A BBC team made a worrying film about the terrible influence plastic pollution is having on seabirds in the Tasman Sea near Australia. The team was working on the remote Lord Howe Island for a documentary called Drowning in Plastic. They filmed many birds that 【小题1】(die) because their stomachs were full of plastic. The birds 【小题2】(starve) to death. There was no room in their stomachs for food. The team filmed marine 【小题3】(biologist) working to try and save the birds. The scientists caught hundreds of chicks and removed plastic 【小题4】 their stomachs to give them a chance of 【小题5】(survive).

A marine biologist explained 【小题6】 was happening. She said the birds were predators(捕食性动物) that eat anything. She said: ＂They have no ability 【小题7】(discover) non-plastic, so they eat it.＂Adult birds feed the plastic to 【小题8】(they) chicks, not knowing what they are feeding them. The biologist said most of the plastic is entirely preventable. She said much of the plastic could 【小题9】(easy) be swapped for other materials, such as aluminium or wood. She said: ＂My own toothbrush is made of bamboo.＂【小题10】 BBC TV presenter said: ＂We saw 90 pieces of plastic come out of one of the chicks.＂

Why do ducks swim in a row? This phenomenon is so common 【小题1】 it’s become an expression. But what’s the science behind getting your ducks in a row? Researchers have found the answer—ducklings save energy by 【小题2】 (surf) their mom’s waves.

If you have ever been to a pond, you’ve likely seen a group of ducklings swimming behind their parent in 【小题3】 neat line. Why are they swimming in that formation? Well, 【小题4】 turns out that there’s an answer to this cute spring phenomenon.

A study 【小题5】 (publish) earlier this year reveals ducklings save energy by staying in line behind their mother, where they can ride the waves created in her wake. The 【小题6】(measure) of duckling metabolism (新陈代谢) shows these feathery fowls save energy by swimming behind a leader.

Naval architect, Zhiming Yuan 【小题7】 (create) computer simulations of a mother duck’s wake three months ago. He found that if a duckling is cruising in just the right spots, it can get a 【小题8】 (help) assist. Wave drag resists a young duckling’s paddling, wasting some of precious energy. To our amazement, a duckling swimming behind a leader experiences much 【小题9】 (little) wave drag. The ducklings share this assist with their siblings, and each duckling in line 【小题10】 (pass) along waves to the duckling behind it.

Preserving more habitats for China’s giant pandas is providing a giant payoff.【小题1】(save) the giant panda from dying out isn’t just good for the panda, but it’s also good for economy, a few analysis by【小题2】international team of scientists shows.

The results,【小题3】(publish) in the magazine Current Biology, stress the economic benefits that go hand in hand with environmental protection. Giant pandas are one of the【小题4】(rare) species around the world. But pandas fell on hard times in recent decades, thanks largely【小题5】human encroachment (侵入). In 1980 alone, many habitats were destroyed artificially, and in 1990, their habitats covered only 12,340 square kilometers,【小题6】is a major threat to the pandas in large part because bamboo, their main food source, is so low in nutrients that they must wander a lot of land in order to find and eat enough of it.

Because of this, Chinese officials began making significant efforts to save the panda from【小题7】(extinct), establishing more reserves and increasing the reserve area three times. Panda numbers【小题8】(gradual) began to recover, hitting 1,596 in 2000 and 1,864 in 2010.

“【小题9】is clear that society’s investment (投资)【小题10】(start) to pay off so far in terms of panda population recovery,” the study authors wrote.