【推荐2】Wood stork, which was on the brink of extinction in 1984, has recovered enough in Florida and other Southern states. The American wildlife officials proposed removing the waterfowl (水禽) from the endangered species list.

This symbolic species, which is the only stork native to North America, has rebounded (反弹) because dedicated partners in the southeast have worked tirelessly to restore ecosystems that support it. In addition, the wood stork has increased its range in coastal areas. The birds have adapted to new nesting areas, tripling the number of colonies across their range from 29 to 99 in recent years.

Credit goes mainly to the wildlife protections provided by the Endangered Species Act(ESA), which can impose restrictions on a variety of activities in areas where such species are, located, such as development, mining and oil drilling. The act saved the wood stork and it helped; preserve and rebuild vital habitats throughout the southeast, which has improved water quality and benefited countless other species who call the area home. The Endangered Species Act has saved 99% of the species that have been on the list since 1973, with 100 types of plants and animals delisted because they have recovered or are at least stable.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that restoration of the wood stork’s habitat, especially in the Florida Everglades and adjacent Big Cypress National Preserve, led to a, sharp increase in breeding pairs. Those numbers had shrunk to just 5,000 pairs in 1984, whereas there are more than 10,000 pairs today.

“The proposed delisting of the wood stork is a significant milestone and a remarkable, achievement of the hard work by federal agencies, state and local governments, tribes, conservation organizations, and private citizens in protecting and restoring our most at-risk species,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said.

If the wood stork is delisted, officials said it would remain protected by other laws including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Clean Water Act. A monitoring plan, would be put in place for at least five years to ensure the stork population remains stable.

【推荐1】Summer is the season of mosquitoes. And mosquito bites are truly the worst-not only are they huge and painful, but they itch(发痒) like nothing else. And once you start scratching (挠), it’s hard to stop.

You can blame female mosquitoes for the trouble we all face. There is something that enters the skin while the mosquito is enjoying its blood meal. This is the protein that leads to the allergic reaction and itching. Basically, our immune systems see the protein as an enemy. This causes the local reaction we see as the bug bite. Our bodies are just particularly sensitive to mosquito bites. Other bug bites may not have the same effect on your immune system. Bees for example, are likely to produce more pain than an itch.

Scratching a mosquito bite is a double-edged sword. It feels so good, but it also makes the itch way worse. When you scratch, you may release more local histamine, the chemical in the skin that causes the itching, and you may also be spreading the allergen under the skin. If you tend to scratch until you bleed you’re putting yourself at risk for skin infections.

You’re not imagining it -mosquito bites do itch more at night. Most people itch more at night because we are less distracted as we try to fall asleep.

If you’ve ever wondered why some mosquito bites itch more than others, it totally depends on your body. Everyone responds differently to mosquito bites. While some people may have a minimal reaction, others may experience serious reaction. It just depends on your body’s immune system. People with so-called atopic traits, who are highly sensitive, are more likely to develop more serious local reactions after the mosquito bites.

【推荐2】All networks like 3G and 4G will be things of the past, because people already have access to 5G. So, what’s so special about a 5G future? First of all, its download speed can be as fast as 20GB/s, which is 100 to 200 times faster than that of 4G. But what’s more impressive is 5G’s low delay rate. Now, 4G takes an average of 200 milliseconds to send and receive information. But 5G will get it down to 1 millisecond.

5G is a great breakthrough (突破). It’s going to change the way equipment connects to the Internet, and more importantly, to each other. And self-driving cars may be one of the biggest breakthroughs to come out of 5G. Human reaction (反应) time is 200milliseconds, yet we still have accidents every day. The self-driving car under the 5G network could react and communicate its reaction to hundreds of cars around it, all within 1 millisecond. It’ll play a great role in preventing car accidents and completely ending traffic jams.

5G can benefit us in many other ways. Operations could be performed by robots controlled by experts from the other side of the world. Therefore, more lives will be saved in time. Factories can be staffed by robots that can communicate their tasks to each other, and they can do more work over the 5G network. As a result, more labour forces will be freed.

However, 5G is not perfect. 5G uses the millimeter waves, while 4G uses the 15- to 40-centimeter-long waves. And shorter waves go fast but not very far. On the4G network, the signal (信号) can go 10 kilometers. But the 5G signal can go at most 300 meters, and it can’t even go through walls or rain. So, what does that mean? Having such a short signal distance means we need to build a lot of signal towers in the future.

【推荐3】A good deal of fascinating research has been done about the reading patterns of young people, and it is surprising to discover at what an early age children start expressing preferences for particular kind of books. A recent report, which examined in detail the reading habits of primary-school children, showed that even seven-year-old boys and girls have clear views about what they want to read. Girls, in general, read more, and far more girls than boys preferred reading stories. Boys were showing a taste for the more instant appeal of picture stories, or else books about their hobbies．

These tastes continue unchanged until the children are teenagers. Apparently girls read more in general, but more fiction in particular. You could say that there are more opportunities for girls to read fiction: magazines encourage the fiction habit in girls in their early teens, and by their late teens they have probably moved on to the adult women’s magazines. Teenage boys tend to buy magazines about their hobbies：motorcycles, heavy transport and to on.

