【推荐2】For more than 140 years, fishers in Laguna, Brazil have formed an unusual partnership with local dolphins. As soon as the fishers spot a dolphin waving its tail, lifting its head, and diving deeply, they race into the water with their nets. Now, a new study suggests the dolphins are willing partners in this cooperation and that the animals may be guiding the people. They pay close attention to the humans, timing their actions to maximize their catch. Over the years, dolphins have been showing the fishers “where to stand and when to get ready to throw their nets” in the dark waters. It’s almost as if the dolphins are training the humans.

As much as the fishers were watching the dolphins, the dolphins were also watching the fishers, the study found. Both species must time their actions correctly to catch fish. The people wait with their nets at the ready for a dolphin to approach closely. When a dolphin sees a ready fisher, the animal will give a tip, usually that deep dive, which tells the fisher the mullet (鲻鱼)are right there and it’s time to cast their net. Sometimes, either dolphin or fisher will respond incorrectly, and neither catches fish. Yet, the scientists reported that of nearly 3000 recorded fishing attempts, nearly 46% were successful. To ensure this accuracy, fishers must understand the dolphins’ tips, learning them over time, even it can say. “The dolphins are almost like teachers.”

Other populations of dolphins have also been known to cooperate with human fishers, rushing fish toward shore or into nets off eastern Australia, Mauritania, and Southeast Asia. But these practices have either disappeared or are in decline.

The same fate likely faces the Laguna dolphins if the mullet numbers, which have dropped over the past decade because of overfishing, continue to decline. The practice may escape such a fate, if Brazil regards this dolphin-fisher relationship a cultural heritage, as the scientists propose. “Without mullet,” the expert says, “this partnership will end.”

【推荐1】Millions of tourists travel to parks each year to enjoy the bright colors of fall — but ecologists say the familiar reds, oranges and yellows of fall foliage (叶子) are coming later in the season. “In New England, generally the fall foliage tends to peak in mid-October,” said Richard Primack, a professor of plant ecology. “But because of a warming climate, the peak of fall foliage is tending to move from kind of early to middle October to kind of middle to late October.”

Predicting precisely when the leaves will turn from green to red, orange and yellow in fall depends in part on the geographic area, the species and the amount of rainfall, and climate change can largely determine the timing. And leaves of trees with harmful insects will drop sooner, according to Christy Rollinson, a forest ecologist. “Bright colors are associated with a healthy tree, because some colors take energy for the tree to produce.”

Peak color used to last for about two weeks, but for certain species, that period might be becoming more condensed as higher temperatures continue late into the fall because the rate at which days get shorter throughout the season remains the same. So future generations might just have to be ready to travel at a moment’s notice to catch a peak period in parts of the country.

Such changes could affect the tourism industry surrounding leaf peeping (看), according to Sarah Blount, a researcher at the National Environmental Education Foundation. She underscored how important it is to try to improve peak timing predictions. “There’s so much money attached to it,” she said. “People want to buy a plane ticket to go somewhere and don’t want to find that it turns out that it’s too late and all the leaves are gone or it’s too early, so there is a lot of focus on trying to improve the information that we have about that. ”

【推荐2】Even small amounts of physical activity, like quick walking, may greatly lower the risk of depression, according to a new data analysis (分析).

Recommended levels of exercise in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), include aerobic (有氧的) activity at proper levels for 2.5 hours a week, along with a workout of all major muscle (肌肉) groups twice a week. Or, a person can choose a high-level aerobic exercise, such as running, for 1.25 hours each week, along with the same amount of strength training.

Middle-to-high-level exercise is good for us, according to the CDC. It improves sleep, lowers blood pressure, protects against heart disease and diabetes, reduces stress, improves mood, and fights anxiety and depression. But in today’s busy world, many people find it difficult to fit in a jog or a visit to the gym. Add depression to the mix, and the motivation for exercise drops even further, experts say.

The analysis, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, looked at 15 studies involving over 190,000 people to determine how much exercise was needed to reduce depression.

Adults who did activities equal to 1.25 hours of quick walking per week had an 18% lower risk of depression compared with those who did not exercise, the study said. Moving up to an “activity amount equal to 2.5 hours of quick walking per week was associated with 25% lower risk of depression,” the study authors said.

The benefits were strongest when a person changed from being a couch potato to adding movement to the day, the study said. However, exercising over the recommended levels did not provide any additional benefits.

“Our findings therefore have important new implications for health doctors making lifestyle recommendations, especially to inactive individuals who may perceive the current recommended target of exercise as unrealistic,” the authors wrote.

A study in 2018 found similar results: People who exercised had about 43% fewer days of poor mental health. “Even just walking three times a week seems to give people better mental health than not exercising at all,” said study author Adam Chekroud, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University.

