For thousands of years, humans have used names to communicate with one another. We also give names to animals, especially ones we love, such as pets. Until now there has been little evidence of animals naming one another, but a new study suggests that elephants use specific noises to identify other elephants.
A few animals, including parrots and dolphins, have been known to use sounds that are similar to names. Each dolphin invents a signature whistle that is unique to it, and other members of its species communicate with it by simulating this special call. The new study, led by Michael Pardo of Colorado State University, shows that wild African elephants use names in a way that is not just copying sounds and is much closer to the way humans use names.
For the study, the researchers recorded 625 sounds made by wild African elephants in Kenya that they called "rumbles (隆隆声)”. This is the most common type of call produced by elephants, and it can travel long distances-as far as 3. 7 miles. It takes place at a very low frequency, which means humans can't hear it.
The researchers analyzed the sounds using computers and found that certain rumbles were directed at specific elephants to get their attention They found that all the elephants in the herd used the identical call to get a particular elephant's attention -these calls were not just nicknames used by one of the elephant's friends. Also. unlike the way dolphins communicate. the rumbles were not just imitations of the elephant they were trying to communicate with.
The researchers then played back some of the recorded rumbles to the elephants. They found that elephants responded more to their own name than to other calls. coming toward it more quickly or calling back faster. Cartlin O'Connell-Rodwell, an elephant expert, said, "The study shows that elephants can still keep in touch with one another even across a large area. "She told Live Science, "The rumbles ere magical, which allow them to spread out much further and still have very close tabs（密切关注） on individuals. "
1. What does the underlined word "simulating" in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Copying. | B．Inventing | C．Transforming. | D．Receiving. |
| A．By making certain rumbles heard by people. |
| B．By using specific languages like people’s. |
| C．By making specific noises with a high frequency |
| D．By using names in a way closer to people’s. |
| A．It records 625 sounds from several species. |
| B．It is subjective in the analysis of sounds. |
| C．It is carried out with the help of computers. |
| D．It shows dolphins' calls travel long distances. |
| A．Elephants communicate with noses across a large area. |
| B．Rumbles are important in elephants’ communication |
| C．Elephants may be last on the way to their habitats |
| D．Rumbles enable elephants to stand nr play closer. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Wildlife crossings, which are human-made structures like underpasses, overpasses, or culverts (涵洞) that help animals move safely around their habitat, don’t just protect animals and biodiversity. They can also reduce the number of car collisions and save significant money, a new study finds.
“I thought it would be useful to provide some information on the financial benefits of wildlife crossing structures for policymakers, transportation planners, and conservationists”, says Wisnu Sugiarto, the author of the study.
For this study, Sugiarto studied collision information from the Washington State Department of Transportation. He examined data for 13 of the 22 wildlife crossings in Washington State from 2011 to 2020. Then he made adjustments based on how close the crossings were to other structures and the time it took to build them. He compared the numbers of wildlife-vehicle collisions each year before and after the construction of a wildlife crossing. Then he compared his analysis to that of a separate area in the state with no crossings at all.
“The findings reported that wildlife crossing structures reduced the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions (碰撞)by one to three accidents on average per mile per year, but not all structures had statistically significant effects”, Sugiarto says.
Using financial estimates from other research, he determined that a wildlife crossing offers an annual benefit of between $235,000 and $443,000 every year. Earlier studies focused on wildlife crossings in North Carolina, Utah, and Wyoming. They found wildlife underpasses and fencing could improve road safety, he says. “My findings complement the earlier studies and are also in favor of improving road safety.”
Besides, the findings are timely. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021 includes $350 million over five years for the construction of wildlife crossings.
‘‘Before working on this research, I wasn’t aware of any strategies to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions. I also thought we couldn’t do much about it, partly because we can’t communicate with wildlife or control their movement”, Sugiarto says. “However, it turns out that there are multiple strategies to handle issues related to wildlife-vehicle collisions and that we can do something about them.”
