◎魏國金
US taxpayers unnecessarily spent $28m on uniforms for the Afghan National Army, according to the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. In a scathing report, John Sopko said that officials bought "forest" pattern uniforms, despite the country’s landscape being only 2.1% wooded. The decision was "not based on an evaluation of its appropriateness for the Afghan environment", he wrote. A former Afghan defence minister chose the pattern in 2007, he says.
Seven percent of all American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to a nationally representative online survey commissioned by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy. The survey also found 48 percent of those asked, admitted they weren’t totally sure where chocolate milk came from.
根據「美國乳製品創新中心」委託的一項全國代表性線上調查，美國7%成人相信，巧克力牛奶來自褐色乳牛。調查也發現，48%的受訪者承認，他們不完全確定巧克力牛奶從何而來。
If you do the math, that works out to 16.4 million misinformed, milk-drinking people. The equivalent of the population of Pennsylvania does not know that chocolate milk is milk, cocoa and sugar.
◎ 劉宜庭
An international team of researchers was able to prove that Jupiter is the oldest planet in our planetary system.
A Massachusetts charter school that came under fire for what some students and parents considered a racist policy of banning hair braid extensions has suspended the rule.
（美國）麻薩諸塞州一所特許學校，因一項禁止髮辮接髮的政策，遭學生與家長批評有種族歧視之嫌後，已暫停實施這項規定。
◎孫宇青
The love between a man and his dog knows no bounds, but how far would you go to save your "best friend" if they went missing?
◎魏國金
A dustbin man in Bogota in Colombia, who never studied further than primary school, has gathered a library of more than 20,000 thrown away books. The collection began 20 years ago, when Jose Alberto Gutierrez fished out a discarded copy of Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina.
◎陳正健
People who spend their free time swiping through social media could be causing upset in their relationship, scientists warn. Research has revealed that phubbing’ is on the rise.
科學家警告，人們在空閒時間滑看社群媒體，可能造成他們關係上的沮喪。研究揭露，低頭族行為正在增加。
◎劉宜庭
The plants have a long and unexpected line of evolution. Earth plants were formed 450 million years ago. The first flowers appeared in the Cretaceous period. During this time, the plants developed some striking features, and, as the last study carried out by the University of Birmingham shows, the "brain" could also be one of them.
