On a boat near Costa Rica, a team of marine biologists is helping a turtle. The animal is having trouble breathing, and the team discovers why there is something inside its nose. A scientist tries to extract the object, but the turtle cries in pain. Finally, after eight long minutes, a long object is pulled out: It is a 10- centimeter
plastic straw.
The video of the turtle's rescue has been viewed millions of times on YouTube. It has helped raise awareness of a growing problem: The world's seas are full of plastic. Since 2000, there has been a huge increase in worldwide plastic production, but we recycle less than one-fifth of it. A lot of this plastic waste ends up in the ocean. Today, scientists think about 8.1 billion kilograms goes into the sea every year from coastal regions. Most of this plastic will never biodegrade.
This ocean plastic hurts millions of sea animals every year. Some fish eat plastic because it is covered with sea plants, and it looks and smells like food. Typically, eating plastic leads to constant hunger. "Imagine you ate lunch and then just felt weak… and hungry all day," says marine biologist Matthew Savoca. "That would be very confusing." In some cases, eating sharp pieces of plastic can seriously hurt sea animals and even result in death.
Plastic is useful to people because it is strong and lasts a long time, but this is bad news for sea creatures who eat or get stuck in it. According to Savoca, "Single-use plastics are the worst." These are items that are used only once before we throw them away. Some common examples include straws, water bottles, and plastic bags. About 700 sea species (including the turtle from the video) have been caught in or have eaten this kind of plastic. Luckily, the turtle survived and was released back into the ocean.

Improving girl’s educational levels has been demonstrated to have clear impacts on the health and economic future of young women, which in turn improves the prospects of their entire community. The infant mortality rate of babies whose mothers have received primary education is half that of children whose mothers are illiterate. In the poorest countries of the world, 50% of girls do not attend secondary school. Yet, research shows that every extra year of school for girls increases their lifetime income by 15%. Improving female education, and thus the earning potential of women, improves the standard of living for their own children, as women invest more of their income in their families than men do. Yet, many barriers to education for girls remain. In some African countries, such as Burkina Faso, girls are unlikely to attend school for such basic reasons as a lack of private latrine facilities for girls.
Higher attendance rates of high schools and university education among women, particularly in developing countries, have helped them make inroads into professional careers with better-paying salaries and wages. Education increases a woman's (and her partner and the family's) level of health and health awareness. Furthering women's levels of education and advanced training also tends to lead to later ages of initiation of sexual activity and first intercourse, later age at first marriage, and later age at first childbirth, as well as an increased likelihood to remain single, have no children, or have no formal marriage and alternatively, have increasing levels of long-term partnerships. It can lead to higher rates of barrier and chemical contraceptive use (and a lower level of sexually transmitted infections among women and their partners and children), and can increase the level of resources available to women who divorce or are in a situation of domestic violence. It has been shown, in addition, to increase women's communication with their partners and their employers, and to improve rates of civic participation such as voting or the holding of office.

Not everybody recognizes the benefits of new developments in communications technology. Indeed, some people fear that text messaging may actually be having a negative (46) on your people’s communication and language skills, especially when we hear that primary school children may be at risk of becoming addicted to the habit. So widespread has texting become, however, that even pigeons have started doing it. (47) , in this case, it’s difficult to view the results as anything but positive. Twenty of the birds are about to take to the skies with the task of measuring air pollution, each (48) with sensor equipment and a mobile phone. The readings made by the sensors will be automatically converted into text messages and beamed to the Internet where they will appear on a dedicated ‘pigeon blog’. The birds will also each have a GPS receiver and a camera to capture aerial photos, and researchers are building a tiny ‘pigeon kit’ containing all these gadgets. (49) bird will carry these in a miniature backpack,
apart, that is, from the camera, which will hang around its neck. The data the pigeons text will be displayed in the form of an interactive map, (50) will provide local residents with up-to-the-minute information on their local air quality.