Contrary to the long-held belief that plants in the natural world are always in competition, new research has found that in severe environments adult plants help smaller ones and grow well as a result.
The research, led by Dr Rocio, studied adult and seedling (幼苗) plants in the ecological desert in the south-east of Spain.
Dr Rocio said, “If you’re a seedling in a poor land — the top of a mountain or a sand hill, for example—and you’re lucky enough to end up underneath a big plant, your chances of survival are certainly better than if you landed somewhere on your own. What we have found, which was surprising, is an established large plant, called a ‘nurse’, protects a seedling; it also produces more flowers than the same plants of similar large size growing on their own.”
Other benefits of nurse-seedling partnerships include that more variety of plants growing together can have a positive effect on the environment. For example, vegetation areas with nurse plants with more flowers might be able to attract higher numbers of pollinators (传粉者) in an area, in turn supporting insect and soil life and even provide a greater range of different fruit types for birds and other animals.
“The biggest winner for this system of nursing a plant is biodiversity (生物多样性),” Dr Rocio said. “The more biodiversity an area, the greater number of species of plants, insect life, mammals and birds, and the better the chances of long-term healthy functioning of the environment and ecosystems.” This system is win-win for adult and seedling plants in unfavorable environments.
The research is of value to those who manage and protect plants in tough environments. Most home gardeners and farmers plan to ensure their soil and conditions are the best they can be for plant growth, but the findings might be of value to those who garden in bare places.
1. What is a common understanding of plants?| A．They can help each other. | B．They can survive ill conditions. |
| C．They compete with each other. | D．They grow well on their own. |
| A．They will produce more flowers. | B．They will die owing to competition. |
| C．They will make adult plants larger. | D．They will benefit from adult plants. |
| A．People studying organic farming. |
| B．People protecting plants on sand hills. |
| C．People wanting to change biodiversity. |
| D．People keeping more animals on the farm. |
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【推荐1】What does it mean to be intelligent? If it’s defined by having the biggest brain, then sperm whales (抹香鲸) — whose brain is 20 pounds — would be the brightest creatures on Earth. But, more likely, it’s how a brain is wired. Viewed in this way, intelligence is what gives an organism the best chance to survive in an environment. Language may be one of the best ways to demonstrate that kind of smarts.
“Language allowing humans to be a more advanced species is a hypothesis that somebody came up with one day without really trying to prove it,” says Erich Jarvis, a professor who studies the neuro-biology of vocal learning. “The idea stuck around, but so have other common beliefs that are not really supported with evidence,” he points out.
To get a better grasp of vocal learning and cognition, the study authors turned to songbirds. The team performed seven cognitive experiments on 214 songbirds from 23 different species. Of these, 21 species were caught from the wild. The rest two studied are domesticated (家养的). The behavioral tests examined the birds’ problem solving, for instance, figuring out how to remove an object to access the food reward. The researchers also tested two other skills often associated with intelligence: learning by association, plus what’s called reversal (倒转的) learning, in which an animal adjusts its behavior to get a reward. They then looked at whether being vocal learners helped develop the three skills, comparing 21 bird species to two others which were non-vocal learners.
Jarvis’ new study provides some of the first evidence that vocal learning — one of the crucial components for a spoken language — is associated with problem solving. Vocal learning bird species could come up with innovative ideas, such as getting seeds, or catching a worm trapped under a cup by removing the obstacle or pulling it apart. All three abilities — problem solving, associative learning, and reversal learning — are typically considered “components of intelligence,” he says.
“One question left unanswered is why there’s such a strong relationship between problem-solving abilities and vocal learning. The brain areas in charge of vocal learning are not the same ones that get activated when we need to troubleshoot (分析解决) an issue,” says Michael Goldstein, a professor of psychology at Cornell University who studies vocal learning in songbirds and humans but was not involved in the study.
1. Which can probably define intelligence according to Paragraph 1?| A．Language. | B．Brain size. |
| C．Brain structure. | D．Environment. |
| A．Guarantee. | B．Assumption. |
| C．Category. | D．Distribution. |
| A．Habits of songbirds. |
| B．Methods of domesticating songbirds. |
| C．Outline of the study. |
| D．Three phases of displaying intelligence. |
| A．The mechanism that bridges all the brain regions. |
| B．The functions of the brain areas that can troubleshoot issues. |
| C．The reasons why songbirds’ intelligence can not develop further. |
| D．The reasons why vocal learning influence problem-solving abilities. |
【推荐2】You listen to music every day. Some music hits your hearts. Some music makes you full of joy.
Music makes you express your emotion.
Music is an extremely unique way to develop the capability of memorising. The best example to prove this sentence is that you can easily learn something in the form of songs. The reason behind learning a song quickly is that your mind enjoys music.Whatever your minds enjoy, it keeps it.
