At least five wolves, including one female, have returned to Denmark for the first time in two centuries, a zoologist who has obtained DNA evidence said on Thursday.

    The wolves came from Germany to settle in western Denmark's agricultural region, the least densely populated in the Scandinavian country. Peter Sunde, a scientist at the University of Aarhus, told AFP the wolves must have walked more than 500km. "We think these are young wolves rejected by their families who are looking for new hunting grounds," the researcher added. Scientists have established a genetic profile from the faeces(f粪便) of five wolves - four males and one female - but there could be more. Sunde said researchers had suspected since 2012 that wolves had entered Denmark. "Now we have evidence [including] that there's one female," signalling the possibility of giving birth this spring, he said.

    Proof was also established through the wolves' fingerprints and video surveillance(监视,监督) showed their location, which scientists refuse to reveal out of fear that it will attract hunters."We're following that. The wolf is an animal we're not allowed to hunt so we must protect it," said Henrik Hagen Olesen, spokesperson at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.Exterminated by hunters, wolves had been completely extinct in Denmark since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

    In other Nordic countries with a higher wolf population, culling(选择性宰杀) the species, protected by the Bern Convention, is under a fierce debate between inhabitants, farmers, hunters, the government, the European Union and wildlife activists.

    BEIJING, China —Pollution in China remains very serious as the country's rapid economic growth brings new environmental problems, a minister said Saturday.

    Vice Environment Minister Zhang Lijun said China has made progress on environmental protection, but admitted that its rapid economic growth over the past decade has had a negative effect on the environment.

    "Our rapid economic development has continuously brought our country new environmental problems, particularly dangerous chemicals, electronic waste and so on. These environmental pollutants (污染物) bring new problems and affect human health," Zhang told a news conference.

    He said that emissions(排放)of traditional pollutants remain high and some areas have failed to meet government standards.

China has pledged to continue reducing emissions this year of three key air pollutants— ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. The government has also promised to bring down demand for chemical oxygen—a measure of water pollution by l.5 percent from the 2010 levels.

    In the last five years, there were 912 "environmental emergencies" involving heavy metal pollution, including several well-publicized instances of mass contamination, Zhang said. Thousands of children were affected by lead poisoning in several provinces in 2009 and 2010 because they lived near metal smelters or battery factories.

    The minister noted that rapid development in the next five years would increase the need for China to improve environmental protection and shift to a more sustainable(可持续的) model of economic development from its dependence on industries which consume huge quantities of energy.

    China is focusing on clean energy, including solar, wind and nuclear power, as one way to reduce its dependence on coal, which generates three-quarters of its electricity and is also used for winter heating in northern cities. China also hopes the strategy will reduce its demand for oil and gas and increase economic growth and jobs.

    Zhang told reporters there was no plan to adjust China's overall strategy for nuclear development but he said Beijing will learn lessons from Japan after a violent earthquake resulted in a radioactive leak(放射能泄露).

    "Some lessons we learn from Japan will be considered in the making of China's nuclear power plans," he said. "But China will not change its determination and plan for developing nuclear power."

    With the start of the new term, the students around the country exchange their fun and fashionable clothes for boring school uniforms. But not all schools are fashion deserts. Colorful sports shoes, school bags, T-shirts and even drink containers are breathing life into campuses.

    "The uniform makes us look like a bunch of clones, especially when we are doing morning exercises on the playground," said Qing Pei, a Senior 2 from Shanghai Qibao High School. "But the boys wear different sports shoes and girls have different decorations in their hair. These are the areas where you can express yourself," said Qing.

    Although it might be strange for boys to talk about fashion, they do care about what they wear in school, especially shoes, according to Qing.

    "Nike and Adidas basketball shoes, although they are still the must-have items for many of my friends, are becoming out-of-date," Qing added. He explained that "Since Liu Xiang ran so fast in Athens, running shoes are becoming popular in this autumn. "

    "Still in fashion are the various baseball caps and American-style T-shirts with random (随意的) English words printed on them," said Qing. "The accuracy of the written message is not important. Often, the words are not spelt correctly. Sometimes they do not even make sense, "Qing said with a smile.

