As people are becoming more socially conscious about where their food comes from and how it impacts the planet, they are choosing animal-free plant-based options. Cow-free meat has been around for quite some time and the popularity of brands like Beyond Meat and cultivated meat from Aleph Farms and others are soaring. While there are a large number of plant-based milk substitutes, none of them have the same taste of cow’s milk. Now, an Israeli food-tech startup Remilk created real dairy products without harming a single cow or the planet.
The company stresses that their product Remilk is not a milk substitute but rather is the real deal. Made from a special process called microbial fermentation (微生物发酵), milk is manufactured in a lab instead of in a cow. And the end product is very healthy. “In a very simple way, we take the gene that encodes for the milk protein,” said Aviv Wolff, CEO of Remilk.”The gene functions as an instruction book for the production of the protein it encodes. And so, we insert the gene into a microbe that we’ve developed and it instructs our microbe to produce the specific protein in a very efficient way.”
The company says that the lab-produced milk tastes identical to the real thing and they hope to eventually replace cows by creating every dairy product sold. They expect to roll out plant-based cheese and yogurt in addition to milk. “Remilk was founded with the mission to stop using animals to produce our food because, as dairy lovers, we realize that giving up on milk is not an option,” Wolff said. “But today’s milk comes with an unreasonable price tag. The dairy industry is destructive to our planet, our health, and our animals, and is simply not sustainable anymore.”
The environmental price tag of dairy farming is way too high. According to the World Wildlife Fund, dairy cows add a huge amount of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere and contribute to global warming and climate change as well as foul the air around them. Dairy operations consume large amounts of water and run-off of manure (粪肥) and fertilizers from these farms get into local waterways. The production of Remilk uses only 5 percent of the resources and produces only 1 percent of the waste of producing cow’s milk according to the company. And they accomplish this by being 100 percent cruelty-free unlike dairy farms.
1. What distinguishes Remilk from other milk substitutes?A.It enjoys broad popularity. |
B.It has the highest output. |
C.It comes in various flavours. |
D.It tastes the same as cow’s milk. |
A.The production of Remilk. |
B.The nutritional value of Remilk. |
C.The role of gene in making protein. |
D.The process of microbial fermentation. |
A.Remilk was set up for animal protection. |
B.Dairy industries should be shut down. |
C.Remilk aims to produce animal-free food. |
D.Prices of cow’s milk are soaring these days. |
A.Clean. | B.Heat. |
C.Pollute. | D.Consume. |
A.Drawing on gene technology, Remilk has developed a variety of dairy products. |
B.Conventional dairy industry is anything but eco-friendly. |
C.The new technology adopted by Remilk transforms the gene of cows. |
D.It’ll be some time before the public get accustomed to the milk substitutes. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】When a laptop or smart phone battery starts losing is power, the only options are to buy an expensive replacement or just keep it plugged in all the time. But a woman Mya Le Thai may have found the solution to this problem.
Thai was frustrated that the batteries for her wireless devices degraded (退化) over time, until they failed to charge fully. She did not like having to keep her laptop connected to an electrical outlet to keep it powered on. So, she decided to do something about that problem. At first, she and her team at UC Irvine thought about inventing a new battery. But as they experimented, Thai discovered something that might permit lithium-ion (锂离子) batteries to last forever.
Lithium-ion batteries power most wireless devices. Over time, the batteries lose the ability to hold a charge. Most of these batteries have a lifespan of about 7,000 charging cycles before they die. One of the reasons lithium-ion batteries degrade is their use of nanowires to carry electricity. Nanowires are extremely thin. A human hair is thousands of times thicker, for example. Nanowires are extremely efficient carriers of electricity, which makes them useful in batteries.
But, Thai had a theory-the nanowires might last longer if covered with a gel (凝胶). She and her team tested his theory. “It was a long process and a lot of work,” Thai said. The team tried many coverings for the wires. PMMA, a type of plastic, was one of them. The nanowires were coated with PMMA and cycled through charging 200.000 times. The PMMA coated nanowires showed no evidence of damage. The results suggest that batteries could last forever without losing charging ability.
Thai hopes to continue her research to understand why this gel works so well and to see if any other gel could create better results and she is enjoying the publicity about her discovery. She said she never expected her research to get media coverage. “It’s kind of cool,” she said. “I’m really glad people are showing interest in my work and not just in the work itself but also in technology and energy.”
