1 . The Chapramari Forest lies in the eastern area of India.     1     . But a large group of elephants found green grasses along the railway line that crosses through the forest. As the elephants got near and on the tracks at dusk, a passenger train traveling at 50 mph knocked into the herd. Seven elephants were killed, and 10 injured.

    2     . The deaths occur at hot spots in a few Indian states where trains intersect (交叉) with elephant habitats. It's puzzling why this highly intelligent animal would wait on the tracks     3     .

After a collision this past April in Odisha state that killed four elephants, Indian Railways lowered speed limits to as low as 18 mph in several areas in the country's east.     4     . Beginning late last year, railway officials in the east have fixed a kind of equipment that could loudly broadcast the buzz of honeybees, a sound that they hope keeps elephants away given their fear of honeybees. In the northern state of Uttara hand, the forest department is using drones (遥控飞机) to keep track of animal movement.     5     .

More permanent solutions include constructing overpasses or underpasses as safe crossing points for the elephants, elevating the railway track, or getting the track away from sensitive areas.

2 . It is always said that China is the homeland of tea, which has a very long history of tea.     1     However, unlike the western custom of using a convenient teabag, Chinese go to a lot of effort and time to prepare good tea for their guests, using tea leaves, natural spring water and a special kettle etc. to create worldwide famous tea culture. Tea is not just a drinkable beverage(饮料), but also a taste of Chinese traditional culture and inheritance(继承) of spirit. Unsurprisingly, there are various tea leaves in China.     2    

➢Color

    3     Good green tea leaves have jade green with fresh vitality. Twisted pan green tea shows glossy gray green. If some of the tea leaves have dry, dark and brown colors, it means it is old tea. If the leaves have mixed, large contrast colors, it is believed that the tea is mixed with yellow leaves, old leaves and even old tea, which does not live up to the standard of good tea.

➢Flavor(味道)

New tea is extremely clear and transparent with strong aroma(芳香), while old tea is characterized by brown color and weak fragrance. Take green tea and black tea for example, new green tea tastes a little bitter first, and then the fresh sweet taste begins to surface gradually, leaving a long and memorable after taste in mouth.     4    

➢Place of origin

There is great gap of quality among various places of origin.     5     For example, it is well-known that Yunnan produces the best quality Pu'er tea and premium Oolong tea can be found within Fujian Province.

Every year in the month of March, one of     1     world's greatest wildlife migrations (迁徙) stops in central Nebraska. For a short time, sandhill cranes (沙丘鹤) fill the state's wide, flat fields. The land provides the birds     2     the perfect place to rest and eat.

In recent years, more and more people     3     (discover) the migration. Visitors crowd into river blinds — special buildings that help keep the bird watchers     4    (hide) themselves. They look through their cameras or telescopes in wonder.

The sandhill cranes are worth the trip. They are     5    (general) a little over a metre tall. They have long legs and necks. Their wings stretch over two metres. Sandhill cranes have soft, grey feathers. They     6     (know) for having a bright red area on the top of their heads.

The birds stop in Nebraska as they make their way from their winter homes in Mexico and some     7    (south) parts of the United States. The birds usually spend two or three     8     (week) at this place     9     they leave. They arrive in waves, at times as many as 400,000 in one day. They eat in the nearby fields and grass lands. Leftover grain, insects and small creatures give     10     (they) the energy they need as they continue their trip north, towards Canada and Siberia.

8 . The Chinese brake fern (蜈蚣草) — which is native to Asia, southern Europe, Africa and Australia — has a unique ability: It can take in high quantities of arsenic (砷), a harmful heavy metal, from the soil and store it without dying.

Now, a team of scientists from Purdue University has finally unlocked the secrets of how the plant is able to do this. The findings could have important significance because soil and groundwater polluted with arsenic are a potential risk to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Currently, cleaning up the toxic (有毒的) metal is a laborious and very expensive process. However, the scientists hope that the Chinese brake fern could hold the key to a more effective solution.

“Other researchers have shown that this fern, when grown on arsenic-polluted soil, can remove almost 50 percent of the arsenic in five years,”said lead researcher Jody Banks in a statement.“It takes time, but it's cheap.”

