Honeybees are in trouble. While they’ re crucial for promoting biodiversity and producing food for healthy human diets, honeybees face many threats, including habitat loss, climate change, air pollution and disease-causing organisms.
But now, there’s hope for helping honeybees fight back against one of the many stressors they face, a deadly infectious disease known as American foulbrood. To fight the disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved for use the world’s first honeybee vaccine (疫苗), developed by Dalan Animal Health.
Bacteria called Paenibacillus larvae cause American foulbrood, which kills honeybees while they are in the pupal (蛹的) or pre-pupal stage. Until now, there was no “safe and sustainable” way to prevent American foulbrood. The only treatment involved antibiotics (抗生素), which are expensive, have limited effectiveness and take lots of time and energy for beekeepers to apply. To stop the spread, beekeepers are often forced to burn infected bees. That makes the vaccine a game changer.
“Our vaccine is a breakthrough in protecting honeybees,” says Annette Kleiser, CEO of Dalan Animal Health. “We are ready to change how we care for insects, impacting food production on a global level.”
Beekeepers will mix the vaccine, which contains dead P. larvae bacteria cells, into the food that worker bees eat. Then, when the worker bees produce their milky royal jelly (蜂王浆), the queen will eat it and the vaccine. Then, the vaccine will protect her developing offspring from the disease.
Under a conditional license from the USDA, Dalan Animal Health now plans to distribute limited amounts of the vaccine to commercial beekeepers. From there, they hope to offer it for sale throughout the U.S. sometime this year.
The federal agriculture agency awards conditional licenses to products that meet an emergency, situation, limited market, local situation or special circumstance. The USDA requires products that receive these types of licenses to be pure and safe, and have a reasonable expectation of effectiveness. Generally, conditional licenses come with restrictions and cover a limited period of time. Once that period ends, the agency evaluates the product’s effectiveness to determine whether to renew the conditional license or award a regular product license.
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?| A．To stress the importance of honeybees. |
| B．To lead to the topic of the passage. |
| C．To list the threats honeybees face. |
| D．To arouse readers’ interest. |
| A．Because it has changed the way we care for insects. |
| B．Because it’s the only treatment for American foulbrood. |
| C．Because it breaks through the limitations of the former treatment. |
| D．Because the previous treatment has no effectiveness. |
| A．Queen bees. | B．Worker bees. |
| C．Adult bees. | D．Young bees. |
| A．They promote the commercial success of honeybee vaccine. |
| B．They guarantee the full effectiveness of products. |
| C．They can be renewed with no strings attached. |
| D．They are in effect within a period of time. |
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【推荐1】Monica Bertagnolli is an oncologist (肿瘤学家) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. Growing up in Wyoming, she was well aware of the lack of health care resources in rural areas. Access to in-depth care for cancer patients is hard to get. She’s worked throughout her career to change that.
In Wyoming, there’s a great distance to travel between where people live and where they can find a cancer specialist. “If you need treatments and they have to be administered every day, and if it’s 120 miles from where you live, that ends up being a huge barrier to receiving the kind of care you need.”
And now Monica serves as the vice president of the Coalition (联盟) of Cancer Cooperative Groups (CCCG) — an international network of individuals who work to improve the quality of life and survival of cancer patients by increasing participation in cancer clinical trials.
She said, “One of the really important things is, we’re trying to make sure that cancer clinical trials can get to every single patient who needs them in my own state.” The coalition set up sites in northern and southern Wyoming that are able to run clinical trials. Before those trials became available, patients would usually go to Denver or Salt Lake City — a three-to-seven-hour drive.
Monica’s efforts to increase access to the health care needs of her rural Wyoming patients also include helping to develop new policies that will allow patients to participate in more clinical trials, and linking them with a regional doctor who can get them the access to the care they need.
In addition to the clinical trials, Monica said that technology’s progress like better cell phone and internet service in the mountains of Wyoming, as well as social media, has helped rural residents stay in touch with loved ones and medical professionals despite their distance. She is trying to advocate strongly for those changes to continue.
“I still consider myself part of Wyoming and I am very devoted to making sure that patients can get access to care.”
