Shivani Bhalla feels a strong sense of duty towards wildlife, and she wants others to feel it too.

Now based in Samburu in northern Kenya, the conservationist has worked for over 17 years with lions in the region. As lion habitats have contracted due to land-use change, conflict between lions and humans has increased. The African lion, one of the continent’s most iconic species, is now classified as vulnerable(脆弱的). Bhalla and her team aim to reduce these conflicts and seek mutually beneficial solutions.

Bhalla has seen firsthand the challenges facing the lions. Kenya’s recent economic growth has also included agricultural and industrial expansion into lion territory. Habitat loss from agricultural and industrial expansion has created tension between lions and communities. As lions struggle to find enough of their natural prey(猎物), they target raised animals. Impacted communities sometimes defend their herds and livelihoods via killings of the lions.

Habitat changes have also changed the lions` social structure. “In Samburu,” Bhalla says, “We don’t have prides(狮群). We actually have lions that live alone or they live in small groups. Lions adapt to their environment and they learn how to survive with what they have.”

Lions have also changed their behavior in an apparent attempt at self-preservation. As soon as they leave protected land and enter more populated areas, they tend to become nocturnal-active at night, and hiding in thick bush during the day.

Bhalla and her team have developed a number of successful programs designed to respond to the new reality of increased human-lion encounters. Looking to the future, a Lion Kids camp program provides conservation education and safari (游猎) experiences to children. Bhalla says she hopes to inspire these young conservationists to do work in Kenya. “People talk about children as the next generation of conservationists,” she says. “I like to call them a ‘new’ generation because children can be conservationists today.”

For Bhalla, it’s about more than just saving the species; she’s working to preserve something key to national identity.

Six “sacrificial pits(祭祀坑)”, dating back 3,200 to 4,000 yeas, were newly discovered in Sanxingdui Ruins site in Guanghan. Over 500 artifacts, including gold masks, bronze wares, ivories, jades and textiles were unearthed from the site. Sanxingdui site is located in Sanxingdui Town, Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, on the south bank of Qianjiang River (Yangtze River), a tributary of Tuojiang River in the north of Chengdu Plain. The site covers an area of about 12 square kilometers, and the core area is the ancient city of Sanxingdui, with an area of about 3.6 square kilometers. It is the largest and highest-grade central site found in Sichuan Basin during the Xia and Shang period.

Sanxingdui site, first found in 1929, is generally considered as one of the most important archaeological sites along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. However, the work of excavation on the site only began in 1986, when two pits — widely believed for sacrificial ceremonies — were accidentally discovered.

Investigation in the area around No.1 and 2 pits was relaunched in October 2019, and No.3 pit was found in December 2019, according to Lei Yu, a researcher of Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute who heads the ongoing excavation. Thirty four research universities and research institutes have cooperated in this project. He said the new discoveries will help to better understand many unexplained findings in 1986.

More excavation followed in March 2020, and five more pits were found last year. And detailed research began in October. Excavation capsules with hi-tech equipment were set up in the pits in order to prevent the site from further damage.

According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, studies of Sanxingdui site will become a crucial project in an ongoing program Archaeology China, which tries to explain the origins of Chinese civilization and how diverse cultures communicate and come together.

Last week, the social media giant Facebook paused its planned launch of Instagram Kids, an app targeted at kids aged between 10 and 12.

It’s rare to see Facebook retreating on its business ambitions. But even Silicon Valley executives, who insulate their own kids from the products they push on the rest of the population, can’t ignore that social media is contributing to an unprecedented mental health crisis among kids and teens. The percent of teens reporting moderate or severe depression has risen substantially from just two years ago —from 25 percent to 38 percent, according to survey results published earlier this year by Common Sense, Hopelab, and the California Health Foundation, correlating with the time period when the pandemic forced kids to spend even more time in front of screens.

In 2017, psychologist Jean Twenge wrote an article in The Atlantic called “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”—and the backlash was swift. Critics said Twenge was overreacting because she had relied on observational studies, was unable to show a “direction of causality,” and didn’t note social media’s positive outcomes. What permeated these criticisms was a belief that while social media was a problem, some teens who were struggling may have already been vulnerable, and that ultimately, it could be managed if parents encouraged better digital habits.

Teenagers are experiencing significant physical, mental, and hormonal changes that contribute to intense emotions, yet the ability to recognize and process these emotions is much less developed. “I think social media fundamentally changes the way you grow up as a human and turn into yourself,” says Maddie Freeman, 20, who started an initiative called No Social Media November. This emotionally and developmentally difficult age, one in which mental health issues start to arise, is “the same time this platform swoops you up,” Freeman explains.

Since 2012, the year that a social media use moved from optional to ubiquitous among adolescents,” teen cases of mental problems have risen dramatically, as Twenge and Jonathan Haidt recently wrote. Throughout the pandemic, increased social media use was linked to higher levels of depression and anxiety symptoms, according to research by the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health at Brown University.