Once the red wolf’s historic range stretched from Long Island to Missouri and down to the Texas-Mexico border. But by 1972 their population was reduced to a small area along the Gulf coast due to habitat loss and hunting.
To conserve the species, 14 individuals were caught as part of a reproducing program. In 1980 their wild relatives were declared extinct — the caught wolves were all that was left and thus lots of genetic variation was lost. You can’t help it when you have so few founders.
Kristin Brzeski is an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, whose research focuses on the conservation of genetics of wild animal populations. He thought this work had been an underdog scientifically and for conservation, for all wolves decreased in amount dramatically, especially the red wolves. Now, Brzeski and her co-workers have found a surprising new pool of red wolf genes that might help bring more diversity to the tiny population: they found the disappearing genes of red wolves in wild coyote populations. But why did this happen?
Remember: when a population is dying out, it might find the closest related species as their own best mate, so a red wolf and a coyote can have offspring. As a result, people can rediscover their genes in their coyote hybrid offspring. As red wolves are released back into the wild, reproducing with these coyotes could help the critically endangered species regain some of its genetic diversity.
This would be kind of the opposite direction: take the existing small population that still has red wolf genes that are so critical, and put them into a wild landscape with new genetic variation that they haven’t seen for 50 years or more. And all of a sudden, hopefully, this is like a super mix of genetic health and sort of a rebound that these animals can be wild and be themselves again.
The next step will include how to release red wolves in a way that takes advantage of the genes red wolves hiding in coyote populations. There should be a philosophy in our mind that we created this problem, so we should be responsible for fixing it.
1. Why was much genetic variation of the red wolves lost?| A．Their habitat loss. | B．Their limited number. |
| C．Their relatives’ extinction. | D．Their poor adaptability. |
| A．Failure. | B．Success. | C．Breakthrough. | D．Dilemma. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Favorable. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Cautious. |
| A．A promising way to save red wolves | B．Red wolves — an endangered species |
| C．Wild coyotes — red wolves’ perfect match | D．An unknown future to protect red wolves |
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【推荐1】Raccoon dogs (貉), an animal native to Shanghai, have been spotted in nearly half of surveyed residential complexes in a suburban district of Shanghai, an investigation involving mass participation of city residents found.
Among the 50 surveyed residential complexes in Songjiang District, 22 have tracks of raccoon dog activity, with the number ranging between 1 and 50, and an average of 10.82 per residential community, compared to 6.02 per residential community ten years ago. The average population density (密度) of the animal is 1.08 per hectare (公顷). Seven residential complexes have recorded more than 10 raccoon dogs.
“We found that cat food and rubbish would significantly change the population density of the animal, leading to an abnormal increase,” said Wang Fang, a researcher at Fudan University’s School of Life Sciences. “Improper management of waste and cat food leads to one extra raccoon dog per hectare, doubling the normal figure. Meanwhile, the space of residential complexes and building layouts have no direct connection with the population density of the animal.”
Since 2019, a program was launched by the Shanghai Forestry Station, a conservation biology research team at Fudan University and the Shan Shui Conservation Center. It focuses on the research and protection of raccoon dogs, and the improvement of biological diversity. Various methods such as on-site visits, monitoring of infrared cameras (红外摄像机), the analysis of food habits, and GPS tracking are taken.
For the first time, a program involving the public, with participants nicknamed “citizen scientists,” started in June to study the movement of the animal and population, as well as people’s attitude toward them. Meanwhile, it drew more than 300 applications. In the future, the study will be expanded with more “citizen scientists” invited, the Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau said.