1. What did Sugiarto think about conducting the study in paragraph 2?| A．It is necessary. |
| B．It is cost effective. |
| C．It is difficult to conduct. |
| D．It would educate the pedestrians. |
| A．By turning to previous findings. |
| B．By referring to professional data. |
| C．By analyzing the cause of collisions. |
| D．By interviewing different passers-by. |
| A．They offer a way to ensure road safety. |
| B．They draw public attention to collisions. |
| C．They help improve the safety of wildlife crossings. |
| D．They provide evidence for new policies on wildlife crossings. |
| A．It makes him famous. |
| B．It gives him new topics to explore. |
| C．It changes his view on wildlife-vehicle collisions. |
| D．It provides inspiration for him to communicate with wildlife. |
【推荐2】To call someone bird-brained in English means you think that person is silly or stupid.
But will this description soon disappear from use in the recent research? It seems English may have been unfair in association bird’s brains with stupidity.
In an attempt to find out how different creatures see the world，psychologists at Brown University in the USA have been comparing the behaviour of birds and humans.One experiment has involved teaching pigeons to recognize letters of the English alphabet.The birds study in “classrooms”，which are boxes equipped with a computer.After about four days of studying a particular letter, the pigeon has to pick out that letter from several displayed on the computer screen.Three male pigeons have learned to distinguish all twenty-six letters of the alphabet in this way.
A computer record of the birds7 four-month study period has shown surprising similarities between the pigeons’ and human performance.Pigeons and people find the same letters easy, or hard，to tell apart.For example, 92 percent of the time the pigeons could tell the letter D from the letter Z.But when faced with U and V ( often confused by English children)，the pigeons were right only 34 percent of the time.
The results of the experiments so far have led psychologists (心理学家）to conclude that pigeons and humans observe things in similar ways.This suggests that there is something basic about the recognition process.If scientists could only discover just what this recognition process is, it could be very useful for computer designers.The disadvantage of a present computer is that it can only do what a human being has programmed it to do and the programmer must give the computer precise，logical instructions.Maybe in the future，though，computers will be able to think like human beings.
1. Why does the writer suggest the expression “bird-brained” might be out of use?| A．It is silly. | B．It is impolite. |
| C．It is unnecessary. | D．It is inappropriate. |
| A．92 percent of pigeons. | B．Many English children. |
| C．Most people learning English. | D．34 percent of English children. |
| A．Pigeons and humans find letters equally fast. |
| B．Pig eons have brains more developed than other birds. |
| C．Their basic ways to know the world are the same. |
| D．Pigeons and humans have similar brains. |
| A．Computer designers. | B．Computer salesmen. |
| C．Psychologists. | D．Teachers. |
【推荐3】Dogs are usually regarded as the friends of human beings. Recently, a dog was filmed jumping onto the back of an ambulance as his owner was transported to hospital. The dog owner had been walking his pet when he fell ill in the city of Uruguaiana, Brazil. Emergency services were called to the scene and the man was placed into an ambulance to hospital. The dog, dressed in a little red jumper, did not run away instantly. Instead, he jumped onto the bumper(保险杠) of the ambulance, trying to follow his stricken owner as close as possible. The medical workers took pity on the sweet dog and opened the doors to allow him inside the ambulance.
The dog was reported to be waiting outside the hospital entrance as his owner was treated. Lots of social media users and those who spotted the dog at the hospital were attracted by the dog’s behavior. Many took photos and posted them on the Internet.
Local animal rescuer Maria Muniz, who lives near the hospital, said she saw the lonely dog and offered to take it in for the night until his owner recovered. However, the dog was unwilling to leave, keeping waiting at the spot. Luckily, he did not have to wait long before his owner left hospital and the pair were reunited. Maria Muniz said, “It was very moving. But thank God the owner was only hospitalized for 30 minutes. His family arrived to take him and his dog home. ”
1. What did the dog do when his owner fell ill?| A．Calling an ambulance. | B．Following his owner. |
| C．Running away instantly. | D．Jumping up and down. |
| A．They wanted to show off. |
| B．The dog was good-looking. |
| C．The dog’s act was impressive. |
| D．They wanted to attract animal lovers. |
| A．A day. | B．A night. | C．Half a day. | D．Half an hour . |
| A．Dog: a Loyal Friend | B．Love Me, Love My Dog |
| C．An Animal Lover | D．Dog: a Good Helper |
【推荐1】You might think a computer would be a fair judge, but a new study from MIT finds it might be better for you to leave yourself in the hands of humans. AI won’t let people off easily when they break the rule!
