CITIES GOING GREEN
As more and more people concentrate in cities, planners are looking for ways to transform cities into better living spaces, (34) ________ can be done by improving existing infrastructure while also creating more public (35) ________ that are both beautiful and green. This can be hard to accomplish, especially in cities with a haphazard fashion. Some cities have been created with the idea of a green city as the goal.
One such city, Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates, aims to become a model for (36) ________ cities to follow. It is being known as a truly green city that relies strictly on renewable sources such as solar energy to provide all of its energy needs. (37) ________ , it will be a zero waste city in which everything that is used can be recycled. Whether it will truly (38) ________ its goal remains to be seen, but it will also act as an experiment for environmentally friendly areas to be tested.

The health benefits of coffee may be regularly disputed, but a new study has linked caffeine consumption with improvements in heart health. In fact, consuming four cups of coffee a day could help protect cardiovascular cells from damage and also help them to repair themselves.
In a study published in PLOS Biology, researchers from Heinrich-Heine-University and the IUF-Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine in Düsseldorf, Germany, found that caffeine may improve the health of the cells which line the arteries and veins, thus strengthening their ability to recover from damage. The researchers suggest drinking coffee – or other caffeinated beverages – could be particularly beneficial for the elderly, who are more at risk of heart problems than younger people.
“Our results indicate a new mode of action for caffeine, one that promotes protection and repair of heart muscle,” said study author Professor Judith Haendeler. “These results should lead to better strategies for protecting heart muscle from damage, including consideration of coffee consumption or caffeine as an additional dietary factor in the elderly population.”
Commenting on the research, Professor Tim Chico, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist, University of Sheffield, said: “These are very interesting findings but need to be confirmed in clinical trials before we can tell whether caffeine is truly helpful after a heart attack in humans [...] I do not think people need to drink more coffee in response to this study, but that people who already drink coffee can be reassured that it might have health benefits, as long as they don’t use it to wash down an enormous muffin, cake, or doughnut.”
(Adapted from readtoolead.com)

Many people may be surprised to hear that poaching - the illegal hunting of wild animals - is still one of the biggest drivers of extinction, despite efforts from governments around the world. From figuring out where illegal hunting is taking place to identifying the source of an animal product, conservationists still face many challenges. That being said, developments in technology are putting new tools into the hands of the law enforcement officials and conservation biologists who desperately need them.
One difficulty faced when illegal bones, horns and skin are seized is knowing where they came from. Fortunately, there are ways that artificial intelligence can help. For example, every tiger has a unique stripe pattern, like a fingerprint. With this knowledge in mind, scientists in India have created a database powered by AI containing images of tigers and their specific stripe pattern, which has been successfully implemented to determine that a piece of tiger skin came from a protected area and thus had been poached rather than farmed. Information like this is hugely valuable for officials, since it allows them to pinpoint areas where there is poaching activity. Currently, efforts are being made to expand the database with images from other countries and regions worldwide.
Taking a different approach is Professor Fritz Vollrath of the University of Oxford, who spent decades studying the properties of various biological materials before turning his attention to ivory. He is now working with researchers in China to develop a man-made version of natural ivory. “Ivory is a nice material that people like to handle – but does it have to come from a dead elephant? What if we can create a mixture of collagen and minerals that has the same qualities?” he says. Likewise, startup company Pembient is trying to produce a synthetic form of rhino horn. They’ve created a few prototypes and expect their final product to be ready for sale in 2022 at only $2.61 per gram.
Meanwhile, Professor Milind Tambe in California, using 14 years of data on poaching activities in Queen Elizabeth National Park, were able to create a system that would predict likely hotspots for poaching and direct patrols there to remove traps before they can kill any animals, plus generate new routes to areas where patrols were often sparse in the past. Perfecting the program day by day, Tambe is now partnering with many wildlife agencies to integrate it into their software. “My job is to support conservationists, and to see what I can do for them,” says Tambe.
(Adapted from bbc.co.uk)