Scientists in Britain have managed to teach bees to pull strings (线) to get to food and then pass on what they have learned to others in their colony (群体) — showing a high level of intelligence despite their tiny brains.
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London said the experiments, often used to test the intelligence of apes (猿) and birds, showed for the first time that some insects are up to the task, and can also pass skills on through several generations.
The findings add to the evidence suggesting the ability for “culture spread”— the ability to learn and pass on knowledge and skills — may not be exclusive to humans.
In the research, published in the journal PLOS Biology on Tuesday, the scientists were able to train 23 out of a group of 40 bees to pull strings with their legs and feet.
The strings were attached to discs — or artificial “flowers” — containing food at their center but placed under a transparent (透明的) screen. The bees, spotting the food beneath the screen, learned to pull the “flowers” out by pulling the string with their legs and feet to be able to get to it.
From another group of bees given the chance to solve the task without any training, only two of 110 were successful.
Another group of bees was then allowed to observe the trained bees pulling the strings, and 60 percent of them successfully learned the skill. Finally, trained bees were put in colonies, and the scientists found the technique spread successfully to a majority of the colony's worker bees.
Lars Chittka, a Queen Mary University professor who guided the project, said the team is interested in figuring out the brain processes behind the bees' learning and teaching skills.
1. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “exclusive” in Paragraph 3?| A．Typical. | B．Limited. |
| C．Obvious | D．Widespread. |
| A．Bees learn best in insects. | B．Bees are as clever as birds. |
| C．Bees are born good learners. | D．Bees can be trained to learn skills. |
| A．What else bees can do. | B．Where bees learn skills. |
| C．How bees teach others. | D．How bees' brains work. |
| A．Small Bees, Great Abilities | B．Bees Can Learn and Teach |
| C．Bees Are Smarter | D．Let Bees Learn |
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【推荐1】Have you ever done something for someone else—knowing that your actions would solely benefit THEM and not YOU? Maybe you opened a door or donated blood or volunteered in a hospital’s ER during the pandemic. This is called a prosocial behavior. Humans engage in these types of behaviors all the time.
But a question remains in science: Are we the only species who do this? As one of out closest relatives, chimpanzees have long been studied for signs of this. So far, research has provided mixed results on the question.
Some studies show that chimps cooperatively hunt, share food and comfort each other. But one study came to a very different conclusion. The study used a controlled lab experiment where chimpanzees in enclosures were given two options: push a button to give food to themselves or push the button to give food to themselves AND a partner chimp. If they chose the latter, it was seen as a prosocial behavior. But the result is that chimps showed no special preferences for feeding themselves and a friend over feeding just themselves. Another study conducted by DeTroy, however, discovered a totally different result.
Compared to previous controlled lab-based experiments, the setup for DeTroy’s research was very naturalistic. “We installed a button and a fountain into the chimpanzees’ outer enclosures. When an individual pushes the button, it releases juice from the fountain. However, since the button and fountain are approximately five meters apart, the individual pushing cannot directly drink from the fountain. And if any other chimpanzees are at the fountain when the button is pushed, they, and not the pusher, will be able to drink the juice.
In this experiment, chimpanzees showed a willingness to act in the interest of others, with individual chimpanzees prepared to push the button without benefiting themselves.
“It is really fascinating to see that many of the chimpanzees were willing to prosocially provide valuable resources to the group members even if they couldn’t benefit themselves from their behavior.” said DeTroy.
Further research may reveal what lies behind their prosocial motivation. But for now, it’s safe to assume that chimpanzees are not simply aping human behavior.
1. Which of the following belongs to prosocial behaviors?| A．Jack participated in voluntary work in the library just to earn credits. |
| B．Mark turned to his classmate for help when feeling stressful in study. |
| C．Tim guided a lost child back home on his way to an important job interview. |
| D．Rose often interrupted the teacher to ask questions actively in the math’s class. |
| A．Sharing food. | B．Making a choice. |
| C．Comforting others. | D．Showing sympathy. |
| A．It was based on controlled lab experiment. |
| B．It gave juice to the chimpanzees as a reward. |
| C．It offered the tested chimpanzees a natural surrounding. |
| D．It provided a chance for chimpanzees to help their partners. |
| A．Chimpanzees can develop abilities to help others. |
| B．Chimpanzees have acquired many human behaviors. |
| C．Chimpanzees in the wild is cleverer than those in the lab. |
| D．Chimpanzees displayed prosocial behaviors for certain rewards. |
【推荐2】George Max showed up in a well-maintained lorry. He brought some tools, such as something to light a fire with, a smoker, a long-handled brush, a metal hive(蜂箱)tool, and a hive. As George moved about, he said in a low and calm voice, “You’d be amazed how many people call me with a swarm(一大群)like this; and by the time I come, they’ve destroyed the whole thing, down to the last bee.”
