1 . On January 3, Preet Chandi made history by becoming the first woman to complete a solo expedition across Antarctica to the South Pole.

Chandi, who calls herself Summit Preet, ______ her journey on November 24, 2021. Chandi once said she chose Antarctica because she wanted to ______ others.

“I want my eight-year-old niece to grow up without ______, knowing the possibilities of what you can achieve in life are ______,” Chandi said. She spent two years ______ for the final trip.

Chandi ______ a total of 700 miles in 40 days, arriving five days ahead of time. She faced winds of 60 miles per hour and temperatures of -50℃ while ______ a 90-kilogram sled (雪橇). Along the way, Chandi ______ daily voice messages, which you can hear on her website. In her final voice recording, Chandi said, “This expedition was always about so much ______ me. I wanted to encourage people to ______ boundaries and believe in themselves. I’m really proud that I’m an Indian woman doing something ______.” She added, “Everybody starts ______, and the more you try, the more you realize you’re ______ of.”

Chandi now ______ to set up an “adventure grant”, using money raised for the trip. This grant will give money to women of any age or background who want to go on an adventure. “It can be for any adventure they want to do, any ______ adventure that is pushing some kind of boundary,” Chandi told CNN. “It doesn’t have to be a polar expedition. And I really hope that this is something that will continue year after year.”

3 . Like dogs, wolves can recognize and respond to the voices of familiar humans more than those of strangers, according to a recent study. The research challenges the belief that dogs ability to differentiate human voices is due to selective breeding (选择性繁殖).

Holly Root Gutteridge and colleagues carried out experiments across five zoos and wildlife parks in Spain, involving a total of 24 gray wolves. The team set up speakers and first played the animals the voice of a number of strangers. Then, they played the wolves the voice of their keeper who would say familiar things to them in Spanish, such as “Hey, what’s up, wolves?” The wolves raised their heads, pricked their ears up, and turned toward the speaker. To test that the effect wasn’t accidental, the researchers went back to playing the wolves recordings of strangers and found that they once more lost interest. Finally, to make sure that the wolves truly knew their keepers’ voices, the team mixed things up and had the keepers say a series of unfamiliar phrases. Once more, the results held up.

Root Gutteridge pointed out the significance of wolves being able to differentiate between humans, despite the fact that our species went our separate evolutionary (进化的) ways tens of millions of years ago.

Before this, there had been a limited number of studies on the topic of how animals differentiate between the vocalizations (发声) of other species. Research has shown that our close cousins, gorillas, listen to people, but that was expected.

Given the new finding, “chances are that lots of species are listening to us and getting to know us as individuals,” Root Gutteridge said. “And it’s not all about us. Dogs could be listening to the neighbors’ cats and understanding the difference between one meow or the other. If the abilities are that general, it means that animals might be having a lot more cross- species interactions than we had thought about before.”

4 . Cackles was my favorite goose. I was proud of her. Few people I knew had geese. It was_________in the 80s to have geese, especially where we lived. But we_________a few on a small piece of land.

I was most _________when I had my birthday parties. They were so different from my friends’ _________ . On the way home from school, we would collect grass and return to my garden in small groups, ready to _________the beautiful birds. The children weren’t as _________as their parents. Some had a good_________ - my uncle once got bitten by our bad-tempered male goose.

I remember being scared of them before I learned to stand my ground. As they_________me from behind, I would turn and they would stop, as if they had run into a cartoon wall. “You just have to_________them,” I would tell friends. “Don’t run.” Easier said than done.

One day, I came home to find that Cackles was being __________ . She had chased a woman down the road. The woman had been “frightened”. I was__________: “Why did she__________from a goose?”

My dad said Cackles had to__________. I last saw her in my dad’s van (运货车). It was a strange and memorable sight for all the wrong reasons. I was__________.

My dad__________me that she went to a local farm for a happy retirement. I chose to believe him.

7 . Need to get rid of old clothes? You’re not alone: With fast fashion, it’s easier than ever to follow trends. But cheap clothes aren’t made to last, most of which often end up in a landfill (垃圾填埋场). Take US as an example: per person generates an average of 82 pounds of such waste every year, with 85 per cent of it going to landfills even though 95 per cent can be reused.

Donating is a popular alternative — but know that only about 10 to 20 per cent of donated clothing gets sold at thrift shops (廉价旧货店). While all but five per cent of donated clothes are resold for reuse or recycling, it’s impossible to know exactly how much ultimately becomes trash.

The best way to ensure good, usable clothing doesn’t become waste is to increase the chances it ends up with someone who wants it. First, don’t wait too long if you choose to donate clothing to an organization, big or small. The sooner you donate your unwanted items, the more demand there is for them. Wherever you donate, ensure clothes are clean and dry. If it’s damaged or stained, don’t send it to thrift shops. They don’t have the capacity to do repairs and it just creates a financial burden in addition to the eco-burden, and defeats the purpose of the charitable action.

Clothes that are stained or damaged beyond repair will likely never be re-worn but can still be diverted (使转向) from landfills. You can send your clothes directly to recycling companies, like through Retold Recycling or municipal programmes. Old clothes can be downcycled into other items like wipers for car washes, and even generated into new textiles (织品).

Recycling is better than landfilling. It might take time to do a little research to find the right organization that can actually use the items you’re looking to give away. But it’s more rewarding than throwing everything in a big garbage bag, dumping it into a bin, and hoping for the best.

8 . Art may not be a uniquely human patent. Apes (猿), monkeys, elephants, dolphins and even rabbits can be encouraged to express themselves via pencil and paper.

New research on the artistic efforts of apes suggests that their work varies according to changes in the world around them. The new study, published in the journal Animals, focuses on hundreds of drawings produced by five female apes at Japan’s Tama Zoological Park, where keepers provided them with crayons and paper over many years as part of a behavioural enrichment programme.

One of the apes, named Molly, was especially productive. She only started drawing on her 54th birthday, but from that point on, until her death five years later, she produced about 1,300 pictures. She drew almost every day, creating more complex pictures than her companions. “I don’t know if we can describe her as a genius,” says Sueur, a biologist in the park. “Such differences are often observed between individuals of a species, with some smarter than others.” Sueur and his colleagues identified individual differences between the apes’ artistic styles, in terms of their preferred colors, the types of shapes they drew and the space they filled on the paper. Only Molly routinely filled most of the space available.

Molly’s style changed with the season too. In summer and winter, greens dominated her pictures, but she switched to pinks and purples in spring and autumn. Appealingly, she opted for red whenever another female in the group was giving birth, which may indicate that her paintings are something more than purely abstract.

“We’ve tried not to overinterpret,” says Sueur. “It could be earlier representational art.” The biologists suggest that apes may provide clues to the development of artistic skills in humans. Like children, and unlike other species known to put pen to paper, the apes needed no reward to participate in the task, suggesting that they enjoy it for its own interest.