Most gardeners will probably say gardening     1     (be) good for you. According to a study, people who garden have a     2     (healthy) diet, get more exercise, and feel less stress. Researchers studied the benefits of gardening in shared community gardens     3     people work together. They suggest gardening may reduce stress because it exposes people to nature, while community gardens also provide     4     (chance) for social interaction. Therefore, they hope the results will encourage doctors and government leaders to regard community gardens as a vital part of the public health system.

4 . Elephant Transit Home

In both Africa and Asia elephants are being threatened by changes in their natural habitats (栖息地). People are moving into the elephants’ habitats and endangering their survival. In the country of Sri Lanka, there is one place where elephants are not only protected but also respected. It is called the Elephant Transit Home (ETH).

Set up in 1995, the ETH aims to protect and nurture baby elephants that are found injured or living without their mothers in the wild. Every year about 30 baby elephants in Sri Lanka need help. As many as possible are brought to the ETH. There they are given food, shelter, and medical care. Most importantly, they are given the chance to be with other elephants and become part of a herd (象群).

A day at the ETH begins early in the morning when the baby elephants are given their first feeding of milk. During the day, each baby will drink an average of 13 gallons of milk. Older elephants are fed mostly coconut leaves and other native plants. Then the elephants are allowed to walk around, eating the grass and forming a herd. The cost of caring for the baby elephants is high. The ETH spends about $125,000 each year on powdered milk for the baby elephants.

At the ETH, workers try to reduce human connection with the elephants. They also try to increase bonds (联系) between the elephants. It usually takes three years for a baby elephant to be set free into its natural habitat. The elephants are sent back to the wild together with other orphans with whom they have bonded. This program helps them return to the wild as members of a herd that will communicate with each other and take care of each other.

The ETH is considered one of the best animal protection sites in the world. Not only are the elephants cared for, they are treated with respect. Most importantly, they go back to live in the wild, where they belong.

Horses are picky eaters

Horses have an even better sense of smell than humans do. When horses raise their noses and open their nostrils (鼻孔), their nervous system allows them to sense smells we can’t sense. This might explain why they refuse dirty water and carefully move around meadows, eating only the tastiest grasses, experts say.

Whale says thanks

In 2018, a whale expert spotted a humpback whale trapped in a fishing net and spent an hour freeing it. Afterward, in an hour-long display of thanks, the whale swam near their boat and leaped into the air about 40 times.

Pandas like to be naughty

Is there anything more lovely than a baby panda, except maybe a human baby? In fact, baby pandas sometimes behave like human babies. They sleep in the same positions and value their thumbs. Pandas are shy by nature for its shy behaviors such as covering its face with a paw or ducking its head when confronted by a stranger.

A cat honors its owner

Paper towels, and a plastic cup are just a few of the gifts that Toldo, a devoted three-year-old gray-and-white cat, has placed on his former owner Iozzelli Renzo’s grave every day since the man died in September 2018. Renzo adopted Toldo from a shelter when the cat was three months old, and the two formed an inseparable bond. After Renzo passed away, Toldo followed the coffin to the cemetery, and now “stands guard” the grave for hours at a time.

6 . The Amazon rainforest is as undisturbed a place as most people can imagine, but even there, the effects of a changing climate are playing out. Now, research suggests that many of the region’s most sensitive bird species are starting to evolve in response to warming.

Birds are often considered sentinel (哨兵) species — meaning that they indicate the overall health of an ecosystem — so scientists are particularly interested in how they’re responding to climate change. In general, the news has not been good. For instance, a 2019 report by the National Audubon Society found that more than two-thirds of North America’s bird species will be in danger of extinction by 2100 if warming trends continue on their current course.

For the new study, researchers collected the biggest database so far on the Amazon’s resident birds, representing 77 non-migratory species and lasting the 40 years from 1979 to 2019. During the study period, the average temperature in the region rose, while the amount of rainfall declined, making for a hotter, dryer climate overall. According to the report on November 12 in the journal Science Advances, 36 species have lost substantial weight, as much as 2 percent of their body weight per decade since 1980. Meanwhile, all the species showed some decrease in average body mass, while a third grew longer wings.

Because of the study’s long time series and large sample sizes, the authors were able to show the morphological (形态学的) effects of climate change on resident birds. However, the researchers themselves are unsure and wonder what advantage the wing length changes give the birds, but suppose smaller birds may have an easier time keeping cool. In general, smaller animals have a larger rate of surface area to body size, so they dissipate more heat faster than a bigger animal. Less available food, such as fruit or insects, in dryer weather might lead to smaller body size.

7 . Urban Wildlife

Cities are diverse ecosystems. In addition to visitors, a large number of species share our urban areas. As our cities spread, we need to think about what it is like for other species to have human neighbors.

