【推荐3】Spring is a fine season. It lights up people’s moods and brings hope. When you bathe in the warm spring breeze(微风), what comes into your mind? Let’s see what Meng Haoran from China and William Blake from the UK wrote about spring.

【推荐1】Greenhouse gas emissions would rise if all farms in England and Wales went organic. Though the emissions of each farm would go down, much more food would have to be imported, as the amount they would produce would decrease greatly.

“The key message from my perspective is that you can't really have your cake and eat it,” says Laurence Smith, now at the Royal Agricultural University in the UK, who was part of the team that ran the numbers. Smith is a supporter of organic farming and says “there are a lot of merits of the organic approach”, but his analysis shows that organic farming has downsides too.

Farming and changes in land use, such as cutting down forests, are responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. That means reducing farming emissions and the land needed for farming is required to limit further global warming.

Smith and his colleagues found that emissions per unit of food are, on average, 20 per cent lower for organic crops and 4 per cent lower for organic animal products. However, organic harvests per hectare (公顷) are also lower on average. For wheat and barley, for instance, harvests are just half of those of conventional farms. This means 1.5 times as much land would be needed to grow the same amount of these foods.

The estimated increase in emissions varies greatly, depending on where the extra farmland comes from. If only half comes from turning grassland into farms, the increase could be as low as 20 per cent. If grassland that would otherwise have been reforested is turned into farmland, emissions could nearly double.

This doesn't necessarily mean people should stop eating organic produce, says Smith. People might choose organic food for other reasons, such as to reduce their pesticide exposure (though contrary to popular belief, organic farmers do use pesticides) or for the sake of wildlife.

Going 100 per cent organic could also harm global biodiversity. The extra land used for farming would mean the land available for wildlife would be smaller and more fragmented (碎片化的).

Smith says the best option may be to use some organic and conventional farming methods at the same time.

【推荐3】Vertical (垂直的) farming involves using vertically piled layers and other innovative resources to help your crops grow.     1     You get to grow your plants while using the small space at home. Below are some benefits of vertical farming for small house owners.

Reduce water usage. Watering a vertical garden is easy, simple, and uses less water. If your plants are grown in a traditional way, you’ll need lots of water to keep up with your plants’ growth.     2    

Save space. As a small, house owner, space is a big concern. However, vertical farming ensures that you can create a garden in your home and fully enjoy the experience.     3     So, if you aim to save space in your home and still have a garden, vertical farming is perfect.

    4     Vertical farming is mainly done indoors and entirely depends on you to provide the best conditions. With commitment, you can continuously ensure consistent food production despite the seasons.

Cut down on chemicals and pesticides. Vertical gardens will not require you to invest in pesticides and chemical fertilizers to keep your plants alive. In addition, insects will not have easy access to your plants since you’ll be gardening in a controlled environment.     5    

【推荐1】In February of 1942, Mexican farmer Dionisio Pulido thought he heard thunder coming from his cornfield. However, the sound wasn’t coming from the sky. The source was a large smoking break sending out gas and pushing out rocks. This opening would come to be known as the volcano Paricutin, and over the next 9 years, its lava and ash would cover over 200 square km. But where did this new volcano come from, and what caused its unpredictable eruption?

One of the most common causes of an eruption is an increase in magmastatic (静磁) pressure. Magma (岩浆) contains various elements and compounds. At high enough concentrations,compounds like water or sulfur (硫) form high-pressure gas bubbles. When these balls of gas reach the surface, they can burst with the force of a gunshot. And when millions of bubbles explode, the energy can send ash into the air. But before they pop or burst, they act like bubbles of CO2 in a shaken soda.

Not all eruptions are due to rising magmastatic pressure- sometimes the weight of the rock above can become dangerously low. Landslides can remove massive quantities of rock from atop a magma chamber or room, dropping the pressure and instantly touching off an eruption. This process is known as “unloading” and it’s been responsible for numerous eruptions, including the sudden explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980. But unloading can also happen over longer periods of time due heating ice or melting glaciers. In fact, many geologists are worried that glacial melt caused by climate change could increase volcanic activity.

Unfortunately, knowing what causes eruptions doesn’t make them easy to predict. While scientists can roughly determine the strength and weight of the Earth’s crust (地壳), the depth and heat of magma chambers makes measuring changes in magmastatic pressure very difficult. But volcanologists are constantly exploring new technology to overcome this rocky field. Advances in thermal imaging (热成像) have allowed scientists to detect underground hotspots. Spectrometers can analyze gases escaping mag ma. Hopefully, these tools will help us better understand these gas breaks and their explosive eruptions.

【推荐3】The hands of nature have always sculpted works of breathtaking beauty, creating an unusual sight at the home of Santa Claus.

A rare collection of “ice eggs” recently took over a beach in Finland, the result of highly particular conditions according to The Guardian.

Amateur photographer Risto Mattila was among those who came across the icy balls on Hailuoto Island in the Gulf of Bothnia between Finland and Sweden.

“The biggest of the eggs was about the size of a football,” Mattila told The Guardian. “It was an amazing view. I have never seen that phenomenon before.”

The “eggs” are created by a rare process in which small pieces of ice are rolled over by wind and water, experts said. It needs the right air temperature (below zero, but only a bit), the right water temperature (near freezing point), a shallow and gently sloping sandy beach and calm waves, maybe a light swell, said Jouni Vainio, an ice specialist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

It also needs something to act as the core. The core begins to collect ice around it and the swell moves it along the beach, forward and backward. A small ball’s surface gets wet, freezes and becomes bigger, Vainio added.

Autumn is the perfect season to observe the phenomenon, according to James Carter, emeritus professor of geography-geology at Illinois State University, as this is when ice starts to form on the surface of water, causing a form of slush when moved by waves.

Similar sights have also been found in Russia and on Lake Michigan near Chicago. Back in 2016, local residents of Nyda in Siberia saw giant balls of ice and snow covering an 18-kilometer stretch of coastline, ranging from the size of a tennis ball to almost 1 meter across. Chinese netizens, stunned by the magic of nature, said everyone is duty-bound to protect the environment so nature will reward us with more surprises. Some would like to touch these icy balls themselves, joking that “If there are ice eggs, there are ice chickens.”