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Desperately ill and seeking a miracle, David Bennett Sr. took the last bet on Jan.7 when he became the first human to be successfully transplanted with the heart of a pig."It creates the beat; it creates the pressure; it is his heart,"declared Bartley Griffith,director of the surgical team that performed the operation at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Bennett, 57, held on through 60 tomorrows, far longer than any previous patient who'd received a heart from another species. His remarkable run offered new hope that such procedures known as xenotransplantation (异种移植) could help relieve the shortage of replacement organs saving thousands of lives each year.

The earliest attempts at xenotransplantation of organs, involving kidneys from rabbits, goats, and other animals, occurred in the early 20th century, decades before the first successful human-to-human transplants. Rejection, which occurs when the recipient's body system recognizes the donor organ as a foreign object and attacks it, followed within hours or days. Results improved after some special drugs arrived in the 1960s, but most recipients still died after a few weeks. The record for a heart xenotransplant was set in 1983, when an infant named Baby Fae survived for 20 days with an organ from a baboon(狒狒). 

In recent years, however, advances in gene editing have opened a new possibility: re-edit some genes in animals to provide user-friendly spare parts. Pigs could be ideal for this purpose, because they're easy to raise and reach adult human size in months. Some biotech companies,including Revivicor, are investing heavily in the field. The donor pig was offered by Revivicor from a line of animals in which 10 genes had been re-edited to improve the heart's condition. Beyond that, the pig was raised in isolation and tested regularly for viruses that could infect humans or damage the organ itself. 

This medical breakthrough provided an alternative for the 20% of patients on the heart transplant waiting list who die while waiting or become too sick to be a good candidate.

The South African town Hamburg is situated by one of the most beautiful estuaries（河口）in the Eastern Cape. It's known for its rich Xhosa culture. It is also home to a group of women who have produced a series of extraordinary artworks that have been exhibited around the world.

Keiskamma Art Project was created to teach local women embroidery（刺绣）skills to help them at a tough time economically and socially, but unexpectedly it has grown into something much bigger. Having been shown at international art galleries, many of their tapestries（挂毯）are now being displayed under one roof for the first time, at an exhibition in Johannesburg.

Their story began in 2000, when Dr. Carol Hofmeyr moved from Johannesburg to Hamburg. She found that the town was struggling with high unemployment and that local women were desperate to find ways to feed their families. Having studied embroidery herself, she hoped that passing on that knowledge to local women would help empower them.

From humble beginnings, more and more women heard about the project through word of mouth. Now, over 150 women are part of the project. Selling their works provides a source of income, but the project has also created a support system for the women.

Initially, the women started out simply creating cushions（坐垫）and small handbags to sell to tourists. Eventually, they started receiving tasks for larger pieces. They were given panels about a meter in size to work on at home. By joining the completed panels together, they created the first of their large works and one of their most celebrated, "The Keiskamma Tapestry", which tells the history of the Xhosa people who were subjugated（征服）through colonization and the Xhosa British Frontier Wars from 1776 to 1876.

Another celebrated piece is "The Keiskamma Altarpiece", which was produced by 130 women. The four-meter-high, four-meter-wide piece reveals the struggles that elderly Xhosa women endured when the youth in their community were hit by HIV two decades ago, and they stepped in to care for children.

Recent artworks engage with contemporary issues. "COVID Resilience Tapestry" deals with the pandemic: "A New Earth and Our Sacred Ocean" is a call for environmental consciousness.

GET A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE WORLD'S MOST ATTRACTIVE FEATHERED ANIMALS WITH THESE BOOKS

Flamingo (火烈鸟)

Biologist and photographer Claudio Contreras Koob spent 20 years travelling deep into the wet lands and forests of his native Mexico—and beyond—to feed his flamingo attraction. This book offers a unique window into the behavior and life of red-feathered birds, with more than 120 show-stopping shots displaying their beauty. teNeues, £35. 

Around the World in 80 Birds

Inspiring secrets, national pride or scientific discoveries, every bird has a story to tell, from the weaver bird building multi-nest "apartment blocks" in Namibia to the bar-headed goose taking on a twice-yearly trans-Himalayan journey at an extreme altitude. Mike Unwin's tour is accompanied by beautiful illustrations from Ryuto Miyake. Laurence King Publishing, £22.

