1 . It’s official. Britain is to be reforested. A Tree Action Plan will deliver half a billion more trees by 2050.

Britain is one of the most treeless countries in Europe, trees covering about 10 percent of its land — around a quarter of the European average. The bare state of the British landscape is nothing new. It is a false idea that a squirrel could ever have crossed the country by jumping from tree to tree.

Certainly, at around three billion of trees, we have twice as many as a century ago. However, about a third of them is in monoculture (单一种植) plantations of fast-growing non-native species like Sitka spruce, grown to make paper. These plantations lack biodiversity — more tree farms than forests.

But it would be great to have more trees: for the climate, for biodiversity and for ourselves.

Can we do it? Past efforts to regreen Britain have not gone too well. In the 1990s, the government had a plan for a national forest in the Midlands. It promised 30 million trees. Thirty years on, they have managed nine million. Older readers may remember the project “Plant a Tree” in 1973. I remember planting one in Cambridge. But the trees were taken little care of and nobody tracked them. Mine died, as no doubt did many others.

The trick is not to repeat past mistakes by growing single-species forests. We need ecological (生态的) diversity. Another rule should be to plant where there were trees before. But if the rules for planting begin to sound a bit troublesome, maybe there is a better way. Not to plant at all. Often it is better just to create room for trees to regenerate naturally, self-seeding from nearby woodlands. Consider what the author of the best-selling book Wilding did on herd farm. She went away from the fields and stood back, letting the trees self-seed from nearby woodlands with the help of birds that brought in seeds. Two decades on, she had a woodland. My final suggestion is that instead of throwing all our money into headline-friendly but short-sighted planting projects in the countryside, let’s have more trees where most of us live, too.

4 . A British company has developed a robotic hand that it says can be updated to perform new actions requested by the user.

The device is designed to work like a human hand. It uses electrical signals from muscles in the upper arm. Sensors are placed against the skin of the upper arm to detect muscle movements. A control system then translates these movements into commands for the robotic hand, typically to open or close the hand.

The British company, COVVI, developed the robotic hand called Nexus. It says the device can be updated through a computer application program or app, remotely (远程地) from anywhere in the world. These updates can provide improvements, new features, and problem fixes directly to the Nexus without the need to visit a specific office or to send the hand back to COVVI.

It is a really powerful thing and a first to market. Nexus uses the wireless technology Bluetooth to permit the company’s experts to update the robotic hand for users. Some other companies have created products that can also be app-controlled, but COVVI’s robotic hand is different because the updates can be sent to an individual device.

One Nexus user is Australian swimmer Jessica Smith, who was born without a left hand. Smith was fitted with the device in April at the age of 37. She said the device was already creating new movements for her although the update process took a few hours. “I’m adding and expanding on who I am by being able to access technology that’s never been available before,” she said.

5 . 11-year-old Shayden Walker walked to a neighbor’s house looking for children his age.

Brennan Ray saw Shayden on his doorbell camera and started a conversation with him. “Um, I just wanted to see if you knew any kids around like 11 or 12, maybe,” Shayden can be heard saying in the video. “I need some friends, like really bad.” Brennan decided to post the video to TikTok, hoping to find Shayden some friends. “You never know what people are going through until you got a chance to talk to them. This young man is well mannered, kind, and brave. So can we help Shayden make some friends?” he wrote in the video.

Shayden’s mother, Krishna Patterson, says her son has trouble connecting with others. He has suffered a lot, including autism, bipolar disorder, ADHD and others.

After the video became very popular on the Internet, Brennan and his wife, Angel, were encouraged by viewers. They raised more than $37,000. The couple shared that on TikTok.

Since Shayden became TikTok famous, he has made friends all over the world, including from Hawaii, China, Australia and England.

Brennan and Angel continue to post more on the once-lonely boy who is now enjoying his newfound friendships.

The couple and their daughter recently met Shayden for the first time. “He had the same energy in person as he did over the doorbell camera,” Brennan said. Brennan says it’s important to give everyone a chance because you never know what people are fighting against. “He is a beautiful soul,” he said. “His happiness is infectious and his smile is infectious. He’s a good kid.”

6 . The World’s Most Dangerous Awesome Sport Destinations

If you’re looking for an extra challenging place to do sports when traveling, you will definitely want to visit these places below.

The world’s highest tennis court is situated 1,000 feet above the ocean standing atop the fourth highest hotel in the world—Burj AI Arab in Dubai. The tennis court is circular in shape and when no session is at play, it doubles as a helipad (直升机场).

You would think that golf isn’t a very dangerous sport, and if you go to the Scottsdale golf course or those amazing Hawaii golf courses then that is probably true, which is why this golf course might blow your mind.

Camp Bonifas is in South Korea right on the border to North Korea. When they built the course they realized that they wouldn’t be able to fit 18 holes in the camp, so they decided to build a 1-hole golf course surrounded by LIVE minefields (布雷区) on three sides.

The Blue Hole is a submarine sinkhole at a depth of 130 meters. It is known as the most dangerous diving spot because of the large number of deaths that have occurred from people diving in the hole.

Many inexperienced or overconfident divers sometimes have trouble finding the tunnel connecting the Blue Hole and open water and end up descending too deep…!

Ponte Brolla is famous as one of the most famous, extreme and dangerous cliff diving, or “tombstoning” spots in the world.

Several World High Diving Federation championships have been hosted here, where the divers face a 26-meter jump into ice cold water.

This sport might look like a fun and easy thing, but it’s not nicknamed “tombstoning” for nothing.