3 . While the situation may be improving, much of the world is still under the shadow of COVID-19 and its associated containment measures. But according to a study published in the scientific journal Cell, an unlikely friend could help defeat the virus.

Known for their long legs and beautiful eyelashes, llamas (美洲驼) — specifically their antibodies (抗体) — are believed to play an important role in the fight against the virus.

Having experimented with antibodies from a llama called Winter years ago, a small lab at Ghent University in Belgium had a eureka moment earlier this year. They found that llama antibodies were able to neutralize (中和) both the MERS and SARS viruses — two strains of the coronavirus that caused previous outbreaks in 2012 and 2003, respectively.

Done in cooperation with the University of Texas, US, studies showed their effectiveness against COVID-19.

Jason McLellan, from the University of Texas at Austin and co-author of the study, said, “This is one of the first antibodies known to neutralize SARS-CoV-2.”

Antibodies are like your body’s defense system. Similar to tiny soldiers, they protect your body from invaders (入侵者) and destroy them before they can spread. But what makes llama antibodies so special is their small size, which enables them to better fight the virus by sticking to its spikes (刺突) more easily. This will prevent attachment and entry, which effectively neutralizes the virus.

The encouraging results have led to rapid development and testing of the antibodies so that they can be tested on humans as soon as possible. However, the study’s co-author, Xavier Saelens, from Ghent University noted that “there is still a lot of work to do to bring this into the clinic”. But he added that “if it works, llama Winter deserves a statue”.

5 . Cities have been described as essential to climate change solutions, but they can also raise the kinds of ecologists that will bring us into a more comprehensive biological future.

As a black wildlife biologist from Philadelphia, I stood out among my coworkers. My presence in ecology has challenged assumptions about not only what a biologist looks like, but also where a biologist comes from. In the U.S., ecology was and is mainly white and conducted in rural landscapes, but I had no history of camping, fishing, hunting or hiking. I had yet to recognize that Philadelphia, with its four seasons and richness of squirrels (松鼠), row homes and festivals, was actually my first ecological classroom. There I witnessed wild cats eating birds and rats, people shooting bats from their homes and snakes being killed by lawn mowers (割草机). This is as much ecology in action as anything we witness in fields and forests.

Urban wild animals exhibit many features and behaviors that set them apart from their rural twins: they may be bigger, eat more diverse food sources, are active at different times of the day, move differently and have different personalities. Some biologists argue they are even “smarter”. Besides, urban wildlife balances more risks—such as road chemical poisons and diseases from domestic animals—with rewards. Some of those rewards come from humans providing food and some from the distribution of our parks and water bodies.

In our professional lives as biologists, living with such wild animals can make us more tolerant of species diversity, which can benefit the natural world. Nature is no longer only primitive wilderness but includes sounds of human laughter and garbage trucks. We expect more biologists from urban settings because urban environments naturally train keen observers who are the future of ecology.

Beekeepers in China’s high-tech powerhouse of Zhejiang Province have developed a smart way of using intelligent beehives (蜂窝) to change bee farming. Over 300     1     (insider) and experts came to Chun’an County on Saturday     2     (witness) the pilot. More than 2, 600 artificial beehives have been arranged in mountains in western Hangzhou.

Chen Pinghua, chair of Qiandao Lake Mozhidao Biotechnology Co. Ltd., which operates the bee farm, said the smart hives were equipped with sensors,    3     can monitor and control the temperature and humidity (湿度) and send the data on the number of times the bees enter and leave as well     4     the weight of the hive. Then technicians can determine whether the honey can be harvested.

Each hive has a unique QR code that     5     (trace) the source of the honey to ensure food safety, Chen said. He said staff could open an app on their mobile phones to monitor the real-time data of each hive, which     6     (great) improves efficiency.

Saturday happened at the same time with World Honey Bee Day     7     (appoint) by the United Nations in 2017 to spread awareness on the     8     (important) of bees，which pollinate (传授花粉) one-third of the world’s grain-producing plants.

“Beekeeping has a long history in China, but it has remained as     9     very low-end business without standards for hives and on how bees are raised and how honey     10     (harvest),” Chen said.

7 . Roads and railways have made it easy for people to travel around the UK, but have had the precisely opposite effect for insects. Alongside housing developments, transport infrastructure (基础设施) has separated insect habitats, leaving many pollinators (传粉昆虫) stuck on decreasing islands of biodiversity.

A new conservation project aims to address that by creating a network of wildflower superhighways across the UK. The B-Lines network aims to join the dots between meadow habitats, enabling pollinators and other wildlife to move freely between them. Ten years in the making, the B-Lines initiative was launched by the insect charity Buglife on Tuesday and has already generated interest from unexpected quarters. “After the launch, some house builders rang up asking how they could include the network into house building, so it could have a really positive effect,” said Buglife’s Paul Hetherington.

