Scientists have created a healthy clone of a black-footed ferret by using DNA from a ferret that died over 30 years ago. The cloned animal is called Elizabeth Ann.
Large numbers of black-footed ferrets once lived in the American West. The ferrets live mainly on the prairie dogs they catch. But when farmers began killing off prairie dogs, lots of ferrets died, too. By the 1970s, most experts believed that black-footed ferrets were extinct.
Then, in 1981, a group of black-footed ferrets were found in Wyoming. The US Fish and Wildlife Service(USFWS) caught 18 of these ferrets to try to raise them in captivity so that they could be shielded. All but seven died.
At present, there're between 400 and 500 black-footed ferrets remaining. Some are still in captivity. Others have been released into the wild. But all black-footed ferrets living today are related to the seven animals saved from Wyoming.
Normally, when there're large numbers of a type of animal, they have many small differences. The DNA of the animals gets mixed up when different pairs of animals have babies. The small differences in their DNA can help protect the group as a whole. But because all living black-footed ferrets are closely related, they all have similar weaknesses.
But Elizabeth Ann is cloned from an animal that lived over 30 years ago, so her DNA is very different. Scientists hope that when this DNA is mixed back in, future black-footed ferrets will be healthier in general.
Elizabeth Ann was born on December 10, 2020. Blood tests have proven her to be 100% black footed ferret. It's the first native endangered species ever cloned in the US. Elizabeth Ann seems normal and healthy, and enjoys spending her days in her cage.
She won't ever be released into the wild, but soon, she may have some cloned brothers and sisters. And later, she'll probably have babies. Sooner or later, her children will have babies with wild black-footed ferrets, and her DNA will begin to spread.
1. What does the underlined word “shielded” in paragraph 3 probably mean?A.Donated. | B.Served. | C.Treated. | D.Protected. |
A.Their unusual appearance. | B.Their biological weaknesses. |
C.Their poor living conditions. | D.Unfriendly human activities. |
A.in the 1960s | B.in the 1970s | C.in the 1980s | D.in the 1990s |
A.Uncaring. | B.Doubtful. | C.Dissatisfied. | D.Positive. |
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【推荐1】On Thursday, scientists in Indonesia announced the discovery of a rare frog that has no lungs and takes breath through its skin. Researchers believe that the little animal could provide some information about how environment can cause some animals to change so greatly over time.
The frog was found in a faraway part of Indonesia during a scientific research last summer. The unusual animal is the world’s first know lungless frog species. Only a few amphibians have been found lungless.
David Bickford is a biologist at the National University of Singapore. He led the research team that discovered the rare frog. Its living environment has been polluted by chemicals from agriculture. “These are about the most ancient and bizarre frog you can get on the earth,” he says.
Bickford says it’s possible that the frog may have changed in order to adapt to the cold, fast moving and oxygen-rich rivers in which it lives. The biologist adds that his “extreme change” was probably necessary to reduce the frog’s ability to float. That way, it could keep itself from being swept down the mountain rivers.
Scientists say that the new discovery has made it more important to protect the frog’s river living environment. In the last few years, illegal tree cutting and gold mining have caused the once-clean waters to turn brown with pollution.
“The gold mining is completely illegal and small size,” Bickford says. “But when there are thousand of them on the river, it really has a huge effect. Very soon the frog will be out of the river.”
1. The frog is unusual because .A.it has no lungs at all |
B.it doesn’t use its lungs to take breath |
C.it’s the world’s first lungless species |
D.it can take breath either through its lungs or its skin |
A.Cheap. | B.Expensive. |
C.Unusual. | D.Ordinary. |
A.Illegal tree cutting. | B.Its living conditions. |
C.The gold mining. | D.Changes of the climate. |
A.The frog will have to live on land. |
B.The frog must develop its ability to float. |
C.Industrial waste is the main cause of water pollution. |
D.It’s high time to protect the frog’s living environment. |
【推荐2】In an unusual move, wildlife workers in Florida are feeding manatees to keep them from starving. But feeding these massive sea creatures takes a lot of food. So far, the rescue workers have already given out 25 tons of lettuces. By 2025, there will be 50 tons of lettuces needed, said the rescue workers. They also said the figure will rise to around 70 tons by 2030.
Manatees are huge sea mammals that only eat sea grass and other plants that live in the sea. That’s one reason they’re sometimes called “sea cows”. They spend most of their time in warm, shallow water looking for food.
Sea grass began to disappear around 2011. Warming seas, combined with polluted water and fertilizers that have been washed off from farmlands have created huge growths of algae on the ocean’s surface. The algae blocks the sunlight that allows the sea grass to grow.
The problem is especially grievous in Indian River Lagoon. About 90% of the sea grass beds in the area have died off. Last year, 1, 101 manatees died. That was a record. Most died from starvation. Many of the manatees that remain are so thin that their bones can be seen. Often they have trouble swimming. So last December, government wildlife experts came up with a plan to get emergency food to the manatees. They decided to feed them green vegetables like lettuce and cabbage.