Music makes you creative.
Music is key to creativity. It helps you in improving your mind by making it more artistic. No matter what the great invention is, it requires art. Creativity is fulfilled by music.
Music improves your fine reasoning skills.
During a study of children, it was shown that if children are exposed to three or more years of musical training, these same kids performed better.
| A．This was the result |
| B．Music is an art of beauty |
| C．Some music makes you tearful |
| D．Music makes you live a better life |
| E．Music makes learning more pleasant |
| F．You should choose some kind of music with powerful beats |
| G．You usually play the music that reflects your thoughts or your emotions |
【推荐3】Yellow is usually the color of happy, joyful emotions. But according to a new study, not all people associate the color with good feelings.
To find out what factors might play a role, researchers tested a new hypothesis (假设): What if people’s physical surroundings affect their feelings about certain colors? For example, if someone lived in cold and rainy Finland, would he feel differently about the color yellow from someone who lived near the Sahara Desert?
The researchers looked at color-emotion data from an ongoing international survey of 6, 625 people in 55 countries. The survey asked participants to rate 12 colors on how closely they were associated with feelings including joy, pride, fear, and shame.
The researchers paid particular attention to the data for yellow, and analyzed how different factors—including hours of sunshine, hours of daylight, and the amount of rainfall—were associated with the emotions people reported for the color. The two best predictors of how people felt about yellow were the annual amount of rainfall, and how far they lived from the equator (赤道).
Overall, people were more likely to associate yellow with joy when they lived in rainier countries that lay farther from the equator, researchers reported in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. In Egypt, the likelihood (可能性) of yellow being associated with joy was just 5.7%, whereas in chilly Finland it was 87.7%. In the United States, with its mild climate and amber waves of grain, people’s yellow-joy association levels were between 60% and 70%.
The researchers also checked whether associations changed with the season—whether, for example, people in a certain country liked yellow more in the winter than they did in the summer. They found that opinions about the color remained fairly constant all year round—even when the weather changed, the data on yellow-joy associations were as good as gold.
1. What did the researchers do before the survey?| A．They went to Finland. | B．They made an assumption. |
| C．They studied certain colors. | D．They analyzed some data. |
| A．The changeable weather. | B．The length of daytime. |
| C．The geographical position. | D．The amount of snowfall. |
| A．By interviewing participants. | B．By studying the data collected. |
| C．By traveling around the world. | D．By looking at color combinations. |
| A．Finland: A Country Admiring Yellow |
| B．Yellow Associated with Joy Conditionally |
| C．Color: An Important Role in Good Feelings |
| D．Color-emotion Data Collected Internationally |
【推荐1】Scientists have shown that humans seem to have an ability to understand the signs of apes (大猩猩). The result is a little surprising, since most people haven’t spent much time at all with apes.
Apes use about 80 different gestures (手势) to show what they mean. Scientists have learned the meanings of these gestures by studying them for years. Scientists have studied how apes use gestures. But until now, no one had studied whether humans could understand the gestures of apes. Researchers Graham and Catherine at the University of St. Andrews in Britain decided to test this idea.
They created a simple game for people to play online. People watched short videos of apes making a gesture. Then they had to choose the correct meaning of the gesture out of four possible answers. For the videos, the researchers chose 10 of the most common ape gestures. Thousands of people played the game.
The researchers found that people could choose the correct meaning of the gestures over 50% of the time. For some of the gestures, people chose the correct meaning about 80% of the time. One example of this was the gesture of wiping the mouth, which people correctly guessed to mean “give me that food”.
Humans and other apes all developed from an earlier kind of ape that lived long ago. One possibility is that the body language of these gestures has been passed down from this shared ancestor. “If humans understand them, then it seems like a great ape gesture ability that would have been used by our last common ancestors,” Dr. Graham said.
Another possibility is that the gestures are a natural result of humans and apes sharing similar body shapes and needing to communicate similar ideas. The researchers say that they need to study how humans are able to understand the gestures of apes. They’re also curious about how humans understand other animals, like dogs.
1. What did Graham and Catherine want to find out?| A．Whether humans understand apes’ gestures. | B．What gestures apes use in communication. |
| C．How apes’ gestures differ from humans. | D．Why humans can learn from apes’ gestures. |
| A．By sending out questions online. | B．By doing interviews in the street. |
| C．By making online guessing games. | D．By starting a video-making contest. |
| A．Humans and apes share similar body shapes and gestures. |
| B．It may be an ability passed on from our last common ancestors. |
| C．Humans have a born ability to understand animal gestures. |
| D．Apes and other animals can communicate similar ideas. |
| A．Wide Interest in Understanding Ape Gestures |
| B．An Online Game to Know Ape Communication |
| C．An Answer to the Puzzles of Ape Communication |
| D．Study Into Human Understanding of Ape Gestures |
【推荐2】If you have a chance to take a walk in a park, look carefully at the people walking their dogs. You’ll probably find friendly-looking people with friendly dogs; quiet people with quiet dogs; large men with oversized dogs and long-haired women with long-eared dogs. As you’ve probably noticed, dogs and their owners look alike. Have you ever wondered why?
