【推荐1】Researchers recently offered the most complete examination yet of the history of penguins. They said penguins came from a common ancestor shared with a group of seabirds like albatrosses. Penguins first developed the ability to dive, and then lost the ability to fly as they adapted to water.

The earliest-known penguin is called Waimanu manneringi, from New Zealand. It is believed to have lived 61 million years ago. Penguins live mainly in the southern hemisphere. The Galapagos penguin is the only one found north of the equator. Daniel Ksepka of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, is the co-writer of the study that was published in Nature Communications. Ksepka noted that penguins are appealing animals. He added that they are interestingly charming creatures. Apart from their funny upright posture, they love, they fight, and they steal, making it really easy to imagine them having all the same motivations as people.

The study proposes that changes in world temperatures and in major ocean currents have been important drivers of penguin evolution. Theresa Cole is the study’s lead writer. Cole said the research found a number of genes likely involved in physical changes known as adaptations.

Such adaptations include gene transforms that shift the way penguins see the world. Penguins’ vision is more sensitive toward the blue end of the color spectrum(光谱). Blue light goes more deeply into the ocean than light at the red end of the spectrum. Genes that help birds detect salty and sour tastes are active in penguins. But genes that help detect bitter and sweet tastes become inactive. Those may no longer be needed as penguins find food in cold, salty water and usually swallow the whole fish. Penguins show changes in their wing ones and a reduction of their flight feathers. Penguins also have reduced air spaces in the bone and the ability to store more oxygen in their muscles for long dives.

【推荐2】Some humans consider mulberry trees( 桑 树 )little more than oversize weeds. the giraffe Stella loves them. Her long, gray tongue snakes around the leaves and gets them from their branches beautifully.

Stella’s mother, Abby, comes over for her share. The Philadelphia Zoo’s two female giraffes consume about a pound of leaves in mere minutes. Fortunately, the zoo has plenty, thanks in part to an unusual source: the local power company.

Utility( 公 共 事 业 )companies routinely cut back trees. They want to keep branches from damaging power lines and causing power failures. Usually the branches end up in landfills. But in recent years, a growing number of energy providers have begun donating them to zoos. Hungry zoo animals are happy to eat the green, leafy tree branches known as “browse”

Browse partnerships between zoos and power companies are one example of the creative and sometimes unexpected ways zoos work with local organizations to meet animals’ particular-and often huge-dietary needs. Store chains and restaurants sell or donate greens, fruits and vegetables to zoos. Local landowners also provide plant material. But utility companies are in a special position. They need to regularly cut back branches. And they have no use for these branches themselves.

PECO Energy Co. Is Pennsylvania’s largest electric and natural gas utility. From August through October, the company delivered three pickup trucks full of browse every week to the Philadelphia Zoo. The weekly browse delivery totaled between 100 and 200 pounds.

“Zoos require a lot of browse because it’s such an important part of many animals’ diets. Of the Philadelphia Zoo’s 330 species, 40 eat it. Browse has it all: fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals and a little fat. It’s also lower in sugar and higher in protein and fiber than some other plant material, ”said Toddes, the Zoo’s director. “Chewing on the bark is even good for animals’ teeth.”

What’s more, browse provides animals with important exercise, she said. In the wild, giraffes eat the tops of trees. So zoo staff hang browse up high to simulate(模拟)their native environment. This also gives visitors a better idea of the animals’ natural behavior.

【推荐1】The curb cut (路缘坡) is a convenience that most of us rarely, if ever, notice. Yet, without it, daily life might be a lot harder in more ways than one, such as carrying baggage, pushing a bicycle or a wheelchair or riding a skateboard etc. —all these tasks are easier because of the curb cut.

But it was created with a different purpose in mind. It’s hard to imagine today, but back in the 1970s, most sidewalks in the United States ended with a sharp drop-off. That was a big deal for people in wheelchairs because there were no ramps (斜坡) to help them move along city blocks without assistance. According to one disability rights leader, a six-inch curb “might as well have been Mount Everest”. So, activists from Berkeley, California, who also needed wheelchairs, organized a campaign to create tiny ramps at intersections to help disadvantaged people dependent on wheels move up and down curbs independently.

I think about the “curb cut effect” a lot when working on issues around health equity. The first time I even heard about the curb cut was in a 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review piece by Policy Link CEO Angela Blackwell. Blackwell rightly noted that many people see equity “as a zero-sum game.” Basically, there is a deeply rooted social belief among them that intentionally supporting one group hurts another. What the cur b cut effect reveals though, Blackwell said, is that “when society creates the circumstances that allow those who have been left behind to participate and contribute fully, almost everyone wins.”

