1 . Coral creates reefs, structures in the ocean that support entire ecosystems. However, climate change is threatening the existence of such reefs. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered four bleaching events in the last seven years.

Coral bleaching happens when extreme temperatures and sunlight force corals to release algae living in their tissue. This causes them to lose their color and turn white. The experience greatly weakens the coral and can kill them.

Scientists working on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have successfully tested a new method for freezing and storing coral larvae — the very young form of the small ocean animal.

The science project in Australia involves freezing and storing coral larvae to use later for rewilding. A new material called “cryomesh” is helping the scientists in the effort. Coral is frozen using a special method called cryogenics. This permits the young animals to be stored until they can be unfrozen and placed in the wild. The process currently requires high-tech equipment including lasers and is costly. But, the team in Australia says cryomesh can do a better job of saving the coral and for much less money. The mesh technology helps to store coral larvae at-196 degrees Celsius.

The scientists used the cryomesh to freeze Great Barrier Reef coral larvae at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, or AIMS. Workers collected the coral during the animal’s brief yearly reproductive period.

Mary Hagedorn, Senior Research Scientist at Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute explained, “If we can secure the biodiversity of coral...then we’ll have tools for the future to really help restore the reefs.” She added, “...this technology for coral reefs in the future is a real game-changer.”

The cryomesh had been tested earlier on smaller and larger kinds of Hawaian corals. A test on the larger failed. Tests are continuing with larger-size Great Barrier Reef coral. The tests involve scientists from four organizations. Together they are part of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program.

In their spare time, most young people like to enjoy     1     (they)and play on their smartphones. But Li Ruxue is different. He often walks around a forest alone,     2     (isolate)himself from the outside world. “Though the lifestyle is a little bit tiring, it’s meaningful,” he often said.

In college, Li actively took part in field research. After graduation, he joined a gibbon protection organization where what he mainly needs to do is     3     (pick)up gibbon waste. The gibbon is a top-level state-protected animal     4     population is smaller than that of wild giant pandas. So over the past four and a half years, Li     5     (follow)gibbons and collecting their waste for researchers. Li said the job relies heavily on luck and     6     (persevere). But he has never regretted his choice or felt alone.

Like Li, Chu Wenwen, 27, has also worked to protect animals. As her father is engaged     7     wildlife research, Chu has long been surrounded by wild animals. She followed in her father’s footsteps. Listed as     8     first-class state-protected animal in China, the Mengxin beaver is found only along the Ulungur River in Xinjiang’s Altay prefecture.To protect them, Chu initiated the “beaver canteen” program, which     9     (eventual)attracted over 1 million internet users to donate snack money.

According to Fan Pengfei,     10     (ecology)protection as an industry can provide only a few jobs,most of which are in research institutes and nongovernmental organizations. He has seen more and more young people take part-time jobs as journalists, photographers and so on to raise public awareness of wildlife protection. “Young people are the future of the world and the future of global biodiversity conservation,” said Fan.

3 . El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in California rises 3, 000-feet from base to summit (最高点). It’s a vertical (垂首的) wall of rock, making it a popular________ for rock climbers from all over the world.

In fact, climbers like Joe Baker say summiting El Capitan is the ________ goal for adventurers. His son, Sam Baker, became the youngest person to overcome the ________ wall of rock. Oh, did we mention that Sam is only 8 years old?

Joe has climbed the mountain before, but ________ from the base to the summit. Making the climb was a dream of his, and seeing his son meet the ________ of one of the most difficult formations in the world made the experience even more ________. Sam was well-prepared for the hardships they’d encounter while climbing, and he ________ hard for the task. On October 30th, Sam ________ the top of the rock face, setting a youngest record to climb El Capitan! Joe ________ the news on Instagram. “We ________it!” he wrote. “Sam wanted to end our ________ with a cuddle (拥抱). I’m so ________ of Sam. He completed the youngest record of climbing El Capitan! In a few years he might ________ more records.”

What an extraordinary ________, especially for someone so young! We can’t wait to see this young athlete breaks records as he continues on his ________ journey.

4 . We love our dogs and always try to take good care of them, but there are some simple things that can be harmful to our pets.     1    

Playing fetch with sticks

Most dogs love playing fetch with sticks. It may be fun to throw one for your dog when you don’t have a ball or rubber toy handy, but they can be extremely dangerous. Sticks can easily break.     2     A stick can also go through a dog’s throat and get stuck there, which can be life threatening.

Feeding cooked bones

Dogs love eating bones and human leftovers, but cooked bones should never be fed to dogs. They can break into small, sharp pieces. They have the potential to cause choking or cuts to the mouth, throat or gut.

If you choose to feed your dog bones, only feed raw bones and always under control.     3    

Not all dogs can swim

Dog owners often take it for granted that all dogs can swim, but in fact some dogs may not be able to swim at all. Pugs, French bulldogs, dachshunds and similar are often poor swimmers.     4     In order for these dogs to keep their noses and mouths above water they must stick their heads out from under water, which points their back end downwards, making them almost vertical in the water and likely to sink.

    5     To do this, get in the water with them and support them under the body until they get the hang of using all four legs to push themselves forward. Don’t force your dog if they are not comfortable, and always start by paddling in a shallow area. Many dogs will learn to swim by following other dogs into the water.