Adult reading tastes are also the subject of research. Again the number of women who read for pleasure is considerably higher than the number of men. It seems that the majority of women still want love stories. There has also been some analysis of what men actually read. Apparently only 38 percent of men read anything, but 50 percent of what they read is fiction in the form of action-packed (内容丰富有趣的) stories of space or gunmen

【推荐1】More Americans say they are on a special diet compared with Americans about 10 years ago. That information comes from a report released this week by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. The increased dieting comes at a time when obesity levels continue to rise. The CDC report found that 17 percent of Americans said they were on diets in 2017-2018 — up from 14 percent about 10 years earlier. Over the same period, obesity levels increased in the U. S. to 42 percent — up from 34 percent.

Dana Hunnes is a professor of public health and nutrition at the University of California, Los Angeles. Hunnes said that the number of Americans who said that they are on a diet is lower than expected. This is because diet-related diseases are very common in the country. The report noted that about half of American adults have diet-related health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease. Generally speaking, more women reported being on a diet than men. The heavier and more educated people were, the more likely they were to report being on a special diet, the study found.

Between 2007 and 2008, and 2017 and 2018, diets described as “weight loss or low calorie” grew in popularity. Low-carbohydrate diets became more popular, while low-fat and low-cholesterol diets became less popular. The findings were part of an continuous national survey. People who took part in the survey were asked the following question: “Are you currently on any kind of diet, either to lose weight or for some other health-related reason?”

Becky Ramsing is a dietician and program officer at Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Ramsing said that people make very different kinds of choices in hopes of losing weight. In some cases, she said people might not understand why the choices they make do not help them lose weight.

【推荐2】California’s Yosemite National Park is home to many stunning waterfalls. However, from mid-to-late February each year, the unlikely star of the preserve is Horsetail Fall-a small waterfall that forms over the eastern edge of the park’s famous vertical rock formation, El Capitan, every winter. That’s because, during the two-week-period, the temporary1,000-foot fall frequently transforms into a red “firefall” for about ten minutes a day during sunset.

For the phenomenon to occur, several conditions need to coincide. There must be enough snow and snow must be melted to form the waterfall. During drought years, Horsetail Fall is reduced to a trickle flowing slowly in drops or does not appear at all. Additionally, the skies have to be entirely clear. Even a slight mist is enough to ruin the illusion (错觉) of fire falling down the cliffs. Finally, the sun has to strike the water from the right angle to set the waterfall “burning” brightly.

The “firefall” has been popular with professional and amateur photographers since the 1940s.However, in recent years, thanks to social media, its fame has risen to new heights, with thousands of people flocking to the national park each February. In 2019, over 2,200 people crowded into the small viewing areas on February 22, the best day to see the light show last year. However, the visitors not only stepped on sensitive vegetation but also left behind large amounts of rubbish.

To prevent a repeat of the unfortunate incident, in 2020, the park service closed two of the ideal viewing areas. The only one open required a 1.5-mile-long hike. However, the 3-mile round-trip, as well as a warning by the officials that a dry spell turned the fall into a trickle, leaving the possibility of a “firefall” in doubt, didn’t not seem to have deterred fans. Hundreds of people made their way to Horsetail Fall to catch a glimpse of the light show. Hopefully, Horsetail Fall enthusiasts would be more respectful of the natural environment this time.

【推荐3】Researchers have long known that lack of sleep can cause weight gain and increase other health risks. But for those who force themselves out of bed every weekday after too few hours of sleep, they always hope that turning off the alarm on weekends will repay the weekly sleep debt and change any ill effects around completely.

New research published in Current Biology destroys those hopes. Despite complete freedom to sleep in during a weekend recovery period, participants in a sleep laboratory who were limited to five hours of sleep on weekdays gained nearly three pounds over two weeks. They also experienced metabolic disruption (新陈代谢紊乱). Weekend recovery sleep had some benefits after a single week of lack of sleep. However, those gains were wiped out when people went back into their old schedule the next Monday.

“These health effects are long-term,” said Kenneth Wright at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who oversaw the work. “It’s kind of like smoking once was. People would smoke and wouldn’t see an immediate effect on their health, but now they will say that smoking is not a healthy lifestyle choice. I think “catch-up” sleep is in the early phase of where smoking used to be.”

Michael Grandner, at the University of Arizona, said the study highlights that people need to stop thinking of sleep as a balance sheet (资产负债表). Considerably cutting calories all week and then bingeing on (无节制地吃) a giant pizza on Saturday would not restore balance. That is essentially what people are doing when they skip sleep on weekdays with the idea that they can make up for it on the weekend.

The study suggests people should put sleep first — cutting out the optional “sleep stealers” such as watching television shows or spending time on electronic devices. Even when people do not have a choice about losing sleep due to tight schedules, they should think about sleep first in the same way they would a healthy diet or exercise.