One of the talks from the TED stage in Long Beach, California, came from Richard Ture re, an inventor. He is a Maasai from Kenya. And he is very young.

Lions are the top tourist attraction to Kenya, especially in the Nairobi National Park, which is near where Richard lives. Lions are also considered critically endangered in Kenya. One of the main causes of their demise, “is that people kill them in retaliation (报复) for lions attacking their livestock (牲畜)”, says Paula Kahumbu, executive director of Wildlife Direct, a wildlife conservation organization in Africa. She has been studying the conflict between humans and lions, and her work led her to Richard. In one week, she monitored over 50 cases where lions attacked livestock.

One night Richard was walking around with a flashlight and discovered the lions were scared of a moving light. A light went on inside him and an idea was born. Three weeks later, Richard had invented a system of lights that flash around the cowshed (棚), which seemed like a human walking around with a flashlight. His system is made from broken flashlight parts and an indicator box from a motorcycle. “The only thing I bought was a solar board, which charges a battery that supplies power to the lights at night,” Richard says. He calls the system Lion Lights. “There have been a lot of efforts to try to protect the lions,” Kahumbu says. “It’s a crisis and everyone is looking for a solution. One idea was land leases (租赁), another was lion pro-offences (防护栅栏). And basically no one even knew that Richard had already come up with something that worked.”

His simple solution was so successful. He equipped the lights for his neighbors and for six other homes in his community. From there, the lights spread and are now being used all around Kenya.

To get to the TED stage, Richard traveled on an airplane for the first time in his life. He says he has a lot to tell his friends about when he goes back home, and what impressed him the most on his trip was something he saw at the Aquarium of the Pacific: “It was my first time seeing a shark. I’ve never seen a shark.”

Can plants talk? Modern research has found something amazing: they do communicate with each other.

It has been known for some time that plants use chemicals to communicate with each other. This happens when a plant gets attacked by insects. The plant gives out chemicals from the leaves that are being eaten. This is like a warning, or a call for help： "I'm being attacked! " When another plant gets the chemicals, it starts to give out its own, different chemicals. Some of these chemicals drive insects away. Others attract the wasps（黄蜂；蜜蜂）！ The wasps kill the insects that are eating the plants. Scientists hope to learn more about this plant warning system, so that we can use it to grow more crops.

More surprisingly, plants also use sound to communicate. People can't hear these sounds ； but plants are making them. Some plants make noises with their roots. Corn and chili plants do this. Some trees make clicking noises when there is not enough water.

Most surprisingly of all, plants have an amazing system of communication that can link nearly every plant in a forest. Scientists call this system the “ wood wide web”. The wood wide web is linked underground by fungi（霉菌）.It links the roots of different plants to each other. It is in some ways similar to the Internet we use. Using the wood wide web, plants can share information and even food with each other. However, it may lead to bad effects. Plants may use it to steal food from each other,     or spread chemicals to attack other plants. Perhaps one day scientists will learn how to create a “firewall“ to help prevent these attacks within the wood wide web.

Scientists are learning more every day about the secret ways in which plants talk to each other. Maybe one day we will know enough about plant communication to be able to "talk” with them ourselves.

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Actress Hayden Panettiere recently got into trouble with Japanese fishermen as she tried to stop them from killing dolphins.

The 18-year-old star with some other surfers sailed out to reach the dolphins in order to stop them from being driven into a nearby pool and killed, but the six surfers, from Australia and the United States, were stopped by a fishing boat before they could reach them. The fishermen blocked their way with a boathook (钩篙). It was an ugly, unfriendly and life-threatening struggle before the surfers were forced to return to the beach. It is believed that the dolphins were later taken into a pool and killed.

Panettiere, who is a brave surfer and loyal animal protector, made up her mind to save the dolphins of Japan and said, “It was really frightening. Some of us were hit by the boathook, but in the end all we were really worried about was the dolphins. It was so sad. We were so close to them and they were jumping out of the water to see us.” Breaking down in tears, she added, “One little baby dolphin stuck his head out and looked at me and the thought that it’s no longer with us is really hard to take.”

The surfers left the country to avoid arrest (逮捕) by the Japanese police. Panettiere is now back in Los Angeles.

More than 22,000 dolphins are killed by fishermen in Japan every year. Many Japanese believe dolphins should be treated like fish. They have been hunting dolphins for centuries and see any criticism (批评) of this as an attack on their culture.