These similarities are so common that researchers have tried to explain them. There are two theories (理论): the convergence (趋同) theory and the selection theory. The convergence theory says that as the owner and the dog spend more time together, they influence each other to the point where they grow similar. In other words, they “converge.” The selection theory, on the other hand, says that owners are interested in dogs that look like them, so they choose those dogs as pets.
Recently, researchers at the University of California decided to test the two theories by taking pictures of 45 dogs separately from their owners. Then they asked some students to match the dogs’ photos with their owners. The students were quite successful with purebred (纯种的) dogs: they correctly matched 16 out of 25 with their owners. However, they had almost no success connecting mixed-breed (杂交的) dogs with their owners. When owners select a purebred dog, they can easily predict (预测) what it will look like later. But that is not true with mixed-breed dogs because it’s hard to predict what a mixed-breed dog will look like when it grows up. And since it was the purebreds not the mixed-breeds that looked like their owners, the research seems to prove the “selection theory”.
But one bit of warning. Although many people look like their dogs, not all dog owners enjoy having the similarity pointed out to them. So, even if the similarity is amazing, don’t go up to a stranger and say, “Wow, you look just like your dog!”
1. According to the convergence theory, dogs look like their owners because ________.| A．their owners choose them |
| B．their owners love them |
| C．the dogs are purebred and grow up as expected |
| D．dogs and owners spend more time together |
| A．They influence each other. |
| B．They often do the same thing. |
| C．Owners pick dogs that look like them. |
| D．Dogs usually follow what their owners do. |
| A．show the importance of having a dog |
| B．introduce two theories about dogs and owners |
| C．prove the selection theory is correct |
| D．show the differences between dogs and owners |
| A．Mixed-breeds and their owners share similarities. |
| B．Most owners want their dogs to look like them. |
| C．Purebred dogs have predictable appearance. |
| D．Most owners prefer to have purebred dogs. |
【推荐3】Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.
“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”
Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits. (轨迹)
Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve (包含) a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.
No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”
But family experts warn that the new equality (平等) can also result in less respect for parents. “There’s still a lot strictness and authority (权威) on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College, “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”
Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these changing roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic (民主) process that encourages everyone to have a say.
“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”
1. The underlined word “gulf” in Para. 3 most probably means _________.| A．interest | B．problem | C．difference | D．separation |
| A．Parents help their children develop interests in more activities. |
| B．Parents put more trust in their children’s abilities. |
| C．Parents and children talk more about sex and drugs. |
| D．Parents share more interests with their children. |
| A．More confusion among parents |
| B．New equality between parents and children |
| C．Less respect for parents from children |
| D．More strictness and authority on the part of parents |
| A．describe the difficulties today’s parents have met with |
| B．discuss the change of the parent-child relationship |
| C．suggest the ways to handle the parent-child relationship |
| D．stress the importance of parent-child relationship |
【推荐1】As the world’s oldest living organisms, trees have been our silent companions. Although they inspire a large quantity of fancy tales, the richness of what they say is beyond description.
The German forester Peter Wohlleben spent decades working and learning their secrets. Feelings are rarely applied to trees, but Wohlleben has done so without hesitation. According to Wohlleben, that humans do not speak the trees’ language does not mean they do not communicate. Trees are badly misunderstood even if they communicate with chemical and electrical signals.
Wohlleben claims that trees are creatures as human beings. In one of 50 cases, Wohlleben’s team sees the special friendships between trees, as they can distinguish between one individual and another. This means that trees do not treat all other trees the same. For instance, Wohlleben saw two old beeches standing next to each other. Compared to the usual case, each one growing its branches turned away from the other rather than toward each other. This kind of partnership is well-known to foresters. They know that such tree pairs are really like a human couple. If they chop one down, they need to chop down both because the other will die anyway.
Trees were also found to keep each other alive in different ways. They pass food to nearby sick trees and send signals to warn others of dangerous insects. In one of his investigations, Wohlleben also discovered a beech tree cut about 400 to 500 years ago. The trunk is still alive and was found with green chlorophyll (叶绿素) under the thick bark. Since it has no leaves to create sugar, the only explanation is that neighbouring trees have supported this tree for more than centuries.
