【推荐1】There are an extremely large number of ants worldwide. Each individual(个体的) ant hardly weighs anything, but put together they weigh roughly the same as all of mankind. They also live nearly everywhere, except on frozen mountain tops and around the poles. For animals their size, ants have been astonishingly successful, largely due to their wonderful social behavior.

In colonies(群体)that range in size from a few hundred to tens of millions, they organize their lives with a clear division of labor. Even more amazing is how they achieve this level of organization. Where we use sound and sight to communicate, ants depend primarily on pheromones(外激素),chemicals sent out by individuals and smelled or tasted by fellow members of their colony. When an ant finds food, it produces a pheromone that will lead others straight to where the food is. When an individual ant comes under attack or is dying, it sends out an alarm pheromone to warn the colony to prepare for a conflict as a defense unit.

In fact, when it comes to the art of war, ants have no equal. They are completely fearless and will readily take on a creature much larger than themselves, attacking in large groups and overcoming their target. Such is their devotion to the common good of the colony that not only soldier ants but also worker ants will sacrifice their lives to help defeat an enemy.

Behaving in this selfless and devoted manner, these little creatures have survived on Earth for more than 140 million years, far longer than dinosaurs. Because they think as one, they have a collective(集体的)intelligence greater than you would expect from its individual parts.

【推荐3】Nowadays, bamboo growth cycles and the dietary needs of lemurs (狐猴) are out of sync. Findings show rainfalls are changing annually. “Over the past two years, there has been a three-month delay in the rainy season and new tender shoots that lemurs consume for nutrition are appearing in January and February - 14 days after the first rain” says Patricia Chapple Wright, a primatologist, anthropologist, and conservationist at Stony Brook University. “Lemurs eat a food source that is very adaptive,” Patricia Wright told PBS NewsHour. “It’s able to stand climate change, but the lemurs, unfortunately, can’t adapt quickly to this changed cycle.”

Since baby lemurs are born in November, the delayed rainy season is dangerously affecting the survival of them for lack of nutrition available for both the mothers and offspring. “This is why, for extreme feeding specialists like the greater bamboo lemur, climate change can be an unknowing killer,” J Wright says. “Making the lemurs rely on bamboo stems (茎) for just a bit longer may be enough to tip the balance from existence to extinction.” The lemurs’ highly specialized teeth are also similar to the pandas5 teeth. Both are the mammals able to chew up stems. But this diet can’t last for more than a season or two because the stems can wear away their teeth.

The researchers believe that climate change is affecting the lemurs. The fossil record shows that the lemurs once lived throughout the island. Today, the mammals are cornered on the eastern side, where the dry season at present is the shortest. And if people continue the deforestation practice in the area, the lemurs will have nowhere to go.

The situation is serious, so Wright and her colleagues plan to create bamboo corridors within the rainforests, which will provide available bamboo to eat. They want to work with local villagers to plant more bamboo and manage automatic watering systems when dry seasons last long. They also want to build the local economy by allowing people to harvest a part of bamboo while the rest remains with the lemurs, so people will be interested. Wright’s conservation plans include moving lemurs back to other places on the island as well.

【推荐1】Are you fed up with staring at a computer screen for hours straight just to review your classes? It’s a problem that many of us encounter(遭遇).So why not pick your headset and learn via a podcast?

Podcast, or boke, refers to a range of audio programs on different audio platforms. According to China Daily, podcasts have become popular among young Chinese people who would like to enjoy the peace and power of learning through sound.

Established in 2012, China’s largest online audio platform, Ximalaya saw its subscribers pass 600 million by December 2019.Among these users over 46 percent were born between 1990s and 2000s.On average, active users listen to podcasts for nearly three hours per day.

The emergence of domestic(国内的)online radio platforms and the convenience brought about by smart devices are certainly two reasons for the popularity of the format.Its flexible nature also makes it a winner among the young audience.

“Audio is a good medium for content that can break the limit of time and space,” Jiang Feng, vice-president of Ximalaya, told China Daily. He added that podcasts have become an important channel for people to acquire information and knowledge .It also can accompany listeners in many different circumstances including working ,studying, exercising, traveling and just before going to bed.

Apart from providing company, the new media form also gives people a platform to speak out about important issues.

A senior high school student who wanted to be admitted to the Central Academy of Drama failed his national college entrance examination twice. He talked about the pressure he faced on an audio program called Please Listen, launched by Mango TV on Feb 19,2020.The program was designed to relieve audiences’ worries by sharing their own stories.

Podcasts tend to be a discussion, and just like real life conversations, they follow a flexible structure and usually last for at least an hour. More often than not, you can’t summarize two or three important points from those conversations, like you could from articles. They often do not have conclusions, either. It’s a very freeform medium that is very friendly to listeners,” Pan Aijuan,a podcast listener and book editor at a publishing house, told China Daily.

At the same time, the use of podcasts trains people to first listen to others before offering one’s own opinions. It helps build up our patience and listening skills. Cheng Yanliang, a co-founder of the podcast Left and Right, stated that“ audio programs can filter（减缓）those bad-tempered people who would lose patience after reading several paragraphs and start writing awful comments to insult others”.

With such advantages,“ podcasts are entering the mainstream(主流)in China”, noted China Daily.