1 . Are you a fan of birds? If so, you may have admired their beautiful colors and sweet songs. But do you know these feathered friends can actually do more than that?

A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports finds that exposure to birds, either in the home or outdoors, can boost people’s moods.

Researchers at King’s College London used a smartphone app built by the school’s Urban Mind project to collect the real-time feelings of study participants upon seeing or hearing a bird. A total of 1,292 people living in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States participated in the study which was conducted between April 2018 and October 2021.

The app asked participants three times a day whether they could see or hear a bird followed by a series of questions on their mental well-being. Participants were also asked questions about whether they could see trees, plants or hear any water to see if people were experiencing better mental well-being due to being in or seeing nature, and not just because of exposure to birds.

According to the study, the mental well-being of study participants with and without depression was significantly improved after seeing a bird or hearing birdsong compared to not seeing or hearing a bird.

There is a growing number of studies that link spending time outdoors (either in green leafy places or next to bodies of water) to improved mental health. But there are few studies that look at how different aspects of nature can play into humans’ mental well-being.

And while the study adds to the small pile of research on birds and mental health, the report marks the first time researchers have studied the responses to birds and mental well-being in real-time, according to Ryan Hammoud, lead author of the study.

“They kind of examine nature as a single object when nature includes many different characteristics and features like trees, plants, water, birds,” said Hammoud, “We choose to focus on bird life to try and understand which specific characteristics of nature benefit mental well-being.”

2 . Much like our guts (内脏), cities too have various types of microorganisms (微生物) that grow in the environment. And, much like analyzing the microorganisms in our guts can show important details about our physical condition, doing the same thing with a city’s microorganisms can help us understand data on the kinds of bacteria and other small life forms that are living alongside urban people.

While it’s possible to use human researchers to collect data on a city’s microorganisms, that kind of field research can be costly, difficult, and time-consuming. In 2010, honeybees in Brooklyn visited a nearby cherry factory, producing bright-red honey. This caused researchers to examine what other things New York’s honeybees were bringing back to their hives. It struck the researchers that this might be an easier way to collect microorganisms than to search for them on subway poles or sidewalks. So in a new study, researchers decided to seek help from the honeybee, which spends its days exploring cities all over the world, to learn about the urban microenvironments.

The team analyzed hive debris (碎片) from around the world and had some interesting findings. In Sydney, the hive debris showed DNA from microorganisms that can break down rubber, while in Melbourne, a significant amount of DNA from eucalyptus, a kind of tree originally from Australia, appeared at the bottom of hives. And the hive debris from Venice had microorganisms commonly found in rotting wood.

The analysis of Tokyo hives not only found DNA from local unique microorganisms, but also showed the presence of a microorganism that can cause disease among humans. This finding led the team to believe that using bees to learn about urban environments might be a great way to track the spread of human diseases.

While the study is still at the initial stage and it remains to be seen whether honeybees will help scientists find diseases or help city planners make cities greener one day, the insects’ great promise as little research helpers is obvious.

3 . In a study from Washington State University, researchers have uncovered a significant correlation between the closeness of older adults to green and blue spaces and their mental and physical well-being. The study offers convincing evidence that even small increases in access to nature can remarkably improve the health outcomes of older adults.

A mere 10% increase in forest space within a person’s living environment is linked to a noticeable decrease in serious psychological conditions. This type of suffering includes mental health challenges that need treatment and block normal social, occupational, or educational functioning. Similarly, the new study proves that enhancing green spaces, water bodies, or trail lengths by 10% appears to lower the likelihood of older individuals reporting their overall health as poor.

The researchers analyzed health survey data from over 42,000 people aged 65 and above living in urban areas of Washington state, spanning (跨越) the years 2011 to 2019. The experts related the health outcomes of these individuals to various measures quantifying their access to nature within their living areas.

Initially presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in April 2023, the research focused only on the link between psychological depression and closeness to natural spaces. The final study expanded to include additional metrics (指标) such as green space percentage and trail length, also taking into account demographic variables (人口统计变量) like race and education.

