Used electronics are piing up fast: they are filling up landfills with dangerous pieces of waste. Some e-waste is relatively large, such as air conditioners; other e-waste is more unnoticed, such as smart labels that contain disposable batteries and other equipment.

“It’s these small batteries that are big problems,” says University of California, Irvine, public health scientist Dele Ogunseitan, who is a green technology researcher and adviser for major tech companies and was not involved in developing the battery. “Nobody really pays attention to where they end up.” Researchers at the Cellulose & Wood Materials Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology are working to address this problem. Their new paper describes a water-activated paper battery developed from environmentally friendly materials that could eventually present a sustainable alternative to the more harmful batteries common in low-power devices.

The paper battery has the same key components as standard batteries but packages them differently. Like a typical chemical battery, it has a positively charged side and a negatively charged side. A traditional battery’s components are covered in plastic and metal; in the new battery, however, the positively and negatively charged sides are inks printed onto the front and back of a piece of paper. That paper is filled with salt, which dissolves (溶解) when the paper becomes wet. When the paper is dry, the battery is shelf-stable. Once the paper is wet, the battery starts working within 20 seconds. The new battery’s operating performance declines as the paper dries. When the scientists rewet the paper during testing, the battery regained function and lasted an hour before beginning to dry out again.

That future may not be so far off. It is hard to predict a time line for manufacturing such items at scale, but the head of the study says he is in contact with potential industry partners and believes these batteries could make their way into products within the next two to five years.

Something’s happening at the lowest point on our planet, some 1,388 feet below the sea level.

The Dead Sea, a salt lake close to Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, is shrinking at an alarming rate — about 3.3 feet per year, according to the environmentalist group EcoPeace Middle East. And human actions are largely to blame.

“It’s not just like one country is punishing the Dead Sea; it's more like the whole region，” said photographer Moritz Küstner, who visited the area in February to work on his series “The Dying Dead Sea”.

The Dead Sea needs water from the other natural sources surrounding it, such as the Jordan River basin. But around the 1960s, some of the water sources it relied upon were diverted.

Mineral extraction industries are another main reason why the water levels are declining, experts say. The Dead Sea’s minerals have been popular for their medical power and can often be found in cosmetics (化妆品) and other consumer products.

And then, of course, there’s the Middle East’s hot, dry climate, which makes it difficult for the lake to refill itself.

Israel and Jordan have signed a $900 million deal in an effort to stabilize the Dead Sea’s water levels.

It involves building a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea so that both countries would be able to not only supply water to Israel and Jordan but also to pump much needed water — some 300 million cubic meters annually — into the Dead Sea.

“This is the most important and significant agreement since the peace treaty with Jordan (in 1994),” said Silvan Shalom, Israel’s energy and water resources minister at the time.

Whether the canal — estimated to take three years to complete — will work out positively and as planned remains to be seen.

Ingvar Kamprad, who started IKEA as a teenager, died at the age of 91. He built one of the world’s biggest furniture companies.

There are two aspects of modern life that we have IKEA to thank for: flat-pack (平板包装) furniture and a shop layout.

IKEA first brought out its flat-pack furniture in the 1950s. Whether you love or hate this concept, it was a stroke of genius and an effective way of making the masses value the brand. Obvious aspects of it are cost-efficiency and the practicality of shipping.

When IKEA made the switch away from selling furniture that was already assembled, it was most likely unaware of how it would influence its consumers. Yet scientists have since managed to explain why consumers simply can’t get enough of building their own furniture. The simple act of touching products can increase your overall perceived (感知到的) value of the product. Couple this with the fact that the more effort a consumer has put into building something the more they like it.

Tests have shown that the actual act of putting something together (even though there may be sweat and tears involved) so that it becomes a complete object produces a much more favorable perception of that object than one would get from purchasing it in a complete form. The phenomenon is known as the IKEA effect. This effect is further improved by the fact that touch itself is related to emotion. This means that when we touch something the emotive part of our brain is activated so that we experience a close connection with the product emotionally. Thus, the happy assembler of that flat pack will, once finished, feel proud of their achievement and experience feelings of being closely connected to the item.

The layout of the IKEA store has also paved the way for a more creative way of thinking about how to guide customers. If you have ever visited one of its huge warehouse (仓库) stores, you may have gone in thinking you were going to buy a few items, only to find yourself coming out of the store with a shopping cart full of things. This is because of its circular design and one-way system. This design means                                 you often can’t see what is coming next and fear you will miss something if you don’t continue all the way along the path.

IKEA’s creative ability to tap into the unconsciousness of consumers is undoubtedly a big part of its success — and also why it’s been copied by many other companies. Even though Ingvar Kamprad is no longer with us, IKEA has inherited from him a spirit of thinking outside the box to communicate with consumers. It will be interesting to see what follows next.