【推荐2】Robins (知更鸟) are considered as a symbol of the festive season and are known for their lively, curious nature around humans. But even robins get road rage because they can become aggressive when there’s noise, a new study shows.

Researchers from the UK found that the sound of traffic made rural robins — not urban robins — “more aggressive”. The study was conducted by experts at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. Human activity has a colossal effect on wildlife, including on their social behavior,” the team said in their paper.

For their study, the team investigated the behavior of male European robins living in urban parks and rural forests in Istanbul. They measured aggression towards another robin intruder, which wasn’t a real robin but instead a model in the shape of an adult bird. The fake robin was equipped with a speaker, through which the team could play audio, and then attached to trees at the parks and forests. The audio consisted of recordings of robin songs, while additional traffic noise was added through another separate speaker nearby.

After recording the birds’ behavior during interactions with the fake intruder, they found the urban robins typically displayed more physical aggression than rural robins. However, rural robins became more aggressive with the addition of traffic noise — possibly because they’re less used to traffic noise than urban birds, which are already living in noisier habitats. What’s more, physical displays of territoriality could increase because the traffic noise interferes with their birdsong. “In normally quiet surroundings, we found that additional traffic noise leads to rural robins becoming more aggressive,” said Dr Caglar Akcay at ARU. “We believe this is because the noise is interfering with their communication.”

Overall, by comparing urban and rural robin reactions, the study provides a valuable glimpse into how urban-living species adapt to “life in a noisy world”. “Our results show that human-produced noise can have a range of effects on robins, depending on the habitat they live in,” said Dr Akcay.

【推荐3】Your eyes pick up color using a type of cell called cones in your retina (视网膜). The same is true for dogs, though our cones aren’t exactly the same.

Humans have three types of cones, “which enables us to see different shades of red, blue, and green”, says Alison Meindl, DVM, a veterinarian, and professor at Colorado State University. While dogs have two types of cones that pick up blue and yellow shades, says Lara Sypniewski, DVM, a professor of small animal medicine. This means that dogs see in a similar way to humans who are red-green colorblind. “They don’t see red or green and they see everything in shades of blue and yellow,” says Jay Neitz, Phd, a researcher and professor of ophthalmology (眼科学) at the University of Washington.

Humans may have the advantage in color vision, but dogs definitely have us beat in the realm (领域) of night vision. This is because dogs’ eyes have more light-gathering power than ours, Neitz says. A dog’s retina is largely composed of cells called rods, which can sense light, even in very low-light conditions, says Sypniewski. Dogs are especially good at sensing movement. “The increased number of rods (杆状体) in the dog’s retina also increases their ability to detect motion,” Sypniewski says. This ability can help them detect small prey like squirrels.

Dogs have trouble seeing things very close up. Dogs can see objects clearly if they’re at least 13 to 20 inches away from their eyes, “but if the object is closer, the image may be blurry,” Sypniewski says. Humans can see objects slightly closer—about 10 inches away from the eye.

Dogs may recognize you by your shape and motion. “If your dog recognizes you from a distance, it is not because it can see the details of your face like a human would, but rather because of your shape or the way you move.” Neitz says.

【推荐1】The Dutch inventor Boyan Slat spends a lot of time thinking about the ocean.

After five and a half years of hard work, the 23-year-old Slat will watch from dry land as System 001 — a floating barrier nearly 2, 000ft long — snakes (曲折前行) its way out under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific.

If all goes to plan, Slat says, a group of 60 systems could reduce the amount of plastic there by half by 2025. “I hope that this will be a turning point for the plastic pollution problem,” Slat tells TIME in a phone interview. “For sixty years it has only gotten worse and worse. Now hopefully we’re going to make a difference.”

Saving our oceans has been Slat’s single-minded goal ever since he was 16 years old, when a trip to Greece provided more plastic bag sightings than fish. Coming up with the idea for a floating barrier that could collect plastic using the power of ocean currents (洋流) alone, Slat founded his business, The Ocean Cleanup, aged just 18.

