2 . Among thousands of emperor penguins in Atka Bay, a yellow robot named ECHO quickly moves over the Antarctic environment and patiently observes the birds. The autonomous, remote-controlled robot is about three feet long and stands at eye level with the adult penguins. It monitors Southern Ocean ecosystems in real-time, year-round with small impact on wildlife.

ECHO was designed by the Marine Animal Remote Sensing Lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Scientists hope to use the robot as part of a 30-year project looking at the impact of climate change on the region. Since emperor penguins are among the top predators (捕食性动物) in the region, studying their populations can show the health of the Antarctic environment.

Scientists must physically catch penguins and put chips on their hacks to track them. But to gather data on the chips, scientists have to get close enough to the devices to scan (扫描) them, and sometimes, penguins are hard to locate, or the weather may be too terrible for humans to go out in the field.

ECHO removes these issues by acting as a mobile observatory that can monitor thousands of penguins each year. The robot can easily approach the penguins and scan the chips without introducing a harmful human footprint or affecting the birds. The robot is equipped with LIDAR, or light detection and ranging, and a 360-degree camera that can monitor penguins on large areas and uses an antenna (天线) to read each penguin’s chip.

While ECHO has only been tested for a year, researchers say the penguins do not seem to be afraid of it and don’t mind it when it comes near. When penguins gather in large groups during the wintertime, ECHO can steal in and scan penguins as they brave the elements. By tracking their behaviors over time, researchers can observe how penguins adapt and follow where they go to search for food. In turn, these data points can also determine the true size of protected areas of the sea.

3 . The Art of Recycling

Recycling is not new. Many civilizations have reused objects. However, recycling is more important today because there is more pollution and fewer natural resources.     1     Others use these recycled materials to make art!

    2     Artists use old tires, pieces of metal, cloth, etc. These materials might come from yard sales or swap meets(旧物交换会). In addition, businesses might give used materials to artists.

    3       For example, artists in New York City made a sculpture that looked like a giant white cloud. The sculpture, called “Head in the Clouds”, was more than 40 feet long and 15 feet high! People walked into the cloud sculpture and danced to live music.     4     That’s the number of water bottles that are thrown into the trash every hour in New York City! The artists wanted to show how many water bottles ended up in the garbage.

Many art projects are shown at outdoor art and music festivals. Many cities even have festivals specifically for recycled art.

Museums also exhibit recycled art. A museum in Texas allowed visitors to add to the art on display. The project was called the “Recycle Reef (珊瑚礁).” The background looked like an ocean reef, and people added to the “reef” with the recycled materials provided.       5    

Have you made something using paper towel tubes or water bottles? If so, you’ve made recycled art.

Scientists have exposed that around two-fifths of the world’s plants are at risk of extinction. A top botanist, Professor Alexandre Antonelli, said, “We are living in    1    age of extinction.”

It's a very    2     (worry) picture of risk and urgent need for action. We’re losing the race against time as species are disappearing faster    3    we can find and name them. Many of them could hold important clues for solving some of the most pressing    4     (challenge) of medicine and even perhaps of the emerging and current pandemics we are seeing today.”

There    5     (be) positive signs in the past few years. More than 4, 000 species of plants and fungi (菌类)     6     (discover) in 2019, among which are potential future foods that could be a lifeline to millions of people on Earth suffering from    7     (poor) and food insecurity. Professor Antonelli stressed    8     (firm) the importance of protecting these and all plant life on Earth. He said, “We would not be able    9     (survive) without plants and fungi — all life depends on them. Every time we lose a species, we lose an opportunity     10    humankind.” Leading scientists will demand that the world leaders act against biodiversity loss.

7 . “Most people don’t know anything about soil,” says Dominique Arrouays, a soil scientist in France. “In the city, they never see the soil, unless there’s construction. It’s all pavement. They don’t realize that everything depends on soils.”

Soils grow the food that provides an estimated 98.8 percent of our daily calories, according to a paper in Environment International, and house more than 25 percent of the world’s biodiversity.     1    

Healthy soil is marked by its porous (多孔) structure, produced by root growth as well as the activities of earthworms and insects.     2     Healthy soils not only make farms more climate-resilient (气候适应力), but they can also help keep costs for farmers and taxpayers down.

According to a United Nations report, a third of the planet’s soil is highly degraded due to acidification, erosion (腐蚀), and other factors. Soils cannot be regenerated quickly.     3     And yet many people dismiss it as nothing more than dirt.

    4     Erosion occurs when soil is displaced by wind or water—washed off farms and stored in ditches and streams, or blown across the landscape as dust. Healthy soil resists erosion well, especially if it is protected by plants above ground and roots below-ground.     5     The results can be disastrous. Even small changes year after year can gradually cause big problems.

Soil is the skin of the earth. We need to protect it. It’s in everybody’s interest to support farmers in rebuilding soil health and preventing erosion.

8 . Nearly a fifth of items that households place in their recycling bin could end up in landfill, according to new data, because people are wrongly “wish-cycling”. Toothpaste tubes, coffee cups, juice cartons and salad bags are among the biggest items to be incorrectly thrown in the recycling bin, according to Biffa.

Non-recyclable items are removed before the recycling process. But the company warned that other contaminants such as food or liquids can mean that potential recycling is also thrown away.

The amount of non-recyclables placed in the wrong bin is rising even as people are becoming more eco-conscious. The company called on people to stop “wish-cycling” and advised always checking labels before putting items in the recycling bin.

David Heaton, a business director at Biffa, said this of the findings, “Contamination (污染) happens when items are thrown away in the wrong bins or haven’t been cleaned before being recycled.”

“It means recyclable resources are lost and cannot be reused. It’s important that people understand what should go in the recycling bin and how to ‘pre-cycle (to clean a tub or tray (托盘) if it’s got food on it, for example)’ so we can recycle as much material as possible.” When a contaminant can’t be recycled, pickers will remove the waste and send it for processing further, with landfill being a last resort (步骤).

Campaigners have argued that packaging labels and different standards make it too difficult for people to understand what they should be recycling. But most packaging will say whether it is recyclable or not. Biffa also recommends checking the resin code-the number in the plastic triangle-to know whether it can be recycled. Numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 are “generally” recyclable, while 3, 6 and 7 are not.