People who visit Huangsiyang village in Huizhou, Guangdong province, are shocked by the grand scale of its ancient residential buildings. Covering an area of 220,000 square meters, the village was named “Huangsiyang” to express gratitude for the emperor’s kindness. With a history of over 500 years, the village’s architecture dates back to the late Ming Dynasty.

As part of a Guangdong provincial project that targets the high-quality rural (乡村的) development, Huangsiyang has made great efforts to promote its heritage protection and cultural tourism, which have breathed new life into the village. Yang Shouqiang, a village official, explained that the ancient village has more than 20 historical sites, making it the most well-preserved and largest ancient residential group in Huidong county. Yang said the village has attached great importance to education and culture, having produced over 20 examinees who passed the provincial-level exams after being invited to sit for the imperial examinations — the ancient form of the gaokao, China’s college entrance exam.

From 2022 to last year, a total of 65million yuan was invested in the protection and development of Huangsiyang ancient village. Recent surveys have shown significant improvements in the village’s surroundings and internal environment after it took measures to restore architecture and rivers, and improve lighting and other basic facilities. At the same time, the village introduced high-quality homestay (民宿) projects. These homestays preserve the original architectural style of the ancient buildings.

The village has attracted many tourists from the Guangdong — Hong Kong — Macao Greater Bay Area, who take part in team building activities and enjoy unique experiences. The increasing number of visitors to the village is also increasing sales of local snacks and agricultural products. Online promotions of these products have also brought in more tourists to nearby villages.

Can a fish be depressed? This question has been on my head ever since I spent a night in a hotel across from a sad-looking fish. His name was Bruce Lee.

The pleasant woman at the front desk assured me that he was well taken care of. Was I incorrectly assuming his laziness was a sign of being upset?

When I sought answers from scientists, I assumed that they would find the question ridiculous. But they did not. New research has been totally shifting the way that scientists think about fish cognition (认知)，building a case that pet and owner are not nearly as different as many assume. The neurochemistry (神经化学）is so similar that it’s scary, said Julian Pittman，a professor. We tend to think of them as simple living things, but there is a lot we don't give fish credit for.

Dr. Pittman likes working with fish, in part, because they are so obvious about their depression. A zebrafish gets dropped in a new tank. If after five minutes it is hanging out in the lower half, it’s depressed. If it’s swimming up top, then it’s not.

Is depression the right word? There's the obvious issue that we cannot ask animals how they feel, says Dr. Diego A. Pizzagali . Neither fish nor rats can catch the entire range of depression as we know it.

There is a heated debate about whether anxious or depressed is a more appropriate term. But what has convinced Dr. Pittman, and others, over the past ten years is watching the way the zebrafish lose interest in just about everything: food, toys, exploration, just like clinically depressed people who are withdrawn. The same is true of fish.

One of the things we're finding is that fish are naturally curious and seek novel things out, said Dr. Braithwaite. In other words, your goldfish is probably bored. To help get rid of depression, she urges introducing new objects to the tank or switching up the location of items.

According to new studies, many birds in the Amazon rainforest have become smaller as temperatures have increased. The difference hasn’t been obvious, but it has been significant enough that some scientists have suggested it’s a universal response to climate change.

But new research finds that the body size reductions aren’t happening across the board with some large­brained birds having much less significant changes.

For the study, researchers studied some data on about 70,000 birds that had died when they crashed into buildings in Chicago from 1978 to 2016. They added data on brain volume and lifespan (寿命) for 49 of the 52 species of migratory birds (候鸟) in the original study.

They found that birds with very large brains had reductions in overall body size that were about one­third of the reductions noted in birds with smaller brains. They thought that in birds, the species with big brains are the ones that build tools, manage to survive in tough environments, live longer, invest more time and energy into raising babies, and end up surviving better in the wild.

Researchers aren’t certain exactly how warmer temperatures might lead to decreasing body size in birds, but they are considering two possible explanations, which could even be happening at the same time. First, natural selection might be favoring birds that can dissipate heat better. This is because smaller birds have higher ratios (比例) of surface area to volume, so being small can help birds stay cool. Second, warmer summers might have less food available for birds at the time when they are feeding their babies. In that case, birds might be getting smaller because of decreased food over the years.

The findings don’t suggest that climate change is having zero impact on bigger­brained birds, but researchers believe these findings can inform us of climate change and help set conservation priorities.