1. What do the statistics in paragraph 2 indicate?| A．More hectares of land are damaged by raccoon dogs. |
| B．Local people like raccoon dogs better than ever before. |
| C．The number of the raccoon dogs is increasing in the city. |
| D．The reproduction of raccoon dogs has reached a peak. |
| A．Severe climate changes. | B．Enough food sources for the animal. |
| C．The destruction of the habitat. | D．The protection of human beings’. |
| A．An introduction to the Shanghai Forestry Station. |
| B．A breakthrough made by Fudan University. |
| C．A program of protecting raccoon dogs. |
| D．An analysis of biological diversity. |
| A．Worrying. | B．Accessible. | C．Disappointing. | D．Bright. |
【推荐2】Giving a gift that will stand the test of time is always a challenge,but giving plants is one way to try.Whatever type of plant you choose,it’s sure to last longer than cut flowers
The most important thing to consider is where it will live.If your friend’s place is bright and sunny,a succulent(多肉植物)makes sense.
Whatever plant you choose,make peace with the fact that it may or may not survive.After all,a house’s inside is pretty dissimilar to where that plant naturally grows.So we can all only do our best.
If you have a plant-interested friend on your gift list,why not choose a plant which is easy to keep alive in his place and looks lovely?You don’t need to wrap it,as a simple bow is enough.
| A．You can always put them inside a paper bag. |
| B．But you can consider giving a nice pot and bag of soil. |
| C．Knowing the natural history of a plant is equally important. |
| D．Even relatively experienced green thumbs sometimes lose |
| E．The key is to pay attention to plants-really look at them each day.. |
| F．If you want to choose plants as gifts,the ideas below will help you on your way. |
| G．If your friend has a cool home with no direct sun,an orchid is probably a better choice. |
【推荐3】A killer whale(虎鲸) that can copy words such as “hello” and “bye-bye” is thought to be the first of its kind to copy human speech.
The female killer whale learned to “speak” some human words by copying a trainer at a park in France. The animal’s ability includes speaking the name “Amy” and “one, two, three”.
Whales and dolphins are among the few animals except humans that can learn to produce a sound just by hearing it. “It is not often seen,” said Dr Josep Call, a co-researcher on the study. “Humans are good at it…Interestingly, the animals that can do best are marine mammals(海洋哺乳动物).” The researchers start to find out whether killer whales could learn new words by copying others. They studied a female named Wikie at Marineland Aquarium in Antibes, France. She was taught to speak human words.
Dr Jose Abramson, a co-researcher on the study, said basic “conversations” with Wikie may one day be possible. He said,” It has been done before with a famous grey parrot and dolphins using American sign language(手势语).” However, he said they have to be careful about introducing human ideas on animals, as there is more to learn by trying to understand the natural way each kind communicates in its own environment. Wikie made sounds in water, which may be quite different.
Dr Alex Thornton, senior speaker at the University of Exeter, said they still don’t fully understand why some animals learn to copy. Some animals copy sounds to attract possible partners, while others copy sounds to become a member of a group. “Some whales, for example, learn their calls from one another to mark them out as members of their social group,” said Dr Thornton, who doesn’t join in the research.
1. What do whales and dolphins have in common according to the text?| A．They are very rare in the world. | B．They can learn to make a sound. |
| C．Their hearing is not very good. | D．They communicate by sign languages. |
| A．Alex Thornton contributed to the research a lot. |
| B．Animals copy sounds mainly to frighten hunters. |
| C．Alex Thornton fully understands why animals copy sounds. |
| D．Different animals copy sounds for different reasons. |
| A．Killer whales can copy human words. |
| B．Killer whales are very clever animals. |
| C．Why killer whales can learn human speech. |
| D．What animals can communicate by using sign languages. |
【推荐1】People start new businesses for different reasons. Sometimes they have a great ideal.
Reich was an engineer in Seattle. Because he cared about the environment, he biked to work every day. He carried his work and his laptop in a bike bag. When someone took his bag, he tried to buy a new one. But he couldn’t find one he liked. So he decided to make his own. Riding a bike every day leads to lots of tire punctures(轮胎刺破). As a result, he had plenty of used inner tubes in his apartment. Inner tubes are the inside part of a bike tire. They are soft, flexible, and feel like leather. They are also waterproof--all perfect qualities for a bag.
