Fungi (菌类) often appear naturally around trees, but a new study has found that growing edible mushrooms (types that can be safely eaten) in forests on purpose could be a good way to provide healthy food for millions of people and help the environment too.

Fungi are living things that feed on organic matter, such as dead plants. Mushrooms, mould and yeast are all types of fungi.

Paul Thomas and Alistair Jump, from the University of Stirling in Scotland, spent two years studying edible fungi that grow alongside trees. The pair discovered that while they are growing, fungi remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it in the soil. This is good for the planet, because too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is one of the main causes of climate change.

Thomas points out that forests around the world are often cut down to create fields for producing food, such as beef or wheat. Trees take in carbon dioxide as they grow, so chopping them down makes climate change worse. However, edible fungi thrive in the shade of trees. That means if fungi was being grown as a food crop, there would be no need to chop down forests. In fact, if fungi became very popular, more trees could actually be planted. Edible fungi contain lots of substances that are good for humans. Thomas’s idea is that other ingredients, such as meat, could be swapped for fungi in people’s diets. He estimates that growing fungi around trees could feed up to 19 million people each year.

Blue milk caps are a species of edible fungi that Thomas says could work particularly well. They can be grown on and around trees, exchanging useful minerals and nutrients in return for carbon. They are also very nutritious, and some studies have suggested that they can help to treat cancer.

This fall, children in the Eixample area of Barcelona have a new way to get to school on Fridays-they ride their bikes. In September, a group of five children began biking to school with their parents on Fridays. Soon the group grew to 150 or more. The program is called bike bus.

The bike bus begins around 8: 25 every Friday morning. The path it will follow is always posted ahead of time, so everyone knows where to join. The bike bus starts off with just a few students and parents, with more and more joining as it travels along.

Most kids ride their bikes, but others ride scooters(滑板车)or use skates. Instead of riding in bike lanes or on sidewalks, the bike bus takes over the entire street. With music playing and bike bells ringing, the bike bus feels like a party.

“Being able to ride with a bunch of kids is a big part of the fun,” says nine-year-old Maria Pitarch. “The best part of the bike bus is that we ride along and pick up my friends and we ride together.”

It was possible to bike to school in Eixample before, but it wasn’t really safe for kids. There are a few bike lanes, but there are also lots of cars. One of the main roads used by the Eixample bike bus has about 20,000 cars and motorcycles every day. Because these are busy streets, the local police are helping stop traffic by riding in front of the bike bus and behind it.

Parents are hoping that the bike bus will help change ideas about how people can get around in the city. They want the city to create wider and kid-friendly bike lanes that are separate from car traffic. They point out that the bike bus also helps cut down on pollution.

Barcelona isn’t the first bike bus ever. The idea has been around for quite a while. There have been bike buses in Madrid and other parts of Spain for years.

From Japan to Detroit, automobile manufacturers have been busy creating the green car, a vehicle that, in all its forms, promises to be one of the cleanest technologies on earth. To create the green car of the future, say designers, they will replace dangerous substances with safe ones, recycle car parts from antifreeze to old tires and develop alternative fuels.

To meet high environmental standards, automakers began renovating（翻新）their practices at the heart of the matter: the manufacturing process.

At General Motors（GM）a two-seat electric car named the Impact can travel 110 to 160 kilometers on a single charge, depending on driving habits and conditions. GM will begin the consumer test to the Impact in 12 U. S. cities this year. About a thousand people have been selected to drive the vehicle for two-and four-week periods.

Meanwhile, another alternative to standard gasoline-powered cars is Volkswagen’s Golf Ecomatic, recently introduced in Europe and powered by a diesel（柴油）engine that shuts down automatically whenever the car doesn’t require the force of push — while drivers are waiting at traffic lights, slowing to a standstill in heavy traffic or driving downhill. In city traffic alone, Volkswagen engineers expect 60 percent of the trip is spent either moving without its engine turned on or waiting, and overall the carbon dioxide emissions（排放物）produced by the Golf Ecomatic are 22 percent less than those of a standard diesel-powered automobile.

In the end, the green car will be good not only for the environment but also for business. In the long run environmental success is essential to business success, and many companies have recognized this reality, as a growing number of people want to purchase products from environmentally responsible firms.