The loss of natural land isn't just a problem for the Amazon or the rainforests of Southeast Asia. The United States is losing its forests, grasslands, wetlands, and deserts at a truly startling pace.

Between 2001 and 2017, some 97, 124 square kilometers of natural land-around the size of Indiana- were destroyed in the US to make way for roads, industry, farms, and other signs of human civilization. That's equal to a football field-sized piece of land being lost every 30 seconds. Some of the most serious losses have been experienced in the South and Midwest, where human development took over 47 percent and 59 percent of all land area, respectively, in the 16 years studied.

These findings come from a report published by The Center for American Progress.

Using available satellite data and open- source databases, they calculated the rate of loss of natural lands and its relationship to oil and gas extraction(开采), road construction, urban development, agriculture, and other human- related activities. If national trends continue, a South Dakota- sized expanse of forests, wetlands, and wild places in the continental United States will disappear by 2050.

Now only 12 percent of the country's land area has been conserved as national parks, wilderness areas, national monuments, or other protected areas, while 26 percent of ocean are a is safeguarded from oil and gas extraction. According to this report, it's now time to extend this level of protection even further.

Keeping in line with present scientific recommendations, they conclude that the US should aim to protect at least 30 percent of lands and oceans in a natural state by 2030.

However, it isn't all about desperation. The authors conclude on a remarkably optimistic note (well, relatively optimistic for an environmental report, at least)."The United States is entering new times when it will rely more than ever on the integrity (完整) and stability of the natural world to provide economic boom, safeguard the health of communities, and weather (平安渡过) the effects of a changing climate," they write.

Community Volunteers Program

Community Volunteers Program is a brand new service opportunity that engages volunteers in weekly service with community-based organizations in neighborhoods surrounding the Boston campus. It offers various volunteer placements that will allow you to connect your skills, passions, and interests with weekly service!

826 Boston

It is a nonprofit kids writing and publishing organization empowering traditionally under-served students(age 2 to 13)to find their voices, tell their stories, and gain communication skills to succeed in school and in future life.

·Primary Focus:After-school enrichment/tutoring.

·Opportunity Type:Remote.

Family Gym Program

Family Gym's goal is to provide families with young children(age 0 to 10)with a safe, accessible space to engage in fun, and age-appropriate physical activity.

·Primary Focus: Nutrition and Meal Assistance, Nutrition and Physical Education.

·Opportunity Type:Virtual/Remote.

Community Servings

Community Servings actively engages the community to provide medically tailored, nutritious, scratch-made meals to critically ill kids(age 6 to 10)and  their  families.

·Primary Focus:Food Security, Nutrition and Meal Assistance.

·Opportunity Type:In person.

Hernández After School Program

HASP involves youth from the Rafael Hernández Two-Way Bilingual School to provide   the highest quality of specialized services to meet the educational, social, emotional, cultural, and    recreational needs of its students(age 5 to 12) in the surrounding communities.

·Primary Focus: After-school enrichment/tutoring for multilingual students.

·Opportunity Type: Remote.

Many people think daydreaming is bad for their emotions and has negative effects on their life and those around them. It makes adapting to life very hard and brains work less effectively.

Contrary to common ideas, the brains of people who are daydreaming might not stop working, but may be working harder, new research has shown. Scientists scanned the brains of people lying inside magnetic resonance imaging（MRI）machines, as they pushed buttons or rested in turn. The scans showed that the "default（默认的）network" deep inside a human brain becomes more active during daydreaming.

In a surprise finding, the scans also showed strong activity in the executive network, the outlying region of the brain associated with complex problem-solving, says Professor Kalina Christoff, who is a co-author of the study. "People assume that when the mind wanders away, it just gets turned off but we show the opposite. When it wanders, it is turned on." says Christoff.

The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest, "People who let themselves daydream might not think in the same focused way as when performing a goal-oriented task, but they bring in more mental and brain resources," says Christoff.

F. Diane Barth said at Psychology Today that the more we daydream, the more our brain is able to hold onto the task when we are being bombarded （轰炸）from all sides by all kinds of noises, information input, and conflicting demands. You're not trying to escape the task at hand; rather, you're trying to get rid of all of the information and stimuli（刺激物）that could pose as bothers.

According to Christoff, people typically spend one third of their waking time daydreaming. "It is a big part of our lives, but it has been largely ignored by science, she says. "The study is the first to use MRIs to study brain activity during spontaneous thoughts and subjective experiences. Until now the only way is to use self-reports that are not always reliable."