1. What do rural cancer patients in Wyoming need most?| A．Health care. | B．Better housing. |
| C．Further education. | D．Public transportation. |
| A．By offering clinical trials. | B．By advocating financial aid. |
| C．By improving internet service. | D．By training medical professionals. |
| A．Determined and loyal. | B．Honest and generous. |
| C．Grateful and courageous. | D．Devoted and responsible. |
| A．Technology: A push for progress | B．Monica: A helper for cancer patients |
| C．CCCG: A pioneer for cancer treatment | D．Clinical trials: A hope for cancer patients |
【推荐2】Deep sleep doesn’t just rest your body. Scientists believe it’s also when the brain washes away toxins (毒素), with a new project looking at whether the brain’s self-clean can be boosted.
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) neuroscientist Dr Tim Sargeant has teamed with Dr Edward Robins from SAHMRI’s Molecular Imaging and Therapy Research Unit to develop a brain scan that shows how well a brain is cleaning itself. Studies have shown that a clean brain would help with memory while fighting dementia (痴呆).
Scientists believe our brains clean themselves out each night when we enter deep sleep. Cerebrospinal fluid (脑脊液) is thought to wash through the brain, cleaning out toxins. Studies have shown a clear link between poor memory and toxins like the buildup of sticky plaques (粘性斑块) in the brains. Scientists believe brains that have a buildup of this plaque over time may not be cleaning themselves properly, putting people at risk of dementia.
Fortunately, the hope is that a clean brain would help with memory while fighting dementia. The brain scan will use special material to track how well the brain can keep itself clean and healthy through the process of removing and recycling its waste. “We’re aiming to catch the signs of the brain struggling to keep itself clean in individuals around the age of 50 or 60, well before the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (老年痴呆症) in most people,” Dr Sargeant said.
This new scan, an exciting imaging technology, will allow scientists to form a picture of a living brain and watch how it’s recycling wasting material in real time. “The scan takes out a lot of the guess work, by allowing scientists to see with their own eyes if they’ve hit the target or not,” Dr Robins said. “Without imaging, a researcher can get all the way up to the trial stage before realising they’re at a dead end.”
1. What is the aim of Dr Sargeant and Dr Robins’ developing the brain scan?| A．To help people enter deep sleep. | B．To reduce memory loss and dementia. |
| C．To research how to remove sticky plaques. | D．To study what the brain uses to clean itself. |
| A．Not enough blood in the brain. | B．Too frequent cleaning of the brain. |
| C．The increase of cerebrospinal fluid. | D．The gradual increase of sticky plaques. |
| A．Beginning. | B．Improvement. | C．Worsening. | D．Disappearance. |
| A．It brings more work. | B．It is just imaginary. |
| C．It is quite effective. | D．It is far from exact. |
【推荐3】While we all try to find happiness, sometimes we still end up feeling low. While most people can control this feeling, low moods can stay with some, leading to depression. About 322 million people suffered from depression in 2015, according to a report by the World Health Organization in February. This is more than 4 percent of the world's population.
Depression is described by the WHO as a mental disorder. It has several symptoms including sadness, loss of interest and feelings of low self-worth. In severe cases, depression may even lead to suicide.
The number of people living with depression is increasing. The WHO reported a rise of 18.4 percent between 2005 and 2015. Young people are a group known to suffer with depression. “The pressures on today's youth are like no other generation, perhaps," Dan Chisholm, an official of WHO, told Reuters.
In China, depression among young people is on the rise, Zhu Zhuohong, a psychology professor with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua News Agency. Competition to outperform others, especially in education, can cause a lot of pressure for Chinese youth.
Almost 1.2 million Chinese people aged 15 to 24 suffer from depression, according to a report released by British science journal The Lancet in May.
Luckily, more and more efforts are being made to deal with this problem. This year's World Health Day, held on April 7, will focus on depression. The day will highlight the “Depression: let's talk" campaign. The campaign aims to make sure that people with depression both seek and get help.
1. According to the passage, what was the population of the world in 2015?| A．about 322 million | B．about 128.8 million |
| C．about 8,050 million | D．about 18.4 million |
| A．feelings of low self-worth | B．loss of interest |
| C．sadness | D．suicide |
| A．The pressures on today's youth are not the same as other generations. |
| B．The pressures on today's youth are bigger than other generations. |
| C．The pressures on today's youth are the same as other generations. |
| D．The pressures on today's youth are not bigger than other generations. |
| A．Competition between young generations. |
| B．Competition to perform better than others in education. |
| C．Competition to outperform others. |
| D．Education to avoid disorders. |
【推荐1】Port Lympne Reserve, which runs a breeding (繁育) programme, has welcomed the arrival of a rare black rhino calf (犀牛幼崽). When the tiny creature arrived on January 31, she became the 40th black rhino to be born at the reserve. And officials at Port Lympne were delighted with the new arrival, especially as black rhinos are known for being difficult to breed in captivity (圈养).
