【推荐1】As a child, Paolo Fanciulli was attracted by underwater abandoned ships , particularly the fish and seagrass that lived in them. But in the past decade , his job as a fisherman has grown harder, as trawling ( 用拖网捕鱼) near the coast has been destroying the Mediterranean ecosystem.“The nets are weighed down with heavy chains to be dragged on the sea bottom, so they uproot the seagrass that is key to the Mediterranean ecosystem" he said.

While Italian law bans trawling within 5.5km of the coast, it's so profitable that it's not uncommon for boats to carry on illegally at night.

In 2006, a desperate Tuscan government dropped concrete blocks into the sea to interrupt the trawlers. Fanciulli said they didn't work as they were too far apart and the nets simply dragged between them. He then began to wonder: what if, instead of dropping concrete blocks into the water, he dropped art? He asked a mine in nearby Carrara to donate two marble (大理石) blocks to make sculptures. They donated 100 instead.

Through word of mouth , contributions and online crowdfunding, Fanciulli persuaded artists including Giorgio Butini and Beverly Pepper to carve sculptures from the marble.Then he took them to sea and lowered them in. The underwater sculptures create both a physical brier for nets and a unique underwater museum.

The“museum”appears to be having some effects gradually. Although 10 years ago the seagrass was disappearing, it is now growing back. The statues also deserve credit for helping to preserve the fishing industry by protecting the fish resources because the nursery areas of various commercial fish species are below the coast. All kinds of undersea life appears to be returning. Seagrass covers the statues, shellfish has taken up residence, and more dolphins have been seen.

Fanciulli hopes to build on the museum's success.“We put in the first statues in 2007 but our goal is to reach 100,”he said, sensing an opportunity.

【推荐3】Alba Renai, an attractive digital influencer (网红) powered by artificial intelligence, has recently announced that she will be hosting a special section on Spain’s popular reality show “Survivor”.

Created in the fall of last year by Be a Lion, Alba Renai quickly became a superstar online, attracting over 10,000 fans. She is a beautiful young woman, but she is not actually real.

Most people started speaking highly of Alba about her looks, wishing her luck in her new position, and most likely not even realizing she was an AI-powered avatar (化身), and some expressed their concern about such digital avatars occupying human jobs. In Asia, for example, several countries have been experimenting with Al newscasters.

Be a Lion, the company that created and trained: Alba Renai, recently claimed that their avatar didn’t steal any human jobs. On the contrary, it actually created more jobs. A team of 32 people works directly on the Alba project, including Al experts, engineers, producers, filmmakers, and community managers. “Alba is a collaborative (协作的) work between humans and machines,” Luis Movilla, a director at Be a Lion, said. “Now humans must have certain skills to be able to operate technological advances. We have had to redevelop the educational plan of our own employees and in the labor market.”

Alba Renai is one of several virtual influencers to attract international attention in the last few months, alongside Aitana Lopez and Lexi Love, to name just a couple of the most popular ones, but there is an entire wave of AI-powered avatars being developed as a way to cut costs. They may not be mainstream yet, but with technology evolving at such a rapid pace, who knows where we’ll be in a couple of years?

【推荐1】Last summer, I was sent to take photos that could communicate the urgency of climate change in northern Canada. When I arrived at an abandoned village on Resolute Bay, I scanned the shore with my camera. Suddenly, I spotted a bear lying on the ground. It didn’t move for almost an hour. But when it finally stood up, I had to catch my breath. The bear’s once strong body was just skin and bones; every step that it took was painfully slow.

When I posted the photos on social media, I wrote, “This is what starvation may look like. I wonder whether the global population of 25, 000 polar bears would die the way this bear is dying.”

I did not say that this particular bear was killed by climate change. But news organizations around the world focused on it. The first line of the story published in National Geographic read, “This is what climate change looks like” — with “climate change” highlighted in yellow. Other news agencies even adopted more dramatic headlines.

