【推荐1】A new United Nations report says a warming planet and changes to land use suggest an increase in wildfires around the world in the coming years. The report says these wildfires will cause an increase in smoke pollution and other problems that world governments are not prepared for.

The western United States, central India and eastern Australia are already seeing more wildfires. Even areas once considered safe from major fires, such as the Arctic, will very likely experience a major increase in burning. Tropical (热带的) forests in Indonesia and the southern Amazon of South America are also likely to see increased wildfires, according to the report.

The report describes n worsening series of events. Climate change will bring more dry periods and higher temperatures that make it easy for fires to start and spread. Those fires then give off more climate-changing carbon into the atmosphere as they burn through forests. Some areas, including parts of Africa, are seeing a fall in wildfires. That is because more land is being used for agriculture.

But UN researchers said many nations continue to spend too much time and money fighting fires and not enough trying to get rid of the causes of fires. Land use changes can make the fires worse. The report said the remains left behind by the logging (伐木) industry can easily burn. And some forests are purposely burned to clear land for farming.

Poor communities are often hit hardest by fires. Wildfires can worsen water quality, destroy crops and reduce land available to grow food. They affect people’s jobs and their economic situation. Fires are as harmful as floods and droughts.

UN researchers also called for more careful attention to the dangers from wildfire smoke inhalation, which can affect tens of millions of people’s health each year. Smoke from major wildfires can travel thousands of kilometers across international borders.

【推荐2】As a child, I had spent my holidays travelling our village in Bangladesh — running across the rice fields or farms and fishing in lakes. But, this had started to wear off as a teen. One thing I remember about that trip was when we were only about half an hour from our village, we had to get out of our car. The road in front of us was completely under water. We all got on a bamboo boat for another two or three hours.

That was 15 years ago — the last time I visited our village. One by one, many other villagers left there. But my father has been working hard to build it up. He doesn’t want it to be lost.

Yes, we should protect our home. But there is something else to think about: climate crisis (气候危机). Bangladesh is at the centre of the climate crisis — it is hit by floods, droughts, storms and other natural disasters. “I jokingly say, Bangladesh is God’s laboratory for natural disasters,” says Prof Ainun Nishat, an expert on climate change from Bangladesh.

The period from June to October sees heavy rains. But the rainfall time is becoming more erratic (无常的). In 2020, Sylhet, my hometown, was hit by huge floods that affected thousands of families, whose homes were swept away. In fact, over a quarter of the country was flooded. Nearly 1.3 million homes were damaged, and hundreds of people died.

The weather is getting more extreme (极端的). It is getting too hot. And the supply of water can’t be relied upon, leaving the land getting drier.

Although people have worries about droughts and floods, unlike in the past, the country is well-prepared to deal with them. Prof Nishat says, “Maybe 20, 30 years back we depended on external (外部的) support to return to normal from any natural disaster, but now it’s different. The country has developed, and we suffered these disasters many times, so the people are one of the most prepared.”

【推荐3】How to Survive a Tsunami

A tsunami is a series of destructive and dangerous waves that are typically caused by earthquakes. If you live in a tsunami hazard region, make sure you know what to do in the unfortunate event of a tsunami.     1    

1. Evacuate on foot if possible.

Bridges and roads might be damaged or blocked after an earthquake. Whether there is an official tsunami warning or you live in a tsunami hazard zone and an earthquake just happened, immediately start moving on foot.     2    This helps you avoid getting stuck in a car in a dangerous location.

2.     3    

In some cases, you might not have time to evacuate. If you don’t have time to get away, go up to a third floor or higher in a strong building. Even better, try to get on the roof of the tallest, strongest building you can find. If you’re right on the coast, there might be a tall tsunami evacuation tower nearby. Look for evacuation route signs and follow them to the tower, then climb to the top.

3. Grab something floating if you’re in the water.

This can help keep you safe if you get caught by a tsunami’s waves.     4     Grab the object and hold on tightly while you get carried by the waves.

4.     5    

Tsunami activity can continue for up to 8 hours or longer. Stay away from the coast and on high ground for this period to play it safe. Listen to announcements from officials and only move when they say it’s safe to do so.

You may be stressed out and worried about loved ones, but you must stay where you are and try to remain calm. Don’t put your life at risk to try to meet up with someone in another area.

【推荐2】Here are four beautiful lakes in the world, each of which can be your next destination.

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Few lakes in Europe come as postcard-ready as Slovenia’s Lake Bled. Located in the snow-capped Julian Alps about a 45-minute drive outside of the capital city of Ljubljana, it’s best known for the fairytale-like Church of the Assumption, which sits on a pocket-sized island in the lake and has been attracting visitors for centuries.

Lake Annecy, France

Thanks to strict environmental rules set in place in the 1960s, Lake Annecy is an undamaged body of water that’s often called the cleanest lake in Europe. As a home base, you can't beat Annecy, which has been called the Venice of the Alps for its series of canals, and the Imperial Palace, which has more than 100 years.