Paul Beer, head of rhino section at Port Lympne, said: “Obviously we’re all absolutely delighted to welcome another calf to our black rhino family. She’s healthy, strong and already eager to play and explore. Her mother, Solio, is a first-time mum and she is doing a fantastic job. It’s still a little too cold for them to go out into the open, but as soon as the weather warms up, I have no doubt that the little one will be out and about exploring and playing every day.”
The adorable female calf is the second black rhino born this year at the reserve, but it is too early to tell if the calves will make good candidates to be returned to protected areas of the wild. The first rhino to be born at Port Lympne arrived on January 5 to first-time mother Kisima and weighed about 32kg. His mother, grandmother and great grandmother were all born at the reserve and still live there.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, the global black rhino population has dropped as low as 5500, giving the rhinos a “critically endangered” status.
1. What does Paul Beer say about the new-born rhino?| A．She loves staying with her mother. |
| B．She dislikes outdoor activities. |
| C．She is in good condition |
| D．She is sensitive to heat. |
| A．They had their first born in January. |
| B．They enjoyed exploring new places |
| C．They lived with their grandmothers. |
| D．They were brought to the reserve young |
【推荐2】The elephant was lying heavily on its side, fast asleep. A few dogs started barking at it. The elephant woke up in a terrible anger: it chased the dogs into the village where they ran for safety. That didn't stop the elephant. It destroyed a dozen houses and injured several people. The villagers were scared and angry. Then someone suggested calling Parbati,the elephant princess.
Parbati Barua's father was a hunter of tigers and an elephant tamer. He taught Parbati to ride an elephant before she could even walk. He also taught her the dangerous art of the elephant roundup—how to catch wild elephants.
Parbati hasn't always lived in the jungle. After a happy childhood hunting with her father, she was sent to a boarding school in the city. But Parbati never got used to being there and many years later she went back to her old life. "Life in the city is too dull. Catching elephants is an adventure and the excitement lasts for days after the chase," she says.
But Parbati doesn't catch elephants just for fun."My work," she says,"is to rescue man from the elephants, and to keep the elephants safe from man." And this is exactly what Parbati has been doing for many years. Increasingly, the Indian elephant is angry: for many years, illegal hunters have attacked it and its home in the jungle has been reduced to small pieces of land. It is now fighting back. Whenever wild elephants enter a tea garden or a village, Parbati is called to guide the animals back to the jungle before they can kill.
The work of an elephant tamer also involves love and devotion. A good elephant tamer will spend hours a day singing love songs to a newly captured elephant. "Eventually they grow to love their tamers and never forget them. They are also more loyal than humans," she said, as she climbed up one of her elephants and sat on the giant, happy animal. An elephant princess indeed!
1. For Parbati, catching elephants is mainly to ________.| A．get long lasting excitement |
| B．make the angry elephants tame |
| C．send them back to the jungle |
| D．keep both man and elephants safe |
| A．she had already been called an elephant princess |
| B．she learned how to sing love songs |
| C．she spent her time hunting with her father |
| D．she was taught how to hunt tigers |
| A．they are caught and sent for heavy work |
| B．they are attacked and their land gets limited |
| C．illegal hunters capture them and kill them |
| D．dogs often bark at them and chase them |
【推荐3】The cub(幼兽)learned quickly. If he met mother hen he would become angry, remembering the pecks on his nose from his first day out of a cave.
Famine came again and for a while, neither mother or cub had anything to eat. Then one day, She-wolf brought home some meat! It was strange stuff, different from anything the cub had smelled or tasted before. And it was for him! Little could he know that his mother had taken the left fork by the stream, by the lair of the lynx(山猫巢穴), and stolen kitten. As he finished his meal, he heard his mother snarling(咆哮)in strange and terrible way. He shivered with fear.
The lynx was mad with anger at the loss of her child and she had tracked She-wolf to her cave.
In the glare of the afternoon light, the lynx crouched at the cave entrance. A coarse scream left no doubt what she meant to do. The cub and his mother were trapped!