The design loved by friends and others, Reich quit his job, and started his own business--Alchemy Goods. At first, he depended on his friends for inner tubes. But business was good, and he quickly ran short of these tubes. He needed a new supply. So he asked local bike stores to send him used inner tubes instead of throwing them away. To date, he has used over 300,000 inner tubes. Having a good supply of these materials is a critical part of Reich’s business.
Each bag uses as many recycled products as possible. The straps, for example, are old care seat belts. Reich’s goal is to use 1000 percent recycled materials. This is not easy. “It’s hard to come up with a product that is endlessly recycled.
| A．There is a lot of trash available that businesses can recycle. |
| B．Other times, they decide to make a living by doing something they enjoy. |
| C．Like other entrepreneurs, Reich believes this makes sense for business and the environment. |
| D．We’re a step ahead, but we’re not perfect. |
| E．Eli Reich cuts a seat-belt from an old car to make bags for his company. |
| F．Reich emphasizes that he uses recycled materials, but he creates high quality products. |
【推荐2】British sculptor Jason Taylor has made it his mission to use his talent to conserve our ecosystems by creating underwater museums. Over the years, the environmentalist has put over 850 massive artworks underwater worldwide. On February 1, 2021, Taylor launched his latest work——The Underwater Museum of Cannes.
The main goal was to bring attention to the fact that our oceans need our help, Taylor told Dezeen. ——Ocean ecology has been destroyed by human activity in the Mediterranean over the past few decades, and it is not obvious what is taking place when observing the sea from afar.
The Underwater Museum of Cannes contains 6 sculptures featuring local residents of various ages. They range from Maurice, an 80-year-old fisherman, to Anouk, a 9-year-old student. Towering over 6-feet-tall and weighing 10 tons, the faces are sectioned into two parts, with the outer part like a mask. The mask indicates that the world’s oceans appear powerful and unbeatable from the surface but house an ecosystem that is extremely fragile to careless human activities.
Though the waters surrounding the sculptures now appear a pristine blue, the seabed was filled with old boat engines, pipes, and other human-made trash when the project began about four years ago. Besides eliminating the trash, Taylor also restored the area’s sea grass. Just one square meter of the sea grass can generate up to 10 liters of oxygen daily. The sea grass also helps prevent coastal erosion and provides habitats for many ocean creatures.
The idea of creating an underwater museum was to draw more people underwater and develop a sense of care and protection. Taylor told Dezeen. ——If we threw unwanted waste near a forest, there would be a public outcry. But this is happening every day in our surrounding waters and it largely goes unnoticed.
1. Why does the outer part of the sculptures look like a mask?| A．To popularize the features of the locals. |
| B．To remind people to protect themselves. |
| C．To stress the sensitiveness of the ecosystem. |
| D．To reflect people’s protection of the ocean. |
| A．How the project was started. |
| B．How the sea grass was restored. |
| C．Why the surroundings were improved. |
| D．What recovery effort the project made. |
| A．recycling | B．removing | C．abolishing | D．assessing |
| A．Forests play a more important role in ecosystems. |
| B．The destruction caused to the ocean is noticeable. |
| C．The situation of the ocean is easily ignored. |
| D．People have zero tolerance to damage done to nature |
| A．The Underwater Museum, a long way to go. |
| B．The Underwater Museum, a big difference to the sea. |
| C．The Underwater Museum, a masterpiece of Jason Taylor. |
| D．The Underwater Museum, an appeal to conserve ecosystems. |
【推荐3】Professor Veena Sahajwalla, 2022 Australian of the year, has created a solution to our massive trash problem: waste microfactories. These little trash processors (处理器)—some as small as 500 square feet— house a series of machines that recycle waste and transform it into new materials with thermal technology. The new all-in -one approach could leave our current recycling processes in the dust.