Lake Vattern, Sweden

During a Swedish summer, there are few better places to enjoy the endless summer nights than sitting by the nation’s lakes. Among the lakes, the most charming is this finger-shaped lake about a 3-hour drive southwest of Stockholm, surrounded by historic settlements like Hjo, a beautifully preserved town on the lake's western shore.

Qinghai Lake, China

Located in northwest China, Qinghai Lake enjoys a climate with low rainfalls. When looking into the distance from a high place, you can enjoy a photographic view of the revolving evergreen mountains, clear and glittering water, beautiful grassland and groups of sheep.

In 1890 Yosemite became a national park. It had been inhabited (居住) by Miwok people for some 4,000 years. Yet during the Gold Rush from 1849 to 1851, the land saw the coming of thousands of miners. In 1851 the Miwok people began to be removed by force from their homes. By 1910, just one in ten of the original inhabitants remained.

This national park was established on 25 September 1890. It was created protect the towering sequoia trees. Today, the oldest tree in the 629-square mile park is the General Sherman Tree -it’s thought to be 2,300 to 2,700 years old. The park’s diverse landscape includes the Sierra Nevada mountains, as well as deep valleys, craggy foothills and impressive caves.

It might look like a western film but Deadwood is the real deal. After the discovery of gold in the nearby southern Black Hills in 1874, some 250,000 miners poured to the region and the city was founded in 1876. Owing its name to the dead trees filling the valley in which it was built, it quickly earned a reputation as a lawless outpost associated with gambling, gold seekers and Wild West legends (传奇).

Whitney Plantation is a reminder of America’s history of slavery (奴隶制). Established in 1752, the site was home to more than 350 slaves, whose names can be seen carved onto the Wall of Honor today. A recording from 1819 reveals that 19 out of the 61 slaves on the plantation at the time were African -born survivors of an Atlantic crossing. Today, visitors can learn more about the lives of enslaved people during this period.

【推荐1】A sense that life has meaning doesn’t just offer philosophical benefit; it’s also tied to improved physical and mental health. What factors, apart from close relationships and personal accomplishments, foster (培养) a belief in a meaningful life? Three recent studies highlight some potential mechanisms of meaning.

What really matters? Researchers who study meaning in life have broken the concept into three aspects: coherence (the feeling that life makes sense), purpose (having and working toward goals), and mattering (the sense that one’s life has value and makes a difference). University of Sussex psychologist Vlad Costin argues the last factor, mattering, may be the most crucial.

In three experiments, participants’ sense of mattering most reliably predicted whether they saw life as meaningful one month later. Though it wasn’t known why participants felt their lives mattered, Costin thinks that it could have resulted from their contributing to others.

What’s the golden age of life? Confidence in life’s meaningfulness may be greatest around age 60, on average, a recent study suggests. Using data from 1,042 U.S. adults, University of California, San Diego, researchers found that the presence of meaning in life followed a curve (曲线) over the lifespan (寿命), reaching its peak at approximately 60 before declining again. The search for meaning, on the other hand, followed the opposite track, reaching a low point at 60 before climbing. Regardless of age, physical and mental well-being were both strongly correlated with a belief in life’s meaning.

Many seek meaning through extraordinary experiences-but they may also find it in ordinary, daily acts. New research found that a preference for routines was correlated with a greater sense of meaning. Students tracked for a week reported somewhat greater meaning, on average, when engaging in everyday acts such as studying or working-perhaps, the authors note, because routines build a coherent sense of self. Study co-author and Rutgers University psychologist Samantha Heintzelman observes: “Moments that make sense and feel right can make life meaningful, too.”

【推荐3】Tourists visiting La Gomera and El Hierro in the Canary Islands can often hear locals communicating over long distances by whistling—not a tune, but the Spanish language called Silbo. Whistled languages are almost always developed by traditional cultures that live in rough, mountainous regions or in thick forest. Skilled whistlers can reach 120 decibels (分贝). As a result, whistled speech can be understood up to 10 times as far away as ordinary shouting can, experts have found.

But whistling mainly works for non-tonal (非声调的) languages, where the pitch (音高) of speech sounds isn’t crucial to the meaning of the word. English, Spanish and most other European languages are non-tonal languages. For tonal languages, in contrast, the meaning of a sound depends on its pitch relative to the rest of the sentence. In Chinese, for example, the syllable “ma” said with a steady high pitch means “mother”, but said with a pitch that dips and rises again, it means “horse”.

The whistled version of speech doesn’t contain as much frequency information as ordinary spoken language, but it does carry enough to recognize words. When researchers tested people’s comprehension of whistled Turkish, they found that experienced listeners correctly identified isolated words about 70 percent of the time; for words in common whistled sentences, with the help of the context, the accuracy rose to approximately 80 to 90 percent. Experts know surprisingly few details about how the brain does this. The information crucial for understanding speech, they assume, must lie somewhere within that whistled signal.

Whistled languages excite language experts for another reason, too. They share many features with what experts think the first languages must have been like, when speech and language first appeared during the dawn of modern humans. One of the big challenges of language is the need to control the vocal cords (声带) to make the full range of speech sounds. None of our closest relatives, the great apes, have developed such control—but whistling may be an easier first step.