【推荐1】This past Columbus Day, my husband and I went fishing with some friends on their boat while our 10 and 8-year-olds were in school. We left the house all at the same time, about 7 am. My children walked to and from school every day and we knew they were OK for a couple hours by themselves any-way so we told them to go inside after school and we would be home around 4 pm

The adults decided to go fishing offshore: we live on the Gulf Coast, since it was a beautiful day in the normally still very humid (湿热的) Texas fall. At around 2 pm we started back to shore and then we ran out of gas. Even worse, we were out of cellphone service, and 911 wasn't working, and we didn't have a radio so we were stuck waiting for someone to come by we were out there until10 pm All the while, my children were at home, expecting us to return shortly after they got home. At about 7 pm, when it was getting dark, my 10-year-old girl thought something might be wrong so she walked to each house on the street until someone answered the door and asked them what they should do. This was how we were found.

Talking with that neighbor the next day, I never took such pride in my children. This neighbor explained to me how calm both my children were when explaining the situation and how impressed they were with my children seeking help, even though they didn't know these particular neighbors. I never doubled them for a minute, though next time we go fishing, we'll monitor the gas more carefully.

【推荐3】Do you remember the last time you read a book, or a magazine? Is checking e-mails or updating microblog your daily reading habit? If you’re one of those who don’t make a habit of reading regularly, you might be really out.     1    

No matter how much pressure you have at work, in your personal relationships, or other issues in daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story.    2    

Everything you read fills your head with new information, and you never know when it might come into use.    3     Besides, you might lose everything else—your job, your money, even your health, but knowledge can never be taken from you.

    4     As a result, this will gradually enlarge your everyday vocabulary. Then you might become more knowledgeable and well-spoken, which can increase your self confidence and even help you get promotions more quickly.

Exposure to well-written work has a great effect on your own writing. In other words, writing styles of other authors will influence your own work.    5    

Now that reading has so many benefits, step away from your computer and go hunting for something new to read!

【推荐2】Get Involved! Make a Donation!

Imagine our natural homes growing instead of shrinking. Imagine species diversifying instead of declining. That's rewilding. Rewilding offers hope for wildlife, humans and the planet.

Why is rewilding important and necessary?

•Our natural ecology is broken. The places where you would expect wildlife to exist have been reduced to wet deserts. The seabed has been destroyed and there have been no living creatures any more.

•Our wildlife is disappearing. Many wonderful species have declined over the past century. We've lost more of our large animals than any European country.

•Nature looks after us. Good natural ecology can provide us with clean air and water, prevent flooding and store carbon. Rewilding can leave the world in a better state than it is today.

What are challenges?

Many people are not interested, because we have got used to the lack of native forests. Many farmers oppose the idea. They thought it a crazy idea to bring back predators（食肉动物）because they would start killing farm animals. It takes time to educate them. Above all, we need money! So we need your help!

Make a donation.

Help us bring back living systems and restore wild nature!

With your help we can:

•Open up new chances for rewilding and push for change.

•Develop tools to educate, influence and spread the word.

Thanks for your support

【推荐3】The world is drowning in plastic waste. The huge piles in landfill sites are growing fast. Therefore, it is most urgent to move away from the traditional linear economic model and change to a fully circular economy. To help this transformation, Igus, a Germany-based manufacturer of high-performance plastics, has been developing and investing in the work of recycling plastics for many years. The company is now showing the world a new product, the “igus: bike”, which is the world’s first urban bike produced almost entirely from recycled polymer (聚合物) .

Igus CEO Frank Blasé first got the idea while vacationing on a Florida beach. A conversation with employees at a rental company made him aware of the challenges of maintaining beach bicycles. The continuous exposure to sand, wind, and saltwater caused the bikes to rust (生锈) rapidly. Many had to be replaced in as little as three months. The igus: bike is zero maintenance and rust-free. It can be left outdoors in all weather and does not require lubricant oil to reduce friction between parts. Since it does not attract sand, dust, or dirt, the bike can be cleaned with a garden hose in seconds.

The igus: bike will also help relieve the world’s plastic pollution problems. The company says a single adult bike gives new life to about 35 pounds of single-use plastic that would otherwise block our landfills or waterways. For example, the first prototypes were made of material from old fishing nets. Currently, 90% of the igus: bike is made using plastic. Igus believes future versions will be made entirely from plastic.

The plastic bikes are expected to come to market in early 2023. An adult model, made entirely from recycled plastic, will cost about $1430. A slightly cheaper version made using new plastic is also in the works. Igus also plans on sharing its technology with other bicycle manufacturers. “We want to enable the bicycle industry to produce plastic bikes,” says Blasé.

【推荐3】Turtles have a problem. They are delicious, and so are their eggs. That has led to heavy hunting in the past. These days, though, the seven species of marine turtles are protected in most countries. If turtle soup is legally on the menu, its source will be a freshwater species. But that does not stop the eggs of marine turtles from being poached. Such poaching is often ignored by local police. But even if the authorities do wish to clamp down on it, arresting the small fry who dig the eggs up on beaches where turtles nest would not deal with the problem. That requires finding the trade’s organizers. And this can be hard.

