1 . There are lots of children across the US who are living in residential treatment facilities (疗养中心). Many of these young people have _________ serious trauma (心理创伤) in their lives.

“People seldom know that they’re there,” said Mike Ball, whose nonprofit, Lost Voices, works with these teens. Bal first _________ this population of youth in 2005 after he was _________ to speak about his writing career at a college.

As a writer and music lover, Ball knew songwriting could have a _________ effect on these young people. He had other local musicians _________ for the project, and Lost Voices was born in 2007. The organization _________ weeklong programs where musicians go into residential treatment facilities to help children to write songs and find their voice.

“I’m often _________ by the songs they write,” Ball said. “Sometimes they’re silly, but heartbreakingly real.” Ball has been writing and playing music since he was a child. He made a career out of his _________. He’s known the power and freedom that comes from _________ personal stories. “Expressing yourself is really essential,” Ball said.

A key __________ of the Lost Voices program is the trauma-informed care approach, which Ball and his team are specifically __________ to carry out. They create a nonjudgmental space where kids from all walks of life can __________ express their thoughts and work through difficult __________.

The program has __________ more than 2,500 kids. For Ball and his team, working with these populations can be demanding at times, but he said it’s __________ to do it.

The Giant Panda National Park,     1     officially came into being in 2021, is a hugely ambitious project.     2     (cover) an area of 27, 000 square kilometers of countryside in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces, the park is a massive drive     3     (protect) China’s pandas.

In Wannian Village, however, the news     4     (greet) with some anxiety. Thousands of people were already living in the area when the park was announced. And many of them were making a living through     5     (activity) that were illegal under the new policy.

For decades, mining and hydropower (水电) were the main industries in Wannian. The projects were     6     (profit) and created a lot of jobs. But the mines were ruinous to the local environment.

There only appeared to be one way out: turning the village     7     a tourist hotspot. Wannian has several natural advantages: it’s only 200 kilometers from Chengdu. The village also sits right on the southern tip of the park, making it     8     great jumping-off point for visitors. Plus, the nearby panda training center is famous all over China.

Local officials     9     (immediate) set about rebranding (重塑形象) Wannian as a “panda village”. The place was given a complete makeover. Cute panda sculptures were placed along the winding path leading from the highway. The newly     10     (build) hotels have attracted visitors nationwide.

8 . In an awe-inspiring incident, a young killer whale recently demonstrated remarkable intelligence by seeking assistance from a group of humans to save its trapped mother, which challenged our conventional understanding of wild predators (食肉动物).

The online viral video, shared by Alvin Foo, began with a young killer whale emitting distressing cries towards a group of people on a boat. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the concerned individuals promptly responded by contacting a rescue team. The young whale’s desperate request for help touched more people’s hearts and set a truly extraordinary chain of events in motion.

As the rescue team arrived, they were amazed to witness the young killer whale’s playful interaction with the humans. The whale appeared elated, seemingly understanding that assistance had finally arrived. This interaction between the mother killer whale and rescuers underlined the potential for mutual understanding beyond the boundary of traditional predator-prey relationships.

The young whale took on the role of a guide, leading the rescue team to its mother trapped in a fishing net. It navigated the water with purpose, as if fully aware that the humans possessed the means to save its mother. This display of intelligence left the rescuers in awe, highlighting the complex cognitive abilities of these magnificent marine creatures. With its guidance, the rescue team swiftly initiated the liberation process, carefully cutting the net to free the trapped whale. Astonishingly, they seemed to understand that the humans were there to help and did as asked.

The instant the mother whale was finally freed, an eruption of joyous cries filled the air. The emotional outpouring conveyed the immense gratitude of both the mother whale and the young whale to the humans who had intervened. As the rescue team made their way back to shore, the two whales swam alongside them. This heart-warming sight emphasized the lasting impact of the rescue. The bond formed through this extraordinary rescue operation was well obvious, proving that the profound connections can be established between various species. The journey back to safety symbolized the victory of compassion over adversity.

9 . Meteorites (陨石) can offer clues about what the early solar system was like. But finding them is far from difficult. Now, some scientists are turning to drones (无人机) and machine learning to help spot freshly fallen meteorites much more efficiently. “A team of six people on a meteorite-hunting expedition can search about 200,000 square meters per day,” says Seamus Anderson, a planetary scientist in Australia.

Around 2016, Anderson began toying with the concept of using drones to take pictures of the g round to look for meteorites. That idea blossomed into a Ph.D. project. In 2022, he and his colleagues reported their first successful recovery of a meteorite spotted with a drone. They’ve since found four more meteorites at a different site. Drone-based searches are much faster than the standard search way. “You’re going from about 300 days of human effort down to about a dozen or so,” he says.

Anderson and his workmates have used drones to search for meteorites in remote parts of Western Australia and South Australia. The team is tipped off about a fall site by networks of ground-based cameras that track meteoroids flashing through the Earth’s atmosphere. The researchers have to do a series of fun but difficult work before the hunt. They pack a four-wheel drive vehicle with drone and computer equipment, battery charging stations, generators, fuel, food, camping equipment, tables, chairs and much more. The drive to the fall site can take more than a day, often on rough or nonexistent roads. Anderson says, “You hope you don’t pop a tire.”

After arriving, the team flies its primary drone at an altitude of about 20 meters. Its camera takes an image of the ground once every second, and the scientists download the data every 40 minutes or so when the drone lands to receive fresh batteries. A typical day of flying can net over 10,000 images, which are then divided digitally into 100 million or so smaller sections. Those “tiles”, each 2 meters on a side, are fed into a machine learning algorithm (算法) that has been trained to recognize meteorites based on images of real land rocks which are spray-painted black.

10 . Recent research confirms what our farming ancestors have known for centuries about hedges (树篱). They conserve precious soil by acting as windbreaks and absorbing rainwater that would otherwise wash it from the fields. And hedges store carbon, putting them in the front line of our bi d to tackle the climate crisis.

However, hedges have had a tough time in the poor countryside, with farmers encouraged to tear them down in pursuit of maximum production and larger field s to accommodate ever-larger machinery. What’s more, some hedges have been ignored. If left to their own devices, they’ll eventually become a line of trees. Some hedges each year lose their structures and fail to fulfil the primary duty as a barrier. Around a half of the nation’s hedges have disappeared in the past century.

There are signs that “the tide is turning”. The search for net zero has aroused many organizations’ interest in the humble hedge’s role as a carbon sink. The Climate Change Committee is recommending a 40 percent increase in hedges: an additional 200,000 km. Such recommendations are starting to drive policy. Cash-pressed farmers will be encouraged to create new hedges and improve their management of existing ones under the new Environmental Land Management Schemes, which will replace many of the existing agricultural support payments in coming years. Meanwhile, initiatives such as Close the Gap, led by the Tree Council, is providing funding and support to plug the gaps in existing hedges with new planting. There’s even an app to help time-pressed farmers do a quick survey to spot where their hedges need some help.

This is a good time for hedges. Take some of the most pressing challenges facing the countryside, and indeed, the world as a whole — the climate crisis, soil erosion (侵蚀), insect attack and wider biodiversity loss — and hedges are part of the solution.