【推荐1】Do you remember that story about the little girl who goes to visit her grandmother and meets a big, bad wolf along the way? Or perhaps you remember the story of the three little pigs who build three houses to protect themselves from a wolf?

The reality behind the fairy tales is that people feared wolves. Hunting and killing coming from hatred almost caused the animals to die out. Wolves needed a fairy mother — and that is what Brookfield Zoo in Chicago is for wolves and their puppies.

Being a fairy mother to wolves is not easy. Brookfield Zoo replaced iron-barred cubicles (小隔间) with safe habitats, which are not merely attractive to the zoo visitor, but more importantly, are contributing to the normal behavior and reproduction of the animals. The wolves have a large area to run and play in, places to hide and sleep in, and hills to climb with lots of grass and trees around them.

A fairy mother’s job is to make dreams magically come true and part of the magic is being invisible. The people who take care of the wolves hide themselves and the food and toys in places where the wolves can dig them up and find them on their own, so they feel more like they are living in nature.

Fairy tales are just stories. Wolves don' t dress up as grandmothers, nor have they blown a house down. Wolves aren’t scary at all, and in fact, they are more afraid of humans than we are of them.

The wolves have a great life at Brookfield Zoo. Maybe they will stay at Brookfield Zoo, but it would be nice to see them live back in nature again, too. If we all work together, maybe we can make this fairy tale come true for the wolves.

【推荐2】Natural selection is the process by which one type of animal within a species thrives (兴旺) because of certain characteristics that make it more likely to live than others in its group. The history of the peppered moth (灰蛾) is an example of the natural selection process.

In nineteenth-century England, certain types of peppered moths were able to better blend (融合) into their surroundings. During that time period, great changes were happening in Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was part of this change, and with it came air pollution. Natural selection often takes hundreds or even thousands of years to occur. For the peppered moth, this process occurred comparatively quickly.

At the beginning of the Industrial Age most peppered moths in England were light-colored and covered with black markings, although a few moths had dark-colored wings. Because the light-colored moths blended into the light-colored bark on the trees, they could not be easily seen by birds that would eat them. The light-colored moths became easy for birds to see against the dark tree trunks. Since the dark-colored moths now had the advantage, their numbers grew. Within 50 years, the peppered moth went from being mostly light-colored to being mostly dark-colored.

In the twentieth century, the air cleared up, and the peppered moth population changed again. As tree trunks lightened due to less soot in the air, light-colored moths once again had an advantage. Their numbers increased as soot levels declined. Depending on their environment, the coloration of the moths helped them to be “naturally selected” to survive.

【推荐3】Running after fireflies （萤火虫）on a warm summer night might become a rare childhood memory if humans don't take action. There are over 2,000 different firefly species around the world, but their populations are decreasing due to artificial light pollution, pesticides （杀虫剂）and smaller habitat size.

A team of Tufts University-led researchers surveyed scientists and conservationists about the threats to firefly populations around the world. According to the study, one of the main threats to fireflies in East Asia and South America is artificial light. Fireflies light up to attract mates, but they can easily mistake human-made lights as potential partners. Adult fireflies typically live only a few days, which doesn't give them long to find a mate.

Humans' destroying the insects' natural habitats creates another threat. During their larval phase （幼虫期），Malaysian fireflies live in riverside bushes that are often pulled out for human-made fish farms. In Europe, Lampyris fireflies are finding less food to eat due to the growing urbanization of what were once woods and farmlands. In Malaysia, adult pteroptyx fireflies that usually prefer to mate in specific trees next to rivers have to find new mating areas because the trees are being knocked down for farmhouses.

The study also looked at the effects of climate change, tourism, invasive （侵入的）species and water pollution. On a positive note, while fireflies around the world seem to be suffering from the previously mentioned issues, Big Dipper fireflies living in the US happen to be booming. "Those guys can survive pretty much anywhere,said Sara Lewis, a biologist from Tufts University.

The study urges countries where firefly populations are dwindling to take measures to preserve suitable habitats, lessen light pollution, reduce use of pesticides and develop better guidelines for tourism around known firefly areas.

【推荐2】Waste sorting is a complex phenomenon that can be an important step toward a global circular economy. Maybe it even will be something we will look back on as one of the first steps toward an ecological society.

But sorting of waste could also mean participating in an activity that gradually weakens sustainable development by allowing unsustainable companies to use recycling as a way to pretend they are sustainable.

When Royal Dutch Shell, British-Dutch oil and gas company, wanted to dump an oil rig in the ocean in 1995 many people in Europe had just started to separate glass bottles and newspapers. The company’s plan was viewed as a sign of arrogance. The incident led to an important meeting, after which many companies started including environmental factors in their risk assessment.

