【推荐3】Like most of his classmates, Zhang Yixuan is facing academic pressure as he is preparing to attend the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, next year. However, compared with playing smartphones and games, Zhang Yixuan prefers spending his summer vacation walking in wild nature, meeting little creatures like crabs. His bedroom is packed with dozens of “living treasures” that he has collected from the outdoors, including insects, fish, and crabs.

It is the microscope that his father bought him that makes the bedroom look more like a mini-biology lab than anything else and it’s a place where Zhang can devote himself to identifying or observing crabs day and night. With the help of the microscope, Zhang buries. Himself in studying the natural world. Sometimes he spends hours simply examining the leg of a crab. It was his deep interest in nature that led Zhang into a new world of discovery.

Last year, a group of crabs caught Zhang’s attention since they looked unusual compared with the commonly seen ones in Rongxian county, where he lives. He decided to take seven of them home. After much observation and lots of researches by reading related articles and documents, Zhang speculated that it must be a new species. And it proved to be true by experts.

The hardworking and gifted teenager is very grateful to his parents for their understanding and support. His father Zhang Lefei, who was born in a rural area, loved catching fish and crabs himself at an early age. So he and his wife would take their son out into nature to explore as much as possible and would allow him to observe crabs quietly without any disturbs.

They say interest is the best teacher. And so are parents, it seems.

【推荐1】New technological tools are enabling a global community of biologists and amateur scientists to explore the natural world of sound in richer detail and at greater range than ever before. Just as microscopes helped humans observe things not visible to the naked eye, widely used microphones and machine learning models allow us to listen to sounds we cannot otherwise hear.

Billions of dollars are pouring into so-called generative artificial intelligence, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, with scores of new companies being launched to commercialize these foundation models. But in one sense, these models are mostly used to rearrange existing human knowledge in new combinations rather than to generate anything really new. What may have a bigger scientific impact is “additive AI”, using machine learning to explore specific, newly created data sets and extend the frontiers of human knowledge. When it comes to sonic (声音的) data, there is an incredible potential for cross-species communication through the use of machines that can translate and copy animal sounds exactly, effectively creating a “Google Translate for the zoo”.

This sonic revolution has been promoted by advances in both hardware and software. Cheap, durable, long-lasting microphones and sensors can be attached to trees in the Amazon, rocks in the Arctic or to dolphins’ backs, enabling real-time monitoring. That stream of sonic data is then processed by “additive AI”. However, this data only makes sense when combined with human observations about natural behaviors gained from painstaking fieldwork by biologists or crowdsourced analysis from amateurs.

Scientists have discovered fascinating information about the sonic universe, which has already led to practical and commercial outcomes. For example, cryptographers (密码专家) have been studying the buzzes, clicks, creaks and squeaks of whales to understand whether their “bionic Morse code” could be copied to encrypt (加密) communications. However, this is just the beginning of our exploration of sound, and there is no telling what other discoveries await us.

【推荐2】A large, self-sustaining, floating research lab, as big as an island, could be the next big project in ocean cleanup.

The 8th Continent, as it’s called, has won the Grand Prix Award for Architecture and Innovation of the Sea, and is designed to allow the operators to live, work, eat, sleep, and study full-time there. The 8th Continent is a water lily-like ocean station that’s tied to the bottom of the sea but designed to float in the ocean current.

The chief designer said, “It is shaped into a living organism that is fully self-sustainable and held to host some activities along with its chief mission of cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers a 900, 000-square-mile area, given a typical feature by high-density of plastic waste, and is being cleaned by large nets that use the ocean currents to help collect plastic waste.

“I look into marine species, animals and plants. And I study how they really interact with the water environment, how they can obtain energy and how they work with nutrition,” said Senior Designer Lenka Petrakova at Zaha Hadid Architects in London.

The three long legs of the station collect the passing plastic waste and tidal(潮汐的) energy to change them into electricity. Sitting on top are three research and education centers under three tall greenhouses including gardens and a water desalination(海水淡化) plant. There are the living and working areas, where collected waste is sorted and recycled, while the underwater draft spire(尖塔) will contain a viewing platform. At the moment, it’s a big dream, but the design is still charming and beautiful to see.

【推荐1】For humans, adapting to climate change is mostly a matter of technology. More air conditioning, better-designed houses may help ameliorate the condition in the warmer world. However, animals will have to rely on changing their behaviour or their bodies.

The most commonly observed response to climate change is a change in the timing of life cycle events like migration. A report says from 1971 to 2021, 9 out of 17 birds species have faced longer migrations, particularly Orphean Warbler (布鲁氏林莺) traveling through the Sahara Desert. Their annual voyages increase by as much as 400 kilometers.

A new study published by Sara Ryding, a professor at Deakin University, shows that climate change is already changing the bodies of many animal species, giving them bigger beaks (鸟喙), ears, arms and legs. Sara’s team further finds that warm-blooded animals in hot places tend to have larger parts of body than those in cold regions. This is because such adaptations can make an animal’s surface area larger, helping it to give off extra heat. For example, when compared with their Arctic relatives, Fennec foxes, which are native to the Sahara desert, have larger ears.

Worryingly, Dr. Sara pointed out the climate is changing at a pace that leaves most animal species unable to adapt quickly enough. That means climate change still may put most species at risk, threatening their survival and even affecting ecological system. It seems clear that the world of the future is going to be hotter than humans and animals are used to. It’s increasingly urgent to act now. Not only for us human beings, but for our neighbors —— animals!

【推荐3】For decades, climate scientists have named hurricanes and ranked them according to severity. “Naming and categorizing heat waves is also a must,” states a newly formed international union, called the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance. “Hurricanes get attention because they cause obvious physical damage,” says Jennifer Marlon, a climate scientist at Yale University. Heat waves, however, have less evident effects, since the primary damage is to human health.

Heat waves kill more people in the United States than any other weather-related disaster. Data from the National Weather Service show that from 1986 to 2019, there were 4,257 deaths as a result of heat. By comparison, there were fewer deaths by floods(2,907), tornadoes(2,203) or hurricanes(1,405) over the same period. What’s more, climate change is increasing the possibility of high temperature events worldwide, getting tens of thousands of people dying each year because of heat.

Some populations are particularly easily harmed by high heat, including people over 65 and those with potential medical conditions. Historical racial discrimination also places minority communities at higher risk. Due to housing policies, communities of color are more likely to live in urban areas, heat islands which lack the green spaces that help cool down neighborhoods.

Part of the naming and ranking process will include defining exactly what a heat wave is. No single definition currently exists. Without a universally accepted definition of a heat wave, “We don't have a common understanding of the danger we face,” says Aaron Bernstein, an expert of the new group. “Defined categories for heat waves could help local officials better prepare to address potential health problems in the face of rising temperatures. And naming and categorizing heat waves could increase public awareness of the health risks caused by these silent killers.”

The union is in ongoing conversations with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the World Meteorological Organization and other institutions to develop a standard naming and ranking practice.