【推荐3】News that dolphins form friendships may not come as much of a surprise to anyone paying attention to the animal world.     1    . They form their friendships with those that have a common interest.

For the research, scientists study the lives of a population of bottlenose dolphins in the Western Australian World Heritage area of Shark Bay. These dolphins are unique in their use of marine sponges (海绵体) as tools to find food.     2    . The method is taught by their mothers and helps the “spongers”, as the ones who do it are called, find food in deeper water. Both male and female dolphins can be spongers, but the study focused just on males.

    3    . But for the study, they selected a group of 37 male dolphins, including 13 spongers and 24 non-spongers. They found that the spongers spent more time with other spongers and that the bonds were based on similar foraging (觅食) techniques and not relatedness or other factors.

    4    , so it was long thought to invest time informing close bonds with other males. This study suggests that male dolphins form social bonds based on shared interests. Interestingly, while male spongers spent more time looking for food than non-spongers, both groups spent an equal amount of time socializing.

“Male dolphins in Shark Bay exhibit fascinating strong social bonds.     5    . They are critical to each male’s mating success. We were very excited to discover alliances of spongers, dolphins forming close friendships with others with similar traits,” says Dr. Simon Allen, the leading author of the study at the University of Zurich.

【推荐2】Four Best Language Learning Apps Of 2024

Innovative 101

Platform: iOS | Android

Price: Starts at $7.99 per month per language

Plus Point: New video lessons are added every week.

The app offers hundreds of short video lessons (3 to 15 minutes long) to teach you languages in an easy and fun way. All of them are recorded by real teachers with years of experience. A total of 34 languages are available with in-depth lesson notes and line-by-line reading for premium (高级的) users.

Pimsleur

Platform: iOS | Android

Price: Free | Premium subscription starts at $19.99 per language

Plus Point: There are no ads so you can learn without interruptions.

Unlike other apps, Pimsleur fits into your downtime and works in offline mode. Its inbuilt hand-free mode makes it easy to learn a new language anytime and anywhere.

Drops

Platform: iOS | Android

Price: Free for 5 minutes daily | $17.99 gets you daily 10 minutes bonus | $47.99 for unlimited time

Plus Point: It uses word puzzles and memory associations to make learning easy.

Drops also features advanced statistics. After every session, you will see a detailed report of your progress. We would suggest starting with a free version to see if you like the basic format and then move to the premium version.

LingoDeer

Platform: iOS | Android

Price: Free | Monthly subscription cost $11.99

Plus Point: Comes with detailed grammar notes and study reminders.

LingoDeer gives you an option to build a routine and environment that works for you: customize anything you want, including a background color, type of words, or the speaker’s voice.

【推荐3】The old saying of “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” perfectly voices the promise to deliver you the real Italy, and there’s no better way to do this than with hands-on activities that bring you closer to local people.

Italian perfume (香水) has been famous since the 14th century. Venice was the world center of perfumery for several hundred years, which is why this city is the obvious location to learn the perfumery craft. At Palazzo Mocenigo, a former noble residence turned museum, you’ll spend two hours being guided through the complex world of perfume and its history as you make your own personalized perfume to take home.

Explore Palermo’s streets on this wonderful, guided walking tour. Wander through the city’s street markets and historic squares in a small group as your guide entertains you with historic tales. You will be taken into public buildings favoured by locals, including bakeries and old inns, and given the chance to sample classic Palermitan street food.

Experience an amazing sunset with an evening tour of Mount Etna, Europe’s highest active volcano (火山). You and your fellow companions will be driven through lush landscapes that make way for lunar-like lava. As the road gets rough, switch to off-road vehicles. Your final leg is an exciting 30-minute hike with your expert guide.

Experience a half-day bike tour through Itria Valley. An experienced team will help you select a suitable bike and then you’re off on this guided bike ride!This is a 24-mile round trip where you’ll be taken along small country roads dotted with rural houses and through various small towns and villages.

【推荐2】Madagascar, the world’s second-largest island country located off Africa’s eastern coast, is an island of diverse ecosystems and a biodiversity hotspot. The country has unique wildlife, with 90% of its plants and animals found nowhere else. Madagascar’s wildlife creates some of the country’s most beautiful scenery and popular spots. One of its conspicuous landscapes, attracting tourists from almost all corners of the Earth, is the Avenue of the Baobabs in the Menabe region. This avenue is made up of numerous baobab trees along the dirt road linking Belon’i Tsiribihina and Morondava, creating a unique and beautiful setting.

Baobab trees are common throughout Madagascar. Of the Earth’s eight species, six are native to the country. Some of the baobabs in the country are about 2, 800 years old, with trunks rising to 150 feet. The avenue is a row of about 25 baobabs stretching about 260 meters. Other baobab trees are also found in the nearby pastures (牧草地). This road is one of Madagascar’s most visited places. It is also the most accessible place to see some of Africa’s oldest baobabs. These trees were once part of a forest that was made up of other plants. However, massive deforestation cleared the area of most trees, leaving the baobabs to grow alone.

The baobab trees along the road and the other species growing in the nearby areas are always under constant threat from the increasing population. The trees also face threats from polluted water from the nearby fields, forest fires, and bushfires. Despite being a popular tourist attraction, the Avenue of the Baobabs has no admission fee or visitor center and generates little money for local communities.

Thankfully, non-governmental organizations in partnership with the government have noticed the area and developed activities to protect the avenue. The Ministry of Environment, Ecology, and Forests declared it a temporary protected area in July 2007. In July 2015, the site was declared a national monument (国家保护区), the first in Madagascar. The government and local communities hope the trees can survive for additional 800 years.

Kongeegen is a large oak tree located (位于) in the north of Denmark. Kongeegen’s real age is unknown. The tree went through a scientific study in 1965, through which Kongeegen was confirmed to be between 1,500 and 2,000 years of age. This would make it the oldest living oak in the northern part of Europe.

The Granit Oak measures 2.38 meters in diameter (直径) and 23.4 meters in height. The head of the tree measures about 1,017 square meters, which covers nearly 11,000 square feet. Back in 1967, the Bulgarian government announced this oak was a protected tree and it has been under protection ever since.

Not all of the tree’s branches are still alive, but it continues to be considered a living tree. This makes it the oldest living tree in all of Lithuania. Stelmuze Oak was made a natural monument (纪念碑) in 1960. Ever since then, it has been on the Lithuanian list of protected monuments, and it is well looked after.

Local legends (传说) say that this is the tree where Robin Hood’s shelter was located. According to the tales, Robin and his merry men slept in this very tree. Back in 2003 in Dorset, England, 260 acorn saplings (橡子树苗) from the Major Oak were used to start an oak plantation.