Researchers say they have translated the meaning of gestures (手势) that wild chimpanzees (黑猩猩) use to communicate. They say wild chimps communicate 19 specific messages to one another with a “vocabulary” of 66 gestures. The scientists discovered this by following and filming groups of chimps in Uganda, and examining more than 5,000 incidents of these meaningful exchanges.
Dr. Catherine Hobaiter, who led the research, said that this was the only form of intentional communication to be recorded in the animal kingdom. Only humans and chimps, she said, had a system of communication where they purposely sent a message to another group member.
“That’s what’s so amazing about chimp gestures,” she said. “They’re the only thing that looks like human language in that respect.”
Although previous research has shown that apes and monkeys can understand complex information from another animal’s call, the animals do not appear to use their voices intentionally to communicate messages. This was a significant difference between calls and gestures, Dr. Hobaiter said.
Chimps will check to see if they have the attention of the animal with which they wish to communicate. In one case, a mother presents her foot to her crying baby, signaling “Climb on me.” The youngster immediately jumps on to its mothers back and they travel off together. “The big message from this study is that there is another species (物种) out there that is meaningful in its communication, so that’s not unique to humans,” said Dr Hobaiter.
Dr. Susanne Shultz, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Manchester, said the study was helpful in seeking to enrich our knowledge of the evolution of human language. But, she added, the results were “a little disappointing”.
“The vagueness (模糊) of the gesture meanings suggests either that the chimps have little to communicate, or we are still missing a lot of the information included in their gestures and actions,” she said. “Moreover, the meanings seem to not go beyond what other animal convey with non-verbal communication. So, it seems the gulf remains.”
1. What do chimps and humans have in common according to Dr. Hobaiter?| A．Memorizing specific words. | B．Communicating messages on purpose. |
| C．Using voices to communicate. | D．Understanding complex information. |
| A．It was well designed but poorly conducted. |
| B．It was a failure but the methods were admirable. |
| C．It was inspiring but the evidence was unreliable. |
| D．It was a good try but the findings were limited. |
| A．Balance. | B．Difference. | C．Conflict. | D．Connection. |
| A．Chimpanzee behaviour study achieved a breakthrough |
| B．Chimpanzees developed specific communication skills |
| C．Chimpanzees the smartest species in the animal kingdom |
| D．Chimpanzee language communication gestures translated |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】In nature, octopuses (章鱼) hunt mainly with their sense of touch, using their eight arms to feel out their environment for hidden creatures. Researchers at the University of Minnesota recently studied a different way octopuses hunt—when they identify prey (猎物) based on sight. The study findings show that the marine creatures are quite consistent and methodical in how they approach prey.
Lead researcher Trevor Wardill and his team placed California two-spot octopuses into water tanks, hiding them in caves where they would have one eye looking out. They then placed either fiddler crabs or white shrimp in the tanks to see how the octopuses would try to catch them, capturing the interactions on video. The crabs and shrimp behave differently when trying to escape from predators (捕猎者), so using both species gave the researchers an opportunity to see whether this led the octopuses to use a different arm for hunting depending on the prey.
Wardill’s team found that the octopuses almost always used the same arm to grab their prey. Specifically, the second arm from the middle of the octopuses’ body, on the same side of their body as the eye, caught the prey. If they needed more arms to grab prey, they would use the ones next to the second arm.
The octopuses also attacked differently depending on the prey. When faced with crabs, an octopus would move suddenly on top of the crab with its whole body. However, when catching shrimp, the octopuses would take one arm and reach out very slowly toward the shrimp, then grab it and latch (缠住) onto it with its other arms to pull it in.
Wardill and his team hope to do more research. They want to study the octopus’s brain as it attacks pre y to develop a better understanding of what role the creature’s nervous system plays in selecting the arms it uses.
