Bergl doesn’t consider himself the next Thomas Edison, He’s just a man loving animals, Africa and adventure, Yet, Bergl might have invented a tool as great as the light bulb (灯泡) ―a tool that uses modern-day technology to solve an almost prehistoric (史前) problem.

The tool is called the SMART. It is designed to be waterproof (防水的) , shockproof and poacher (偷猎者) proof. Bergl worked with worldwide wildlife groups to develop it in 2011. Since then it has been seen in more than 55 countries where poachers have forced the best-known but most endangered animals to nearly die out .

SMART works as a very simple smart phone―it lets the user record what they see, like animal sightings. changes in animals and illegal activities If a park ranger (管理员) sees something that is very important, that information can be sent to the cloud (云) and sent out to the base camp so they can take action and stop the killing

Bergl and his workmates travel to African wildlife reserves now and then They teach park rangers in some of the most remote countries how to use SMART. “SMART makes collection of information easier It allows us to pay attention to the things that really important. according to what the information is telling an,”Aid Skim Young, manager of the Etosha National park in Namibia, “thanks to SMART, most of Africa’s endangered animals seem to be coming back.”

Bergl never plans to make money from his small but great invention. SMART is free and doesn’t even have a patents(专利).

Biofuels (生物燃料), gained from plants and animal matter, are a key solution to the environmental problems caused by fuels like coal. “Bioalcohol (生物酒精) is the most common biofuel and is produced by sugars found in materials such as corn. With some engine redesigned, it can be used directly by cars, buses, etc.,” says Professor Daniel Tan, “12 percent of transport fuel could come from biofuels, especially bioalcohol, by 2030.”

But a 2016 study of biofuels said, “Bioalcohol presently is mostly produced with food crops. Altogether, the environmentally-friendly biofuels rely on about 2-3 percent of the global water and land used for agriculture, which could feed a large number of hungry people.”

Energy experts have therefore been trying to deal with the problem. Recent research led by an international team found that the agave (龙舌兰) plant might offer a way out. This plant tends to be the right bioalcohol source to supersede others such as sugarcane (甘蔗) and corn.

Daniel Tan explains that the agave can be grown in unfavorable conditions and is not a major food crop. “It can grow in areas that lack water and rainfall without being watered by farmers, and it does not compete with food crops or put demands on limited water. This kind of useful plant is recently being grown in Australia. It can survive Australia's hot summers,” he says.

The study finds that sugarcane produces just a little more fuel per square meter each year than the agave. However, the agave outperforms sugarcane in a range of areas, including pollution to the earth, and water using. The agave uses 69 percent less water than sugarcane and 46 percent less water than corn for the same amount of fuel produced. As for corn，it produces less fuel per square meter each year than the agave.

However, Daniel Tan states: “The first generation of bioalcohol from the agave recently faces a big competition from oil, whose recent low price makes it far more attractive to customers. Without some policy support from the government, bioalcohol production from the agave faces big challenges.”

You have never seen the dodo, a type of bird that was large, heavy and unable to fly. Driven to extinction by human beings on the island of Mauritius around 1680, the species has become a thing of the past. But Colossal, a biotechnology and genetic engineering start-up, wants to change this. It launches a project to “de-extinct” the species alongside some other well-known extinct species, like the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger. According to Colossal, all three will be restored to life within the next decade.

“Colossal is running the project not just because they can,” says Forrest Galante, a wildlife biologist and conservationist who studies and protects endangered species around the world. “In the case of the dodo, it will put something back at the top of the food chain. Removing the bird created a gap in the ecosystem. Recovering it, in theory, should help fill that gap.”

Just like in Jurassic Park, DNA is required to bring back an extinct animal. DNA from species like the dodo bird and the woolly mammoth can be recovered, while DNA from dinosaurs and other older species has been degraded so that it is impossible to bring their DNA back. According to Galante, DNA is then placed into a related species that is living today. In the case of the dodo bird, its closest bird relative in the pigeon (鸽子) family—the living Nicobar pigeon is used. After the pigeon lays eggs, dodo birds are able to hatch out.

The new dodos will not be the exact same type of bird, but close enough to fill the gap their extinction left behind. While bringing back creatures like the dodo might turn heads, Colossal says its work will be just as important in helping the medical and environmental fields. Through Colossal’s project, we see that genetic technologies can be used for de-extinction. But their usage goes far beyond that.