【推荐1】One man’s trash is another man’s treasure is absolutely the case in Turkey where garbage collectors started collecting books that have been thrown away and ended up opening a library.

It started when garbage man Durson Ipek found a bag of abandoned books when he was working and then it snowballed from there. Ipek and other garbage men started gathering the books they found on the streets that were ready for landfills (垃圾填埋地) and as their collection started to grow, so did word of mouth. Soon, local residents started donating books directly. The library was initially available only to the garbage employees and their families to use but as the collection grew, so did public interest and the library was opened to the public in 2017.

“On the one hand, there were those who were leaving these books on the streets. On the other hand, others were looking for these books,” Ankaya mayor Alper Tasdelen told CNN. “We started to discuss the idea of creating a library from these books. When everyone supported it, this project happened.”

All the books that are found are sorted and checked for condition. If they pass, they go on the shelves. Today, the library has over 6,000 books that range from fiction to nonfiction and there’s a very popular children’s section that even has a collection of comic books. An entire section is devoted to scientific research and there are also books available in English and French. The collection has grown so large that the library loans books to schools and educational programs.

“Village school teachers from all over Turkey are requesting books,” Tasdelen told CNN. The government has to hire a full-time employee to manage the library.

This library is incredibly popular. It is frequently filled with the children of the city’s workers and students from nearby schools. There is a waiting room set up for readers and chess boards for the people who visit the library. You can even enjoy a cup of tea in the waiting room.

【推荐3】China announced the establishment of the first — ever five national parks during the COP15 biodiversity summit.

Sanjiangyuan National Park

Located on the Qinghai — Tibet Plateau, the Sanjiangyuan area is home to the headwaters of the Yangtze. Yellow and Lancang rivers, which help to raise billions of lives. The glaciers and snow mountains are beautiful and animals such as snow leopards and blue sheep are tough. In Sanjiangyuan National Park, ecological protection and development of animal — farming areas are carried out.

The Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park

The Siberian tiger and the Amur leopard are endangered speciesunder global protection. The Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park is important for the survival of these animals and restoring and keeping stable populations. Tigers and leopards can walk around freely in the mountains.

The Giant Panda National Park

The Giant Panda National Park on the borders of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces is home to 1,339 wild pandas, 70 percent of China's total. As an umbrella species, countless creatures which share the habitat with the pandas also gain a better living environment. Rare animals such as golden snub-nosed monkeys and takins also thrive in the area.

Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park

Hainan black — crested gibbons, listed as the world’s most endangered primate (灵长类的) species, are found only in the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park. To preserve the tropical rainforest ecosystem, the people in the core area moved out to leave an undisturbed environment for ecological restoration.

Wuyishan National Park

UNESCO described Wuyi Mountains as the most outstanding area for biodiversity conservation in southeast China. It is a lotus land of rare wildlife, with many species only found in China. For the past one hundred years, biologists from China and abroad have researched and discovered more than 1,000 new species in the mountains.

【推荐3】In the west of the Greek capital Athens, the fish market of Keratsini is busy early in the morning, with trucks waiting nearby to be loaded with fishes. But on his fishing boat, Arapakis sorts out something different—bottles, boots, plastic pipes and fishing nets, all dragged from the bed of the Aegean Sea.

“We are swimming in plastic,” said Arapakis, whose family has fished for five generations. “By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea,” he said, as recent reports noted.

That morning’s plastic catch weighed “about 100 kilograms,” said the founder of Enaleia, a nonprofit that encourages fishermen to collect marine (海洋的) waste caught in their nets. Since its establishment in 2018, it has worked with more than 1,200 fishermen in Greece to raise concern over the degradation of the marine environment.

Active in 42 ports throughout Greece, Enaleia provides fishermen with large bags for marine waste that they can put in garbage cans once back at port. For every kilogram of plastic they deliver, they receive a small amount of money, which is enough for a drink. Since October, fishing crews have dragged out 20 metric tons of plastic and old fishing equipment each month. Nearly 600 tons have been collected over the last five years. The collected plastic is transported to a recycling plant in the industrial area of Megara near Keratsini, to make new products such as socks, swimwear or furniture.

Arapakis said he went about the cleanup project after a trip to Greece’s Cyclades islands, where he saw fishermen throwing the waste gathered by their nets back into the sea.

Arapakis is convinced there has been a “mentality change” among Greece’s fishermen. “Previously we caught large quantities of plastic, but we only kept the fish. All waste was thrown into the sea,” said Mokharam, team leader on the Arapakis family’s boat. “The project brings practical benefits for fishing boats. In the past, the anchor was often caught by waste, especially nets, and the engine would go out. But now things have changed,” he added.

【推荐2】Some big scientific discoveries aren’t actually discovered but borrowed. That’s what happened when scientists discovered proteins from an unlikely lender: green algae(绿藻), whose cells are decorated with proteins that can sense light.

The light-sensing protein promised the power to control neurons(神经元)by providing a way to turn them on and off. Such ability, first noticed in 2002, quickly caught the attention of brain scientists: Nerve cells which were genetically engineered to produce such proteins become light-controlled. A flash of light could cause a quiet neuron to send signals or force an active neuron to fall silent. “This is the light sensor that we needed,” says Zhuo-Hua Pan, a scientist searching for a way to control vision cells in mice’s eyes. The method is now called optogenetics (光遗传学).

In Pan’s lab, light-responsive proteins restored vision in mice with damaged eyesight, a finding that has now led to a medical test on people. Optogenetics’ promise wasn’t clear in early days, as scientists were first learning how to use these proteins in neurons. “At that time, no one expected that this optogenetic work would have such a huge impact,” Pan says.

The algae’s light sensors have been adopted for use in countless brain research fields. Talia, another scientist, uses optogenetics to study connections between cells in the mouse brain. The method allows her to comb the relationships between cells that produce and respond to dopamine(多巴胺), which might help uncover details about motivation and learning.

So far, optogenetics research has taken place mostly in mice. But findings into more complex brains like human brain may soon be confirmed. “We are definitely on the tip of uncovering some fascinating principles of the human brain, such as how the brain transforms signals from the eyes into perceptions,” says Yasmine of Columbia University.

No matter what happens next in this swiftly moving field, one thing is certain: Brain scientists will be forever in the algae’s debt.

【推荐3】Basic First Aid Steps

First Aid for Cardiac Arrests (心搏停止)

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is the most important medical step of all. When a person's heart suddenly stops beating, do as follows:

● Ask someone to call an ambulance.

● Immediately start chest press regardless of your training. Press hard and fast in the center of the chest. Hand this task over to those who are trained if and when they arrive.

● If you are trained, use chest press and rescue breathing.

First Aid for Nosebleeds

Most of us have had a bloody nose at some time in our lives. The first aid for a nosebleed includes:

● Bend the body forward, not back.

● Hold the nose between the fingers just below the bridge.

● Check after five minutes to see if bleeding has stopped. If not, continue holding and check after another 10 minutes.

First Aid for Burns

The first step in treating a bum is to stop the burning process. Chemicals need to be cleaned off. Electricity needs to be turned off Heat needs to be cooled down with running water. For serious bums, you might need to see a doctor.

First Aid for Frostbite

Treating frostbite is a subtle step of gradual wanning. If possible, this should be done by professionals. You need to get out of the cold first. Small areas of minor frostbite may be rewarmed by skin-to-skin contact, but avoid using any heat sources or hot packs.