In 2018 she launched the first microfactory, establishing a model of recycling that enables businesses and communities to develop commercial opportunities while addressing local waste problems. A second one began recycling plastics in 2019. Now, her lab group is working with university and industry partners to commercialize their patented Microfactory technology. “The small scale of the machines will make it easier for them to one day operate on renewable energy, unlike most large manufacturing plants. The approach will also allow cities to recycle waste into new products on location, avoiding the long, often international, high-emission journeys between recycling processors and manufacturing plants. With a microfactory, gone are the days of needing separate facilities to collect and store materials, extract (提取) elements and produce new products,” says Sahajwalla.
Traditionally, recycling plants break down materials for reuse in similar products-like melting down plastic to make more plastic things. Sahajwalla’s invention advances this idea by taking materials from an old product and creating something different. “The kids don’t look like the parents,” she says. Sahajwalla refers to this process as “the fourth R,” adding “re -form” to the common phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle”.
Professor Veena Sahajwalla’s programs help to develop innovation and promote cooperation with industry, ensuring that sustainable materials and processes become commercially practical solutions for dealing with waste.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To introduce a new type of trash processor. |
| B．To introduce the process of recycling waste. |
| C．To prove the seriousness of the trash problem. |
| D．To show the current situation of trash recycling. |
| A．The founding of waste microfactories. |
| B．The influences of waste microfactories. |
| C．The advantages of waste microfactories. |
| D．The shocking scale of waste microfactories. |
| A．Extracting materials from the waste. |
| B．Generating new materials with waste. |
| C．Updating the whole recycling process. |
| D．Transforming waste into similar products. |
| A．A fiction novel. | B．A business report. |
| C．A science magazine. | D．A chemical textbook. |
【推荐1】Human history has a few common themes, one of which is the written word. Humans have been printing as well as writing since 3, 000BC-the Ancient Egyptians as well as the Chinese used stamps like those available today to imprint images onto cloth. When the Chinese scholar Ts’ai Lun allegedly made the first piece of paper in 750 AD, printing boosted as well.
In Europe, books were literally hand written until around the 11th century. Producing books was a time consuming process at that period. Then, in the 11th century, Chinese provided the next innovation in printing. Pi Sheng, one of the most important men in the history of printing, created clay characters which formed the first moveable type. By the 12th century Europe was making its own paper, and by the 13th century bronze typefaces are being created. Books were being printed using these early techniques by 1397 AD.
As printing was expensive, most books were still written by hand. By 1507 people were exploring the world of colour printing. The printing press became cheaper to manufacture and quicker to use, meaning that more books were being printed. People became more educated as material was more widely available. In1837 colour printing began to resemble what we see today, with full colour adverts appearing for the first time. Offset printing(胶印)arrived in 1903 - this method is still widely used today for printing newspapers and magazines.
Today, digital technology has completely changed how we print. 3D printing was invented by Chuck Hull-the process is not printing as we traditionally think of it; it works by building up layers of plastic in order to form an object. It is thought that at some point it will be possible to “print” human organs, potentially saving thousands of lives; while it may seem impossible right now, the way printing has advanced, there’s no saying that it won’t eventually become a reality. Only time will tell where the printing industry will go.
1. How does the author lead in the topic?| A．By telling a story. |
| B．By listing figures. |
| C．By presenting facts. |
| D．By giving examples. |
| A．They were hand written. |
| B．They were widely available. |
| C．They were printed by Pi Sheng. |
| D．They were printed with colors. |
| A．Master. |
| B．Make. |
| C．Operate. |
| D．Spread. |
| A．A guidebook. |
| B．A campus survey. |
| C．A news report. |
| D．A science magazine. |
【推荐2】Dogs may have earned the title of our best friends through their interactions with humans, but now researchers say these social skills could, be present shortly after birth rather than being learned.
To better understand the role of biology in dogs’ abilities to communicate with humans, the researchers studied 375 eight-week-old service dogs. They looked at how these dogs performed in a series of tasks designed to measure their communication skills. The puppies were still living with their littermates (同窝出生者) and had not been sent to live with a volunteer puppy raiser, making it unlikely that they had learned about his or her behavior.