1. What is the recent study mainly about?| A．Octopuses’ ability to hide itself. | B．Octopuses’ way to track prey. |
| C．Octopuses’ hunting mode via eyes. | D．Octopuses’ method of perceiving the environment. |
| A．They adopt different strategies to hunt. | B．They stretch arms slowly to catch crabs. |
| C．They move suddenly to prey on shrimps. | D．They use the second arm to catch prey anytime. |
| A．Whether they’re nervous in hunting. | B．How their nerves work during hunting. |
| C．How they choose their arms in hunting. | D．Whether they use their brain during hunting. |
| A．Octopuses: Skillful Hunters | B．Octopuses: One-armed Predators |
| C．Octopuses: A Sharp-eyed Species | D．Octopuses: A Mysterious Creature |
【推荐2】My cat, Momo, will meow (喵喵叫) when she is hungry and when she is full, or sometimes for what appears to be no real reason at all.
The moment I downloaded MeowTalk Cat Translator, a mobile app that could change Momo’s meows into plain English, she shut up right away. For two days I failed to appeal a sound. On Day 3, out of hopelessness, I decided to pick her up while she was eating. Momo screamed. The app gave a translation: “I’m happy!”I was doubtful. But MeowTalk provided a more reasonable translation about a week later, when I returned from a four-day trip. Upon seeing me, Momo meowed. “Nice to see you,” the app translated. Then: “Let me rest.”
MeowTalk is the product of a growing interest in joining additional intelligence to explain animal communication. Machine-learning systems, which are able to extract patterns from large data sets, can tell the difference between the sounds that cats make when they are happy and those that they give off when they are in pain. “We’re trying to understand what cats are saying and give them a voice,” said Javier Sanchez, a founder of MeowTalk. “We want to use this to help people build better and stronger relationships with their cats.”
MeowTalk uses algorithms (演算法) to identify cat sounds made in a variety of contexts. The app analyzes cat sounds in real-time, to know the intention of cats. It then displays a conversational, plain English “translation” of whatever intention it discovers, such as Momo’s annoyed “Let me rest”. MeowTalk uses the sounds it collects to improve its algorithms and its performance.
The world can be a lonely place, especially so in the last few years. Finding new ways to connect with other creatures can be a much needed comfort. Personally, I would pay at least two figures for an app that could help me know whether my dog truly needs to go outside or just wants to see if the neighbor has put bread out for birds.
1. What does the author want to prove by telling her story of Momo?| A．Technology is helping Momo to shut up. |
| B．MeowTalk doesn’t always work correctly. |
| C．The translation app for pets is fashionable. |
| D．It is really hard to meet the needs of Momo. |
| A．Collect the data of animals’ voice. |
| B．Make animals communicate with each other. |
| C．Help people have a close relationship with pets. |
| D．Inspire people’s interest in machine-learning. |
| A．How the app works actually. |
| B．How pet owners react to the app. |
| C．How pets express their intentions. |
| D．How the app knows the need of pets. |
| A．Negative. | B．Favorable. | C．Indifferent. | D．Doubtful. |
【推荐3】Remember the “hot duck” in the Central Park of New York? In 2018, a mandarin duck(鸳鸯)appeared in the park. This was extraordinary because the duck with colorful feathers is native to East Asia. The duck drew lots of birdwatchers to the park, and it even inspired at least one website to track it. However, their efforts were fruitless. Watching of the bird ended around March 2019, but the problem still existed: We had no good ways to predict where a bird would go next.
That is, until now. Using data from eBird, a large site, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Cornell University developed a tool that opens up new ways for research and promises to be useful for birdwatchers.
Called BirdFlow, the tool is an alternative to traditional bird-tracking methods that are very time-consuming and expensive. Usually, recording a bird’s movement requires researchers to catch the bird and attach a sensor(传感器)around its leg.
In contrast, by analyzing the data of the more than 200 million individually reported bird sightings that are collected by eBird, BirdFlow produces simulated(模拟的)routes for a bird, forecasting where it will go based on where it has been.
When the researchers tested BirdFlow’s predictions for 11 species of North American birds, they found that it performed better than other models without relying on GPS tracking data.
To Dan Sheldon, a computer science researcher of Massachusetts Amherst who led the study, the ability to predict a bird’s movement without tracking devices will open up doors for new research and be a major advance for scientists. For instance, scientists might one day use BirdFlow to track bird flu to predict regions where chicken farmers should be concerned for the chickens.