A World on the Wing

Pulitzer-shortlisted Weidensaul, who's at the forefront of research into bird migration, here tracks some of nature's most remarkable journeys. He sails through the stormy Bering Sea, encounters trappers in the Mediterranean and visits former headhunters in northeast India, where a bird migration crisis has become a conservation success story. Pan Macmillan, £9.99.

Galapagos Crusoes: A Year Alone with the Birds

Explore this updated version of the 1968 title, Galapagos: Islands of Birds, by late bird expert Bryan Nelson, with previously unpublished material from his wife, June. The couple spent a year living on two Galapagos islands, studying birds, including the Galapagos albatross (信天翁). This is their clever and amusing account. Bradt Guides, £11.99.

As Dr Lin Qiaozhi said, "To a person nothing is (precious) than their life…" These words of her give us a look into the heart of this amazing woman, and carried her through a life of hard choices.

At age 18, she chose to study medicine instead of following the traditional path of (marry) like the majority of girls. At age 26, she was hired as  resident physician in the OB-GYN department of the PUMC Hospital (immediate) after she graduated. Within six months, she was assigned to a higher position  usually took four years to achieve. After working for a few years, she was sent to study abroad, where she (reject) the offer from her foreign colleagues. She wanted to serve the women and children at home.

In 1941, she became the first Chinese woman ever (appoint) director of the OB-GYN department of the PUMC Hospital, but later, the department was closed because of the war. So she opened a private clinic to help the people in need and charged very low (fee) and often reduced costs for poor patients.

The new People's Republic of China saw Dr Lin Qiaozhi playing a key role. Though Lin Qiaozhi never married, she was known as the "mother of ten thousand babies", (deliver) over 50,000 babies in her lifetime.

Since 1960, considerable scientific researches have been done on chimps in their natural habitats. Astonishingly, scientists have found out that the social 1  of Chimps are very similar to humans. Chimps will 2

in certain ways, like gathering together to protect their land. But beyond the minimum requirements as social beings, they have little instinct (本能) to 3  one another. Chimps in the wild seek food for themselves. Even chimp mothers regularly 4  to share food with their children. Who are able from a young age to gather their own food?

In the laboratory, chimps don't 5 share food either. If a chimp is put in a cage where he can pull in one plate of food for himself or, with no greater effort, a plate that also provides food for a neighbor to the next cage, he will pull 6 -he just doesn't care whether his neighbor gets fed or not. Chimps are truly selfish.

Human children, 7 , are extremely cooperative. From the earliest ages, they decide to help others, to share information and to participate in achieving common goals. The psychologist Michael Tomasello has studied this 8  in a series of experiments with very young children. He finds that if babies aged 18 months see a worried adult with hands full trying to open a door, almost all will immediately try to help.

There are several reasons to believe that the urges to help, inform and share are not taught, but naturally 9  in young children. One is that these instincts appear at a very 10  age before most parents have started to train their children to behave 11 . Another is that the helping behaviors are not improved if the children are rewarded. A third reason is that social intelligence 12  in children before their general cognitive(认知的) skills, at least when compared with chimps. In tests conducted by Tomasello, the human children did no better than the chimps on the 13  world tests but were considerably better at understanding the social world.

The core (核心) of what children's minds have and chimps' don't is what Tomasello calls shared intentionality. Part of this ability is that they can 14 what others know or are thinking. But beyond that, even very young children want to be part of a shared purpose. They actively seek to be part of a "we", a group that intends to work toward a(n) 15 goal.

The Upside to Being Outside

Research shows that being in nature makes people feel good, whether they're roughing it in the wilderness for days or just hanging out at a local park for a while. One study was conducted in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. Researchers found that most participants' mood and well-being improved significantly when they spent time in urban parks, even though the average visit was only around half an hour.

For example, scientists in the United Kingdom studied the impact of the "30 Days Wild" campaign. It challenged people to interact with nature for 30 days by enjoying earthy activities like feeding birds and planting flowers. Participants were measurably happier and healthier throughout the challenge…and for months afterwards, too.

