Being stuck behind crowds of slow walkers when you’re in a hurry is one of the most annoying things. But now, Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex, one of the UK’s largest shopping malls, has introduced its very own fast lane (通道) for shoppers in a hurry, aiming to help impatient shoppers avoid slow walkers and the anger that goes with them.

The Lakeside Shopping Center in Essex has introduced a 720­foot “fast lane” reserved for fast walkers only, just in time for the Christmas rush. The center's management team said: “the lane will help the shoppers who know where they want to go quickly and don't want to get caught in behind unhurried shoppers at the busiest time of the year.”

The fast lane was introduced after a MasterCard survey found that 80 percent of consumers found slow walkers their biggest annoyance while shopping. The research also found that the average walking speed slowed down by 21 percent during the Christmas shopping period, as most shoppers spent more time window shopping during this period.

Gary Mortimer, an expert from the Queensland University of Technology, said he wasn’t surprised by the promotion about the launch of the fast lane, and thought the concept would appeal to shoppers all over the world. “Crowded parking lots and busy shopping centers tend to be two of the biggest complaints of shoppers over the festive season，” he said. “I think the fast lanes are a new approach. However, I suspect it will be a bit like fast lanes on the highway, so it might end up being more trouble than its worth.”

The MasterCard survey also identified the four most common types of shoppers. They include “Skaters” —the 31 percent of shoppers who try and make their way through crowds politely, “Dodgers”—the 51 percent of customers who move down the paths to avoid slow walkers, “Bulldozers” —the 11 percent who push their way through crowds, and “Tutters”—the 15 percent who express their frustrations to slow walkers.

America has more than enough food for everyone to eat. But each year, billions of pounds of perfectly good food go to waste. Meanwhile, 34 million face hunger in the United States. As the country’s largest food rescue organization, Feeding America partners with food manufacturers, grocery stores, restaurants, and farmers to rescue food and deliver it to food banks serving our neighbors.

Each year, 108 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. That equates 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year. Shockingly, nearly 40% of all food in America is wasted.

Food goes to waste at every stage of food production and distribution — from farmers to packers and shippers, from manufacturers to retailers to our homes. Food waste in our homes makes up about 39% of all food waste — about 42 billion pounds of food waste, and commercial food waste makes up about 61% of all food waste or 66 billion pounds of food waste. Feeding America focuses on reducing food waste on farms and in food service, manufacturing, and retail. Last year, the Feeding America network and our partners rescued 4. 7 billion pounds of groceries. That food went directly to meals for people facing hunger. This makes Feeding America the largest food rescue organization in the country.

Food rescue, or food recovery, is the practice of collecting high-quality food that would otherwise go to waste and distributing it to people facing hunger. We work with manufacturers, retailers, and farmers to reduce food waste and get rescued food to people in need. We identify food at the risk of going to waste, offer rescued food to food banks, safely ship food over long distances and keep food fresh longer once it reaches a food bank.

In an effort to stop poaching and protect endangered species, people are using technology previously created to discover stars. Claire Burke, who led the project, says the application of the star-hunting tech has so far paid off big for conservation. “Since animals and humans in thermal imagery (热成像) ‘glow’ in the same way as stars in space, we have been able to combine the technical expertise of astronomers with the conservation knowledge of ecologists to develop a system to find the animals or poachers automatically,” she said in a statement.

In addition to species identification, the software can also provide an overview of health. Burke said that diseased or injured animals give off a different thermal imagery than the healthy ones. “The real advantage this gives you is that if you know how many animals you have and where they are and what kind of health they are in, then you can work out a good conservation strategy for looking after them,” she said.

The following is a post written by Burke on Twitter: More animals for the thermal imagery library. Thanks to Chester Zoo Science @ScienceatCZ for letting us observe their fantastic creatures. Images are giraffes, Indian elephants, and fruit bats.—Claire Burke (@CBurkeSci) October 27.

To train the software on a wide variety of heat signatures from different species, the team of researchers spent time collecting thermal imagery of animals. Their first field trial to detect Riverine rabbits, one of the most endangered mammals in the world (with only 500 living adults left in the wild), was a complete success. “The rabbits are very small, so we flew the drone (无人机) quite low to the ground at a height of 20 meters (65 feet). Although this limited the area we could cover with the drone, we managed to see the rabbit five times,” said Burke. “Given that there have only been about 1,000 times people have seen Riverine rabbits, it was a real success.”