Buglife has spent the last decade mapping potential routes for the insect superhighway. Hetherington said the proposed highway could give the UK’s weak insects a boost and a route out of habitats that become too hot due to the climate crisis and it can make a huge difference in easing declines. “The things that have really hammered pollinators are habitat loss, loss of connectivity of habitat, climate change and pesticides—this deals with everything except pesticides,” said Hetherington.

The B-lines network is not just a concept. Pilot sections have already been completed, including the South Wales B-Lines near Cardiff. “Since that was done, there have been recordings of one of our rarest bees in Cardiff town centre, which shows this connectivity can work,” said Hetherington. And in Norwich, Buglife has been working with Network Rail to plant wildflowers along the track. Anyone living along the proposed route can get involved in the project. All they need to do is let their lawns grow, or even just create a small herb garden, which Hetherington likened to creating a “motorway service station for bees”.

8 . Trapping used to be a way to make a good living. That has certainly changed over the past several years. The demand for furs is nearly gone. Environmentalists think trapping is wrong.     1    

Martin started trapping when he was nine. He makes a pretty good living by trapping animals like rabbits, foxes, etc. He traps enough animals to make up for low fur prices. “    2     I can make up for low fur prices by bringing in more than the average trapper,” he said. Farmers also hire Martin to trap annoying animals. He receives two dollars for each gopher he traps. The Department of Natural Resources has also contracted with Martin. About twelve times a year, he traps beavers that have destroyed private land.

    3     For example, his home is filled with animal skins. It’s also not easy. for him to take a day off. State law requires that traps be checked every day. “It can be very hard work,” Martin said.     4     “Then, I spend the rest of the evening skinning animals and preparing for the next day. I really don’t get a day off during trapping season.”

As a full-time trapper, Martin worries about the views people have of his profession. He thinks that most anti-trapping groups don’t understand that trapping animals helps in the long run. “    5     They don’t understand the animals’ environment,” he said. “There are areas where I can’t trap right . now. Most of the animals in those areas are sick with disease because of the lack of food and overpopulation. I’d like to show anyone who is against trapping some of the terrible things I’ve seen.”

A new study shows that     1     two countries with the world’s     2     (large) populations are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect comes     3     (main) from ambitious tree     4     (plant) programs in China and agriculture in both countries.

China alone accounts     5     25% of the global increase in leaf area with only 6.6% of global vegetated (有植物的) area. The greening in China is from forests (42%) and croplands (32%).

China’s outsized     6     (contribute) comes in large part from programs intended           7     (protect) and expand forests, in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion (侵蚀), air pollution and climate change.

Taken all together, the greening of the planet represents an increase in leaf area of plants and trees equal to the area     8     is covered by all the Amazon rainforests.

Land area     9     (use) to grow crops is comparable in China and India and     10     (change) very little since the early 2000s. Yet the countries have greatly increased both their annual total green leaf area and their food production.

10 . A few years ago, Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, published the results of something called the Great Elephant Census, which counted all the savanna elephants in Africa. What it found rocked the conservation world: In the seven years between 2007 and 2014, Africa’s savanna elephant population decreased by about a third and was on track to disappear completely from some African countries in as few as 10 years.

To change that trend, researchers landed on a technology that is rewriting the rules for everything from our daily appliances to our cars: artificial intelligence. “AI can process huge amounts of information to tell us where the elephants are, how many there are,” said Cornell University researcher Peter Wrege. “And possibly tell us what they are doing.”

There are two kinds of elephants in Africa: savanna elephants, which were counted by Allen’s census, and forest elephants, which the census couldn’t account for because that elephant lives in thick rainforest. In the forest, Wrege says, losing a forest elephant is easy to do. “Sometimes you see them, let’s say, 15 meters away from you and then they move 5 meters into the forest and you can’t see them,” he said. “Somehow they just disappear.”

Wrege’s use of artificial intelligence in the rainforest has been less remarkable, but no less important. The networks on which his forest elephant count depends are still training, so he doesn’t have a precise forest elephant count yet. He has found that trying to count forest elephants depends on various factors. But the AI has uncovered some unexpected things. For example, it appears that elephants don’t go to some parts of the forest during specific times of the year. That’s important to know because it can inform the way conservation park managers position their forces. “You can say,” Wrege said. “OK, we know that elephants are not using this huge part of this park for these seven months. No poachers are going to find an elephant anyway. So we don’t need to send any anti-poaching teams there.”