Scientists today are making greater effort to study ocean currents (洋流) . Most do it using satellites and other high-tech equipment. However, ocean expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer does it in a special way — by studying movements of random floating garbage. A scientist with many years’ experience, he started this type of research in the early 1990s when he heard about hundreds of athletic shoes washing up on the shores of the northwest coast of the United States. There were so many shoes that people were setting up swap meets to try and match left and right shoes to sell or wear.

Ebbesmeyer found out in his researches that the shoes — about 60,000 in total — fell into the ocean in a shipping accident. He phoned the shoe company and asked if they wanted the shoes back. As expected, the company told him that they didn't. Ebbesmeyer realized this could be a great experiment. If he learned when and where the shoes went into the water and tracked where they landed, he could learn a lot about the patterns of ocean currents.

The Pacific Northwest is one of the world's best areas for beachcombing (海滩搜寻) because winds and currents join here, and as a result, there is a group of serious beachcombers in the area. Ebbesmeyer got to know a lot of them and asked for their help in collecting information about where the shoes landed. In a year he collected reliable information on 1, 600 shoes. With this data, he and a colleague were able to test and improve a computer program designed to model ocean currents, and publish the findings of their study.

As the result of his work, Ebbesmeyer has become known as the scientist to call with questions about any unusual objects found floating in the ocean. He has even started an association of beachcombers and ocean experts, with 500 subscribers from West Africa to New Zealand. They have recorded all lost objects ranging from potatoes to golf gloves.

Samsung has given the public a first look at its new foldable (可折叠的) smartphone. The South Korea-based technology company first announced plans to build a fully foldable phone five years ago. The phone is designed to fold open to be as big as a small tablet. It can also perform some operations of a tablet. When folded closed, the phone looks and works like a normal smartphone.

Justin Denison is Samsung’s vice president of mobile product marketing. He showed the phone, which he said marked a major breakthrough in future smartphone technology. He said Samsung had to invent new materials and methods and “completely re-imagine the display.” And one of the biggest difficulties was finding a material that was flexible(灵活的), but also strong enough to support repeated folding and unfolding of the phone.

Denison said the phone will permit users to keep up to three apps open at one time. With normal-size smartphones, users have to keep changing between apps.“We have been living in a world where the size of a screen could only be as large as the phone itself,” Denison said.

Research company IDC reported smartphone sales fell by 4 percent during the 12-month period ending in September 2018. Samsung, the world’s leading seller of smartphones, suffered a 7 percent drop during the period, IDC said. It remains to be seen whether foldable phones will become popular quickly. The phones are expected to cost more than US$1,000.