Furthermore, the team said that the new findings could one day be used to genetically (从基因方面) engineer other plants to suck up the toxic metal from the soil, and they should work more quickly and effectively than the Chinese brake fern, thus providing a solution that could potentially reduce the cost and time of arsenic cleanup.

In general, arsenic is toxic to plants and animals due to the fact that it can cause cell death by disturbing a cell's ability to produce ATP, which acts as an energy source. The Chinese brake fern, however, is quite able to prevent the process from occurring, researchers said.

The team identified three genes that exhibit significant activity when the plant comes into contact (接触) with arsenic. When the scientists “turned off”these genes in experiments, they found that the plant died, stressing their importance in protecting against arsenic's toxic effects.

9 . You go to the coffee shop and take your coffee to go. You enjoy your drink, and then throw the paper cup in the garbage. Or do you put it in the recycling? I's confusing. A lot of us—people everywhere—are using to-go cups these days. A recent report said that there are 600 billion cups-billion with a ‘b’- that are produced and sold globally on an annual basis So that`s a lot, " say Christy Slay with The Sustainability Consortium. Starbucks alone says it contributes 1 percent of those disposable cups: That's an estimated 6 billion cups a year.

To help reduce those numbers. Starbucks and McDonald's are launching a three-year project to build a better cup: one that's both fully recyclable and compostable. Here's the big problem with the paper one you get there and in other coffee shops. “They look like paper, but they actually have a thin layer of plastic on the inside,” Slay says. That plastic coating keeps the cups from leaking. The problem is that it also makes the cups really hard to recycle, and only a few facilities in the world can do it.

A few companies have already rolled out compostable coffee cups. But Dylan de Thomas with The Recycling Partnership says there is a problem with those cups, too. "Typically they're compostable in industrial settings, so not your backyard compost that you and I might have, but at fairly technically advanced composting facilities." There aren't a lot of those facilities around, either.

So why exactly, in the 21st century, is it so hard to produce a better paper cup? "It's not necessarily very technically hard, though there are technical problems to overcome to make something recyclable and compostable, says Bridget Croke with Closed Loop Partners, a firm working to build what they call a circular economy. It's a fancy way of talking about turning waste into value. Almost anything is technically recyclable, Croke says. "But recycling is a business, and if materials can't move through the recycling system and be turned into a product that has value, they're not functionally recyclable.”

10 . Though the harmful effects of plastic on wildlife and human health are well-documented, this material is hard to avoid. Nearly everything we touch, from grocery bags to drink bottles, to food packaging, contains plastic. Now, Amsterdam’s Ekoplaza supermarket is making it a little easier for consumers to reduce consumption of single-use plastic bags and containers, which are blocking our landfills at alarming rates, with a special plastic-free aisle (通道). Believed to be the world’s first, the aisle has 700 products on sale including rice, beans, yogurt, chocolate milk, cereal, snacks and meat.

While items still require packaging, everything is housed inside reusable or recyclable containers made of glass, metal or cardboard. The unique idea was given to the grocery-chain officials by UK-based environmental group A Plastic Planet, which takes the lead to advocate for at least one plastic-free aisle in supermarkets around the globe. The non-profit has even created a signature “plastic-free” mark to help consumers identify eco-friendly packaging. “This is a consumer-led campaign,” said a group co-founder Sian Sutherland. “We’re a grassroots organization. So obviously we’re working with industry and the government, but most importantly, we represent the public.”

Ekoplaza, which plans to roll out the plastic-free aisles across its 74 stores by the end of the year, is not the only company trying to reduce plastic waste. In Berlin, the Original Unverpackt grocery store has been trying to change customer habits since 2014 by selling everything, from grains to produce and even soaps without plastic packaging. The supermarket, which requires customers to bring their own reusable containers, even sells chewable toothpaste that needs no tubes.

Though it is encouraging to see companies trying to make a difference, for real change to happen, consumers have to avoid products encased in plastics, even if it means giving up their favorite food or drink. As Sutherland put it, “Plastic food and drink packaging remains useful and yet a destructive presence on the earth for centuries afterwards.”