On a two-acre field in England's Midlands, Gavin and Alice harvest trees which they train 【小题1】(grow) into chairs. The couple have a furniture farm where they are nurturing 250 chairs, 100 lamps and 50 tables. It is their answer 【小题2】the inefficient and carbon-heavy process of cutting down mature trees to create furniture.

Instead of growing a tree for 50 years and then cutting it down and making it into smaller and smaller bits, the idea is to grow the tree into the shape that you want 【小题3】 (direct).

Part of the inspiration for the idea came 【小题4】Gavin was a young boy. He spotted an overgrown bonsai tree which 【小题5】 (look) like a chair. He was also born with a curved spine and as a child spent several years 【小题6】 (wear) a metal frame to reset his back. "The medical staff were just brilliant. The nurses and the doctors combined kindness and competence in a way that really, really impressed me. I wanted to combine care and competence and hopefully this is 【小题7】we're doing here,“ he said.

Progress has been bumpy. One of their first attempts at a crop ended in disaster when it【小题8】(step) on by cows and eaten by rabbits.

They have also had to discover the【小题9】 (effective) way to shape a tree without harming its growth. The couple has learned to guide shoots already heading in the right direction, rather than force shoots the wrong way against their will. The average chair takes six to nine years to grow—and another year to dry out. The longest commission the company has is for 2030. It is a chair for a customer's 【小题10】(retire).

Ancient Romans, Chinese and Japanese are known to have shaped trees to customize their forms.

Gavin and Alice hope to be harvesting annually by 2022.

To stop plastic waste reaching the ocean, an Italian firm has invented 【小题1】 seems to be a perfect tool to pick up litter before it gets there. Almost 80 percent of ocean waste comes from 100 of the world’s 【小题2】 (large) waterways. So, stopping waste at source is a solution that can be 【小题3】 (whole) workable.

The company had to get over a few 【小题4】 (difficult) before it could test out the invention properly. For example, its device had to allow boats to easily pass through while being able to run 24/7 with no influence 【小题5】 the river’s environment. The result is River Cleaning. 【小题6】 (attach) to the river bed, River Cleaning is a series of buoys (浮标) that spin on axles (轴) powered by the natural flow of the river, with the ability 【小题7】 (collect) different kinds of waste. River Cleaning, 【小题8】 about 100 percent scalable (可缩放的), low-cost and low-impact solution, can collect 85 percent of the waste 【小题9】 (pass) by it. So, if it is used in all the right places, up to 85 percent of rubbish 【小题10】 (prevent) from entering the ocean in the near future.

Schools in the UK are trying the use of "classroom robots" in order to ease the growing teacher 【小题1】 (short). So far, two primary schools in Plymouth have introduced the robots,   【小题2】 an alternative to teaching assistants.

Britain's lack of teaching staff 【小题3】 (become) worse over the last ten years and shows no sign of improving. Graduates are not 【小题4】 (will) to enter the primary education and many current teachers are abandoning the profession for careers in other fields. 【小题5】(face) with this concerning problem, some schools believe that robots might soon be able to improve the situation.

Tests have shown that teachers can train the robots within just three hours by showing a range of classroom techniques,【小题6】   are then copied by the robot and used in a real classroom setting with real students doing tasks. In one example, the robot teacher 【小题7】(successful) guided the students through challenging tasks,   【小题8】 (give) them praise and encouragement when necessary.

The project has been met with 【小题9】(mix) reactions from teachers. Some are concerned that the robots are here to replace their jobs, 【小题10】 others optimistically consider the machines as a way to reduce their heavy workloads.