The Australia’s only heritage-listed wildlife reserve is situated in natural bush land and alive with native wildlife. It is located just an hour by car from Sydney.

Arrive at Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport. You will be picked up from the airport and settle into your new home in Calga.

Meet the ranger (园林管理员) team and the animals. Learn how the reserve operates and how to find your way around. A ranger will work with you. Typical tasks include food preparation and daily cleaning for the animals. You also need to monitor general maintenance, bush regeneration (再生), and whatever else needs to be done.

If it is the end of your program, Saturday is a day off and Sunday you depart in the morning. The team will drive you to Gosford Station and help you use local online transport apps so you can plan your connection with flights or onward travel.

If you’re extending, you can choose how to spend the weekend. Rest in the reserve or go to explore the local area or Sydney. Jump on the free shuttle to Gosford Station on Friday morning. Alternatively, you can arrange a taxi at a different time (taxis are at your own cost).

The remaining weeks follow the schedule from Monday to Friday with weekends free.

Want to join the program? Click here https://www.goeco.org/area/volunteer-in-australasia/

Jordan Chiles, a two-time Olympian and three-time World Championship medalist, has made history as part of the first all-Black group of gymnasts to medal at the 2022 U.S. Gymnastics Championships. Two years later, she repeated the accomplishment at the Paris Olympics, where she helped Team USA win gold and Chiles claimed bronze for her floor routine.

However, not all of Chiles’s history-making moments have been celebratory. Shortly after earning her individual Olympic medal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) removed her from the bronze, arguing that an inquiry from her coach Cecile Landi challenging her routine’s difficulty rating that increased her score hadn’t been made within the one-minute deadline.

This controversial decision made Chiles heartbroken, and she shares the emotional journey in her memoir (回忆录), I’m That Girl: Living the Power of My Dreams. In her new memoir, she opens up about struggles few knew. As a gymnast with a more muscular body, she encountered self-image issues, worsened by harmful comments and unequal judging. She also reveals the emotional abuse she suffered from a former coach, referred to as “Coach X,” who criticized her body and caused her to develop an eating disorder.

Despite these challenges, Chiles found support in her family and friends, including fellow gymnast Simone Biles. Biles encouraged her to train at the World Champions Centre after Chiles left Coach X. Their bond strengthened further through shared experiences, especially after the abuse case involving Larry Nassar, though Chiles and Biles never openly discussed it.

Chiles’s journey also involved struggling with dark moments, including suicidal thoughts after a setback in her career. But through it all, she has found strength and healing. “Everything that happened shaped who I am today — a fighter still standing.” Now, she hopes her story helps others feel empowered to speak out about their struggles. Having moved on from the Olympic ruling, Chiles is focused on her future, balancing her college life at UCLA while keeping the door open for a potential return to the Olympics in 2028. “I’m just like you,” she writes. “Trying to strive for greatness.”

Can science fiction tell us about the future? Setting aside aliens and spaceships, much contemporary science fiction is concerned with themes such as the impact of artificial intelligence, the danger of ecological collapse and the misuse of corporate power. In all these cases, science fiction writers are taking advantage of the freedom that this type of writing gives them to think about ongoing concerns and picture what they might lead to in the future, coming to surprising and thought-provoking conclusions.

All of those do have some predictive value. It means science fiction can play a useful role as a way to predict technological, social and political trends — but in the near term, not the distant future in which it is often set. This is the first of three ways in which science fiction can give us a glimpse of the future.

The second is that it can help broaden the mind when assessing future scenarios (设想) for planning purposes, both in government and in business. France’s Defence Innovation Agency is setting up a “red team” of sci-fi writers to propose scenarios that might not have occurred to military planners. Arup, an engineering firm, commissioned Tim Maughan, a science-fiction writer, to create four scenarios of what everyday life might look like as a result of climate change. Tech giants including Google, Microsoft and Apple have also employed sci-fi writers as consultants, using a process sometimes called “design fiction.”

And then the third one is more direct: by inspiring people in the tech industry who want to make these fictions a reality. The creation of the mobile phone at Motorola was motivated by the handheld wireless communicators from Star Trek, and Amazon’s Alexa voice-assistant by the talking computer on the Enterprise. The Kindle was inspired by an electronic-book device in Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age, and an entire industry is trying to bring to life the virtual world he described in Snow Crash. The future technology leaders are certainly reading science fiction today.

