【推荐1】This is the SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, I'm Barbara Klein.

Animal experts say one of the world's most beautiful and rare kinds of big cat is close to disappearing from the wild. A study earlier this year found that about thirty Amur leopards (豹) still live free. The cats are also called Far Eastern leopards.

Recently, their number has been reduced by one, Some person shot a female Amur, then beat her to death. The animal's body was discovered last month in the Barsovy National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Russia.

An official of the World Wildlife Fund, Darron, said this was the third such killing in the area in the past fives years. Mr, Collins said the death of even one adult female is a huge loss for the endangered cat, He noted that the killing reduces the possibility for cubs (幼兽) or young.

It is not clear how many Amur leopards still live free. One population count was performed in February and March. Wildlife expert Dmitry Pikuuov led this study. It found evidence of seven to nine males. The study identified three to seven females without cubs, Four leopards were identified as females with cubs. In all, five or six cubs were recorded, Six to eight animals could not be identified.

Most of the land where the Amur leopard once lived was in China.New roads and climate change there threatened the animals. So did hunters who kill big cats for their body parts.

Mr. Pikuuov says adult Amurs need about five hundred square kilometers with good forests to survive. He said they also need a large and continuing supply of animals like deer for food. He believes the answer to saving the Amur leopard is for governments to provide protected spaces for wildlife.

1. This passage is probably from           .

A．a magazine	B．a newspaper report
C．a TV report	D．a film

2. Why is the killing of an adult female a huge loss?

A．It could lead to the death of an adult male.

B．It means it can not give birth to the young any more.

C．11 is worth more money than a male.

D．There is only one adult female in the world.

3. The number of the Amur leopards in China is becoming smaller because of all the following EXCEPT           .

A．new roads	B．climate change
C．human hunting	D．rare diseases

4. According to the experts the Amur leopards          .

A．are living on plants	B．are living in the zoo
C．are well protected by people	D．are endangered

【推荐2】Plants on Earth have grown for hundreds of millions of years, yet President Donald Trump’s pick to lead his new climate team insists that they need more carbon dioxide (CO₂) to boom.

Princeton physicist and carbon dioxide-advocate William Happer has been selected to head the brand new Presidential Committee on Climate Security. The atomic scientist, who achieved recognition for his work on atomic collisions (原子碰撞), not climate science, declared that the planet’s atmosphere needs significantly more CO₂, which is reported to speed up climate change. Happer said plants use CO₂ to live and more CO₂ is actually a benefit to the Earth. He also stressed that Earth is experiencing a “CO₂ starvation”, and concludes that “If plants could vote, they would vote for coal.”

Earth and plant scientists, however, find Happer’s insistence that the plant kingdom would benefit from increased CO₂ wrong-headed and it lacks evidence. For example, Earth’s CO₂ levels have increased sharply in the last century, and are now at their highest levels in at least 800,000 years—though other measurements show CO₂ levels are higher than they’ve been in 15 million years. “The idea that increased CO₂ is universally beneficial ‘to plants’ is very misguided,” Jill Anderson, an evolutionary ecologist specializing in plant populations, said in an interview. Data shows the evolution of global average temperature and CO₂ concentration from 1850 to 2019. Though 2019 is a bit cooler than recent years, it still is one of the warmest years ever and lies close to the trend line of global warming.

Both independent academic organizations and government agencies around different parts of the world concluded more CO₂ will bring many negative impacts to plant environments. And they added that “If someone is going to claim it is good, it’s necessary for them to show evidence.”

1. Why does Happer think plants need more CO₂?

A．Plants vote for more CO2.	B．CO2 speeds up climate change.
C．Plants need more CO2 to live.	D．CO2 is actually a benefit to the Earth.

2. What can be inferred from paragraph 3?

A．2019 is a bit warmer than recent years.

B．CO2 levels must be the highest in history.

C．The plant kingdom must benefit from increased CO2.

D．There are adequate evidence to support Happer’s insistence.

3. What does the underlined word “it” in the last paragraph probably refer to?

A．More CO2.	B．The plant.
C．The world.	D．The US government.

4. The author’s attitude in writing this passage can be described as ________.

A．critical	B．objective
C．positive	D．negative

【推荐3】When you encounter animals, do you wonder what they’re thinking? Seeing a newborn lamb or a cute puppy might arouse happy emotions in us, but what are they thinking? Does the look on their face and how they behave indicate how they’re feeling — or are they feeling nothing at all?

Humans have a complex range of feelings, but it’s hard to tell what’s going on inside the heads of animals. Some of us own dogs, because they are good companions, are loyal and seem to connect with us. We might even think they love us. Professor Kim Bard, an expert in comparative developmental psychology from the University of Portsmouth, told the BBC: “We have a few studies now that actually show scientifically that some dogs will respond when their owner — but not a stranger — pretends to cry.” The empathetic ability of cats, however, is harder to work out.

Other non-domesticated (非驯养的) animals might have feelings too. Giraffes and whales, for example, are known to experience sadness when someone in their group dies. It’s believed that even tiny creatures like insects might have emotions as well. Research is beginning to show they experience a wide range of feelings. Kim says: “They can be optimistic, pessimistic, or frightened, and respond to pain just like any mammal would.”