One such example is closed captioning (字幕), originally intended to help deaf people understand movies and TV shows without needing to hear dialogue or sounds. But it’s easy to think of other applications for closed captioning: it’s convenient for customers watching TV in a noisy bar or gym. second-language learners who want to read as well as listen, or students who use it as a study aid.

So, next time you cross the street, or roll your suitcase through a crosswalk or ride your bike directly onto a sidewalk —think about how much the curb cut, that change in design that broke down walls of exclusion for one group of people at a disadvantage, has helped not just that group, but almost all of us.

【推荐1】China has announced it's abolishing its one-child policy. What difference has it made, statistically speaking? 400 million births prevented The one-child policy, officially in place since 1979, has prevented 400 million births. Parents have faced fines and other punishments for having more children.

The majority of the decrease in China's fertility(生育)rate happened in the 1970s. It dropped from 5.8 children per woman in 1970 to 2.7 in 1978. Despite the one-child policy the rate had only fallen to 1.7 by 2013.21:28 baby death rate Since the one-child policy was introduced, baby girls have become more likely to die than boys.

In the 1970s, according to the United Nations, 60 males per l,000 live births died under the age of one. For girls the figure was 53. In the 1980s, after the one-child policy became official, the rate for both was 36. By the 1990s, 26 males per l,000 live births died before the age of one-and 33 girls. The 2000s saw 21 boys per l,000 live births dying and 28 girls. 1.16 boys born for every girl

Sexually selective abortions have been considered as a major cause of China's unusual sexual imbalance. Gietel-Basten, associate professor in social policy at Oxford University, says the births of many girls are not registered if parents have broken the rule by having two children, adding officials often turn a blind eye. It's estimated there are now 33 million more men than women in China.

4：2：1 families

With the ageing of China's population and the continuation of the one-child policy, a “4: 2 : 1”home is the description given to households in which there are four grandparents cared for by two working age parents, who themselves have one child.

By 2050, it's predicted that a quarter of China's population will be 65 or older. The predicted decline in the number of people of working age is thought to have persuaded the government to drop the one-child policy.

【推荐2】If you think of the jobs robots could never do, you would probably put doctors and teachers at the top of the list. But, in some cases, they already perform better than doctors at diagnosing(诊断)illness. Also some patients might feel more comfortable sharing personal information with a machine than a person. Could there be a place for robots in education after all?

British education expert, Anthony Seldon thinks so. And he even has a date for the robot takeover of the classroom: 2027. He believes robots will do the main job of transferring(传递)information and teachers will be like assistants. Intelligent robots will read students’ faces ,movements and maybe even brain signals. Then they will transfer the information to each student. It’s not a popular opinion and it’s unlikely robots will ever have empathy(共情) and the ability to really connect with humans like another human can.

One thing is certain, though. A robot teacher is better than no teacher at all. In some parts of the world, there aren’t enough teachers and 9-16 percent of children under the age of 14 don’t go to school. Teachers all over the world are leaving because it is a difficult and lower-paid job and they feel overworked. That problem could be part solved by robots.

Perhaps the question is not “ Will robots replace teachers?” but“How can robots help teachers?” Teachers waste a lot of time doing non-teaching work, including more than 11 hours a week marking homework. If robots could cut the time teachers spend marking homework and writing reports, teachers would have more time and energy for the parts of the job humans do best.

【推荐3】A new study found evidence that dogs developed in physical ways to present “puppy dog eyes” as a way to help connect with humans.

The study compared the facial muscles of dogs and wolves, which share ancestral history. Dogs broke off from wolves after being domesticated about 33,000 years ago. During that time dogs changed physically and behaviorally to adapt to life with humans.

The researchers examined the heads of six dogs and two wolves for comparison. They found the facial structures of both animals were mostly very similar. But one major difference was found above the eyes. The dogs were found to have two well-formed muscles around the eye that were not present in the wolves. These small muscles permit dogs to raise their inner eyebrows, the study found.

Juliane Kaminski, a comparative psychologist from the research suggests this eyebrow-rising movement causes “a warm” feelings in humans because it makes the dogs’ eyes appear larger. This expression also makes the dog look more like a human baby. The eye movement is similar to that which humans make when they are sad.

“The evidence is very obvious that dogs developed a muscle to raise the inner eyebrows after they were domesticated from wolves,” Kaminski said.

In a separate part of the study, the researchers observed how 27 dogs and nine wolves interacted with a human. “We also studied dogs’ and wolves’ behavior. And when exposed to a human for two minutes, dogs raised their inner eyebrows more and higher than wolves,” Kaminski said.

The researchers suggest that the eye movements developed over time as a way for dogs to get humans to do things for them, such as giving them food, care or attention.The only dog species in the study that did not have the muscles was the Siberian husky, which is an ancient kind of dog. The husky could be the best living example of what the link between dogs, and wolves looked like.