112年 - 112-1 國立嘉義高級中學_教師甄選：英文科#114154

       Sandhya Sriram is impatient. The stem-cell scientist wanted to put her knowledge to use developing cultivated seafood, but no one was doing that in Singapore. So she set up a company in 2018 to create labgrown crustacean meat. Eagerly, she registered her company, Shiok Meats. “Nobody was doing crustaceans,” says Sriram, Shiok’s Group CEO and co-founder. “What do Asians eat the most? Seafood. It was a simple answer … And they’re so delicious.” A lifelong vegetarian, she had never tried real shrimp, but she sampled it the week she registered the company. Today, the results of her enthusiasm can be seen at Shiok Meats’ headquarters, in an industrial Singapore neighborhood. During a fall 2022 visit, a bespectacled bioprocess engineer clad in personal protective gear peered into a microscope. He had taken samples from a bioreactor in the room next door, where the company is culturing crustacean cells. Under the lens, he was checking to see if the cells were ready to harvest.
       Shiok Meats has already unveiled shrimp, lobster, and crab prototypes to a select group of tasters, and it plans to seek regulatory approval to sell its lab-grown shrimp by April 2023. That could make it the first in the world to bring cultivated shrimp to diners, putting it at the forefront of the cultivated-meat race. As of this writing, only one company has gained regulatory approval to sell lab-grown animal-protein products: Eat Just’s cultured chicken is available—but only in Singapore. Shiok Meats still needs to submit all the paperwork necessary and get regulatory approval, but the company hopes to see its products in restaurants by mid-2024, offering foodies a cruelty-free and more environmentally friendly option than crustaceans from farms.
       But even if that ambitious timeline is met, it will likely be a while before the average person is eating cultivated crustaceans. It will require not just regulatory approval but also more funding and a bigger factory, along with persuading consumers and governments around the world to accept lab-grown seafood. “We’re at an interesting stage of a startup; it’s called the Valley of Death,” says Sriram. “We are in the space where we haven’t submitted for regulatory approval yet, but we’re looking to commercialize in the next two years.” Nevertheless, the impatient entrepreneur is optimistic. Sriram hopes to have the company’s next manufacturing plant ready by the end of 2023, where a 500-liter and a 2,000-liter bioreactor will be a major scale up from its current 50- and 200-liter bioreactors. The goal is for her products to enter the mainstream in Singapore in five to seven years.
       Popularizing these products could help tackle some of the environmental impacts of crustacean production. Organic waste, chemicals, and antibiotics from seafood farms can pollute groundwater and coastal estuaries. Hatcheries are often in places that may otherwise be home to mangroves that can sequester carbon and protect vulnerable coastlines from storms, says Sriram. A 2018 Nature study found that production of crustaceans—measured by the weight of edible protein—can result in carbon emissions comparable to beef and lamb. That’s in part because of how much fuel is used in fishing boats proportional to the end-product amount of protein obtained. And although shrimp and lobster accounted for only 6% of seafood (based on 2011 data), the study found they represented 22% of the industry’s carbon emissions. Shiok Meats says the way it produces crustacean meat minimizes animal cruelty, as growing protein in a lab helps avoid killing animals. Trawling vessels that ensnare bycatch are also avoided. And cultivating shrimp closer to where it’s consumed cuts emissions from fishing-boat fuel and shipping products around the world.
       Asia consumes more seafood than any other region. Several food-tech companies are tapping into this demand, including a Hong Kong company making lab-grown fish maw, a Chinese delicacy, and a South Korean company also developing cultivated crustaceans. But Shiok may have a first-mover advantage. In 2018, it filed for a patent covering how to use stem cells from crustaceans to make food—which it’s hoping to receive in the next year or so; it could then license its technology to other companies. Diversifying how and where the world gets its seafood will be crucial for feeding Asia’s fast-growing population, which is expected to increase by 250 million by 2030. Singapore’s authorities, at least, are keenly aware of the challenge. The Southeast Asian city-state—which lacks farmland and imports 90% of its food—is aiming to produce enough food to meet 30% of its nutritional needs by 2030 (up from less than 10% in 2021). Hoping to become Asia’s food-tech capital, Singapore is focusing on innovations like plant- and cell-based proteins; these “require far less space and resources to produce the same amount of food as traditional food sources,” Bernice Tay, director of food manufacturing at Enterprise Singapore, a government agency that supports small businesses, told Nikkei Asia. In December 2020, Singapore became the first country to approve the sale of cultivated meat—the chicken product from Eat Just—to the public.
       Sriram says the government has helped Shiok with grants, in matching venture-capital funding, and in hiring foreign talent. The company has raised about $30 million, with backers like the Netherlands-based aquaculture investment fund Aqua-Spark, South Korean food giant CJ Cheil-Jedang, and Vietnamese seafood company Vinh Hoan. Fundraising is challenging, says Sriram, and it’s expensive to scale up manufacturing— which is being hampered by a global shortage of stainless steel, needed for the bioreactors.
       Ultimately, the company’s goal of feeding the world will be contingent on other governments getting on board with lab-grown meat. Then there’s the need to persuade consumers to eat the stuff. Price is also a barrier. Shiok shrimp’s launch price will be about $50 for 2 lb., nearly two to four times the price for fresh or frozen prawns at the grocery store. Sriram envisions launching Shiok’s crustacean meat as a premium product at first, where some restaurants could offer it in select dishes to diners willing to pay the price. She also plans to work with food manufacturers like CJ CheilJedang to create ready-to-eat products like dumplings. “The vision,” she says, “is to have sustainable, delicious, healthy food for everybody, without animal cruelty.”

