【推荐1】Many of us enjoy watching animals in the wild. They usually make us pleased, cheer us up and, sometimes, even make us frightened. But do you know what they can teach us? Wild geese (鹅), for example, teach a very good lesson about teamwork.

In fall, Canada wild geese fly south to get away from Canada’s cold winter weather. They lift off in no order. Yet very quickly they form a V-shape, with one bird leading the flock (鸟群). Scientists have discovered that wild geese flying in a V-shape can help them to save energy. In this way, they can fly 70 percent farther without rest than those flying alone.

What can human learn from this?

Be cooperative. We have found that wild geese make sound in flight to encourage those that have fallen behind to keep up with the speed. Team members should regularly communicate with each other while working towards a common goal.

Set a good example. When wild geese are on the ground, if something frightens the leader, it might fly off. So does the flock. But if the leader stays calm, the flock will do the same. Wild geese and people usually emulate their leaders. When leading, we must remember that our actions and feelings will be passed on to our followers.

Whether it is in our personal lives or our work, we need other people. We are encouraged by their enthusiasm and energy. If we face the difficulties alone, the risks are greater. Like wild geese, when we work together, our burdens are lighter.

【推荐2】Coral reefs (珊瑚礁) are remarkably noisy ecosystems in oceans. The special noises bring many fish settling there and drive enemies away. When there’s a heat wave, ocean temperatures rise and the coral will lose its color and turn white. Its residents then leave for healthier places. Without the creature activity, reefs fall silent, a sign of dying. A study proves playing sounds of healthy reefs works on rebuilding energy of a reef. Researchers found the newcomers drawn in by the underwater speakers stuck around.

The idea begins with Tim Gordon, a biologist, who studies the influence of sounds on various underwater animals at the scenic Great Barrier Reef in Australia. What Gordon and his research group heard on a normal reef struck them as a wonder. It’s therefore so upsetting for them that reefs became so quiet as they died. That got him thinking: could sounds help renew dying reefs? Vast sections of the Great Barrier Reef have turned white during the past five years. But how could a seawater temperature increase of as little 1℃cause such extensive influence?

Living reefs house thousands of tiny animals, known as coral polyps (珊瑚虫). They live amongst the bone remains of their ancestors. Those polyps have a close relationship with algae (海藻) called zooxanthellae, who live inside a coral polyp’s tissues. They give coral its bright appearance. The algae use sunlight to mark raw sugar. This feeds not only the algae, but also the coral polyps.

Corals and algae grow well in tropical waters. But when the water gets too hot, the tiny algae become damaged. That causes corals to throw them out. Without their colorful companions, the coral polyps become transparent (透明的). Then the bone-like framework the polyps live in shows through. The reef turns white. If the sea water stays too warm, the polyps don’t get enough food. Eventually they die. The noise-making creatures that have lived around them now must go in search of a new neighborhood. They leave behind a bare—and silent—reef.

【推荐1】The technology that connects us has revolutionized the world over the past decade, changing how people interact and in many ways changing our lives for the better. However, some say the most significant development in tech is its unexpected consequences.

Robert Scoble, the chief strategy officer at the spatial computing agency Infinite Retina, said that the “biggest change over the last decade is how technology has appeared in almost every part of our lives.” Everything from smartphones to TVs to daily items like barbecue grills has become available with the Internet connected. But with many of our devices “always on”, a certain mistrust of technology has appeared. The FBI just issued a warning about smart TVs, saying there is the potential that “TV producers and app developers may be listening in on and watching you” via an internet-connected TV.

Meanwhile, over the past decade, a new social rule has been formed that remains almost impossible to escape: If you participate in most of the online world, your activity and data will most likely be monitored and stored somewhere, by someone.

“It’s a fact of our digital life now, that everything we do online now is monitored and someone will find a way to make a profit on it,” said Santo Domingo, a reporter.

As more people become aware of not only the benefits but also the threats of new technologies, Scoble said he has noticed “there’s much resistance to new technology now”. One example is the resistance many are putting up to facial recognition technology.

Some big tech companies have started to make changes after being faced with criticism, although some critics say it’s still not enough, including lawmakers who blamed Mark Zuckerberg at a recent hearing for Facebook’s ad policy. The major tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter have also strengthened their security and content moderation teams in recent years and do more to cooperate with each other about threats than they did before.

【推荐2】A new paper claims that the birds can understand a certain kind of pattern, displaying an ability that scientists once thought was unique to humans.

Researchers tested whether crows can grasp the concept of recursion (递归), which they define as “the process of embedding (嵌入) structures within similar structures” in their paper published in Science Advances. Humans use recursion in language when we embed one clause within another to form a complex sentence. For example, if a human says, “The ball the bat hit flew,” they’ve nested the clause “the bat hit” inside of “the ball flew”.

Scientists have long wondered whether understanding these patterns is unique to humans. In the early2000s, linguists thought that human language was the only form of animal communication that uses recursion.

However, in a2020study, researchers proposed that rhesus macaque monkeys might be able to create recursive sequences (序列)as well. The monkeys performed at the level of 3-to 5-year-old human children given the same task, but they need more training to do so.

In the new study, the researchers performed a similar experiment or two crows. They trained the birds to peck at sets of brackets, such as{}and [], in a recursive pattern, for example, {[]}. During training, the crows received birdseed balls for successfully forming recursive sequences.

Then, when presented with pairs of brackets that they hadn’t seen before, such as([]). the crows correctly formed embedded structures around 40 percent of the time. They had similar success rate to children and performed better than the monkeys in the 2020 study. They didn’t need the extra training the monkeys received.

“It is a small sample size, which means you can’t make generalizations about populations of crows, but that wasn’t the point,” Stephen Ferrigno, a scientist who was not involved in the new paper, said, “All you need is a single example showing that crows can do this. ”

【推荐3】When migratory bird ecologist Brian Evans first started hearing about dead birds across Washington, D. C. in mid May, he "wrote it off." Bird deaths in the spring are common-only 30 percent of young songbirds typically survive to the next season. And with people stuck at home during the pandemic, "we're noticing these things." Evans says. "Everybody got into birds last year, and then this year they realize birds have awful lives!"

Then, while Evans was in his garden on May 28, his neighbor came over to tell him about a bird she had just found on the road. "It looked like it was blind," she said, "and it was shaking. When she walked up to it, it didn't budge." "That's when this little flash went off in my head saying, that's pretty unusual." Evans says. "That's not your typical dying young birds."

Later that day, a colleague started texting him photos of dead birds. Half an hour after that, another neighbor called him to look at a bird that had crusty (暴躁的) eyes and couldn't balance. "I grabbed it and took it to City Wildlife," he says. "I went in there, and they were like, oh, yeah, this is really serious."

"This event is remarkable," Evans says. "What makes it significant is the number of birds that have been ill or have died and the number of species that have been impacted." Cases have also appeared in a variety of birds. "One American crow was just standing in the street," near his house in May, Evans says. "It was very unusual. It died as I was preparing to take it to City Wildlife."

However, total and even statewide numbers remain tricky to determine, says Evans. "I'm still desperately trying to understand the distribution of the epidemic", he says.

On July 2, the US Geological Survey, which is working with wildlife agencies in the affected states, announced that "no definitive causes of illness or death have been determined at this time."