【推荐2】Every day people all over the world celebrate their cultural heritage, simply by living their lives in a way that stands for who they are and where they come from. But one day in a year is set to celebrate the joint history and heritage of the human race. World Heritage Day encourages us to celebrate all the world’s cultures, bring awareness to important cultural relics and sites, and agree on the importance of preserving the world’s cultures.

On this day, there are a number of different events that happen all over the world. This includes a wide range of activities, meetings, and visits to heritage sites and relics. For those who are unaware of the significance of preserving world heritages, a heritage site is basically a place that is of cultural importance, It preserves the culture of intangible attributes(无形的特质)and physical artifacts(古器)of a society or group that is inherited from older generations.

Perhaps the most important way to celebrate World Heritage Day is to search out those locations(所在)near you that are counted as World Heritage Sites, and perhaps pay them a visit. Before doing so, research the sites, find out what steps are needed to protect them, and respect them during your visit.

You should also take a look online to see if there are any events going on in your local area in honor of World Heritage Day. You will find that a lot of events take place to increase awareness regarding the preservation of important buildings and relics.

It is also a good idea to spread awareness regarding this day with the people that you know. This is something you can do with ease via social media. You can post a message that informs your friends, followers, and family members of this day and encourage them to post something too. You could post a photo of one of the best international sites you have visited or one that is on your bucket list, and then ask your followers to reply with their choice. This is a great way of getting everyone involved(参与)and raising awareness of this date!

【推荐3】The costs for homes in the United States to “go solar” have dropped by more than 60 percent over the last 10 years. The dropping costs helped persuade more than a million Americans to put solar panels on top of their homes.

Now, some public school systems are doing the same, including the schools in Fremont, Indiana. The people in this small town have always depended on sunshine to grow their crops and help bring visitors to their lakes.

Fremont will spend $3 million to build the solar project. When the system is in place, it will fully power the elementary, middle and high school buildings. It may even produce additional electricity that the school can sell to the power company. Several lines of 3,000 to 4,000 panels will be placed in a 2.5-hectare solar field behind the middle school. The school system will pay the local electricity company for use of its solar equipment.

Fremont schools will save money even with equipment fees. Unlike electricity costs, the equipment use fees will not go up. And the panels should last 40 years. After the 20 years of fees, the school district will fully own the panels. Then, the electric power they create will be free of cost.

Just 3 percent of the nation’s 125,000 schools use some form of solar power. Some have higher related costs than others. But, a recent report says that 72,000 American schools, or 60 percent, could save money with solar energy. Schools could put panels on their buildings or place a field of panels over a car park. Those methods would save most schools an average of $ 1 million over 30 years without taking up land.

Going solar might also offer schools valuable educational possibilities. It gives teachers a reason to teach related lessons on science, technology, engineering and math. All 3 schools in Fremont will have a display that kids can visit daily to learn how much energy is being used and saved.

If all goes as planned, the Fremont school system’s new solar field will be in operation by July.

【推荐2】According to Jeanne Fair, a scientist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, more and more new diseases are spilling over (溢出) from wild animals to human beings due to the global climate changes.

“As the worsening climate destroys their habitats, such as the rainforests, the wild animals are forced into closer contact with human beings. As the wildlife-human contact increases, anything can happen,” he said.

Previous studies also suggest that extreme weather has played a role in the Nipah virus outbreak in the late 1990s. Scientists noticed that extremely dry weather and mass destruction of the forests combined to force the bats out of the Malaysian rainforests to find food and home at the nearby fruit farms. They then passed the Nipah virus through pigs to human beings.

“But we’re still using the old ways to predict what’s going to happen in the future,” said Jeanne Fair, whose team, including climate scientists and disease prevention specialists, are trying to collect as much data as they can in order to model how climate changes will influence the spread of infectious diseases.

Jeffrey Shaman is the head of the climate and health program at Columbia University’s public health school. He argues that there is no evidence showing that climate change has significantly increased the wildlife-human infections in the world. However, he admits that climate change will make it harder to predict where the outbreaks will pop up.

“For example, mosquitoes, which are known for spreading diseases that affect millions of people across the world every year, have to move away from their original habitats frequently because of the environmental changes. Of course, they also carry those diseases with them.” But he stresses, “Actually, our farm animals and pets, especially the rare ones, can be a weaker link in the animal-human infections.”

【推荐3】At the South African nature preserve where Miya Warrington and his team study Cape ground squirrels (松鼠), the hottest daily temperature has increased by about 2.5℃ in just 18 years. The animals have gradually developed typical methods to deal with the hot weather, says Warrington, an ecologist at the University of Manitoba.

For example, lying flat on the ground in a special pose (姿势) helps the squirrels remove heat from their less furry undersides. They also take shady breaks under their bushy tails, which curl (卷) above their heads like tiny beach umbrella. When it’s really too hot, they hide into their holes to cool off. But Warrington warns that, even with all these choices for keeping cool, they still could be unable to go through the heat because of such a rapid climate change.

That huge pressure could be why their bodies have begun to change shape, Warrington says. She found that, over the course of just under twenty years, the squirrels’ large back feet already, which may help reduce heat, have grown relative to their body sizes by about 11 percent. Meanwhile, their spine (脊柱) lengths have become about 6 percent shorter.

And the Cape ground squirrel isn’t the only animal that appears to be shape-shifting because of climate change. The researchers tried to decide whether bird body sizes become smaller as climate change has driven hotter weather in areas throughout North America. As scientists collect more evidence that many species’ (物种) bodies are having unobvious changes over a short period of time, it remains unclear whether they are able to keep ahead of sharply rising temperatures and how close they may get to a breaking point.

To record this change in so many species over such a short period really shows that there is something global affecting all these animals — and climate change is what makes sense.