3 . Have you heard of a bike bus? It carries a group of children to school in the same way a school bus does, except everyone is on bikes. The “bus driver”—an adult on a bike—guides a slowly moving group along a route (路线) that has already been chosen. Kids and their parents join the group on their own bikes when the group rides by.

Bike buses are a way for everyone to bike together for fun, convenience and safety. On busy streets, a big group of five to ten kids is much more visible (明显的) than one or two kids biking alone.

Sam Balto is a PE teacher. He leads a bike bus to school. His bus is especially visible because it has hundreds of shouting kids and parents. It stretches out over several blocks (街区). Sam vlogs his bike bus trip. As the parent of two kids, I can’t watch his videos without crying. The bike bus calms my fear that the kids will get hurt on the road. Laughing kids! Outside, in person! Together! So when a friend asked if I would lead a bike bus in our neighborhood, of course I said yes.

Using active transportation to go to work and school—whether that’s a biking bus, or even a walking bus—has many advantages. Yes, people are healthier and happier when they’re more active, but reducing the number of cars around a school can also reduce heavy traffic and air pollution.

I was shocked by what starting or driving a bike bus meant to different people. For Luke Bornheimer, the leader of the San Francisco Bike Bus, it’s amazing to see children take care of themselves. “Kids are really smart and strong.” Bornheimer says. “They get how to ride responsibly (负责任地) and have fun. We’re just giving them that chance.” For me, the bike bus was the start of rejoining my community. My kids love the bike bus, but we parents might love it even more. We talk about everything, from the bike bus to other topics, such as planning neighborhood roller skating meetups and party nights.

I do accept that getting more kids to safely bike and walk in more places will take a lot more work than parents just trying to get their kids to school every day. But our efforts are a start. We live on a planet that has many environmental problems. Maybe the best way to remind ourselves that we and the Earth are worth (值得的) protecting is by moving through it, not in cars, but with fresh air on our faces and the sounds of kids’ laughter echoing in our ears.

4 . Air pollution is one of the world’s invisible killers. It causes seven million deaths a year, making it the largest single environmental health risk. In cities, air pollution is particularly serious. More than 80% of people live in the areas where pollution levels are beyond WHO limits.

One well-established way to reduce air pollution is to plant trees, as their leaves catch and absorb harmful particulates (微粒). But planting new trees is not always a good choice for lack of enough space. That’s why the “City Tree”, a mobile tree which removes pollutants from the air, has been becoming popular in cities around the world, including Oslo, Paris, Brussels and Hong Kong.

Each City Tree is just under 4 meters tall, nearly 3 meters wide and 2.19 meters deep, acting as a chair or a bench. A screen is included for information or advertising. Berlin-based Green City Organization explains that its invention has the environmental benefit of up to 275 actual trees.

But the City Tree isn’t, in fact, a tree at all—it’s a moss culture (青苔培植). “Moss cultures have a much larger leaf surface area than any other plant. That means we can catch more pollutants,” said Zhengliang Wu, co-founder of Green City Organization.

The huge surfaces of moss in each tree can remove dust, NO₂ and O₃ gases from the air. It requires very little care: solar panels provide electricity, while rainwater is collected into a container and then sent into the soil.

To monitor the health of the moss, the City Tree has sensors which measure soil humidity (湿度), temperature and water quality. “We also have pollution sensors inside the trees, which help monitor the local air quality and tell us how efficient the tree is,” Wu said. Its creators say that each City Tree is able to absorb around 250 grams of particulate matter a day and contributes to removing 480 tons of CO₂ a year.

5 . In a recent study in the U. S. and U. K., Van Tilburg and his team asked people through online surveys to describe the characteristics of a boring person according to someone they knew. Being dull and quiet, having no interests, no opinions and lacking（缺乏）a sense of humor are often mentioned.

The researchers then followed up with additional surveys. The results clearly suggest that being considered boring is a negative（负面的）personality characteristic, and is often tied to introversion（内向）.

So why are introverts sometimes seen as boring? Maybe because quiet people value their privacy and avoid sharing their everyday life. Their behavior is the opposite of the preference in a culture towards extroversion（外向）. This preference leads to a fixed idea that “quiet” means “boring”, and it reflects a push toward uncontrolled extroversion—just think about people crazily posting nearly everything on social media of their life and activities to attract attention.

Another research argued that it might be problematic to overvalue extroversion as more socially preferred than introversion. This wrong idea might start from teenage years when we think having the most friends and being the best-liked means being popular. This type of everyone-agreed popularity may make quiet people see their lack of extroversion as a deficit.

In fact, introverts tend to have the “quiet ego（自我）”, which allows them to have the ability to put themselves in other people’s shoes and understand situations from a bigger picture. According to researchers Bauer and Wayment, the quiet ego is a way of explaining the self that goes beyond being “self-centered” by considering both self and others. The quiet ego helps introverts to balance self-focused values, like power and achievement, and other-focused values, such as kindness and care for others. Balancing both values can lead to psychological well-being and life satisfaction.

Generalizing introverted people with negative characteristics is false and harmful because introversion can carry many positive influences. In fact, an introverted style can be a strength. This is because introverts are likely to be truer to themselves than extroverts. Moreover, accepting their introversion as a benefit would in turn improve their sense of happiness. There can be a joy to being “boring” that can go along with a quiet, introverted personality.

9 . A recent study in Japan has shown that a wearable soft robot named Reliebo, can improve the experience of patients in medical treatments, such as injections (注射) and other unhappy cure. The purpose of the robot is to help ease pain and against anxiety.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Tsukuba, was inspired in part by the many needles people had to suffer while being vaccinated(接种疫苗)against COVID-19. Some people felt an strong dislike for these needles, which led to fewer people getting vaccinated.

The robot is soft and covered in fur. It contains small airbags inside that inflate(膨胀)to make band movement. Participants in the study who wore the robot while suffering from injections, experienced less pain in the test than those who did not wear the robot. The test proved that the pain and anxiety being felt could be reduced sharply by subsiding the experience of pain through using the robot.

The research team checked the functions of the wearable robot while being handled by participants, based on the holding of the hand tightly. The team placed injections on the other arm that was not holding the robot. The people in the study were given a survey test to judge their fear of injections before and after the experiment with the wearable robot was completed.

The study proved that holding the robot can ease the experience of patients who were receiving injections. The research team hopes to use this study to advance the robot for use during painful situations, such as getting medical shots or similar conditions.

10 . Do dragons exist today? Although often mistaken for a mythical（神话的）creature, we actually live among several different types of “dragons.” For example, you may have seen dragonfly flying over a summer garden or read about a Komodo dragon lizard. The ocean has its share of dragons, too.

The blue dragon is a marine（海洋的）snail without a shell. It is commonly known as a blue sea slug（海参）. This particular species of marine snail can swallow a bubble of air（which it holds in its stomach）that enables it to float upside down on the surface of the ocean. The underside of the slug is blue, and it back is a gray color. This helps to conceal it from birds flying overhead and from fish swimming below.

Blue dragons feed on poisonous jellyfish and other similar species. When food is in short supply, they will eat each other. They collect toxins（毒素）from the jellyfish and store it in many finger-like structures. This ability to store poison gives them a much stronger sting（刺）than the jellyfish itself. They use this poison as a defense against enemies. The sting can also be felt by people.

These creatures are rarely visible for study and observation except for when they come close to land during times of onshore winds. They have been seen in Hawaii and in tropical（热带）waters around the world. Beware（当心）of the blue dragon’s sting!