This study, conducted by a team at MIT, examined how AI would interpret perceived violations (违反) of a given code. They discovered the most effective data for AI training is normative data, where humans determine whether a rule has been violated. However, data used to train machine-learning models are typically labeled descriptively — meaning people label the factual features of a situation, and AI determines whether a code has been broken.
The team gathered images of dogs that could potentially violate an apartment rule banning aggressive animals. Labelers were then asked to provide normative and descriptive responses. The descriptive team wasn’t informed about the policy on dogs, and was asked to identify whether elements, such as the dog’s aggression, were present. Their responses helped to form judgments. If a user said the photo described an aggressive dog, the policy was considered to be violated. On the other hand, the normative group was informed about the rule and was asked to determine whether each image violated the rule.
Participants were 20 percent more likely to identify a violation using the descriptive method. If the descriptive data on dog behavior had been used to program an AI model, it would be more likely to issue severe punishment. These inaccuracies could be a real-world concern. For instance, if a descriptive model is used to predict whether a person may commit the same crime more than once, it may result in longer criminal sentences.
The researchers advocate for increased data transparency (透明性) to understand how data is collected. And their future work is to investigate the impact of having experts, such as lawyers and doctors, participate in data entry to see if it will lead to the same result. “Generally, normative decisions tend to be more lenient (宽容的),” says lead author Aparna Balagopalan. “Perhaps the way people think about violations differs from how they think about descriptive data.”
1. What can we learn about descriptive data?| A．They’re usually used to train AI. | B．They lead to more accurate judgment. |
| C．They consist of causes of a situation. | D．They’re gathered to identify rule violation. |
| A．To present a fact. | B．To highlight a problem. | C．To introduce a topic. | D．To oppose an opinion. |
| A．Use more normative data. | B．Seek advice on data entry from experts. |
| C．Find new ways to gather data. | D．Conduct studies with professional labelers. |
| A．AI: rule defender or breaker? | B．Data set: decisive part of AI |
| C．AI judge: stricter than humans | D．Better data: descriptive or normative? |
【推荐2】If you don’t want people to know much about you, you’d better keep your fridge contents secret, according to a British market research document released last week.
Researchers studied the fridges of 400 people in Britain and compared the contents with the owners’ lifestyles. They claim to be able to classify the nation’s people by fridge contents. They say those people can be separated into five categories: nutrition nerds (痴迷者), food -trend chasers (whatever is fashionable), strict mums, fast food fans and restaurant regulars.
Nutrition nerds care much about what they put into their bodies. Their fridges are filled with fruit, vegetables and healthy meat. People in this category tend to be highly organized and usually work as lawyers or accountants (会计). The majority of them are single, but if they have a partner, that person will be similar.
A fridge full of vitamins—enriched juices shows its owner works in media or fashion. They tend not to eat the foods they buy. Known as the food -trend chasers, they just want to be seen buying the latest important things.
A fridge filled with everything from steak to frozen fish suggests the strict mum. Her fridge tends to be filled with every kind of product, except what she herself wants. This fridge shows difficulty in balancing family and work life.
Fast food fans always buy mineral water or soda pop. The nearest they will get to fresh fruit is tomato sauce. Their fridges show someone who works hard and plays hard, and someone who doesn’t like long term planning.
1. What did the researchers find out?| A．People in Britain like to eat out. |
| B．Most British people don’t eat healthily. |
| C．There are five types of people in the world. |
| D．People’s characters can be reflected by their fridge contents. |
| A．They rarely eat meat. |
| B．They are mostly single. |
| C．They care about food quality and expenses. |
| D．Their lives are organized by lawyers or accountants. |
| A．Nutrition nerds are always organized and successful in their jobs. |
| B．Strict mums care about others in family more than themselves. |
| C．Food- -trend chasers like to fill their fridges with tasty foods. |
| D．Fast food fans usually fill their fridges with fresh fruit. |
| A．Food rich in vitamins. | B．Only something to drink. |
| C．Fast food with tomato sauce. | D．Food from restaurants. |
【推荐3】Art museums are places where people can learn about various cultures. The increasingly popular “design museums” that are opening today, however, perform quite a different role. Unlike most art museums, the design museum shows objects that are easily found by the general public. These museums sometimes even place things like fridges and washing machines in the center of the hall.