How does nature boost people's happiness? Scientists say that spending time in natural settings reduces stress and anxiety, which benefits mental and physical health. Research shows our brains are more relaxed in natural settings.

To most people, it's not news that nature can be calming. But multiple studies have found that spending time in nature also has some more surprising benefits, like improving creativity and problem-solving. Another found that exposure to nature helped people score better on tests. That's more proof that going outside is a smart move!

What accounts for the connection with cognition and creativity? It could be that a good dose of nature acts as a cure to information overload. Everyday life involves a lot of multitasking. Some scientists theorize that spending time in nature enables our brains to rest and recover from mental tiredness. 

Naturally, scientific studies don't cover everything that's great about the great outdoors. From recreation and exercise to happiness and creativity, there are lots of upsides to getting outside.

A. One study revealed that people were better at figuring out puzzles after a four-day camping trip.

B. According to many scientific studies, there's a good chance it'll make you happier, healthier, and more creative.

C. What's more, the lift people get from nature is long lasting.

D. Lots of people enjoy fun activities outside, like swimming, riding bikes, or climbing trees.

E. When the only light you've seen all day is the glow of a screen, it might be a good idea to switch it off.

F. This means that whether you're studying or playing video games, heading outside to give your brain a break might help you get to the next level.

G. So, kicking back in a park is a bit like treating your mind to a restful mini vacation.

Marilu Arce loves her job, but for a time she considered leaving. The traffic-plagued commute from her home to her office, nearly two hours each way, meant her daughters couldn't enroll in after school activities because she couldn't get home in time to take them.

Then her employer adopted a policy permitting her to work from home two days a week, and "I feel like it changed my life," she said. Her stress level has dropped. Her daughters are thrilled. She likes her job more. That's the type of reaction Arce's boss likes to hear as the company measures the success of the work-from-home policy which was instituted three years ago in hopes of improving employee retention. So far, it seems to be working: turnover was less than five percent last year—its lowest ever.

Flexible work policies top employee wish lists when they look for a job, and employers increasingly have been offering them. Studies have shown working remotely increases employee engagement, but in moderation because there is still value in the relationships nurtured when colleagues are face to face. The key, advocates of flexible work policies say, is to match the environment with the type of work that needs to be done. 

The flexibility hasn't hurt productivity, which is up 50 percent. There is "something lost" when colleagues don't gather at the water cooler, but it's outweighed by the retention and happiness gains, he said. As jobs that require physical work decline, thanks to technological advances, life superficially appears to get better. Consumers benefit in the form of cheaper prices. Labor-saving appliances all make things easier and suggest that even more and better benefits are on the horizon. But is something lost?

Talk long enough to the most accomplished academics, they will brag about a long-ago college summer job waiting tables or repairing hiking trails. They might praise the installer who redid their kitchen. There seems to be a human instinct to want to do physical work. The proliferation of hard-work reality-television programming reflects this apparent need. Indeed, the more we have become immobile and urbanized, the more we tune in to watch reality television's truckers, loggers, farmers, drillers and rail engineers. In a society that supposedly despises menial jobs, the television ratings for such programmes suggest that lots of Americans enjoy watching people of action, who work with their hands.

Physical work, in its eleventh hour within a rapidly changing Western culture, still intrigues us in part because it remains the foundation for 21st century complexity. Before any of us can teach, write or speculate, we must first have food, shelter and safety. And for a bit longer, that will require some people to cut grapes and nail two-by-sixes. No apps or 3D printers exist to produce brown rice. Physical labour also promotes human versatility: Those who do not do it, or who do not know how to do it, become divorced from—and, at the same time, dependent on—labourers. Lawyers, accountants and journalists living in houses with yards and driving cars to work thus count on a supporting infrastructure of electricians, landscapers and mechanics. In that context, physical labour can provide independence, at least in a limited sense of not being entirely reliant on a host of hired workers.

A robot created at Standford University is diving down to shipwrecks (沉船) in a way that humans can't do. Known as OceanOneK, the robot allows its operators to feel like they're underwater explorers, too.