【推荐3】Fallen leaves are everywhere as winter comes. Traditionally, people sweep up the fallen leaves, put them in bags and send them to landfills. But there is a growing movement to leave leaves on the ground. They’ll naturally break down over the winter into rich organic matter. The matter also shelters some insects.

But some leaves prevent the growth of other plants. Black walnut (黑胡桃), for example, contains a poison in its leaves that kills many plants, including apples, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes. Besides, whole leaves should not be permitted to remain on walkways, where they could make the path dangerously slippery. They should also not be left on grass lawns, where they are likely to cause disease. In areas that experience snow cover, water would become trapped between grass and leaves. In areas without snow, whole leaves that cover grasses block water and sunlight from reaching the soil below.

Many people choose to break up the leaves using a machine and let the pieces fall between pieces of grass. Then the pieces break down further in the soil. However, this treatment can kill insects and their eggs.

Another method is to take the leaves off the lawn and spread them lightly to cover garden beds. The leaves mostly break down by spring and almost entirely by summer. But if not, they should be removed before spring growth begins.

Leaves also can be used to make leaf mold (腐叶土), a type of fertilizer made entirely from leaves. Just put the leaves in a corner, add nitrogen fertilizer (氮肥), and then water them to keep them wet inside. It may take a year or two, but the leaves will break down into a nutritious soil.

Fallen leaves build rich soil, protect plant roots and shelter wildlife, in your garden, and elsewhere. Done correctly, leaving the leaves is one of the best ways to turn yard waste into free fertilizer, which is good for plants, the environment, and saving money. Why waste that important resource?

【推荐1】There is a wide range of “last chance tourism” destinations around the planet, many of which are threatened by the effect of global warming.

The world-famous Glacier National Park spreads over a million acres in Montana. The park welcomes about 3 million visitors each year to its unique ecosystem. However, its glaciers are quickly shrinking in size, and continue to affect the ecosystem with the non-stop melting. At today’s global warming rates, these glaciers will disappear in the next few decades.

Kilimanjaro, the “Root of Africa”, dominates the tropical landscape of Tanzania in Africa. It is a destination for the climbers wishing to conquer Kilimanjaro’s peak at 5895 meters above sea level. The mountain’s steep walls used to be fully covered in ice sheets while today they sit nearly bare, having lost 85% of the coverage due to the ever-rising temperatures. It is highly likely to lose all the snow in just 20 years.

Rio, surrounded by amazing coastlines, is a tourist hotspot in Brazil with colored cityscape and diverse culture. Many know Rio for the Carnival festival with dazzling events. Climate experts project a sea-level rise of 32 inches around Rio and floods that will cover the city’s famous beaches, and some inland neighborhoods by 2100.

The Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth, is a renowned wellness destination for healing and relaxation. The sea is a fascinating 997-feet-deep natural wonder with no marine life. The high-salt content makes floating effortless and relaxing, as well as great for skin conditions. However, the increasingly hot and dry climate speeds up the rate of evaporation, making it a dry land by 2050.

【推荐2】Scientists have determined that July 2023 was the hottest month on record and that the Earth’s average surface temperature is the highest it’s been in at least 120,000 years.

There’s no shortage of advice for people in hotter-than-normal regions. They can wear a sun hat or stay in the shade (阴凉处). And when all else fails, go inside and turn the air conditioning on.

But wild creatures can’t enjoy the cool air indoors. Many people assume that wild species must have some ways of dealing with these unusually high temperatures. However, most of them can’t. If their body temperatures go too high or too low, they will die. So in addition to finding food and avoiding enemies, every wild creature must continually engage in an ongoing exchange of energy with their environments to ensure survival.

Birds do this by getting out of the direct sun, sitting still, and breathing shallow breaths. In short, they do nothing but breathe in the shade. This behavior is usually successful because it enables most birds to survive most of the very hot days. But it wrecks their schedule. Many birds no longer have enough time in their days to find enough food to remain healthy, especially the extra food needed to raise their young.

It’s not only birds that are suffering from heat, nor is it only land species: animals in the ocean are also suffering. The largest analysis (分析) of coral reef (珊瑚礁) health found that 14% of the world’s coral reefs had been lost in the previous decade due to heat. Another recent study predicts (预测) that over 99% of coral reefs will experience heat that they cannot recover from if the global average temperature increases by just 1.5 degrees Celsius, which, unless we massively reduce our carbon emissions, is likely to happen in the next decades.

Heat is damaging ecosystems everywhere, and we’re just in the early stages of climate breakdown. Humans are highly adaptable. The vast majority of wild species, however, can’t simply pack up and go someplace else. By continuing to pollute the atmosphere, we’re damaging their worlds and pushing ever-greater numbers of them into extinction.