【推荐2】Cats and many other animals can reflect light from their eyes. That’s why their eyes will usually shine brightly in photos taken in a less bright room.

Some species can see better in low light because they either hunt for food or need to look out for enemies throughout the night, or at the early morning and late afternoon.

In fact, domesticated (家养的) cats can see in conditions that are only 16% as bright as what people require. Cats achieve this because their pupils (瞳孔) are special. Pupils operate like windows, with bigger ones letting more light into the eye. And a cat’s pupils can become up to 50% larger than human pupils in weak light.

They also have a higher number of a specific type of light-sensing cell in the back of their eyes than we do. These cells, called rods, catch low-level light.

What’s more, cats have something people don’t: a tapetum lucidum, or eyeshine, which is behind the retina (视网膜), receiving light, changing the light to an electrical signal and sending this signal to the brain to form the image. A cat’s tapetum lucidum reflect light back to the retina, which gives the retina a second chance to absorb more light.

Unfortunately, animals with a tapetum lucidum give up some visual quality for their ability to see in weak light. That’s because bright light reflecting off he tapetum lucidum can make what they see a little more unclear. So, a cat needs to be seven times closer to an object to see it as sharply as a person would in a brightly lit place.

But don’t worry, I’m sure your cat would rather see clearly at night than read a book.

【推荐3】Discover how you can help endangered species! Volunteer to help conserve endangered species around the world with GoEco.

Sea turtles, Sri Lanka

The species is threatened by human hunters. The Sri Lankan government has approved the creation of hatcheries (孵化场) in order to protect this species. Volunteers on this program spend 60% of their time working in the hatchery and the other 40% is spent on activities such as beach cleanups and creating awareness within the local community.

Program Fees: $1,280 for 2 weeks and $1,680 per month for volunteers.

Wildlife Rescue, Western Australia

Adult kangaroos and wallabies are hunted for food, leaving thousands of their babies without parents. Many are killed or injured in road accidents. At the wildlife rescue center in Perth, Western Australia, volunteers live and help in the bushland caring for sick, injured, and displaced animals.

Program Fee: $2,095 for four weeks. Volunteers stay on-site in a small room. Due to very limited space, applications must be sent at least 9-12 months in advance.

Endangered Species Reserve, South Africa

The project will give you an incredible wildlife experience while learning about conservation efforts. For the rest of the time between monitoring sessions, volunteers are required to enter all the data that they have collected into our databases. At times, volunteers need to operate on night shifts. We also give lectures and presentations over the lunch period.

Program Fee: $1,750 for 2 weeks

Big Cat Refuge, South Africa

As a volunteer on this project, you will be involved in a wide variety of activities. Volunteer’s work ranges from enrichment activities, such as toy-making and farm work, to educating the visitors. Volunteers will also directly care for the cats by preparing food or feeding them as well as maintaining their living space.

Program Fee: $1,450 for 2 weeks

【推荐1】Each year, as many as one billion birds are killed in the US from collisions (相撞) with glass windows and buildings every year. Birds that crashed into Philadelphia buildings began to be collected in the 1890s. Nearly 100 species of birds are known to have died out from crashes with buildings and other structures in Philadelphia. Many other species are probably affected in the city.

Called Lights Out Philly, the voluntary program in Philadelphia encourages buildings to turn out or dim unnecessary external and internal lights between midnight and six o’clock early in the morning to protect birds as they pass through during migration seasons.

Bird migration seasons are from April l to May 31 in spring and from August 15 to November 15 in fall. Each year, millions of birds pass through Philadelphia along a migration route known as the Atlantic Flyway. Bird-glass crashes are very common for migrating birds, most of which travel at night. Glass is difficult for them to recognize as hard surfaces, and artificial light can fool them into crashing with buildings and outdoor structures. Turning off lights between midnight and sunrise helps minimize the effect of artificial light when most birds are migrating.

On Oct. 2, 2020, a stormy and foggy day, Philadelphia had its largest mass collision event in more than 70 years with an estimated 1,000 birds crashing with buildings in one 3.5-square block area in just one day. Paired with a terrible storm of weather and fog conditions, the bright city and building lights attracted and confused the migrating birds, causing them to crash with buildings and outdoor structures.

Even if you don’t play a part in managing the lights of a big building, you can help birds avoid crashes by making the glass opaque to reduce the amount and intensity of artificial light at night, changing the color of lighting to blue or green, shortening the duration lights are on, directing the lighting downward or screening lighting.

【推荐2】Barber poles are one of those symbols that everyone recognizes. The red and white stripes (条) around a pole outside a shop let everyone know that this is a good place to get a haircut.

While most everyone recognizes this symbol immediately, you might not know what it actually means. As it turns out, the meanings behind the barber pole and its colors have a rather gruesome history that may just surprise you.

Back in the Middle Ages, barbers did more than haircuts and shaves. Barbers also offered certain medical services, like bloodletting. Bloodletting was used to treat many diseases from the simple, like throat pain, to more dangerous illnesses like infectious disease.

Surgeons often wouldn’t do “simple” tasks like bloodletting as they considered it too ordinary. So barbers took over the task, along with other procedures like tooth extraction, and treatment for wounds and broken bones. In fact, barbers became known as “barber-surgeons” because of the broad range of services they offered. This continued until the mid to late 18th century, when treatments like bloodletting began to fall out of fashion.

