Next time you hear people say that Neanderthals (穴居人), an extinct type of man living in Europe in the Stone Age, aren’t so bright, tell them this story.
At least 400,000 years ago, campfires went mainstream as early humans used them as a means of survival. As time went by, they made fires inside the caves where they lived and did so without a fireplace (壁炉) or a chimney.
This is no easy skill. “When you make a fire in an enclosed space, there is a danger of breathing in smoke. And in many cases, it doesn’t allow one even to stay near the fire because of smoke,” said Ran Barkai, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University.
So how did Neanderthals do it? Barkai and his team were determined to find out. They built a virtual model of the Lazaret Cave on France’s Mediterranean coast—a place early humans called home 170,000 years ago. The scientists placed 16 fireplaces throughout the cave and studied where the smoke went. “In the middle of the cave is the best place if you wish to avoid as much smoke as possible,” said Barkai. As it happens, the middle of the cave is exactly where prehistoric people put their fires for generations.
Barkai said there was a bit of trial and error involved. “It’s clear to us that Neanderthals made a survey of the cave once they entered and invited a Neanderthal internal designer. And then they decided where they put the kitchen, the sleeping area and so on,” he said.
Sarah Hlubik of George Washington University wasn’t involved in the study but called it clever. “The experiment illustrates how early humans used their intelligence to deal with a punishing climate. What I want most is to take a look at other sites that have relatively complete and undamaged caves and see if the practice supports their conclusion,” she said.
1. What can we know from Paragraph 2?| A．Neanderthals used a fireplace in a unique way. |
| B．The caves where Neanderthals lived had a chimney. |
| C．Neanderthals relying on campfires breathed in much smoke. |
| D．The way Neanderthals made use of fires developed over time. |
| A．To choose the perfect place for the 16 fireplaces. |
| B．To study prehistoric humans’ hobbies and habits. |
| C．To research what materials Neanderthals burnt to make fires. |
| D．To find out how Neanderthals used fires in an enclosed place. |
| A．By keeping the fires away from the bedrooms. |
| B．By putting the fires at the entrance of the cave. |
| C．By making fires in the central part of the cave. |
| D．By making some holes in the cave to let smoke out. |
| A．Its result seemed to be quite believable. |
| B．Its results needed more supporting evidence. |
| C．Its results were not as reliable as she had thought. |
| D．Its results were the same as some other studies had revealed. |
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【推荐1】People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly (均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth.”
According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”
In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.
1. What were the people asked to do in the study?| A．To make a face at each other. | B．To get their faces impressive. |
| C．To classify some face pictures. | D．To observe the researchers’ faces. |
| A．The participants in the study. | B．The researchers of the study. |
| C．The errors made during the study. | D．The data collected from the study. |
| A．do translation more successfully | B．study the mouth more frequently |
| C．examine the eyes more attentively | D．read facial expressions more correctly |
| A．The Eye as the Window to the Soul |
| B．Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions |
| C．Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills |
| D．How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding |
【推荐2】On December 14, 1972, three NASA astronauts (宇航员) left the moon. Two had just completed their stay there for NASA’s Apollo 17 mission (任务）. During that time, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt walked across the lunar (月球的) surface. Meanwhile, astronaut Ronald Evans kept control of the command module. When the astronauts returned to Earth, they became the last humans to visit the moon.
Now, about 50 years later, astronauts are getting ready to go back. But this time will be different. On November 16, 2022, NASA launched (发射) its Artemis 1. The agency’s new Space Launch System rocket lifted off in Florida and began its first voyage toward the moon. No one was on board. But the mission tested new technologies that eventually will bring astronauts back to the moon, including the first woman.
Jose Hurtado, an expert at the University of Texas at El Paso, said, “It was a great launch. What I love is about space exploration, so it was really stirring.” He found it an inspirational view, hoping everybody watching it got that inspiration.
NASA’s Apollo program took place in the 1960s and 1970s.Its crewed missions to the moon ran from 1968 to 1972. In July 1969, the Apollo 11 mission landed the first astronaut on the moon. Over the next few years, five more flights brought 10 more American men to the sky.
Once Apollo ended, NASA shifted its focus to space stations as preparation for longer human spaceflights. America’s first space station, Skylab, launched in May 1973, hosted four crews of astronauts that year and the next. But Skylab was meant to be only a temporary station. Within several years, it broke apart in the atmosphere.