Dr Barbara J King, Emerita Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary, told the BBC: “If we understand the profound depths of emotions animals can feel, this should make us question the existence of zoos and slaughterhouses (屠宰场) around the world, and rethink those systems. It does seem all creatures feel emotion, but what is not clear is whether they feel the same way as us.”

1. What’s the purpose of raising questions in the first paragraph?

A．To attract.

B．To inspire.

C．To entertain.

D．To persuade.

2. What do the underlined words “empathetic ability” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．The ability to respond to others’ questions.

B．The ability to stay calm when facing danger.

C．The ability to share work with their owners.

D．The ability to understand others’ feelings.

3. What’s the importance of the research, according to Barbara?

A．It may reduce the times of people visiting zoos.

B．It may lead people to reconsider animals’ well-being.

C．It may change the food chain of the whole world.

D．It may cause zoos and slaughterhouses to disappear.

4. How do the researchers sound when talking about the issue?

A．Certain.

B．Critical.

C．Careful.

D．Regretful.

【推荐1】Gestures are the silent language of every culture. We point a finger or move another part of the body to show what we want to say. It is important to know the body language of every country or we may be misunderstood.

In the US, people greet each other with a handshake in a formal discussion. The handshake must be firm. If the handshake is weak, it is a sign of weakness or unfriendliness. Friends may place a hand on the other's arm or shoulder. Some people, usually women, greet each other with a hug .

Space is important to Americans. When two people talk to each other, they usually stand about 2.5 feet away and at an angle, so they are not facing each other directly. Americans get uncomfortable when a person stands too close. They will move back to have their space. If Americans touch another person by accident, they say, "Pardon me." or "Excuse me."

Americans like to look at the other in the eyes when they are talking. If you don't do so, it means you are bored, hiding something, or are not interested. When you stare at someone, however, it is not polite.

For Americans, thumbs-up means “yes”, “very good” or “well done”. Thumbs-down means the opposite. To call a waiter, one might put up one hand to head level or above. To show you want the check, make a movement with your hands as you are signing a piece of paper. It is all right to point at things but not at people with the hand and index finger(食指). Americans shake their index fingers at children when they scold them and pat them on the head when they admire them.

Learning a culture's body language is sometimes confusing(困惑的). If you don't know what to do, the safest thing to do is to smile.

1. When you shake hands with an American, you should _______ .

A．shake his / her hand firmly	B．put your hands on his / her shoulder
C．shake his / her hand gently	D．give him / her a hug afterward

2. In the US, people usually _______ if you stand too close to them.

A．feel friendly	B．get uncomfortable
C．keep still	D．hit you angrily

3. If you talk with an American friend, it'’s polite to _______ .

A．stare at him / her	B．look at the ground
C．look at him / her in the eyes	D．look here and there

4. When an American gives you the thumbs-up, he, in fact _______ .

A．means that you are number one	B．wants to please you
C．needs to call a waiter	D．expresses his satisfaction to you

5. What's the main idea of this passage?

A．People greet each other by shaking hands in America.

B．Every country has their own gestures.

C．Learning a culture's body language is very important and necessary.

D．It is all right to point at things but not at people with the hand and index finger.

【推荐2】We all have a tendency to fake laugh, particularly when authority figures in our lives try to make a joke that just doesn’t land. Though it might feel rude not to laugh when your in-laws or boss try to say something funny, pretending to do so might not be much better. It turns out, even if you think that your forced laughing sounds genuine, people are usually pretty good at separating truly spirited belly laughs from fake ones. But how can they possible know the difference?

Well, when researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles studied the acoustic and perceptual differences between real and fake laughter, they found that some of the sounds associated with genuine laughter is “really hard to fake.” In their study, the researchers determined that subjects were only fooled by 37 percent of fake laughter.

The most prominent factor distinguishing real laughter from fake laughter is duration -- or, more specifically, the number of breaths taken in in between sounds. Seeing as it takes more effort and concentration to fake a laugh as opposed to do it genuinely, people tend to pause more in between their “ha-ha’s” when they’re faking it. Evidently, that pausing is pretty noticeable.

“A fake laugh is basically an imitation of a real laugh, but produced with a slightly different set of vocal muscles controlled by a different part of our brain,” Greg Bryant, the lead UCLA researcher on the study, explained. “The result is that there are subtle features of the laugh that sound like speech, and ... people are unconsciously quite sensitive to them.”

People have also proven to be emotionally sensitive to laughter as well. “Our rains are very sensitive to the social and emotional significance of laughter,” said Carolyn McGettigan, a scientist at Royal Holloway, University of London.

McGettigan conducted a 2014 study that recorded participants’ brain responses as they listened to the same people produce genuine laughter by watching funny videos, as opposed to fake laughter. “During our study, when participants heard a laugh that was posed, they activated regions of the brain associated with mentalizing in an attempt to understand the other person’s emotional and mental state,” she said.

So, while we may understand that certain social situations sometimes require fake laughter, most of the time, our instincts and emotional intelligence are just too smart to buy into them.

