2 . In the forest of New Mexico, scientists are carrying two ten-day-old Mexican wolf pups (幼崽) riding in a backpack, searching for a Mexican wolf pair that has just given birth to six pups.    1    

Mexican wolves were extinct in the USA by the 1970s, but there was a plan to bring them back. The first step was to trap five wild Mexican wolves and breed them with two caged ones. In 1998, the first caged-born adult Mexican wolves were released into forests.     2    If animals have to pair up with family members, then their pups will have unhealthy genes, making them sick.

    3     Let wild wolves adopt caged-born pups-that’s how these two pups end up in backpacks. While the adult wolves are out hunting, the scientists gently place the pups with their new brothers and sisters. They rub the caged-born and wild pups together, ever letting them pee (小便) on each other to mix their smells!     4     This result makes the scientists optimistic about the plan.

The idea is that the caged pups will grow up and breed with wild wolves.     5     Thanks to this ongoing work, 250 wild Mexican wolves wander Arizona and New Mexico today.

3 . Two new community initiatives offering the opportunity to borrow everything from sewing machines to party supplies are aiming to reduce waste and consumption.

Tools n Things Library in Leederville, Perth is a community library designed to allow community members to get access to the things they might need around the house instead of buying them in a hardware (五金店) store.

“That’s our philosophy — don’t buy, borrow. Many people buy things just for a small task at home, and then they won’t use them for a couple of years,” library volunteer Rex Breheny said.

The project is run by volunteers who founded it in 2019, and after an interruption in 2020 because of the pandemic (大流行病), it has now grown to several hundred members who can come and borrow things twice a week. In a way it is a return to an old tradition of neighbors borrowing each other’s tools and forming connections in the process.

Tools n Things Library is the first of its kind in Perth, and another called Share Shed has just started in Bassendean. Its co-founder Renee McLennan said they wanted to expand beyond tools to all sorts of things that people might use rarely, like camping equipment or entertaining needs.

“We’re doing the kind of equipment you’d use for a party. Instead of everybody buying disposable plates, and cups and things like that, we’ve got quality glasses and cutlery (餐具), as well as decorations that people can use for those events that they might have once a year,” she said.

The Share Shed is being considered as a way to tackle consumer culture. The world cannot continue to support our current level of resource consumption — at present overconsumption means that each year we consume 75 per cent more than the planet can regenerate.

“Borrowing items and shifting our thinking from an ownership to an access model helps to reduce the number of things that are produced and limits waste. At the same time, sharing the things that we use every now and then is a great way of connecting with people who live locally,” Bod Anderson, an officer in Perth said.

6 . Animal appear to predict earthquakes by sensing electricity in the air — the first study to find reliable evidence of the phenomenon has shown.

Cameras revealed an “amazing” drop in the number of animals up to 23 days before a major quake hit their rainforest home at Yanachaga National Park in Peru. Lead scientist Dr Rachel Grant, from Anglia Ruskin University, said, “The results showed that just before the earthquake, animals’ activity dropped right down.”

On a normal day the cameras placed around Yanachaga National Park record between 5 and 15 animals. But in the 23 days before the earthquake, the number of animals dropped to five or fewer per day. No animals were photographed at all on five of the seven days immediately before the quake.

Another study showed that animal activity remained normal in the park over a different period when seismic (地震的) activity was low. Co-author, professor Friedemann Freund, said, “The cameras were located at an altitude of 900 meters. If air ionization occurred, the animals would escape to the valley below, where there were fewer positive ions ( 离子). With their ability to sense their environment, animals can help us understand small changes that occur before major earthquakes.”

Other evidence suggested that before the earthquake, the air around the high mountain sites filled with positive ions that can be produced when rocks are placed under stress. Positive ions have been known to cause ill effects in humans as well as animals. Scientists believe the animals were made to feel uncomfortable by the positive ions, leading them to avoid the area. They are thought to have escaped to lower ground, where the air was less ionized. The findings may help experts develop better short-term seismic forecasts.

8 . Steel plays a significant role in the automobiles we drive and the transportation infrastructure that connects us. However, it also contributes to 7% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. In recognition of this, 45 nations made a pledge in 2021 to strive towards nearly zero-emission steel production within the next ten years.

However, how is it possible to produce the steel required for society with zero emissions?

A new study shows that if we are truly committed to reaching zero emissions, we must be prepared for a scenario where the amount of steel we can produce is lower. Japan has set a target for a 46% reduction in emissions from steel by 2030, and zero emissions by 2050. So far, the roadmap for achieving this relies heavily on future innovations in technology.

In the study, Dr. Takuma Watari, a Japanese researcher argues that there is no silver bullet. He says that current plans to cut carbon emissions underestimate how difficult it will be to develop CCS and hydrogen technologies and deploy them widely: “These technologies still face serious technical, economic, and social challenges, and have yet to be implemented at scale.

According to Dr. Watari, “zero-emission steel production is possible by 2050, but in limited quantity and quality compared to current total production. This is due to the limited availability of zero-emission compatible resources and downcycling practices of scrap steel.”

The implication is clear. It is not enough to rely on a technological silver bullet materializing to transform the supply of steel. We also need to look seriously at strategies to reduce demand by shifting our culture of steel use and improving our material efficiency.

Dr. Watari concludes that we do need to invest in technological innovations, but we cannot simply wait for them to appear. Instead, steel users need to prepare for a world where there is less steel available: “We do not deny the need to invest in innovative production technologies. Rather, what we want to highlight is that we should look for far more strategic options, instead of simply relying on silver bullet production technologies.”

9 . The invasive (入侵的) species, also called introduced species or foreign species, is any nonnative species that significantly changes or damages the ecosystem it invades. Such species may arrive in new areas through natural migration, but they are often introduced by the activities of other species. Human activities, such as those involved in global commerce and the pet trade, are considered to be the most common ways in which invasive plants, animals, microbes, and other organisms are transported to new habitats.

Most introduced species do not survive extended periods in new habitats, because they do not possess the necessary adaptations to adjust to the challenges posed by their new surroundings. Some introduced species may become invasive when they possess a built-in competitive advantage over native species in invaded areas. They change native food chains and in some cases even get to the top of the food chains, which means the ecosystem lacks natural enemy capable of keeping them in check. Under these circumstances, new arrivals can get the chance to reproduce in large numbers.

The ecological damage that tends to follow such invasions often reduces the ecosystem’s biodiversity and causes economic harm to people who depend on the ecosystem’s biological resources. Invasive species may be so good at catching preys that victim populations decline over time, and many victim species die out in the affected ecosystem. Other invasive species, in contrast, may prevent native species from obtaining food, living space, or other resources. Over time, invasive species can effectively replace native ones, often forcing the localized extinction of many native species. Invasive plants and animals may also serve as disease carriers that spread parasites (寄生虫) and viruses that may further do harm to the invaded area.