At first, barber-surgeons advertised their services to a largely illiterate (文盲的) public by placing a bowl of blood in their windows. However, later a law banned this practice, which meant that barbers needed to find another way. Then the red-and-white striped pole rapidly became the symbol of barber-surgeons afterward.

According to historians, the red was meant to represent blood, while the white symbolized the bandages. The colors are wrapped around a stick because this represents the sticks that patients would hold in order to make the veins (血管) of their arms stand out. When the procedure was finished, barber-surgeons would wash the bandages, wrap them around the sticks, and place them outside to dry. In Europe, barber poles are red and white, so the blue stripe is a United States addition to represent the color of veins.

So next time you’re heading to the barber, remember the history behind the colors of the pole.

【推荐1】As the extreme heat waves now affecting parts of Europe, Asia and the US make clear, homes in any area of the would badly need to be changed to help deal with a hotter climate.

The quickest, simplest solution is to equip (安装) air conditioning. But this would lead to a huge increase in electricity demand, researchers warn, driving further climate change. “If our homes are overheated and the first solution that we run to is air conditioners, that is going to dry up our energy systems,” said Miranda, a researcher from Oxford University.

A greener solution would be to develop “passive cooling” technologies, which don’t require large energy inputs. Bertie Ozarisoy from Middle East Technical University found a special home built in 2015, Userhuus, had a “severe overheating risk” during the summer. Using computer models of the house, he found that adding a wind catcher was the most effective for reducing indoor temperatures. Wind catchers get the cooler wind from high above the ground and direct it into the building, pushing out the warmer air inside the house. However, although wind catchers could be easy to fit to new homes, equipping them is likely to be expensive.

Further research showed that opening windows at night and pulling down shades during the day can lower indoor air temperatures by 14C during a heatwave. “Most heat in a home comes from two sources; first, people and equipment they use, and second, solar heat gain through windows.” Says Bertie. “Hot outside air is actually a very small source.”

“The important thing is to open up the entire house at night, to open the windows as soon as outdoor air is cooler than indoor air, and to leave them open all night until the next morning. Close them only when the outdoor air temperature rises.” he added. Blocking sunlight from entering the home is therefore an effective way to keep temperatures under control.

【推荐2】As activists and leaders first gathered in Dubai for COP28, the UN’s climate summit (峰值), a week ago, the chances of significant progress seemed small. The choice of the summit’s host country — the United Arab Emirates (阿拉伯联合酋长国), one of the world’s leading petrol (汽油) states with its chairman the head of its national oil company, threatened to turn the event into a funny show.

Instead, COP28 proved productive. For the first time the world has agreed to move away from the coal, oil and natural gas that are the major causes of global warming. The 198 parties to the UN Framework Convention (框架协定) on Climate Change agreed on a text that called for a change away from fossil fuels (化石燃料) “in a just and orderly way”.

An agreement between America and China ahead of the summit helped lay the basis. It meant that the two largest polluters and powers together tried to turn language on fossil fuels into the deal, which helped influence certain petrol states to move towards agreement.

Yet a global agreement is only one small step. A far bigger and harder one will be to translate words on a page into action in the real world. Reducing dependence on fossil fuels will depend on making them uncompetitive. Rich countries can achieve the purpose with a combination of carbon prices and subsidies for clean technologies. That is, the government can charge the companies using fossil fuels and reward those using clean technologies.

Poorer countries will need help. Developing countries with fossil-fuel reserves argued that it was unfair to expect them to give up one of their few income streams without being given aid to do so. The aid is expected to be around $25bn — 50bn a year in funds over the rest of this decade. Meanwhile, rich countries will try to limit their responsibility to the developing world.

In a sense, bridging the gap will determine whether the beginning of the end for the fossil-fuel age has come.

【推荐3】We already know climate change will impact wildlife in a number of ways, from changing the distribution (分布) of some species to transforming the color of others. But it might be surprising to learn about changes in something as basic as the body size.

In ecology, Bergmann’s rule suggests that individuals of a population of warm-blooded animals like birds will be larger in cooler climates and smaller in warmer ones. Obviously, larger individuals have an easier time keeping heat when it’s cold, and smaller animals have an easier time cooling off when it’s hot.

However, in 2019, after examining more than 70,000 bird specimens in the Field Museum collection, scientists found that individuals from 52 bird species shrank (变小) by an average of 2.6 percent between 1978 and 2016. And a growing body of research suggests that global warming is affecting the body sizes of all creatures. Wild animals are facing lots of threats. If they shrink, that could push some species even closer to extinction. And it could also cause problems for ecosystems that humans rely on.

“What’s interesting is that fish and other so-called ectotherms (冷血动物) don’t generate their own heat, so having a smaller body doesn’t help them stay cool. Instead, they might become smaller in response to warming for other reasons,” said Jennifer Sheridan, the lead author of the 2011 perspective. Warm temperatures, for example, hasten the development process of frogs, from eggs to tadpoles (蝌蚪) and so on, but their rate of growth doesn’t keep up. As a result, they’re smaller by the time they arrive at adulthood.

While there are plenty of examples that fit this trend, there are also many exceptions. A 2017 analysis found that “most species had similar sizes regardless of the temperature of their environment.” “There’s even evidence that certain animals are getting larger,” Sheridan said. It’s not totally clear how that happens, but one explanation is that warming holds back winter and lengthens the growing season, allowing animals that eat plants to gain weight.