The situation is different today. It is no longer clear if the kind of waste sorting done in Western nations is part of the problem or the solution. There are areas where the sorting of waste is working reasonably well, for example the glass and metal industries. But at a time when we are looking at a transformative system change and global sustainability, there is a need to fundamentally rethink waste sorting.

In the coming decades, the world needs to eliminate (消除) the use of fossil fuels, become more resource efficient lift billions out of poverty and ensure greater equity. In order to ensure this, we need a resource-efficient circular economy, and waste sorting can play a key role. But that should be a very different kind of waste sorting.

China could initiate the next generation of waste sorting systems. Such a waste sorting system would be a driver for innovation and extreme resource efficiency and a true step toward ecological civilization.

【推荐3】I strongly believe that individual actions make a difference to our environment. I’ve been a vegetarian for more than two decades, choose to be child-free partially because I can’t justify my genes’ importance over the shocking amount of resources needed for raising another American, and haven’t owned a car in four years. Those things, over time, will absolutely reduce my impact on our beautiful world, and the more people do them, the greater the impact is.

But it’s not nearly enough.

While I will continue to do my part to fight climate change, I have to wonder why there isn’t an equal effort by those who have the biggest impact. According to a recent report, 71% of greenhouse gases are produced by just 100 companies. Surely, working to minimize their emissions (排放物) will do far more, much faster than me talking people’s ears off on Facebook about eating less meat. After all, I have been doing that kind of work for 20 years now, and we are still headed towards climate disaster.

Why should so much of the solution to global warming be on the shoulders of individuals?

When President Kennedy decided we needed to beat the Russians to the moon landing, he didn’t encourage housewives to figure out bow to get there. He got the smartest and most talented people together to solve the challenges. NASA got us there, with lots of hard work and late nights, and also full encouragement and funding from the US government.

But this is not the case with climate change. Big companies are let off the hook while we take on the huge burden of dealing with the emissions of the biggest and most powerful. That strikes me as just plain unfair. The serious threats of climate change require an all-hand-on-deck response. Corporations need to do their part, because I can’t do it on my own.

【推荐1】A child who had tested positive for Covid-19 was stopped from boarding a plane just in time, thanks to the joint effort of the police and health officers who pulled off the feal in "under an hour," a Maryland State Police official said.

The health officer told police they had been unable to reach the 9-year old child's mother. As a consequence, State Police immediately reached out to the Maryland Transportation Authority (MTA) police and gave them the family's departure time, destination and names. It took airport authorities about half an hour to locate the family, and by 3:45, they were able to get the mother on the phone with health officials.

It all happened in “under an hour,” Nelson said. “Never got on the plane, no serious exposure there or anything like that.”

The family was sent home with the isolation order for the boy and a quarantine order for his mother, due to her direct exposure, Nelson added. The family has not been dentified and it is unclear when or why they were tested for the virus.

The stop was a good display of the state's cooperation system at work, Nelson said, and is a testament to the trust that's been built across the state over this year, to the point where a local health department can get important information across the state in just a matter of minutes.

【推荐3】Maaseik, a city in Belgium, has opened an exhibition of about 200 relics and treasures of the Tang Dynasty (618 AD - 907 AD), showing China’s golden age of ancient civilisation (文明).

The exhibition, which opened on May 11 and will continue until Oct. 20, is part of the city's effort to create a centre of Chinese culture. Belgian Princess Mathilde formally announced the beginning of the exhibition, titled “China’s Golden Age: Treasures from the Tang Dynasty”.

The items, including gold plates and silver wares for royal families, Tang Dynasty tri-colour glazed figurines (小雕像) of women and paintings, have recently been on exhibit in the Dutch city of Assert.

All of the exhibited items are from Shaanxi Province, China. Its provincial capital Xi’an was the most populous (人口多的) city in the world and once the capital of the Tang Dynasty.

The Tang period is generally regarded as a high point in Chinese civilization-equal to, or better than that of the earlier Han Dynasty (202 BC—220 AD), a golden age of Chinese culture.

Several years ago, said Dirk Verlaak, vice-mayor of Maaseik, his city and Assen teamed up to host history and culture exhibitions of China’s first two imperial dynasties, the Qin (221 BC—206 BC) and the Han. The Chinese relics and treasures attracted 350,000 visitors in Assen and 190,000 in Maaseik.

“Westerners don’t know much about China’s ancient civilisation and history, and we hope the new exhibition in Maaseik can attract more visitors,” said Verlaak.