【推荐1】In the wild, polar bears spend much of their lives wandering pack ice (浮冰群) in search of food. These bears have adapted to a high fat diet from ocean-going animals: they are rapid and dangerous swimmers, allowing them to easily catch animals as food. Each summer, as the pack ice starts to become smaller, polar bears draw closer to land to give birth to and care for babies. Many give up food during this period, hunting again when the ice returns and living on stored fat.

Pack ice is decreasing globally. When it does form, it disappears more quickly, and tends to be thinner as well. In 2004, several polar bear deaths by drowning were recorded. The bears had been trapped on faraway areas of floating ice, and had tried to swim for land. Due to the disappearance of the ice, they were tired and drowned before reaching shore safely. This problem is likely to grow as the pack ice becomes smaller.

The disappearance of the ice has other impacts for polar bears: they are losing their natural prey (猎物), who are also affected by the loss of habitat. The bears are not very good at catching land animals, and must compete with other species for these food sources. Land animals also don’t provide the high fat diet that polar bears need, which may lead to hunger. Hungry mothers may not be able to provide their babies with the nutrition needed, which will further contribute to the drop in polar bear population.

The deadly factors brought about by global warming put polar bears at risk. Drops in birth and survival rates have already been documented, and biologists are increasingly concerned   about the animals’ odd behavior as a result of the loss of their natural habitat. Environmental organizations believe a global effort is needed to fight against global warming before it is too late for polar bears, as well as many other species that call Earth home.

【推荐2】Penguins (企鹅) live together, but each pair has a little piece of ground of their own. When a penguin wants to walk through its neighbour’s ground, it must ask permission. If it does not do that, it will have to fight. Most of the time, penguins live on the water. They eat shellfish and look after their children carefully.

All penguins are good parents — the male penguins are perhaps the best parents in the world. They walk in the sea in the middle of the dark Antarctic water. They choose their wives in the dark.They can only hear them — not see them. Then the female penguins lay their eggs and go away for about two months. The males take care of the eggs. If the eggs get cold, there will be no chicks. There is no food. The snow falls heavily and the wind blows strongly — sometimes at 150 kilometres an hour. The penguins do not move. When the females return from the sea, they will not remember their husbands. It does not matter. Only one thing matters — the eggs. Male penguins never fight — unless a penguin leaves a chick for a minute. They then fight because they all want it.They are strange and wonderful birds.

【推荐3】Being able to land safely is a critically important skill for all flying animals. Whereas terrestrial animals face no particular challenge when they need to stop running or crawling, flying animals move at much higher speeds, and they must be careful about how they land. Hitting the ground, or even water, at full flight speed would be quite dangerous. Before touching down, they must decrease their speed in order to land safely. Both bats and birds have mastered the skill of landing, but these two types of flyers go about it quite differently.

In the past it was believed that, in terms of flying mechanics, there was little difference between bats and birds. This belief was based only on assumption, however, because for years nobody had actually studied in detail how bats move their wings. In recent years, though, researchers have discovered a number of interesting facts about bat flight. Bats are built differently from birds, and their wings incorporate(结合) both their front and hind limbs (后肢). This makes their limbs working together more difficult for bats and, as a result, they are not very good at flying over longer distances. However, a bat can quickly change its direction of flight or completely reverse it, something a bird cannot easily do.

Another interesting characteristic of bat flight is the way in which bats land—upside down! Unlike birds, which touch down on the ground or on tree branches, bats can be observed flying around and then suddenly hanging upside down from an object overhead. How do they do it? A group of researchers recently used video cameras to film bats landing on nets suspended from the ceiling of their laboratory and studied the recordings in slow motion. They painted spots on the bats’ wings to see in detail what happens to the wings in flight and during touchdown. It turns out that the bats flew in a straight line up to the net and then quickly flipped over and attached themselves to it upside down. One disadvantage to this landing routine is that the bats often slam into their landing spot with some force, which probably causes pain. However, not all bats hit their landing spots with the same speed and force; these will vary depending on the area where a bat species makes its home. For example, a cave bat, which regularly rests on a hard stone ceiling, is more careful about its landing preparation than a bat more accustomed to landing in leafy treetops.

【推荐1】A blocked airway (呼吸道) can kill someone in three to four minutes, but it can take more than eight minutes for an ambulance to arrive. So a simple procedure such as opening someone’s airway can save their life while they’re waiting for emergency medical help. This means you’re more likely to give first aid to someone you know than a stranger.

There are many misconceptions (误解) surrounding first aid. Below are the ‘most popular’ ones with details of what you should do.

You should put butter or cream on a burn. The only thing you should put on a burn is cold water — keep the butter for cooking. Put the affected area under cold running water for at least ten minutes.

The best way to treat bleeding is to put the wound under a tap. If you put a bleeding wound under a tap you wash away the body’s clotting agents (凝血剂) and make it bleed more. Instead put pressure on the wound with whatever is available to stop or slow down the flow of blood. As soon as possible call 999. Keep pressure on the wound until help arrives.

Nosebleeds are best treated by putting the head back. If you put the head back during a nosebleed, all the blood goes down the back of the airway. Instead advise them to tilt (倾斜) their head forwards and ask the person to pinch (捏) the end of their nose and breathe through their mouth.

You need lots of training to do first aid. You don’t — what you mostly need is common sense. You can learn enough first aid in a few minutes to save someone's life — whether it’s from a book, attending a course or watching videos online.

Remember: anyone can save a life.

【推荐2】What is Earth Hour?

