【推荐1】South Africa’s viniculture industry employs around 270,000 people, producing some of the world’s most sought-after wines. But not all jobs are best left to humans. In some cases, it’s better to get your ducks in a row, and then put them to work.

Outside Cape Town on the banks of the Eerste river, Vergenoegd Löw, the Wine Estate, has repurposed a centuries-old practice by gathering a group of ducks to keep its vineyards free of pests. “I call our ducks the soldiers of our vineyards,” says managing director Corius Visser. “They will eat aphids, they will eat snails, they will eat small worms—they keep (it) completely pest-free.”

The species, the Indian runner duck, is flightless, with a peculiarly upright stance and highly developed sense of smell. The duck troops are employed on a 14-day circuit through the vineyards, eating and fertilizing the ground as they go.

The ducks’ “annual leave” takes place during the harvest (they’d eat the grapes). During this time they search for food on open farm pasture, swim in a nearby lake and undergo selective breeding, says Visser.

Duck eggs are consumed in the vineyard restaurant, but never the ducks themselves—“that would be like eating a colleague,” Gavin Moyes, the estate’s tasting room manager, said in a 2020 interview.

Inspired by ducks used to remove pests from rice paddies in Asia, the winery calls on the services of some 1,600 ducks as part of its effort to make wine production more sustainable. “The world is moving away from more conventional farming to (being) a bit more organic,” Visser explains. “For Vergenoegd, it’s a big goal … to have less influence on the Earth, the soil and the environment.”

As a pioneering winemaker with industry influence—vines have been grown on the estate since the late 17th century—Vergenoegd Löw is hoping to convince others to adopt its approach. Visser says the vineyard plans to sell 750 ducks to other vineyards and replenish numbers by breeding the birds.

“I think the industry itself has the potential to engage more in experimental ways,” he adds. That requires money, and increasing the price point of South African wines could help fund Vergenoegd Löw and other vineyards’ green initiatives.

“If we can achieve that, we can then put back some of that (income) into our people, into our land, and become more sustainable,” Visser says.

1. What’s the function of the ducks in the vineyards?

A．To keep the vineyards free of pests.	B．To guard the vineyards from thieves.
C．To make the vineyards more attractive.	D．To provide eggs and meat for the vineyard restaurant.

2. According to the passage, the ducks in the vineyards ______.

A．help harvest the grapes	B．have a sharp sense of taste
C．fly around the vineyard freely	D．leave the vineyard at a certain time

3. Based on what Visser said, which of the following might happen?

A．More vineyards will have duck “soldiers”.

B．The price point of South African wines will fall.

C．The vineyards will depend more on conventional farming.

D．The winery will come up with more ways to experiment on ducks.

4. Which of the following words can best describe the vineyard’s approach of using ducks?

A．Efficient.

B．Advanced.

C．Challenging.

D．Green.

【推荐2】Yesterday, I was standing in line at a store and the song Please Come to Boston which was quite popular when I was in high school, came on in the background. I hadn’t heard it for years. Suddenly, I was overcome by flashbacks of people and places linked to that song from earlier stages of my life.

It seems people tend to be extremely nostalgic (怀旧的) about the music they listened to when they were young. Psychological research has shown that autobiographical memories (life experiences) from certain time periods are remembered better than others. One obvious phenomenon is the “reminiscence bump” (记忆隆起): the fact that people tend to recall memories from when they were 10 to 30 years old much better. That’s because this period contains many novel and self-defining life experiences such as graduation and marriage. Biological changes may also boost the effectiveness of our memories from this period.

In our experiment, we investigated the presence of the “musical reminiscence bump” in a group of 470 adults aged 18 to 82. Our aim was to examine how a person’s age when a song was popular affected three related but distinct concepts: the degree to which the song was associated with autobiographical memories, how familiar the song was and how much they liked the song. Participants were shown the titles and artists of 111 pop songs that had featured in the charts across a 65-year period (1950~2015). After a given time, they were asked to complete the measurement.

We discovered music during one’s adolescence was rated as more familiar. In addition, we found some songs were preferred regardless of a participant’s age. For instance, we saw a general increase in how much people liked songs from the late 1970s to early 1980s, even in participants who weren’t yet born during that time period. Examples of songs we used from this time period include Hotel California by the Eagles.

Music can undeniably cause nostalgia. For example, advertisers want to elicit (引出) a nostalgic reaction from a certain group of consumers. And they should notice doctors who aim to reconnect patients suffering from memory loss with self-defining memories from their pasts can also take advantage of nostalgia.

1. What does the author want to imply through his own experience at a store?

A．His taste for music in high school.

B．His way of killing the boring queuing time.

C．The link between sales and background music.

D．Music’s ability to waken memories from the past.

2. What can be concluded about the reminiscence bump?

A．It helps improve our childhood memories)

B．It still remains a mystery to modern science.

C．Events occurring during it are more memorable.