Cities are built for humans.     1     For example, most city parks are kept neat and tidy so that humans will find them beautiful. But when we cut grass or plants, we destroy natural habitats, which leads to the imbalance of ecology.  

    2     When a bridge in Austin, Texas was repaired, engineers added small gaps running the length of its bottom. This made a good home for bats, and soon the bridge was home to thousands of bats.     3     Now, they have come to value their winged neighbors. The bats become an attraction, and they eat lots of bugs every night.  

There are also structures built with the aim of bringing wildlife into the city. The Olympic Forest Park in Beijing is a good example. The park used native plants, and created open and natural spaces for wildlife. The result is a zone in Beijing with over 160 species of birds. In many ways, the park is the opposite of a zoo.     4    

If we learn to share our space, we can become better neighbors of the wildlife around us.     5     Our own future will be endangered too.

Urban Forest Pro in Portland is a full-service tree care company providing tree services. Our arborists (树艺师)     1     (train)to recognize the unique needs of your trees, taking into account factors such as the tree’s age, health & prior pruning (修剪). Doing tree pruning, we selectively remove certain parts of a tree according to the goals of our customers. Our arborists can in most cases come     2     with a method that is both beneficial for the tree’s health and longevity and meets the     3     (need) of our customers.

9 . The air is thin and we have to rest several times on the short hike from camp. To our left, snow-covered mountains disappear into clouds that seem almost close enough to touch. On the grassland in front of us, we can just make out a herd of graceful animals. This is why we’re here — to observe Tibetan antelopes.

Tibetan antelopes live on the plains of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Qinghai. Watching them move slowly across the green grass. I’m struck by their beauty. I’m also reminded of the danger they are in. They are being hunted, illegally, for their valuable fur.

My guide is Zhaxi, a villager from Changtang. He works at the Changtang National Nature Rcserve. It covers an arca of about 120,000 square miles. The reserve is a shelter for the animals and plants of northwestern Tibet. To Zhaxi, protecting the wildlife is a way of life. “We’re not trying to save the animals,” he says. “Actually, we’re trying to save ourselves.”

The 1980s and 1990s were bad times for the Tibetan antelope. The population dropped by more than 50 percent. Hunters were shooting antelopes to make money. Their habitats were becoming smaller as new roads and railways were built.

In order to save this species from extinction, the Chinese government placed it under national protection. Zhaxi and other volunteers watched over the antelopes day and night to keep them safe from attacks. Bridges and gates were added to let the antelopes move easily and keep them safe from cars and trains.

The measures were effective. The antelope population has recovered and in June 2015, the Tibetan antelope was removed from the endangered species list. The government, however, does not intend to stop the protection programmes, since the threats to the Tibetan antelope have not yet disappeared.

In the evening, I drink a cup of tea and watch the stars. I think about the antelopes and what Zhaxi told me. Much is being done to protect wildlife, but if we really want to save the planet, we must change our way of life. Only when we learn to exist in harmony with nature can we stop being a threat to wildlife and to our planet.

10 . My, what a big beak you have!

For humans, adapting to climate change will mostly be a matter of technology. More air conditioning, better-designed houses and bigger flood defenses may help to make the effects of a warmer world less harmful.     1     In a paper published in Trends & Evolution, a team led by Sara Ryding, a PhD candidate at Deakin University, shows that is already happening. Climate change is already altering the bodies of many animal species, giving them bigger beaks (喙), legs and ears.

In some species of Australian parrot, for instance, beak size has increased by between 4% and 10% since 1871. Another study, this time in North American dark-eyed juncos, another bird, found the same pattern.     2    

All that is perfectly consistent with evolutionary theory. “Allen’s rule”, named for Joel Asaph Allen, who suggested it in 1877, holds that warm-blooded animals in hot places tend to have larger body parts than those in temperate (温带的) regions.     3     Being richly filled with blood vessels, and not covered by feathers, beaks make an ideal place for birds to get rid of heat. Fennec foxes, meanwhile, which are native to the Sahara Desert, have strikingly large ears, especially compared with their Arctic cousins.

Ms. Ryding is not the first researcher to take that approach. But it is hard, when dealing with individual species, to prove that climate change was the cause of an anatomical (解剖学的) changes. All sorts of other factors, from changes in prey to the evolving reproductive preferences of males or females, might have been driving the changes.     4     The team combined data from different species in different places. Since they have little in common apart from living on a warming planet, climate change is the most reasonable explanation.

    5     That may change as warming accelerates. Since any evolutionary adaptation comes with trade-offs (妥协), it is unclear how far the process might go. Bigger beaks might make feeding harder, for instance. Larger wings are heavier, and bigger legs cost more energy to grow.