1. Why did Mya Le Thai work on lithium-ion batteries?A.She disliked the batteries for her laptop. |
B.Her team were ordered to invent a new battery, |
C.The batteries would soon fail to get fully charged. |
D.Many people thought batteries were too expensive. |
A.They are too weak to carry electricity. |
B.They are not suitable to use in batteries. |
C.They last exactly 7,000 changing cycles. |
D.Their thinness is a cause of batteries degrading. |
A.Mya Le Thai Discovered Nanowires |
B.A Woman Invents a Lasting Battery |
C.The Options of Batteries for Wireless Devices |
D.The Reasons for Batteries Degrading |
【推荐2】A sunflower is a sunflower. A mobile phone is a mobile phone. But can you combine the two to do something for your local environment? As early as next year it may well be possible. When you have finished with your mobile phone you will be able to bury it in a garden or a plant pot and wait for it to flower.
A biodegradable (生物所能分解的) mobile phone was, this month, introduced by scientists. It is hoped that the new type of phone will encourage consumers to recycle.
Scientists have come up with a new material over the last five years. It looks like any other plastic and can be hard or soft, and is able to change shape. Over time it can also break down into the soil without giving out any poisonous chemicals. British researchers used the new material to develop a phone cover that contains a sunflower seed. When this new type of cover turns into waste, it forms fertilizers. These feed the seed and help the flower grow.
Engineers have designed a small transparent (透明的) window to hold the seed. They have made sure it only grows when the phone is throw n away. “We’ve only put sunflower seeds into the covers so far. But we are working with plant experts to find out which flowers would perform best. Maybe we could put roses in next time.” said one scientist.
As phone technology is developing so quickly, people are constantly throwing their mobiles away. This means manufacturers are under pressure to find ways of recycling them. Some 650 million mobile phones have been sold this year. Most of them will be throw n away within two years, adding plastic, heavy metal and chemical waste to the environment. A biodegradable cover can offer some relief for nature, according to the scientists.
“The seed comes out and the flower grows in the pot so you don’t have to concern yourself with the phone when you have finished using it,” said Kerry Kirw an. She leads the research team, which is based at the University of Warw ick in Britain.
1. What is the purpose of this passage?A.To tell the popularity of biodegradable cell phones. |
B.To discuss the development of the cell phone technology. |
C.To persuade the readers to buy the biodegradable cell phone. |
D.To introduce an environmental-friendly cell phone to readers. |
A.It can turn into useful fertilizer for the sunflower seeds. |
B.It can hardly serve as the storage for the sunflower seed. |
C.It may give out poisonous chemicals when breaking down. |
D.It may make the seed grow after the phone is throw n away. |
A.The new type of mobile phone will sell extremely well. |
B.The new type of mobile phone is already on the market. |
C.Other flowers may be used in the new type of cell phone. |
D.Mobile phone is increasingly important to the environment. |
A.Design a Phone | B.Help the Sunflower to grow |
C.Protec t Our Environment | D.Plant Your Phone |
【推荐3】When you go running in the woods in your running tights, elastane (氨纶) is the reason why they fit you so comfortably. Elastane is an elastic material that allows the fabric to stretch and adapt to your body.
But when elastane fibres are mixed with cotton, wool, nylon or other fibres, as is the case in many clothes today, the clothes become almost impossible to recycle. It is extremely difficult to separate out the different fibres, and therefore the materials in the clothes cannot be recycled.
But this may change, says Assistant Professor Steffan Kvist Kristensen from the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center at Aarhus University. Together with a number of colleagues, he is behind a new technology that can separate out fibres in mixed fabrics.
“We’ve developed a method to remove elastane completely from nylon. We’re not quite there yet with cotton, because some of the cotton fibres are broken down in the process. But we believe that, with some minor adjustments, we can solve this problem,” he says.
It is not easy to separate elastane and other fibres once they have been woven(编织) together. Clothes are made by winding the main fibres, such as nylon or cotton, around the elastane fibres, which consist of long chains of molecules (分子). The fibres only break apart if we break the long chains of molecules, explains Steffan Kvist Kristensen.
