【推荐2】It’s a warm June afternoon, and in a group of bushes and trees, a bird sings. A small insect climbs over a leaf. The Muziekplein forest, next to an 18-story building and a railway line, is about the size of a basketball court; before it was planted in 2018, the area was a parking place. The forest is one of seven such extremely small forests in the Dutch city of Utrecht, and 144 across the Netherlands. By the end of this year, according to IVN Nature Education, the organization proposing the country’s initiative, there will be 200.

Since the first forest was planted in the Netherlands in 2015, the concept has become popular. Daan Bleichrodt, who launched IVN’s Tiny Forest initiative with the goal of making it easier for children to get into and connect with nature, said that he thinks it is popular because people are becoming more aware of major environmental challenges. It’s a very practical way to do something positive in the light of climate change and loss of biodiversity.

Jeroen Schenkels, a senior adviser for the city of Utrecht on green planning, said he sees the mini-forests as nature-based approaches that are able to help the city weather heat waves and improve water retention (保持). But one of the biggest interests is social. “One of the most important things is that they give people the opportunity to be involved in nature in the neighbourhood,” Schenkels said.

Between 2018 and 2020, 40 different plant and animal groups and 121 total animal species were found in the Muziekplein forest alone. According to Wageningen University researchers, across the 11 tiny forests in their study, volunteers observed 636 animal species. They also identified 298 plant species in addition to the original species planted in the plots. Maintenance of the forests occasionally involves removing aggressive weeds, but in general new plant species, such as wildflowers that appear, are allowed to grow.

【推荐3】Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is road testing a new way to keep winter roads ice-free – by spreading on them cheese brine, the salty liquid used to make soft cheese, like mozzarella.

Wisconsin, also called "America's Dairyland," is famous for its cheese. The state produced 2.8 billion pounds of cheese last year! As a result, there was a lot of leftover cheese brine. Disposing of(处置)the brine can be expensive. So what should cheese makers do with the waste?

Normally, towns use rock salt to de-ice streets. The salt lowers waters' freezing point, causing ice to melt(融化). But using cheese brine could help both cheese producers and cities save money, while keeping roads safe. Cheese brine has salt in it, which, like the rock salt, helps lower water's freezing point.

In addition to saving money, cheese brine could also be a more environment-friendly option. Many people suspect that all the rock salt used every winter is harming the environment.

Rock salt is made of sodium chloride, the sane con-pound (化合物)in ordinary table salt. Sounds harmless, right? But while you probably add only a small amount of salt to your food, road crews spread about 20 million tons of salt on U.S. Roads every year!

The chemical washes off roads and goes into the ground. There it can pollute drinking water, harm plants. and eat away soil. By spreading cheese brine on streets before adding a layer of rock salt, Milwaukee may be able to cut its rock salt use by 30 percent.

Cheese brine has a downside too – a shell similar to that of bad milk. "I don't really mind it," Emil Norby told Modern Farmer magazine. He works for one of Wisconsin's county highway commissions and came up with the idea of using cheese brine. "Our roads smell like Wisconsin!" he said.

【推荐2】There are excellent reasons for anyone to seek out the optimistic. Optimists experience better health outcomes, live longer and are more satisfied with their relationships. Optimism enables people to hold on in the face of difficulty, while pessimism leaves them depressed and even expecting failure.

I want that hopeful, optimistic outlook for my children. But many times we may feel pessimistic. The result of negativity makes me worry that my kids’ future will be uncertain. Fortunately, research suggests ways to help our children grow up with an optimistic attitude and maintain a happier outlook ourselves.

Humanity has improved by many measures, but that success has become the water in which we swim, and like fish, we take the water for granted. While we fail to notice the positive, our brains naturally emphasize on the negative. With practice, we can help our brains to give the good stuff equal weight. Dr. Hanson’s advice: when you hear a great story or achieve something in your own life, deliberately rest your mind on that experience and stay with it. Sink into that feeling as it sinks into you. Describe what you’re doing to your kids, and encourage them to dwell on their joys and pleasures as well.

Following the "big scary" news can leave us feeling helpless. Find something in your area that makes you feel hopeful, and make it a part of your family life. Researchers found that when people with a pessimistic outlook use positive language to describe situations they find upsetting, their feelings about the situation become more positive. That’s something we can try at home.

Raising optimistic kids is hard because it demands that parents abandon the pessimistic perspective that’s the easiest response to pessimistic times. Put your energy into making sure you and your family are a part of the world around you. That might mean simply joining and being part of local clubs that feed our natural human need for connection( not of the digital kind).

【推荐3】When tragedy strikes, some people fall into deep depression (抑郁) sometimes losing hope and even the will to carry on. They may worry continuously about the disaster and suffer nightmares. Other people, however, react differently. Instead of becoming depressed and unable to cope, they are able to deal with painful experiences and move on.

Boris Cyrulnik is interested in this difference of reaction. To find out why some people are so deeply affected, while others are seemingly able to recover, he has devoted his career to the study of psychological resilience (复原力).

Cyrulnik found resilience is a quality that builds through a natural process. He says that alone, a child has no resilience. We build resilience from developing relationships.

Positive emotions and humour are key factors in resilience. Cyrulnik's research has shown that people who are better able to deal with life's difficulties or traumas (创伤)are able to find meaning in hardship, seeing it as a useful and inspiring experience, and even to find ways to   laugh. Resilient people always remain able to see how things may turn out for the better in the future, even if the present is painful.

