【推荐1】Native people in the Amazon may have been creating fertile soil for farming for thousands of years. And what they learned could offer lessons for people concerned about climate change today.

The Amazon River basin covers much of central South America, across which are archaeological sites where ancient people left their mark on the land. And patches(小块) of strangely fertile soil dot the landscape at many of these sites. It’s darker in color than surrounding soils and richer in carbon.

The industrial world has long viewed the Amazon as a vast wilderness — one that was mostly untouched before Europeans showed up. One reason for this idea was that the soil there is nutrient-poor. But a large number of ancient finds in recent decades has been turning that idea on its head. Plenty of evidence now shows that people were shaping the Amazon for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. Ancient city centers have been found in modern-day Bolivia, for instance.

To find out more, Perron, an Earth scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, became part of a team that reviewed interviews with Kuikuro people, who reported making dark Earth using ash, food scraps and controlled burns. They call the product eegepe.

The researchers also collected soil samples and found that there were “striking similarities” between dark Earth samples from ancient and modern sites. Both were far less acidic than the soils around them and also contained more plant-friendly nutrients.

The soil samples also revealed that on average, dark Earth holds twice as much carbon as the soil around it. Infrared(红外线的) scans in one Brazil region suggest the area holds many pockets of this dark Earth, which may store up to about 9 million tons of carbon that scientists have overlooked, Perron’s team says. That’s about as much carbon as a small, developed country emits per year.

‘Figuring out the true amount will require more data,’ says Antoinette Winkler Prins, a geographer working at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. Still, ‘the new research could offer insights into the Amazon’s past and future.’

【推荐2】The Great Migration

The Great Migration began when the North had a labor problem. The North had been relying on cheap labor from Europe — immigrants from Europe — to work the factories and the foundries and the steel mills.     1     As a result, the North decided to go and find the cheapest labor in the land, which meant many of African Americans in the South were not even being paid for their hard work. Many were sharecroppers (佃农) working for the right to live on the land that they were farming.

But it turned out that the South did not take kindly to this poaching (盗用，挖走) of its cheap labor.     2     They would arrest people from the railroad platforms and from their train seats. And when there were too many people to arrest, they would wave the train on through so that people who had been hoping and saving and praying for the chance to get to freedom had to figure out: How now will we get out?

Before the Great Migration began, 90 percent of all African Americans were living in the South, where they were nearly held captive. But by the time this Great Migration was over, nearly half were living all over the rest of the country.     3    

This Great Migration was the first time in American history that the lowest caste (种姓) people signaled that they had options for themselves and were willing to take them.     4     Think about those cotton fields, rice plantations, tobacco fields and sugar plantations, where there were opera singers, jazz musicians, playwrights, novelists, surgeons, attorneys, accountants, professors, journalists. And how do we know that? We know that because that is what they and their children and now their grandchildren and even great-grandchildren have often chosen to become once they had the chance to choose for themselves what they would do with their God-given talents.

【推荐2】There were many battles that took place during the American Revolutionary War (1775—1783), but perhaps so ne of the worst battles involved. the American Continental Army versus(对抗) the winter at Valley Forge in 1777 and 1778. Here many people believe was where the American Army was born. Valley Forge is located about 25 miles northwest of Philadelphia in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania.

General George Washington was the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and he decided to setup winter camp at Valley Forge. It was close to Philadelphia, which was where the British had been camping out for the winter. This allowed him to keep a watchful eye on their movements. There were high areas in Mount Joy and Mount Misery where the army could make fortifications(防御工事). Nearby was also the Schuylkill River, which was used as a barrier to the North.

The army's stay at Valley Forge turned into a time of training. Besides Washington, two other leaders included General Friedrich von Steuben and General Marquis de Lafayette.

Steuben was born in Prussia and arrived at Valley Forge with a recommendation letter from statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin. He trained the Continental Army using the daily drill(操练), even in the extremely cold weather. In fact, he was responsible for writing the army's Revolutionary War Drill Manual, which served as the standard United States drill manual(手册) until the War of 1812.

Lafayette was a French military leader, working for no pay, and asking for no special treatment. He later became an important commander in several key battles during the war.

Besides the freezing weather, it was consistently cold, wet, and snowy at Valley Forge. In addition, food was lacking, and there were very few warm clothes, shoes, or blankets. The log cabins they lived in were crowded, cold and damp, and allowed diseases to easily spread. Of the 10,000 men at Valley Forge, 2,500 died before the break of spring mostly from diseases.

Following the winter at Valley Forge, under Washington's leadership, a better-disciplined, trained, and more powerful army, in high spirits, left on June 19, 1778. Nine days later, their first victory against the British occurred at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey.

【推荐3】Kenya is home to Africa’s predators (捕食者), particularly lions, which frequently hunt farmers’ livestock (牲畜). To protect their animals, farmers often use poisons. While these have been successful in protecting farmers’ livestock, their use has resulted in a sharp decline in the lion population, which stands at just 2,500 now.

At the age of nine, Turere was asked to care for his father’s cattle beside Nairobi National Park, one of Kenya’s most famous wilderness areas, where people frequently experienced conflicts with lions. Turere couldn’t bear to see lions harmed by humans when lions hunted cows, because he loved these creatures deeply. Determined to find a solution benefiting both local farmers and wildlife, Turere started experimenting. But no way worked at first. The only thing that worked later was when he wandered around the livestock pen with a torch in hand. The sight of him walking around at night with a light made the animals runaway.

This inspired Turere to develop the Lion Lights system, a series of flashing LED lights strategically placed on the cattle fences to scare away predators. “The lights flash irregularly to trick lions into thinking that someone is walking around with a flashlight. Thanks to it, we went from losing three cows a week to none,” says Turere. This innovative solar-powered light system—which can also run on wind power—costs just $20.5 per unit, making it affordable and eco-friendly.

Turere’s invention is not only protecting the livelihoods of local communities, it, is also changing the viewpoints of local communities on wild life. “Since the introduction of the Lion Lights system, there have been no predator-related incidents. As a result, local people no longer view wildlife as the enemy,” he notes. “This is great news for these wonderful animals as it means that local communities are more open to wildlife conservation.”