 
Source
Amy Gunia, 2023, The Scientist Leading the Push to Bring Lab-Grown Seafood to Your Plate, TIME, 12 January, accessed 16 April 2023, .

       It started with a New Year's resolution.
       On January 1, 2018, Ivoirian graphic design student O'Plérou Grebet made a vow. He wanted to create an emoji a day for 365 days. Each of them would depict some element of life in Ivory Coast or West Africa more generally. He named his project Zouzoukwa, which means "picture" in Bété. Bété is his mother tongue. Grebet began posting his creations to his Instagram page, @creativorian.
       Grebet scoured his own life for inspiration. He started with his favorite snacks, like the grilled plantains wrapped in paper he bought from street vendors and the tiny plastic sacks of tart, sweet purple hibiscus juice he used to buy on his way to school. Then came the comb for his Afro. Then the zig-zaggy green and white jersey of the Nigerian national soccer team. He drew bags of hair extensions and kiosks selling cellphone airtime. He also drew the silver dome of the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, an Ivoirian church certified by Guinness World Records as the largest in the world. "The goal was to share African culture in a colorful and different way," he said. "I didn't have any idea that people would like it so much." 
      The project took off, helped along, Grebet thinks, by West Africans' desire to see themselves reflected back in the tiny, intricate images that had become like a second language to his generation. Despite the growing number of skin colors, professions, foods and other types of emojis on their phones, it was still clear the usual set of emojis was created by and for people who didn't look like them.
       "People like to see the elements of their own daily life in their phone," he said. "And it's funny to have expressions that really correspond with the ones you use yourself." Take Zouzoukwa #78, a cartoon face pointing to his left eye. It is an expression that in Ivory Coast means, "I told you so."
       Grebet finished his emoji challenge in December 2018. By then, the project had taken on a life of its own. His creations were winning graphic design prizes. A French TV channel had enlisted him to create special emojis to use on social media during the 2018 World Cup. An advertising agency sent him a MacBook to use to make his designs. In January 2019, one year after the project first premiered, it became an app. Now, users can embed Zouzoukwa images as "stickers" in their text message or WhatsApp conversations.
       By October 2019, Grebet graduated with a degree in digital arts and images from the Institute of Sciences and Communication Techniques in Abidjan. At the same time, the Zouzoukwa app had been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Next, Grebet says he would like to submit some of his designs to Unicode Consortium. The organization is the gatekeeper for the "official" set of emojis that comes standard on most smartphones. Then, "I want to extend the project," he said. "Travel to other countries, immerse myself in their cultures and then transform them into emojis." 

Passage 1
       Ms. Monopoly is putting a fresh spin on an old game.
       The new version of Monopoly aims to empower women. It also wants to change business as usual — specifically, with the gender pay gap. Women, despite doing equal work, consistently make less money than men in workplaces. The game makes this clear from the start with a clever rule change.
       The company Hasbro, which makes Monopoly, said the game celebrates female leaders. It says it is the first version "where women make more than men," officials shared exclusively with USA TODAY.
       The new game went on sale in September at major national stores for a suggested price of $19.99. It also includes several modern updates, such as rideshares instead of railroads and Wi-Fi instead of waterworks.
       Jen Boswinkel is senior director of global brand strategy and marketing for Hasbro Gaming. She said the game is designed for today's kids and highlights a subject they may not know about yet.
       "With all of the things surrounding female empowerment, it felt right to bring this to Monopoly in a fresh new way," Boswinkel said. "It's giving the topic some relevancy to everyone playing it that everybody gets a turn, and this time women get an advantage at the start."
       The debate over equal pay starts before shuffling the cards, choosing a token and rolling the dice.
       The banker doles out $1,900 in Monopoly Money to each female player and $1,500 to each male. The gap continues every time a player passes Go, with women collecting $240 and men $200.
       In the classic game, you can invest in real estate properties. With Ms. Monopoly, players invest in inventions and innovations created by women. These include chocolate chip cookies, bulletproof vests, solar heating and ladies' modern shapewear clothing.
       "We made sure that this felt authentic and was a fun game families could play and learn about these things that they love and are a part of their life that they didn't know were invented by women," Boswinkel said.

 

Passage 2
       Since the 1930s, kids have been playing with little green Army men. Those iconic figurines were made out of plastic and posed into various combat positions. They were made famous by "Toy Story." Come Christmas of next year, the platoon of little green army men will be expanded to include little green army women. This is thanks in part to a 6-year-old girl.
       Vivian Lord recently wrote to BMC Toys. It is one of the last remaining manufacturers of the figurines. She asked why the company does not make "girl army men."
       Jeff Imel is the owner of BMC Toys. This wasn't the first time he had received a query about introducing female troops. In 2018, he was contacted by JoAnn Ortloff. She is a retired fleet master chief. She was hoping to buy female toy soldiers for her granddaughters and "and made a compelling case for why Plastic Army Women should be produced," Imel writes in a blog post. He also notes that he had already been thinking about introducing women to the little green army. However, he had struggled to come up with the necessary funds.
       But after receiving Vivian's letter — and the suite of media requests that followed it — Imel decided that the time was finally right for little green Army women to make their debut. He has prepared a budget that will allow for at least four different poses in a pack of about 24 figurines. He has already commissioned a sculpture for the set's first pose: a female soldier, kitted out in combat gear and clutching a gun and a pair of binoculars.
       Speaking to NPR, Ortloff explains that she thinks it is important that female toy soldiers exist to reflect the increasing integration of women into combat roles within the U.S. military. "It's time that we have some equal representation in our toy soldiers to pass down," Ortloff says.