By heating the clothes to 225 degrees Celsius and adding a specific alcohol, the researchers have found a method to break down the bonds in elastane chain. When this happens, the chains fall apart and the materials separate. “The whole process takes place in what is in effect a large pressure cooker that we feed the clothes into. We then add a little alcohol and a potassium hydroxide(氢氧化钾) base and heat it up. Then we let it cook for just over four hours, and when we open the lid again, the different fibres will have been separated.” says Steffan Kvist Kristensen.
So far, Steffan Kvist Kristensen and his colleagues have only experimented with two nylon stockings at a time. The technology is therefore not yet ready for application at industrial scale.
1. What can we learn about elastane from the passage?A.It is an eco-friendly material. | B.It is a kind of stretchable fabric. |
C.It makes the clothes far from recycling. | D.It is made up of short chains of molecules. |
A.To separate more fibres. | B.To reduce the heating time. |
C.To increase the temperature to 225℃. | D.To ensure the safety of the experiment. |
A.It can separate all sorts of fibres. |
B.It needs plenty of energy to work. |
C.There is a long way before it is widely used. |
D.There is no possibility to separate elastane from cotton. |
A.Satisfied. | B.Confident. | C.Critical. | D.Unclear. |
【推荐1】The UK government has promised to cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions (排放) by at least 68% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, marking a significant increase from its current goal.
The new goal comes nine days ahead of the UK hosting a“climate action summit (峰会)”to encourage other countries to declare tougher climate plans, known as Nationally Deter-mined Contributions (NDCs), under the Paris Agreement. Current NDCs will raise temperatures by 3℃. And stronger plans are needed to meet the Paris deal's goal of limiting global warming to 1. 5℃.
"This is the most significant NDCs announcement so far from any major economy," said Richard Black at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a UK-based think tank, in a statement.
The new goal is exactly in line with what the government's official climate adviser, the Climate Change Committee, called for in a letter published earlier today. The group said 68% would be "“world-leading" compared with existing plans of governments.
The UK had previously promised a 53% cut in emissions as part of a joint (共同的) effort with the rest of the European Union, but the UK is determined to produce a new NDCs. Separately, the UK had also promised a 57% cut by 2032 domestically.
It is clear that far more action will be needed if the UK is to meet the new goal. The government's own analysis last week showed that recent major methods, such as banning newoil-fueled car sales by 2030,had failed to do enough to put the UK on track even for the old goal of 57% by 2032. The new goal obviously widens that gap further.
1. Why did the UK declare its new goal before “climate action summit”?A.To show its former plans are based on facts. |
B.To blame other countries for their low goals. |
C.To call on other countries to take bigger steps. |
D.To take the lead in controlling greenhouse gas emissions. |
A.15%. | B.68%. | C.57%. | D.53%. |
A.Disapproval. | B.Doubtful. | C.Unconcerned. | D.Subjective. |
A.A new goal will be put forward on“climate action summit" |
B.UK came up with a common goal under the Paris Agreement |
C.UK's recent major policies are far from its predetermined goal |
D.UK sets an ambitious climate goal of 68% emissions cut by 2030 |
【推荐2】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 |
【推荐3】Tropical rainforests are disappearing at an alarming rate, and according to a new report by Rainforest Foundation Norway, humans are to blame. The world's dependence on coal, farming. soy. palm oil and mining has resulted in two-thirds of Earth's tropical rainforests being completely destroyed, and the remaining ecosystems being put closer to a tipping point.
Tropical rainforests once covered 14.5 million square kilometers of Earth's surface, but now, just one-third of that remains intact. Of the original area tropical rainforests once occupied, 34% is completely gone and 30%is suffering from degradation. All that remains is roughly 9.5 million square kilometers, and45% of that is in a degraded state, the report says.
Researchers blame human consumption for the loss. While agriculture has always been a driving factor of rainforest loss, the report said that energy consumption, international trade and the production of soy and palm oil, logging and mining have been the largest threats over the past century. A significant number of U. S. commodities rely on resources from tropical rainforests. The country heavily relies on palm oil, rubber and cocoa, all of which come from forests around the world. Oftentimes, these resources are harvested from illegally deforested lands.
