The large, colorful birds called peacocks have spent the last 20 years walking through cities in South Florida with nothing to worry about. They are protected under law.
However, local leaders voted recently to permit individual cities to remove the birds from unwanted areas. Raquel Regalado, a local government leader, represents parts of the cities of Miami and Coral Gables where people want permission to remove the birds. “Mating season is when we get the most complaints. They get very aggressive, ” said Regalado. She added birds would do things like damage cars with their beaks.
About two years ago, people who live in the Miami neighborhood asked city leaders to remove a large group of peacocks. The birds caused damage and left piles of waste in the streets. They called the birds “filthy and dirty”.
But others liked seeing the unusual birds and thought it made their neighborhood look different in a good way. They don’t want to see the birds harmed. Danielle Cohen Higgins, a local woman, said, “we learn to live with these peacocks and they are part of the community.”
Peacocks are not native to South Florida. They originally come from Sri Lanka and other parts of Asia as well as Africa. The birds have been protected from killing or capturing in South Florida for about 20 years. The rule was put in place because people in the area wanted to save a group of peacocks. But now the birds live freely in parts of Florida and they are not uncommon. It is hard to find zoos that want them while state laws prevent non-native species like peacocks from being released in the wild. If will accept the birds, they might have to be killed in a process known as euthanasia (安乐死).
Regalado said the problem now will be to decide where to put the peacocks. “This really is not about killing,” she said. “This is about moving. ”
1. From the passage, we can learn________.| A．peacocks are being killed in Florida. | B．peacocks are hopefully to live in the zoo. |
| C．peacocks are influencing people’s daily life. | D．peacocks are being sent to the wild. |
| A．They consider them as a part of their life. | B．They think the birds will not cause damage. |
| C．They want to save the native species. | D．They call them “filthy and dirty”. |
| A．How to live with the birds. | B．Whether to remove the birds. |
| C．How to kill the birds. | D．Where to put the birds. |
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【推荐1】A team of scientists says that playing sounds underwater can get fish to return to areas with severely damaged coral reefs(珊瑚礁）.
In an experiment, they found fish returned after hearing recordings of the sounds of a healthy ocean reef. The scientists placed underwater speakers in areas where coral had been dying in Australia’s northern Great Barrier Reef. They played the sounds over a period of about six weeks in 2017 and studied the results. The team reported that twice as many fish arrived in areas where the sounds of healthy coral were played.The sounds also led to a 50 percent increase in the number of species present in the area, the researchers found. Among the arriving fish were species that feed on all major food sources.
The researchers noted the importance of having many different kinds of fish return to the area. Different species of fish perform many activities that support the ocean environment and sea life. “Damaged reefs have a higher chance of recovery if they have healthy fish populations,” the scientists wrote in the report.
Steve Simpson is a professor at the University of Exeter who helped lead the research. He said in a statement that “healthy coral reefs are remarkably noisy places. ” They contain the sounds of many kinds of shrimp, fish and other sea creatures. Young fish listen for these sounds when they are looking for a place to settle, Simpson said.
He added that reefs “become ghostly quiet” when they suffer destruction that is usually related to human-caused pollution. Coral damage can cause unappealing smells and sounds that drive shrimp and fish away. But the experiment suggested that the use of underwater loudspeakers was an effective way to get young fish to come back.
Andy Radford, a professor at University of Bristol,said the underwater sounds are a promising way to fight coral reef damage at the local community level. But he noted that other threats need to be, reduced as well. These include climate change, pollution and overfishing.
1. What did the scientists find in the experiment?| A．Twice as many fish arrived in the healthy coral areas. |
| B．The sounds led to a 50 percent increase in the number of fish present in the area. |
| C．Playing the sounds of healthy coral reefs is effective to save dying coral. |
| D．Damaged reefs can recover completely if they have healthy fish populations. |
| A．Human-caused pollution. |
| B．The unattractive smells and sounds. |
| C．Climate change. |
| D．Overfishing. |
| A．Healthy fish help recover the damaged coral reefs by swimming. |
| B．People reduce environmental pollution to save dying coral. |
| C．Scientists find a new way to protect the ocean environment and sea life. |
| D．Researchers use underwater sounds to fight coral reef damage. |
【推荐2】Scientists in Antarctica have recorded,for the first time,unusually warm water beneath a glacier (冰川)the size of Florida that is already melting and contributing to a rise in sea levels.
The researchers,working on the Thwaites Glacier,recorded water temperatures at the base of the ice of more than 2℃,above the normal freezing point.Critically,the measurements were taken at the glacier's grounding line,the area where it transforms from resting wholly on bedrock to spreading out on the sea as ice shelves.It is unclear how fast the glacier is getting worse:Studies have forecast its total collapse in a century or in a few decades.The presence of warm water in the grounding line may support estimates at the faster range.
That is worthy of attention because the Thwaites,along with the Pine Island Glacier and several smaller glaciers, acts as a brake on part of the much larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which , if melted, would raise the world's oceans by more than a meter over centuries,an amount that would put many coastal cities underwater.
