Whales are important animals in the sea. The organizations of the world are calling all nations not to kill or eat whales any more. But Japan’s new whaling(捕鲸) plan is a great danger to the living of these large animals. It will also do harm to the sea interests (利益) of other surrounding countries including China, experts said.
After the Japanese government made its decision clear on Nov. 8, 2016 to catch 100 more whales in 2017, many animal experts in the world voiced their angry answers. According to a Japan News report, Japan caught 174 minke whales and 140 sei whales totally in the northwest Pacific Ocean in 2017.
“After years of overfishing(过度捕捞),the population of minke whales in the northwest Pacific Ocean has been reduced to a dangerous level. Therefore, Japan should stop whaling in the area,” said Wang Yaming, a leader of the International Whaling Organization. According to Wang, most whales living in the northwest Pacific Ocean are migratory(迁徙的)animals,and their traveling way is very close to the land of Russia, South Korea, North Korea, Japan and China. Japan’s whaling will also have a terrible influence on those countries.
Although the world has stopped to catch and kill whales, Japan lies to others that its killing of whales is just for scientific purposes. However, many experts don’t agree with it completely. “Japan should not kill more whales, as doing so would harm the international whale resources(资源). Japan’s whaling in the northwest Pacific Ocean hasn’t drawn much more attention because it hardly influences the interests of western countries.“ Wang explained.
It is really high time for Japan to stop its whaling from now on.
1. What is the attitude of animal experts to the Japan’s whaling plan?A.Surprised. | B.Interested. | C.Happy. | D.Angry. |
A.About 240. | B.About 274. |
C.About 314. | D.About 414. |
A.Whales travel far from the land of Japan when they are migrating. |
B.Near the land of China, people could not find any whales at all. |
C.Overfishing made certain whales in the northwest Pacific Ocean fewer. |
D.Japan’s whaling has nothing to do with the neighboring countries. |
A.Scientific study. | B.Food supply. |
C.Zoo interests | D.Sea balance. |
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【推荐1】Safe Haven for Donkeys (驴) is providing sanctuary for rescued working donkeys in the El Saf region of Egypt.
First established in 2000 to help thousands of working donkeys in Israel, the charity Safe Haven for Donkeys has begun working with an Egyptian partner organization, the Bridge Foundation, to provide care to the donkeys in the El Saf region of Egypt.
Thousands of donkeys work in the brick kilns (窑) in Egypt, carrying 1.4 to 1.6 tonnes of bricks and moving at an intense pace to prevent unfired bricks from cracking in the heat. Due to lacking expert veterinary (兽医的) care, many of these animals are suffering intense pain from harness wounds, beatings, hoof issues and parasitic diseases spread by flies.
Now the cooperation between UK charity Safe Haven for Donkeys and Egyptian community development charity the Bridge Foundation is providing much-needed relief to these animals. The project includes a mobile veterinary clinic which treats common injuries and infections and trains the owners in how to best look after their donkeys.
In a press release, Andy Foxcroft, CEO of Safe Haven for Donkeys, said, “Through our work in Israel, we came to know of millions of working animals in Egypt without critical veterinary care. They were suffering a host of preventable and treatable painful conditions. Currently. no other animal welfare charity provides veterinary interventions in these particular kilns. So the skills of this charity are needed to treat sick and injured animals and provide training for owners and local professionals (vets and farriers). The first year is vital as we hope to make a lasting impact by reducing the unnecessary suffering of working animals. which sadly, is all too common a feature in the brick kilns.”
Safe Haven for Donkeys’ work, which helps about 10,000 animals a year, is made possible by charitable donations that fund the treatment and training they offer. You can make a donation on its website.
1. What does the underlined word “sanctuary” in paragraph 1 mean?A.Training. | B.Shelter. | C.Information. | D.Food. |
A.The donkeys’ tough situations. | B.The donkeys’ competitive life. |
C.The popularity of the donkeys. | D.The contributions of the donkeys. |
A.The charity has made a lasting impact on Egypt. |
B.The owners of the brick kilns need more support |
C.The charity’s involvement in the affair is essential. |
D.The workers in the brick kilns lack enough training. |
A.To raise more funds. | B.To set up more charities. |
C.To focus on donkeys’ work. | D.To explain animals’ treatment. |
A report on some endangered wildlife in China
There has been some progress in saving endangered wildlife in China.