George said this swarm of bees was breath-taking, about 15,000 bees. He placed the hive in a proper place. Holding the smoker close to the swarm, he pumped the bellows(风箱). Smoke has a calming effect on bees. George said this group was easy to deal with. They were heavy with honey, and their main purpose was to hold the group together until they could find a new hive.
He went on smoking the swarm and let the bees pour into the hive. Most bees would only follow the queen to a new living place (yes, she has ladies-in-waiting that tend her every need). By dusk, most of the bees had disappeared into the hive.
“Alright, it appears that we’ve got them all,” I looked hopefully in George’s direction. He paused. “If you don’t mind, we’ll wait a bit longer,” he said. “They have sent out scout bees, and I want to be sure we don’t leave any behind.” So we waited. And, look! Scout bees returned.
If the hive is healthy, the population of bees will be on the increase. When the queen senses that it’s time for the hive to split, she will lose weight so she can fly, and then leave the hive with a large part of the bees. The bees left behind will hurry to hatch another queen and rebuild.
If some day you come across a swarm of bees in your backyard, call in a local beekeeper. Then sit back and enjoy the show. Get your camera, because you’ll want to share this amazing phenomenon with everyone you know, especially children. And if you’ve gone this far, you might as well buy a hive of your own. We did.
1. George thought the bees weren’t difficult to handle mainly because ______.| A．they were in huge quantity |
| B．his smoke had a healing effect on them |
| C．the bees were keeping together the group |
| D．they didn't need a new hive |
| A．there might be some bees that hadn’t come back |
| B．those bees which he had sent away didn’t return |
| C．the longer he stayed, the more honey he’d collect |
| D．the queen hadn’t turned up |
| A．the queen must keep fit to control others |
| B．the queen will leave if she finds no one supports her |
| C．fatty queens are not welcome in a hive |
D．there is only one quee n in a hive |
| A．By analyzing causes. |
| B．By giving examples. |
| C．By giving descriptions. |
| D．By making comparisons. |
【推荐3】Frank Lloyd Wright was the champion of organic architecture, a style of building meant to harmonize with nature. But I’m not sure harmonizing with chipmunks — small American animals similar to squirrels with black lines on their fur — was what he had in mind.
During my years with the US National Park Service, I spent six months working in a visitor center designed by Wright’s firm. Several other employees and I staffed the park’s phone and radio system from a room in the basement.
I was sitting at my desk when I first heard a sound in the suspended ceiling. Dark shapes moved fast across the light panel (光板) above my head. Moments later, they ran back in the opposite direction, leaving me with an impression of noses and tails, each tail followed by another nose. It was like watching a shadow puppet (皮影) performance, but with real animals.
“Baby chipmunks,” a fellow told me. “They live in the ceiling.”
After four summers working in the parks, I had grown accustomed to sharing indoor space with wildlife. Chipmunks in the workplace even seemed to be a joy; their behaviors provided a bit of stress relief on difficult days.
As summer progressed, the shadows chasing each other across our lights grew bigger. Their movement across the light panels had become more of an athletic running.
I had just answered a call one day when I heard a loud sound, and a ceiling panel fell down on my head. I dropped the phone as I fell out of my office chair, looking up just in time to see a brown tail disappear over the gap in the ceiling.
I pulled myself off the carpet, laughing with my co-workers, and noticed the phone hanging over the side of the desk. I picked up the phone, preparing to explain the crash, the scream, the dropped phone, and the laughing to the listener who was about to visit the park.
“I’m sorry, but you’re not going to believe what just happened.”
I don’t think he did.