Free diving is a high-risk sport. Divers, swimming underwater without oxygen tanks, frequently black out from low oxygen and put themselves at risk of drowning. Marine mammals such as seals, by contrast, can spend most of their lives below the surface without such risks. Seals can hold their breath for 20 to 30 minutes on average and some even for over an hour. A March 20th Science paper explains why: seals can apparently sense how much oxygen they have in their blood and plan their actions accordingly.

When a mammal holds its breath, oxygen levels drop while carbon dioxide rises. In humans low oxygen mostly does not ring any alarm bells on their own — instead, high levels of carbon dioxide eventually produce the unpleasant urge to breathe. As seals dive more frequently — and for longer — than humans do, the range of carbon dioxide in their bodies varies more widely. That led Chris McKnight, a marine biologist, to wonder if the animals could also sense oxygen.

To test this, he and his team placed six wild-caught seals in a tank containing an underwater feeding station and a breathing chamber (for surfacing) at opposite ends. The air in that chamber was then set to one of four conditions: normal air (21% oxygen and 0.04% carbon dioxide, plus other gases); air with reduced oxygen (11%); elevated oxygen (50%); and elevated carbon dioxide (8%). If the seals were, like humans, more sensitive to carbon dioxide, their behavior would be identical in all but the final condition.

The results suggested otherwise. With more oxygen, the seals extended their dives by an average of 14 seconds. They shortened them by roughly half a minute with less oxygen. High carbon dioxide levels, by contrast, had no significant effect.

Dr. McKnight suggests that the ability to sense low oxygen may be common in marine mammals, possibly as a defense against drowning. More research is needed to understand how widespread this ability is and how diving animals perceive oxygen. While expert divers use the sensation of an approaching black-out from low oxygen as a cue to resurface, how seals do this is still a mystery.

Next time you’re pushing through the burn of a workout, remember that exercise can also be a remedy (疗法). Research indicates that it serves as an effective approach to fighting chronic inflammation, particularly among those with physically inactive habits.

【小题1】 It can begin with an infection or injury but evolve into a lasting state. Then the immune system attacks healthy tissue gradually. This process raises disease risks and contributes to tiredness, depression, or brain fog.

The scientific evidence is clear that sedentary (久坐的) people tend to have higher levels of inflammation compared with people who exercise regularly. 【小题2】 Some researchers believe that exercise’s power to fight inflammation may even be at the heart of why physical activity is so effective at protecting us against other chronic conditions.

While some findings highlight exercise’s anti-inflammatory power, maximizing its effects requires strategic approaches. 【小题3】 For example, a 20-minute walk or jog everyday regularly can spark temporary anti-inflammatory effects. Most moderate-intensity exercise reduces inflammation short-term, but sticking with it is key.

High-intensity exercise itself produces a temporary surge (激增) in inflammation. 【小题4】 For similar reasons, you should avoid overtraining, since repeated intense workouts without appropriate recovery can heighten your levels of inflammation and weaken your immune system.

If possible, prioritize strength training. People with chronic inflammation tend to lose muscle mass more rapidly as they age than those with less inflammation. So strength training may be especially important for them to remain mobile and independent. It is recommended that adults make time for at least two strength-training sessions per week. 【小题5】 This combined approach not only builds muscle but also interrupts chronic inflammatory pathways.

On a Friday night, Lucas, a poor young artist, was playing his worn violin at the gate of the subway station. The music was so _______ that many people stopped and put some money into the faded _______ on the ground.

The next day, Lucas came to the same place. _______, he took out a large piece of paper, laid it on the ground and began playing. Before long, the young man was surrounded by audience, some of whom were _______ by the words on the paper. It _______, “Last night, a gentleman named George Sang put an important thing into my hat _______. Please come to _______ it soon.”

After about half an hour, a middle-aged man hurriedly ran there and said he was Mr. George Sang. Then Lucas asked, “Did you _______ something?” “A lottery ticket (彩票), with my name on it,” said the man. Lucas _______ a lottery ticket. “Is it?” he asked. “Yes, Mine!” George was wild with joy, his eyes brightening __________.

His mind __________ to a few days ago, when he purchased a lottery ticket and won $500,000. On the way home, he passed by Lucas and put $50 into Lucas’s hat. However, the lottery ticket was also __________. Now seizing the __________ ticket, George asked, “This changes everything! How can I repay you?” The young man shook his head.

A crowd gathered as news spread. A teenager asked, “Why refuse him? You’re __________!” Lucas smiled. “Money comes and goes. But lose your honesty?” He drew a clear note from his violin. “That’s like losing the __________ in your heart.”