People have argued that design museums are often made use of as advertisements for new industrial technology. But their role is not simply a matter of sales--it is the honoring of excellently invented products. The difference between the window of a department store and the showcase in a design museum is that the first tries to sell you something, while the second tells you the success of a sale.
One advantage of design museums is that they are places where people feel familiar with the exhibits. Unlike the average art museum visitors, design museum visitors seldom feel frightened or puzzled. This is partly because design museums clearly show how arid why mass-produced products work and look as they do, and how design has improved the quality of our lives. Art museum exhibits, on the other hand, would most probably fill visitors with a feeling that there is something beyond their understanding.
In recent years, several new design museums have opened their doors. Each of these museums has tried to satisfy the public’s growing interest in the field with new ideas. London’s Design Museum, for example, shows a collection of mass-produced objects from Zippo lighters to electric typewriters to a group of Italian fish-tins. The choices open to design museums seem far less strict than those to art museums, and visitors may also sense the humorous part of our society while walking around such exhibits as interesting and unusually attractive toys collected in our everyday life.
1. Showcases in design museums are different from store windows because they .| A．show more technologically advanced products |
| B．help increase the sales of products |
| C．show why the products have sold well |
| D．attract more people than store windows do |
| A．do not admire mass-produced products |
| B．are puzzled with technological exhibits |
| C．dislike exhibits in art museums |
| D．know the exhibits very well |
| A．are not as strict as those to art museums |
| B．are not aimed to interest the public |
| C．may fail to bring some pleasure to visitors |
| D．often contain precious exhibits |
| A．The Forms of Design Museums |
| B．The Exhibits of Design Museums |
| C．The Nature of Design Museums |
| D．The Choice Open to Design Museums |
【推荐1】When scientists go to a forest to study monkeys and their habits and behaviors, how do they know who’s who?
In the past, scientists had to make marks on each of the animals to distinguish them. But in the future, they may have a much easier way to tell them apart thanks to facial recognition technology.
A research team from China’s Northwest University is using facial recognition technology to identify thousands of snub-nosed monkeys that live on Qinling Mountain in Shaanxi province.
Similar to human facial recognition, the technology that is used to identify monkeys uses their facial features to create a database that includes every monkey, Xinhua reported. “When the system is fully developed, we can connect it with cameras set up in the mountains. The system will automatically recognize the monkeys, name them and analyze their behavior,” said Zhang He, a member of the research team. “For each snub-nosed monkey, we have 700 to 800 image samples, and the recognition success rate is 94 percent,” Zhang added.
“We used mobile phones and portable cameras with the monkeys in tests at distances ranging from about 3 to 10 meters,” said He Gang, a member of the research team and an associate professor in the College of Life Sciences at Northwest University. “There is no need to interfere with the monkeys. Such a method of sampling is clearly non-invasive.”
Compared to humans, facial recognition technology for monkeys is more complicated because of their hairier faces. The color of their hair causes them to blend into their environment. These factors make it harder for computers to identify them.
“Monkeys do not cooperate with researchers in the same way humans do. It is difficult to take high-quality pictures and videos of them, which are needed to improve the system,” said Li Baoguo, leader of the research team.
Currently, there are about 4,000 snub-nosed monkeys living on Qinling Mountain. The team’s goal is to successfully identify every monkey that lives there.
1. What problem do scientists face while studying monkeys according to the text?| A．How to mark them. | B．How to tell them apart. |
| C．How to understand their behavior. | D．How to observe them clearly |
| A．It is now widely adopted in China. |
| B．It works better than human facial recognition. |
| C．It will use monkeys’ behavior to create a database. |
| D．It can help scientists study monkeys without disturbing them. |
a. Image samples. b. Hairy faces. c. Hair color. d. The environment.
| A．ab | B．ac | C．bc | D．bd |
| A．To introduce a new way to identify monkeys. |
| B．To show the importance of studying monkeys. |
| C．To compare different ways to identify monkeys. |
| D．To explain difficulties in developing a new system. |
【推荐2】This is the moment a harpoon (鱼叉) was fired in space striking a target almost dead centre. It was filmed 400km above the Earth. It’s the latest experiment from the Remove DEBRIS spacecraft. Led by Surrey University, it’s a mission that’s testing out the technologies that could clean up space junk. It was absolutely a success. And the goal of the experiment was to hit the target.