Tropical rainforests are home to more than half of the Earth's biodiversity and have more carbon in living organisms than any other ecosystem. Along with supporting significant animal life, tropical rainforests are also essential to slowing down global warming. “These highly specialized ecosystems are suffering from constant abuse, through our bottomless appetite for land and resources,” said Anders Krogh, who authored the report. “We expect that upcoming UN climate and biodiversity summits provide specific targets and measures to protect intact tropical rainforests.”
The rescarchers also believe that the loss of tropical rainforests puts the whole world at risk of future pandemics. “Massive deforestation is violating nature's natural virus protection systems.” Krogh said. “The aftermath of COVID-19 should bring rainforest protection to the top of the agenda of all policy makers and world leaders concerned about preventing the outbreak of new pandemics.”
1. What is the purpose of the numbers in paragraph 2?A.To point out the threat to the current ecosystem. |
B.To exhibit the forest coverage rate on Earth. |
C.To present the process of rainforest degradation. |
D.To highlight the severe destruction of rainforests. |
A.It displayed the richness of rainforest resources. |
B.It stressed the effects of farming on tropical rainforests. |
C.It explained the relationship between humans and nature. |
D.It showed human's excessive consumption of rainforest resources. |
A.Human diet. | B.Social structure. |
C.Global climate. | D.Economic development. |
A.Rainforest protection demands immediate attention. |
B.Deforestation will affect the future generations. |
C.Rainforest loss has brought about new pandemics. |
D.Deforestation has accelerated the spread of the virus. |
【推荐1】Andrew runs a car repair workshop in a village in London, where swallows have made their nests on the crossbeams beneath its roof. All day long, they fly in and out, bringing back insects for their hungry chicks, seemingly unconscious of the constant noise and the comings and goings of customers. However, this spring the swallows didn’t arrive back at his workshop until 10 April — the latest they have returned in nearly 40 years. Actually, the average return date has been 8 April, but this year I didn’t see one over my garden in Scottish Highlands until the 25th. Numbers are down, too. While the tide appears to have turned up from last weekend onwards, other familiar species, like house martin (毛脚燕), needle-tailed swift, etc have been very few and far between.
There are two reasons for their late arrival. Unlike many other migrating (迁徙) birds, which fatten themselves up before they depart, these species feed as they travel, replenishing (补充) lost energy by catching flying insects. For that reason, they are especially vulnerable to bad weather. And the weather in southern Europe this spring has been very unpredictable.
The second reason is that, here in Britain these years, although the weather has been mainly dry, there have been persistent easterly and northeasterly winds, which may have also slowed down the birds’ progress as they headed north.
How might this end up affecting these global travellers over the long term? Migrating birds usually live for only one or two years, so they need to get down to raising a family as soon as they return. Swallows, which usually start nesting in early April, may only be able to raise a single hatch this year, rather than two as they do in most years.
I have seen swallows all over the world and discovered just how important they are as a sign of spring: not just in Britain but all the way across the northern hemisphere. Yet I am concerned that rapid changes in the world’s climate pose a real threat to their chances of breeding successfully and their long-term future, even a week or two delays.
Fortunately, warm weather and clear skies have finally come to southern Europe, and the migration floodgates have opened. Earlier last week, down on the Somerset coast, I saw a steady passage of swallows, together with a few house martins, all heading steadily northwards. With warm sunshine and enough rain to produce quantities of insects, the swallows might be able to compensate for their lost time.
1. What can be inferred from the first three paragraphs?A.Swallows’ migration is always as regular as clockwork. |
B.Swallows are attracted by the steady stream of visitors. |
C.Swallows love making their nests around human places. |
D.Swallows’ lateness for the spring becomes a universal trend. |
A.Unsettled weather affects swallows’ feeding pattern. |
B.Abundant food supply makes up for swallows’ lost time. |
C.Persistent winds step up swallows’ progress towards south. |
D.There is an upward tendency in varieties of migrating birds. |
A.A threat to their immune system. | B.A decrease in their life span. |
C.A decline in their population. | D.A slim chance of nesting for chicks. |
A.To raise great concerns about climate change. |
B.To introduce migration habits of different birds. |
C.To propose ideas for addressing global warming. |
D.To call for people to save the endangered species. |
【推荐2】Dreams have fascinated people for thousands of years, yet we struggle to understand their purpose. A more recent theory suggests nighttime dreams protect visual areas of the brain from being taken over during sleep by other sensory functions, such as hearing or touch.
