【推荐1】Preparing for a phone interview

Every interview is different, but that doesn’t mean the basic questions aren’t covered in every interview.     1     With that in mind, you can prepare for one interviews to ensure you have answers to the most common questions.

    2     However, this introduction will only take a few minutes, and then the line of questioning will begin. More often than not, an interviewer will begin with something like “Tell me about yourself.” Preparing for this question in advance allows you to think about your goals and your past work experiences.

    3     Does the job list a salary? What is the median salary for this position? How badly do you want the job? In most cases, it’s best to reply that you are open in terms of salary, especially if you don’t want to lose a position by asking for too much.

Most employers will ask you “Why us?” or “Where did you hear about us?”     4     Doing your research in advance of the interview and bringing up some of the company’s values will tell the interviewer that you’ re very much interested in the position.

Last but not least, you will be asked when you can start. Again, this is up to your situation, but most individuals will say they require two weeks’ notice from the offer acceptance.     5     This can show that you’ re still interested in the position.

【推荐3】A stay-at-home parent is a parent who stays at home to raise children rather than going to work outside the home.     1     Today, however, some stay-at-home parents are fathers.

Many parents wish to stay home with the kids once they start a family.     2     Often both parents must work outside the home to earn enough income to support the family. If one parent earns enough, then the other parent often has the option of being a stay-at-home parent. But this often means giving up some potential income.

    3     For example, some parents choosing to be at home, especially the mothers, will provide day care not only for their own children but also for others’. Those can be the kids of their neighbors and friends. Thus, people can earn an income from home while looking after their own children.

A stay-at-home parent may also run a business from home and accompany the children full-time, too. However, it can be challenging. And income from a home business may not be steady at first.     4    

Luckily, now more and more companies give employees the option to work from home.     5     Studies have shown the love for the company and the company’s productivity (生产率) tend to increase when those wanting to work from home are given that option.

【推荐1】Tigers are faced with many threats, including poaching(偷猎), illegal trade and habitat loss to name a few. It’s little wonder that their population has declined from 100,000 a century ago to just 3,500 today.

But despite these challenges, Nepal’s wild tigers have successfully returned from the edge of extinction with a 190 per cent population increase since 2009. According to Nepal’s National Tiger and Prey Survey 2022, there are now 355 wild tigers in the country, compared to 121 in 2010. This amounts to a 190 per cent increase, meaning that the country nearly tripled its tiger population.

Ginette Hemley, Senior Vice President for wildlife conservation at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said,“Tigers in Nepal and everywhere else that they live in Asia, about 10countries, were on a steady decline because of two key reasons. The most immediate reason was poaching for the illegal animal trade. The second reason was loss of habitat.”

To achieve this comeback in tiger numbers, Nepal laid ban on poaching, with anti-poaching groups patrolling protected areas. Another factor in the country’s success was the restoration of corridors to promote the safe passage and genetic distribution of tigers in protected areas.

Hemley said,“ Nepal really does stand out as a leader in conservation,especially for tigers. There is support for conservation of tigers at the highest level of government. That has translated into really effective habitat conservation, bolstering the protection of tigers in national parks, the wildlife reserves.” As well as government support, she pointed to community involvement in conservation projects as a reason for Nepal’s success. Hopefully, we will continue to see a recovery in the tiger population, as well as measures taken to protect local communities.

【推荐2】Researchers in Australia and the US are starting a multi-million dollar project to bring the Tasmanian tiger, nicknamed thylacine(袋狼), back from extinction. The last known one died in 1939.

The team say it can be recreated using stem cells(干细胞)and gene-editing(基因编辑)technology, and the first thylacine could be reintroduced to the wild in 10 years’ time. They plan to take stem cells from a living species with similar DNA, and then use gene-editing technology to ”bring back“ the extinct species - or an extremely close one of it.

It would be a great achievement for the researchers attempting it, and require a number of scientific breakthroughs.

The population of Tasmanian tigers dropped when humans arrived in Australia tens of thousands of years ago, and again when dingoes - a species of wild dog - appeared.Eventually, the species only lived free on the island of Tasmania, and was finally hunted to extinction.

If scientists were to succeed, it would mark the first “de-extinction“ event in history, but many outside experts doubt it, and believe that the project is more about media attention for the scientists and less about doing serious science.

The idea of bringing back the extinct has been around for more than 20 years. In 1999, the Australian Museum started to pursue a project to clone the Tasmanian tiger, and various attempts have been made ever since to get or rebuild DNA from samples. The US firm made headlines last year with its plans to use similar gene editing technology to bring the woolly mammoth back to life - a technological achievement yet to be made.

【推荐3】Multispectral cameras (多光谱摄像机) keep a watch on the polluted Ganges (恒河), where thousands of people suffer from water-borne diseases by the river.

The 1.500-mile-long Ganges originates in the Himalayan range and snakes across to the coastal state of West Bengal. In Rishikesh, the river is still relatively clear, but when it reaches the city of Kanpur, the Ganges turns a deep grey with raw waste and is faced with serious pollution. 764 industries along the river consume 1,123 million liters of water and flow back about half that volume as wastes.

Large-scale plans ever launched to clean the river prove unsatisfying. due to a lack of a clear understanding of what pollutants are in the water and how they affect it.

Dipro has been working on high tech solutions to the first survey and the analysis of the pollutants. To collect data on the water composition. he sent a plane into the sky, fitted with four multispectral cameras that use sensors to remotely monitor pollutants in the river, which create a long pathway easily studied from the sky. The reflection of lights from the surface of the liquid depends on the amount of various matters in it. At a higher concentration, these changes are visible to naked eyes, but in low concentrations, he uses specialized optical filters (光学过滤) and calculations to separate the wavelengths of light being reflected. Sometimes he creates false color composite images, which add color to the wavelengths to better distinguish different parts of the liquid with concentrations of floating pollutants. People can trace them back to the sources accurately and identify the polluters responsible.

When asked to develop this remote sensing method further to handle polluters better from the sky. Dipro says, "With new and affordable drones (无人机) available in the market, anyone can send one up and help collect relevant data."