D．It explains why some have a better memory than others.

3. What were participants required to do in the study?

A．Make a list of their favorite songs and artists.

B．Provide ratings of three music-related questions.

C．Learn to sing some songs released in the past 65 years.

D．Compare the features of pop songs from different periods.

4. What did the researchers find in their experiment?

A．The Eagles were a representative band in the late 20th century.

B．Pop music stars’ adolescence had a great impact on their works.

C．The late 1970s and early 1980s were the peak of music creation.

D．Pop music from certain time periods was favored by different generations.

5. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．Musical nostalgia has practical applications in life.

B．All doctors are responsible for treating nostalgia.

C．Too much nostalgia may lead to memory loss to a degree.

D．Advertisers are good at analyzing consumers’ musical tastes.

【推荐1】Plants do not suffer in silence when thirsty or stressed, according to a new study published today in Cell.

Plants that need water or have recently had their branches cut produce up to roughly 35 sounds per hour, the authors found. But well-watered and uncut plants are much quieter, making only about one sound per hour.

The reason why you have probably never heard a thirsty plant make noises is that the sounds are so high-pitched that very few humans could hear them. Some animals, however, probably can. Bats, mice and moths could possibly live in a world filled with the sounds of plants, and previous work by the same team has found that plants respond to sounds made by animals, too.

To overhear plants, Lilach Hadany at Tel-Aviv University in Israel   and her colleagues placed tobacco and tomato plants in small boxes provided with microphones. The microphones picked up any noises made by the plants, even if the researchers couldn’t hear them. The noises were particularly obvious for plants that were stressed by a lack of water or recent cutting.

Plants do not have vocal cords (声带) or lungs. Hadany says the current theory for how plants make noises centers on their xylem (木质部) that transport water and nutrients from their roots to their branches and leaves. Water in the xylem is held together by surface tension, just like water moving through a drinking straw. If an air bubble (气泡) forms or breaks in the xylem, it might make a little popping noise; bubble formation is more likely during dry seasons. But the exact system requires further study, Hadany says.

The team produced a machine-learning model to check whether a plant had been cut or was water-stressed from the sounds it made, with about 70% accuracy. This result suggests a possible role for the audio monitoring of plants in farming and gardening.

To test the practicality of this approach, the team tried recording plants in a greenhouse. Pilot studies by the authors suggest that tomato and tobacco plants are not exception. Wheat, corn and wine grapes also make noises when they are thirsty.

1. What is the new research mainly about?

A．Plants can react to animals.	B．Plants can produce sounds.
C．Well-watered plants keep silent.	D．Branchless plants need watering.

2. What can happen to plants short of water according to Hadany?

A．They can create more bubbles.	B．They can feel less stressed.
C．They require less nutrient supply.	D．The y need lungs to breathe more.

3. What might the model be applied to?

A．Fruit growing.	B．Crop selection.
C．Water source protection.	D．Noise pollution test.

4. What might be a suitable title for the text?

A．How Plants Are Thirsty	B．When Nature Expresses Itself
C．How Plants Cry for Their Needs	D．When Creatures Hear Each Other

【推荐2】Bamboo, the fast-growing grass plant common to Africa, Asia and Latin America, has been used for thousands of years to build houses, bridges, and scaffolding(脚手架).    1    .Yet, despite its excellent mechanical characteristics--bamboo is flexible, durable and has the strength of steel-this plant remains something of a forgotten solution in the construction world. Part of the problem is bamboo’s association with cheap, low-quality housing: a “poor man’s timber(木材)”.

    2     . Founded in 2015, Bamboo U offers training courses that promote bamboo as a green construction material. The 11-day “build and design” course takes participants on a hands-on journey through the life cycle of bamboo: from harvesting and treatment, to design and construction. Participants then get to bring their own designs to life, or help create bamboo structures, with the help of a team of architects and designers. Bamboo construction may not be new.     3    

In recent years, concerns about the unsustainability of building materials have caused a fresh look at “natural”construction. Research by the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization, INBAR, shows that bamboo can provide a low-carbon, renewable alternative to timber, steel and cement.     4    . As INBAR’s construction expert, Liu Kewei, puts it: “Bamboo is the sustainable timber of the future.”

Since 2015, Bamboo U has welcomed more than 400 people through its doors.    5    . According to Orin Hardy, the founder of Bamboo U: “We don’t believe that everyone needs to build structures like ours.” Bamboo U is “more about an understanding of the place you’re in. We want to remind people that nature can, and should, be in the built environment.”

A．Nonetheless, not everyone can build their house with bamboo.

B．It’s important to develop an appreciation for the craft.

C．Bamboo can also be used to create something new.

D．One organization is fighting to change this understanding.

E．The plant stores more carbon than certain species of trees.

F．However, Bamboo U is giving a much-needed push to this old craft.

G．Architects have called it “green steel”.