NASA astronauts won’t be the only people exploring the lunar surface. China aims to land its own astronauts at the moon’s south pole within the next decade.
1. When did the last Apollo moon landing happen?| A．In 1968. | B．In 1969. | C．In 1972. | D．In 1973. |
| A．To test an American new rocket. |
| B．To land at the moon’s south pole. |
| C．To build America’s first space station. |
| D．To prepare for man’s return to the moon. |
| A．Tiring. | B．Simple. | C．Similar. | D．Exciting. |
| A．China’s inspiration of getting to the moon. |
| B．NASA started to focus on the space station. |
| C．China’s efforts to send astronauts to the moon. |
| D．NASA astronauts explored the lunar surface. |
【推荐3】Scientists think they have answered a mystery: How some ocean creatures got so huge so quickly.
A few million years ago, the largest whales, averaged about 15 feet long. Then seemingly overnight, one type of whale—the toothless baleen whale (须鲸类)—became huge. Modern blue whales get as big as 100 feet, the largest creatures ever on Earth. “We really are living in the time of giants,” said Nicholas Pyenson of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. “Why is that?” “It happened in the glance of an evolutionary eye, which makes it harder to figure out what happened,” said Graham Slater, lead author of the study. Their study has suggested an answer: Ice ages in the last 3 to 5 million years started it, changing the oceans and food supply for whales.
The researchers used fossil records of the smaller whales to create a family tree for baleen whales—which include blue whales, humpbacks and right whales. Using computer simulations (模拟) and knowledge about how evolution works, they concluded that when the size changes started, the South and North poles got colder and the water circulation in the oceans changed and winds shifted. Slater and Pyenson said cold water went deep and moved closer to the equator (赤道) and then eventually moved back up with small fish and other small animals that whales eat. That’s why you can see lots of whales in the summer in California’s Monterey Bay, Slater said.
Baleen whales, which have no teeth, feed by eating huge amounts of ocean, filtering (过滤) out the water and eating the creatures they capture. Toothed whales, like sperm whales (抹香鲸), hunt individual fish, so the ocean changes that made food less evenly (平均地) spread out didn’t affect them as much. “If you are a whale, the easiest way to take advantage of resources is to get big,” Slater said. But baleen whales hunt schools of fish. Olivier Lambert at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, who wasn’t part of the study, calls it “a really convincing situation”. But he said the lack of fossils in certain time periods is an issue. As oceans warm from man-made climate change, the sea will be more like it was when the whales were smaller and they will have a more difficult time surviving, Slater and others said.
1. What does the author mean by “It happened in the glance of an evolutionary eye” in the second paragraph?| A．Researchers thought the change of baleen whales was unimportant. |
| B．Researchers paid little attention to the change of baleen whales . |
| C．The change of baleen whales was too difficult to explore . |
| D．The change of baleen whales happened too quickly. |
| A．The water circulation in the oceans. |
| B．Its eating a small amount of fish. |
| C．The increase of food supply for whales. |
| D．Man-made climate change. |
| A．Sperm whales eat more food. |
| B．Blue whaler live much longer. |
| C．Sperm whales prefer to hunt schools of fish. |
| D．Blue whales usually swallow schools of fish. |
| A．Olivier Lambert thinks the study is perfect. |
| B．Global warming has threatened the whales. |
| C．The whales may become even bigger. |
| D．There are no whale fossils now. |
【推荐1】While the human world is suffering from the novel coronavirus outbreak, our planet is actually showing certain signs of “recovery” from the damage caused by human activity. According to the BBC, new satellite images released by the European Space Agency showed that levels of air pollutants and greenhouse gases have “fallen sharply” in major cities in Europe and the United States ever since the lockdown started.
This is a great example of how the world can change overnight as soon as people change their behavior—especially after recent discoveries in Antarctica.
An international team of 89 scientists found that the ice in Greenland and Antarctica is melting six times faster in the 2010s than it was in the 1990s. And in February, Argentina’s Marambio research station in Antarctica recorded a record high temperature of 20.75 ℃ on the continent.
