It’s the first time I write to you, my children. I once sent you many messages, but you never cared about them. So I decided to write you a letter.

First, let me tell you more about our family. Besides you, my dear humans, I also have many other children. Some of them fly in the sky, some of them swim in water and some of them run in forests. Some of them are small and some of them are large.

They might be very close to you, or even live in your house. But there are also others that maybe you will never meet.

You bring them home to be your pets, friends, and helpers. You put them in zoos. You kill them for their meat or parts of their bodies. And you even hunt (猎杀) them for fun. They bring you money and happiness. But they also bring you disease and death (死亡).

I hope you can remember that wild animals are not your food or clothes. They are not killers, either. They are, in fact, your brothers and sisters. ________

Humans, you are smart and hardworking. You can decide where you go, as well as I go.

But you don’t listen to me. Instead, you are polluting me—my air, my forests, my rivers. You ask for so much of me, more than what I can give you. I’m worried that one day you will have no place to live in.

So, humans, I hope you and all my other children can live happily in my arms.

Yours,

Mother Earth

【推荐1】Honeybees are great dancers, but they don’t just do it for fun. Scientists have long known that honeybees wiggle their bodies. It is their way of sharing information.

When a bee starts dancing, it steps forward. At the same time, it wiggles side to side. It keeps doing this while it moves around. Scientists call this the “waggle dance”. It helps other bees find food. The bee’s position tells them which way to fly. The more a bee wiggles, the farther away the food is. The longer it repeats these moves, the tastier the food is.

Now a new study shows that honeybees don’t have these dance skills at birth. Young bees learn them by watching the older bees. In March 2023, scientists from the University of California, San Diego, published (v.发表) these findings in a scientific magazine.

The study finds that bees can learn by imitating each other. This is called “social learning”. Many animals learn in this way, like monkeys and birds, but most of these animals have bigger brains (n.大脑). Bees have much smaller brains.

To know how bees learn the waggle dance, scientists recorded videos of honeybees in a lab. They compared two groups of young bees which were 10 days old. In the first group, young bees could watch older ones dance. In the second group, young bees could not watch older dancers. They found that the ones in Group 1 were better dancers while the ones in Group 2 were not good at the waggle dance.

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A slow train in Southwest China with its own study room has drawn much attention. The train No. 5609/5610 runs between Chongqing and Xiushan county.

It is a public-welfare (公益的) “slow train”. In some carriages (车厢), some desks and chairs next to the windows take the place of seats in order to turn the carriage into a “study carriage” for passengers in need.

The train No. 5609/5610 is not the only one of this kind. Other “slow trains” have become “study carriages”, too, including No. 5619/5620 and 5633/5634. They run along the Chengdu-Kunming Railway. Students from nearby schools often take the trains between school and home. The trains are their “school buses” and they often use their travel time to finish homework. Many passengers also use their travel time to complete work.

On the train No. Z150, running between Guiyang and Beijing, a “book bar” carriage has been popular with college students. There are nearly 400 universities and colleges in the cities along the line, making the train the top choice for most students from those schools. Since 2015, the train’s dining car has been open for free at night. It provides students with a lending library, free tea and other services. It’s a relaxing place for the students to continue their studies.