If you have access to the sea or a coastline, you can help researchers monitor the world’s oceans during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond.
More than 1, 000 people have already joined the eOceans platform, which aims to help researchers gather data on oceans and ocean ecosystems in real-time. You can take part by downioading the eOceans app on your smartphone and logging. The app lets you note your observations as well as upload photos. This information is then linked to your geographical location and is made accessible to scientists studying that region.
Covid-19 restrictions on travel in many countries have made it more difficult for researchers to access and study coastlines, says Christine Ward-Paige, founder and lead scientist at eOceans. “Wben Covid-19 hit and the world went into varying levels of lockdown, we could understand what was happening in the atmosphere or on land,” says Ward-Paige. “But we had no idea what was happening in the ocean.”
Using eOceans data, researchers such as Ward-Paige can remotely monitor how oceans and coastal communities worldwide are faring, including in the context of the pandemic. She and others hope to obtain more data on wildlife spotted along coastlines.
Observations recorded through eOceans are already providing valuable insights. During Australia’s lockdown, for example, the largest swarm of turtles in the country’s history was spotted by researchers using eOceans data.
And in Hawaii, data from the app suggests that a reduction in tourists during the pandemic is associated with clearer waters.
Negative impacts of the pandemic on the ocean have also been picked up through the app, including an increase in pollution from personal protective equipment, as well as pandemic-related interruptions to the recovery of marine systems following a 2019 oil spill in Brazil’s waters. In future, data from eOceans could help enable early discovery of hazards (危害), such as oil spills, so that they can be dealt with sooner, says Ward-Paige.
She hopes this real-time monitoring will help accelerate discoveries, enabling researchers to keep pace with the rapid changes in the world’s oceans.
1. What do you need to help monitor the world’s oceans?①access to a coastline ②your personal information
③a digital camera for taking photos ④a smartphone with the eOceans app downloaded
| A．①③ | B．①④ | C．②③ | D．②④ |
| A．To strengthen the Covid-19 restrictions on travel. |
| B．To offer an easier and quicker way to contact ocean researchers. |
| C．To enable the public to monitor the progress of ocean protections. |
| D．To help researchers get real-time data on oceans during the Covid-19 epidemic. |
| A．negative impacts of the pandemic on the wildlife |
| B．the influence of human activities on the environment |
| C．the effective use of eOceans data during the pandemic |
| D．the measures taken by different countries to protect the ocean |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Worried. | C．Indifferent. | D．Doubtful. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Smartphones can be a force for good. Your phone is always with you, making it the perfect device to push you into a more beneficial way of living. Here are some of the best apps that can help.
Habitica
Habitica turns the goal of forming good habits into a game, with its own characters and scoring. It’s a lot of fun, and the app also lets you build habits with friends and family. In addition to regular repeating habits, you can add a more general to-do list, and the rewards you get can be customized too—you could treat yourself to a meal out or an extra hour of games.
Smoke free
If you’re determined to give up smoking, Smoke Free is one of the most comprehensive apps for giving you that extra push you need to make a permanent change. The app offers a host of useful features to people wanting to go smoke-free: the ability to see your progress over time, charts showing how your health is improving, day-by-day encouragement, and some advice on techniques for giving up smoking.
MyFitnessPal
You can find tons of health and fitness apps for your phone, but My FitnessPal stands out not just because it is easy to use, but because it makes practical suggestions for you. It can take in a host of data, from the calories you’re taking in to the number of swims you’re doing per week, and offer reports on calorie consumption and macronutrient (大量营养素) breakdown.
1. What can Habitica help you to do?| A．Win a tough game. | B．Start a lasting friendship. |
| C．Develop a pleasant habit. | D．Find a fancy restaurant. |
| A．The freedom to smoke. | B．The ability to make progress. |
| C．Charts about your excellent health. | D．Advice on how to quit smoking. |
| A．They’re practical. | B．They’re cheap. |
| C．They’re interesting. | D．They’re free. |
【推荐2】All networks like 3G and 4G will be things of the past, because 5G will be reachable in the near future. So, what’s so special about a 5G future? First, its download speed can be as fast as 20GB/s, which is 100 to 200 times that of 4G. But what’s more impressive is 5G’s low delay rate. Now 4G takes 200 milliseconds to send and receive information. But 5G will get it down to 1 millisecond.
5G is going to change the way equipment connects to the Internet. And self-driving cars may be one of the biggest breakthroughs to come out of 5G. The self-driving car under 5G network could react to hundreds of cars around it within 1 millisecond. It’ll prevent car accidents and end traffic jams completely.
