5 . By the end of the century, if not sooner, the world’s oceans will be bluer and greener thanks to a warming climate, according to a new study.

At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny marine microorganisms (海洋微生物) called phytoplankton. Because of the way light reflects off the organisms, these phytoplankton create colourful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean colour varies from green to blue, depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas, while reducing it in other spots, leading to changes in the ocean’s appearance.

Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface, where they pull carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die, they bury carbon in the deep ocean, an important process that helps to regulate the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean’s warming trend. Warming changes key characteristics of the ocean and can affect phytoplankton growth, since they need not only sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow, but also nutrients.

Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a scientist in MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, built a climate model that projects changes to the oceans throughout the century. In a world that warms up by 3℃, it found that multiple changes to the colour of the oceans would occur. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener. “Not only are the quantities of phytoplankton in the ocean changing. ” she said, “but the type of phytoplankton is changing.”

And why does that matter? Phytoplankton are the base of the food web. If certain kinds begin to disappear from the ocean, Dutkiewicz said, “it will change the type of fish that will be able to survive.” Those kinds of changes could affect the food chain.

Whatever colour changes the ocean experiences in the coming decades will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes. “It’ll be a while before we can statistically show that the changes are happening because of climate change,” Dutkiewicz said, “but the change in the colour of the ocean will be one of the early warning signals that we really have changed our planet.”

6 . Terri Bolton is a dab hand when it comes to DIY (do-it-yourself). Skilled at putting up shelves and piecing together furniture, she never pays someone else to do a job she can do herself.

She credits these skills to her late grandfather and builder Derek Lloyd. From the age of six, Terri, now 26, accompanied Derek to work during her school holidays. A day’s work was rewarded with £5 in pocket money. She says: “I’m sure I wasn’t much of a help to start with, painting the rooms and putting down the flooring throughout the house. It took weeks and it was backbreaking work, but I know he was proud of my skills.”

Terri, who now rents a house with friends in Wandsworth, South West London, says DIY also saves her from losing any deposit when a tenancy (租期) comes to an end. She adds: “I’ve moved house many times and I always like to personalise my room and put up pictures, so, it’s been useful to know how to cover up holes and repaint a room to avoid any charges when I’ve moved out.”

With millions of people likely to take on DIY projects over that coming weeks, new research shows that more than half of people are planning to make the most of the long, warm summer days to get jobs done. The average spend per project will be around £823. Two thirds of people aim to improve their comfort while at home. Two fifths wish to increase the value of their house. Though DIY has traditionally been seen as male hobby, the research shows it is women now leading the charge.

Which is closest in meaning to “a dab hand” in paragraph 1?

9 . Humans evolved (进化) from apes. This is what we learned in biology class. But what came before apes? Chinese scientists have discovered fossils that could enrich the evolutionary story of how humans evolved from fish.

According to four articles published in the journal Nature in late September, Chinese researchers found fish fossils that provide the “missing link” about the origin of the jaw (下颌)，a key trait (特征) that 99.8 percent of vertebrate species (脊椎动物) have.

Zhu Min, a lead researcher of the studies from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told China Daily that the findings drew a large amount of interest in the science world due to the importance of jaws in animal evolution. However, the rise of the jaw had been a mystery due to a lack of sufficient fossil evidence to support that jawed vertebrates lived 450 million years ago.

The latest findings made by Zhu’s team presented a set of five surprisingly well-preserved fish fossils that included three whole-bodied fish, helping scientists paint a more accurate evolutionary picture of the origin of the jaw. The fish fossils were discovered at two sites in Chongqing and Guizhou, whose strata (地层) date back to the Silurian Period (志留纪) that began around 440 million years ago.

These fossils show that jawed fish were already thriving in the world’s ancient oceans at that time. Later on, more diverse and larger jawed fish evolved and began to spread around the world, paving the way for some fish to eventually go on land and evolve into other animals — including humans.

“These fossils provide an opportunity to peek into the ‘dawn of fish’ and help scientists track many human body structures back to these ancient fish, thus filling some key gaps in the evolutionary history of how fish evolved into humans.” Zhu said.

10 . George Prochnik would like the world to put a sock in it. He makes his case in a new book, listenning for Meaning in a World of Noise, here he explains himself (using his indoor voice):

“We’ve become so accustomed to noise, there’s about almost a deep prejudice against the idea that silence might be beneficial. If you tell someone to be quiet, you sound like an old man. But it’s never been more important to find continuing quiet. Silence focuses us, improves our health, and is a key to lasting peace and satisfaction.”

“We need to excite people about the sounds you start to hear if you merely quiet things down a little. During a Japanese tea ceremony, the smallest sounds becomes a kind of art—the spoons making a light ringing sound on a bowl, the edges of a kimono(和服)brushing against the floor.”

“Dear people are very attentive(专注的)in almost every aspect of life. If two deaf people are walking together, using sign language, they constantly watch out for each other and protect each other by paying steady attention to the other. They are connected yet also fully aware of their surroundings. Even deaf teenagers! We in the hearing world can learn from them. If we remove the powerful blasts(一阵阵)of noise, we become aware of an extraordinarily rich world around us—of little soft sounds and the sound of footsteps, of bird songs and ice cracking(开裂声). It’s astonishing how beautiful things sound when you can really listen. ”