The lynx threw herself inside the cave, and She-wolf leaped upon her.
Snarling and howling, the two mothers fought like crazy, the lynx pulling and tearing with her teeth and claws, She-wolf using her teeth alone.
Seeing his mother in such danger, the cub sank his teeth into the wild cat’s leg. Although he didn’t know it, this is probably what saved their lives. The lynx beat at the cub, tearing his shoulder, but he had slowed her down. After a brief, cruel fight, She-wolf put an end to her once and for all.
They had won, but at a price.
The cub licked his mother’s wounds. He knew she was weak and sick. For a week she never left the cave.
Then at last, her strength returned and she was ready to hunt again. This time, the cub went with her. She-wolf noticed a change in her child. He had complete faith in himself from their victory over the lynx. They had fought a wild cat and lived!
The cub now knew another law of the wild-eat or to be eaten: kill or to be killed.
1. What can be inferred about the cub from Paragraph 1 and 2?| A．A mother hen once attacked him. |
| B．He shared the meat with She-wolf. |
| C．The cub didn’t like the strange meat. |
| D．He could obtain meat secretly. |
| A．Fought. | B．Tracked. | C．Hid. | D．Trapped. |
| A．The lynx fighting with her teeth and claws. |
| B．The cub biting into the leg of the lynx. |
| C．The three being wounded seriously. |
| D．She-wolf using her sharp teeth. |
| A．Carefulness. | B．Strength. | C．Friendship. | D．Confidence. |
【推荐1】Canadian-Iranian designer Roya Aghighi wants you to imagine that your shirt is alive.
Far from dreaming up a horror movie script, Aghighi hopes we can develop a more close relationship with fashion -- by treating clothes as living beings that need our help to survive.
“You're not going to throw your clothes in the comer of your closet or into the washing machine,"she said over the phone from Vancouver. "It's immediately going to shift the way you think about your clothing."
Aghighi's thought experiment isn't as distant as it might seem. Working with a group of scientists at the University of British Columbia（ UBC）, she has invented a living, biodegradable（可降解的）fabric named Biogarmentry. Made from algae（藻类），the fabric photosynthesizes（进行光合作用），which purifies the air around it.
UBC claims it's the first living and photosynthesizing fabric, and has fashioned the material into a garment. While they are still in the early stages of research and design, and far from mass production, they challenge the fashion industry to reimagine ways it can reduce its carbon footprint through alternative fabrics.
Fashion is one of the world's most polluting industries. It's responsible for more carbon emissions（排放）than international flights and shipping combined, amounting to 10% of all greenhouse gasses emitted globally, according to figures from the United Nations Environment Programme（UNEP）.
US consumers are buying more garments than ever, wearing each item fewer times and sending almost 70% of the clothes produced each year to landfill, according to the US Environmental Protection
Changing our relationship with clothing, from one of neglectful fast-fashion consumption to an empathetic connection, is one of Aghighi's main drivers.
While her innovative garment is now only at the proof - of - concept stage, buyers may one day be instructed to stretch the fabric out in front of a window before putting it on. With sunlight and a spray of water, its single-cell algae come to life.
1. What is special about the garment designed by Aghighi?| A．It offers long-lasting comfort. | B．It is made from recycledmaterials. |
| C．It is friendly to the environment. | D．It doesn't need ourconstantcare. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By listing figures. |
| C．By analyzing cause and effect. | D．By reasoning. |
| A．The new garment will soon be produced on a large scale. |
| B．The fashion industry has a role to play in reducing carbon emissions. |
| C．US consumers are gradually changing their fast fashion habit. |
| D．The fashion industry has polluted the earth more than we can imagine. |
| A．Fashion Trend ： Can You Imagine Your Future Clothes |
| B．It's Time to Change Your Consumption Habits |
| C．How Will Algae Shape Our Life in the Future |
| D．Future Design ： Living Clothes Can Reduce Emissions |
【推荐2】A lot of people ask this question: "Why is body language so important?" Studies have shown that in the process of communication, non-verbal expression has 65% to 93% more influence than actual text. This means that "how to say" is more important than "what to say". Of course, this does not mean that you don't need to do preparation for your interviews, nor does it mean that you can take any short cuts. On the contrary, this means that you have more things to pay attention to and prepare for.
