1 . On September 7, 1991, the costliest hailstorm (雹暴) in Canadian history hit Calgary’s southern suburbs. As a result, since 1996 a group of insurance companies have spent about $2 million per year on the Alberta Hail Suppression Project. Airplanes seed threatening storm cells with a chemical to make small ice crystals fall as rain before they can grow into dangerous hailstones. But farmers in east-central Alberta — downwind of the hail project flights — worry that precious moisture (水分) is being stolen from their thirsty land by the cloud seeding.

Norman Stienwand, who farms in that area, has been addressing public meetings on this issue for years. “Basically, the provincial government is letting the insurance companies protect the Calgary-Edmonton urban area from hail,” Mr. Stienwand says, “but they’re increasing drought risk as far east as Saskatchewan.”

The Alberta hail project is managed by Terry Krauss, a cloud physicist who works for Weather Modification Inc. of Fargo, North Dakota. “We affect only a very small percentage of the total moisture in the air, so we cannot be causing drought.” Dr. Krauss says. “In fact, we may be helping increase the moisture downwind by creating wetter ground.”

One doubter about the safety of cloud seeding is Chuck Doswell, a research scientist who just retired from the University of Oklahoma. “In 1999, I personally saw significant tornadoes form from a seeded storm cell in Kansas,” Dr. Doswell says. “Does cloud seeding create killer storms or reduce moisture downwind? No one really knows, of course, but the seeding goes on.”

Given the degree of doubt, Mr. Stienwand suggests, “It would be wise to stop cloud seeding.” In practice, doubt has had the opposite effect. Due to the lack of scientific proof concerning their impacts, no one has succeeded in winning a lawsuit against cloud-seeding companies. Hence, private climate engineering can proceed in relative legal safety.

2 . Wood stork, which was on the brink of extinction in 1984, has recovered enough in Florida and other Southern states. The American wildlife officials proposed removing the waterfowl (水禽) from the endangered species list.

This symbolic species, which is the only stork native to North America, has rebounded (反弹) because dedicated partners in the southeast have worked tirelessly to restore ecosystems that support it. In addition, the wood stork has increased its range in coastal areas. The birds have adapted to new nesting areas, tripling the number of colonies across their range from 29 to 99 in recent years.

Credit goes mainly to the wildlife protections provided by the Endangered Species Act(ESA), which can impose restrictions on a variety of activities in areas where such species are, located, such as development, mining and oil drilling. The act saved the wood stork and it helped; preserve and rebuild vital habitats throughout the southeast, which has improved water quality and benefited countless other species who call the area home. The Endangered Species Act has saved 99% of the species that have been on the list since 1973, with 100 types of plants and animals delisted because they have recovered or are at least stable.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that restoration of the wood stork’s habitat, especially in the Florida Everglades and adjacent Big Cypress National Preserve, led to a, sharp increase in breeding pairs. Those numbers had shrunk to just 5,000 pairs in 1984, whereas there are more than 10,000 pairs today.

“The proposed delisting of the wood stork is a significant milestone and a remarkable, achievement of the hard work by federal agencies, state and local governments, tribes, conservation organizations, and private citizens in protecting and restoring our most at-risk species,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said.

If the wood stork is delisted, officials said it would remain protected by other laws including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Clean Water Act. A monitoring plan, would be put in place for at least five years to ensure the stork population remains stable.

Shennongjia is     1     household name in China because it’s the home of the legendary “wild man”. Its folk tale spans the generations. 

Between 1976 and 1981, the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized three large-scale     2     (science) investigations. They have collected hair, footprints and waste suspected of     3     (belong) to a “wild man”, but some experts argue that most were the result of bears, monkeys or even human beings. They failed     4     (uncover) the myth of “wild man”, but discovered the area’s rich biodiversity. Although several hundred people have claimed     5     (they) as eyewitnesses of some giant apelike creatures in Shennongjia, there is no tangible (真实的) evidence to confirm the     6     (exist) of a “wild man”. 

Nowadays, Shennongjia’s attraction is not     7     (mere) about “wild man”. Its appeal is more about its lively ecology, rich biodiversity and karst landforms (喀斯特地貌). Shennongjia’s beauty varies over the year as nature takes its course. Tourists can enjoy flower blossoms in spring, be shaded from the summer heat, appreciate red leaves in autumn     8     go skiing in winter. 

The “wild man” legend has been passed on for generations by word-of-mouth. In 2016, the legend of “wild man” in Shennongjia     9     (add) to Hubei Province’s intangible cultural heritage list. Today, tourists can visit Wild Man Cave,     10     eyewitnesses claimed that they spotted the creatures, and see “wild man” sculptures.

7 . A lot of manufactured glass today made from sand and sodium carbonate(碳酸钠) can be reused or melted down and recycled into new items, but it doesn’t break down in the environment and will sit in landfills for thousands of years. A team of Chinese scientists aimed to deal with this environmental concern by developing an eco-conscious alternative.

In a study published recently in the journal Science Advances, a team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Process Engineering describe how they engineered biodegradable glass made from amino acids(氨基酸). That glass would have a smaller impact on the environment and can break down in a few weeks or in several months.

In a test, glass beads(玻璃珠) made out of amino acids were placed under the skin of mice, and the breakdown of the bead and the skin healing process were observed for 30days. A diagram from the study shows how the mice’s bodies broke down the beads. In that month, the glass implant degraded beneath the skin, the wound site healed, and fur grew back. “Throughout the experimental period, no mice exhibited any pain-related behavior that may have been caused by the glass implantation, and none of them experienced obvious weight loss,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Although amino acids do degrade over time in the environment, this biodegradable glass is not as durable as traditional glass, because amino acids can break down quickly in heat. In order to overcome this hurdle, the researchers chemically modified the amino acids using the heating-cooling procedure applied in glass manufacturing. This is when materials for the glass are heated to become soft and then rapidly cooled so as to make the glass tougher.

“It’s important to point out that this biodegradable glass is currently in the lab stage, and far from large-scale commercialization,” emphasized Yan Xuehai, a professor involved in the study, in a press release.