1. What does the author probably do?| A．He’s a visitor. | B．He’s a biologist. |
| C．He’s an architect. | D．He’s a consultant. |
| A．They were chasing each other. |
| B．They were making their home. |
| C．They were jumping onto the lights. |
| D．They were climbing up to the ceiling. |
| A．Scared. | B．Curious. |
| C．Pleased. | D．Shocked. |
| A．The chipmunks were fighting on the panel. |
| B．The panel couldn’t bear the chipmunks’ weight. |
| C．Something hit the ceiling from high above. |
| D．The suspended ceiling was not firm. |
| A．One of his friends. | B．Frank Lloyd Wright. |
| C．A future park visitor. | D．One of his colleagues. |
【推荐1】Although ethics classes are common around the world, scientists are unsure if their lessons can actually change behavior, evidence either way is weak, relying on laboratory tests or sometimes self-reports. But a new study published in Cognition found that, in at least one real-world situation, a single ethics lesson may have had lasting effects.
The researchers investigated one class session’s impact on eating meat. They chose this particular behavior for three reasons, according to study co-author Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosopher at the University of California, Riverside: Students’ attitudes on the topic are variable and unstable, behavior is easily measurable, and ethics literature largely agrees that eating less meat is good because it reduces environmental harm and animal suffering. Half of the students in four large philosophy classes read an article on the ethics of factory-farmed meat optionally watched an 11-minute video on the topic and joined a 50-minute discussion. The other half focused on charitable giving instead. Then unknown to the students, the researchers studied their anonymous meal-card purchases for that semester-nearly 14,000 receipts for almost 500 students.
Schwitzgebel predicted the intervention would have no effect; he had previously found that ethics professors do not differ from other professors on a range of behaviors, including voting rates, blood donation and returning library books. But among student subjects who discussed meat ethics, meal purchases containing meat decreased from 52 to 45 percent-and this effect held steady for the study’s duration of several weeks. Purchases from other group remained at 52 percent.
“That’s actually a pretty large effect for a pretty small intervention,” Schwitzgebel says, Psychologist Nina Strohminger at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the study, says she wants the effect to be real but cannot rule out some unknown confusing variable.
Schwitzgebel suspects the greatest impact came from social influence—classmates or teaching assistants leading the discussions may have shared their own vegetarianism, showing it as achievable or more common. Second, the video may have had an emotional impact. Least sparkling, he thinks, is rational argument, although his co-authors say reason might also play a big role. Now the researchers are probing the specific effects of teaching style, teaching assistants’ eating habits and students’ video exposure. Meanwhile, Schwitzgebel, who had predicted no effect, will be eating his words.
1. Why is it difficult to determine the effects of ethics classes?| A．Because the ethics classes don’t have lasting effects. |
| B．Because the subjects in ethics classes are difficult to identify. |
| C．Because the evidence gathered from the classes may be unreliable. |
| D．Because the classes are usually poorly summarized and misinterpreted. |
| A．It is a sought-after behavior among students. |
| B．It is beneficial to students’ health. |
| C．It is a behavior easy to measure. |
| D．It is a hot topic among students in ethics classes. |
| A．are not necessarily ethically better. |
| B．are less open to new things than other professionals. |
| C．are not sensitive to political issues. |
| D．are less likely to criticize students. |
| A．Students’ change in behavior can give a boost to their reasoning. |
| B．Students’ change in behavior is a result of multiple factors. |
| C．Students’ change in behavior is a result of self reflection and regulation. |
| D．Students’ change in behavior can bring psychological benefits. |
【推荐2】With one’s eyes closed, Beijing’s main roads sound like any Chinese city. All around is the noise of traffic, accompanied by honks(喇叭声) from delivery motorbikes, recorded safety warnings from buses and the occasional bell of a rental-bicycle. But in the capital’s last hutongs, pieces of an older soundscape can be heard.
The sound of caged crickets (蛐蛐) is one. Hung in the doorways of courtyard homes or small shops, the insects bring a rural note into the city. A quarter-century ago their song was common. Today, cricket-sellers still exist. A big cricket sells for 20 yuan. They are heirs (继承人) to a grand tradition．
Another is the music of steel plates, announcing a knife sharpener’s arrival. Several such specialists still work in Beijing’s streets. Their sounding-plates, together with a distinctive cry, call customers from hutong homes and high-rise flats. But numbers are falling.
