2 . Cancer-fighting genes in elephants could help tackle one of the biggest killers of people, according to research. Despite their large bodies and long lifespans, elephants are much less likely to die from cancer than humans, with death rates of less than 5 percent.

The paradox has puzzled scientists because more cells lead to greater replications (复制), which increases the possibility of the body failing to detect damaged DNA or a faulty cell that can result in tumors(肿瘤). Elephants live for almost as long as humans and weigh up to five tons.

However, a group of British and European scientists say they have taken a big step towards solving Peto’s paradox, named after the British epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto. Elephants, they say, carry a much larger more diverse group of tumor-fighting proteins.

The findings, published last week in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, raise hopes that the cancer fighting genes in elephants could be the key to tackling cancer, which kills about 167, 000 Britons yearly. Cells keep dividing throughout an organism’s life, each carrying the risk of producing a tumor. One of the body’s weapons is a gene called p53 known as the “guardian of the genome”, which hunts cells with faulty DNA. It encourages the cell to repair itself or self-destruct, keeping the cell from combining with others and producing tumors.

Humans have two versions of p53 but elephants have 40, said the researchers. Biochemical analysis and computer simulations also showed that an elephant’s p53 genes are structurally slightly different, providing a much larger anti-cancer toolkit. The researchers suspect that while faulty cells might be able to skirt two p53 versions, they cannot combine with other cells as easily in the face of dozens.

The findings will open the way for research on how p53 genes of elephants are activated and on medical treatment for humans.

3 . The streets, sidewalks and roofs of cities all absorb heat during the day, making some urban areas across the United States up to 6 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than rural ones during the day—and 22 degrees F hotter at night. These “urban heat islands”   can also develop underground as the city heat spreads downward, beneath the surface. And basements, subway tunnels and other underground infrastructure also constantly bleed heat into the surrounding earth, creating hotspots. Now the underground heat is building up as the planet warms.

According to a new study of downtown Chicago, underground hotspots may threaten the very same structures that emit the heat in the first place. Such temperature changes make the ground around them expand and contract (收缩) enough to cause potential damage. “Without anyone realizing it, the city of Chicago’s downtown was deforming,” says the study’s author Alessandro F. Rotta Loria, a civil and environmental engineer at Northwestern University.

The findings, published in Communications Engineering, expose a “silent hazard (危险)” to civil infrastructure in cities with soft er ground — especially those near water — Rotta Loria says. “There might have been structural issues caused by this underground climate change that happened, and we didn’t even realize,” he adds. While not an immediate or direct danger to human lives, this previously unknown effect highlights the impacts of a lesser-known component of climate change.

Similar to climate change above the surface, these underground changes occur over long periods of time. “These effects took decades, a century, to develop,” Rotta Loria says, adding that elevated underground temperatures would likewise take a long time to dissipate (逐渐消失) on their own.

But other researchers interviewed for this story all say this wasted energy could also be recycled, presenting an opportunity to both cool the subsurface and save on energy costs. Subway tunnels and basements could be updated with technologies to recapture the heat. For example, water pipes could be installed to run through underground hotspots and pick up some of the heat energy.

4 . A group of researchers studying the behavior of Amur tigers, also known as Siberian tigers, have found that they have different “personality” types that help them survive and raise their baby tigers.

According to the previous investigation, Amur tigers are definitely the largest cuts in the world. They live in vast forests in wildness areas of eastern Russia and in protected areas of northern China. There are about 400 of these tigers left in the wild, although there are probably hundreds more living in zoos or reserves.

The researchers based the study on a human test called “The Big Five”, which scores people on five personality features. They asked feeders working with 248 cats in two shelters to spy on the tigers and give an account of their personalities. The results divided the tigers into two groups, which the researchers described as having either “majesty” or “steadiness”. Tigers in the majesty category were those that appeared “dignified (高贵的) and ambitious”. The tigers in the steadiness category were “sincere and tolerant”.

Majestic tigers had a higher social status, spent more time hunting live animals, and mated and ate more. The steady tigers seemed gentler and loving toward one another. Rosalind Arden, co-author of the study, said, “It’s pleasant to see that you don’t have to be dominant, fierce, competitive, and aggressive in order to succeed as a tiger, which doesn’t correspond with people’s traditional insights into tigers.”

There were female and male tigers in both categories. In fact, female Amur tigers are rare and feel exhausted after giving birth to baby tigers so that fathers often help raise the baby tigers. Having a steady personality, especially for male ones, could play a significant role in the relatively long amount of time — two to three years — that baby tigers stay with their parents. The researchers say both personalities have advantages that help the tigers survive threats, including loss of habitat and hunting. The team hopes the study will encourage more support from all walks of life in a bid to guarantee the tigers’ conservation.

6 . Our planet is an amazing place, but it needs our help to survive! By taking part in activities like planting trees and saving energy, we can make our world a happier and healthier place.

