Do you see a bird right now? Can you hear one chirping? If so, you might be getting a mental health boost. A study recently published in the journal Science found that being in the presence of birds made people feel more positive.

Andrea Mechelli, a psychologist at King’s College London, found himself studying the natural world accidentally. Initially he was searching for answers to why people who lived in cities seemed to tend to suffer mental illness, particularly psychosis. In 2015, he created the smartphone app Urban Mind to search for patterns in users’ environments. “Our first finding is that nature has a very powerful effect,” says Mechelli. He and his colleagues then wondered if some aspects of nature were more beneficial than others. They turned to birds for their ubiquity (普遍存在) in rural and urban environments.

Their latest study included 1,292 participants mainly in the United Kingdom and Europe. For two weeks, participants were prompted to fill out a questionnaire about their surrounding environment and their mental state three times a day. Mechelli performed a statistical analysis that found an obvious improvement in wellbeing when birds were present, even when eliminating other factors like the presence of trees or waterways. The mental health benefit was true both for people who disclosed a depression diagnosis and those without any diagnosed mental health conditions.

Peter James, an environmental health scientist at Harvard, would like to see more data. He found that environmental health studies like these lack diversity. Yet, a psychologist at Trent University in Canada, Lisa Nisbet says, “This kind of study helps us understand how people’s everyday experience with specific elements of nature, such as birds, can be restorative.”

Appreciating birds seems to be a promising avenue for nature-based health and wellbeing interventions. At Mechelli’s clinical practice in London, he focuses on early intervention therapies. He suggests his patients go for walks to observe the trees and plants growing in the city, and the bird fluttering by from branch to branch. “It has no side effects,” he says. “It’s something they could try, and they have nothing to lose.”

When going on holiday, you normally expect nothing but to relax, enjoy yourselves and above all stay safe. Sometimes, you may sadly have to face certain unexpected problems that would end your sweet holidays without any warning, such as a typhoon or an earthquake. But holidaymakers at the Red Sea resort in Egypt are facing a different problem, which you may have never thought of before.

The resort is famous for its golden beaches, warm sea and nice weather, and it is an excellent place for scuba diving(带水肺潜水). But at the moment, no tourists are willing to take the risk of diving into the water due to the recent shark attacks. These attacks have caused one death and several injuries over the last few weeks.

According to some biologists, these sharks live in the open ocean, and are frequently seen in the ocean of this region. But as they have pointed out, it was not common for swimmers to run into them in shallow waters.

Experts are still not sure what has lured the sharks into these waters and to attack people. However, they all believe that shark attacks are extremely rare and they are definitely not man-eaters as shown in films like Jaws. One thought is that animal carcasses(尸体) were recently thrown into the sea from a ship close to the shore. Some experts believe that it could just be a case of people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A shark attack might make you think twice before stepping into the sea, but things may not be as severe as you've thought. According to recent research, there are about 70 to 100 attacks on humans per year, and only a small number of them are fatal.

Mark Williams runs a scuba diving company at the resort, and he is concerned about how the local authorities will deal with these sharks. ''Tens of millions of sharks have been hunted and killed by humans every year!'' Mark points out. ''They are an essential part of the marine(海洋的) ecosystem.''

Thanks to its harsh environment, Antarctica remained largely untouched by humans for many millennia (千年), allowing a thriving ecosystem to evolve. However, since the 1990s, the last true wilderness on the planet is becoming an increasingly popular destination for adventure-seeking tourists. Now, a new study declares that the visitors may be leaving behind harmful bacteria which could devastate all of the area’s native bird population.

Humans can infect animals with illnesses such as the flu. Researchers, however, believed that the Antarctic animals were immune to the danger due to the continent’s extreme weather. However, microbiologist Marta Cerda-Cuellar was not convinced. She and some colleagues decided to examine waste samples from Antarctic birds for evidence of human bacteria. To ensure the waste was not polluted, the scientists had to collect it from the birds themselves.

The results of their study revealed the presence of several types of human bacteria in the bird waste. This included a common strain (品种) of bacteria that causes food poisoning in humans. The researchers say the bacteria strains were resistant to commonly-used human antibiotics, indicating they were brought in by the visitors, rather than migratory birds.

“These strains, which are a common cause for infections in humans and livestock, do not usually cause death outbreaks in wild animals,” says Gonzalez Solis. “However, the emerging of invasive pathogens (病原体) that arrive to highly sensitive populations could have severe consequences and cause the local collapse and extinction of some populations.” The researcher also fears the presence of these bugs could foreshadow (预示) the arrival of other, more deadly, pathogens as the number of tourists people increases.

Experts believe the only way to prevent the mass destruction of the birds is to impose stricter regulations or, at least, put the ones already in place into effect. For example, while the Antarctica Treaty requires visitors to carry their waste back home to safeguard the pristine (原始纯净的) environment, the regulation is rarely enforced. Fortunately, nowadays some officials are taking steps to save the vulnerable birds before it’s too late.