My first dependant was a duck called Mr. Kite. As a cream-faced four-year-old, it was my job at the nursery to turn the eggs in the incubator (恒温箱) every day: one side “O”, the other side “X”.

We lived in a small, inner-city house with a long, thin garden in east Oxford at the time. As a gentle-hearted vet's (兽医的) daughter, my mum couldn't resist adopting these ducks. I named them Buttercup, Mr. Kite and Drakey. We made them a pond. The bottom was a mosaic (马赛克) made from all the bits of plate and cup that had been broken during family rows. Within 30 seconds,the pond was so full of duck droppings that we never saw the mosaic again.

One of the most magical moments during my caring for ducks was the night it snowed. Mum, over whelmed by pity and grandmotherly concern, insisted that Mr. Kite and her friends — yes, Mr. Kite was female — be spared another freezing night in the wooden house my dad had built for them at the end of the garden; we caught them, flapping and shouting, and brought them in to sleep in the kitchen.Have you ever seen three ducks go wild in a tiny kitchen? It was one of the best moments of my childhood. It smelled like the underside of hell's socks by the time they had left.

I used to spend my summers lazing in a swimming pool with Mr. Kite and the others. Eventually, though, our neighbour complained that they were being woken at 4:45 a.m.. So, the feathered three went to live with an old couple in the country. Fair enough — you don't move to the city to have the dawn torn apart by quacking   — although it must have made a change from student parties and the sound of 19-year-olds being sick by the bins.

I wonder now if this early experience of duck adoption is the reason that, at least three times a week, what ever the weather, you will find me swimming in the Thames or a nearby lake with the ducks. Although they never say hello.

David and Alicia Tschirhart adored their Yellow Lab, Marley, but they never knew just how much, until that day back in 2014 when they were hiking with him in hills near their San Diego home.

“Alicia went off the path to grab a walking stick to help through the path,” David recalled. “And Marley all of a sudden darted (猛冲) from me and he started clawing the ground where Alicia was reaching for a walking stick. And I didn’t know what was happening. Alicia kind of fell back. When I looked more closely, I saw that it was a rattlesnake,” he told journalist Tracy Smith.

Rattlesnakes are common on these trails, which are very steep and miles from any hospital. And the Tschirharts didn’t have cellphones with them. For Alicia, who was four months pregnant, a snake bite could have been a disaster. Thankfully, 12-year-old Marley scared the snake away, and a few months later, the Tschirharts’ first daughter Maddie was born.

But by then, Marley had been diagnosed with cancer, and by Thanksgiving weekend 2014, it was clear the end was near. And their love for Marley was so strong that they couldn’t really let it go. So, the Tschirharts turned to ViaGen Pets, of Austin, Texas, a company that has cloned hundreds of pets for a multitude of grateful owners.

For as much as $50,000, the company will culture the cells, create embryos, implant them in a surrogate (代孕母亲), and deliver a clone of your loved one.

Marley’s clone, Ziggy, an energetic yellow ball. But to David and Alicia, he’s nothing less than Marley reborn. “He is exactly the twin of Marley,” said David. “So, he’s in, I guess, the same environment. So really, he’s become the same dog.”

And while pet cloning is still debatable, it can mean, for some at least, that with the right amount of love, science and money, you never really need to say goodbye.

Over the last two decades (十年), the Earth has seen an increase in vegetation (植被) and China and India are leading the increase in greening on land. The result comes mostly from tree planting programs in China and intensive agriculture(集约农业) in both countries.

Researchers from Boston University found that global green area has increased by 5% since the early 2000s, an area equal to the size of Amazon rainforest. Among the increased area, China and India contribute to about 33%, especially China, with 25% itself. China’s great contribution came mostly from its programs to protect and expand forests, which is about 42%. These programs were developed in an effort to reduce the effect of desertification, air pollution and climate change.

Another 32% of the greening change in China, and 82% in India, resulted from intensive agriculture of food crops. The land area used to grow crops in China and India has not changed much since the early 2000s. Yet both countries have greatly increased the total green area and food production in order to feed large populations. The lead author Chi Chen of Boston University said,

“That is a surprising finding, since it is generally believed that land degradation(退化) in populous countries is usually more serious.”

Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, saw a positive message in the new findings. “Once people realize there is a problem, they tend to fix it,” However, the researchers rang bells as well. They pointed out that the gain did not necessarily fill up the loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions like Brazil and Indonesia.