“Warm waters in this part of the world,as remote as they may seem,should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential terrible changes to the planet brought about by climate change,” said David Holland, director of New York University's Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
Glaciologists have previously raised alarm over the presence of warm water melting the Thwaites from below.This is the first time,though,that warm waters have been measured at the glacier's grounding line.
To observe activity beneath the glacier,Dr.Holland's team drilled a hole -about 30 centimeters wide and 600 meters deep-from the surface to the bottom and then placed equipment that measures water temperature and ocean turbulence,or the mixing of freshwater from the glacier and salty ocean water.Collecting the data took about 96 hours in subzero weather.Warm waters beneath the Thwaites are actively melting it, the team found.
While scientists may not yet be able to definitively predict how soon glaciers like the Thwaites will melt, human-caused climate change is a key factor.The biggest predictor of “how much ice we will lose and how quickly we will lose it,”Dr.Holland said,”is human action.”
1. What does warm water found in the glacier's grounding line indicate?| A．Sea levels should be remeasured. |
| B．It may take a century for the glacier to melt. |
| C．The grounding line is getting shorter. |
| D．The glacier might disappear sooner |
| A．they hold back ice |
| B．they are extremely large |
| C．they are located at bedrocks |
| D．they are collapsing |
| A．We can predict how much ice can be kept. |
| B．Human beings are to blame for the loss of ice. |
| C．Glaciers serve a more important purpose than expected. |
| D．More data needs to be collected to support the estimates. |
| A．The efforts made to avoid the presence of warm water. |
| B．The alarm voiced on the worsening situation of glaciers. |
| C．The tools employed to measure the temperature of Antarctica. |
| D．The prediction based on a scientific study of the grounding line. |
【推荐3】Just off the Florida Keys lies the world’s third-largest coral reef (珊瑚礁), which was once an energetic habitat for millions of plants and animals. But an outbreak of stony coral tissue loss disease threatens to destroy 20 of the 45 species found there, including larger reef-building corals.
“This disease that is burning through the Florida Keys is an unbelievable event that is happening,” said Andrew Stamper, conservation science manager at Disney’s Animals, Science and Environment. “It’s like a wildfire.” Stamper said that would endanger Florida’s fishing industry and food supply. “Unfortunately, we do not know exactly what is causing this,” he said.
In order to save the reef, scientists have moved some species hundreds of miles away to a lab in Orlando. Scientists work to simulate breeding (繁殖) conditions in the lab. The conditions are exactly the same as the living conditions of the coral. The work needs a lot of care, effort and attention to detail. LED lights exactly copy the sun and moon cycles. Volunteers feed the coral in water treated to mimic its real habitat.
“This essentially is a gene bank,” said Jim Kinsler, leader of SeaWorld Orlando. “We’re trying to protect the genetics of these corals so that their offspring(后代)can eventually be returned back to the Florida reef area.”
The task of relocating the lab-grown coral to the sea is also a detailed task. Kinsler, who is part of a team of private and public partners operating the Florida Coral Rescue Center, said, “It’s the first time that many of them have been involved in rescuing an entire ecosystem,”
“We think the real challenge is just growing them out to a size, so we can test them in those waters, test their disease resistance (抵抗力), and then breed the successful corals by the hundreds of thousands literally,” said Andrew Walker, president of the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida.
1. What do we know about the Florida Keys?| A．It owns the world’s largest coral reef. |
| B．A disease broke out among people there. |
| C．The world’s third-largest coral reef is close to it. |
| D．It is now the habitat of millions of plants and animals. |
| A．The root of the disease is unclear. |
| B．A wildfire broke out in the Florida Keys. |
| C．The disease will spread across the Earth. |
| D．The disease has caused a great loss to the locals. |
| A．Copy. | B．Contrast. | C．Escape. | D．Feature. |
| A．To restore the coral in the lab. |
| B．To sell the coral in the normal size. |
| C．To make more people involved in protecting the ecosystem. |
| D．To produce masses of disease-resistant coral back to the sea. |
【推荐1】With low temperatures and a lack of food, winter is a bad season for animals. Many animals enter hibernation to get through it. Hibernation is when an animal goes into a state of extended inactivity. This cools the creature's body and slows its heartbeat to just a few times per minute, for up to months at a time.
But why don't humans hibernate? Human hibernation doesn't exist for many reasons. Our body is not designed for hibernation. For example, waste management is a huge challenge for human hibernation. Animals that hibernate are able to essentially preserve nutrients during hibernation through a process of reabsorption. Unfortunately, humans can't do this. In addition, cold temperatures can limit the immune system, making people more likely to get infections, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
In fact, humans don't need to sleep through winter. We have discovered fire, clothes, shelter hunting and agriculture, all of which are much more effective ways of surviving the cold.
Could humans hibernate in the future? For long-distance space travel, it's likely. A journey to Mars would take around months using current technology. If we hope to visit another star system, even if we could travel at the speed of light, the journey would take years. Being able to hibernate would make such distances considerably less boring for the astronauts and conserve vital resources, according to University of Oxford in the UK.