1. Why does the author mention the duck in paragraph 1?| A．To show the popularity of the duck. | B．To introduce the extraordinary duck. |
| C．To present the difficulty of birdwatching. | D．To stress the importance of tracking ducks. |
| A．It totally depends on GPS tracking data. |
| B．It is very time-consuming and expensive. |
| C．It gets data from the sensor on the bird’s leg. |
| D．It draws routes based on the data from eBird. |
| A．Positive | B．Objective. |
| C．Unclear. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．The future of BirdFlow. | B．The way of collecting data. |
| C．A research about birds. | D．A new tool for birdwatching. |
【推荐1】Everyone is afraid of something. Maybe you're afraid of spiders, or heights, or dogs, or the dark. And traditionally, we’ve thought that's because you learned to be afraid. Probably because you had a bad experience with something at some point. But there's a different idea out there that's been getting more attention lately: the idea that fears aren’t just learned …they also can be inherited (遗传）.
It sounds like a wild idea.How do you inherit something as abstract as fear? But over the last fifty years, researehers have been studying just how much fears have to do with inheritance and genetics. And their results have been kind of surprising.
In this work，they’ve put a lot of effort into understanding one extreme kind of fear，called a phobia. To get a sense of how much genes influence fear，scientists have begun looking at identical twins. Since identical twins have almost the same DNA，researehers can figure out how heritable（遗传的）a fear is by comparing how often specific phobias appear in identical twins as opposed to other brothers or sisters. Because even though twins often have lots of similar experiences, they probably don't share the types of experiences that cause phobias — like getting bitten by a dog or falling out of a tree.
One 1998 study of 659 pairs of identical and fraternal twins（异卵双胞胎）in Australia looked at how many had a fear of blood. The study found that genetics accounted for 71 percent of the variation among those people, meaning genetic factors play a pretty big role in determining whether a person has some specific fear.
A 2016 study also found that fear of dental work was over 30 percent heritable. So, if you are afraid of going to the dentist, it really might not be your dentist's fault. Overall, first-degree relatives of people with phobias are more likely to have similar phobias than people with no family history.
So, it's pretty clear that phobias are heritable!
1. What does the author mean by saying the underlined sentence in Para. 2?| A．It's surprising that people know so little about inheritance and genetics. |
| B．It's unbelievable that people can inherit something so abstract like fear. |
| C．It's natural that people become afraid of things that they had bad experience with. |
| D．It's interesting that people are afraid of so many things such as spiders and the dark. |
| A．They looks very much alike. | B．They have similar personalities. |
| C．They share basically the same DNA. | D．They have shared experiences. |
| A．Dentists are scary to many kids. |
| B．Most people have some kind of fear. |
| C．Fear of blood is the most common phobia. |
| D．Fear of things can be a result of genetic inheritance. |
| A．People tend to learn to be afraid. |
| B．Fear has much to do with a bad experience with something. |
| C．Phobias have something to do with inheritance and genetics. |
| D．Twins are more likely to feel afraid of something than others. |
【推荐2】Believe it or not, the size of the human brain has become smaller over the past 20,000 years. Scientists argue over whether this means we are becoming more or less intelligent as a species.
“I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eye blink (眨眼),” John Hawks told Discover magazine.
Why is the brain becoming smaller?
There are different theories to explain it. One is that tens of thousands of years ago, to survive in cold and dangerous conditions, humans needed a stronger and larger body and therefore, a larger head. Also they had to chew the tough meat of rabbits, foxes and horses. As conditions improved, the brain stopped growing, according to supporters of this theory.
Another theory comes from a recent study by David Geary and Drew Bailey. They found that brain size decreased as population density (密度) increased.
“As complex societies appeared, the brain became smaller because people did not have to be that smart to stay alive,” Geary told AFP(法新社).
But smaller brain size does not necessarily mean that modern humans are less smart than their ancestors. “Modern humans simply developed different, more complex forms of intelligence,” said Brian Hare.
Hare’s studies focus on two types of great apes: chimpanzees and bonobos. Both are much like humans, but are physically quite different from one another. The bonobo has a smaller brain than the chimpanzee, and is also much less aggressive and more tolerant.
