1 . Banff National Park is home to an amazing wildlife population. But the busy Trans Canada Highway that cuts through the park is a hazard to the lovely animals. To address the problem, Banff first put-up wildlife fencing on either side of the highway to discourage animals from entering the busy road. Then, since 1996, they’ve opened six wildlife overpasses and 38 underpasses to help the animals cross the highway in safety. I was fortunate to visit Banff’s Red Earth Overpass with Trevor Kinley, the project manager with Parks Canada. He told me that so far, they have documented 10, 000 safe animal crossings on this overpass alone. “ Some animals have learned how to use the crossings much more quickly than others. Black bears are the fastest learners, followed by deer. Wolves and lions take the longest to work out how to use them, ” Kinley said, laughing. “ But those animals that are slower to adapt are usually more capable and determined at figuring out the safest way to cross those overpasses and underpasses. ”

There is some criticism (批评) that channeling so much wildlife into a few bridges and tunnels is like making a trap for the animals, offering big animals an easy meal on either side. “ But research has shown that this is not the case, ” Kinley assured me. “ There are no more killings around the crossings than there are anywhere else in the park. ”

Walking over the Trans Canada and then walking underneath through one of the tunnels, I was amazed to see the fresh tracks of black bears, wolves, deer and many kinds of smaller animals. Somehow, all these animal footprints made me so happy, knowing that all this wildlife was passing safely under and over the longest road in Canada.

Hopefully, the success of the wildlife crossings in Banff will continue to inspire similar solutions around the world, where human pressure on wildlife continues to grow.

2 . Japanese researchers placed electronic devices(装置)on seals(海豹)in Antarctic waters to collect surprising information about the environment there. Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research started the research project in 2017. The team recently reported its results in a study in the publication Limnology and Oceanography.

Eight Weddell seals were fitted with the devices,which have antennas(天线)to send electronic signals.The 580-gram monitoring devices were attached(缚上;系上)to the animals’heads. They were designed to measure data such as water temperatures and sea salt levels.

Investigative teams on ships have difficulty reaching important research areas in Antarctica. These include areas along continental shelf formations where ice is attached to the shore, the National Institute of Polar Research said in a statement. Nobuo Kokubun led the project. Since the seals are active year-round, Kokubun added, “I thought we should have them collect the data.”

He told Reuters that the research also helps scientists follow the seals’ behaviors and learn about their relationship to the environment. “During the summer, we can go to Antarctica on icebreakers to conduct actual research activities, so that we can collect data there.” Kokubun said. ”But during the winter. such things cannot be done in so many places.“

Information gathered from the seals showed that one of the animals traveled as far as 633kilometers from Japan’s Showa Station in Antarctica. Another dove to a depth of 700 meters.Kokubun said the scientists learned from the data that warm seawater from the upper levels of the open sea reached Antarctica from March through the winter of 2017. The water flowed below the ice, bringing in sea creatures like Antarctic krill, an important food for seals.

Kokubun and his team plan to keep finding new ways to further examine the effects of climate change on Antarctic coastal areas. Next, he hopes to make the device small enough to fit on other animals at the South Pole, such as penguins,“The advantage with penguins is that they come back to the same place and we can collect data from them immediately,”Kokubun said.

Xu Yuanchong was a famous Chinese translator, best known for translating Chinese ancient poems into English and French. Xu was born in 1921 in Nanchang, Jiangxi. His mother, who was well educated and good at painting, had great impact on Xu in his     1     (pursue) of beauty and literature. When studying at Provincial Nanchang No. 2 High School, he excelled at English. In 1938, he     2     (admit) to the Department of Foreign Languages, Naitonal Southwest Associated University, a school     3     graduates have played a central role in modern China. At university, Xu gave outstanding performances in English, Russian, French, while even hosting Shakespeare classes, clearly showing a gift for translation.

After his graduation, Xu devoted     4     (him) to education and translation. He was the first Chinese translator     5     (translate) Chinese poetry into English and French verse. He also translated many     6     (masterpiece) into Chinese including The Red and the Black and Jean-Christophe.

In his last days, the hundred-year-old scholar was still working on the translation of Shakespeare’s complete works. Seven hours of work in front of a computer every day is     7     unbearable task for young adults.    8     (surprising), this 100-year-old scholar is never bored with his work, passionately typing his translation word by word, day after day.    9     the morning of June 17, Xu passed away in Beijing at the age of 100. The respectable translator enjoyed a life worth     10     (remember).

6 . Reading is good for more than just entertainment.    1    . And the positive effects can be felt at any age: Even before they’ve fully developed their reading skills, kids can benefit from having access to materials and being read to on a regular basis.

Reading can boost intelligence

People who exhibit strong reading skills early in life grow up to be more intelligent. That was the finding of a study published in 2014 that measured the cognitive development of 1, 890 sets of identical twins. When two twins shared the same genes and home environments, early reading skills appeared to be the factor that decided which twin would be better at both verbal tests (like vocabulary( and non-verbal (like reasoning tests).     2    , the study authors concluded that more emphasis should be placed on teaching strong reading skills to young children.

Reading helps increase empathy

    3    — it can make you a kinder person as well. According to a study published in 2013, people who consume literary fiction have an easier time sensing and relating to emotions in other people. This effect likely has something to do with the way such books are written: Great literature forces readers to steps outside themselves and empathize with the characters they’re reading about. Reading can lower stress

Feel stressed at the end of a long day?    4    . A 2009 study found that reading for just 30 minutes has similar stress-reducing effects to doing 30 minutes of yoga.

    5    

Even after you put down a book, the effects of reading it are still present in your brain. A 2013 study discovered that when people read books, their brains continue to behave differently hours and even days later. The brains of readers show increased connectivity in the left temporal cortex — the region responsible for language receptivity — even hours after they’ve stopped reading. This suggests that reading can train the mind and boost neural function through a process that’s similar to muscle memory.

9 . People will say firmly their childhood memory is real, offering amazing detail as proof that it must be, and getting upset if you suggest they are wrong.

But, for years, scientists have questioned whether these memories could actually be true, given what we know about neuroscience (神经科学) and the brain. The human brain grows and develops in clear stages. As it grows and creates and adapts, so different developmental stages are reached. These stages are the result of millions of years of evolution (进化). Now, finally, a study has proved this. Researchers from Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, reviewed decades worth of data to understand the earliest age at which lasting memories form and they have believed that it is around 30 months.

So people who think they remember something from when they were a baby are, I am afraid, mistaken. The problem with early memories is that they are very easy to fabricate, which is what I did.

I have a vivid image of standing in the garden, my mum holding a flower and laughing. It’s one of my first memories. I must have been 18 months old because we moved from that house before I was two. I could swear it was real.

Years ago, when I shared this memory with my mum, she shook her head and produced a photo. It showed her in a garden, laughing and holding a flower. But it was taken three years before I was born. That beautiful memory is a work of fiction (虚构): an old photo that used to hang on the wall.

I’ll admit to feeling shocked and robbed when I realized this memory was entirely false. It made me question other things I remember as a child, too. A study into this event published a few years ago found that around 40 per cent of us say that we have memories from before the age of two. But it’s the mind playing tricks on us taking old stories or photos and turning them into a memory.

While it can be disappointing to realize that a recollection you hold so dear might not be true, it does provide a good lesson in how changeable memory can be.