OceanOneK resembles (像) a human diver from the front, with arms, hands and eyes that capture the underwater world in full color. The back of the robot has computers and eight multidirectional thrusters (推进器) that help it carefully explore the sites of fragile shipwrecks. When an operator at the ocean's surface uses controls to direct OceanOneK, the robot's touch-based feedback system causes the person to feel the water's resistance.

The idea for OceanOneK came from a desire to study coral reefs in the Red Sea at depths beyond the normal range for divers. While OccanOneK was designed to reach maximum depths of 656 feet, researchers had a new goal:1 kilometer, hence the new name for OceanOneK. The researchers changed the robot's body by using special foam to increase buoyancy (浮力) and fight the pressures of 1, 000 meters more than 100 times what humans experience at sea level. OceanOneK also got two new types of hands and increased arm and head motion.

During OceanOneK's deep dive in February, team members discovered the robot couldn't rise when they stopped for a thruster check. Flotations on the communications and power line had collapsed, causing the line to pile on the top of the robot.

OceanOneK's descent was a success. It dropped off a memorial marker on the seabed that reads, "A robot's first touch of the deep seafloor — A vast new world for humans to explore." Khatib, a professor, called the experience an "incredible journey." "This is the first time that a robot has been capable of going to such a depth, interacting with the environment, and permitting the human operator to feel that environment," he said.

In Scotland, 600,000 tonnes of food are thrown away every year. This amount of food, which could feed about 1.2 billion poor people, is almost a third of household (家庭的) waste. And food waste isn't just a big problem in Scotland.

Money, time, and resources are often wasted by throwing away good food. It also causes very harmful greenhouse gas, which is perilous to the planet.

In the production stage, some foods do not enter the food chain for many reasons. Supermarkets usually care about the quality of food from farms. They often refuse strange-looking and unusually sized produce. However, they seem to forget that it is almost impossible to grow the perfect produce. Food waste at the consumption (消费) stage includes food going out of date and leftovers (剩饭) because of too much food. In households, even mostly fresh fruit and vegetables are thrown away.

In order to reduce food waste, here is what we can do:

Understand the terms "use by" and "best before" dates. "Use by" dates are there for your safety. It is dangerous to eat food after the use-by date and doing so risks your health. "Best before" dates tell you how long the food will be at its best quality. Once the food passes the date, it isn't necessarily bad, but you should still check, just to be sure.

Every time you go shopping and bring back new food, put them at the back of your fridge and bring the food that will expire (到期) soon closer to the front. That way, you know what needs to be eaten first.

If you have any food that will expire soon, give it to charity if you aren't going to eat it. They will really appreciate the food you have given.

Central Park

Explore Central Park, one of the largest city parks in the world and one of the most famous symbols of New York. Let's have a look at its main sights.

Central Park is New York's largest city park and one of the biggest in the world, with an area of 843 acres (about 3.4km²). This park is home to man-made lakes, waterfalls, grass and wooded areas. You will also find the Central Park Zoo, among other attractions in this greenspace of New York.

Besides being the city's primary green lungs, Central Park is also a favorite spot for many New Yorkers. It is perfect for sunbathing, going for walks, or doing any outdoor sports. Something that we found curious is seeing so many people running with their babies in prams (婴儿车).

On Foot or by Bicycle

To get to know some of the wildest parts of Central Park we suggest walking. However, to get a general feel for the whole park, the best thing to do is hire a bicycle and enjoy the scenery.

If you decide to hire a bike, you will find lots of bike rental stores around Central Park that are not very expensive.

Open Time

From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends.

From 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on weekdays.

Price

Entry to the Park is free. But if you visit some parts like Central Park Zoo, you need to buy a ticket.

Transport

Subway: Line 5, 6, 7, A, B, C and D. 

Bus: Line M1, M2, M3, M4 and M10.

Nearby places

Metropolitan Museum of Art (447 m)

Guggenheim Museum (564 m)

American Museum of Natural History (688 m)

Whitney Museum of American Art (1 km)

The Frick Collection (1.3 km)