Drew Lanham grew up on the farm his grandfather built in the 1920s. Lanham, now 54, says his father felt a responsibility to stay on the land and care for the animals and crops planted there. "I saw my father through the land, and I saw the land as my father's heart," he said.

As a kid, he remembers being attracted by the wildlife he would encounter on the short walk between his parents' farm and his grandparents' house. Even though the journey was less than a quarter-mile, he recalled, back then it "seemed like a thousand miles".

Above all, he was captivated（迷住） by the birds."From a very early age, I believed that I would be someone who studied birds-who somehow found a way to fly,"Lanham said. He said he lost track of that dream on the road to becoming an engineer. "Once I left for college, everybody said," You're good at math and science. Be an engineer, Drew,'" he said.

As a student studying engineering at Clemson University, it was a trip to the farm that helped him circle back to his love of birds. "I can remember coming back home, and all of these wonderful forests that I'd grown up in had been cleared away. And losing that land was like losing my father all over again," he said. Lanham's father had died years before.

Though much of their home had been destroyed, some wildlife remained. "I remember when I drove on the dirt road, I heard birds singing. It was the most hopeful thing for me," he said. The bird songs li t a fire under Lanham. After his visit back to the farm, he couldn't see himself returning to work as an engineer. At Clemson he got on track to study to become an ornithologist（鸟类学家）.

"The long hours of work were often hot and hard. But when I looked up, there would be flocks（群） of birds. I realized I was doing what I had always dreamed of,"he said.

As cities balloon with growth, access to nature for people living in urban areas is becoming harder to find. If you're lucky, there might be a pocket park near where you live, but it's unusual to find places in a city that are relatively wild.

Past research has found health and wellness benefits of nature for humans, but a new study shows that wildness in urban areas is extremely important for human well-being.

The research team focused on a large urban park. They surveyed several hundred park-goers, asking them to submit a written summary online of a meaningful interaction they had with nature in the park. The researchers then examined these submissions, coding (编码) experiences into different categories. For example, one participant's experience of "We sat and listened to the waves at the beach for a while" was assigned the categories "sitting at beach" and "listening to waves."

Across the 320 submissions, a pattern of categories the researchers call a "nature language" began to emerge. After the coding of all submissions, half a dozen categories were noted most often as important to visitors. These include encountering wildlife, walking along the edge of water, and following an established trail.

Naming each nature experience creates a usable language, which helps people recognize and take part in the activities that are most satisfying and meaningful to them. For example, the experience of walking along the edge of water might be satisfying for a young professional on a weekend hike in the park. Back downtown during a workday, they can enjoy a more domestic form of this interaction by walking along a fountain on their lunch break.

"We're trying to generate a language that helps bring the human-nature interactions back into our daily lives. And for that to happen, we also need to protect nature so that we can interact with it," said Peter Kahn, a senior author of the study.

I joined the coast guard because I wanted to help people. Hovercraft (气垫船) are rare and special. They've been discontinued in most commercial operations because they're so expensive to make, but when it comes to search and rescue, they're priceless.

From far away, a hovercraft looks like a normal boat. But if you look under its skirt, the craft is not touching the water —it floats on a cushion of air. That cushion allows us to travel over everything from water to muddy land — and even break through ice. We do all of that as a 70-tonne machine, going a maximum of nearly 120 kilometers per hour. These features allow us to rescue a large number of people quickly, get onto land, and get someone into an ambulance far easier than with any other device I can think of.

The advantages of hovercraft can also make them difficult to handle. We've got a massive vehicle moving fast, sometimes in a thick fog bank up a narrow river. During assignments on other coast guard ships, I had 20 minutes to make changes to avoid a crash. In a hovercraft, I have 10 seconds. You have to have enough situational awareness to make the right decision every time.

People call us for all sorts of problems: missing divers, on-board fires, or even when they've run out of fuel or had a mechanical breakdown. A container ship could burst into flames. We have a strong network here at the base to help everyone through difficult situations like that. Thankfully, we have captains who train us in a safe environment, but you don't ever get fully comfortable. Anything can throw the hovercraft off—maybe your lift settings are off a little, or the wind blows with a bit of extra weight. After several years operating a hovercraft, I'm still learning. Every one of the captains here agrees: you can drive this thing for 20 years and still be surprised.