NASA is treating this question seriously. Beginning in 2014, the agency funded research on long-term hibernation as a way to facilitate long-term space travel, according to The Atlantic magazine.
1. What are animals like when they enter hibernation?| A．Their heartbeat slows down. | B．Their breathing rate disappears. |
| C．Their organs function as normal. | D．Their body temperature increases. |
| A．we can't guarantee necessary nutrition |
| B．long-term sleep will damage our immune system |
| C．cold temperatures damage our waste management |
| D．our immune system won't work at low temperatures |
| A．Different opinions on humans' hibernation. | B．A new technology for humans to hibernate. |
| C．New research on hibernation in space travel. | D．The significance of studying human hibernation. |
| A．A text book. | B．A science magazine. | C．An art review. | D．A biography |
【推荐2】When faced with the decision to get out of bed or have a few more minutes of sleep, which do you choose? Believe it or not, that decision could make a world of difference in the rest of your day.
About 85 percent of Americans use an alarm clock to wake up in the mornings, according to sleep researcher Till Roennenber. And while there are no official numbers on snoozing (打盹), a quick survey of social media makes it clear that hitting the snooze button is a popular choice for many people.
As to how the snooze button will affect your day, scientists have mixed opinions. Some scientists think people who hit the snooze button in the mornings are actually clever, creative and happy while some said that hitting the snooze button will ruin your life, or at least your day. “I feel that hitting the snooze button has got to be one of the worst things that ever happened to human sleep,” researcher Jonathan Horowitz said. “The chances of you ‘snoozing’ and actually experiencing a meaningful rest are close to zero.”
According to some sleep experts, when hitting the snooze button, you are in fact confusing your body and mind, and throwing yourself into a deep state of being sleepy. The body needs some time to wake up, so, when returning to what will be a light sleep for a brief period of time, you are putting your body back into a sleep mode before waking it again. At that point your body won’t know what it wants, resulting in a sort of half awaken state.
If you really want to take advantage of an alarm clock, the key is to form a healthy sleep cycle. Focus your efforts on getting enough sleep each night and waking up at the same time each day so that when your alarm goes off you feel rested.
1. What can we infer about hitting the snooze button from the first two paragraphs?| A．People do it just for fun. | B．It is a common practice. |
| C．People take it seriously. | D．It is a wise decision. |
| A．cheating | B．improving |
| C．damaging | D．relaxing |
| A．It brings people a meaningful rest. |
| B．It turns people into lazier ones. |
| C．It helps people adapt to a new day. |
| D．It affects people to some extent. |
| A．Forming a good sleep habit. | B．Waking up a bit earlier. |
| C．Taking another light sleep. | D．Adding an extra alarm. |
| A．Secrets behind Snoozing in the Morning |
| B．Ways to Keep Refreshed after Wake-up |
| C．The Snooze Button: A Good Choice? |
| D．Snooze to Avoid the Light Sleep Mode |
【推荐3】The Dead Sea is an amazing wonder of the world:the lowest exposed spot on Earth,where the water is so full of salt that bathers float right to the top.
But today the Dead Sea is drying up, and its banks are collapsing. The water level is dropping close to 4 feet every year. The main part of the lake is now around 950 feet deep—about 15%shallower, and a third of the surface area, compared to its shape half a century ago.
“You’ve seen a living disaster in front of your eyes,“ says Jake Ben Zaken, an Israeli who says he operates the only passenger boats on the Dead Sea.
As the lake recedes, it changes the landscape around it in both beautiful and harmful ways. Beautiful salt formations are revealed where the water dries up. But there are also terrible scenes of beaches and parking lots swallowed up by sinkholes along the shore.
Solutions have been proposed to replenish(填满)the Dead Sea, but no significant action has been taken to prevent its further destruction. Climate change makes recovery of the lake seem even further out of reach.
The Dead Sea is a landlocked lake that’s partly in Jordan, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The lake—named the Dead Sea because it contains too much salt and is not suitable for aquatic(水生的)life—has been drying up for decades.
”It’s a human-made problem," say environmental researchers and officials. In a region where water is rare, Israel, Jordan and Syria in the last several decades have diverted(改道)the freshwater sources that feed the Dead Sea, for drinking water and irrigation. Plus, Israeli and Jordanian companies evaporate(蒸发)Dead Sea water to harvest its rich minerals for export. The part of the lake with Israeli hotels, a popular spot for tourists to float in Dead Sea water, is actually an artificial evaporation pool in the lake’s southern basin.
1. How deep was the main part of the Dead Sea 50 years ago probably?| A．About 800 feet. | B．About 1,000 feet. |
| C．About 1,100 feet. | D．About 1,300 feet. |
| A．Goes up. | B．Gets popular. | C．Flows over. | D．Becomes smaller. |
| A．The solutions to the problem. | B．The future of the Dead Sea. |
| C．The reasons for the problem. | D．The situation of the Dead Sea. |
| A．The Dead Sea Is Dying | B．The Dead Sea Is Recovering |
| C．The Dead Sea—a Salty Lake with Minerals | D．The Dead Sea—a Place for Tourists to Float |
