2 . As cities balloon with growth, access to nature for people living in urban areas is becoming harder to find. If you’re lucky, there might be a pocket park near where you live, but it’s unusual to find places in a city that are relatively wild.

Past research has found health and wellness benefits of nature for humans, but a new study shows that wildness in urban areas is extremely important for human well-being.

The research team focused on a large urban park. They surveyed several hundred park-goers, asking them to submit a written summary online of a meaningful interaction they had with nature in the park. The researchers then examined these submissions, coding (编码) experiences into different categories. For example, one participant’s experience of “We sat and listened to the waves at the beach for a while” was assigned the categories “sitting at beach” and “listening to waves.”

Across the 320 submissions, a pattern of categories the researchers call a “nature language” began to emerge. After the coding of all submissions, half a dozen categories were noted most often as important to visitors. These include encountering wildlife, walking along the edge of water, and following an established trail.

Naming each nature experience creates a usable language, which helps people recognize and take part in the activities that are most satisfying and meaningful to them. For example, the experience of walking along the edge of water might be satisfying for a young professional on a weekend hike in the park. Back downtown during a workday, they can enjoy a more domestic form of this interaction by walking along a fountain on their lunch break.

“We’re trying to generate a language that helps bring the human-nature interactions back into our daily lives. And for that to happen, we also need to protect nature so that we can interact with it,” said Peter Kahn, a senior author of the study.

4 . Billionaire Sir Christopher Hohn expects the greatest “demand disruption (中断)” for oil since the 1970s shock to cause an increase in renewable energy investment.

He said high oil prices are “a positive thing” for the climate as the energy crisis results in a “dramatic speed-up” in decarbonisation (碳减排). “The whole world should now be focused on seeking alternatives, whether they’re renewables or hydrogen fuels. All of these things are far more economic.”

He pointed to the recent boost of EU (欧盟) for renewable energy funding, as part of a plan to reduce imports of gas. Even as oil and gas companies obtain record profits from the high prices at present, Hohn said climate-focused investors will ultimately benefit from the energy price shock.

“The oil price increase leads to plans for accelerated decarbonisation,” said Hohn. “I personally believe that we’ll have demand disruption as we had in the 70s, and that there will be a dramatic acceleration in decarbonisation. I actually view it as a positive thing.”

Hohn has pressured companies to give shareholders a vote on their climate plans. Spanish airport operator Aena and aircraft manufacturer Airbus improved their emissions (排放) tar-gets as a result. Hohn has also pushed for stricter regulation on corporate climate promises. “Corporate decarbonisation isn’t going to happen through voluntary methods,” Hohn said.

Hohn is also backing a new rating agency that will grade company emissions strategies, through his charity, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. The Climate Action-plan Rating Centre (Climate-Arc) will analyse public company data and publish climate plan ratings.

Investors often struggle to analyse corporate climate plans. “Because though some organizations declare their commitment to environmental protection, they actually do the opposite,” Hohn said, “I expect a large proportion of companies will get graded F if they’re not doing enough. Even companies with net zero emissions targets have failed to set out plans about how to reach those goals. The impact is going to be a bit like, ‘the emperor has no clothes’.”

7 . Young dolphins, within the first few months of life, display their creativity by creating a unique sound. These bleats, chirps and squeaks amount to a novel possession in the animal kingdom — a label that conveys an identity, comparable to a human name.

These labels are called signature whistles(标志哨声), and they play an essential role in creating and keeping relationships among dolphins. While the development of a signature whistle is influenced by learning from other dolphins, each whistle still varies in volume, frequency, pitch(音高) and length.

The scientists found dolphins who live in regions with more seagrass have signature whistles that are higher in pitch and shorter in length when compared to those who live in areas where the seafloor is muddier. Meanwhile, dolphins in smaller groups have whistles that change pitch more often than dolphins in larger groups.

In 2013, researchers discovered that dolphins imitate another’s signature whistle to re-establish contact, at times adding parts of their signature whistle to the call. Moreover, in 2018 a study on male bottlenose dolphins(宽吻海豚) found that they keep their “names” into adulthood just like females—it was previously thought males abandoned their signature whistle to adopt the same whistle as their alliance(同盟) groups.

Dolphins can remember other dolphins after 20 or more years without contact by remembering their whistles, said Jason Bruck, an assistant professor at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Scientists analyzed 188 hours of recorded acoustic data collected by different research groups from 2006 to 2020. These sounds were recorded at six sites across the Mediterranean Sea, which is divided into west and east basins. There is genetic variation(差异) between eastern and western dolphin populations. Accordingly, the eastern and western basins were used as proxies(替代指标) for genetic variation.

The team extracted 168 individual whistles from the recordings and analyzed their acoustic features in relation to a few factors: precise location where the whistle was recorded, whether or not this was in the eastern or western basin, the local ocean environment and population demographics.

Ultimately, the scientists found that location only partially affected whistle variability.

Meanwhile, the environmental conditions and demographic characteristics did appear to strongly influence signature whistles—findings that align with the “acoustic adaptation hypothesis(声学适应假说),” the idea that animals acoustically adapt their vocalizations to their local conditions to optimize the purpose of their sounds. The study claims these are the foundational influences on signature whistle variability.

China’s next-generation rocket to carry humans is expected to make its maiden flight around 2027, said a project manager.

Zhao Xinguo,a senior rocket    1     (design) and head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology’s rocket development department, said the new rocket,which has yet to be named, is an important backbone in China’s ambitious plan    2     (place) its astronauts on the moon.“According to our schedule, all necessary conditions for the rocket’s    3     (one) launch mission will be ready in 2027,” he said on Monday in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, one day ahead of the 14th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, the largest arms show in the country.

Zhao said that the new rocket will be about 90 meters tall,     4     a diameter (直径) of 5 meters, which means it will be almost twice as tall as the Long March 5,     5     (current) the biggest in China’s rocket family. The craft will be capable of carrying spacecraft     6     (weigh) about 27 tons into an Earth-moon transfer trajectory (轨道),     7     gateway for lunar landing, or a70- ton spacecraft into a low-Earth orbit, according to the project manager.

Hu Xiaojun, a rocket researcher at the academy, said the new heavy-lift rocket     8     ( intend) for the country ‘s future manned spaceflights,     9     will be carried out by a new- generation spaceship, and manned lunar explorations that Chinese    10     (scientist) have been planning for a long time.