【推荐1】The world can be a scary place when you’re young. It can be even scarier when you’re a young little blue penguin（企鹅），the world’s smallest penguin.

Luckily, there are some humans willing to help, who stepped in to protect Billy, a blue penguin that appeared on a beach in Christchurch, New Zealand. Spotted on Nov. 29 at Moncks Bay, in Christchurch, the little penguin immediately attracted a small crowd. Jeff Mein Smith saw the crowd while he was bicycling that afternoon, and he hiked home to get his camera. When he returned to the scene, he found that the penguin had received a little sign，reading “Hi,I’m waiting for my mum to come back. DOC （New Zealand’s Department of Conservation） knows I’m here. Please leave me alone. Keep your dog away. Thanks, Billy the baby blue penguin. ’’

Billy, perhaps able to read somehow, or just pleased by all the attention, didn’t wander far from the sign, and some people had set up “a little penguin protection team” to keep the penguin safe, Mein Smith said.

Little blue penguins are primarily found in New Zealand and the southern coast of Australia. The DOC arrived later that afternoon to pick up Billy. “It's unusual for a blue penguin to be out in the open on the beach during the day. Normally they are at sea or in burrows（洞穴）during the day，” Anita Spencer, a DOC official said. “The bird is a female penguin，is around 2 months old and is underweight for its age. It weighs a mere 550grams, less than a standard basketball. A blue penguin should weigh around 900 gram this age. Most little penguins grow up to weigh 1 kilogram，” she added.

Billy was taken to the Christchurch Penguin Rehabilitation Center after being taken from the beach. The center will help the little penguin gain some weight before it allowed to return to the ocean.

【推荐2】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3】Koalas live in the eucalyptus (枝树) forests of southeastern and eastern Australia. They rely on the eucalyptus tree for both habitat and food. In fact, they seldom leave these trees. When not sleeping, they’re usually eating. They can eat more than a pound of eucalyptus leaves a day. Eucalyptus is poisonous, so the koala’s digestive (消化的) system has to work hard to digest it, breaking down the poisons and taking in the limited nutrients (营养). That’s why koalas sleep for 18 to 22 hours a day—they get very little energy from their diet.

Koala numbers decreased in the late 19th and early 20th century from hunting for their fur. Now they face serious threats from habitat loss. Land clearing and bush fires-especially the 2019-2020 Australia Bushfire Season-have destroyed much of the forest they live in. Koalas are easy to be affected by climate change. Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is decreasing the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves and causing longer, more serious droughts and wildfires. In response to drought, koalas are forced to stop sleeping and come down from the trees to find water, putting them at a higher risk of being killed.

Koalas have been identified by the Australian government as one of the 113 animals requiring urgent (紧急的) help. Ensuring there’s the right kind of forest for them to return to is extremely urgent. State governments should create new koala reserves and persuade landowners not to cut down eucalyptus trees. Meanwhile, getting the public to understand koalas’ living habits and their health will throw light on koala biology, which helps to develop plans to better protect the species.

【推荐1】What3words

This free download is one of a growing number of smart phone apps that could mean the difference between life and death. What3Words divides the world into 3×3 metre squares, giving each one a unique combination of three words. This allows emergency services to reach you. It is used by the vast majority of emergency services in the UK, not to mention other control centres around the world, and has been credited with saving thousands of lives.

WhatsApp

Lots of us use WhatsApp for messaging and calling, but do you know it also has a Live Location feature that can let a loved one know your whereabouts in case you’re in danger? You simply press the + key in a chat, select “Location” and then press “Share Live Location”, which enables any participants in the chat to see your location in real time for the duration you choose.

SkinVision

You will have to pay for this digital skin check app, but with an estimated fifth of skin cancers going undiagnosed (未诊断的) during lockdown, it could be well worth it. You simply take a photo of any suspicious spot with your phone and you’ll then receive a risk indication from SkinVision’s clinically validated (验证的) technology within 30 seconds. This might include a recommendation to see a doctor.

St John Ambulance First Aid

An app like this is more useful for saving someone else’s life than your own, but arguably it’s a must-have on your smartphone. It gives advice in dealing with emergencies, including choking, allergic reactions and performing CPR. You don’t have to have an Internet connection in order to use it.

【推荐2】How might architecture aid in solving the housing crisis and help build a more sustainable future? In 2019, 3D printing company WASP and Mario Cucinella Architects showed their concept to design the first 3D printed house made entirely from clay. Today, the joint project, known as TECLA, is finally complete and on display near Bologna, Italy.

Over the past few years, a number of 3D printed homes and communities have been conceptualized. While previous structures were made from concrete or plastic, TECLA was built from soil found at the site mixed with water, fibers from rice husks and a binder, the last of which is less than 5% of the total volume. Printing with clay does have its weaknesses. It’s a much slower process than quick—drying concrete — the design can be printed in 200 hours but the clay mixture can take weeks to dry, depending on climate, and it also has height limitations.

Building homes from earth, Cucinella pointed out, is not new. “The challenge was really using an old material in the history of architecture with new technology to find a new shape of a house,” Cucinella said. To that end, the Crane WASP printers mixed water with the local earth, and then printed the 60-square-meter TECLA model layer by layer. The design features two circular spaces joined together with skylights, charming full natural light inside. The residence includes a living area, a bedroom and a bathroom. Its furniture, including tables and chairs, was printed using WASP’s machinery, while components like doors and windows were fixed after printing.

The idea behind TECLA isn’t necessarily to copy the same home for any environment, but to adjust the design based on the location. “We aren’t producing one type of house that you can print and use everywhere, because it’s different if you design a house in the north of Italy, or in the middle of Africa,” Cucinella explained. “The house responds to different climates.” Additionally, the building process can be easily taught and widely used.