According to McGettigan, that’s a good thing. “Evolutionarily speaking, it’s good to be able to detect if someone is authentically experiencing an emotion or if they’re not,” she said. “Because you don’t want to be fooled.”

1. What do researchers at the University of California want to find out in this study?

A．What is the difference between a fake laugh and a real one.

B．Which part of the brain controls the sound of our laughter.

C．Why do people need to fake laugh when they don’t want to.

D．How to laugh as genuinely as possible when you are faking it.

2. Your forced laughing is more noticeable than you think, mainly because_______.

A．you seem more concentrated when you laugh for real

B．you take more breaths when you try to fake a laugh

C．a fake laugh often happens after a sudden pause

D．a real laugh usually lasts longer than a fake one

3. Which of the following is true according to Greg Bryant?

A．Real laughter is not at all controllable by our brain.

B．People may notice fake laughter without knowing why.

C．People use the same set of muscles to laugh and to speak.

D．Faking laugh shares the same techniques as making speech.

4. What has Carolyn McGettigan’s 2014 study proven?

A．Certain social situations may require us to fake a laugh.

B．Evolution has enabled us to recognize other’s emotions.

C．By instincts, we are able to tell a person’s mental state.

D．We can sense other’s emotional state when they laugh.

【推荐3】An important lesson in the moral education of children could be as close as the book in their hands. Stories can play a role in shifting the importance of particular moral values in young audiences, according to the results of a new study.

“Media can markedly influence separate moral values and get kids to place more or less importance on those values depending on what is uniquely stressed in that content,” says Lindsay Hahn, PhD, an assistant professor of communication in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences.

Hahn is the first author of the new study, which adds an important part to a body of literature that explores how media content affects children. While many previous studies have focused on broad conceptualisations (概念化), like positive or negative effects of specific content, Hahn’s study looks at how reading of content featuring specific moral values (care, fairness, loyalty, and authority) might influence the weight kids place on those values. Do children reading about particular moral characteristics absorb those qualities as building blocks for their own morality? The findings suggest so, and further support how this indirect approach to socializing children’s morality can add to the direct teaching of moral principles kids might receive through formal instruction.

For the study, Hahn and her colleagues took the main character from a teen story and edited the content to reflect in each version (版本) the study’s focus on one of four moral values. A fifth version was changed in a way that featured an amoral main character. The stories were shared with about 200 participants between the ages of 10 and 14.

The team then created a scale (量表) designed to measure the importance kids place on moral values to find out how participants might be influenced by specific stories.

“Measuring these effects can be difficult,” says Hahn of the research, published in the Journal of Media Psychology, “That’s why one purpose of this research was to develop a measure of moral values for kids. Nothing like that exists yet, that we know of.”

1. What does the underlined word “shifting” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．increasing

B．changing

C．reflecting

D．replacing

2. What can you learn from the results of the study?

A．Good virtues can help carry children through hard times.

B．Reading stories is a better approach than formal instructions.

C．Teaching moral principles directly to kids seems useless.

D．Good morals in stories help shape children’s values.

3. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The response of the general public to Hahn’s study.

B．The contribution of Hahn’s study to children’s literature.

C．The difference between Hahn’s study and previous studies.

D．The branches of research on media influences on children.

4. What did Hahn’s team do for the study?

A．They created a chain story out of an old character.

B．They tested different moral principles in children.

C．They illustrated the study for younger participants.

D．They adapted a character and created five stories.

【推荐1】Mirroring body language is a way to bond and to build understanding, It is a powerful tool that we use without even knowing it.

The most obvious forms of mirroring are yawning and smiling. When you see someone yawn, you are likely to yawn immediately. Smiling is also pretty contagious—seeing a smiling person makes you want to smile too.

Mirroring body language is a nonverbal way to say “I am like you, I feel the same”. Research shows that people who experience the same feelings are likely to trust, understand and accept each other.

Women have the natural ability to pick up and understand body signals. Therefore, it is not surprising that a woman is more likely to mirror another woman than a man is to mirror another man. That's why women are regarded as better talkers, even if they might not really have more close friends.

It is interesting that when a man tries to mirror a woman's body language while she is talking, he may seem to her as caring, intelligent and attractive.

Mirroring body language is an excellent way to build trust and understanding quickly. If you want to set up a connection with a new person, mirror his or her gestures, sitting position, tone of voice and talking pace. This will make them feel that there is something about you that they like.

While mirroring body language gains you acceptance, you still need to take into consideration your relationship with the person you are mirroring. If you are in a lower social position and are mirroring the body language of your boss, he will view you as arrogant. However, if you want to defeat those who are trying to prove superior to you, mirroring their body language will help defeat them and change their position.

1. What does the underlined word “contagious” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Powerful to show one's feelings.	B．Affecting each other.
C．Attractive to the others.	D．Being gentle to people around.

2. When copying others, body language, one usually can ______.

A．send wrong messages	B．hide true feelings
C．avoid misunderstanding	D．win others, acceptance

3. What might happen if you try to mirror your boss's body language?

A．You will appear very attractive.	B．It will help to soften his position.
C．You will seem unacceptably proud.	D．It will be a good way to build trust.