As a feeding spot, they chose a part of the Indian River Lagoon where Florida Power &Light has a power plant. The power plant releases warm and clean water, so it’s popular with the manatees.
The feeding station has been very successful. Around 350 manatees a day have come to get food. On some days, as many as 800 manatees have shown up.
1. How many more lettuces will manatees need by 2030 than now?A.More than 25 tons. | B.About 50 tons. |
C.Less than 70 tons. | D.About 45 tons. |
A.A large number of algae. | B.Remaining fertilizers. |
C.Polluted water. | D.Warming seas. |
A.Relieved. | B.Severe. | C.Ridiculous. | D.Vague. |
A.To thank and praise the rescue workers. |
B.To present a new finding about wild animals. |
C.To show the terrible situation about Manatees. |
D.To tell the improvements of living conditions for manatees. |
【推荐3】It is not always easy to understand animal behavior, especially when it’s related to other species (物种). For decades, researchers have observed orca (虎鲸) attacking and even killing porpoises (鼠海豚) in the Pacific Northwest. But it confuses people that these expert hunters don’t eat them. So what’s going on here?
Southern Resident orcas are a different population of orcas that live in the Pacific Northwest. The lives of these orcas are closely tied to those of the salmon (鲑鱼). So if the salmon disappear, so too will the orca. But despite their preference for salmon, these whales are known to attack and kill other smaller marine mammals (海洋哺乳动物) without eating them.
To better understand this unusual behavior, an international team of researchers did a research and examined more than 60 years of recorded interactions between Southern Resident orcas and porpoises in the Salish Sea.
“Why don’t the Southern Residents just eat porpoises instead?” Deborah Giles of Wild Orca said. “It’s because fish-eating killer whales have a completely different ecology and culture from orcas that eat marine mammals. So we must conclude that their interactions with porpoises serve a different purpose, but this purpose has only been a guess until now.”
According to Giles and her colleagues’work, the orca may be attacking the porpoise as a form of social play. It is possible these large animals may be attacking the smaller mammals as a way to build up social cohesion (凝聚力). Similarly, the behavior could represent hunting practice, by which the orcas are practising their teamwork and cooperation skills for hunting salmon. Finally, the behavior could be a way of “mismothering” where the orca see the smaller porpoises as weaker or ill and so in need of care.
This work highlights the need for the protection of salmon populations in the area as well as the orcas’entire hunting range. The threat (威胁) to the salmon’s future is not just a threat to a single species, but an entire ecosystem.
1. Why did an international team of researchers do their study?A.To find out a way to protect porpoises. |
B.To make sure the reason why some orcas attack salmons. |
C.To solve the problem of marine mammals’ living environment. |
D.To better understand the strange behavior of Southern Resident orcas. |
A.Porpoises. | B.Marine mammals. | C.Salmons. | D.Whales. |
A.It’s a kind of social play with porpoises. |
B.It is a practice to kill porpoises as their food. |
C.The orcas may dislike the smaller porpoises. |
D.It’s a way for the orcas to practice their hunting skills. |
A.Positive. | B.Objective | C.Doubtful. | D.Uncertain. |
【推荐1】While the human world is suffering from the novel coronavirus outbreak, our planet is actually showing certain signs of “recovery” from the damage caused by human activity. According to the BBC, new satellite images released by the European Space Agency showed that levels of air pollutants and greenhouse gases have “fallen sharply” in major cities in Europe and the United States ever since the lockdown started.
This is what happened after recent discoveries in Antarctica. An international team of 89 scientists found that the ice in Greenland and Antarctica is melting six times faster in the 2010s than it was in the 1990s. And in February, Argentina’s Marambio research station in Antarctica recorded a record high temperature of 20.75 ℃ on the continent.
So what exactly will happen if the temperature keeps rising and the ice keeps melting? A third study might give you an idea. A team of scientists drilled a hole into the seafloor in west Antarctica and extracted (提取) material from underground, in which they found traces of roots, spores and pollen—typical products of a rainforest—that dated back 90 million years ago. In other words, Antarctica was very likely a rainforest back when the dinosaurs walked on Earth. But given the fact that the South Pole has four months of darkness during winter—even millions of years ago—scientists believe that the rainforest could only exist if the greenhouse gas concentrations were extremely high back then to keep the continent warm when there was little or no sunlight.
“We didn’t know that this Cretaceous (白垩纪的) greenhouse climate was that extreme,” Johann Klages of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and a co-author of the research told the Guardian. “It shows us what carbon dioxide is able to do.”
Ice or no ice, Antarctica will be—and has always been—fine with extreme changes. The human world, however, may not be.
Now, during the coronavirus lockdown, we’ve seen the changes resulting from less human activity. Hopefully, we’ll hold on to those changes—not for Antarctica or the planet, but for ourselves.