It had previously been thought that people who show more resilience are less emotional in general, but Cyrulnik believed that the pain is no less for resilient people than it is for others; it is a matter of how they choose to use it. The pain may continue, even over a whole lifetime, but for these people it raises a challenge that they decide to meet. The challenge is to overcome what has happened, to find strength in the experience instead of letting it defeat them, and to use the strength to move forward. Given the right support, children are especially able to complete recovery from trauma. Cyrulnik has shown that the human brain is easily influenced and will recover if allowed. If a child is well supported and loved after the trauma, his brain is able to return to normal within a year.

Cyrulnik thinks it important not to label (贴标) children who have suffered a trauma, misleading them to a hopeless future. Trauma consists of two things: the injury and the repeated description of that injury. Often the most damaging post-traumatic experience for children is experiencing embarrassing adult descriptions of events. Labels, he says, can be more damaging than the experience.

【推荐1】Ireland's Achill Island has always been a popular European tourist destination. However, since April in 2017, the small island of just 2,700 residents(居民) has gained worldwide fame thanks to the magical return of a beach that was washed away over three decades ago.

The chain of events began in 1984 when residents of Dooagh, one of the settlements on the island, awoke to a surprising sight：their beautiful sandy beach had been washed away by strong Atlantic storms. There were only rocks and rock pools left. For about 34 years, only small amounts of sand returned to the once unspoiled shores. The area's tourism industry slowly declined, and the handful of beachside hotels, pubs, and restaurants gradually closed as well.

Then around Easter in 2017, something magical happened—an unusual ten­day tide blanketed the barren 300­meter long rock beach with hundreds of tons of soft golden sand. Scientists suspect that the sand had been gathering offshore for months and was transported to the beach by the high winds and powerful waves.

The locals are delighted to have their beach back, especially as it is attracting thousands of visitors wishing to witness the power of nature, with their own eyes. However, Sean Molloy, manager at Achill Tourism, cautions against going into the cold waters just yet, saying, “Because of the sand coming in, we don't know how safe the beach is now because currents (水流) could be changed and it'll take a little bit of time.” He instead recommends visitors enjoy the soft sand and leave the swimming to the dolphins that frequent the area.

Interestingly, this is not the first time Dooagh Beach has pulled a disappearing and reappearing act. It disappeared in the 1890s, for over 30 years, before returning in 1927．However, the locals are optimistic that this time around, the beautiful sand is here to stay.

【推荐2】Based on new analysis, we are rapidly approaching major climate change and the effects on society and the environment could be quite severe. Geographers predict that within the next eighty years, current world climate zones could shift and some could completely disappear. Polar regions will get colder while tropical regions will get even hotter, forcing animals to migrate (迁徙) north.

Climate changes like these could lead to the spread of diseases. Tropical storms and hurricanes will not only increase but may also become more intense. If the changes come too quickly, animal and plant species may not be able to adapt fast enough and could disappear.

According to Science Daily, a new study predicts that by the year 2100, many of today’s familiar climates will be replaced by climates unknown in today’s world. It is urgent that we reduce the risks of these far-reaching consequences for the whole world. The planet itself has been showing signs of change. In 2004, a serious tsunami created by a major earthquake killed thousands in Sumatra and in 2008, thousands died in China because of another severe earthquake. Egypt was hit in 2009 with a major earthquake and Haiti was devastated in 2010 by yet another massive earthquake.

Within just the last few months, new reports from around the world have been coming in and most agree that our climate situation is much worse than previously thought. At this point, it doesn’t matter what is causing it, but rather, what can be done about it. What’s more, our world is getting more and more unstable every year. There is war and threat of war everywhere. Natural disasters are becoming more frequent and serious.

However, other planets are experiencing global warming as well as our own and some scientists believe there may be some connection between this. No one knows anything for sure at this point because there is simply not enough data.

【推荐3】People were already known to consume microplastics via food and water as well as breathing them in. In a new study, scientists analyzed blood samples from 22 healthy donators and found microplastics in 17. Half the samples contained PET plastic, which is commonly used in drinks bottles, while a third contained polystyrene, which is used for packaging food and other products. A quarter of the blood samples containcd polyethylene, from which plastic carrier bags are made.

“Previous work had shown that microplastics were 10 times higher in the faeces (粪便) of babies compared with adults and that babies fed with plastic bottles are swallowing millions of microplastic particles (微粒) a day. We also know in general that babies are more sensitive to chemical and particle exposure,” said Prof Dick Vethaak, a scientist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.“That worries me a lot.”

The new research adapted existing techniques to detect and analyze particles as small as 0.0007mm. Some of the blood samples contained two or three types of plastic. The team used steel syrınge needles and glass tubes to avoid pollution and tested for background levels of microplastics using blank samples.

Vethaak acknowledged that the amount and type of plastic varied considerably between the blood samples.“But this is a pioneering study,”he said, with more work now necded. He said the differences might reflect short-term exposure before the blood samples were taken, such as drinking from a plastic-lined coffee cup or wearing a plastic face mask.

A recent study found that microplastics can attach to the outer membranes(膜) of red blood cells and may limit their ability to transport oxygen. The particles have also been found in the placentas of pregnant women.

“Arc the particles preserved in the body? Are they transported to certain organs? And are these levels sufficiently high to cause disease?” Vethaak said.“More detailed research on how microplastics affect the structures and processes of the human body, and whether and how they can transform cells and how they may cause cancer, is urgently needed. The problem is becoming more urgent each day,”Vethaak added.