1 . In a groundbreaking achievement, a rhino has successfully undergone embryo (胚胎) transfer, marking the first successful use of a method that holds promise for saving the nearly extinct northern white rhino subspecies.

The experiment, conducted with the less endangered southern white rhino subspecies, involved creating an embryo in a lab using eggs and sperm (精子) collected from other rhinos. This embryo was then transferred into a southern white rhino alternative mother in Kenya. Despite the unfortunate death of the alternative mother due to an infection in November 2023, researchers praised the successful embryo transfer and pregnancy (怀孕) as a proof of concept. They are now ready to proceed to the next stage of the project: transferring northern white rhinoembryos.

Professor Thomas Hildebrandt expressed optimism about the findings, highlighting the significance of the successful embryo transfer in demonstrating that frozen and defrosted embryos produced in a lab can survive. This development offers hope for the revival of the northern white rhino population.

However, challenges facing rhino conservation remain significant. While the southern white rhino subspecies and the black rhino species have shown signs of recovery from population declines due to illegal hunting for their horns (牛角), the northern white rhino subspecies is on the edge of extinction. With only two known members left in the world, Najin and her daughter Fatu, both unable to reproduce naturally, and the recent death of the last male white rhino, Sudan, in 2018, urgent action is needed to prevent the extinction of this subspecies. Dr. Jo Shaw, CEO of Save the Rhino International, emphasized the importance of addressing the primary threats facing rhinos worldwide: illegal hunting for their horns and habitat loss due to development. She stressed the need to provide rhinos with the space and security they need to succeed in their natural environment.

While the successful embryo transfer representsa significant advancement in rhino conservation efforts, organized action is required to address the main challenges facing rhino populations worldwide.

2 . In a small, rough shipyard on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, a small team is building what they say will be the world’s largest ocean-going clean cargo ship.

Ceiba is the first ship built by Sailcargo, a company trying to prove that zero-carbon shipping is possible, and commercially available. Made largely of wood, Ceiba combines both very old and very new technology: sailing masts stand alongside solar panels, a uniquely designed electric engine and batteries. Once on the water, she will be capable of crossing oceans entirely without the use of fossil fuels, which sets her apart.

“The thing that is striking is the fact that she’ll have one of the largest marine electric engines of her kind in the world,” Danielle Doggett said. The system also has the means to capture energy from underwater propellers (螺旋桨) as well as solar power, so electricity will be available for the engine when needed. “Really, the only limit on how long she can stay at sea is water and food on board for the crew.”

Despite some hold-ups due to the global disaster, the team hopes to get her on the water by the end of 2024 and operating by 2025, when she will begin transporting cargo between Costa Rica and Canada.

“There are actually loads of innovations happening that could transform shipping emissions, but few companies are willing to apply them to building ships like Ceiba.” says Lucy Gilliam. “So it’s not that we don’t have great ideas. The problem that we have is that fossil fuels are still too cheap. And we don’t have the rules to force people to take up the new technology.”

When it comes to promoting this kind of boat, it has to be said that Ceiba is small for a cargo ship — tiny in fact. She will carry around nine standard shipping containers. She is also relatively slow. Being a world-first, there are some aspects of Ceiba’s design that have yet to be proven at sea.

7 . People have always believed that nature is good for health and happiness. According to scientific studies, being in nature makes people less stressed. In a recent experiment in Japan, one group of people were asked to walk through a forest while another group had to walk through a busy city.     1    . However, researchers found that after the walks, the people who had walked in the forest had better moods, less anxiety and even lower blood pressure. So the experiment showed that it was being in nature that helped people feel less stressed, not just the walk.

Gregory Bratman from Stanford University in the United States found in experiments that a walk in nature could have important cognitive (认知) benefits, improving a person’s memory and creativity.     2    . Teachers find that when children are enjoying the natural world, their awareness and creativity are improved, along with their reasoning and observational skills.

Why does being in nature bring so many benefits for us?     3    , so we have an instinctive (本能的) love for it. Even just looking out of the window at a beautiful tree can help us feel less stressed.

Scientists also think that being in nature helps our brain recover from a lot of activities that we usually do during the day such as working on math problems or using our cell phone.     4     — putting all our attention into one thing, which can make us feel tired. But when we are outside, we use undirected attention. We see an interesting cloud or a beautiful flower, and our attention moves quickly and easily from one thing to another. So being in nature gives our brains the chance to rest.

    5    . For many of us, nature is something we can enjoy just by walking out of our door. So enjoy the nature around you!

