European wildcats could be reintroduced to England more than 200 years after they became extinct in the country. The project has been announced by UK wildlife charity Wildwood Trust.

European wildcats are one of the UK's rarest mammals. The only wild population, numbering fewer than 300 individuals, lives in the Scottish Highlands but they are on the verge of extinction, partly because they have bred with local feral cats （wild-living domestic cats）.

Supporters hope to save the species in the UK by reintroducing them to England and Wales, where they died out around 200 years ago because of hunting and loss of habitat. To bring bac  the species, Wildwood Trust is planning to build 10 new breeding facilities on two sltes in Kent and Devon. Kittens bred in captivity but away from humans will then be released into the wild. The University of Exeter is researching places where the animals could be reintroduced.

European wildcats are around the same size as a large domestic cat, but at up to eight kilograms they are slightly adult heavier. They have a tabby - like pattern with thick black stripes on their bodies and a bushy tail and like to live in forests but near open grassland. They're also famously shy and keep their distance from humans. Laura Gardner, director of conservation at Wildwood Trust, told The Times newspaper that people should not be worried by the thought of  wildcats returning to the wild. "We're not talking about wolves," she said.

Wildwood Trust says that its project can benefit both the wildcats and the habitats where they live. They are one of the few native predators left in the UK, so a healthy population of wildcats could help to control the numbers of animals they prey on, such as rabbits and rodents. By competing for the same food as foxes, they will also help to reduce fox numbers and restore a balance to nature.

In 2008, Michael Goodfellow, a scientist at Newcastle University, was handed a soil sample taken from Chile's Atacama Desert—the world's driest desert, once considered a dead zone. "Quite frankly, we didn't expect to isolate（使分离）anything, " Goodfellow admits. But to his surprise, he was able to grow a diversity of bacteria from the sample.

A 2018 review counted a total of 46 new molecules(分子)that have been isolated from the Atacama bacteria so far, many of which show antibiotic(抗菌的), antiviral or anticancer properties(特征). It was the type of bacteria living in the Atacama that proved particularly exciting: actinobacteria(放线菌).

Take streptomyces griseus for example, a species of actinobacteria you might find in soil. A sample of streptomyces, when placed among mycobacterium tuberculosis( 结核杆菌), will release a chemical which stops its bacterial neighbors from growing the proteins they need to survive. When scientists at Rutgers University managed to isolate this chemical in 1944, they accidentally found the first antibiotic treatment for tuberculosis, saving countless lives.

Today, there is general agreement on the need for the development of new antibiotics because our most trusted drugs began to fail—bacteria have learnt how to survive our antibiotic attacks. Sometimes, a potentially useful chemical can be found right in environments around us. But many scientists argue that we should also be exploring the natural world for novel bio-chemistry, an approach known as "bioprospecting".

"70% to 75% of all antibiotics come from nature, " notes MarcelJaspars, a natural product chemist

at the University of Aberdeen. "It strikes me that we should be looking more deeply into how nature makes these molecules and how we can actually find antibiotics. "

Great Family-Friendly Festivals

Fête Du Citron, February 15—March 3

What to do with 145,000 tons of citrus fruit（柑橘属水果） for two whole weeks? Artistic masters create a series of mind-blowing sculptures and patterns exhibited around the city of Menton, in the south of France. Highlights include the Golden Fruit Parades that occur every Sunday, which are an endless series of coaches, entertainers, bands, folk groups, dance groups and citrus fruit fioats.

Haro Wine Festival, June 28-30

Forget food fights. How about a wine fight? The wine fight, a feature of Wine Festival in Haro, a quiet town in Spain, reunites thousands of locals and tourists and uses more than 130,000 liters of wine during the battle. There's even a kid-friendly battle a couple of days before using grape juice.

Guca Trumpet Festival, August 8—11

Held in Guca in the middle of Serbia, it's regarded as the world's largest brass（铜管乐器） music festival. Each band gets to play three tunes as folk dancers dance for an enthusiastic audience. Visitors become part of Serbia for a night, dancing to brass band concerts all night long.

Cascamorras, September 6-9

In the towns of Baza and Guadix in Spain, the athletic festival is a whole lot of fun. Villagers from Baza invite tourists to get covered in black olive oil and brightly-colored paste（糊） in neighboring town Guadix.

In Baza, people run down the hill into the village and in Guadix through the town, ending in the evening when they're attacked by water from villagers and then sprayed with foam（泡沫）. The chosen villager "Cascamorras" must try to stay clean.