5G can benefit us in other ways. Operations could be performed by robots controlled by experts from the other side of the world. Factories can be staffed by robots that can communicate their tasks to each other, and they can do more work over a 5G network. Imagine a group of drones(无人机) flying over a field of crops. Then farmers won’t have to work so hard anymore.
But, 5G is not perfect. One major shortcoming has to do with why it’s so fast. 5G uses the millimeter waves, while 4G uses the 15 to 40 centimeter-long waves. And shorter waves go fast but not very far. On 4G networks, the signal can go 10 kilometers. But the 5G signal can go at most 300 meters, and it can’t even go through walls or rain.
1. How does the author show us 5G’s advantages in Paragraph I?| A．By giving examples of the uses of 5G. |
| B．By making comparisons between 4G and 5G. |
| C．By explaining the scientific principles of 5G. |
| D．By analyzing 5G’s development from 4G. |
| A．cause more car accidents. |
| B．slow down 5G’s development. |
| C．run without being connected to the Internet. |
| D．have a much faster reaction speed than humans. |
| A．Be built by robots. |
| B．Have robots as workers. |
| C．Offer employees home robots. |
| D．Produce more medical robots. |
| A．The main weakness of 5G networks. |
| B．How to make 4G networks more perfect. |
| C．The types of long waves and short waves. |
| D．How to improve the communication in rainy days. |
This is the classic rule for mass media. “They want your eyeballs and don’t care how you’re feeling,” Jonah Berger, a psychologist at University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times.
But with social media getting increasingly popular, information is now being spread in different ways, and researchers are discovering new rules--good news can actually spread faster and farther than disasters and other sad stories.
Berger and his colleague Katherine Milkman looked at thousands of articles on The New York Times’ website and analyzed the “most e-mailed” list for six months.
One of his findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list. Those stories aroused feelings of awe (敬畏) and made the readers want to share this positive emotion with others.
Besides science stories, readers were also found to be likely to share articles that were exciting or funny. “The more positive an article was, the more likely it was to be shared,” Berger wrote in his new book. “For example, stories about newcomers falling in love with New York City,” he writes, “tended to be shared more than the death of a popular zookeeper.”
But does all this good news actually make the audience feel better? Not necessarily.
According to a study by researchers at Harvard University, people tend to say more positive things about themselves when they’re talking to a bigger audience, rather than just one person, which helps explain all the perfect vacations that keep showing up on microblogs. This, researchers found, makes people think that life is unfair and that they’re less happy than their friends.
But no worries. There’s a quick and easy way to relieve the depression you get from viewing other people’s seemingly perfect lives--turn on the television and watch the news. There is always someone doing worse than you are.
1. Bad news covers most papers because .
| A．the public care for reading tragedies |
| B．the public intend to express sympathy for victims |
| C．mass media want to attract the public’s attention |
| D．mass media appeal to the public to help victims |
| A．The perfect vacation of your friend |
| B．The story of a determined inventor |
| C．The death of a popular zookeeper |
| D．The flood hitting a small town |
| A．bad news always makes people sad |
| B．people prefer to share bad news with a bigger audience |
| C．people can relieve the depression by reading good news |
| D．good news sometimes has negative influence |
| A．Good News Spreads Fast |
| B．Bad News Travels Fast |
| C．The Effect of Bad News |
| D．The Power of Good News |
【推荐1】The San Francisco-based company, called Living Carbon, has created poplar (杨树) trees that are genetically engineered (改变基因结构) to grow larger and suck up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than standard trees do. In February, workers planted rows of these poplars in southern Georgia. The company intends to plant 4 to 5 millions trees by the middle of next year, which they say will help with the worsening climate crisis.
When plants photosynthesize (进行光合作用), they convert carbon into sugar and nutrients that are eventually consumed by all living organisms. But they also produce a harmful byproduct, which must be broken down during the energy-intensive process of photorespiration (光呼吸), said Yumin Tao, the company’s vice president of biotechnology.
“This is not only wastes energy but also loses much fixed carbon in the form of CO2, which gets released into the air again,” Tao added. “It’s a wasteful process many plants do.” Living Carbon has reduced photorespiration in its poplars, instead channeling the energy into growth, he says.
The trees have three genes inserted to achieve this, including one from squash and one from green algae. But the company has yet to show its modified trees can capture more carbon in a real — world setting. Its only publicly available data comes from a study in a greenhouse that lasted for only a few months and has yet to be peer reviewed. “Their claims seen bold based on very limited real-world data,” says Andrew Newhouse, a conservation biologist at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
Still, the study reported the modified poplars grew as much as 53% larger in five months compared to the unmodified ones, capturing 27% more carbon dioxide. Now, the company hopes its other field trials in locations like Oregon and Pennsylvania will show similar successes. It’s currently focused on planting on private lands, where fewer roadblocks exist.