1. What does Paragraph 1 mainly tell us?A.Our planet is returning to its original state due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. |
B.The lockdown of major cities contributed to the decrease of greenhouse gases. |
C.The novel coronavirus has a positive effect on the human beings. |
D.The novel coronavirus outbreak resulted from human activity. |
A.Typical products of a rainforest were dug out in Antarctica. |
B.Traces of dinosaurs living in rainforests were spotted in Antarctica. |
C.There was a good possibility of high greenhouse gas concentrations in Antarctica. |
D.There used to be enough sunlight for the rainforest in the Cretaceous Antarctica. |
A.Human activity doesn’t threaten life in Antarctica. |
B.The ice in Antarctica is melting faster in the 2010s than now. |
C.We should reduce carbon dioxide emissions for our own sake. |
D.The lockdown can be carried on to slow down global warming. |
A.To encourage us to defeat the novel coronavirus. |
B.To explain the effects of greenhouse gases. |
C.To draw our attention to ecosystem in Antarctica. |
D.To call on us to reduce human impact on the environment. |
![](https://img.xkw.com/dksih/QBM/2021/9/30/2819426102788096/2820819202318336/STEM/aed98d1740b04ff19418c45a5984dc10.png?resizew=219)
Paper cutting is one of China’s most popular folk arts. Archaeological (考古学上的) finds show that the tradition started in the 6th century, it is even supposed that the beginning of paper cutting is even a few centuries earlier.
Paper cuts have special importance at festivals and on holidays. To get rid of (摆脱) the old and bring good luck, people put up paper cuts on the windows on the Eve of the Spring Festival.
Paper cuts are not produced by machine, but by hand. They are done all over China, but are different in the method in different areas. There are two methods of making paper cuts—by using scissors (剪刀) or knives. As the name suggests, scissors cuttings are made with scissors. Several pieces of paper (up to eight pieces) are placed together. The patterns are then cut with pointed scissors. Knife cuttings are made by putting several pieces of paper on a table. Following a pattern, the artist cuts the patterns into the paper with a knife.
In the past, paper cuts were usually made only by women and girls. They used scissors and paper to cut all kinds of pictures such as apple tees, peach blossoms, mice, fighting roosters (公鸡) and rabbits eating carrots.
This used to be one of the skills that every girl was to master. Professional paper cutting artists are, on the other hand, almost always men who can make a living by working together in workshops.
1. How long has paper cutting lasted at least?A.About 600 years. | B.About 1,500 years. |
C.About 2,000 years. | D.About 2,700 years. |
A.make them look more beautiful | B.show others their excellent skills |
C.bring them good luck in the new year | D.sell them on the Eve of the Spring Festival |
A.Two kinds of paper cuts. | B.Paper cuts are made by hand. |
C.Paper cuts are made by machine. | D.The process of making paper cuts. |
【推荐3】“The pile of ice is so thick; it extends more than 10, 000 feet above the ocean. And if all that ice were to melt and go into the ocean, global sea levels would rise by about 24 feet everywhere around the world,” said Jason Briner, a geologist who studies the ice sheet in Greenland at the University of Buffalo. The ice sheet of the biggest island in the world is melting, and the ice sheet that sits atop it is massive. The ice sheet is melting, of course. But just how much, compared to the past?
Briner’s team did a computer simulation (模拟) of the southwest part of the Greenland ice sheet — which he says is a good indicator for ice melting across the entire ice sheet. The researchers plugged past climate data into that model to “hindcast,” rather than forecast, the past activity of the ice sheet. They then checked the model’s predictions of the past shape and size of the ice sheet by looking at piles of rocks and dirt on Greenland today, which outline the edges of ancient ice. And the simulation was in good agreement with the actual situation.
Using that reconstruction of the ice sheet over time, the team could compare the ice sheet’s historic losses to those happening today under human-caused global warming. And they determined that Greenland is on track to lose more ice this century than during any century in the past 12,000 years — possibly four times as much.
Finally, it’s up to us how much ice actually melts. If the world goes net carbon zero by 2100, for example, Briner says ice loss could stop entirely at the end of the century, according to one model. “That was what kept me from being completely depressed about our study.” Dozens of countries have already announced goals to go net zero by the middle of this century — so far the U. S. is not one of them.
1. What do we know about the Greenland ice sheet?A.It is as thick as over 10,000 feet. |
B.It is becoming smaller and smaller. |
C.It has raised sea levels by 24 feet. |
D.It is the largest ice sheet in the world. |
A.By modeling part of the ice sheet on computer. |
B.By doing a simulation of the whole ice sheet. |
C.By studying the ancient rocks and dirt. |
D.By forecasting the future climate change. |
A.Its status has already been acknowledged. |
B.Its growth can be improved by the model. |
C.The speed of its melting will be increasingly fast. |
D.The extent of its loss depends on human activities. |
A.Rising Global Sea Levels |
B.Climate Change is Speeding Up |
C.Greenland — the Biggest Island is Melting |
D.Net Carbon Zero — a Global Goal by 2100 |