When Ariel Rojas rode her bike to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, New York, last November, she planned to go hiking and bird — watching. Bingo! A mile into her walk, she ________ a gorgeous female mute swan near the water’s edge. Rojas, 30, who had worked at the Wild Bird Rescue Center in Manhattan, knew that mute swans can be _________. But as she approached this one, it didn’t move. She was certain that the bird needed ________ attention. Rojas covered her jacket over the bird’s head to keep it calm, ________ picked it up, and cradled it in her arms. And then a thought ________ her: What do I do now?

Her best ________ was the rescue center, but that was across the East River and clear on the other side of town. How was she going to ________ a 17 — pound swan on her bike all that way? ________, some confused strangers driving by ________ her, her bike, and the swan a lift to a nearby subway station.

On the subway, no one seemed particularly ________ by the feathered passenger. Rojas called the rescue center en route, and Tristan, an animal — care manager, ________ her up at the subway station and drove bird, bike, and rescuer to the facility. There, staff members ________ that the swan might have lead poisoning, caused by ________ weights used on fishing lines.

The staff got the swan back up on her ________. She even made a ________ at the center—another injured swan. Sadly, even with all that TLC (tender loving care), the swan got ________ with bacteria. Two months after Rojas came to her rescue, she ________.

It’s a(n) ________ ending, but the real story is just how far some people are willing to go to ________ a swan in the big city — literally. In all, Rojas ________ two hours by foot, car, and subway. Says Tristan, “That’s the perfect summary of who she is.”

Digital Technology Reveals Secrets of the UK’s Earliest Dinosaur

Britain’s earliest dinosaur was a nimble omnivore that ran around on two legs, unlike its later relatives brontosaurus and diplodocus, research suggests.

Standing at about the height of a 10-year-old child, and 1.5 metres in length with a long thin tail, Thecodontosaurus(槽齿龙)roamed the earth during the Triassic Period. As well as being one of the earliest _______, it was also among the first to be discovered. It was unearthed by Bristol quarrymen(采石工人)in 1834, earning it the _______ “the Bristol Dinosaur”.

Thecodontosaurus is considered an important species internationally because it provides an _______ link between the very first dinosaurs, which are thought to have been cat-sized, two-legged carnivores, and the huge plant-eating sauropods(蜥脚类动物), which walked on four thick, pillar-like _______.

“Its position within the dinosaur family tree is very important because it could help us to understand the evolution of those _______, and how they became that big,” said Antonio Ballell, a PhD student at the University of Bristol, who led the _______.

What Thecodontosaurus ate and how it moved have long been debated, but now a _______ of its brain suggests it may have eaten meat and walked upright on two legs, like its earlier ancestors whose fossilised remains were discovered in South America.

Ballell and his colleagues used CT scans to _______ extract its fossilised skull from the surrounding rock debris, and 3D modelling to build a replica of its brain. Doing so revealed anatomical details, which could be compared with the brains of modern creatures as well as reconstructions of other dinosaurs’ brains, to make inferences about Thecodontosaurus’ physical traits.

The dinosaur’s floccular lobes, for instance, which are located at the back of the brain and are _______ the control of balance and eye and neck movements, were large. This suggests Thecodontosaurus could have walked on two legs and maintained a stable gaze while moving fast. “It would have had the cerebral agility to track prey and capture it, ________ its tooth morphology suggests plants were the main component of its diet,” Ballell said. “We think the islands where it lived were very rich in reptiles, small mammals, insects and other arthropods, so these could have been a very good ________ to its diet.”

The shape of its inner ears suggests that its hearing frequency was ________ high, pointing towards some sort of social complexity-an ability to recognise varied squeaks and honks from different animals. The research was ________ in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

“It’s thrilling to see new technologies applied ________ some of the oldest dinosaur bones from the UK,” said Steve Brusatte, a professor at the University of Edinburgh. “Thecodontosaurus was probably a lot more agile(灵活的)than we used to think, and it seems like it had ________ balance, could run fast and could even move only on its hind limbs.”

For a few moments, the tourists thought they were about to witness something terrible. _________, they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch a whale baby emerge into the world.

_________ into the blue waters just off the coast of Dana Point, California, people on a small boat spotted an adult whale swimming around. Then a pool of something _________ appeared to spread.

“Many of us thought it may be a shark attack. But it was not. Instead of the _________ of life, it was the beginning of a new one!” one of them wrote online. “This is a _________ for all of us. We’ve never seen it happen before.”

“The fact that you can see the blood means the _________ must have just come out. It isn’t something that is seen or _________ very often. In fact, I don’t know if there’re any other videos like that. They are extraordinarily _________,” said Schulman-Janiger, a biologist. “I _________ that I were there.”

Schulman-Janiger admitted she’d never __________ an actual birth. About nine years ago, she was just __________ enough to spot a newborn whale less than an hour old.

“Whales are born with soft fins (鳍) that take about 24 hours to become __________. Until then, they can’t really swim and the mothers have to __________ their babies so they can rest and breathe,” she continued. “Animals on land smell each other. But animals in __________ can’t smell. So their skin is very sensitive. That’s why we can see the baby whale and its mother touch their faces __________ in the posted videos.”