Wildlife has been greatly threatened in the modern age. There are species(物种) that are _______ every day. The white-naped crane is a typical example. So scientists are trying their best to _______ the species from going out of existence.

Chris and Tim work at a zoo, helping endangered cranes with their _______. Emma, a female crane, has been in their _______ since she arrived in 2004.

Born at an international crane foundation, Emma was _______ by human caretakers. This led to an unexpected _______, though she had a wonderful time there. Emma had _______ taken herself as a crane and become deeply attached to humans. She _______ to live with male cranes, and even had a _______ for killing some of them, which made it ________ for her to become a mother.

________, the two zookeepers didn’t want to see the extinction(灭绝) of this precious species. With their patience and efforts, they successfully developed a ________ of artificial breeding(人工繁殖) and natural reproduction. This ________ Emma to give birth to five baby cranes.

The two keepers are proud of their productive work. But before they can be ________, more efforts must be made, because the population of the crane in the wild is on the ________, and many other species appear headed toward extinction. ________, not everyone has realized that wildlife has thoughts, feelings, and most importantly, equal rights to survive.

How can we ________ the ever-widening gap that separates us from other animals? Chris and Tim offered us the ________: human beings took it for granted that their ________ held all the solutions, but maybe their hearts can be a better ________.

In the 1960s, while studying the volcanic history of Yellowstone National Park, Bob Christiansen became puzzled about something that, oddly, had not troubled anyone before: he couldn’t find the park’s volcano. It had been known for a long time that Yellowstone was volcanic in nature — that’s what accounted for all its hot springs and other steamy features. But Christiansen couldn’t find the Yellowstone volcano anywhere.

Most of us, when we talk about volcanoes, think of the classic cone(圆锥体) shapes of a Fuji or Kilimanjaro, which are created when erupting magma(岩浆) piles up. These can form remarkably quickly. In 1943, a Mexican farmer was surprised to see smoke rising from a small part of his land. In one week he was the confused owner of a cone five hundred feet high. Within two years it had topped out at almost fourteen hundred feet and was more than half a mile across. Altogether there are some ten thousand of these volcanoes on Earth, all but a few hundred of them extinct. There is, however, a second less known type of volcano that doesn’t involve mountain building. These are volcanoes so explosive that they burst open in a single big crack, leaving behind a vast hole, the caldera. Yellowstone obviously was of this second type, but Christiansen couldn’t find the caldera anywhere.

Just at this time NASA decided to test some new high-altitude cameras by taking photographs of Yellowstone. A thoughtful official passed on some of the copies to the park authorities on the assumption that they might make a nice blow-up for one of the visitors’ centers. As soon as Christiansen saw the photos, he realized why he had failed to spot the caldera: almost the whole park—2.2 million acres—was caldera. The explosion had left a hole more than forty miles across—much too huge to be seen from anywhere at ground level. At some time in the past Yellowstone must have blown up with a violence far beyond the scale of anything known to humans.

Who cares if people think wrongly that the internet has had more important influences than the washing machine? Why does it matter that people are more impressed by the most recent changes?

It would not matter if these misjudgments were just a matter of people’s opinions. However, they have real impacts, as they result in misguided use of scarce resources.

The fascination with the ICT(Information and Communication Technology) revolution, represented by the internet, has made some rich countries wrongly conclude that making things is so “yesterday” that they should try to live on ideas. This belief in “post-industrial society” has led those countries to neglect their manufacturing sector(制造业), with negative consequences for their economies.

Even more worryingly, the fascination with the internet by people in rich countries has moved the international community to worry about the “digital divide” between the rich countries and the poor countries. This has led companies and individuals to donate money to developing countries to buy computer equipment and internet facilities. The question, however, is whether this is what the developing countries need the most. Perhaps giving money for those less fashionable things such as digging wells, extending electricity networks and making more affordable washing machines would have improved people’s lives more than giving every child a laptop computer or setting up internet centres in rural villages, I am not saying that those things are necessarily more important, but many donators have rushed into fancy programmes without carefully assessing the relative long-term costs and benefits of alternative uses of their money.

In yet another example, a fascination with the new has led people to believe that the recent changes in the technologies of communications and transportation are so revolutionary that now we live in a “borderless world”. As a result, in the last twenty years or so, many people have come to believe that whatever change is happening today is the result of great technological progress, going against which will be like trying to turn the clock back. Believing in such a world, many governments have put an end to some of the very necessary regulations on cross-border flows of capital, labour and goods, with poor results.

Understanding technological trends is very important for correctly designing economic policies, both at the national and the international levels, and for making the right career choices at the individual level. However, our fascination with the latest, and our under valuation of what has already become common, can, and has, led us in all sorts of wrong directions.