In the real workplace, body language is much more important than you think. Without proper body language, you may find yourself trapped in a circle where you can't integrate with the external environment, not to mention the difficulties in the absence of body language in the workplace.
"People can often make inferences from actions, and the results of these inferences directly affect lives: for example. who will be employed and who will be promoted."Academician Amy Cuddy said in a TV talk show. She also said that "our body language will also affect our perception ( 感知, 看法)of ourselves. When you try to make more authoritative actions,your brain will inadvertently（不经意地）receive signals and actually create an idea that you are more authoritative, so that you have more confidence in yourself".
Therefore, before interviews or important meetings, try not to lean on any object or have a hunched back. Instead, you should try to keep your body relaxed. You can even stand with a relatively authoritative posture (姿势） -of course, you may need to do these things in the bathroom or places where no one could see you.
Body language plays a crucial role in your job interviews, careers, and everyday life. Paying attention to body language could make strong impacts on your behavior,which could help you achieve better results. So, every time you are nervous or feel that you can't do it, stretch your body, smile, and tell yourself "Fake it till you become it!"
1. What does Paragraph 1 mainly tell us?| A．What we say in a conversation is not so important. |
| B．Practicing body language is a short cut to success. |
| C．We should attach great importance to body language. |
| D．Body language carries 93% of conversation messages. |
| A．It decides whether we are promoted. |
| B．It influences people's impression of us. |
| C．It makes us look more authoritative. |
| D．It helps people understand who we are. |
| A．Broken down. | B．Tied behind. |
| C．Bent forward. | D．Straightened up. |
| A．New arrivals in the workplace. |
| B．Body language researchers. |
| C．Working adults to be promoted. |
| D．Viewers of a TV talk show. |
【推荐3】Every language and culture has curse words (脏话). What gives a curse word its power is partly its meaning and partly its sound. “In English, for example, curse words tend to contain a high percentage of plosive (爆破音) sounds, including P, T and K, ” said Ryan McKay, a psychologist at University of London.
Dr. McKay teamed up with his colleague Shiri Lev-Ari to learn whether this familiar pattern went beyond English. They wondered whether it might even represent what’s called sound symbolism. Sound symbolism is when a word sounds like what it means.
The researchers first asked fluent speakers of Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean and Russian to list the most vulgar (粗俗的) words they could think of. Once they’d made a list of each language’s most frequently used curse words, the researchers compared these with neutral words from the same language. In these languages, they didn’t find the plosive sounds that seem common in English curse words. “Instead, we found that the vulgar words were defined by what they lacked: the approximant (近似音) sounds that include letters I, L, R, W and Y,” Dr. Lev-Ari said.
Next, the scientists invited 215 native speakers of six languages: Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, French, German and Spanish. The participants listened to pairs of words in a language they didn’t speak, and guessed which word in each pair was offensive. In reality, all the words were invented. For example, the researchers started with the Albanian word “zog,” for “bird,” and created the pair of fake words “yog” and “tsog.” Participants were more likely to guess that words without approximants, such as “tsog,” were curses.
Finally, the researchers combed through the dictionary for English curse words and their cleaned-up versions. Once again, the clean versions included more of the sounds I, L, R, W and Y.
A 20th-century linguistic principle claimed that the sounds of words were arbitrary: Any word could have any meaning. With curse words, though, as in other cases of sound symbolism, “the sounds themselves seem to carry meaning,” said Lev-Ari. “That’s a new thing,” said linguist Benjamin Bergen. “Curse words across languages, unrelated to each other, may pattern similarly.” He also pointed out, to make sure the pattern of approximants missing from curses isn’t an accident, it would be nice to find it in an even larger sample of languages.
1. What is the purpose of McKay and Lev-Ari’s research?| A．To analyze a phenomenon. | B．To explain a definition. |
| C．To confirm an assumption. | D．To challenge a theory. |
| A．To tell the rude word according to its sound. |
| B．To make up new curse words from real words. |
| C．To decide which curse words are used more frequently. |
| D．To identify the approximants in curse words. |
| A．Tusck | B．Sola | C．Darn | D．Biach |
| A．The old linguistic principle of sounds and meanings is wrong. |
| B．In sound symbolism, a word’s sound represents its meaning. |
| C．The research reveals the similarities between different languages. |
| D．The result of the research is not fully accepted by scientists. |
