【推荐2】One of Asia’s best-known tourist attractions is taking a major stand for animals.

Following the____from animal activist groups, Apsara, the management authority for the Angkor Archaeological Park in Siem Reap, Cambodia announced in June 2019 it would____   elephant rides in early 2020. Now, the process has already_____.

Local outlet the Khmer Times reports that on November 15, two of the 14 elephants______ at the park, site of the______Angkor Wat temple, have been _____to the nearby Bos Thom community____ . Long Kosal, an Apsara press representative, told the Khmer Times that the remaining dozen_____would be relocated to the same forest by “early next year.” “The elephant is a big animal, but it is also_____and can be hurt easily. We don’t want to see the animals being used for tourism ____anymore,” Kosal said. “We want them to live in their natural surroundings.”

In 2016, an elephant named Sambo died at Angkor, drawing worldwide_____. Her death was_____a combination of heat stroke and_____from ferrying so many human beings around. Two years later, the World Wildlife Fund_____an in-depth report on the present situation of the Asian elephant, noting that the species ___had declined by 50% in just three generations.

According to Angkor Enterprise, which manages park admissions, the UNESCO-listed site is     ____a decline in tourist numbers. Its ____report says 1.8 million foreign tourists____   passes to the temple complex from January to September—a 13.7% decline over the same 10-month period in 2018. While there‟s no predicting whether Cambodia‟s ban on Angkor elephant rides will ___visitor numbers, it comes at a time when more and more_____   and tourism organizations around the world have moved to eliminate animal-related attractions.

【推荐3】A video last week showed a mini house in a high chair eating a bowl of carrots. It might seem ridiculous, but it might also be the logical extension of a growing trend; treating animals as human and treating pet as children, _______ to the toddler （学步的小孩）who eats from the same chair.

_______ of this attitude are everywhere, ranging from the innocent to the near-insane. Some people _______ their pets for Halloween, throw them birthday parties, or create social media accounts for them. Five-star cat resorts offer spa services. Yoga studios now offer “doga” classes. Stores sell pet pans and bikinis, and doctors will perform cosmetic surgery in case your pet needs a facelift.

There seems to be _______ between pets and children. An increasingly large group of people who genuinely believe that having a pet is the same thing as being a parent. They _______ the language of parenthood with their pets, calling themselves “mommy” or “daddy” when talking to their “baby”. Of course, it’s one thing to use such language _______, as an expression of love or a reflection of the great joy that pets, like children, can create. But it’s quite another to use this language literally（照字面意思地）.

Using _______ labels for things not only blurs （使…模糊）the real lines between pets and people but also leads to dangerous misbelief. What if a woman thinks she knows what a mon of two kids if going through because she’s a “mom” to two cats or a man believes having a baby won’t be much different from being a “dad” to a dog?

Every pet has its own parent—another cat or dog that feed and teaches it to survive in the animal kingdom. Our love for pets results from their _______ from us, but once we have them, we treat them as people, taming and teaching them how to pee（撒尿）in the tight place and not drink from the toilet. Sometimes, this goes _______, leading to horrible industries like pet cosmetic surgery. But we can’t call our role with pets “parenting” when we do the _______ of what a pets parent would do.

_______, “pet parents” claim that they do everything real parents do – feed, bathe, cuddle, clean up, care for, and love. Indeed, all these actions constitute part of the routines of true parenthood. But pet parents cannot teach character and morality to cats and dogs, which is the most important job of a parent. Having a child means _______ another mind and soul for adulthood and independence. Having a pet child means keeping an animal obedient and _______ so it never leaves as a child will.

Pet and children serve different roles. Ignoring or denying these differences _______ neither creatures nor people. Calling a pet a child, or yourself its parent, reflects a _______ of what animals are and what parenting is. We can call pets “pets” without loving them any less.

【推荐1】Nature Therapy

We need the tonic of wildness... At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

--Thoreau

One major difference between our current lifestyle and those of our evolutionary past is an increasing ________ from natural settings with increased urbanization. But does this change have a major impact on our mental health? ________, a remedy for ill health or low spirits, if the means were available, would be to send someone to the quiet of the country or seashore and away from the bustle of city. The popularity of vacations to beautiful national parks, camping, outward bound, and even breaks for a picturesque walk in a________ greenspace to clear the mind would speak to some empirical (经验主义) ________ that nature does soothe the savage beast. And recently, scientists have been studying the idea of nature therapy with a bit more seriousness than a dashed-off prescription (处方) for a(n) ________.

