【推荐1】Scientists have been experimenting with playing sounds to plants since at least the 1960s, during which time they have been exposed to everything from Beethoven to Michael Jackson. Over the years, evidence that this sort of thing can have an effect has been growing. One paper, published in 2018, claimed that an Asian shrub known as the telegraph plant grew substantially larger leaves when exposed to 56 days of Buddhist music — but not if it was exposed to Western pop music or silence. Another, published last year, found that marigolds and sage plants exposed to the noise of traffic from a busy motorway suffered growth difficulty.

Plants have been evolving (进化) alongside the insects that eat them for hundreds of millions of years. With that in mind, Heidi Appel, a botanist now at the University of Houston, and Reginald Cocroft, a biologist at the University of Missouri, wondered if plants might be sensitive to the sounds made by the animals with which they most often interact. They recorded the vibrations made by certain species of caterpillars (毛毛虫) as they chewed on leaves. These vibrations are not powerful enough to produce sound waves in the air. But they are able to travel across leaves and branches, and even to neighbouring plants if their leaves touch.

They then exposed tobacco plant — the plant biologist’s version of the laboratory mouse — to the recorded vibrations while no caterpillars were actually present. Later, they put real caterpillars on the plants to see if exposure had led them to prepare for an insect attack. The results were striking. Leaves that had been exposed had significantly higher levels of defensive chemicals, making them much harder for the caterpillars to eat. Leaves that had not been exposed to vibrations showed no such response. Other sorts of vibration — caused by the wind, for instance, or other insects that do not eat leaves — had no effect.

“Now speakers with the right audio files are more often being used to warn crops to act when insects are detected but not yet widespread,” says Dr. Cocroft. “Unlike chemical pesticides, sound waves leave no dangerous chemicals.”

【推荐2】The rise of satellite-enabled GPS was revolutionary for navigation, and with the rise of mobile phones, anyone can have their personal navigation. GPS navigation apps enable egocentric (自我中心的) navigation with easy-to-follow turn-by-turn directions. With these conveniences at our fingertips, we are no longer active navigators, we are passive passengers aboard the GPS.

However, multiple experiments have shown that this easy egocentric navigation also reduces spatial awareness and mental mapping when compared to more traditional forms like paper maps.

Our question is: Can we find a way to still use GPS but reduce the harmful effects of current GPS navigation on memory? The challenge is to create alternative forms of GPS navigation that will remain easy enough for the general public, but also enable traditional navigation and thus be more likely to improve spatial awareness.

Our research finds that appropriately-designed audio beacons (声音指引) offer an alternative that develops a much more active form of egocentric navigation. Instead of guiding users to turn right and turn left on the way to their desired destination, we can change a location of interest to a distinctive auditory beacon via earbuds or headphones. Our auditory navigation application, known as Soundscape, has an effect that resembles a church bell, where loud ringing of the bell or calls to prayer can be heard at great distance; our would-be navigator can make way by heading toward the sound.

Auditory beacon navigation is an example of how we are entering into an era where negative effects of automation on our brain health will be at the forefront of technological development. Technology does not need to replace our evolutionary functions and distance us from our environments, but rather with appropriate design can add the sensory inputs processed by our brain. Perhaps instead of evolving into a new species of turn-by-turn zombies, we can thereby all engage more deeply with humanity, our local environment and life itself.

【推荐3】Adult musk ducks raised in captivity (圈养) can copy the sounds they heard as hatchlings, such as a door slamming, a man coughing and even what was probably a former caretaker’s catchphrase (口头禅), “ You bloody fool! ”

The large, grey Australian waterbirds usually learn to make high-pitched whistles from their older flock mates. But individuals raised in captivity away from other musk dusks have been heard copying the sounds around them associated with human life.

The findings provide evidence that musk dusks now join parrots, seals, bats, elephants and humans as vocal (声音的) language learners, which means they acquire “ words ” based on what they hear as infants, says Carel Ten Cate at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “ Vocal learning is a rare and special trait, so that makes this duck particularly special, ” he says. Ten Cate studies vocal learning in birds and was recently fascinated to come across a story about a talking duck in Australia. So he tracked down the now-retired Australian scientist Peter J. Fullagar, who first noticed the phenomenon more than 30 years ago.

Fullagar shared his conserved audio clips (片段) of 4-year-old Ripper, a male musk duck hand-raised on a nature reserve without other musk ducks. In the clips, Ripper walks around speaking when acting aggressively and copying a slamming door sound when trying to attract females.

Fullagar also shared an audio clip of a second male that was raised on the same reserve with his mother in 2000, along with Pacific black ducks that make sounds “ like common park ducks, ” Ten Cate says. Female musk ducks don’t perform vocal displays, and the young, unnamed duck grew up to copy the black ducks around him.

After Ten Cate ensured the recordings, he used software to confirm that the birds were repeating noises from their environment, in some cases sounds that they had only heard in the first weeks of life. In the recordings, the ducks made these sounds dozens of times in a matter of minutes, at about 4-second intervals (间隔).

【推荐2】No matter where you are on the planet, the effects of the climate crisis are vast and real.   We know individual actions can only get us so far, and solving the issue of climate change is the job of governments.     1     Here are some tips for what we individuals can do to help work toward a more sustainable future.

Switch to climate friendly home appliances

By using home appliances and vehicles that run on electricity, we can help reduce our carbon footprint and leave more fossil fuels in the ground. Here are a few appliances to consider, such as clothing dryers with the   “Energy Star”   label and water heaters that use heat pump technology.     2     So don’t feel like you have to change out your appliances overnight. Instead, buy them as your existing machines wear out.

Eat less meat

Meat production is hard on the environment: It requires a lot of land to raise cattle —and globally, many forests are being cleared to make room for those animals.     3     If people could cut back their beef consumption, it could have a major impact on creating a more sustainable food system.

Freeze produce you can’t use right away

About 8% of greenhouse gas emissions come from wasted food, and roughly half of all food waste occurs during   “the consumption stage”. One of the best tools to help reduce wasted food? The freezer. If you’re not ready to use fresh fruit and vegetables right away,   freeze them.     4    

Cut back on plastic

The plastics problem is overwhelming.     5     Are you using a bottle of body wash?   Replace it with a bar of soap. Bring your own bags for groceries instead of packing your goods in plastic bags, or your favorite reusable cup to your local coffee shop.