Standing out from the crowd isn't always a good thing.

Birds with uncommon traits like big beaks(喙), long tails and extended wings are more likely to be threatened and face extinction, new research finds. 

"We are fascinated by the diversity of the planet's bird species. At the same time, we are deeply concerned about the threats these birds face," lead author Jarome Ali, a PhD candidate at Princeton University, says. Ali completed the research at Imperial College London.

For their work, researchers analyzed measurement data collected from 9, 943 bird species, which are about 99% of all living bird species. The information came from both living birds as well as museum specimens(标本). The measurements included beak size and shape, as well as the length of legs, tails and wings. Researchers combined the information on physical traits with the birds' risk of extinction. Next, they ran simulations(模拟) about what would occur if the most threatened birds were to become extinct.

"All our simulations showed that extinction has worse effects on the diversity of bird shapes than we expected. This is deeply concerning, but not shocking given that we first found that threatened birds were more unique than non-threatened birds," Ali says.

The researchers weren't sure what could explain the link between unusual birds and their extinction risk. "Unique birds are likely to play specialized roles in the ecosystem. One possible explanation is that as habitats come under threat, these specialized roles are likely to be the first to be targeted," Ali says. "For example, if you were a hummingbird and specialized to feed on a small subset of plants, then damage to your habitat would be worse than if you were a less unique bird that eats a whole range of foods."

"The loss of these rare birds has an impact on the environment because their role in the ecosystem is lost," Ali says. "Our findings imply that we cannot simply hope that non-threatened species will come in and fill the role of the threatened species."

Every morning at five o'clock, composer (作曲家) Walter Werzowa would sit down at his computer waiting for a particular daily e-mail. It came from a team that had been working all night to draft Beethoven's unfinished 10th Symphony. The e-mail contained hundreds of versions, and Werzowa listened to them all, looking for the perfect tune—a sound that was unmistakably Beethoven. But the phrases he was listening to weren't composed by Beethoven. They were created by artificial intelligence.

When Ludwig van Beethoven died in 1827, he left behind some musical drafts and notes. There was barely enough to make out a phrase, let alone a whole symphony. But that didn't stop people from trying.

Werzowa and a group of music experts and computer scientists teamed up to use machine learning to create the symphony. Ahmed Elgammal led the AI side of the team. The team's first task was to teach the AI to think like Beethoven. To do that, they gave it Beethoven's complete works, his drafts and notes. They taught it Beethoven's process—like how he went from four notes to his entire Fifth Symphony. Then they taught it to compose a bridge between two sections. With all that knowledge, the AI came as close to thinking like Beethoven as possible. But it still wasn't enough. The AI doesn't really produce something that can continue for a long time and be consistent. So the team had to put the selected pieces together to build a symphony.

Matthew Guzdial researches creativity (创造力) and machine learning at the University of Alberta. He didn't work on the Beethoven project, but he says, "Modern AI, modern machine learning, is all about just copying small local patterns. And it's up to a human to then take what the AI outputs and find the genius (天资). The genius wasn't in the AI. The genius was in the human who was doing the selection."

Flip-flops (人字拖) are the most popular type of shoe in the world. They're comfortable, they're easy to wear and they're inexpensive. Unfortunately, most of them are also terrible for the environment. In Kenya, this is a huge problem, and around 90 tons of flip-flops wash up on its shores annually.

In the late 1990s, when Julie Church was working as a marine (海洋的) conservationist in Nairobi, she found an entire beach "just covered in flip-flops". Around that time, Church also noticed children making toys out of the thousands of flip-flops that had made their way to the country's beaches. She began working with the kids' mothers to encourage them to not just collect the shoes, but also turn them into artworks. The families could then sell this art at local markets, providing another means of income.

The idea took off, and in 1998, Church founded Ocean Sole as a nonprofit. This year alone, the organization has upcycled more than 750,000 flip-flops and collected more than 47,000 kilos of waste. Additionally, Ocean Sole directly impacts more than 1,000 Kenyans, many of whom work as flip-flop collectors or artists, and contributes 10% to 15% of overall income to career and educational programs for residents, as well as beach cleanup and conservation efforts.

Ocean Sole is continuously growing and looking to keep waste off Kenya's beaches and out of its water. When it comes to growing the Ocean Sole organization, Church has three "mantras (真言)": trust to trade, trade to awareness, and awareness to protection. Church would like to put together toolkits and other resources to bring this concept to other places around the world that have similar problems. Ocean Sole is also encouraging companies to use more eco-friendly materials when making flip-flops. "I think it's time for us to start looking for an alternative shoe, or an alternative material, to fit that kind of fashion need," Church has said. "Our products need to develop."