Mutual cooperation in which humans cooperate with wild animals is extremely rare. One such system involves the greater honeyguide, a small African bird that leads humans to sources of honey. Once a nest is found, the human honey hunters break into it to obtain honey and bee worms, and the birds benefit from consuming beeswax in the now-exposed honey comb. Both the birds and the humans use specialized sounds to communicate their availability to participate in this cooperative interaction.

The two areas studied by Spottiswoode and Wood are northern Mozambique, where the honey hunters are from the Yao cultural group, and northern Tanzania, where the honey hunters are from the Hadza culture. The Yao communicate with honeyguides using a short and high-pitched sound followed by a low sound ”brrrrhm“, whereas the Hadza use a melodic whistle. Thus, signal and response both vary geographically.

Spotiswoode and Wood propose that the geographic variation they have identified in this mutualism is the product of cultural codevelopment. To qualify as cultural, the cooperative behaviors would have to be acquired through social learning from individuals of the same species. Social learning, however, is less of a given on the honeyguide side. Instead, what is required of honeyguides is another form of vocal learning - comprehension learning — in which the meaning of a signal is learned. Comprehension learning is common in birds. Whether social learning is involved, however, is not so, obvious.

Honeyguides put in considerable effort helping their human partners find food and are faithfully rewarded by being given food in return. In some human cultures, honey hunters purposefully leave out honeycomb to reward honeyeaters, but in others the hunters go, to great length to deny the birds any reward, by collecting, burying, or burning any honeycomb exposed when they destroy a nest. The reason given for these acts is that keeping the birds hungry causes them to continue guiding.

A promising question for future research is whether geographic differences in human cultural preferences for rewarding or not rewarding honeyguides affect the preferences of individual birds for guiding versus taking advantage of the guiding of others.

Restart Dogs are currently working with Adult Estates training prisoners to raise and train puppies as assistance dogs. The analysis found the program led to a reduction in reoffending (再犯) rates in prisoners compared to those who had not participated.

Based in the UK, Restart Dogs is a vocational education programme that trains adult prisoners to become assistance dog trainers. They raise and train dogs to become assistance dogs, teaching them key skills such as door manners, staying where they are asked, walking to heel on a loose lead, and settling next to their handlers while they work and study. But most importantly, they are learning to have faith in their handlers guiding them through their new adventures and environment.

The programme is paid for by the Prisoners Fund, raised by the work that prisoners do in prison. There are a few conditions that prisoners must meet before they can take part in the programme, for example, they must be free of behaviour-related violation (违反) for a specified period before admittance to the programme as well as continued good behaviour throughout the programme.

For prisoners, the benefits of training dogs have been well researched and recorded. Working with professionals to train dogs responsibly allows prisoners to improve their social skills, empathy, self-regulation, respect and overall well-being. The analysis reported a 36% difference in reoffending rates in the training group compared to the control group. These outcomes are similar to those found with more traditional programmes such as education, employment and training programmes.

Meanwhile, for people in need of an assistance dog, there can often be a long waiting list due to the length of time it takes to train an assistance dog—it usually takes two to three years. Thanks to the work that Restart Dogs is doing, as well as training the dogs for future success and happiness, prisoners are able to get a second chance in society!

Studies have shown that walking among trees makes us relaxed. 【小题1】There’s plenty of research showing the link between being in nature and being happy, but most of the research has focused on adults.

【小题2】 Explaining the motivation behind the study, researchers note that with environmental issues such as global warming, more studies are focusing on the relationships between humans and nature to find solutions to these problems, and the future of the planet lies in the hands of children and their actions. However, few studies focus on this aspect.

For the study, researchers worked with 296 children between the ages of 9 and 12. To measure how connected they were to nature, the kids were asked how much they enjoy activities like seeing wildflowers and wild animals, hearing sounds of nature and touching animals and plants. 【小题3】They also found that the more concerned children were about the environment and nature, the more likely they were to be happy.

So exposure to nature is related to active behaviors and happiness of children. What does that mean to adults? As we all know, children usually tend to follow adults’, especially their parents’ behaviors. That’s to say, when adults are outside and appreciate nature, kids learn by example. 【小题4】

Researchers say that children need role models who can gently guide them to nature with excitement and an attitude of a lifelong learner. 【小题5】 What’s more important is that they spend time together with children by exploring a fun and safe environment.