Plant a tree

Researchers estimate roughly 15 billion trees in the world are cut down each year. So help make up that loss by planting a tree of your own. Trees absorb CO₂ and produce oxygen for us to breathe. They also provide shelter and food for animals. Depending on where trees are planted, their shade can even reduce the need for air-conditioning in hotter months.     1     ?

Turn off the lights

Electricity doesn’t just happen.     2    . Although more and more electricity is made from renewable sources like wind, water and the sun, it still comes at a cost. Wind farms, big dams and solar panels take up a lot of land. But a lot of times electricity comes from fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, or natural gas, that contribute to climate change.     3    .

Limit your water usage

It might seem like water is everywhere. But the fact is that less than one percent of the water on Earth can be used by humans.     4    . Turning off the faucet (水龙头) when you brush your teeth can save up to eight gallons of water a day. To help save even more water, challenge yourself to take a shorter shower but still get clean!

    5    

Start a collection campaign for recyclable items. Talk to your friends and family members about what you’re doing and ask them to help. The more people do, the better off our planet will be!

8 . A new project in the Caribbean is setting out to save coral reefs(珊瑚礁)- and the world. The Ocean-Shot Project, spearheaded by climate scientist Dr. Deborah Brosnan, launched in 2021 to develop a “massive, first-of-its-kind” coral reef restoration initiative in the Caribbean country Antigua and Barbuda.

“We lose more coral reefs in a day that we can restore in a decade,”Brosnan said. “Our progress towards protecting coral reefs——which ultimately protect us——is too slow. So Ocean- Shot Project is about literally rebuilding the reefs, the architecture of the reefs, for the future. ”

What sets this project apart from other coral reef restoration projects is its focus——the architecture of the reef itself. While many initiatives prioritize saving the corals, Ocean-Shot Project tacks on the additional focus of developing the base for those corals to grow and thrive.

“Coral secretes(分泌) calcium carbonate, creating a sort-of concrete around itself that becomes the structure for the reef. But that process can take hundreds and thousands of years,”Brosnan said. And with coral bleaching(白化) events only predicted to become more intense in the coming decades as global and ocean temperatures warm, this can be a problem for reefs that need to be able to recover.

“What we’re doing is we’re saying, ‘let’s learn from the corals, let’s learn from nature,’”Brosnan said. “And let’s make this happen quickly.”

To make that happen, her team is creating reef structures in a lab and then planting them in the ocean, a process that Brosnan likened to“gardening”. The team is also planting“resilient corals”among the structures that have already survived several bleaching events. Previously, her team deployed their first set of these structures, called modules, into the ocean around Antigua and Barbuda. And it’s already seeing significant success.

“We saw a whole ecosystem start to recognize these reefs as home and just move right on in. So what it told us is that if we provide the living structure, the ecosystem will respond in return,”Brosnan said.

9 . Using first-of-their-kind observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. a University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team looked more than 13 billion years into the past to discover a unique, minuscule galaxy cluster (星系团) that generated new stars at an extremely high rate for its size. The galaxy is one of the smallest ever discovered at this distance —around 500 million years after the Big Bang — and could help astronomers learn more about galaxies that were present shortly after the universe came into existence.

The James Webb Space Telescope can observe a wide enough field to image an entire galaxy cluster at once. The researchers were able to find and study this new, tiny galaxy because of a phenomenon called gravitational lensing (引力透镜), where mass, such as that in a galaxy or galaxy cluster, bends and magnifies (放大) light. A galaxy cluster lens caused this small background galaxy to appear 20 times brighter than it would if the cluster were not magnifying its light.

The researchers then measured how far away the galaxy was, in addition to some of its physical and chemical properties. Studying galaxies that were present when the universe was this much younger can help scientists get closer to answering a huge question in astronomy about how the universe became reionized (再电离的).

“The galaxies that existed when the universe was in its primary stage are very different from what we see in the nearby universe now,” explained Hayley Williams, first author on the paper and a PhD student at the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics. “This discovery can help us learn more about the characteristics of those first galaxies, how they differ from nearby galaxies, and how the earlier galaxies formed.”

“The James Webb Space Telesco pe can collect about 10 times as much light as the Hubble Space Telescope and is much more sensitive at redder, longer wavelengths. This allows scientists to access an entirely new window of data,” the researchers said.

China’s forest area     1     (increase) by 22 million hectares over the past decade, according to a report     2     (publish) by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Sunday. The growth has significantly improved the country’s ecological environment while     3    (contribute) a quarter of the world’s new forests during the period. The country’s forest coverage rate now stands higher jumping from 8.6 percent in 1949 to 24.02 percent now.

Key projects have been promoted in the country’s move toward large-scale land afforestation     4    Three-North Shelterbelt Forest is one of them. Three-North Shelterbelt Forest,     5     was launched in 1978, develops extensive shelterbelts in the northern part of China     6     (decrease) the effect of sandstorms and soil erosion. It     7    (cover) a combined area of 4.07 million square kilometers, accounting     8     42.4 percent of the country’s land area. It’s also home to the world’s     9    (large) artificial plantation. From a wasteland to a sea of forests, the miraculous     10    (transform) reflects the country’s efforts for improving the environment.