Animal | |||
Problem | not enough food: loss of bamboo growing areas | disappeared from China | too much hunting in the 1950s |
One habitat in China | Wolong Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province | Nanhaizi Milu Park, Beijing | Baishanzu National Natural Protection Zone, Zhejiang Province |
Number before concern | nearly all disappeared | none | very few |
Number after concern | about 1,600 after more than 50 reserves set up to protect bamboo areas | more than 2,500 after being brought back from UK | about 30-40 remain after being left in peace with no hunting |
2. Some endangered wildlife in China are in danger of disappearing. What do you think is the main reason?
3. What would our life be like without some endangered wildlife?
【推荐3】When Ariel Cordova-Rojas rode her bike to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, New York, last November, she planned to go hiking and bird-watching. A mile into her walk, she found a female mute swan (疣鼻天鹅) near the water’s edge. Cordova-Rojas, 30, who had worked at the Wild Bird Fund rehabilitation centre in Manhattan, knew that mute swans can be angry and ready to attack. But as she approached this one, it didn’t move.
She was certain that the bird needed medical attention. Cordova-Rojas put her jacket over the bird’s head to keep it calm, carefully picked it up, and held it in her arms. And then a thought struck her: What do I do now?
Her best hope was the rehab (康复) centre, but that was across the East River and clear on the other side of town. How was she going to transport a 17-pound swan on her bike all that way? Luckily, some strangers driving by offered her, her bike, and the swan a lift to a nearby subway station.
On the subway, no one seemed particularly frightened by the feathered passenger. One guy, says Cordova-Rojas, was “sitting right in front of me on his phone. I don’t know if he noticed there was a swan in front of him.”
Cordova-Rojas called the rehab centre on the road, and Tristan Higgin-botham, an animal-care manager, picked her up at the subway station and drove the bird, the bike, and the rescuer to the centre. There, staff members determined that the swan might have lead poisoning (中毒), caused by taking weights used on fishing lines.
The staff got the swan back up on her feet. Sadly, even with all that care, the swan got a serious infection (感染). Two months after Cordova-Rojas came to her rescue, she passed away.
It’s a disappointing ending, but the real story is just how far some people are willing to go to save a swan in the big city-literally. In all, Cordova-Rojas travelled two hours by foot, car, and subway while honking (按喇叭) her bike. Says Higgin-botham, “That’s the perfect summary of who she is,”
1. Why did Cordova-Rojas put her jacket over the bird’s head?
A.To catch the swan. | B.To calm the swan down. |
C.To keep the swan warm. | D.To block the swan’s sight. |
A.She rode her bike. | B.She got there on foot. |
C.She took a bus. | D.She was offered a lift. |
A.She had lead poisoning. | B.She was injured on her feet. |
C.She was trapped by a fishing net. | D.She nearly died from hunger. |
A.How to Protect Birds | B.Strangers Kind Action |
C.Honk If You Love Birds | D.The Last Song of the Swan |
【推荐1】All over the globe and in some of the world's most prestigious art galleries and museums there is always one form of artwork that you'll find gracing the walls-watercolors.
Creating artwork using watercolors is one of the most popular ways of capturing beautiful scenery, painting life-like portraits and studying still-life objects. However, an unfortunate side effect of using watercolors is that they begin to fade over time, and as the years go by there is a risk of these masterpieces being lost to us forever. But just how do we prevent these wonderful paintings from disappearing? Well, thanks to the advances of modern technology, we now have the ability to scan watercolors, capturing every detail of them in the process and then saving them in a digital form.
Not only does this help to preserve the artwork in a very modern way, but when these digital captures are uploaded to a website, it offers the public more chances to appreciate them. One such website is Water colour World, which is one of the many organizations supported by Javad Marandi, one of the Joint Chairs of the Marendi Foundation which helps to provide opportunities in education, and supports some of the most vulnerable communities in the United Kingdom, as well as art and cultural initiatives. Scanning watercolors is certainly a lot more advanced than the usual scanning you might be more familiar with. Keeping the liveliness of the painting, the depths of the colors requires the correct equipment, software and a great eye for detail.
If you're an artist and you'd like to digitize (数字化) your watercolors through scanning, or if you're generally interested in how it's achieved, we've broken down the process below to give you a better idea of how art is transformed from paint to pixels (像素)!
