1 . The male western tanager (唐纳雀) looks like a little flame, while females are less showy, a dusty yellow. In the spring, they prepare to move thousands of miles to the Mountain West of Central America, flying through grasslands, deserts, and occasionally, suburban yards.

To fuel them on their lengthy journey, western tanagers fill up on insects and berries. But as global climate change causes spring to start earlier, birds such as western tanagers are arriving at their destination after what’s known as “green-up”, when flowers begin blooming and insects emerge. According to a study published in early March in the journal PNAS, this kind of timing mismatch between migrants (迁移动物) and their food sources, which is happening across North America, could have serious consequences for migratory birds’ survival. “In discussing climate change, we often focus on warming,” says Scott Loss, a co-author of the study. “But the length and timing of seasons — like when winter ends and spring begins — are some of the most dramatic effects of climate change.”

Loss and his colleagues used satellite imagery from 2002 to 2021 to calculate the average start of spring green-up along the typical migration routes of 150 North American bird species, then compared that timing with the current green-up. They found that spring is indeed beginning earlier along birds’ migration routes. “By contrary, previous studies have mainly focused on songbirds in Eastern North America,” says Morgan Tingley, an ornithologist at UCLA, “but this new investigation shows that bird species in the West and at different levels of the food web might be just as vulnerable (脆弱的).”

“Part of it is knowing which species are vulnerable to various threats,” Loss says. “This adds to the knowledge about vulnerability of a wide range of bird species.” And he hopes that the information will serve to highlight the urgent need to lower greenhouse-gas emissions as fast as possible. “It’s really important, if we can’t address climate change immediately, to try to stop habitat loss as much as we can.”

Shenzhou XVIII manned spaceship successfully     1     (dock) with the space station at 3:32 am on April 26 2024, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). The whole process took     2     (approximate) 6.5 hours.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off at 8:59 p.m. from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. About 10     3     (minute) after the launch, the Shenzhou-18 spaceship separated from the rocket     4    entered its designated orbit. The crew members are     5     good shape and the launch is     6    "complete success," the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced.

While in orbit, the Shenzhou-18 spaceship is scheduled     7    (make) a fast, automated rendezvous and docking with the space station combination. The Shenzhou-18 crew will rotate with the Shenzhou-17 crew in orbit.

The Shenzhou-18 crew members are Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu, with Ye as the mission     8     (command). The Shenzhou-18 mission marks Ye's second journey into space,    9     (follow) his previous role as a crew member during the Shenzhou-13 mission from October 2021 to April 2022. Li Cong and Li Guangsu,    10     belong to the third group of Chinese astronauts, are both embarking on their first-ever space adventure.

3 . Birds in North America will no longer be named after people, the American Ornithological Society (美国鸟类学会) announced Wednesday. Next year, the organization will begin to rename around 80 species found in the U.S. and Canada.

“There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary (排他的) and harmful today,” the organization’s president, Colleen Handel, said in a statement. “Everyone who loves and cares about birds should be able to enjoy and study them freely.”

Rather than review each bird named after a person individually, all such birds will be renamed, the organization announced. Birds that will be renamed include those currently called Wilson’s warbler and Wilson’s snipe, both named after the 19th-century naturalist Alexander Wilson. Audubon’s shearwater, a seabird named for John James Audubon, also will get a new name. In 2020, the organization renamed a bird once referring to a Confederate Army general, John P. McCown, as the thick-billed longspur.

“I’m really happy and excited about the announcement,” said Emily Williams, an ornithologist at Georgetown University who was not involved in the decision. She said heated discussions over bird names have been happening within birdwatching communities for the past several years. “Naming birds based on habitat or appearance is one of the least problematic approaches,” she said.

Earlier this year, the National Audubon Society (NAS) announced that it would keep its name, even as critics and some voices within the organization have argued that it should dump (抛弃) the association with a man, John James Audubon, whose family treated their employees cruelly.

“The name has come to represent so much more than the work of one person,” Susan Bell, chair of the National Audubon Society’s Board of Directors, told Audubon magazine in March, adding, “We shouldn’t ignore what John James Audubon did to his employees in the past.”

