No need to head to the movie theater or download the video game app, angry birds can be found right in your backyard this summer—if you live in town, that is. Virginia Tech researchers recently found that birds living in town areas are easier to attack other birds than those living in the country places. The results were recently published in Biology Letters.

“A possible reason for this is that these birds have less space but better food,” said Scott Davies, working in the College OF Science.” Living near humans provides better food and home, but it also means more competition for those things.”

Davies and Kendra Sewall, an assistant professor in the College of Science, watched 35 town’s and 38 country’s birds at three county’s and three town’s sites in the New River Valley during the spring.

The Virginia Tech and Radford University decided on the town’s sites through their levels of human effect. Country sites included Kentland Farm and Heritage Park. In these sites, the researchers played a recording of a bird and watched how the other birds responded to the recording from a neighbor.

Birds in town showed a higher level of attack behavior: they came and remained close to the speaker, flapped their wings angrily, fought by singing loudly and then began to produce a “soft song”, which forecast a coming attack. Country birds still responded to the song effects, however, they did not respond with much energy.

The researchers placed small marks on the birds to know separately, and recorded each separate response twice, several weeks apart. The town birds were easier to attack others on both occasions, showing that their attack behaviour keeps on throughout a season of producing young birds.

When you are lost in math homework, have you ever thought about why you need to learn math anyway? Actually, math is seen as the center of scientific progress. Difficult math equations (方程式) must be solved in order for technological progress to happen.

This is why math and its applications (应用) are listed as an important national project during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021—2025) period. The project is expected to receive 1,500,000,000 yuan in funding (资金), said Yuan Yaxiang, a mathematician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“We shouldn’t find ourselves in the position of always trying to catch up with other countries. And we can’t expect they are willing to share their leading technologies with us.” Yuan said.

The funding will be used to build the institution (机构) for scientific research. And it will also provide the present institutions with new experimental equipment (实验设备), China Daily reported. It will also be used to train more mathematicians.

For example, Tsinghua University recently carried out a leading talent training program in math. It chose hundreds of excellent middle school students from across the country to develop talent in mathematics and related fields.

According to the German newspaper Die Welt, of all the children born in China from 2005 to 2009, 24 million were found to have good math skills. The number was 1.8 million and 940,000 in Japan and South Korea. Many high-tech companies like Apple have built research centers in China.

The Fuxing train has started running in southwest China’s Tibet along the Lhasa—Nyingchi Railway(拉萨—林芝铁路).

The 435-kilometer railway links Lhasa and Nyingchi. It is China’s first electrified(电气化的) railroad on the “Roof of the World”. It shortens the journey between Lhasa and Nyingchi from over five hours to about 3.5 hours.

The new railway covers an area of 226,000 square kilometers. It goes through 47 tunnels (隧道) and crosses 121 bridges. The train has a top speed of 160 kilometers per hour. It is the fastest train on the high land, but it’s a bit slower than some other Fuxing trains in our country because of the special environment. The railway not only makes local people’s life easier, but also brings more tourists to the area.

“The railway trip is so relaxing and fast. The new train has brought our family members closer than ever before,” said a teacher who lives in Nyingchi. She used to drive more than five hours from Nyingchi to Lhasa to visit her parents during the summer vacation.

Besides carrying passengers, the railway also provides good chances for farmers to sell local products to more places. It’s sure to put new energy into Tibet’s economic(经济的) development.