8 . The Fight against Fast Furniture

Fast furniture is a term that refers to furniture that is produced cheaply and quickly. These items are often bad for the environment because they are made from materials that break easily and need to be replaced often.     1    

To help protect the environment, a movement to move away from fast furniture has begun. Many companies are joining the fight by finding cleaner ways to manufacture furniture. For example, IKEA has agreed to switch to using renewable or recycled materials for their furniture by the year 2030.     2    

There is also a push to encourage shoppers to buy more used furniture for their homes. Small businesses that help transform old chairs and sofas into completely new products have even popped up recently. At the end of the day, consumers will play the most important role in the fight to end fast furniture. Shoppers should try to think more about the long term when preparing to purchase new furniture. They should stay away from furniture that is made from cheap materials like fiberboard or plastic because they will often fall apart after a few years.     3    

A much better alternative is furniture made from real wood because it won’t break as easily. If wood furniture is damaged, it can often be repaired to last longer. High-quality metals are another good material, as they are durable. If the furniture is no longer fit for use, these metals can still be recycled and used to make new products.

    4     So, the next time you buy furniture, think about whether it’s something that will last a long time or it’s just fast furniture that will break soon and go into the trash.

9 . THE GLOBAL WASTE TRADE IS ESSENTIALLY BROKEN

Cut into hillside in northern Malaysia stands a large, open-air warehouse. This is a recycling factory, which opened last November. On a very hot afternoon in January, Shahid Ali was working his very first week on the job. He stood knee-deep in soggy, white bits of plastic. Around him, more bits floated of the conveyor belt and fell to the ground like snowflakes.

Hour after hour, Ali sorts through the plastic jumble moving down the belt, picking out pieces that look off-color or soiled-rejects (废品) in the recycling process. Though it looks like backbreaking work, Ali says it is a great improvement over his previous job, folding bed-sheets in a nearby textile factory, for much lower pay. Now, if he eats simply, he can save money from his wages of just over $l an hour and send $250 a month to his parents and six brothers and sisters in Peshawar, Pakistan, 2,700 miles away, “As soon as I heard about this work, I asked for a job,” says Ali, 24, a bearded man with glasses and an easy smile. Still, he’s working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. “If I take a day off, I lose a day’s wages,” he says.

In the warehouse, hundreds of bags are stacked more than 60 feet high-each stuffed with plastic wrappers and bags thrown away weeks earlier by their original users in California. The fact that the waste has traveled to this distant corner of the planet in the first place shows how badly the global recycling economy has failed to keep pace with humanity’s plastics addiction. This is an ecosystem that is deeply dysfunctional, if not on the point of collapse: About 90% of the millions of tons of plastic the world produces every year will eventually end up not recycled, but burned, buried, or dumped.

Plastic recycling enjoys ever-wider support among consumers: Putting yogurt containers and juice bottles in a blue bin is an eco-friendly act of faith in millions of households. But faith goes only so far. The tidal wave of plastic items that enters the recycling stream each year is increasingly likely to fall right back out again, casualties of a broken market. Many products that consumers believe (and industries claim) are “recyclable" are in reality not, because of hard economics. With oil and gas prices near 20-year lows, so-called virgin plastic, a product of petroleum feed-stocks, is now far cheaper and easier to obtain than recycled material. That unforeseen shift has yanked the financial rug out from under what was until recently a practical recycling industry. “The global waste trade is essentially broken,” says the head of the global plastics campaign at Greenpeace. “We are sitting on vast amounts of plastic with nowhere to send it and nothing to do with it.”

10 . Urban agriculture, the practice of farming within the restrictions of a city, is becoming increasingly popular and is viewed as a sustainable alternative to big industrial farms. By some estimates, between 20% and 30% of the global urban population engages in some form of urban agriculture. But until recently, its carbon footprint remains understudied.

Using data from 73 low-tech city farms, community gardens and personal plots of land, Newell and his team compared the average carbon emissions of food produced at low-tech urban agriculture sites to those of conventionally grown crops. The team found that because of urban gardens’ relatively low yields, along with the energy used in constructing the planting beds, big-city spuds (马铃薯) were significantly more carbon-intensive than commercially grown ones. This held true even when the researchers factored in emissions from transporting commercially grown produce to often distant grocery stores. That doesn’t mean that growing vegetables in big cities is totally bad, however. “Urban farming is great, ” if imperfect, says Carola Grebitus, a food choice expert. It can be a powerful tool for job creation and education, she says, and a good way to introduce fresh produce to urban “food deserts” where healthy fruits and vegetables are hard to come by. Community gardens can also provide a place to connect with nature, and the added green space can reduce the risks of heat and flooding.

Conscious of these benefits, Newell’s team highlighted several ways to make urban agriculture more sustainable. One option is to be selective about what crops are grown. For instance, tomatoes grown in the soil of open-air urban plots had a lower carbon intensity than tomatoes grown in conventional greenhouses. Another strategy is to rely on existing constructions. Include old structures into a new garden’s design instead of taking down old buildings. Finally, take the local climate, water quality and soil into account. Growing plants that are ill-suited to an area requires more water, energy and pesticides (杀虫剂), all of which affect the environment.