5 . Living in a city, you may face fewer parking spaces, more pollution, less personal space, and more traffic and noise, all of which contribute to higher stress levels, often translating to aggression (攻击行为). And now, researchers have found evidence that this behavior applies to song sparrows (歌雀) too. But it comes with a surprising benefit to the youngest generation of city sparrows.

There are fewer city-living song sparrows than in the countryside. However, the increased aggression observed in the males can be connected to a more pressing need to defend territories in urban settings. But that increased aggression doesn’t mean the males fail in their duties as fathers. In fact, the researchers were surprised to find that the opposite may be true.

“Male songbirds are thought to reduce parental care when they are more aggressive. Yet this study showed that urban male song sparrows provided more care for their young,” says Dr Samuel Lane, lead author of the study. “Against our expectations, we found that they visited nests more often and were more successful parents than the males in the countryside.”

The researchers carried out their studies at six sites across southwest Virginia, USA, across four breeding (繁殖) seasons. They found that the high survival rate of their chicks was subject to many factors. Not only did male sparrows visit their nests more often, but they also began feeding chicks earlier in the day. Despite the challenges of being a city bird, hatching success was observed to be higher in urban habitats. And even though brood parasitism, one species laying eggs in the nest of another, is typically higher in urban areas, the researchers observed that rates of nest predation, the act of other animals eating eggs or young birds, were lower, further contributing to the overall nesting success of these sparrows.

Lane said, “Our study adds to growing evidence that certain species of songbirds even benefit from living in urban environments when there is enough green space for them to find food and nest locations.”

The team hope ongoing research in this area will contribute to the establishment of urban environments aimed at offering improved support for wildlife.

9 . Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune is widely considered one of the best sci-fi books ever written. It is also one of the first to take environmental concerns_________.

“It’s really calling attention to the_________ to think ecologically,” says Gerry Canavan, co-editor of the history of science fiction. “Prior to that moment, people just weren’t thinking in that way.”

Herbert _________ to find a publisher for Dune, facing 23 rejections before it was finally _________ by Chilton Book Company. As the book gained_________ -winning two most prestigious(有声望的)prizes in science fiction and eventually selling around 20 million copies_________ -it began to affect pop culture.

Dune _________ the environmental movement, which Herbert largely embraced. “I’m _________ to be put in the position of telling my grandchildren ‘Sorry, no more world for you. We have _________ all the resources,’” Herbert said at the first Earth Day in 1970.

Herbert was one of the earliest to__________ renewable energy ,installing(安装) his own solar collector and windmill. He believed that understanding the__________ of human actions could reduce environmental damage.

The __________ for Dune came from Herbert’s visit to Oregon’s sand dunes in 1957, where he __________ efforts to stabilize the landscape from local people. His novel serves as a cautionary tale about humanity’s relationship with the environment and the disastrous effects of __________ resource exploitation(开发).Dune challenges readers to consider the impact of their actions on the planet and serves as a__________ of the importance of sustainable living.

Although parks of all sizes and types exist at any level, the national parks, in particular, tend     1     (catch) our attention because of their large size and variety. They are     2     (treasure) of American heritage (遗产). How did the national park system come about? On a cool, starry night in mid-September 1870, four men relaxed before a campfire along the Firehole River in     3     is now northwestern Wyoming. They     4    (be) part of a 15-member exploring party that had spent almost five awesome weeks in witness of the natural beauties there.

What should     5    (do) with such a beautiful place? They wondered out loud. This area, with     6     (it) unique and breathtaking natural beauty, must be well preserved     7     all people of the nation to enjoy — as a national park. They all agreed and vowed (承诺) to promote the idea at the     8     (complete) of their journey. Their promotional work paid off. Two years later, 18 years before Wyoming became a state, Yellowstone became the first national park in the United States and the world. Yellowstone was the     9     (large) United States national park — 2.2 million acres — until Wrangell-Saint Elias in southern Alaska,     10     became a national monument in 1978, took the honors as a national park in 1980 with 12.3 million acres.