We are now far________ from the natural world of our ancestors...more than 50% of people live in urban areas (increasing to > 70% by 2050). Increased urbanization is associated with increased levels of mental illness, particularly anxiety and depression. Growing up in a natural setting is relevant to a less________ stress response, and exposure to greenspace________ relates to a positive effect on well-being in a large two-decade study. Images and sounds of a natural environment can decrease stress in people exposed to negative stimuli. A large survey of mental health and neighborhood greenspace in Wisconsin showed significant correlation between the________ of nature and lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. There are many studies showing a similar relationships between nature exposure, relaxation, and well-being. But how does exposure to green space help us________, exactly?

Dr. Gregory Bratman’s group at Stanford has published a couple of paper following a small group of healthy volunteers told to have a 5 kilometers walk in the San Francisco Bay area. Half walked along a busy street while the other half went for a/an________ walk. The nature walk compared to walk along a busy street. Later, the same researchers did MRIs and measured blood flow in brain areas of healthy people who went on a 90 minute walk in the same urban vs. More natural setting. They found that the nature walkers had________ activity in a particular brain region, the subgenual prefrontal cortex. This area of the brain is associated with rumination, or worrying on the same issues over and over, a problem described often in depressive and anxiety disorders.

So there we have it in a world and environment where our brains are working overtime and we think and roll over ideas and worry, ________ to nature seems to get us out of our heads, with likely positive benefits. In the hyper-urban world to come, designing accessible, safe________ may help the mental health of the population, and preserving our natural landscapes to be enjoyed by our descendants will continue to be a national must. ________ , a prescription for a nice weekend hike could have some real measurable brain benefits.

【推荐2】Many animals move from one place to another at certain times of the year. This _______ movement is called migration (迁徙). They migrate to _______ food, or in search of warmer weather. One of the most wonderful migrations in nature is that of the North American monarch butterfly.

Every _______, millions of these beautiful insects with fine black and orange wings begin a long and _______ journey. Somehow they manage to _______ around 4,000 kilometres _______ and find their way to California or Mexico. _______, until recently no one knew how they did this. A team of scientists led by Professor Eli Shlizerman at the University of Washington has now found the _______. They have found out that the monarch is able to _______ the time of day. It uses its eyes to measure the ________ of the sun. These two pieces of information allow the ________ to determine the way to go. ________, it manages to reach where it will spend the winter.

The solution to the mystery of the monarch’s amazing ability comes at a time when it is in serious trouble. Its ________ has crashed by as much as 90 per cent in the last few years. ________, human activity is the main reason why the number of monarch butterflies is falling. The research on the monarch’s ________ has however led to a greater awareness of this creature.

【推荐3】The universal use of technology has resulted in a constant current of information interrupting the “flow” of our life. This ________ pattern was initially marketed as “call-waiting” for our phones. But now our eyes, ears, and fingers are glued to our technology 24/7. We are ________ by emails, texts, or the news on our Facebook pages. My friend Ron refers to this technology as “weapons of mass distraction.”

But how is this mass distraction ________ us? According to a 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation report, children from eight to eighteen spend an average of seven hours and thirty-eight minutes a day using entertainment media. In addition, a study found that exposure to ________ media was associated with attention problems in a sample of 210 college students.

The ________ is just part of the larger picture. Dealing with a crowd of daily text messages and emails makes it difficult for us to be by ourselves when all that activity stops. Although a sense of ________ is natural at times, our addiction to the nonstop interaction afforded by technology deepens that feeling when access to the technology is unexpectedly ________. Just think how you feel when you lack cell phone or web access. Is it possible that our obsession with continually checking our emails and text messages has contributed to our ________ to genuinely relate with others?

Apart from the effects of technology on our ________ and our ability to be at ease without technology, let’s examine how interacting with our devices ________ the development of our fundamental communication and social skills. Many researchers observe that everyday conversation between human beings is becoming increasingly ________.

Many of today’s children are growing up with a built-in dependence on devices, making it difficult for them to feel ________ in everyday social situations. Often they find it ________ to make eye contact or deal with even the simplest face-to-face interactions without the aid of technology as an intermediary (媒介).

Over time these children forget how to relate with each other because they have become habituated to using technology to ________ direct contact with others and life itself. ________, some neuroscientists believe that use of the internet actually rewires our brains.