2 . Mictobes (微生物) help us do lots of things here on Earth. They can make bread rise and cure infections (感染), among many other things. Researchers have done lots of experiments with microbes in space and their latest findings show that these microbes could help us explore (探究) more of our universe.

Last summer, the European Space Agency did an experiment called BioRock on the International Space Station. In this experiment, three species of bacteria (细菌) were tested on their ability to pull rare (稀有的) earth elements (REEs) out of rocks in three types of gravity (重力) — normal Earth gravity, Mars gravity and microgravity.

This method of using microbes to pull out “biomining”. We’ve been doing it for some time here on Earth, mainly to pull out copper (铜) and gold. But would it work in space or on another planet?

The results were encouraging. Of the three species, one was able to pull 14 types of REEs out of rocks in all three types of graviy. The rocks used in the experiment were mede of basalt (玄武岩) — a type of rock that is commonly found on Earth, Mars and the moon.

While the findings might be interesting on their own, how can they help us explore space? For one thing, space exploration in the future will require us to find resources on the moon and Mars that we can use to continue our exploration efforts. Biomining can help us do this cheaply and easily.

3 . There’s nothing better than a walk in the countryside for lifting our spirits. Connecting with nature can help our mental health. For many people, it feels great to take a walk through a forest, but as we admire the trees around us, it’s worth knowing these trees are doing more than just being nice things to look at.

We have already noticed that trees play an important role in taking care of our world—they produce oxygen and clean the air we breathe by taking in about a quarter of all human-caused carbon dioxide emissions（二氧化碳排放）.

But there’s more to these trees than we might think. Researchers have discovered that they are actually very smart.

It’s thought that trees use a fungal network（真菌网络）to talk and share resources right under our feet. Under the ground are tree roots, bacteria（细菌）and super fine threads of fungi（菌丝）. And research has shown that they are all mixed together. They can help each other by sharing “food”, and they can even tell them some coming dangers. Scientists say it’s like the trees are talking to one another.

Ecologist（生态学家）Suzanne Simard has called this network the Wood Wide Web. She discovered that parent trees use this network to help their children. She also found that trees are smart enough to change their behaviour to live in a changing environment.

So it seems trees really are the stars of our natural world, and with around three trillion of them on our planet, it’s time to show them some respect if we want them to grow better.