“We specially focus on land where trees otherwise wouldn’t be planted, like abandoned mine lands-areas where there isn’t an existing, rich ecosystem that’s allowing for a large amount of carbon removal right now,” says Maddie Hall, Living Carbon’s CEO.
1. Why does the company want to plant genetically modified poplars?| A．To help with the worsening climate crisis. |
| B．To better study them to gain more accurate data. |
| C．To replace ordinary poplars with genetically modified poplars. |
| D．To find suitable places for genetically modified poplars to grow. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Ambiguous. | C．Skeptical. | D．Supportive. |
| A．They are very resistant to carbon. | B．They have a growth advantage. |
| C．They have two genes inserted. | D．They photosynthesize even faster. |
| A．A Company Is Trying to Engineer Trees Genetically |
| B．Poplar Trees Might Be Planted All Around the World |
| C．Genetically Modified Trees Are Taking Root to capture Carbon |
| D．Research Is Being Conducted to Use Trees to Remove CO2 |
【推荐2】Barbecue is a tradition as old as the US itself .The first president of the US, George Washington, once wrote about going to a lovely barbecue.
In the northern region, the word "barbecue" means "cooking something on a grill''. It could be burgers, hot dogs or potatoes. In North Carolina, barbecue means “smoked pork shoulder",
In the western half of the state, folks prefer a sweet-and-sour barbecue sauce made with ketchup, while people in the eastern half like a sauce made of boiled vinegar. We used to travel around the US, giving samples to the public. But some people in Lumberton refused the free samples.
But it's not just my family. At churches, schools, offices and house parties, barbecue is the first, thing many people think of when we need to feed as many as 50 people.
Whether we are from a big city or a tiny town, people in the US can agree on one thing: We love barbecue-whatever that is.
| A．But people in the US argue about almost anything |
| B．They were upset that the sauce wasn't yellow. |
| C．We have our own brand of barbecue sauce. |
| D．Other places in the US have different ideas of barbecue |
| E．Barbecue means more than just meat. |
| F．But Americans can't agree on what barbecue is. |
| G．You can probably see that barbecue is important in my family. |
【推荐3】Napping (小睡) may be part of life for most of us. However, some countries where daytime naps have long been part of the culture, such as Spain, now discourage the habit. Meanwhile, some companies in the US now promote napping as a way to boost productivity. “It’s important to try to reveal the biological pathways that contribute to the reason why we nap,” says Dashti from Harvard Medical School.
Previously, co-senior author Richa Sexena at Massachusett s General Hospital (MGH) and his colleagues used many databases of genetic and lifestyle information to study other aspects of sleep. To gain a better understanding of the genetics of napping, they performed a genome (基因组)-wide association study (GWAS), which includes rapid scanning of complete sets of DNA of a large number of people.
For this study, the researchers used data from the UK Biobank, which includes genetic information from 452,633 people. All the participants were asked to classify their naps during the day as “never/ rarely”, “sometimes” or “usually”. The GWAS identified 123 regions in the human genome connected with daytime napping. Then the participants wore activity monitors called accelerometers, which can provide data about daytime napping. This data also showed that the self-reports about napping were accurate.
Several other features of this study support its results. For example, the researchers obtained similar findings in an analysis of the genomes of 541,333 people collected by 23andMe, a consumer genetic-testing company. Also, a significant number of the genes near or at regions identified by the GWAS are already known to play a role in sleep.
The team also identified at least three potential mechanisms (机制) that promote napping. Some people need more shut-eye than others. A daytime nap can help make up for poor-quality sleep the night before. People who rise early may “catch up” on sleep with a nap. “This tells us that daytime napping is biologically driven and not just an environmental or behavioral choice,” says Dashti. Some of these mechanisms are linked to health concerns, such as a large waistline and increased blood pressure, though more research on those associations is needed.
1. What did the researchers at MGH focus on in their new study?| A．The causes of long napping time. |
| B．The benefits of napping frequently. |
| C．The reasons behind the napping habit. |
| D．The genes contributing to poor sleeping quality. |
| A．The subjects of the GWAS came from 123 regions. |
| B．Activity monitors were used to ensure reliability of the results. |
| C．Researchers are looking for more genes that can play a role in sleep. |
| D．American companies encourage nappíng to make people feel at ease. |
| A．The ways to help people improve their sleep quality. |
| B．The causes of and solutions to some health concerns. |
| C．The impact of environment on people’s napping choice. |
| D．The connection between some health problems and the mechanisms. |
| A．Health issues caused by daytime napping. |
| B．Napping considered to be an essential habit. |
| C．Researchers working hard to promote napping. |
| D．Biological factors playing a role in daytime napping. |
