1 . The most beloved bird in history may very well have been a 29-year-old pigeon by the name of Martha. It was the early 1900s, and Martha was at the height of her fame. Perched on her humble roost at the Cincinnati Zoo, she was an object of fascination to the thousands of visitors who lined up just to catch a glimpse. Martha may not have looked the part of an animal celebrity, but she was hardly average—in fact, she was the very definition of one of a kind. After the death of her companion George in 1910, Martha had become the world’s last-living passenger pigeon.

There was a time not long before when her kind accounted for more than a quarter of the birds in North America and may have been the most abundant bird species on the planet. Passenger pigeons used to travel at 60 miles an hour in flocks a mile wide and 300 miles long. Witnesses compared them to a train rumbling through a tunnel.

Ironically, the passenger pigeons’ very abundance may have spelled their doom. An agricultural pest and reliable source of protein, they became easy targets for hunters who killed them in the tens of thousands. In a matter of decades, a bird that once numbered in the billions was reduced to a few, and then, eventually, to one.

Martha, who’d grown up in captivity, had no offspring of her own. At 1 p.m. on September 1, 1914, Martha fell from her perch, never to rise again—one of the rare occasions in which historians could identify the exact moment of a species’ extinction.

Of course, the real tragedy was that the loss of the passenger pigeon was neither surprising nor unique. For as long as the Earth has sustained life, it has also seen the permanent disappearance of life forms, the dinosaurs being a particularly extreme example. But Martha’s high-profile death trained national attention on an alarming new trend. Close to a thousand animal species alone have died off in the last 500 years, and the trend is only getting worse.

2 . A brilliant theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer was tapped to head up a laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as part of U.S. efforts to develop nuclear weapons. He succeeded — but would go on to advocate against developing even more powerful bombs.

Born in New York City in 1904, Oppenheimer studied theoretical physics at both Cambridge University and the University of Göttingen in Germany, where he gained his doctorate at age 23. Soon the young physicist “Oppie” rubbed shoulders with the greatest scientific figures of his age, and his academic work advanced quantum theory and predicted everything from the neutron to the black hole.

After the United States joined the Allies in 1941, Oppenheimer was asked to participate in the top-secret Manhattan Project, whose aim was to develop an atomic weapon.

On July 16, 1945, Oppenheimer and others gathered at the Trinity test site south of Los Alamos for the world’s first attempted nuclear blast. Conducted in secret, the test worked. On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped two of the bombs Oppenheimer had helped develop over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the night of the Hiroshima bombing, Oppenheimer was cheered by a crowd of fellow scientists at Los Alamos, and declared that his only regret was that the bomb hadn’t been finished in time to use against Germany.

Twenty years after the attacks on both cities in Japan, Oppenheimer appeared in a 1965 NBC News documentary called The Decision to Drop the Bomb. “We knew the world would not be the same,” he said onscreen. “A few people laughed; a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture (印度梵经), ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

However, Oppenheimer opposed America’s attempts to develop a more powerful hydrogen bomb. Did he really live to regret helping develop the atomic bomb? No one knows. He doesn’t come into easy categories of pro-nuclear, anti-nuclear or anything like that. He’s a complicated figure.

3 . The time invested in kids learning how to cook is time well spent! From mixing and baking cookies to making and cooking fresh pasta, kids will be led by a professional chef throughout the entire class. With safety at the forefront, your chef will turn the kitchen into the classroom as kids learn valuable life skills, such as critical thinking, creativity and cooperation.

In this interactive cooking class designed for kids, Chef Jordan will teach fundamental kitchen skills, including the art of pasta making, while creating a classic spaghetti dinner. This class is recommended for ages 5-15.

Explore the art of pasta-making in this hands-on cooking class for kids. Chef ShaSha will guide you by using fresh ingredients and authentic techniques to make a handful of kids’ favorite dishes. This class is recommended for ages 8-18.

In this hands-on cooking class intended for kids, Chef Christmas will guide you in making non-traditional sushi. The rolls you make will have the authentic taste and texture of traditional sushi, but with a unique shape! This class is recommended for ages 5-15.

In this hands-on baking class with Chef Adolf, your kids will be on their way to feeling like the finest of chefs. Chef Adolf will show them how to mix, beat and fold ingredients into eats that everyone will love at a kid’s birthday party. This class is recommended for ages 8-15.

6 . Lifestyle creep, sometimes called lifestyle inflation, is when living expenses and non-essential expenditures grow with income. In bad cases of lifestyle creep, this unnecessary spending can cut into savings.

Lifestyle creep is most visible among high earners, but anyone can fall into this trap. Who hasn’t justified eating out more often every week after receiving a 1 or 2 percent raise? The temptation of a more costly lifestyle is difficult to resist. If you’re making enough money to afford a larger apartment, shouldn’t you move to a larger apartment?

Improving your standard of living as your income increases isn’t an objectively bad thing, but when that habit cuts into your savings efforts, it can be a major financial risk. As Katie Waters, a financial planner at Stable Waters Financial, says, “Something’s got to give.”

Then how to avoid lifestyle creep? It just takes the same moderation and planning you used when you had a smaller income. If you can, head off lifestyle creep from the beginning by giving your raise or bonus money a purpose immediately. This can be to pay down debt, save for a house, or add to retirement accounts. This way, you won’t be tempted to spend it on a non-necessity. If you fear you’ve already fallen victim to lifestyle inflation at any level, you can still turn your spending around. If you are putting all your expenses on your credit card, Waters recommends rearranging so only routine, fixed monthly expenses are on the card. “The monthly variable costs—food, clothing, personal care, purchases for the home, the list goes on—are where your money slips away easily.” Waters says, “Calculate your possible savings each pay period and put that money into a separate checking account.”

“As with all things, the secret to managing your finances like an adult is a constant strive for balance,” Waters says. “Have fun along the way, but don’t let the tail wag the dog.”

9 . More than half of the world’s oceans have changed greatly in color over the past 20 years, with human-caused climate change as the likely cause, according to the study published in the journal Nature. Oceans around the equator (赤道), in particular, have become greener, a trend that cannot be explained by natural, year-to-year variability (变化性) alone, reflecting changes in their ecosystems.

The ocean’s color changes based on what’s found in its upper layers. Bluer oceans tend to have little life, while greener oceans have more phytoplankton (浮游植物). Phytoplankton are the base of the ocean food web. In a balanced ecosystem, they serve as fuel for zooplankton and fish, which are eaten by larger fish, seabirds and marine mammals.

Nevertheless, the change in color has indicated a change in the ecosystem. While some areas are likely to have less phytoplankton, others will have more. These kinds of shifts could have ripple effects throughout the entire ocean ecosystem.

To determine whether this trend was related to climate change, researchers compared two ocean-color models which simulated how the oceans would respond under two conditions: one with added greenhouse gases and one without. The results predicted in the greenhouse gas model aligned (一致) almost exactly with what the researchers found from real-world data---within 20 years, about half of the oceans obviously shifted in color.

Dutkiewicz said she was not surprised at this finding. “But still I found the results overwhelmingly alarming; and there is another wake-up call that human-caused climate change has significantly impacted the earth system,” she said. “All changes are causing an imbalance in natural ecosystems. Such imbalances will only get worse over time if our oceans keep heating.” she added.