【推荐2】Marine life (海洋生物) in Florida Keys is negatively influenced by two forces: human activity and climate change. The former involves fishing, tourism and diving while the latter causes a large increase in intense hurricanes. Fortunately, when the researchers of Florida Museum of Natural History started looking for sea urchins (海胆) on the ocean floor off the coast of Florida Keys in the summer of 2020, they uncovered their population had relatively been stable since the 1960s.

The researchers visited 27 sites along a 20-mile stretch of coast near Florida Keys looking for tracks that reflected the presence of burrowing echinoids (穴居海胆类动物). “The findings that burrowing echinoids have been highly resilient (有适应力的) against climate change and environmental pollution over the last 60 years was a huge discovery for us.” said study co-author Tobias Grun.

Grun said, “However, we know little about their current distribution, population size, and health. The reason is not the lack of interest by the scientific community but lies in that fieldwork is very expensive.”

As the climate crisis progresses, it’s important to understand why some marine creatures are more resilient in bearing the impacts of a worsening environment than others. Grun said, “Evolution may be at play. Some marine animals are very opportunistic. They can tolerate a wide range of abiotic factors like pH, temperature, and salinity, to name a few.”

Grun added, “At this point, our data show that burrowing echinoids are more resilient than many other marine species and are doing comparatively well. That does not mean that we can push our luck and keep going the way we are right now. Our study provides some hope that these creatures are resilient, but much more work is needed to translate our findings into a larger scale. The reasons for their resilience are also widely unknown.”

【推荐1】At first glance, it’s a scene that plays out daily in cities across America. A US Postal Service carrier steps out of his mail truck and goes across the street, letters in hand. That much is unremarkable. But this postman either doesn’t notice or doesn’t seem to care that a clumsy American black bear is sitting on his haunches a few yards away, vigorously scratching(挠，搔)his shedding winter coat hard.

It’s a phenomenon happening in urban areas across the United States and around the world, and it’s not unique to black bears. Coyotes (丛林狼) look before crossing a street. Black bears know when it’s trash day. Racoons figure out how to pull bungee cords (弹力绳) off trash cans.

However, a number of the city bears died during a study, with vehicle strikes the leading cause. Other studies paint a less optimistic picture. The bears in Asheville weigh more and have more cubs, but their young rarely survive, resulting in net population declines. Neither is it true that humans and bears always live in harmony—even in open-minded Asheville, the bears have killed pets and injured at least one person in recent years.

To learn how residents can safely coexist with their primitive neighbors, Strules, director of the Urban Wildlife Institute at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, is planning an experiment. Two neighborhoods will be the focus of an educational campaign, which encourages bear-conscious practices such as keeping pets tied, locking the garage, removing bird feeders, and not approaching or feeding the animals.

Strules hopes her effort will offer guidance on the best way to live with the animals—both for them and for us. “Wildlife belongs to everyone,” Strules says, “but we want to keep bears wild.”

【推荐3】Like all people who live long enough, I have been through many dark periods and seen so much suffering. I was in New York on that terrible day in 2001, that day when our world changed forever. I still can remember the disbelief, the fear, the confusion as the city went quiet except for the alarms on the police cars and ambulances.

It was ten years after that day that I was introduced to the Survivor Tree, a pear crushed between two towers. All that was left was half a trunk that had been burnt black, with roots that were broken and only one living branch.

She was almost sent to the dump, but the young woman who found her, Rebecca Clough, begged that the tree might be given a chance. And so she went to be cared for in a nursery in the Bronx. Bringing that seriously damaged tree back to health was not an easy task, and it was touch and go, which cost a lot of patience and determination.

Eventually the tree made it. She was returned to be planted in what is now the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. In the spring, her branches are bright with blossoms. I’ve seen people looking at her and wiping away tears. She truly is a symbol of the resilience of nature—and a reminder of all that was lost on that terrible day 20 years ago.

There’s another, even more dramatic story about survivor trees. In 1990 I visited Nagasaki, the city where the second atomic bomb was dropped at the end of World War II. Scientists predicted that nothing would grow for decades. But, amazingly, two 500-year-old camphor trees had survived. Only the lower halves of their trunks remained, and from those most of the branches had been torn off. Not a single leaf remained. But they were alive.

Now it’s a large tree, but its thick trunk has cracks and you can see it’s all black inside. But every spring, that tree puts out new leaves. Many Japanese regard it as a holy monument to peace and survival. I stood there, humbled by the destruction we humans can cause and the unbelievable resilience of nature.

What a fascinating world, the nature kingdom. Whenever you give her a chance, nature returns. Human beings should understand how much we actually depend on the natural world, physically and spiritually.

【推荐1】Covid-19 vaccines (疫苗) began saving lives in clinical trials. But a new study, based in part on The Economist’s estimate of the pandemic’s true death toll (伤亡人数), attempts to model just how many lives have been spared since vaccines became widely available to the public.

The study—published on June 23rd in Lancet Infectious Diseases—found that in the first year of vaccines that were invented and introduced to the public, jabs (注射疫苗) saved the lives of people between 19.1 million and 20.4 million. Without vaccines, the study estimates, roughly three times as many people would have died from Covid-19 in 2021 alone. And 6.8 million — 7.7millon of the prevented deaths were in countries covered by COVAX ( Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access), an initiative created to ensure vaccines were sent to poorer countries. Still, a lack of vaccines in some parts of the world still led to avoidable deaths. Around 100 countries failed to reach the World Health Organization’s (WHO) goal of vaccinating 40% of their qualified populations by the end of 2021. The researchers estimate that this cost around 600,000 lives.

To arrive at these estimates, the researchers, Oliver J. Watson, Gregory Barnsley and their colleagues at Imperial College London, began with an existing transmission model used to track the spread of Covid-19 infections. They then combined this model with The Economist’s estimate of the pandemic’s true death toll to estimate how deadly the pandemic would have been without vaccines.

As for the study, every coin has two sides. It relies on assumptions about the share of estimated infections that led to death, for instance. Some small countries, which have limited reliable data, were not included in the analysis. That means the total number of actual avoided deaths will be even higher. On the other hand, the researchers did not attempt to model how people or governments might have changed their behavior to limit infections in the absence of vaccines. For all that, it is the most definitive answer yet to how many people owe their lives to the jabs.

【推荐3】The world’s population is aging: by 2025, people aged 60 or above will represent 20 percent of the global population. The gains in socioeconomic development mean that many people are reaching old age healthier, wealthier and better educated than previous generations.

With significant purchasing power and specific needs, older people in developed and emerging economies are seen as the fastest growing consumer group in the world, offering opportunities for business growth for many major industries. The market for products and services aimed at people aged over 50—known as the “silver economy”—is currently estimated to be worth $ 15 trillion globally and is expected to rise exponentially (以指数方式) as the number of older people continues to grow.

Importantly, the “silver economy” can contribute to a country’s social development alongside the economic gains because when businesses set out to boost their profits by designing solutions to the challenges faced by older people, they can also create social value by improving the quality of life of people as they age.

China has the largest number of older people in the world with 216.8 million of its population aged 65 or above, and that number is set to increase to 400 million by 2050. As a result, China’s “silver economy” is projected to triple in value, from $750 billion in 2020 to $2.1 trillion by 2030, and could reach a value of $4.2 trillion, accounting for 10 percent of China’s GDP by 2035.

The recently published “Opinions on Developing the Silver Economy and Improving the Well-being of Older Person” is China’s first specific policy guideline for the development of China’s “silver economy”, and China’s experience over the next decade can offer important insights for emerging economies into how best to meet the needs of an aging population while also maximizing the economic development opportunities from such a dramatic shift.