    Besides sports shoes and T-shirts, styles and colors of school bags are another opportunity for students to express their taste in fashion. Some bags are made more eye-catching by decorating them with small hanging dolls.

    Other fashionable items are the colorful drink containers which are now popular among girls this term.

    "Some teachers are surprised to see a teenager sucking a bottle like this at school and criticize it as a childish regression (退化). But some girls just love it," said Yang Rui, a Senior 3. from High School attached to Xi'an Jiaotong University.

The Kids' Farm

    While kids visit vegetable plots and animal contact areas, they will learn that most of the food we eat every day comes from farms, and that taking care of animals takes time, commitment and knowledge.

    Kids can see our cows, donkeys, goats, alpacas, pigs, etc. and learn all about looking after farm animals. At the Caring Corral, they will have a chance to touch cows and donkeys, under staff members' supervision.

    Please Note:

    ●Any time you touch an animal, there is a risk of spreading germs (细菌). Visitors to the Kids' Farm should wash their hands after touching the animals.

    ●The Caring Corral is open only when the staff are available; hours are limited.

    ●The Kids' Farm uses pizza to teach kids how many kinds of food grow. Hands-on exhibits show how pizza ingredients go from the farm to the pizza. The Pizza Garden has slice-shaped plots of growing ingredients, including tomatoes, wheat and herbs.

    ●The 22-foot-wide Giant Pizza gives kids a place to play with oversized toppings and each other.

    ● During the busier season (beginning in June), a free shuttle picks up visitors in need of a lift at the Kids' Farm and drops them off at the Panda Plaza/the Bus Lot from 11 a. m. to 6 p.m.

    A growing number of Chinese tourists are helping to save a dying town, after a like-known tourist attraction was featured on a number of Chinese travel blogs.

    The residents of Sea Lake, a town of just 600 people, barely see travelers stop at their gas station while driving by, but the sudden influx of Chinese tourists is helping keep the town's economy alive.

    The tourists come to see Lake Tyrrel—a shallow, salt crusted and often dry lake just out of town. According to a local teacher, Rachel Pearce, the extremely beautiful nightscape combined with the mysterious appearance of stars reflected on the salt lake gives people the impression of walking among the stars. Besides, the town is so far away that no light pollution ruins the particularly attractive views, and as it is situated in a barren(寸草不生的), dry part of the country, there are rarely any clouds to spoil the night sky.

    The attraction's growing sought-after status has resulted in the town's motel rooms being full almost every night, and while local farmers are suffering in a two-year drought, tourism is keeping the town's agricultural-based economy stable.

    Despite the popularity of the town and its attraction, locals are still confused as to why their little town deserves so much attention. Sea Lake's population has fallen from around 1, 200a decade ago to 600 today. "We're still unsure why Lake Tyrrel is such a big, big tourist attraction," one local says. "It's quite a shock."

    Moving flight times from night to day could reduce air travel's contributions to global warming, a new study suggests. Scheduling more (lay time flights may reduce the influence of contrails ——the visible lines of white steam that many planes leave behind them in the sky.

    The role of contrails in climate change is still being studied, but some scientists believe they contribute to the greenhouse effect by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

    Nicola Stuber, first author of the study, suggests that contrails' overall impact on climate change is almost as big as that of aircraft^? s carbon dioxide emissions (排放)over a hundred-year period. Aircraft are believed to be responsible for 2-3% of human carbon dioxide emissions. Like other high, thin clouds, contrails reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet. However, they also trap energy in the atmosphere and increase the warming effect.

    Stuber and other scientists believe that the effect of the contrails is big. "On average, the green-house effect controls the effects of contrails, said Stuber, a meteorologist at England's University of Reading." The warming effect is far greater for contrails left by night flights," Stuber added. "The cooling effect only happens (luring the day when the sun is up. During the night the greenhouse warming is no longer balanced and that is why the contribution of night-flight is so large."

    Most commercial airline traffic occurs during daylight hours. For example, only one in four United Kingdom flights is a night flight, but those flights create some 60% of the warming created by contrails, the study reports.