2 . Honeybees command a lot of attention in insect conservation circles, as they are important for pollinating our food supply. But the findings from researchers emphasize the importance of prioritizing other pollinators or insects like wild bees, moths and butterflies in conservation efforts, too.

For the study, ecologists Joshua Kohn and Dillon Travis from the University of California, painstakingly tracked the pollination of flowers from two plant species in San Diego — white sage and Phacelia distans. Often Travis sat for hours waiting for a single pollinator, honeybees or other insects, to land on a flower. Each time he put a mesh (网状的) bag on the flower to prevent any new visitor, then back to collect seeds from different visitors. Back in the greenhouse, the team grew the seeds, analyzing characteristics that reflected their quality, such as how many seeds grew and survived and how many leaves or flower seedlings (幼苗) grew from them.

They found flowers pollinated by honeybees make fewer and lower-quality seeds than flowers visited by other pollinators. The white sage and Phacelia distans plants produced roughly half the amount of seeds from flowers pollinated by honeybees compared with other pollinators. And Phacelia distans seeds from honeybee-pollinated plants grew into seedlings with fewer flowers.

The researchers also found that honeybees visited about twice as many flowers on one plant before moving to the next than the average of other pollinators, causing honeybees to transfer more pollen in flowers of the same plant, thus resulting in fewer and lower-quality and more inbred (近亲繁殖的) seeds. Other pollinators more often flew between different plants, probably transferring more diverse pollen.

Travis says, “Honeybees’ pollination habit can impact ecosystems and agriculture in the long term. One potential consequence could be that native plant populations decline as next generations become more inbred, reducing biodiversity.”

“It is time to actually shift our dependence for pollination from largely honeybees to other native species as well,” says Jaya Sravanthi Mokkapati, an entomologist at Penn State University.

3 . After skating, skiing or shoveling snow, nothing warms you up better than a cup of hot cocoa. Though today it will be topped with marshmallows (棉花软糖) or stuff like that, you may not know that chocolate was first consumed in liquid form by the Olmec people of northwestern Central America around 1500 B.C.

However, the Olmec people didn’t serve their cocoa hot. And since sugar had not yet arrived from Europe back then, the drink was often flavoured with peppers and spices. After the Spanish arrived in the Americas in the 1500s, liquid chocolate made its way across the pond, where wealthy Europeans added sugar and drank it warm. According to Chocolate: History, Culture and Heritage, hot chocolate became “the drink of the aristocracy (贵族)”, as sugar was still a luxury.

Soon enough, though, hot chocolate caught on with the masses. Chocolate houses started springing up around 17th-century Europe. In these lively places, hot chocolate was poured from pots into elegant cups. But by the end of the 18th century, chocolate houses had mostly died off, because the input of chocolate was much dearer than that of coffee or tea.

Marshmallows first came into the picture in 1917, when the company Angelus Marshmallows published a recipe for hot cocoa topped with their product. Instant cocoa is another American invention, created in the late 1950s when dairy company owner Charles Sanna faced an oversupply of powdered coffee creamer. His solution was mixing the creamer sugar and cocoa powder together, thus creating a formula (配方) favored by many.

Taking a tour of international cups of cocoa, you can try cioccolata calda, a thick, pudding-like version in Italy. In Colombia and Ecuador, chocolate is served with a teaspoon of soft farmer cheese, and Filipino hot chocolate, sikwate, is served with mango chunks.

However, you choose to jazz up your own cup, the simple pleasure of drinking a warm, chocolaty drink is one that hasn’t gotten old for thousands of years.

4 . We adopted Franny, our crazy and lovable Boston puppy, from a local rescue at the start summer in 2022. However, two weeks later she was nowhere to be found.

We often leave our yard doors open to allow Franny and our another dog, Olive, to visit enclosed backyard and lie on the deck (甲板). My heart sank severely when I failed to find any. No sooner had I sensed that than my wife and I charged to our car to comb for this missing dog swiftly. I was scanning the yards a few blocks over when my phone rang all of a sudden: A woman and her daughter had our dog. Franny had been jogging down the alley (小巷) behind their lawn when they grabbed her and called the number on her tag (标牌).

I located and blocked off the gap in the fence that Franny had squeezed through in case she went out secretly and got lost again. However, she was on the run again one month later.

This time she made it much farther — all the way to a high school, where a man found it eating lunch in the sun with some students. Franny was returned to us, her big brown eyes looking ashamed as the man handed her over to me.

These days, our backyard is secured like a maximum-security prison. We love this crazy dog more than ever, and Franny finally seems content to stay put now.

Mostly, I’m thankful for the kind folks who took the time to grab our adorable runaway and return her to us. All of them refused any recompense, regardless of how much I pushed. These minded our family that the world is filled with those who will go out of their way to lend others a hand.