An almost-gone Beijing sound is one of the strangest. It is made by homing pigeons, or more precisely by pigeon whistles. Even 20 years ago, it was possible to hear this sound in the hutongs. It was particularly associated with cold winter skies. Alas, modern Beijing is a city in a hurry. Many hutongs have been torn down to make way for wide roads and tall buildings, leaving no room for pigeon houses.
Zhang Baotong is one of Beijing’s last master pigeon-whistle makers. He learned to make whistles in boyhood. Today Mr. Zhang has a workshop lined with certificates calling him a living treasure. But many of his whistles are sold to collectors and never see the sky. Mr. Zhang is advising a museum of sound that will open soon in Songzhuang, a suburb of Beijing that is popular with artists. A rooftop pigeon house is planned, with more than 100 pigeons that will take to the skies for visitors. It is hoped that pigeon whistles will be heard each day over Songzhuang, at least in cooler months.
The co-founder of Fen Sonic HQ, a cultural institute that will run the museum, is Colin Siyuan Chinnery, a British-Chinese artist and collector of Beijing’s sounds. He lists the sounds and cries used by medicine sellers, doctors and knife sharpeners. Many of these will feature in an exhibit about old Beijing.
1. Why the noise of Beijing’s main roads is mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the topic of the passage. | B．To introduce the liveliness of Beijing. |
| C．To show Beijing is a large city. | D．To show Beijing’s traffic is crowded. |
| A．The sound of crickets is still common today. |
| B．The sound of steel plates is for snack selling. |
| C．There’s no space for pigeon houses because of transformation. |
| D．Colin Siyuan Chinnery is an American artist. |
| A．He makes excellent pigeon whistles. |
| B．He has recorded the sounds of many pigeons. |
| C．He raises many pigeons. |
| D．He is going to set up a museum of sound. |
| A．To help people learn to listen. |
| B．To attract people’s attention. |
| C．To promote artists’ works. |
| D．To present the characteristics of old Beijing. |
【推荐3】From cottages surrounded by impressive gardens to days spent exploring sandy beaches and deep woods filled with wildlife, in My Family and Other Animals, English writer Gerald Durrell provided a vivid account of his family’s time on the Greek island of Corfu in the 1930s.
Come for the arresting descriptions of Corfu landscapes and stay for Durrell’s laugh-out-loud tales of his unusual family. This book, Durrell wrote humorously in the introduction, “was intended to be a nostalgic(怀旧的)account of natural history, but in the first few pages, I made the mistake of introducing my family.”
Durrell, later known for his zoo keeping and the preservation of wildlife, was just a child during his family’s five-year stay in Corfu. He is 10-year-old Gerry in the book—curious, passionate about animals and a detailed storyteller of his strange family: his imaginative elder brother Larry with his literary ambitions, lovestruck sister Margo, sporty brother Leslie and his ever-calm, loving mother.
Durrell’s attention to detail is what makes the book so winning, with every sight, sound and smell of the island brought to life. One minute you’ll be laughing as Larry’s clever literary friends walk down to the daffodil-yellow cottage, the next you’ll be catching your breath as Durrell describes swimming at night in the Ionian Sea: “Lying on my back in the silky water, staring at the sky, only moving my hands and feet slightly, I was looking at the Milky Way stretching like a silk scarf across the sky and wondering how many stars it contained.”
My Family and Other Animals is quite difficult to classify, being one part travel, one part autobiography, one part natural history, and one part comedy, with a thread of descriptive language running throughout that sometimes raises it nearly to poetry.
As a real delight to read, it’s the perfect literary escapism for any adult or older teenager who is currently walking down a tough road in life.
1. Which word best describes Durrell’s life in Corfu?| A．Diverse. | B．Busy. | C．Risky. | D．Tough. |
| A．I just introduced my family by mistake. | B．I shouldn’t have introduced my family. |
| C．I gave false information about my family. | D．I couldn’t help introducing my family. |
| A．Durrell’s rich imagination. | B．Some interesting plots of the book. |
| C．The book’s writing feature. | D．Some vivid descriptions of the island. |
| A．To share an experience. | B．To introduce a writing style. |
| C．To recommend a book. | D．To describe an unusual place. |