1. What is the disadvantage of watercolor paintings?A.They are easy to be stolen. | B.They can't last a long term. |
C.They make people unfortunate. | D.They are only about natural scenery. |
A.By capturing every detail. | B.By educating community citizens. |
C.By moving them to a website. | D.By supporting more organizations. |
A.It is quite demanding. |
B.It helps to preserve the artwork. |
C.It is simpler than usual scanning. |
D.It is invented by Watercolor World. |
A.How watercolors are digitized. |
B.Why paints need to be transformed. |
C.How the idea of scanning came into being. |
D.What watercolors will become through scanning. |
【推荐2】Fingerprints have been used to identify individuals for centuries. But now scientists may have finally figured out how those patterns are formed, according to a paper published in the journal Cell in February.
Previous studies have shown that fingerprints can be influenced by the shape and size of the blood vessels in the skin and how fast the different layers of skin grow. Denis Headon at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and his colleagues started their study from a new viewpoint: how genes affect fingerprint patterns. They identified the genes related to limb (肢体) development, which could serve as the groundwork for print formation, according to their work published in 2022.
However, many genes are not involved in the process. “The key is how they form,” Headon told Nature, a science journal. The team studied the ridges (脊) on mouse toes and human cells grown artificially.
They found two kinds of elements work against each other. A protein called WNT, which is important in skin development, promotes ridge formation. Another molecule (分子), called BMP, impedes the ridges. With the two elements “fighting” each other, they create the patterns of waves. The team also changed the timing and the location of the origins of the waves in experiments. They discovered that the waves would collide in different ways, which helps to create the diversity of print patterns.
Interestingly, the analysis of the fingerprint patterns supported the Turing reaction-diffusion system. It was first proposed by UK scientist Alan Turing in 1952 to describe a self-organizing system that creates patterns in nature, such as the feather patterns in birds and stripes on zebra. The researchers also built a computer model that can recreate print patterns by following the Turing system.
Based on the new study, it may be possible that the structures of human skin might be all generated by the same mechanism, Sarah Millar, a US biologist, told the website Science News. However, more studies on how the skin matures are needed to solve the mystery.
1. What did Denis Headon and his colleagues focus on in their study?A.The relation between skin growth and fingerprint formation. |
B.The influence of blood vessels on fingerprint patterns. |
C.The impact of genes on fingerprint patterns. |
D.The analysis of mouse toes’ ridges. |
A.They experimented with mouse toes and artificial human cells. |
B.They compared mouse toes with human hands. |
C.They did research on human hand anatomy. |
D.They planted human cells in mouse toes. |
A.Supports. | B.Stops. | C.Generates. | D.Influences. |
A.It uncovers how the skin is generated. | B.It promotes Alan Turing’s theory. |
C.It may further research on skin maturation. | D.It shows the mechanism of skin formation. |
【推荐3】It would be easy to believe that Mother’s Day was created by a greeting card company. After all, the day is celebrated with special sales and brunches, lots of presents and massive advertising campaigns. But the day was actually conceived more than a century ago by Anna Jarvis of West Virginia as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children.
Jarvis’s mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, helped start “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs,” teaching women how to care for their children. During the Civil War, she organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” where mothers of Union and Confederate soldiers met to try to promote harmony. The younger Jarvis Was inspired by all the things her mother had accomplished with her social work.
When Jarvis was young, she overheard her mother praying, “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will find a memorial mother’s day honoring her for the matchless service she offers to humanity in every field of life.” When her mom died in 1905, Jarvis looked through all the sympathy cards she received. She underlined all the kind words that praised her mother, reading them over and over. The outpouring of kindness for her mother inspired her to create a day to honor all mothers.
The white carnation was her mother’s favorite flower, so it became the symbol for the day. She said it symbolized the truth, purity and charity of a mother’s love. Her idea of celebrating Mother’s Day was wearing a carnation while visiting your mother or maybe going to church together. Children were also encouraged to write letters to their mothers, sharing the depths of their appreciation.
The first official Mother’s Day events were held on May 10. 1908, at the church where her mother taught Sunday School in Grafton, West Virginia, and at the Wanamaker’s department store auditorium(礼堂)in Philadelphia. Jarvis didn’t attend the event in Grafton, but she sent 500 white carnations.
1. What is the probable meaning of the underlined word “conceived” in paragraph 1?A.Thought up | B.Figured out. |
C.Found out. | D.Believed in. |
A.She created Mother’s Day. | B.She was active in social work. |
C.She joined in the American Civil War. | D.She taught Jarvis how to care for children. |
A.Pray for their mother’s happiness. | B.Send some flowers to their mothers. |
C.Write a letter to thank their mothers. | D.Accompany their mothers to the celebration. |
A.A Memorable Mother | B.Carnation and Mother’s Day |
C.The Greatness of a Mother | D.The Founding of Mother’s Day |