Earth Hour is an annual global campaign that encourages people and businesses around the world to switch off electricity at the same time for one hour. Earth Hour started in Australia in2007 when 2.2 million people in Sydney turned off all non-essential lights for an hour. Since then it has grow in to a massive global event. In 2013, millions of people in 7,000 cities and towns around the world switched off their lights for 60 minutes at the end of March. Every year landmarks and well-known buildings around the world take part and go dark for Earth Hour. The campaign even went into space when astronauts reduced power on the International Space Station in 2011.

Earth Hour is organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It was started by Andy Ridley who is executive director of Earth Hour Global, WWF. He came up with the idea because he wanted to raise awareness of environmental issues by asking people to do something positive to help the planet. Switching off the lights for an hour can make a small difference to the amount of energy we use but Earth Hour is also a symbolic event to make people think about the problems of climate change.

The end of March is around the time of the spring and autumn equinoxes(昼夜平分时) in both hemispheres (半球) respectively, when sunset times are at similar times. This means that a global “lights out” event has most visual effect at this time of year.

As well as famous London landmarks such as Big Ben, London Eye and Buckingham Palace switching off their lights, there are many other events around Britain. On the WWFs interactive map you can see which people, businesses, schools, organizations and landmarks are taking part each year and what they are doing.

【推荐3】Be careful what you say around your dog. It might understand more than you think.

A border collie named Lucky recognizes the names of about 200 objects, say researchers in Germany. The dog also appears to be able to learn new words as easily as a 3-year-old child. Its word-learning skills are as good as those of a parrot or chimpanzee(黑猩猩).

In one experiment, the researchers took all 200 items that Lucky is supposed to know and divided them into 20 groups of 10 objects. Then the owner told the dog to go and fetch one of the items and bring it back. In four tests, Lucky got 37 out of 40 commands right. As the dog couldn’t see anyone to get clues, the scientists believe Lucky must understand the meanings of certain words.

In another experiment, the scientists took one toy that Lucky had never seen before and put it in a room with seven toys whose names the dog already knew. The owner then told Lucky to fetch the object, using a word the dog had never heard before.

The correct object was chosen in seven out of l0 tests, suggesting that the dog had worked out the answer by process of elimination(排除法). A month later, Lucky remembered half of the new names,which is even more impressive.

Lucky is thought to be smarter than the average dog. For one thing, Lucky is a border collie, a breed(品种)known for its mental abilities. In addition, the 9-year-old dog has been trained to fetch toys by their names since the age of nine months.

It’s hard to know if all dogs understand at least some of the words we say. Even if they do, they can’t talk back. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to sweet-talk your dog every now and then. You might just get a big, wet kiss in return!

【推荐2】Confident, smart and high­tech, they’re followers of pop culture and know what social networking is all about. They’re tweens, children between the ages of 10 and 12. These young people are no longer little kids but they are not yet teenagers, because tweens are in a state of transition (转变).

The tween years are hard for children. From a social point of view, tweens are dealing with quite a lot. They have to face changing relationships, middle school and a whole lot of pressure (压力) to succeed and fit in. They may become angry over seemingly small things. A bad test grade, an argument with a friend, a bad day on the ball field, or a request to clean a bedroom might set them off.

Elizabeth Hartley­Brewer, a parenting expert in London and author of Talking to Tweens, says, “The tween years are when young people begin to realize the wider world and to see themselves as the ones separate from their families.”

Right now, tweens’ friends are everything to them. It’s universal for the age, but they show it in different ways. For boys, the whole friendship thing is through technology and sports. Girls like to talk.

Tweens are also a hot market. What do tweens consider cool? Music is at the top of the cool list, followed by going to the movies. “Being smart” comes third, tied with video games, followed by electronics, sports, fashion and protecting the environment, according to a report. Undoubtedly, tweens have great spending power in the United States. It was the tween market that made Taylor Swift and Harry Potter household names. Retailers (零售商) know tweens are a hot market for clothes, music and entertainment. Tweens have their own sense of fashion and enjoy their own parts of popular culture.

【推荐3】At the 2022-23 China High School Basketball League (CHBL) national Finals on May 14, sportswear giant Nike announced that it would build an environmentally friendly basketball court that uses recycled sneakers as raw materials. The court is scheduled to be completed in Guangzhou by the end of July.

Cooperating with the China School Sports Federation, Nike launched the environmental protection charity project for the CHBL 2022-23 Season. The project encourages the involvement of CHBL players’ coaches, basketball enthusiasts and consumers in the collection and recycling of old sport shoes. Through advanced technology, thrown-away sport shoes will be processed and used in the construction of the first ever CHBL-themed eco-friendly basketball court.

Over the past two months, the old sport shoes collection bins have traveled alongside the CHBL tour making stops at the four major regional tournaments held in the east, west, south and north of China. The bins have gone into schools, including Tsinghua High School in Beijing and Huipu Middle School in Taizhou Zhejiang province, spreading the spirits of CHBL and inspiring its players to become role models not only on the basketball court, but also in their everyday lives.

Famous female basketball player Han Xu has actively contributed to the collection of used shoes and expressed her support for the project through her personal social media channels. Zhang Lei, secretary general of the CSSF, says that CHBL not only assists young players and teenagers in improving their basketball skills but also promotes the development of basketball culture within campuses.

“In addition to expanding the league’s size and influence, we have also added environmental education into the program. Environmental education plays an important role in shaping society’s core values. It guides young individuals toward understanding the importance of environmental issues, forming a proper attitude on the relationship between humans and nature, and raising their environmental awareness and practices. It serves as an endless source of developing environmental consciousness throughout society.”

The construction of the eco-friendly basketball court marks a significant step in Nike’s commitment to supporting young basketball fans while putting environmental sustainability (持续性) at the first place.