【推荐1】Bamboo is the tallest member in the grass family. It is one of the fastest growing plants on earth, growing reportedly up to 98 inches in just 24 hours. Bamboo is mainly found in Asia, some parts of Africa and parts of the America in many different varieties. Over centuries bamboo has had a variety of uses like medicine, paper, construction, furniture, home decoration and musical instruments.

The use of bamboo as a construction material is not new and many countries have been using it to build homes for centuries. Bamboo’s unique and efficient natural design makes it a good building material.

Bamboo is very flexible and hence when it grows it can be defined to grow into specific shapes. Its shock absorption capacity (减震功能) makes it a great building material for earthquake- resistant houses. Bamboo houses can also stand a hurricane with wind speeds of up to 170 mph.

Bamboo is cheap and readily available in areas where it is cultivated. Transportation of bamboo is also cheaper than other materials.

The most important quality of bamboo is its environmentally friendly quality. It is renewable and bamboo forests can be grown in a few years. Its naturally smooth surface does not require painting, making it safe from health dangers caused by paint. Bamboo can be grown in a variety of climates and houses made of bamboo do not require use of other materials like concrete (混凝土), steel, etc. Pesticides (杀虫剂) and other chemicals need not be used while cultivating bamboo, making it more eco-friendly.

Bamboo also has certain drawbacks. For example, not all types of bamboo can be used for construction. Bamboo cannot be used to build the skyscrapers that we all love. Wet bamboo deteriorates (变坏) faster.

Despite all the drawbacks, the environmentally friendly features of bamboo make it a great building material. The few drawbacks that bamboo has can be mitigated with research and the use of bamboo as an alternative building material should be encouraged to make our earth greener.

【推荐2】Digging out potato tubers (茎块) is one of the greatest rewards gardens have to offer. Children in particular are surprised at seeing these tubers that almost magically become chips, mash (泥) or baked potatoes.

Happily, potatoes are very easy to grow. Seed tubers are placed in good garden soil, ideally with some compost (堆肥) for every square meter, in a sunny spot, about 10cm deep at 30cm intervals in rows 60-70cm apart.

Seed tubers are offered as earliest and second earliest and maincrop. The second earliest and maincrops can be stored for winter use but earliest are usually consumed in summer.

Seasoned potato growers buy early seed potatoes in February and place them in a cool, reasonably light place and let them sprout (发芽). It takes six weeks for small sprouts to form.

Early potatoes are typically planted from middle March in the South, but are likely to emerge before the first season finishes in May. The shoots are frost-sensitive requiring protection on cod nights with either earth or newspapers.

Second early and maincrop potatoes are planted in middle April—the frost risk will be low, but not absent, by the time they emerge. As the stems (茎) grow, soil should be drawn around them until the leaves meet in the row in early summer. At this stage, the potato field is a series of ridges (脊，垄). The tubers form in the ridge, protected from light that turns them green. Covering with black plastic or a thick layer of compost is also accessible instead of ridging, but plastic is not sustainable and slugs (鼻涕虫) can multiply in compost.

Once the flowers are fully open, it is time to dig plants when the tubers are the size of a hen’s egg. They grow rapidly but gradually lose their juicy new potato flavour, so harvest freely.

【推荐3】Seagrass meadows(海草床) are wonder plants growing beneath the sea. They feed and shelter sea life and are masterful at storing carbon. Thanks to the assistance of tiger sharks, a huge seagrass meadow in the Bahamas Banks was recently discovered, offering the world a tool to fight climate change.

Seagrass has usually been detected by Earth-orbiting satellites that identify darker patches in the blue water. In this study, tiger sharks were selected as research tools due to their highly consistent associations with seagrass ecosystems. They spend 70% of their time in seagrass meadows. The team equipped eight tiger sharks with satellite tags (电子跟踪器), seven sharks with camera tags, and used a 360-degree camera on a shark for the first time ever.

The data researchers collected was astonishing. The world’s largest seagrass ecosystem, measuring at least 66,900 square kilometers, has been discovered. This reflects a 41% increase from previous estimates of global seagrass. Seagrass can capture (捕获) huge quantities of carbon by photosynthesis (光合作用) and stores it on the seafloor. In terms of climate change, this is excellent news; seagrass is 35 times faster a removing carbon than tropical rainforests. When referred to global seagrass carbon stock estimates, the study indicates that seagrass in the Bahamas may contain 19.2% to 26.3% of all the carbon stored in seagrass meadows on Earth.

Yet seagrass meadows are rapidly disappearing, with over 92% of meadows in the UK gone, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Scientists are collecting seeds and trying to grow new seagrass meadows through restoration projects. This new discovery offers optimism and proves the importance of the ocean for healing.

The sharks led us to the seagrass ecosystem in the Bahamas, which we now know is likely the most significant blue carbon sink(蓝色碳汇) on the planet. What this discovery shows us is that ocean exploration and research are essential for a healthy future. The untapped potential of the ocean is limitless. These meadows can be protected and can be replicated (复制,仿制), offering hope for climate change around the globe.