There are approximately 23,000 pieces of debris (残骸) larger than a softball orbiting the Earth. They travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft. Much more debris—too small to be tracked, but large enough to threaten human spaceflight and robotic missions—exists in the near-Earth space environment. Since both the debris and spacecraft are traveling at extremely high speeds, an impact of even a tiny piece of orbital debris with a spacecraft could create big problems.
In 2016, the crack in the window of the International Space Station was thought to have been caused when a tiny bit of paint hit it. Larger objects could do even more harm. Scientists are particularly worried about a European satellite the size of a double-decker bus that stopped working in 2012. It’s now threatening other satellites in its path and needs to be removed from its orbit.
Last year, the Remove DEBRIS spacecraft tested a net, proving it could catch a passing satellite. It’s the first mission to try and address this problem. And it’s also used its on-board cameras to track a rolling target—essential for hunting down any casual space litter. Its final test will be in the coming weeks. It’s set to bum up as it returns to Earth, preventing it from becoming a piece of space junk itself.
The hope is now that future missions can be scaled up so the celestial (天空的) deep clean can begin.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．Space harpoon missed hitting its target object. |
| B．Space junk was becoming dead center in space. |
| C．Remove DEBRIS succeeded conducting its hunting test. |
| D．Remove DEBRIS demonstrated the use of space harpoon. |
| A．A decline speed of spaceflight. | B．The pressure of Robotic missions. |
| C．A serious impact on orbital debris. | D．Potential danger to all space vehicles. |
| A．To make a comment. | B．To draw a conclusion. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To provide an illustration. |
| A．Being tested again. | B．Becoming space debris. |
| C．Burning to ashes completely. | D．Returning to Earth successfully. |
【推荐3】High Speed Book Scanner
Simply turning pages of a book quickly may not seem like the best way to scan it. A Japanese research group at Tokyo University has created new software that allows hundreds of pages to be scanned within minutes. Scanning text is normally a boring process with each page having to be inserted into a scanner, but the team led by Professor Masatoshi Ishikawa uses a high speed camera that takes 500 pictures a second to scan pages as they are turned by workers.
Normal scanners can only scan the information that is actually before them on the page. This high speed book scanner uses a camera that captures pages at 1000fps as they are turned. A system built in allows it to automatically correct any changes to the text due to the page bending as well as light differences due to shadows. “It takes a shot of the shape, then it calculates the shape and uses those calculations to film the scanning,” Ishikawa said, explaining the system used to reconstruct the original page.
The current system is able to scan an average 250-page book in a little over 60 seconds using basic computer hardware. While it now requires extra time to process the scanned images, the researchers hope to eventually make the technology both faster and much smaller. “In the more distant future, once it becomes possible to put all of this processing on one chip and then put that in an iPad or iPod, one could scan just using that chip. At that point, it becomes possible to scan something quickly to save for later reading,” Ishikawa said.
Being able to scan books with an iPhone may be further off, but Ishikawa says that a commercial version of the large-scale computer based scanning system could be available in two or three years. While the technology has the potential to take paper books into the digital age, it remains to be how publishers will react to people scanning their books while just turning pages quickly.
1. According to the passage, the advantage of the new scanning software is that ___.| A．there is no need to scan every page |
| B．no manpower is needed in operating the scanner |
| C．it can work much more effectively |
| D．it can make the scanning process more interesting |
| A．changing the shape of the images |
| B．reducing the size of the images |
| C．scanning several pages at the same time |
| D．reconstructing the original page |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Optimistic. |
| C．Uncertain. | D．Cautious. |
| A．Publishers will probably not welcome the new software. |
| B．Publishers will refuse to comment on the new software. |
| C．People will get any book they like more easily. |
| D．People won’t need to buy books any more with an iPhone. |