In the first task, a person hid a treat beneath one of two overturned cups and pointed to it to see if the puppy could follow the gesture. Since dogs are good at using noses to find things a treat was also taped to the insides of, both cups. In the second task, puppies watched as the researchers placed a yellow, block next to the correct cup, instead of pointing to indicate where the puppy should look for the food.
The third task was designed to observe puppies’ tendency to look at human faces. The researchers spoke to the puppy in a voice people sometimes use when talking to a baby. They then measured how long the puppy fixed a stare on the human.
In the last task, researchers sealed a treat inside a closed container and presented it to the puppy. They then measured how often the puppy looked to the human for help in opening the container.
The study found that while many of the puppies were responsive to humans’ physical and verbal cues, very few looked to humans for help with the unsolvable task. Researchers said, “This suggests that while puppies may be born knowing how to respond to human-initiated communication, the ability to initiate communication on their own may come later.” The next step will be to see if specific genes that may contribute to dogs’ abilities to communicate with humans can be identified.
1. Why were eight-week-old service dogs chosen for the study?| A．They were the best age to learn. |
| B．They were cute and safe to deal with. |
| C．They were unlikely influenced by their mates. |
| D．They had had little contact with humans before. |
| A．To provide clues for the puppies’ final decisions. |
| B．To make comparisons between different conditions. |
| C．To prevent the puppies from making use of their smell. |
| D．To check the puppies’ preference for a particular color. |
| A．Puppies can understand our body language. |
| B．Puppies are good at asking humans for help. |
| C．Puppies are born to arouse communication with humans. |
| D．Puppies need specific genes to communicate with humans. |
| A．Dogs—talented performers | B．Dogs—humans’ best friends |
| C．Dogs—born to be able to learn | D．Dogs—born to understand humans |
【推荐3】Just a year ago, the colors were bright under the waves. Now it’s gray — the Maldivian reef is dead. The coral is killed by the pressure of rising temperatures.
Coral reefs are areas underwater where small creatures live. The coral is hard material formed on the bottom of the sea by the skeletons of those creatures. But the world has lost about half its coral reefs in the last 30 years. Scientists are working to prevent their destruction. Due to global warming, over 90 percent of corals are expected to die by 2050. “To lose coral reefs is to fundamentally undermine the health of a very large proportion of the human race,” said Ruth Gates, director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.
Why are coral reefs important? Coral reefs support a fourth of all marine species, as well as half a billion people worldwide. They serve as barriers to protect coastlines from the storms. They provide billions of dollars from tourism, fishing and other trade. They are also used in medical research for cures for diseases. “Everyone should be concerned,” said biologist Ove Guldberg at Australia’s University of Queensland. “This is not just some distant dive destination. This is the basic structure of the ecosystem we depend on.”
The ocean is getting warmer. A rising temperature of just one to two degree Celsius can force coral to expel the algae (驱逐海藻) that live there. This leaves their white skeletons uncovered. It is a process called “bleaching”. Sixteen percent of the world’s corals died of bleaching in 1998. The problem has become much worse in recent years.
“We’ve lost 50 percent of the reefs, but that means we still have 50 percent left,” said Ruth Gates, who is working in Hawaii to breed corals that can better withstand increasing temperatures. She is also trying to “train” corals to survive rising temperatures. Gates says it is time to start “thinking outside the box”— find creative ways to help them.
1. What does the underlined word “undermine” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Regain | B．Weaken |
| C．Promote | D．Develop |
| A．People won’t find a dive destination in the future. |
| B．The effort to save corals will turn out to be fruitless. |
| C．The bright sea has lost its charm because of those dead corals. |
| D．The destruction of coral reefs will affect the earth ecosystem. |
| A．The harm of algae. | B．The importance of coral reefs. |
| C．The process of “bleaching”. | D．The change of ocean temperature. |
| A．Worried | B．Positive |
| C．Casual | D．Curious |