David Eagle-man, a neuroscience at Stanford University, has proposed the idea that dreaming is necessary to protect the visual cortex (大脑皮层)—the part of the brain responsible for processing vision. He argues that neurons (神经元) compete for survival. The brain, Eagle-man explains, distributes its resources by “implementing a do-or-die competition” for brain territory in which sensory areas “gain or lose neural territory when inputs slow, stop or shift.” Eagle-man points to people who lose sight or hearing. They show heightened sensitivity in the remaining senses because the region of the brain normally used by the lost sense is taken over by other senses.
When you sleep, you can smell, hear and feel, but visual information is absent —except during REM sleep. About 90 minutes after drifting off to sleep, you enter REM. It begins when neurons in your brain stem signal the beginning of two important tasks. Activity of these neurons, for one, paralyze major muscles, preventing the sleeper from acting out what is happening in the dream. Also, these brain cells send messages directly to the visual cortex, which starts the dreaming process. Scans of dreaming people show most of the brain activity associated with REM is within the visual cortex. Dreams are the brain’s way of fighting takeover from other senses, according to Eagle-man.
Eagle-man says that his theory can accommodate other explanations for dreams and that REM sleep may serve many purposes besides protecting the visual cortex. Think of dreaming like a computer screen saver that is set to go off every 90 minutes —except that instead of protecting against frozen images, dreams prevent the visual cortex from being occupied by other functions.
1. What is Eagle-man’s primary theory about dreams?A.They strengthen sensory functions. | B.They process emotional experiences. |
C.They safeguard certain brain territory. | D.They heighten visual responsiveness. |
A.Precise selection. | B.Desperate struggle. | C.Rapid adaptation. | D.Harmonious balance. |
A.It lasts for about 90 minutes. | B.It consists of two critical stages. |
C.It allows sleepers to act out their dreams. | D.It starts with brain stem’s signaling process. |
A.To show their creative aspect. | B.To highlight their randomness. |
C.To signify their repetitive nature. | D.To illustrate their protective function. |
【推荐3】Characteristics of Publicity
Publicity offers several benefits. There are no costs for message time or space. An ad in prime-time television may cost $250, 000 to $5,000, 000 or more per minute, whereas a five-minute report on a network newscast would not cost anything. Publicity reaches a mass audience within a short time and new products or company policies are widely known.
Credibility about messages is high, because they are reported in independent media. A newspaper review of a movie has more believability than an ad in the same paper, because the reader associates independence with objectivity. Similarly, people are more likely to pay attention to news reports than to ads. For example, Women’s Wear Daily has both fashion reports and advertisements. Readers spend time reading the stories, but they skim through the ads. Furthermore, there may be 10 commercials during a half-hour television programme or hundreds of ads in a magazine. Feature stories are much fewer in number and stand out clearly.
Publicity also has some significant limitations. A firm has little control over messages, their timing, their placement, or their coverage by a given medium. It may issue detailed news releases and find only portions mentioned by the media, and media have the ability to be much more critical than a firm would like.
For example, in 1982, Procter Gamble faced a massive publicity problem over the meaning of its 123-year-old company logo. To fight this negative publicity, the firm had a spokesperson appear on Good Morning America to disprove the rumor. The false rumors were temporarily put to rest. However, in 1985, publicity became so troublemaking that Procter Gamble decided to remove the logo from its products.
A firm may want publicity during certain periods, such as when a new product is introduced or new store opened, but the media may not cover the introduction or opening until after the time it would aid the firm. Similarly, media determine the placement of a story; it may follow a report on crime or sports. Finally, the media decide whether to cover a story at all and the amount of coverage to be devoted to it.
1. The advantages of publicity are the following ones EXCEPT ________.A.time-saving | B.money-saving | C.credibility | D.profitability |
A.The effectiveness of publicity may be affected by the newspaper agent. |
B.Commercials are usually woven into the television programme. |
C.Feature stories are less favoured by readers due to their number. |
D.Local newspapers are not interested in company-sponsored programmes. |
A.the efficient way of disproving rumors | B.the terrible effect of rumors. |
C.people’s lack of judgement about media | D.the negative effect of publicity |
A.Doubtful. | B.Objective. | C.Passive. | D.Supportive. |