A 16-year survey on the arctic Norwegian island of Svalbard found the reindeer（驯鹿）there have declined in weight by an alarming 12 percent. The reduction in average body-mass is being blamed on global warming.

    In research presented lately at a meeting of the British Ecological Society in Liverpool, scientists will explain how rising temperatures are making female reindeer difficult to obtain nutrients during important periods of being pregnant.

    Snow in Svalbard typically covers the ground for eight months of the year, which, combined with low temperatures, limits grass growth to June and July. But as summer temperatures have increased by around 1.5℃, grasslands have become more productive, allowing female reindeer to gain more weight by the autumn and therefore to conceive（孕育）more calves.

    However, warmer winters have brought with them greater rainfall which freezes when is settles on the snow, therefore locking out the reindeer from the life-supporting food below. As a result, female reindeer are becoming starved, causing them to give birth to much lighter young. The average mass of an adult reindeer in 1998, when the survey began, was 55kg, but by 2016 IT had dropped to 48kg.

    Professor Steve Albon, an ecologist at the James Hatton Institute in Aberdeen , said that, because the mammals have a relatively high surface-area-to-volume ratio（表面积与体积比）, they are no particularly energy efficient.

    Reindeer can often access the inadequate food sources beneath the snow by clearing IT away with their antlers（鹿角）, but they cannot break through the hard ice. Without access to the food in winter, calves are being born far lighter than they should be. Numbers of reindeer have also increased rapidly in the past 20 years, meaning that those which are born are facing greater competition for food. “The implication（含义）are that there may well be more smaller reindeer in the Arctic in the coming decades, but possibly at the risk of catastrophic die-offs because of increased ice on the ground,”said Professor Albon Despite the gloomy findings, reindeer appear to be suffering less from the impact of climate change than some other arctic species.

                                                                                                  Chinese International School

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    Before an applicant can be invited to take part in an assessment, an application form should be returned to the Admissions Office, and the application fee of HK$1,000 cannot be returned. For overseas applicants wishing to pay in currencies other than HK dollars, the fee is US$145. Checks are also good for payment to “Chinese International School”.

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    Applicants will be informed of their acceptance status in writing by postal mail. Initial (最初的) offers for Reception will be sent out from late March once all assessments have been completed.

Some applicants who have been assessed may be held on a reserve list. Acceptances may also be made on a conditional basis among the applicants on the reserve list.

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    In addition, enrollment will not be considered complete until the following have been received, normally one month before the start of the new school year

    Physical examination results           Tuition (first month)

    Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will either learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes that will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So parents will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter.

    However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap. Parents can see that their children's skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today's children lack self-respect and self-confidence. The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents are not teaching them the most important skills they need to be confident, happy and clever.

    Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing other housework.

    Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult experience. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually finish his job successfully. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self-confidence.

    Some old machines, such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child to play with will make him curious and arouse his interest. He will spend hours looking at them, trying to fix them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These activities are not only teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.

  Dubai Aquarium & underwater Zoo

    Experience
    You will be surprised at the amazing collection consisting of over 140 species including 300 sharks, rays and the largest collection of sand tiger sharks in the world. Walk along the Rainforest, Rocky Shore and Living Ocean environments at the Underwater Zoo and you will find yourself face to face with dangerous piranha, giant catfish, playful otters, a Humboldt penguin colony and more.
    Options
    Basic Pass: With this basic pass, you'll get access to the Dubai Aquarium and underwater Zoo.
    Explorer Pas: If you're looking to get a little closer to the sea creatures, then this pass is for you. Along with the explorer pass you can also get access to the submersible simulator(潜水模拟器)  & big screen theater and a free ride on the glass-bottom boat.
    VIP Line Buster: This pass includes all the benefits of an explorer pass and a tour guide. And you can get to try your hand at fish feeding!
    Timings
    Sunday--Wednesday: 10:00 am--11:00 pm
    Thursday--Saturday: 10:00 am--12:00 am
    Pro Tip
    You can save a lot by buying a combo ticket(套票). This ticket gives you access to Undersea Zoo and Aquarium Tunnel alongside tickets to the observation deck on the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa. Your government ID card has to be presented at the entrance.

    Cli-Fi refers to "climate fiction"; it is a term invented by journalist Dan Bloom. These are fictional books that somehow or someway bring real climate change science to the reader. What is really interesting is that Cli-Fi books often present real science in a believable way. They become fun teaching tools. There are some really well known authors such as Paolo Bacigalupi and Margaret Atwood. A list of other candidate Cli-Fi novels was provided by Sarah Holding in the Guardian.

    What makes a Cli-Fi novel good? In my opinion, it has to have some real science in it. And it has to get the science right. Second, it has to be fun to read. When done correctly, Cli-Fi can connect people to their world; it can help us understand what future climate may be like, or what current climate effects are.

    One thing that is hard to imagine is the future. What will the world be like decades from now when Earth temperatures have continued to rise? What will agriculture be like? What will coastal communities be like? It is also hard to imagine what living a subsistence agriculture life is like, today. What happens to lives and communities when the rains change, or don't come at all? What would that world look like?

    One recent example of Cli-Fi literature is South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby. In this book we follow Cooper Gosling, who is traveling to a research location on Antarctica to create paintings. Yes, an artist is sent to live with researchers and crew ­ with funding from the National Science Foundation. After arriving at the South Pole, Cooper has to become acquainted with the strange social system that exists there. Ashley writes the book in such a way that you actually feel you are huddled(拥挤) in the cold with her and her co-workers.

Nick Torrance, a junior in high school, suffers from muscular dystrophy, and attends school in a specialized wheelchair. The muscle disease prevents him from accomplishing many everyday tasks, such as carrying his books and putting things away in his locker. So he had a fellow student assigned to help him. But Amy Smith, the school's occupational therapist, thought that being able to do something simple like opening his locker on his own would be empowering.

Amy initially thought they would be able to buy a device to help. But searching online turned up nothing that could meet their needs—everything needed a keycode or some other physical action, things her disabled student couldn't do. After the outside search for a method came up short, she looked within the school itself for an answer. Amy turned to the school's robotics instructor.

The instructor, in turn, suggested that two of his most capable students take on the project: Micah Stuhldreher and Wyatt Smrcka. They took first place in a national robotics competition, so they were a natural choice to tackle the locker door problem with a robotics solution. Micah and Wyatt wasted no time getting down to work and for an hour each school day, the boys brainstormed, built, and rebuilt various versions of the device until they landed on the perfect solution one year later.

Like in any device development, it took a lot of trial and error for Micah and Wyatt to make something that would work for their target audience. For example, they initially built a locker-opening button, but Nick wasn't strong enough to push it, so they replaced it with a sensor.

Now, between classes Nick steers his electric wheelchair to his locker and waves his hand over a sensor on the arm of the wheelchair. A few seconds later, the locker door swings open. Another wave closes the door. Nick can make it with ease—it may be a small thing, but it gives him a sense of independence.