“Our findings suggest that abatement of our urban green and blue spaces due to rapid urbanization may not just have an environmental impact but could have a public health impact as well,” said Adithya Vegaraju, first author of the study.

Vegaraju said this research is among the first in the U. S. to specifically investigate the relationship between access to nature and health in the older population.

4 . It was dark and I was standing in front of a stranger’s house. Rescue box in hand, leather gloves under arm, my head was full of ________ to follow. It would be my first test as a volunteer wildlife ________ since I’d completed the training course last month. A man called that afternoon: a bird of a/an ________ species was being attacked by a flock of crows in his garden. He scared them off and grabbed their ________.

After being shown in, I lifted the edge of the shoebox ________ to see a little bird standing to attention on very long, thin legs. The bird seemed ________ and troubled, so I didn’t grab it by hand but just ________ the whole shoebox into my rescue box.

Back home, I couldn’t see any obvious ________ of injury: no blood, no broken bone, no evidence of a concussion (脑震荡). I hadn’t seen this bird species before, so I searched the Internet for a likeness. After a while, I found a/an ________: a rufous fantail (红尾扇尾鹟). I phoned a bird specialist, who told me this species ________ insects on the wing, so keeping it longer than overnight would only do it harm.

Half an hour later, I was back to where I’d rescued it. I________ the bird up as high as I could to give it a good lift-off: the little bird ________ swiftly into the darkness without a pause. It would look after itself just as before, and be ________ enough to catch some insects as food and refill its energy without any ________.

My first rescue had ended in a ________ release.

8 . My family went to London for visiting specialists. The day before we _______ the ship, Father said goodbye gently to his five-year-old “friend”, an Australian cattle dog, Spider, who was loved by us all. Father’s friend Sandy kept him _______ while we were overseas.

Six weeks later, a _______ arrived from Sandy, giving my father the news that Spider had _______ just two weeks after we had sailed. I will always remember my father’s face _______ and his eyes filled with sadness as he read the letter. Sandy has _______ constantly on ABC radio and other local newspapers. _______ , the dog was never found later. Spider seemed to decide to _______ us elsewhere.

Finally, we made a _______. We sailed back and did everything that we could do ________ waiting. Several months passed but there was still no news concerning. My father took the ________ and kept looking for him.

One cold morning eight months after, my father had a call from an old lady who said she was putting food out “for a very old dog”. My father’s eyes were lighted up with ________. That was enough for my father to ________ immediately. When we arrived at the old lady’s house, she showed us the dog. It was Spider! My father did his special whistle (口哨) for Spider. “Woof!” he barked. Spider was capturing (捕捉) the ________ feeling that occurred when he first locked eyes with my father. To Spider, our ________ and love are the inspiration.

10 . Many years ago, I was a student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I had an evening class that was a fifteen-minute ________ from my dorm. No one in my dorm was taking the same class, so I walked to and from class alone, ________ in the dark.

One evening, I ________ two very large, black Doberman Pinschers following about twenty feet behind me. I have always been an animal lover and I have never been ________ of dogs, so I stopped walking, turned around, and talked to them. They ________ to come to me and when I tried to walk toward them, they backed up, keeping their ________. They were not threatening in any way as they did not growl (低吼) or flatten their ears — the way dogs do when they are about to ________. They just wouldn’t allow me to get close to them.

For weeks, every time I walked to this particular class, the two dogs appeared and ________ me. I was very ________ with the situation, even though the dogs would not interact with me.

One night, a car with three young men slowly ________. They were loud, ________ my attention. When the young men got out of the car, I felt a sense of ________. As they walked toward me, before I had time to react, the two Dobermans charged and barked at them. You never saw three people get into a car so ________ and pull away!

I spent the rest of the semester searching for those heroic dogs. ________, after that night when I needed their ________, my guardians never reappeared.