【推荐1】Relatives of starfish, brittle stars (海蛇尾) spend most of their time hiding under rocks in the ocean or digging in the sand. These shy marine creatures have no brain to speak of—just nerve cords running down each of their five wiggly arms, which join to form a nerve ring near their mouth.

“There’s no processing center. Each of the nerve cords can act independently. Instead of a boss, it’s like a committee. That seems to be enough to learn by association,” said lead author Julia Notar. This type of leaning involves associating different stimuli via a process called classical conditioning (条件反射).

Classical conditioning has been demonstrated in a handful of previous studies in starfish. But brittle stars and similarly brainless starfish have not been tested.

To find out if brittle stars have the ability of learning, the researchers put 16 black brittle stars in individual water tanks and used a video camera to record their behavior. Half the brittle stars were trained by dimming the lights for 30 minutes whenever the animals were fed. Every time the lights went out, the researchers would put a bit of shrimp in the tanks, placed just out of reach. The other half got just as much shrimp and also experienced a 30-minute dark period, but never at the same time—the animals were fed under lit conditions.

Whether it was light or dark, the animals spent most of their time hiding behind the filters in their tanks, only coming out at mealtime. But only the trained brittle stars learned to associate darkness with food. They didn’t need to smell or taste the shrimp to react.

Notar said the results are exciting because classical conditioning hasn’t really been shown definitively in this group of animals before. “Knowing that brittle stars can learn means they’re not just robotic scavengers (清道夫) cleaning up the ocean floor,” Notar said. “They’re potentially able to expect and avoid predators (捕食者) or expect food because they’re learning about their environment.”

【推荐2】Growing up, Danielle Belleny was always outdoors, picking up insects and investigating the animal world on her own. She hadn’t yet heard of wildlife biology, but that’s what she was learning about. She wanted to be a vet, a person who can treat sick or injured animals, at first. She said, “I always knew I wanted to work with animals, and as a kid，that was the only job I knew where I could do that.” But when Belleny was in college, her dad advised her to learn wildlife biology instead of veterinary.

Later, Belleny started working on research projects. One project involved placing trackers on a bird called the northern bobwhite. For another, she spent time herding goats, as a way to protect a grass habitat for endangered box turtles (龟) without hurting them.

Belleny’s working at Plateau Land &. Wildlife Management. “In the mornings, I’m usually out the door before sunrise,” she says. She surveys birds, keeping track of different species. And she searches for signs of what other animals in the area are doing. Around lunchtime, she’ll return home and write up a report. In the afternoon, she leaves for another site visit. Landowners can request her services. She advises people on how to protect the wildlife that lives on their farm. Her work takes her all around Texas.

Outside of work, young Belleny has been bird-watching for seven years. Her first book This Is a Book for People Who Love Birds was published in May, 2022. Now she’s working on a children’s book about birding, which is scheduled to come out in fall 2023. Belleny has some advice for young people thinking about careers. “Try everything you’re interested in through books and libraries. If you’re into wildlife biology, go to a library and find some field guides. After learning much information, you can do research work more easily.

【推荐3】A six-month-old corgi being trained to become the first of his breed to work as a police dog in China, made his first public appearance recently at the open day of a police camp in Weifang, Shandong Province.

His appearance challenges the stereotype (固有模式) that “little short legs” cannot join the police force. Fu Zai,whose name means “Lucky Boy”, has made waves on social media with his iconic smile,short legs and wagging tail.

As a reserve police dog, Fu Zai faces a heavy workload. Training, scheduled for every morning and afternoon, involves a variety of subjects, such as obedience exercises, bomb searches and scent (气味) tracking. He began training when he was two months old and has stood out and outperformed many of his peers.

“His strong environmental adaptability, insensitivity, his desire to possess items and his fondness for food are particularly favorable in our training,” said Wang Yanan, head of the police dog base at the Weifang Public Security Bureau.

Following four months of training, Fu Zai can now take advantage of his short legs to go beneath cars and easily search tight spaces. He can also improve interactions between police dogs and the public because of his adorable appearance.

Fans on social media joked about Fu Zai. One of them wrote, “Corgis can be plainclothes police, for they attract less attention than German Shepherds.”

“Police dogs are not only cute, but trainers have made a lot of efforts to train them to be professional,” Wang said.

Fu Zai is still a fresh hand and must undergo a period of further training to adapt to complex environment before officially entering service.

【推荐1】Xinhua Bookstore

Xinhua Bookstore was at first set up as Xinhua Book Company in 1937 in Yan'an. In October of the same year, Xinhua Book Company changed its name to Xinhua Bookstore. The name “Xin-hua Shu-dian” was made in brush writing in 1948 by Chairman Mao Zedong.

Beijing Bookworm

Founded about 18 years ago, the Beijing Bookworm is listed in the Top 10 Bookstores around World chosen by Lonely Planet. The Bookworm Literary Festival held yearly also attracts many visitors. Unlike many other bookstores, it serves not only as a place where you can read and buy books, but also a restaurant and cafe. If you want to relax yourself from the busy life,the bookworm is a great choice!

Eslite Bookstore

Eslite Bookstore is one of the largest bookstore chains in Taiwan, China. Eslite was set up by Robert Wu Ching-yu(1950-2017)at the age of 39. The first shop lied in Dunhua South Road, with a focus on books about art. Since then, the company has set up more shops. Eslite Bookstore was the first to set up a 24-hour bookstore in Taiwan, China at its Dunhua store, where readers can enjoy books all day.

Wangfujing Foreign Bookstore

Wangfujing Foreign Bookstore has a history of nearly 50 years, and it is the preference of many foreigners in Beijing. This one has a great number of books written in English covering literature, history, politics, art and even cooking. Most of them are published by Chinese publishing houses, while there are also some original imported books from foreign countries. There are several branches in Beijing.

【推荐2】When you wake up, you find you are stuck in a time-loop (循环) on a bus. It will either knock into an oil truck, or be blown apart by bombs (炸弹) carried by a passenger. What will you do?

That’s a short part of a Chinese TV series Reset. College student Li Shiqing and game designer Xiao Heyun fall asleep on a bus and when they wake up, time’s ticking (滴答作响) on the last 20 minutes of their lives. They have to use everything they have to fight for their lives. The best ending is that everyone on the bus is saved. With each loop they discover more information about the other eight passengers. Soon they find one of the passengers is carrying homemade bombs and planning to set them off at a certain time and place.

Even though the TV series doesn’t have a perfect setting (背景), the sci-fi elements (元素) make it stand out. It shows the complete process of the leading actors finding out possible criminals. Starting to be aired on Tencent Video on January 11, the series has been watched more than 800 million times in China. It’s also been well-received on YouTube and been watched more than I million times up to now. Overseas fans have been asking for it to be aired on their major platforms such as Netlix.

The Chinese TV series most watched overseas are not the ones adapted from famous works such as Journey to the West. Instead, those adapted from love stories and online novels which are filled with light-hearted, exciting or funny elements are enjoyed better.