   The 65-year-old Steve Goodwin was found suffering from early Alzheimer’s(阿尔兹海默症). He was losing his memory.

A software engineer by profession, Steve was a keen lover of the piano, and the only musician in his family. Music was his true passion, though he had never performed outside the family.

Melissa, his daughter, felt it more than worthwhile to save his music, to which she fell asleep each night when she was young. She thought about hiring a professional pianist to work with her father.

Naomi, Melissa’s best friend and a talented pianist, got to know about this and showed willingness to help.

“Why do this?” Steve wondered.

“Because she cares.” Melissa said.

Steve nodded, tear in eye.

Naomi drove to the Goodwin home. She told Steve she’d love to hear him play. Steve moved to the piano and sat at the bench, hands trembling as he gently placed his fingers on the keys.

Naomi put a small recorder near the piano. Starts and stops and mistakes. Long pauses, heart sinking. But Steve pressed on, playing for the first time in his life for a stranger.

“It was beautiful.” Naomi said after listening to the recording. “The music was worth saving.”

Her responsibility, her privilege, would be to rescue it. The music was still in Steve Goodwin. It was hidden in rooms with doors about to be locked.

Naomi and Steve met every other week and spent hours together. He’d move his fingers clumsily on the piano, and then she’d take his place. He struggled to explain what he heard in his head. He stood by the piano, eyes closed, listening for the first time to his own work being played by someone else.

Steve and Naomi spoke in musical code lines, beats, intervals, moving from the root to end a song in a new key. Steve heard it. All of it. He just couldn’t play it.

Working with Naomi did wonders for Steve. It had excited within him the belief he could write one last song. One day, Naomi received an email. Attached was a recording, a recording of loss and love, of the fight. Steve called it “Melancholy Flower”.

Naomi heard multiple stops and starts, Steve struggling, searching while his wife Joni called him “honey” and encouraged him. The task was so hard, and Steve, angry and upset, said he was quitting. Joni praised him, telling her husband this could be his signature piece.

Naomi managed to figure out 16 of Steve’s favorite, and most personal, songs. With Naomi’s help, the Goodwin family found a sound engineer to record Naomi playing Steve’s songs. Joni thought that would be the end. But it wasn’t.

In the months leading up to the 2016 Oregon Repertory Singers Christmas concert, Naomi told the director she had a special one in mind: “Melancholy Flower. ”

She told the director about her project with Steve. The director agreed to add it to the playing list. But Naomi would have to ask Steve’s permission. He considered it an honor.

After the concert, Naomi told the family that Steve’s music was beautiful and professional. It needed to be shared in public.

The family rented a former church in downtown Portland and scheduled a concert. By the day of the show, more than 300 people had said they would attend.

By then, Steve was having a hard time remembering the names of some of his friends. He knew the path his life was now taking. He told his family he was at peace.

Steve arrived and sat in the front row, surrounded by his family. The house lights faded. Naomi took the stage. Her fingers. His heart.

The Cost of Thinking

Despite their many differences, all human beings share several defining characteristics, such as large brains and the ability to walk upright on two legs.

The first unique human characteristic is that humans have extraordinarily large brains compared with other animals. It seems obvious that evolution should select for larger brains. Mammals(哺乳动物) weighing sixty kilograms have an average brain size of 200 cm². Modern man has a brain averaging 1200-1400 cm². We are so fond of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to brain power, more must be better. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

The fact is that a huge brain is a huge drain—consumption of energy—on the body. It’s not easy to carry around, especially when boxed inside a massive skull(倾骨). It’s even harder to provide energy. In modern man, the brain accounts for about 2-3% of total body weight, but it consumes 25% of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By comparison, the brains of apes(类人猿) require only 8% of rest-time energy. Early humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles grew smaller and weaker. It’s hardly an obvious conclusion that this is a good way to survive. A chimpanzee(黑猩猩) can’t win an argument with a modern man, but it can tear the man apart like a rag doll.

Another unique human characteristic is that we walk upright. Standing up, it’s easier to find food or enemies. In addition, their arms that are unnecessary for moving around are freed for other purposes, like throwing stones or signaling. As a result, humans can perform very complex tasks with their hands.

Yet walking upright has its disadvantage. The bone structure of our ancestors developed for millions of years to support a creature that walked on all fours and has a relatively small head. Adjusting to an upright position was quite a challenge, especially when the bones had to support an extra-large skull. Humankind paid for its broad vision and skillful hands backaches and painful necks.

We assume that a large brain makes huge advantages. It seems obvious that these have made humankind the most powerful animal on earth. But humans enjoyed all of these advantages for a full 2 million years during which they remained weak and marginal creatures. Thus humans who lived a million years ago, despite their big brains and sharp stone tools, lived in constant fear of meat-eating animals.