【推荐3】It's a little hard to figure out the rules for sure but the baby African buffalo (水牛）seems to have the upper hand. The two stand a couple   feet apart, staring at each other. Behind them, their mothers look on with the kind of indifference (不关心）of mothers everywhere who see their kids playing a harmless game.

The alarm went off about half an hour ago, the second time tonight. Here，one bell means "elephant ",two "rhino"(犀牛），and three and four，I really can't remember for what，because when you' re awoken by bells in the middle of the night，your first thought won’t be Animal", But as soon as I realized it was the rhino alarm, I was running for the stairs.

Yet I'm the only one watching the animals stare-down. Either nobody else died of a heart attack when the bells went off, or I was the only one in the entire hotel who didn't turn the alarm switch to off before going to bed.

The Ark, a hotel shaped like the biblical ark(圣经的方舟), lies in the highlands of Kenya’s Aberdare National Park, about 100 kilometers north of Nairobi. At the Ark's prow (船首) are huge windows overlooking a waterhole. Earlier tonight，I'd watched a pack of wolves, buffalos and elephants. And now, at Three or so in the mornings   I'm   down   for   the round of rhino bells. The first time, 2.5 hours ago, it was a single black rhino, which came   down, got a   drink, and left.

I'd have been sorry for the lost sleep. I've already arranged with a guide to take me out at sunrise for the so-called "should-never-missed" bird-watching, where well get to see 30 species, but really, how many times in your life will you get to wake up and say，"Wow! Rhino? Isn't that the definition of a pretty good right? Last week we went from Uganda into Kenya，Before I left home, I thought I'd be happy with ten elephants and five or six giraffes on the whole trip.I   didn't dare to dream the rhino.

【推荐1】As we all know, our oceans are filled with garbage. Broken objects, used plastic bottles and so on fill our beaches and cover the ocean floor, doing huge damage to ocean creatures. Many individuals and organizations are working to remove this garbage, and recent technological developments have given them a new tool to do so: the trash-eating robot.

Robots of various shapes have been designed to collect garbage that they find floating in the ocean. For example, the French company IADMEEYS has developed what it calls the jellyfishbot. This small robot gathers up everything it meets, including liquid hydrocarbons (碳氢化合物) such as gasoline and oil. The jellyfishbot is remotely controlled and can clean up to 1,000 square meters per hour. The jellyfishbots’ small size and ability to be easily controlled make them ideal for cleaning up crowded areas such as ports.

For larger, more open areas, a much larger robot called the Interceptor has a similar function. Designed for use on rivers, the Interceptor looks like a boat with a conveyor belt (传送带) that picks up trash. Once a sensor indicates that the rubbish bins are full, the Interceptor automatically sends a text message to onshore operators. These operators collect and empty the rubbish bins, sending the garbage to local waste management facilities.

The Interceptor’s name comes from the verb intercept because its purpose is to prevent trash from getting to the ocean. Most of the garbage in the oceans comes down rivers. Cleaning up trash that litters the ocean is good, but to keep the oceans clean, new garbage must be kept from getting there. Therefore, the Interceptor is used to prevent pollution before it enters the ocean.

The Interceptor is completely solar-powered and operates on its own, which minimizes the need for human involvement.

Robots are able to clean up large amounts of garbage without humans struggling through beach cleanup by hand. Hopefully, they can be a big part of the solution to ocean pollution.

【推荐3】If you have an iPod or a phone that plays music, the Sony Walkman may look like ancient history. But when it came out forty years ago, it completely changed how people listened to music.

    1     Small portable（便携的）radios didn’t sound good and usually came with just a small earphone that went in one ear. There were boomboxes—large music players which sounded good and could be turned up loud. But they were huge and heavy. Almost any way someone could listen to music means that everyone around them would have to listen to their music, too.

On July 1, 1979, Sorry introduced a product called the “Walkman”. The “walk” part of the name was important.    2     These days, we are very used to that idea, but in 1979, it was pretty special. Another thing that was special was how good it sounded. Compared to the headphones we have now, the quality wasn't good. But back then, the sound amazed people.    3    

Many people thought it wouldn’t sell very well because it couldn’t record music. However, the Walkman was hugely popular.    4     But whoever made the device, most people kept using the name “Walkman”.

