1 . Chaudhary quietly weaves together lengths of ropes, binding them with grass collected from the riverbank. She skillfully shapes the materials into a jewelry box. Meanwhile, she’s instructing a group of women to work out the materials. The ropes used were once the lifeline for climbers tackling Nepal’s mountains and were then discarded (扔掉). They are now finding new life, transformed by skilled hands into items to sell.

Acharya, working with the cleaning campaign, owns a waste processing business in Kathmandu, also an advocate for sustainable waste management. “Aluminum and other metal waste go through the recycling process, but we found no way to recycle ropes and gas cans,” she says. It struck her that the non-recyclable waste could be reused, but it wasn’t until she met Maya Rai that a solution emerged. Rai, leading Nepal Knotcraft Centre, helped connect Acharya with Chaudhary’s team of craftswomen in hopes of turning the mountain waste into economic opportunity. “While this seems insignificant compared to waste in the mountains, it’s a start. We aim to connect local expertise, mountain waste and local economy,” says Acharya, proudly displaying a mat made from ropes left on Mt. Qomolangma by climbers. Her goal is to ensure that no waste collected from mountains ends up in a landfill again.

Finished crafts are sold at outlets and exhibitions. The craftswomen are paid according to how many items they make and sell. With flexible hours, the project gives women an opportunity to earn money even as they maintain household responsibilities.

Eventually, Acharya hopes to expand the program to involve more women and process more waste. But progress has been slow. “We still have not found a sustainable business plan to make crafts in large quantities, ”she says. Now, she is searching for cooperators to make a model that serves not only the mountain but the communities. “After all, we are trying to craft a sustainable future.”

Each rope turned into a decorative item is a way to help local women earn a living and keep mountains clean.

4 . New research suggests that the relationship between humans and cassowaries(鹤鸵) dates back to the Late Pleistocene era, several thousand years before humans domesticated geese and chickens. “And this is not some small fowl,” said Kristina Douglass, an archaeologist at Penn State University. “It’s a huge, bad-tempered, flightless bird that can eviscerate(开膛破肚) you—most likely the dwarf(侏儒) variety that weighs 20 kilograms.”

By examining the remains of ancient cassowary eggshells, Douglass and an international team of researchers determined that some 18,000 years ago, people in New Guinea were collecting, hatching and possibly raising cassowary chicks, which the researchers consider a clever and complicated food-gathering technique. This represents the earliest known evidence of intentional bird rearing(饲养).

People would have kept these eggs for one of two purposes: to eat them or to raise the hatched chicks for their meat and feathers. Like geese, cassowary chicks imprint on the first creature they see. That makes them unusually ideal for human rearing, a practice that continues in parts of New Guinea to this day. Though Douglass and her team didn’t find evidence of ancient people penning cassowaries, it’s something they plan to look for in the future.

Historically, cassowary tibiotarsae, the upper part of the bird’s leg, were used to fashion bone daggers(匕首) for hunting. Today their feathers are prized for decorations, and the birds remain an important source of meat. But these striking birds, which can reach nearly 1.8 meters tall and 54 kilograms, are also incredibly dangerous.

“They have these really large claws. And if they feel threatened, they will use them,” Douglass said. A frightened or territorial cassowary can lash out with a kick powerful enough to eviscerate a medium-size—or even human-size—mammal. Cassowaries do occasionally kill humans, including a man in Florida who was deadly attacked by a cassowary he kept on his farm in 2019. Even so, these instances are exceedingly rare.

10 . Sometimes, animals act just as humans do. Officer Burgess found a mother duck pecking (啄) on his car. He figured she just wanted ________. But the pecking continued.

Officer Burgess grew ________when the duck ignored the food he threw out of the window. Instead, the duck________away just a bit, then stopped, looked back, and returned to the ________for some more pecking and screaming.

After the duck’s doing so for a second time, Officer Burgess ________got out of his car to follow the duck. But he wasn’t prepared for what he was about to ________!

“She led me about 100 yards away to this grassy________near a lake where I saw one of her ________all tangled up (缠住) in some string. His little feet were ________” the officer explained. “She led me straight to him.”

Officer Burgess thought the mother duck might ________him if he tried to touch her baby, so he________the animal rescue center for help. The rescue group didn’t have any staff readily_______to assist, but a policewoman, Officer Cecilia Charron, decided she’d lend a ________.

When Officer Charron arrived, she went straight to work on carefully ________the little one. “The mother duck just________，like she knew. It was amazing,” Officer Burgess recalled. Once freed, the baby ran to its mama, and they safely________away.

It was an unbelievable ________for the shocked officers, and Officer Charron ________ teared up a bit.

Officer Burgess said, “I honestly don’t know why I decided to _______her, but I did. It makes me wonder-do they know to ________humans when they need help?”