To assist the process, Kim Williams-Guillén of Paso Pacifico, an American conservation charity, and Helen Pheasey of the University of Kent, in Britain, have come up with a practical device. It is a global-positioning-system transmitter placed in a plastic shell made by 3D printing. The result looks like a turtle’s egg and weighs about the same. Dug up and carried away by poachers, it can lead the police to those poachers’ bases of operation.

As they report this week in Current Biology, Dr. Williams-Guillén and Dr. Pheasey have now tested their invention in Costa Rica, a place where turtle-egg poaching is common. They set the printer to mimic the eggs of two species, the green and the olive ridley, which frequent that country’s coastlines, and placed a decoy egg into each of 101 turtle nests on four beaches where poaching is a problem. The decoys were controlled to remain inactive until their shells were exposed to the air. At that moment — presumed to signal the arrival of poachers — the “egg” in question starts broadcasting its location once an hour.

In all, 25 of the decoys were poached. They told different stories. Some travelled just a few kilometres, with one ending up at a bar 2km away from the nest it was taken from, where its signal abruptly ended. Others went quite a distance. One, for example, was carried 137km inland, to a supermarket loading bay, before transmitting its final signal from a residential property nearby.

Given the success of their project, Dr. Williams-Guillén and Dr. Pheasey propose that the idea should be used more widely for turtles. They also suggest that similar decoys might help protect the eggs of other endangered reptiles — and birds — that are collected and traded illegally.

【推荐1】In an armed conflict or disaster situation, culture is particularly at risk, owing to its great symbolic value. At the same time, culture is regarded as a driver of recovery, strengthening the flexibility of a civilized society. The United Nations works with the international organizations to protect culture and promote cultural diversity in emergency situations, carrying out activities in times of civil wars and in the wake of disasters caused by natural or human-made harm.

During recent conflicts, cultural relics have not only increasingly suffered from the damage caused by war, but have also become the target of systematic and deliberate attacks, due to its high significance in the nations to which it belongs. The destruction of the cultural relics in Palmyra(Syria) and the robbery of the National Museum of Iraq are tragic examples of an intention to destroy the very cultural identity and break the bonds that bring them together as a society.

Disasters caused by natural and human-made harm including earthquakes, fires, floods and typhoons, also have caused extensive damage to many cultural and natural relics, museums, cultural institutions. The earthquakes in Nepal and Ecuador, the floods in Myanmar, Hurricane Matthew in the Western Atlantic Ocean and the heavy rainfalls following El Niño in Peru have all resulted in a mass of damage.

Culture, however, is not only a victim of emergency situations. Immediately after a disaster or an armed conflict, all nations often find cultural relics can work well as material and psychological support. The ability to access one’s cultural attractions — like a religious building, a historic city, an historical relic or a landscape — or to keep a specific cultural practice, may provide a much-needed sense of identity and dignity. Moreover after an emergency, culture can be an engine both to rebuild economies and societies and to promote tolerance, compromise and understanding, easing tensions and preventing renewed conflicts. Music, dance, theatre and cinema, for example, have been used to build deeper understanding among people who flee for safety.

This is why protecting culture in emergency situations, and building on its power to promote peace-building, recovery, as well as its potential protection from disasters, is fundamental to achieving long term development and security.

【推荐2】Shay cannot learn as other children do. When a child like Shay comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes, in the way other people treat that child. Seeing some boys playing baseball, Shay wondered if he could join in. His father knew it difficult, but he also understood if Shay were allowed, it would give him a sense of belonging.

Thankfully, Shay was admitted by one boy, whose team was losing by one run (跑垒分), to play in the outfield. Though no hits came his way, Shay was stillecstaticjust to be in the game, grinning (咧着嘴笑) from ear to ear as his father waved to him. Eventually, the potential winning came while Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture (关头), let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew the hit was impossible. Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly. The pitcher (投手) moved in some steps to throw softly so Shay could hit it, but Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher took more steps forward to throw softly again. This time, Shay made it, hitting a slow ground ball back to the pitcher.

The pitcher picked up the ball and could have easily thrown it to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw it on a high are (弧) to right field, far beyond the reach of the first baseman. Everyone started yelling, “Shay, run to first!” Never in his life had Shay ever made it. He scampered (惊慌奔跑) down the baseline, wide-eyed and frightened. “Run to second!” Meanwhile, the first baseman had the ball, who could have thrown it to the second baseman, but he also intentionally threw the ball higher and farther over the third baseman’s head. “Run to third!” the boys from both teams were screaming, “Shay, run home!”

That day, Shay was cheered as the hero who hit the “grand slam” (全垒打) and won the game for his team. In the stand, a man’s face was flooded with tears.