On a phone or other music player today, you might have hundreds or thousands of songs. But the selection on the Walkman was much more limited.    5     If you wanted to go to a certain song, you would need to wind or rewind through the rest of the tape to get to the song you wanted to hear.

The cassette Walkman a big success. It started the trend of “personal” music that led to the iPod, the iPhone, and the other music-playing devices we use today.

【推荐1】The United States is offering to pay private companies to mine rocks and other resources on the moon. The U.S. space agency NASA published an official government listing for the mining proposal on September 10. NASA officials are asking interested companies to collect rocks, soil and other objects from the surface of the moon. The lunar materials would then be sold to the space agency.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine says the project was created “for the purpose of demonstrating that mined resources can be collected”. The proposals would not involve private companies sending workers to the moon. Instead, NASA wants the businesses to provide robots to be launched into space by the space agency or private companies.

NASA has asked companies from around the world to present proposals to collect 50 to 500 grams of lunar materials from anywhere on the moon’s surface. The companies will be required to provide images showing how the material is collected. In a statement published on a NASA website, Bridenstine said the agency’s goal was to gain control of the collected materials before 2024. He added that officials would decide later how and when the materials could be transported from the moon.

Bridenstine repeated NASA’s goal of landing the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024 as part of the space agency’s Artemis program. NASA also has set a goal of setting up a long-term base on the moon by 2028. From there, it hopes to launch a series of space operations, including possible flights to Mars.

Last May, NASA released the main ideas for what is being called the Artemis Accords. It hopes the ideas can lead to an international agreement on how people will live and work on the moon in the future. Such an agreement could give companies rights to own the moon resources they mine. For example, businesses doing work for NASA could use the moon’s water ice to produce rocket fuel, or mine lunar minerals for other purposes. “NASA’s plan to send robots to mine resources is meant to fuel a new era of exploration and discovery,” Bridenstine said.

【推荐2】Unusual incidents are being reported across the Arctic. Inuit (因纽特人) families going off on snowmobiles to prepare their summer hunting camps have found themselves cut off from home by a sea of mud. There are also reports of sea ice breaking up earlier than usual, carrying seals beyond the reach of hunters. Climate change may still be a rather abstract idea to most of us, but in the Arctic it is already having great effects — if summertime ice continues to shrink at its present rate, the Arctic Ocean could soon become almost ice-free in summer. The knock-on effects (连锁反应) are likely to include more warming, cloudier skies, and higher sea levels. Scientists are increasingly eager to find out what’s going on in the Arctic.

For the Inuit the problem is urgent. They live in unsteady balance with one of the environments on earth. Climate change, whatever its causes, is a direct danger to their way of life. Nobody knows the Arctic as well as the locals, which is why they are not content simply to stand back and let outside experts tell them what’s happening. In Canada, where the Inuit people are trying hard to guard their hard-won autonomy in the country’s newest land, Nunavut, they believe their best hope of survival in this changing environment lies in combining their ancestral knowledge with the best of modern science. This is a challenge in itself.

The Canadian Arctic is a vast, treeless polar desert that’s covered with snow for most of the year. Adventure into this area and you get some idea of the hardships facing anyone who calls this home. Farming is out of the question and nature offers few pickings. Humans first settled in the Arctic a mere 4, 500 years ago, surviving by taking advantage of sea first. The environment tested them to the limits: sometimes the settlers were successful; sometimes they failed and disappeared. But around a thousand years ago, one group appeared that was uniquely well adapted to deal with the Arctic environment. These Thule people moved in from Alaska, bringing dogs, iron tools and the like. They are the ancestors of today’s Inuit people.

Life for the descendants (后代) of the Thule people is still tough. Nunavut is 1.9 million square kilometers of rock and ice, and a handful of islands around the North Pole. It’s currently home to 2, 500 people, all but a handful of them Inuit. Over the past 40 years, most have abandoned their nomadic (游牧的) ways and settled in the area’s 28 isolated communities, but they still rely heavily on nature to provide food and clothing.

