【推荐1】It could be said that the northernmost part of our planet holds the secrets of our past as well as our future.

The icy land is，in fact，not a place for the weak. This vast land of wilderness is where people can get up close to nature's extremes. The place is “no joke”，US photographer Mark Mahaney told PLAIN Magazine. “When midnight sun is replaced by polar night，everything's different Eyes to the horizon and it's nothing. And then more nothing，in every direction. ”

One of the most harsh，yet most pristine（原始的）places on Earth，the Arctic has been affected by human activities-exploration，booming tourism and most importantly，global warming-in recent decades.

But the impact of these changes is not restricted to the inhabitants of this area alone. In fact, it could be said that the weight of the world relies on this icy region.

The Earth's steady climate depends on the Arctic's sea ice, which acts as a huge white reflector at the top of the planet, bouncing some of the sun's rays back into space. The more Arctic sea ice melts, the less light is reflected, and the more the dark oceans will absorb the sun's radiation. The Arctic also helps circulate ocean currents,   moving cold and warm water around the globe.

With visible changes in the global climate, the Arctic has given us a wake-up call-what happens up in the North doesn't just stay there. It comes with a high cost to the world at large. It's time for us to pay attention to this chilly region and learn more about what's happening there, as well as its past and possible future.

【推荐3】People representing over 100 countries met virtually in Kunming, China, last week to discuss how to protect Earth’s biodiversity (生物多样性). This CBD Meeting (also known as COP15) ran from October 11 to 15, 2021.

There are so many different species. Sadly, species are disappearing all the time. One recent study suggested that around a million species are in danger of extinction. Like the climate crisis, the world’s loss of biodiversity is caused mainly by humans, who don’t always cooperate. Climate change is playing a part. The biggest way humans are causing biodiversity loss is by taking over the homes that all kinds of plants and animals depend on and using them for things like farming, mining, or cutting down trees for wood. Hu-mans are also harming the oceans by fishing too much, and by severely polluting the seas with plastic, oil, and other chemicals.

In 1992, the world’s countries began signing an agreement called the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The meeting is being held in two parts. Last week's meeting discussed plans and goals for protecting biodiversity through the year 2030, which led to a plan called the “Kunming Declaration”. An in-person meeting will be held in Kunming next May to formally agree to the plan. One of its big goals announced in Kunming is to cut dangerous chemical pollution from farming. The plan also includes asking governments to cut up to $500 billion of their support for activities that hurt biodiversity, like some methods of farming, and producing fossil fuels.

CBD organizers hope the world’s countries are really ready to work on biodiversity problems this time. In 2010, over 100 countries agreed to a 20-Part Plan to protect biodiversity by 2020. But none of the plan’s 20 goals had been consummated by 2020. Solving the problem doesn’t depend on what countries say they’ll do. It depends on what they actually do.

【推荐1】Have you ever imagined what it would be like to see the world through an animal’s eyes? For example, what a chimpanzee sees as it sits at the top of a tree, or what a penguin sees as it dives into the sea to catch its dinner?

These questions are answered in the nature documentary Animals with Cameras, produced by the BBC. The three-part series was first aired in the U.K.in 2018.To explore animals’ stories ”told“ by the animals themselves, the documentary’s filmmakers worked with scientists to develop cameras that wild animals could wear.

“Never before have we seen such high-quality footage(连续镜头)directly from the animals’ points of view,” BBC Nature executive producer Fred Kaufman told PBS. “This miniseries greatly expands our comprehension of animal behavior and this camera technology opens up new possibilities for discovering so much more.”

Indeed, the groundbreaking technology provides a new viewpoint of the animal kingdom. New cameras with enough battery life to shoot for hours at a time were designed to be comfortable enough for animals to wear, according to the documentary’s camera designer Chris Watts.

The technical challenges didn’t stop there. Some animals were very curious about the equipment, with some even fighting with each other for the chance to wear a camera. In the case of chimpanzees, “We had to create dummy(仿造的)cameras, so that every chimpanzee could get one,” the wildlife miniseries’ cameraman Gordon Buchanan told Live Science.

For animals that were comfortable enough to be with human beings, the cameras could be fitted and removed by hand. But for others, the cameras came off automatically using a timed release and were collected afterward. This meant that the cameras needed to be as tough as possible.

To avoid disturbing the animals, scientists who were good at dealing with wildlife came to help by putting the cameras on the animals. “The last thing we want to do is cause them distress,” the documentary’s producer Dan Rees told the BBC. “To follow an animal in the first place, there had to be a clear benefit in terms of knowledge about it that might be useful to protect a species in the future.”

Their efforts certainly paid off. “Footage that captures(捕捉)these rare and exciting glimpses of animals’ habits is important to scientists, but documentaries like Animals with Cameras also resonate with the audience, connecting them with the beauty and danger of wildlife in their natural environments,” Live Science noted.