【推荐1】Ever since Earth formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, its climate has gone through a number of incredible changes.

All you have to do is look at images of the Jurassic Period (侏罗纪时期) to know that at one time, much of our planet was covered in extremely hot and humid jungle. Skip ahead a couple million years and you get to an ice age event, when global temperature experienced a huge drop. While many species were not able to deal with these changing climate patterns, others successfully adapted, and some are even still with us today. Now, as humanity pushes the planet closer to another extreme climate event, scientists are eager to find out how the world's species will react. The idea was highlighted in a study published on April 6 in the journal PNAS, which showed that between 1970 and 2010, open water species such as lobsters and fish had declined by about half in tropical marine zones across the globe because over the 40-year time period, sea temperatures in those regions had risen by roughly 0. 2°C.

The lower numbers aren't a sign of all the sea creatures dying off though. In fact, the scientists found some of them outside of their traditional habitats, meaning that if a species can migrate to cooler waters and adapt in a new environment, they will.

However, those movements aren’t always a good thing; species that can' t move, such as coral, which is fixed to the seabed, rely on the fish and other sea creatures to contribute to the natural food chain and stay healthy. Additionally, when a non- native species moves into a new area, it threatens to disrupt the ecosystem that already exists there.

Depending on the species, it can take anywhere from one generation to thousands and thousands of years to properly adapt, so the changes that have occurred in just the last 40 years are very troubling for scientists. As Sebastian Ferse, an ecologist at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Germany, explained, “In geological history, this has occurred in the blink of an eye. To see such changes occurring so rapidly is something quite alarming.

【推荐3】A kindhearted family put themselves in a risky situation to rescue an aggressive owl that had become trapped in a soccer net. One morning, the Larsons discovered a trapped owl on the football field. They immediately wanted to rescue the poor owl, but they found that the owl was very aggressive. Fearful of the owl’s sharp claws and beak, Dave Larson approached with caution when he discovered the bird in his family’s soccer goal in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

In the dramatic footage, the distressed owl can be seen tangled in the netting while Dave slowly but surely attempts to cut the bird free. During the proceedings, Dave’s wife, Sue, filmed the rescue, which saw the startled bird snap at Dave on numerous occasions, stretching out its claws every time he got close. Fortunately, the family was able to free the distressed bird, with their son Travis sharing the clip online where they were showered with praise for assisting the animal on September 27.

Sue said: “We were very nervous knowing how strong and sharp his beak was, which he kept snapping to scare us. He also kept stretching his claws out every time we got close to him. We were able to feel a little more at ease when the owl eventually realized we weren’t trying to hurt him, and he seemed to relax and let us cut him free. As soon as he flew away, there was instant relief of the situation. But it was more happiness at knowing he was alright and being able to see him fly and move without injury.”

This beautiful story warms people’s hearts and also tells us that man and nature need to coexist in harmony. When we take care to protect Nature, Nature rewards us generously; when we exploit Nature ruthlessly, it punishes us without mercy. We need to have deep reverence for Nature, respect Nature, follow Nature’s laws and protect Nature, so as to build a homeland of harmonious coexistence between man and Nature.

【推荐1】Scientist Fabien Cousteau went out of the Atlantic Ocean and took in a deep breath of fresh air. It was the first time in 31 days he had been above the ocean’s surface.

Cousteau had been living in an underwater science lab called Aquarius. It’s located 63 feet below the surface, off the coast of the Florida Keys.

50 years ago Fabien Cousteau’s grandfather, the legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, led a similar—but shorter by one day expedition under the surface of the Red Sea. Since then, we have explored only a very small portion of the oceans, less than 5%. His grandfather was one of the first ocean explorers. 31 days beneath the waves is now the longest time anyone has spent under the ocean. But he wasn’t just trying to break his grandfather’s record. He was there to learn more about life in the ocean.

For 31 days, a team of more than 30 people, including researchers and filmmakers, joined Cousteau. They took turns staying with him for several days at a time. The intent of the Mission 31: study the life of and on the coral reef, the effects of climate change, acidification, and pollution, in particular by plastic debris and oil spills. But it was also a study of the scientists themselves spending extended time underwater. By staying down continuously, they collected the equivalent of several years of scientific data in just a month.

Aquarius is the world’s only underwater science lab. It’s about the size of a school bus. It has a kitchen, a bathroom, and six bunk beds that face a window. Cousteau and his team posted many videos online. He hopes his month-long stay will encourage others to study and help protect life in the ocean.

【推荐2】Many of the world’s largest consumer product companies, including Coca-Cola, Unilever and PepsiCo, have set ambitious targets for replacing original plastics with recycled ones-typically 25% of their total packaging by 2025. So far, however, most companies have made modest progress and will need to accelerate their efforts to reach these high goals, according to a new cover story in Chemical& Engineering News, an independent news outlet of the American Chemical Society.

In the U.S., only about 10% of plastics are recycled into new products, compared with nearly33% in Europe, writes senior editor Alex Tullo. Facing increasing consumer pressure, many companies have made big promises to increase the amount of recycled plastics they use in packaging to 25%-50% by 2025 or 2030. However, most currently hover at a recycling rate between 2% and 12%, meaning that they will need to greatly speed up their efforts in order to succeed. Meeting the goals will require new technologies to help make plastics easier to recycle, as well as widespread collaboration and investment among brand owners, consumers, recycling facilities, chemical companies and others.

In traditional mechanical recycling, facilities sort through consumers’ recyclables collected local trash porters, separating plastics from metal, glass and other materials. To ease this dud process, AMP Robotics has developed a machine with learning-based technology that identify different types of plastics and pulls unwanted materials off the line with an inflated(充气的)arm. Next, the separated plastics are cut, washed, melted and reshaped. Then, plastics intended for food packaging undergo additional finishing steps.

Although recycling firms have developed new technologies, such as solvent extraction(溶剂萃取), to recycle different types of plastic more efficiently, consumer product companies must redesign their packaging, for example, by removing various plastics and metalized layers, to make them easier to recycle. Also, experts say that consumers need to do their part by putting more of their used plastics into recycling bins.