It was estimated that my photos had been read by about 2.5 billion people around the world. But there was a problem: Most people and the news agencies didn’t recognize or misunderstood the real message I tried to send with them. Many people expressed gratitude that I’d provided shocking evidence on climate change, while others who are still trying to deny the existence of climate change charged me with spreading false information.

Perhaps I had made a mistake in not telling the full story — that I was looking for pictures that might foretell the future and that I didn’t know what had happened to this particular polar bear.

I can’t say that this bear was starving because of climate change, but I am happy that my photos have moved the conversation about climate change to the forefront, where it must remain until this problem is solved.

Until then, when I come across a scene like this one, I will again share with the world — and take pains to be sure that my intention is clear.

【推荐2】Last month, a study was published that examined climate change's direct effects on Earth's seasons. Scientists found a connection between climate change and the temperature and duration of the summer season. If left unaccounted for, summers in the Northern Hemisphere could last nearly six months by the year 2100 if global warming continues in its tracks, according to the study. With the seasons off-balance, it will further domino with harmful effects for human health and agriculture.

Yuping Guan, a physical oceanographer at the State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his colleagues combined daily climate data from 1952-2011 to get a sense of the start and end of each season in the Northern Hemisphere. Over a nearly 60-year period, they discovered that summers grew, on average 78 to 95 days long, while winters on average shortened from 76-73 days. The spring and autumn seasons also reduced. Guan and his team used the findings from the data to create a model to hypothesize (假设) how the seasons can possibly change in the future. They found that if left untouched summers in the Northern Hemisphere could last nearly six months, while winters could deplete to less than two months.

If Earth's seasons continue to shift, it brings negative risk among human health and agriculture. Longer and hotter summers, for example, can cause mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects to potentially “expand” their scope and land in places they're usually not found. “Because seasons influence the life cycles of plants and animals, climate change could disrupt species' ability to adapt. Scott Sheridan, a climate scientist also added, “If seasons start changing, everything isn't going to change perfectly as they should. If we take an example of flowers coming out of the ground, those flowers could come out, but bees aren't there to pollinate (授粉) yet or they're already past their peak.” With negative effects like these, human health and agriculture face hardships moving forward.

This study further demonstrates how harsh climate change is on humans, plants and animals, reminding us how much we are all connected within the environment we share.

【推荐1】When you buy food or other products at the store, you probably don't think much about the people who grew them or made them. That's normal, but many farmers and others involved in producing food and other goods have very hard lives. Farmers work hard to grow crops, but sometimes the weather is bad, and their fields don't produce much. Or sometimes the price of what people produce goes down, and they can't earn enough to support their families. In some industries, workers are not fairly paid to make products cheaper. The fair trade movement tries to solve these problems by taking care of the people whose work benefits consumers.

Fair trade is difficult to define because it includes multiple organizations in many countries. These organizations encourage distributors (分销商) to pay a specified (指定的) minimum price for products. This minimum is often higher than the market price, but it makes sure producers earn enough to make a living. Distributors also pay some additional money that goes to the community that produced the product. This money is spent to thrive the community. For example, they might build a school or dig a well, either of which benefits everyone who uses it.

To be labeled fair trade, products have to be made following certain high standards related to treating workers well and protecting the environment. This can be expensive, but the higher prices paid by purchasers cover the extra costs. These standards can vary from industry to industry to reflect the details of the various production processes.

What does this mean for you? Many fair-trade organizations offer certification for products made with fair-trade ingredients (成分). There are different levels of certification depending on what percentage of the ingredients are fair trade. Certain websites can help you find fair-trade products.

Buying fair-trade products when possible is important because it communicates that you want companies to be involved in fair trade. Businesses need to make money, so manufacturers (制造商) are more likely to use fair-trade ingredients if they know people will pay for them. It's also important for your own integrity. Buying fair trade ensures that you're not benefiting from someone else's suffering. If you want to help more, you can write to companies you buy from and ask them to use fair-trade ingredients. In short, fair trade is about helping people who help you through their labor.