【推荐1】U.K. astronomer Martin Rees says that in future, some people may decide to leave Earth in order to live on other worlds. Finally, he added, they might use high technologies to change themselves to adapt to their new environment.

“They will find themselves ill-adapted to conditions there, so they will redesign themselves using powerful genetic engineering (基因工程) technologies,” Rees says. “These techniques will, I hope, be kept under control on Earth; but those on other planets will be freer to try.”

“We should surely wish them luck in changing their children to adapt to outer planets. This may be the first step towards the development of a new species,” says Rees. He says that these “post-humans” could one day turn into “fully inorganic intelligences” which may not even need an atmosphere to live and may grow well in zero-gravity environments, which ordinary people are not adapted to. “So it is in deep space, not on Earth, that ‘brains’ may develop powers that humans can’t even imagine,” says Rees.

Rees also warns that human beings shouldn’t fall back on the idea that they can avoid disaster on Earth by heading deeper into space. “It’s dangerous to think that space offers an escape from Earth’s problems,” he says. “We must solve them here. Dealing with climate change is a doddle compared with changing other planets; there’s no environment in our solar system as mild as even the top of Qomolangma.”

This isn't the first time Rees has made interesting predictions. Last year, Rees predicted possible dangers of nuclear physics (核物理学) tests taking place on Earth. “Maybe a black hole could form, and then take in everything around it,” he said. However, some scientists were not worried about this prediction. Stefan, a physicist, said he wouldn't be “losing any sleep” over that prediction.

【推荐2】With the weather getting hot, bites caused by mosquitoes not only annoy people but can result in many infectious diseases. Even when people wear long clothes, mosquitoes’ complex biting mechanism enables them to bite some of them through.

It would be great if clothing could be used to completely prevent people from getting bitten. Researchers tested graphene (石墨烯), a material that is incredibly thin but really strong, in order to find out if it can make clothing resistant to mosquitoes.

In the lab experiment, volunteers were divided into three groups: volunteers wearing no protection, wearing cheese cloth (薄纱棉布), and wearing cheese cloth plus a thin grapheme layer under it. Each group exposed a small patch of skin on their arm or hand to roughly 100 mosquitoes for five minutes at a time.

A video camera was then used to record and quantify mosquitoes’ behavior, including whether they landed on the skin, how long they stayed there, and whether they began to suck blood. The number of bites each volunteer got was also calculated based on how many swellings developed on their skin afterward. Finally, researchers dropped a little water or sweat on top of the graphene layer and studied the consequence.

As a result, the number of mosquito bites on naked skin was the highest, about 16 on average; skin only protected by cheesecloth got the second, approximately 10 per five minutes’ exposure. The exciting finding was that there was no swelling developing on skin covered by the thin graphene layer under cheesecloth, which means the material is effective at preventing mosquito bites. The mosquitoes landed on skin totally uncovered or covered in cheesecloth about 23 times on average, and stayed for one to two minutes. Comparatively, the mosquitoes landed on skin covered in the graphene layer fewer than 10 times, and the length of their stay was much shorter. Besides, water or sweat can ruin the graphene layer, which allows mosquitoes to bite through it. But fortunately, the number of mosquito bites in either dry or wet conditions can be lowered as long as the graphene material is improved to a certain extent.

【推荐3】Did you know roughly one third of food for human consumption goes to waste? Most of it is fresh fruit and vegetables that go bad. The produce dries out or goes bad, which has led scientists to develop ways of coating or sealing the food to keep it fresher for longer. Now research at Rice University reveals there might be a better way.

Scientists discovered that dipping produce like strawberries and bananas into an egg-based wash is remarkably good for preserving it. The coating is extremely thick, and made from a mixture of powdered egg whites and yolks(70%), and some wood-sourced cellulose to act as a barrier preventing water loss.

What the scientists found was that the egg wash made a significant difference in helping produce stay fresh over a two-week observation period. The appearance of the coated fruits and vegetables didn’t change much, while the uncoated produce ripened and. even rotted within the same time frame. The egg-based coating, as it turned out, reduced each fruit’s chance to get exposed to oxygen.

The non-poisonous coating was found to be flexible and tests showed that it was just as tough as other products, including synthetic films, used in produce packaging. For anyone with an egg allergy, the coating can be removed by thorough washing in water and is tasteless.

The scientists hope this could be a breakthrough in the fight against food waste. "Reducing food shortages in ways that are not related to genetic modification, uneatable coatings or chemical additives is important for better sustainable living ,”said materials scientist and study author Pulickel Ajayan.

What’s great about this discovery is that it fights food waste in more than one way: even the coating was made from eggs that would otherwise have been discarded because they weren’t fit for consumption. The researchers said roughly 200 million of US produced eggs go to waste annually. So if this were scaled up, it could be a win-win situation all around.

【推荐1】To grow sugary dates in the sand, Siwa’s farmers must first make the desert suitable for farming. An oasis (绿洲) in Egypt, Siwa has been home to humans for thousands of years. Since ancient times, the oasis has hosted farms producing some of the most valuable dates in Egypt, and sugary dates have appeared on Egyptians, tables.

The desert environment in Siwa is not quite fit for plants to grow. For example, the water there contains much salt. However, with local people’s efforts, the Siwa oasis contains complex agricultural fields, where date trees, crops and other plants grow in harmony. That impressed me a lot during my visit to the oasis. To make a new piece of field, farmers first remove the top soil and replace it with a mixture of sand and waste matter from animals. The first plants are medicinal plants. Then, farmers plant date trees and olive trees. These farming skills are passed down from generation to generation.

To grow date trees is demanding. And it takes 10 years for a new date tree to mature, but once it does, the tree produces generous fruit: around 110 pounds of dates per year. Each farmer picks dates with the skilled hands. They climb the trees using nothing more than a belt. In total, Siwa grows more than 25,000 tons of dates from 280,000 trees per year.

The dates can be eaten fresh, or made dry. Every part of the date tree is significant in Siwa, from leaves made into beds and boxes to wood used to build houses. And then, of course, there’s the fruit itself. The dates can be cooked with goat meat or mixed with eggs for breakfast. They can also be mixed with flour, water, and olive oil, and boiled slowly to make a local dessert.

Local farmers once developed many unique date varieties, which their camels carried to Cairo. But later many of those varieties perished. And today only several major varieties remain and some have become quite rare and been at risk. The 1985 construction of a road in the oasis made the survival of local agricultural tradition even tougher.

【推荐3】The words “protect animals” appear everywhere in books and on screens, because some animals are even in danger of dying out. But sometimes the reality can be a little different from what people read or watch.

About 300 black bears were killed in Florida, the US, in October, 2015.It’s been the first bear hunt in the state since 1994.Local officers explained that the black bear population（a）had grown to 3,500 and become a menace to local people.In the past two years, bears have hurt at least four people in Florida.

Months ago ,the Swiss government allowed the locals to kill a wolf.This was because the wolf killed 38 sheep, and it was a great loss to some local farmers. Days ago in China, three old men were caught by the police for killing a serow（鬣羚）, a kind of protected animal.They said they killed the animal because it ate the plants they grew.

However, these stories don’t always mean that animal protection stops because of human interests especially when it is related to economic development.A man named Zhou Weisen set up a wild animal base in Guilin, Guangxi. He saved over 170 tigers and about 300 bears.His base also offered jobs to local people.

“There may never be a standard answer to the question of whether we should give more attention to the environment or human development,”said Robert May, a British expert at Oxford University. “But we shouldn’t put either one to one side, as the future is uncertain.”