【推荐1】The mass death of flying foxes in extreme heat in North Queensland last month underlines the importance of University of Queensland wildlife research released today.The UQ research sheds light on how various species have responded to major climate events.

A study led by UQ School of Earth and Environmental Science researcher Dr Sean Maxwell has spent more than 70 years quantifying the responses of various species.

“The growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as cyclones, droughts and floods is causing unpredictable and immediate changes to ecosystems and blocking existing management efforts,” Dr Maxwell said.“Some of the negative responses we found were quite concerning, including more than 100 cases of dramatic population declines and 31 cases of local population extinction following an extreme event.”

"Populations of critically endangered bird species in Hawaii, such as the palia, have been annihilated due to drought, leaving none of its kind, and populations of lizard species have been wiped out due to cyclones in the Bahamas."

Cyclones were the most common extreme event for birds, fish, plants and reptiles, while mammals and amphibians were most responsive to drought events, with drought leading to 12 cases of major population decline in mammals.Drought also led to 13 cases of breeding declines in bird populations and 12 cases of changes in the composition of invertebrate communities.

UQ Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science director Professor James Watson said the detailed information would help inform ecosystem management.

“The research clearly shows species will respond, often negatively, to extreme events,” Professor Watson said.“As climate change continues to ensure extreme climate and weather events are more and more common,we now need to act to ensure species have the best chance to survive.Wherever possible, high quality and intact habitat areas should be retained, as these are the places where species are most resilient(易恢复的) to increasing exposure to extreme events.”

【推荐3】Most of the sandstorms that had swept China last year originated from foreign land, a Chinese official in charge of desertification control said Monday. And the invasions (入侵) could partly explain the frequent sandstorms in the country in recent years despite its achievements in desertification control.

Since the start of last spring, the north and northwestern Chinese regions had been hit by 17 sandstorms, of which, a dozen came from foreign land.

Situated in the central-Asia sandstorm region, one of the world’s four largest sandstorm sources, China also suffers from sandstorms from outside the country while being blamed as a sand source to northeast Asia. The other three major sources are in Africa, North America and Australia.

The land suffering from desertification has been decreasing by 7,585 sq.km annually in China, and the area of sandy land has also been falling by 1,284 sq.km a year.

The shrinkage (收缩) forms a clear contrast to the fact that the land suffering from desertification and sandy feature was added by 10,400 sq.km and 3,436 sq.km late last century, respectively.

Currently, the desertification land in China makes up 2.64 million sq.km, accounting for 27.46 percent of the nation’s land, and its sandy land totals 1.74 million sq.km, accounting for 18.1 percent of the country’s total.

【推荐1】At any moment, about half the world’s population is wearing denim (牛仔布). But few realize tiny bits of denim have been adding up to a surprising amount of pollution in water, as a new study shows.

Sam Athey, one of the study’s authors, says, “Even though denim is made of a natural material—cotton—it contains chemicals.” Cotton fibers are treated with many types of chemicals, she notes. Some improve its durability (耐久性) and feel. Others give denim its distinctive blue color.

Athey and her team washed jeans and found that about 50,000 microfibers come off from each pair per wash. Not all of those fibers make their way into the environment. Wastewater treatment plants catch about 83 to 99 percent of them. Catching 99 percent may sound pretty good. But one percent of 50,000 is still 500 fibers per wash. And since every pair of jeans is washed again and again, it still adds up to lots of microfibers entering water environments.

Denim microfibers showed up in sediment (沉淀物) from the Great Lakes. More of these fibers polluted a series of shallow lakes in southern Ontario. They even turned up in sediment from the Arctic Ocean in northern Canada. The team found denim accounted for 12 to 23 percent of microfibers in the sediment. There were other microfibers too. But the team focused on denim because so many people wear jeans.

“Everyone wears jeans so they could be our largest input of microfibers into our streams and soils,” Athey says. “An easy way to limit that is by washing our jeans less often.” Athey grew up thinking she should wash her jeans after every couple of wearings, but most jean companies recommend washing them no more than once a month. “The solution is not that you shouldn’t wear jeans,” she says. “We need to buy fewer denim clothes and only wash them when they truly need it.”

【推荐3】Space is where our future is — trips to the Moon, Mars and beyond.    1     But, since our space journey started we have left so much trash (垃圾) there that scientists are now concerned that if we don’t clean it up, we may all be in great danger.

The first piece of space junk was created in 1964, when the American satellite Vanguard I stopped operating and lost its connection with the ground center.    2    

    3     The junk varies from tiny pieces of paint chipped off rockets to cameras, huge fuel tanks, and even odd items like the million-dollar tool kit that astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn Piper lost during a spacewalk.

    4     Moreover, pieces of junk may crash with each other and break into pieces which fall back to the Earth.    5     Ground stations have been built to monitor larger pieces of space trash to prevent them from crashing into working satellites or space shuttles. Future plans include a cooperative effort among many nations to stop littering in space and to clean up the trash already there.

【推荐1】How Your Money Helps

Membership activities made a contribution of over £3 million to the Museum last year. Your support plays a vital role, thank you.

In 2015 Members responded to an appeal to acquire the Stoney Waterloo Album. Through their extraordinary generosity, and that of the American Friends of the British Museum, the Museum secured this historic album in 200th anniversary year of the Battle of Waterloo. Visit info.museum.org.uk.

Designed by Sir Robert Smirke and completed in 1857, the Grade I listed Bloomsbury building requires frequent and painstaking work to maintain it. For much of the past year regular work has been undertaken to the main portico(门廊) as part of ongoing, vital repairs to the stonemasonry(石雕).

The British Museum is a museum of the citizen — its collection is for the whole of the UK. Last year 3 million visitors saw British Museum objects on display in museums and galleries across the UK. The Sikh fortress turban tour has been the most popular, reaching over 350,000 visitors and nine museums across the country. Visit citizen.britishmuseu,.org to learn more.

One of the most ambitious building developments in the British Museum’s history — the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre — was completed with the support of our Members. The building in the northwest corner of the Museum site houses new state-of-the-art conservation and science laboratories, new storage facilities, and the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery.

Visit buildings.british.org.uk.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), managed by the British Museum, recently announced the discovery of a significant Viking store of valuables in Oxfordshire. The PAS offers the only mechanism for recording such finds, which are made publicly available on its online database at finds.org.uk.

【推荐3】Futurologists are making a lot of predictions about our future life and they are predicting how we will travel, work and live in the future. By 2049, some futurologists foresee that some “talking” buildings will appear in our life.

By the middle of the century, it’s believed that buildings will be able to “talk” to people through various sensors when the heating needs to be turned on. As a result, there will be no switches. Instead, a lot of networks will appear, which can be compared to a human nervous system. In the future, buildings will be made from concrete plastics and shape-changing materials. All of them can heal themselves at that time. As architects are racing to develop the world’s tallest buildings, there will be a need for new kinds of elevators, through which vehicles could even travel into the buildings. German engineers have already started working on such technology called Multi.

By mid-century, scientists believe that buildings will be miles tall. Some of them may be very large and they can function as small cities. By comparison, at present, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, measures 829.8 metres high. As the future building can rise through the clouds, their windows will be replaced by virtual screens. In this way, people can choose any view as they like.

A London Spaceport is also likely to come into being by 2049 as the space industry develops very quickly. There is a huge cost advantage in going to space from a base as high as possible, so a spaceport is very likely to be over 10 km and even as much as 30 km, using carbon-based materials.