5 . Writer Andrew Leland started losing his sight 20 years ago, when he was in high school, as a result of a progressive eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa (色素性视网膜炎). His first experience of loss of sight happened temporarily at night, in which he was confused that everyone else seemed to see in the dark so much better than he did. Over the years, his disease has progressed gradually. He’s now legally blind, although he still has a narrow field of vision, which allows him to see about 6% of what a fully sighted person sees.

Leland analogized his vision to the view you might get by looking through a toilet paper tube or a keyhole. He said, “Imagine having that toilet paper tube tied to your head and trying to walk down the street; there’s a whole bunch of things you don’t see but that you really ought to, like dogs.”

In his new book, The Country of the Blind, Leland writes about losing his vision and preparing for blindness, how his condition impacts his identity, how the world sees him and his marriage, and something valuable he has learned.

He said he was not going to try to tell people that having vision was not an unbelievably useful thing for a human being for many reasons. When talking about the experience of being alive and being conscious, he referred to James Joyce — Joyce believed that he was only losing one world among many, and that vision was only a tiny part of experiences when he was going blind.

He thought if you looked at the things that blind people were capable of imagining, like John Milton writing Paradise Lost as a blind person, there was this unbelievable richness in humans’ consciousness that vision had nothing to do with. Other realms (领域) such as the mental and emotional realms were all so rich that they could also help unfold things on earth before you.

6 . If you walk around the Rahway Trail in the South Mountain Reservation of Millburn, New Jersey, you might spot more than vegetation and creatures. Small fantastic _______ are hidden in the tree trunks and branches — an amazingly lovely sight in this _______ normal-looking forest nowadays. The idea to _______ small wooden houses to the landscape came from Therese Ojibway, who 10 years ago wanted her son, who has autism (自闭症), to have a safe space to _______ in the wilderness.

“So she found Rahway Trail and started constructing the houses and leaving _______ decorations here and there for her son,” said Julie Gould, one of the keepers of the trail.

The South Mountain Conservancy later noticed the sudden _______ of little houses around the forest. Learning Ojibway’s story, they _______ her to continue building her magical kingdom to what is now known as the Fairy Trail.

“She thought this was a(n) _______ way of getting little children like her son into nature, _______ them to use their imaginations and creativity,” said Beth Kelly, another trail keeper.

Ojibway and her son moved out of the area a few years ago, but the Fairy Trail ________. Gould and Kelly were ________ asked to become the “Makers and Keepers” of the trail. The women, along with ________, continue to help build little wooden homes for kids with special needs.

“To give these kids ________ houses to live in, most of the homes are made out of natural elements that can then ________ back into the forest. We get ________ when we see the children come here and the kingdom make their day.”

7 . Many people agree that pets are family. It’s because they _______ pets like human family members. Unfortunately, so many animals have much _______ lives than us. And it seems like we can never get _______ days together.

Julia Earheart knows _______ how strong the love for a pet and the pet _______ to its owners can be because she has her own pets. Based in Michigan, Julia works as an independent photographer with plenty of _______ customers. But it’s her non-paying customers that get the most out of the sessions.

When elderly and sick pets _______ their final months with their humans, Julia offers to take pet photos for _______. She photographs these owners and their pets so even when the pet dies, its owner can enjoy every last moment together.

And these pictures couldn’t be more beautiful but heartbreaking at the same time. “The shoots can be emotional and difficult, absolutely,” Julia said. “But when you look at the pictures, you can see that _______ is possible even when there isn’t much ________ left.”

Julia wants the owners to be able to spend the money on vet bills and toys ________a photography session. Thanks to her, some lucky owners can ________ the final days with their companions so the owners couldn’t be more ________.

“I won’t be able to get to all of them and that’s the hardest thing for me,” Julia said. Even though she can’t help all of the owners, she is an angel for giving this ________ gift to so many heartbroken pet parents. Above all, she uses her talent to________love and comfort.

10 . While driving in a small Colorado town, I stopped as a group of people crossed the road. As I watched, I ______ a thin, poorly dressed old lady taking a(n) ______ suitcase.

She managed to carry it for a few yards before setting it down on the ground. After trying several times, she was still ______ with it when the traffic started to move again.

Having experienced similar ______ in the past when traveling, I ______ alongside her and leaned over to call out through the window, “Excuse me. Would you like a ______?”

She stopped, gave me a ______ look and then started to walk hesitantly toward me, pulling her suitcase hard. “If you want to tell me where you’re going, I’ll ______ you off. That suitcase looks ______ heavy,” I said.

“Well, all right,” she answered in a ______ voice. And after we had both lifted her luggage into the back of my pickup, she ______ herself without a word on the front seat. My attempts at conversation were a ______, except for directions to her destination. When we arrived there and got her suitcase down, she ______ her hand into a pocket, saying, “What do I ______ you? I don’t have much.”

Surprised, I said, “Nothing. I was glad to be able to help.”

Her expression changed immediately, and she stared at me unbelievably. “Well, thank you, lady. No one has ever done me a(n) ______ like that before. God bless you.” Then she disappeared down the street, while something warm occurred in my heart.