5 . There is a wide range of “last chance tourism” destinations around the planet, many of which are threatened by the effect of global warming.

The world-famous Glacier National Park spreads over a million acres in Montana. The park welcomes about 3 million visitors each year to its unique ecosystem. However, its glaciers are quickly shrinking in size, and continue to affect the ecosystem with the non-stop melting. At today’s global warming rates, these glaciers will disappear in the next few decades.

Kilimanjaro, the “Root of Africa”, dominates the tropical landscape of Tanzania in Africa. It is a destination for the climbers wishing to conquer Kilimanjaro’s peak at 5895 meters above sea level. The mountain’s steep walls used to be fully covered in ice sheets while today they sit nearly bare, having lost 85% of the coverage due to the ever-rising temperatures. It is highly likely to lose all the snow in just 20 years.

Rio, surrounded by amazing coastlines, is a tourist hotspot in Brazil with colored cityscape and diverse culture. Many know Rio for the Carnival festival with dazzling events. Climate experts project a sea-level rise of 32 inches around Rio and floods that will cover the city’s famous beaches, and some inland neighborhoods by 2100.

The Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth, is a renowned wellness destination for healing and relaxation. The sea is a fascinating 997-feet-deep natural wonder with no marine life. The high-salt content makes floating effortless and relaxing, as well as great for skin conditions. However, the increasingly hot and dry climate speeds up the rate of evaporation, making it a dry land by 2050.

7 . Scientists have found the world’s biggest seagrass ecosystem in the Bahamas. Seagrass refers to dozens of different species of flowering plants that live entirely underwater, producing energy through photosynthesis (光合作用) by absorbing sunlight. Like their land-based relatives, seagrasses have roots and leaves and also produce seeds. Seagrasses grow in salty coastal waters around the world, usually in shallow waters where sunlight is more plentiful. Since seagrasses carry out the process of photosynthesis, they are known to be very effective at storing carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas. This is because photosynthesis involves plants using sunlight to transform carbon dioxide into oxygen.

These underwater plants play an important role in carbon sequestration, in which carbon is stored in the environment rather than being allowed to float freely in the atmosphere where it can contribute to global warming. According to Gallagher, one of the new study’s authors, carbon enters the ocean as part of the carbon cycle, and the seagrass takes in this carbon through photosynthesis via their leaves. This is part one. The second part is when the seagrass transports this carbon through itself, burying and storing it in its root system. Seagrass stores this carbon permanently.

The purpose of the study by Gallagher and his colleagues was to map seagrass in the Bahamas, using data from 15 tiger sharks equipped with tracking instruments that could also take images of the sea floor. That information was then combined with reports from 2,500 surveys by human divers.

Mark Huxham, professor of teaching and research in environmental biology, said “This brilliant study uses imaginative and exciting new technology, in partnership with tiger sharks. We know seagrass is important for the health of our seas and our planet, but there are major gaps in our understanding about it.”

9 . The last time Jack Hanson took an airplane, he was a junior at the University of Vermont. To return from a term abroad in Copenhagen, he flew from Denmark, ________ in Iceland, and landed in New York.

But the next term, one of his professors asked students to ________ their individual energy usage. And when Mr. Hanson did the ________, he realized that just one leg of that international flight ________ more energy, and more greenhouse gas emissions(排放), than all the other things that year ________ — the driving and heating and lighting and eating and everything else.

He was ________. “I just couldn’t ________ it,” he says. “It really is an extreme. It’s an extreme amount of energy, an extreme amount of ________.”

So Mr. Hanson decided to stop ________. Since then, he has traveled by train and bike and car, and has even written a song about the ________ of getting home to Chicago on an overnight bus. But he has not been on an airplane.

And he has never found travel more ________, he says. He knows that some people find this hard to ________, including many friends and family members. They decide Mr. Hanson’s approach is ________.

Go more ________, and travel begins to return to what it once was: a slow change of one place to another, a sense of space, an unwinding of time.

10 . Oceans are an appealing target for renewable energy production. Waves produce 32,000 terawatt-hours of natural energy per year — for reference, the entire world uses around 23,000 terawatt-hours every year.

The advantages of wave power are clear.     1     Turbines produce electricity through the power of waves, making them a completely pollution-free, renewable energy source. And the amount of kinetic energy in a wave is huge that energy is used to produce electricity. There is also a lot of potential because many countries have access to an ocean that can help power their electric systems. Also, waves are hardly interrupted and almost always in movement.     2    

But the disadvantages of wave energy are serious too. Building factories or electrical wires directly on the beach might prove challenging.     3     Local fishing zones could be affected or the factories could lead to more coastal erosion. High cost is a problem too. Wave power is a rising energy technology in the early stages of development, so calculating the costs is difficult.     4     Because constant movement can lead to more breaking, wave energy factories will most likely need regular and costly maintenance.

    5     For many ocean-bordering countries, wave energy will be a great addition to the newable energy mix. The bottom line is that wave power has enormous global potential. However, the industry needs more funding and research to finalize the technology involved so that countries can begin adding wave energy to their renewable energy source.