The idea caught people’s imagination around the world. In 2015, an early design of System 001 was featured on TIME’s list of the best inventions of 2015. The project has received millions of dollars of funding thanks to fast-changing public opinion on plastic.

Slat sees his mission as a race against time. Plastic gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics which can finally enter the food chain. “So the sooner we get it out, the better,” Slat says.

A big question that remains is what will happen to the plastic once it is brought back to land from The Ocean Cleanup’s systems. It’s possible that lots of the waste returned to land will be recycled into more single-use plastics that might one day return to the oceans again. “Big problems require big solutions,” he says. “If anyone has any better ideas, we’d love to know.”

【推荐2】Sometimes it can be difficult to work out what someone is saying when they’re wearing a face mask. But for people who are deaf or have hearing loss, it can make communicating even more challenging. Because masks cover people’s mouths it can be impossible to lip-read.

Eleven-year-old Austin — who’s deaf and relies on lip-reading — wants to make things better though. He’s encouraging more people to wear face masks with a clear window so their mouths can be seen. Austin even wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson asking for his help to introduce see-through face masks across the country.

For months, nine UK charities, including the National Deaf Children’s Society and the British Deaf Association, have been encouraging Public Health England to give out transparent (透明的) face masks that will stop those with hearing loss feeling isolated (孤立的).

Sarah White, from charity Sense, said that while clear masks can still present a challenge to some people “it certainly is a great first step”.

Sally Etchells, from the National Deaf Children’s Society, added: “If face masks become widespread and none of them are transparent, deaf people will face months of misery (痛苦) as they struggle to understand what’s being said to them, putting them at an even higher risk of isolation and loneliness.”

Face masks can especially be a problem for deaf people when they’re in hospital — they can mean that it’s hard to understand what doctors and nurses are saying due to the medical protection masks being worn.

Now, the government has said that 250,000 clear face masks will be given out to social care workers across the UK.

Everyone can do their bit to help make communicating during the pandemic easier for deaf people. For example, wearing a clear face mask, or simply being aware that across the UK, people don’t have to wear a mask if they are speaking to, or helping someone, who relies on lip-reading and facial expressions.

【推荐3】“The value of people cannot be defined,” this is the philosophy by which Majda Gibran, better known in Egypt as “Mama Maggie”, lives. She devoted over three decades of her life to serving the less fortunate. Her work empowered over 33,000 children in Cairo to achieve their potential and successfully leave Cairo’s slums (贫民窟).

Her story begins with what was meant to be a quick visit to the slums in Cairo. She knew right away she would devote the rest of her life to helping those in need, especially children. The scenes of poverty in the slums forever changed her life. Mama Maggie soon abandoned the comforts of her previous life and quit her job as an American University professor to lend a helping hand to those who needed her most.

She began sharing meals, gifts and basic necessities to less fortunate families in the slums. Her warmth and sincerity gave residents a sense of hope and dignity. In 1985, Mama Maggie founded the Stephen’s Children Foundation, with the mission to empower children and young people to lead their own development and lift them out of poverty. The foundation provides education and training to thousands of children living in poverty. Over the last few years, the foundation has extended its social and educational initiatives to thousands of families and children in other poor neighborhoods.

To date, Mama Maggie has established 92 educational centres nationwide to teach over 18,000 children and carried out healthcare campaigns that provides treatment to over 40,000 patients annually. She conducts visits to more than 13,000 children to provide training services. Her foundation’s three training centres for mothers and children empower families to earn their own income. Her foundation has benefited over 33,000 children, with the help of about 2,000 volunteers, and it is still growing today.

Mama Maggie, a Nobel Prize nominee (被提名人), never sought fame or reward for her work. She desires to be remembered as a hope maker who made a difference in the lives of every person that crossed her path.