【推荐1】When a group of college kids channeled their pandemic troubles into action, they never imagined the project would fuel a nationwide movement to tackle hunger and food waste.

But that’s exactly what Farmlink has done since 2020, bringing together hundreds of young volunteers to rescue nearly 77 million pounds of harvests headed for the trash and delivered them to those in need. The organization’s efforts help farmers, the environment, and people struggling to feed thef.

Launched during the height of the pandemic in spring, 2020, Farmlink was initially supposed to help struggling families and food banks. “In the United States, 40 million Americans are food insecure,” said Aidan Reilly, who co-founded Farmlink. “Meanwhile, we’re throwing out over 100 billion pounds of food every year.” Learning that local farms were forced to destroy excess produce that they couldn’t sell, especially with restaurants and schools closed, Aidan and a group of friends worked together to contact farms coast to coast.

In California, they found a farmer who had 13,000 eggs that could be donated, and Reilly offered to do the pickup and delivery himself. That was the first of many more deliveries. With “we’ll come to you” as their catchphrase, the group rented trucks and attempted to do all the food pickup and deliveries themselves.

The students ultimately got a welcome help from Uber Freight, and with the help of professional drivers, they moved more than one million pounds of produce from farms to food banks within just two months, transforming their passion project into a massive logistics (物流) operation in the process. Word spread, and more and more young people at home during the pandemic reached out to help.

Farmlink has worked with more than 100 farms and 300 communities in the US, rescuing and moving enough food to distribute more than 64 million meals.

【推荐2】Today’s amazing newspaper headline: First family of four to walk to the South Pole wearing Mickey Mouse ears and clown’s shoes.

No, not really. It isn’t true. I invented it. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see it one day soon. In the last decade, I’ve seen headlines saying: “The youngest Briton to climb Qomolangma,” “The first person to cross the Pacific Ocean on a windsurfing board” and “The first people to fly around the world in a hot-air balloon”, Why do they do it? And why should I be interested anyway?

Human beings have already climbed the highest mountains, sailed across the oceans and flown around the world. People have already reached the most remote parts of our planet. There just isn’t anything left to explore nowadays. So, those who feel the need for adventure can only do things that haven’t been done before.

What is so great about climbing Qomolangma these days anyway? People pay thousands of dollars to be taken up the mountain by the local Sherpas, who lead the way and carry the bags. At any one time there are about a thousand people either climbing up or on their way back down. As a result, Qomolangma is covered with rubbish and the Sherpas have to make special trips up the mountain to pick it up. The climbers are often inexperienced and when they get into trouble other people have to risk their lives to bring them down to safety. Helicopter crews have been killed trying to reach people stuck on the mountain.

A British man became the first person to walk alone from Canada to the geographic North Pole. The problem was that he went in the spring, when the ice begins to melt and break up. So he got stuck on an isolated piece of ice and a plane had to be sent in to rescue him. It’s very difficult to land a plane on breaking ice and the people who risked their lives to do it weren’t very happy.

What do you think? Are these explorers heroes or a danger to other people? Examples of courage and determination which should inspire the rest of us? Or a waste of time, energy and money?

【推荐1】A herd of wild Asian elephants in Southwest China's Yunnan Province has been away from its home for two months, with its current direction of travel showing the animals have no intention of returning. The elephants have attracted global attention after they advanced about 500 km to the north from their original habitat in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture(辖区) in the province to enter Kunming. It's the furthest that a herd of wild elephants from Xishuangbanna has ever travelled from its habitat.

As the herd has moved too far from its original habitat, and Yunnan has entered the rainy season making it difficult to cross rivers, it is extremely unlikely that the herd will return to its original habitat at any time soon, said Zhang Li, a field wildlife biologist and professor at Beijing Normal University. “The best solution is to find a new and more suitable habitat for the herd and guide them there, away from crowds, to reduce the possibility of human-elephant conflict,” Zhang said.

Previously, it was supposed that wild elephants were leaving their habitat because the local ecology had been damaged, but some experts pointed out that the migration of elephants northward instead proved that Yunnan's ecology has progressed in recent years.

“The range of Asian elephants in China had expanded from two prefectures and three counties in the 1990s to three prefectures and 12 counties by the end of 2020, which also indicates that the areas suitable for Asian elephants are increasing,” Chen Fei, director of Asian Elephant Research Center,State Forestry and Grassland Administration of China said.

Researchers have shown that wild animals undertake long-distance migration depending on the connectivity of the landscape and environmental conditions. The Asian elephants were able to reach Kunming unimpeded(无障碍的) because of the restored forests and farmland along the way, Chen added.

【推荐2】Adults living by themselves may have a higher risk of dying from cancer, compared with those who live with others, a new study suggests.

The research, published Thursday in the journal Cancer, found that among 114,772 working-age adults who lived alone, 2.5% of them died of cancer during the study period. Meanwhile, among 358,876 adults who lived with others, 1.6%, a much smaller share; died of cancer in the study: Adults aged 18 to 64 were enrolled in the study and researchers found the strongest association was in those aged 45 to 64.

The researchers from the American Cancer Society analyzed data on more than 470,000 adults from the National Health Interview. Survey, taking a close look at how many of the adults lived alone versus with others and how many died of cancer.

“Our findings may suggest that stronger social support existing in communities from racial minority groups and people of lower socioeconomic status might have alleviated (缓解) the association between living alone and cancer death in this group, but we need more research on reasons for these differences,” Islami said.

Compared with adults living with others, adults living alone were more likely to have poor self-reported health status, activity limitation, serious psychological distress, severe obesity, smoke cigarettes, or consume alcohol, according to the study.

“More research is needed to identify the exact underlying mechanisms to explain the association between living alone and cancer death”, Kathrin Milbury, associate professor of behavioral science at The University of Texas, who was not involved in the new study, said in an email.

“The biological mechanisms of social isolation are not fully understood; however, humans are social beings, and being isolated creates a state of biological stress that is harmful to our health,” Milbury said. “The other mechanism I believe is related to being in a relationship with others, beyond benefiting just from their presence, but also receiving their care and support.”