“When it comes to working out a problem,” Hare said, “chimpanzees are much less likely to accomplish it if it involves working together. Not so with bonobos.”
“The smaller brain in modern humans may be evidence that we can cooperate,” Hare told the US National Public Radio.
1. Which of the following words can be used to replace the underlined word in Paragraph 2?| A．Speed. | B．Increase. | C．Decline. | D．Change. |
| A．the size of human brain has something to do with many factors |
| B．the brain size increases because of the increase of population density |
| C．the abilities of bonobos and chimpanzees are almost the same |
| D．modern humans can certainly do teamwork better than other species |
| A．bonobos are much likely to cooperate better than chimpanzees |
| B．chimpanzees tend to work well with others |
| C．modern humans are less smart than their ancestors |
| D．small brains are certainly connected with intelligent beings |
| A．Bonobos or Chimpanzees—Which Is Smarter? |
| B．Smaller Brain—Less Intelligent? |
| C．Human Beings or Animals—Who Is More Intelligent? |
| D．Human Brains? |
【推荐3】The point of an apology-to express regret and repair relationships-is lost because children may dislike the apologizer even more after the insincere apology than before.
A new study looks at whether children can tell apart willingly given and forced expressions of regret-and they do. The findings suggest that exploring ways to help your child learn to have empathy (同情) for the victim (受害者), thus making sure of a sincere apology, is more helpful than immediately forcing him to say “I’m sorry”。
Smith and co-workers looked at how children aged 4-9 viewed three types of apologies among kids of the same age: unprompted (自发的) apologies, prompted but willingly given apologies, and forced apologies. They found that kids viewed willing apologies the same, whether prompted or unprompted by adults. But the forced apologies weren’t seen as effective, especially by the 7-to 9-year-olds, Smith says.
All children thought the wrongdoers felt worse after the apology than before, but the 7-to 9-year-old children thought the forced apologizers’ bad feelings were rooted in self-interest (concern about punishment, for example),rather than regret. Children of all ages also thought the victims felt better after receiving a wiling apology, but they saw the receivers of the forced apology as feeling worse than the receivers of the willing apologies.
How can parents help their young children respond with empathy after they’ve upset another person, and deliver a willing apology? “When your child is calm, help him/her see how the other person is feeling, and why,” Smith says. “An apology is one way to do it, but there are lots of other ways. Research shows that even preschoolers value it when a wrongdoer makes amends (补偿) with action. Sometimes this is more powerful than words.”
1. What is the study mainly about?| A．What kids usually do to show their regret. |
| B．What is the best way for kids to apologize. |
| C．How kids in different age groups apologize. |
| D．What kids think of different types of apologies. |
| A．It makes both sides feel worse. |
| B．It calms down the victims quickly |
| C．It always brings punishment to wrongdoers. |
| D．It gets wrongdoers into the habit of telling lies. |
| A．To conclude the text. |
| B．To provide more details. |
| C．To offer advice. |
| D．To give evidence. |
| A．Kids are too shy to apologize. |
| B．Forcing kids to apologize doesn’t benefit anybody |
| C．Sincere apologies win kids good relationships |
| D．Kids need help to make a sincere apology |
【推荐1】Owning a dog is associated with a significantly lower risk of heart disease and death, according to a comprehensive new study published by a team of Swedish researchers on Friday in the journal Scientific Reports.
The scientists followed 3.4 million people over the course of 12 years and found that adults who lived alone and owned a dog were 33 percent less likely to die during the study than adults who lived alone without dogs. In addition, the single adults with dogs were 36 percent less likely to die from heart disease.
“Dog ownership was especially prominent as a protective factor in persons living alone, which is a group reported previously to be at higher risk of heart disease and death than those living in a multi-person household,” Mwenya Mubanga, a Ph.D. student at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden, and the lead junior author of the study, said in a statement announcing its findings. The link between dog ownership and lower mortality(死亡率)was less pronounced in adults who lived either with family members or partners, but still present, according to the study. “Perhaps a dog may stand in as an important family member in the single households,” Mubanga added. “Another interesting finding was that owners of dogs which were intended originally for hunting were most protected.”