The trees that suffered through drought were found to consume less water in the spring so that they will have more water available in the summer months. This implies that a tree can learn and remember a drought its whole life, acting on that memory by being more cautious about its water consumption.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．To arouse readers’ interest. | B．To introduce a topic. |
| C．To present a new discovery. | D．To demonstrate a heated debate. |
| A．Trees communicate in the same way as humans. |
| B．Trees can’t tell friends and enemies apart. |
| C．Trees are loyal to their partners. |
| D．Trees can keep each other alive within limited periods. |
| A．Because they have more water available in summer |
| B．Because they have suffered through drought before. |
| C．Because they don’t need so much water in the spring. |
| D．Because they can depend on the support from other trees. |
| A．Mysteries of trees are unfolded | B．Trees are our silent companions |
| C．Trees can adapt to the environment | D．Trees can form special relationships |
【推荐2】The Greenwood fire took its name from the nearby lake where lightning struck on Aug.15, causing a wildfire that burned for weeks. Fueled by drought and wind, its persistence dominated headlines for much of late summer and early fall in Minnesota. When the last flames were finally put out, the northern Minnesota fire had consumed nearly 27,000 acres, countless firefighting resources, and at its worst, the lives that some had built around nearby McDougal Lake. Vast areas of forest were left burned-out, with the black and bare remains of what were once massive pines.
But, despite the destruction left behind, Mother Nature is set to a comeback. When organic matter is burned from the forest floor, seeds dropped by plants and trees begin to take hold, with the sprouting species emerging first. The trees above have died, which sends a chemical signal to the root system that is actually more expansive than just under that tree, and that chemical response encourages those root systems to re-grow. Ten years ago, a fire ripped through 93,000 acres of Minnesota forest in and around the BWCA. Today, that burnt area's rebirth is well underway.
"Here in the Pagami Creek wildfire scar, we have Jack Pine, Red Pine, Black Spruce, Aspen and paper birch-those are our main species, those are the ones that are growing quickly. It's 10 years on, and these trees are 10 to 15 feet tall in many areas," said Kyle Stover from the U.S. Forest Service.
A wildfire kills most things in its path, but despite the flames and intense temperatures, rarely is everything reduced to ashes -and that plays a key role in a forest's regeneration. Just one year after the fire, the survivors dominate the forest, and grasses replace the burnt ground. Wildflowers are abundant bushes and small trees have started to grow, and Jack Pine returned. So, it's an amazing ecological system of creating new forest life when it appears that all is lost, one that has evolved throughout the ages, where fire has always played a vital role.
1. What can we learn about the Greenwood fire?| A．It was a natural occurrence | B．It was caused by drought. |
| C．it gained half-year fame. | D．It took many people's lives. |
| A．Seeding growth is held up. | B．Burnt organic matter hardly functions. |
| C．Root systems spread further and wider | D．Chemicals in the soil are in greater demand. |
| A．They are flammable | B．They are fire-resistant |
| C．They are fire-adapted. | D．They are overgrown. |
| A．A fire. | B．A life | C．A time. | D．A system |
【推荐3】The Bridegroom’s Oak, a 500-year-old tree just outside of Eutin, in Germany, has its own postal address and receives around 40 letters every day. They’re sent by love seekers from around the world, in the hope that someone will read them and write back.
With so many dating apps(约会软件) and services available nowadays, sending letters to a tree hardly sounds like the best way to find love. However, there’s something charming about sending a letter and allowing fate(命运) to work its magic, so the Bridegroom’s Oak remains popular even now.
In 1890, a local girl named Minna fell in love with a young chocolate maker named Wilhelm, but her father didn’t allow her to see the boy. Instead of giving up on each other, the two started exchanging love letters secretly, by leaving them in a knothole(节孔) of an oak tree. After about one year, Minna’s father found out about their continued relationship, but instead of punishing them, he gave them permission to marry. The two lovers got married on June 2,1891, under the oak tree that helped keep their romance(罗曼史) alive.
The couple’s story spread around Eutin, and soon, people from all over the world who are unable to find love started writing romantic letters and leaving them in the tree’s knothole. However, love seekers visiting the Bridegroom’s Oak need respect only one simple rule. They can check all the letters in its knothole, and take with them the one they wish to reply to, but they have to put the others back for other people to find.
So far the Bridegroom’s Oak has been responsible for at least 100 marriages and many other romantic relationships.
1. What’s the Bridegroom’s Oak popular for?| A．Its long life. | B．Its rare species |
| C．Its good position. | D．Its special function. |
| A．The best way to find love a century ago. |
| B．What sufferings the two lovers experienced. |
| C．The love story behind the Bridegroom’s Oak. |
| D．How the two lovers kept their romance alive. |
| A．Reply to all the letters in its knothole. | B．Read each letter in its knothole. |
| C．Put their name at the top of each letter. | D．Take as many letters away as they like. |
| A．Writing to the Bridegroom’s Oak is helpful. |
| B．Germany needs dating and services. |
| C．Germans hold a firm belief in fate. |
| D．Foreigners have little idea of the Bridegroom’s Oak. |
