【推荐2】When it comes to cooling the planet, forests have more than one trick upon their trees. A new study finds tropical (热带的) forests help cool the average global temperature by more than 1℃. “The effect is largely from forests’ ability to stockpile CO₂. But around one third of that tropical cooling effect comes from several other processes, such as the letting-out of water vapor (水蒸气),” researchers reported on March 24 in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

“We tend to focus on CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, but forests can not only keep CO₂,” said Deborah Lawrence, an environmental scientist at the University of Virginia. “It’s time to think about what else forests are doing for us besides keeping CO₂.”

“Researchers already know that forests influence their local climates through various chemical processes. Trees let out water vapor through their leaves and, like human sweating, this cools the trees and the things around them. But on a global scale, it isn’t clear how the other cooling works compared with the cooling provided by forests’ ability of keeping CO₂,” Lawrence said.

So she and her colleagues studied how over-cutting would affect global temperatures, using data gathered from other studies. For example, the researchers used data to decide how much the letting-out of CO2 stored by those forests would warm the global temperature. They then compared those results with other studies’ results of how much the loss of other aspects of forests.

The researchers found that in forests at latitudes (纬度) from around 50°S of the equator to 50°N, the primary way that forests influenced the global average temperature was through CO₂ store. But other cooling factors still played large roles.

【推荐3】A new study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health finds air pollution may negatively impact standardized test scores. Using data from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center, the researchers tracked 2.8 million public school students in North Carolina from 2001 to 2018 and measured their exposure to PM2.5 found in polluted air. While previous research has shown negative effects on academic performance, it has relied on relatively small or less representative samples. “The biggest strength of this study is that we tracked every student in North Carolina in those years, for the whole time period that they were in the public schools,” said Emma Zang, coauthor of the study.

The study also finds that test scores of ethnic minorities and girls are disproportionately (不成比例地) impacted by PM2.5 levels. “Females and ethnic minorities face sexism and racism,” said Zang. “There are a lot of policies that are not friendly towards them. So, when they’re exposed to the same level of air pollution, they don’t have the resources to lessen the negative influences.” More privileged populations, however, might have more resources that allow them to live in a better environment, such as in houses with air purifiers.

“The level of PM2.5 pollution in the US is relatively low, but students living in areas below the current air quality standard of annual PM2.5 concentration are still negatively impacted by air pollution when it comes to their test scores,” said Zang. “We should aim to strengthen the annual PM2.5 standard to better protect our children.”

Air pollution is known to contribute to disease and death, and it also negatively affects students’ academic performance even at low levels of pollution. The subsequent studies, the researchers said, would involve looking at whether the findings hold true in different areas, and also the reasons behind the ethnic and sexual differences.

【推荐2】17-year-old Mariella has dual (双) citizenship between the U.S. and the U.K.

At the start of COVID-19, she happened to be in New York, and couldn’t leave due to travel restrictions.Getting up at dawn to go to online school back in England meant she had abundant time for her own use in the afternoons, then she began learning American Sign Language (ASL).The teen thought seeing an ASL interpreter in action might help her learnfaster，but when she looked up movies and TV shows on streaming platforms, she discovered they didn’t use ASL interpreters.Mariella decided then and there to change that fact!

Seeking help from ASL teachers and the deaf community, she created Sign Up, an app that uses a simple Google Chrome extension.It adds an ASL interpreter to the corner of movies so people who are deaf can watch both at the same time.

The teen decided to focus her efforts first on the Disney + platform because that’s what she believes children watch the most. “My sister and I were its crazy movie watchers when we were younger, and I couldn’t imagine that not being a part of our childhood,” Mariella said.

With over 1,000 users in less than two weeks, the response has been nothing short of that. “I didn’t think it would take off so much,” Mariella said. “I thought maybe a couple dozen people would use it, but I’ve had 20, 000 hits on my website and just so many shares and likes. It’s just blown up in ways I didn’t think it would.”

To cover her development and hiring costs, she has started a GoFundMe campaign, which has raised nearly  $1 ,000 of its  $10,000 goal. Mariella plans to expand the app to include as many of the international sign languages as possible. “My hope is that we’ ll have a lot more movies interpreted-it’ll be on every platform,” she said.

【推荐3】Normally, I loved birthdays. When my son and three daughters were little, my husband, Charles, and I always made sure to have dinner, followed by a big cake and presents.

Later, when the kids grew up and lived in different states, they always called to wish me a happy birthday. But this year I could have skipped the whole day, knowing there was one call I wouldn’t be receiving, the one from my daughter Patty. She’d passed away unexpectedly just a month before. One thing which made me feel a little calm was a voice message that she’d left on my cell phone the night before she died, telling me she loved me.

Over the following days I played her message of wishes over and over again, listening to the last words she said. “I love you very, very much, Mom.” Then, a couple of weeks before my birthday, while I was doing laundry (洗衣服), I accidentally dropped my phone in the washing machine. Quickly I pulled it out and dried it off, but when I checked my voicemail, Patty’s message was gone. I cried, heartbroken. Day after day I kept checking my voicemail, hoping Patty’s message would reappear. It never did.

On the morning of my birthday, I received my son’s wishes. However, all I wanted for my birthday was to hear Patty’s voice again. “Happy birthday.” Charles said, “let’s go out for dinner and a movie. It might help take your mind off things.” Charles was right. I turned off my phone, settled into my seat in the movie theater and let the film take me away. But the minute it ended I started thinking about Patty again. As we were walking out of the theater, I turned on my phone. It rang, signaling I’d gotten a voice message. Probably just my youngest daughter, Leslie, calling to wish me a happy birthday, I thought.

I dialed up voicemail and the message began. It was Patty’s voice, clear as a bell, saying again, “I love you very, very much, Mom.”

【推荐3】Dad loved basketball and hoped that one day I would play the game. He taught me a lot, and I was pretty good until the accident. We were on the highway. Our little car spun off the road. Then everything was suddenly dark. The next thing I remembered was being told I wasn’t going to be walking again.

Mom and I learned to live with it Dad took it hard “Sometimes I think he blames himself,” Mom said.

One day Mr. Evans, an elder in our neighborhood, asked me if I wanted to join a wheelchair basketball team he was starting. When I told Mom, she was all for it, but Dad just looked at me and mumbled (嘟哝) something. I didn’t know what to make of Dad’s reaction, but I knew I wanted to play.

I began my first practice on a Friday afternoon. What surprised me most was that I found Dad sitting in the stands and watching us go through our drills. We finished our regular practice, and Mr. Evans motioned for my father to come down to the court.

“Jim, I happen to know that you played pro ball,” Mr. Evans said. “I think you can show the kids some fundamentals.” Dad agreed he would like to give it a try.

We practiced the whole summer. Dad came every day. “I thought you were terrible at first,” he said one afternoon. “But I think you can play with Madison (a very good teen wheelchair basketball team) now.”

Dad only comes to practice once in a while now, but he comes to the games when they’re on the weekend. I didn’t want to push him though I liked him coming to practice, but I know he believes I can do well without him now.