The study, which is the largest to date on the health relations of owning a dog, suggested that some of the reasons dog owners may have a lower risk of mortality and heart disease were because dog owners walk more. “These kind of epidemiological (流行病学的)studies look for associations in large populations but do not provide answers on whether and how dogs could protect their owners from heart disease,” Tove Fall, a senior author of the study and a professor at Uppsala University, said in a statement
“We know that dog owners in general have a higher level of physical activity, which could be one explanation to the observed results,” Fall added. “Other explanations include an increased well-being and social contacts or effects of the dog on the bacterial microbiome(微生物菌群) in the owner.” Fall added that because all participants of dog owners in Sweden or other “European populations with similar culture regarding dog ownership.”
1. Why did the researchers do the study related to 3.4 million people’s health and the dogs?| A．To help Europeans, |
| B．To find their association. |
| C．To protect unhealthy adults. |
| D．To reduce risk of heart disease. |
| A．Universal. | B．Confusing. |
| C．Appealing. | D．Important |
| A．Adults living with dogs are less likely to die. |
| B．Swedish people are very fond of animal pets. |
| C．Keeping a dog is a popular and healthy hobby. |
| D．Owning dogs reduces the risk of heart disease. |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. |
| C．Objective. | D．Contradictory. |
【推荐2】If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice: there are four skills in learning English. They are reading ,listening, speaking and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills you should first master the skills of reading and listening.
Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentences, the meaning of the unfamiliar words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammar or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example in other passage or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.
As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening.
For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.
If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve automatically, and you can be sure that with a little effort they will become perfect.
1. According to the author, which should you improve first among the four skills?| A．Reading and listening. |
| B．Reading and writing. |
| C．Writing and speaking. |
| D．Speaking and listening. |
| A．look up all the new words in the dictionary |
| B．think about what you are reading actively |
| C．spend more time studying grammar |
| D．copy as many words and sentences as possible |
| A．everyone should listen to VOA or BBC programs every day |
| B．You needn’t practice listening if you keep on reading every day |
| C．being good at reading is helpful in improving your listening |
| D．you should take notes of whatever you are hearing |
| A．choose suitable listening materials |
| B．deal with new words in reading |
| C．improve your English as quickly as possible |
| D．become fluent in speaking and writing English |
【推荐3】When watching sports events, we often notice athletes with their earphones on while preparing in the locker room or entering the stadium. They keep their eyes shut, and gently nod along the beats. It seems as if the music is empowering them and toughening them up for the competition. But is there any science behind such practice?
According to a recent research, it turns out there is. Music actually does make us feel powerful, but not all songs have the same effect. The research was led by Dennis Hsu of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in the US. His team had people listen to 31 songs of different types. The listeners felt powerful after listening to some songs, such as Queen’s We Will Rock You and 2 Unlimited’s Get Ready for This. Researchers also found that high-power music made people want to take control in social events and come first in competition. As for the reason for music’s magical power, Hsu’s team came up with one possible explanation: When people hear music that expresses a sense of power, they mimic these feelings in their mind.
So, when choosing music, we need to look at the type of music. In previous research by the Music in Exercise and Sport Group at Brunel University in London, they found that pop was perfect for slower, more repetitive-type tasks. Dance music was found to be best suited to strength and weight training because it’s “fast and rhythmical”. During high-intensity workouts, though, you’d better not listen to rock. Its different changes in tempo can affect your rhythm.
1. Why athletes were mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To list things athletes have in common with other people. |
| B．To describe athletes’ common habits before sports games. |
| C．To get readers to wonder whether music matters in sports. |
| D．To explain why athletes like listening to music before games. |
| A．Listening to music can always boost the athlete’s performance. |
| B．People listening to powerful music are likely to produce similar feelings. |
| C．The result of a game is mainly affected by the physical condition of the players. |
| D．Most athletes don’t know the effects of high-power music on their performance. |
| A．Pop music. | B．Dance music. | C．Rock. | D．Blues. |
| A．With comparisons. | B．Through examples. |
| C．By giving general rules. | D．Through listing figures. |
