AD had an NHV signature, and CMV was the most frequent NHV, which correlated with the clinical effect of empirical antibiotic treatment, progression to acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), and 90-day mortality. The NHV signature in ACLF patients was similar to patients with sepsis and hematological malignancies. The treatable NHV, CMV was detected in 24.1% (14/58) patients in the validation cohort. Of the 14 cases with detectable CMV by mNGS, 9 were further validated by DNA RT-PCR or pp65 antigenemia testing. Three patients with CMV reactivation received ganciclovir therapy in exploratory manner with clinical resolutions. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggests that NHVs may have a pathogenic role in complicating the course of AD. Further validation is needed to define whether this should be incorporated in the routine management of AD patients. IMPACT AND IMPLICATIONS: ●Cirrhosis patients with acute decompensation have a non-hepatotropic virus (NHV) signature, which is similar to that in sepsis and hematological malignancies patients. ●The detected viral signature had clinical correlates, including clinical efficacy of empirical antibiotic treatment, progression to acute-on-chronic liver failure and short-term mortality. ●The treatable NHV, CMV reactivation may be involved in the clinical outcomes of decompensated cirrhosis. ●Routine screening for NHVs, especially CMV, may be useful for the management of patients with acutely decompensated cirrhosis

Near-real-time monitoring of global CO₂ emissions reveals the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting human activities, and in turn energy use and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Here we present daily estimates of country-level CO2 emissions for different sectors based on near-real-time activity data. The key result is an abrupt 8.8% decrease in global CO₂ emissions (−1551 Mt CO₂) in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The magnitude of this decrease is larger than during previous economic downturns or World War II. The timing of emissions decreases corresponds to lockdown measures in each country. By July 1st, the pandemic’s effects on global emissions diminished as lockdown restrictions relaxed and some economic activities restarted, especially in China and several European countries, but substantial differences persist between countries, with continuing emission declines in the U.S. where coronavirus cases are still increasing substantially

Near-real-time monitoring of global CO2 emissions reveals the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting human activities, and in turn energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Here we present daily estimates of country-level CO2 emissions for different sectors based on near-real-time activity data. The key result is an abrupt 8.8% decrease in global CO2 emissions (−1551 Mt CO2) in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The magnitude of this decrease is larger than during previous economic downturns or World War II. The timing of emissions decreases corresponds to lockdown measures in each country. By July 1st, the pandemic’s effects on global emissions diminished as lockdown restrictions relaxed and some economic activities restarted, especially in China and several European countries, but substantial differences persist between countries, with continuing emission declines in the U.S. where coronavirus cases are still increasing substantially

Sciences for The 2.5-meter Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST)

The Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST) is a dedicated photometric survey facility under construction jointly by the University of Science and Technology of China and Purple Mountain Observatory. It is equipped with a primary mirror of 2.5m in diameter, an active optical system, and a mosaic CCD camera of 0.73 Gpix on the main focus plane to achieve high-quality imaging over a field of view of 6.5 square degrees. The installation of WFST in the Lenghu observing site is planned to happen in the summer of 2023, and the operation is scheduled to commence within three months afterward. WFST will scan the northern sky in four optical bands (u, g, r, and i) at cadences from hourly/daily to semi-weekly in the deep high-cadence survey (DHS) and the wide field survey (WFS) programs, respectively. WFS reaches a depth of 22.27, 23.32, 22.84, and 22.31 in AB magnitudes in a nominal 30-second exposure in the four bands during a photometric night, respectively, enabling us to search tremendous amount of transients in the low-z universe and systematically investigate the variability of Galactic and extragalactic objects. Intranight 90s exposures as deep as 23 and 24 mag in u and g bands via DHS provide a unique opportunity to facilitate explorations of energetic transients in demand for high sensitivity, including the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational-wave events detected by the second/third-generation GW detectors, supernovae within a few hours of their explosions, tidal disruption events and luminous fast optical transients even beyond a redshift of 1. Meanwhile, the final 6-year co-added images, anticipated to reach g about 25.5 mag in WFS or even deeper by 1.5 mag in DHS, will be of significant value to general Galactic and extragalactic sciences. The highly uniform legacy surveys of WFST will also serve as an indispensable complement to those of LSST which monitors the southern sky.Comment: 46 pages, submitted to SCMP

Amphibious Study on a Basilisk Lizard Inspired Robot

Abstract: This study describes the amphibious study of a novel robot, which attempts to emulate the basilisk lizard's ability to run on the surface of water and walk on land. Functionally, the robot uses four bar mechanism as its driving leg with a self-adaptive foot added to its end. Through some hydromechanics calculations and analyses, its water running ability is theoretically verified. And via terrestrial gait planning, the feasibility of land walking is also realized and the performance has been tested by both simulation and experiment. This study opens the door for legged robots to become ambulatory over both land and water in China and its research method has given a good reference for further study of the amphibious robot