Supplies available in local shops have to be flown into Nunavut on one of the most costly air networks in the world, or brought by supply ship during the few ice-free weeks of summer. It would cost a family around ￡7, 000 a year to replace meat they obtained themselves through hunting with imported meat. Economic opportunities are few, and for many people state benefits are their only income.

【推荐1】SUMMER PROGRAM

•Teaching will take place daily finishing 4 pm every day from July 23 to August 3.

•Accommodation check-in on Sunday July 22 and check-out on Saturday August 4.

The cost is based on a minimum of 30 students(£2,450 per student). In addition there will be two group leaders who will accompany the group. Please note that we cannot accept a reduction in the number of students without adjusting the cost of the program.

Participants will be accommodated in King's College London student dormitory. Each apartment has a single bedroom, laundry room and free Wi-Fi connection.

•Weekday breakfast and lunch on campus(Monday-Friday only).

•Academic lectures, seminars and workshops.

•Guided excursions and site visits.

•Cultural and social activities as outlined.

•Accommodation inside campus.

•Course certification.

• Airport transfers on arrival and departure

English culture, King's College London, academic study …If you are interested, come and sign up!

【推荐2】Many black-footed ferrets (雪貂) once lived in the American West. They live mainly on prairie dogs (土拨鼠). But when farmers began killing off prairie dogs, lots of them died, too. Additionally, the environment in which they lived was destroyed. By the 1970s, most experts believed that black-footed ferrets no longer existed. Then, in 1981, a group of them were found in Wyoming, but they were suddenly hit by an unknown disease in the mid-1980s, and their population decreased to just 18. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) caught all of them and tried to protect them. All but seven died.

Currently, there’re between 400 and 500 ferrets remaining. But all of them are related to the seven animals rescued from Wyoming except Elizabeth Ann.

Normally, the DNA of the animals gets mixed up when different pairs of animals have babies. The small differences in their DNA can help protect the group as a whole. Because all living black-footed ferrets are closely related, they all have similar weaknesses. But Elizabeth Ann is cloned from an animal that died in the 1980s, so her DNA is very different. When this DNA is mixed back in, future black-footed ferrets will be healthier in general.

In the 1980s, the DNA from a ferret named Willa was stored in the “Frozen Zoo” run by San Diego Zoo Global. Hopefully, cloning would allow black-footed ferrets to return to the wild. The idea of cloning was understood, but it was hard to carry out for many animals. The matter was left hanging in the air. But in 1996, a scientist cloned a sheep, called “Dolly”. Since then, many other animals have also been cloned. The USFWS has been talking about cloning black-footed ferrets since 2013. In 2018, they finally gave a group called Revive & Restore permission to try it.

On December 10, 2020, Elizabeth Ann was born. Blood tests have proven her to be 100% black-footed ferret.

【推荐3】My mom was always a good driver. She never got a speeding ticket. One day while driving, she was so attracted by singing along to the radio that she didn't notice how close she was getting to a mailbox. Then with a bang, she hit someone's mailbox.

After realizing what she had done, she quickly exited the car to see the damage. The whole side mirror was off, and the mailbox was destroyed. My mom didn't know whose mail-box it was, but knew she must tell the owner. She walked up to the door, with her heart beating fast. She debated over and over whether she should ring that doorbell or just go to work and pretend that this had never happened.

Just then, an old lady opened the door, glancing at the tears down from my mom's face and at the destroyed mailbox. she understood exactly what had happened. So when my mom was trying to explain, the lady interrupted her and asked her if she would like to come in. My mom, unable to put any words together, simply nodded her head.

The lady told her not to worry about the mailbox, because it was an accident. My mom had been babysitting all summer long. so she offered to repay the lady. The lady refused, saying my mother would need that money for replacing the car's mirror. The lady also said that < she had been looking for an excuse to get rid of that mailbox, which, my mom knew, was really a kind excuse.The lady then brought out the best chocolate chip cookies and tea that my mom has ever had. My mom was grateful for the old lady's kindness. She helped my mom save money, for my mom had to give lots of her savings in order to fix her car.

When my mom told me this story, I couldn't believe it. My perfect mom hit a mailbox. She always yells at my sister for driving recklessly (鲁莽的)，but my sister has never hit a mailbox. I love this story, because it makes me know that we should be careful when driving.