So what exactly will happen if the temperature keeps rising and the ice keeps melting? A third study might give you an idea. A team of scientists drilled a hole into the seafloor in west Antarctica and extracted material from underground, in which they found traces of roots, spores and pollen—typical products of a rainforest—that dated back 90 million years ago. In other words, Antarctica was very likely a rainforest back when the dinosaurs walked on Earth.
But given the fact that the South Pole has four months of darkness winter—even millions of years ago—scientists believe that the rainforest could only exist if the greenhouse gas concentrations were extremely high back then to keep the continent warm when there was little or no sunlight. “We didn’t know that this Cretaceous（白垩纪的）greenhouse climate was that extreme,” Johann Klages of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and a co-author of the research told the Guardian. “It shows us what carbon dioxide is able to do.”
Ice or no ice, Antarctica will be—and has always been—fine with extreme changes. The human world, however, may not be.
Now, during the coronavirus lockdown, we’ve seen the changes resulting from less human activity. Hopefully, we’ll hold on to those changes—not for Antarctica or the planet, but for ourselves.
1. What message does the author mainly want to convey in the first paragraph?| A．The air pollution issue in major cities urgently needs to be dealt with. |
| B．The novel coronavirus outbreak has resulted in a damage to nature. |
| C．Reduced human activity is beneficial to the healing process of the earth. |
| D．The novel coronavirus outbreak has changed the patterns of human activity. |
| A．The climate in Antarctica can change overnight. |
| B．The greenhouse effect in Antarctica is extremely severe. |
| C．The high temperature in Antarctica is caused by climate change. |
| D．The glacier in Antarctica is melting in a faster speed in this century. |
| A．Traces of typical elements in a rainforest were found underground. |
| B．The greenhouse gas concentrations were extremely high back then. |
| C．The density of carbon dioxide has changed the climate in Antarctica. |
| D．The temperature in Antarctica have been increasing since the Cretaceous time. |
| A．Human activities do little harm to Antarctica. |
| B．We should limit carbon dioxide emissions to save ourselves. |
| C．There is little we can do to recover the environment in Antarctica. |
| D．Limiting human activities can be used to slow down global warming. |
【推荐2】Tesla’s leading position in the U.S. battery-electric vehicle market was facing a growing threat after its competitor Rivian scored a $3 billion funding round, raising its 2019 haul (数量) to $2.8 billion. The money was twice what Morgan Stanley forecasted for Tesla’s 2019 capital expenditures (资本支出) and would make Rivian a “serious” competitor. “Tesla may have a big lead today, but we expect this to change over time,” a team of New York-based Morgan Stanley analysts led by Adam Jonas wrote in a note sent to clients.
The analysts said Rivian’s cash haul might be bigger than Ford and General Motors’ combined spending on battery-electric vehicles in 2020 and enough to build a large factory in a low-cost country. It was also enough money to build two or three new models of electric vehicles. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the e-commerce giant, which had invested in Rivian, aimed to have 100,000 of the vehicles on the road by 2030.
Tesla controlled about 80 percent of the U.S. battery-electric vehicle market, but Morgan Stanley said its current position was “unsustainable long term” and expected a start-up with access to talent and capital to provide the “next serious competition.” The firm’s analysts also saw increased rival carmakers.
One such threat was the $500 billion merger (合并) between Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot, announced last November, which created the fourth-largest automaker by sales. At the time the deal was announced, Eric Schiffer, CEO of the Los Angeles-based firm Patriarch Organization, told FOX Business the deal would create a high degree of competition over the next five years and “one of the greatest dangers” to Tesla’ s survival.
Tesla’s accomplishments in the electric car market haven’t gone unnoticed as others in the field have had their fair share of struggles. Nio, often referred to as the “Tesla of China,” needed a $200 million injection from CEO William Li and the Chinese gaming giant Tencent, one of its largest shareholders, when it was struggling to keep up with delivery targets. Meanwhile, the vacuum-maker Dyson killed its $3.1 billion electric car project, saying it was not commercially workable.
1. What does the underlined word “this” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Rivian’s increasing funding. | B．The growing threat from Rivian. |
| C．Tesla’s forecast of 2019 cash haul. | D．Tesla’s leading position in electric cars. |
| A．Make new models of electric cars. | B．Attract talented people and money. |
| C．Build factories in low-cost countries. | D．Cooperate with the e-commerce giant. |
| A．It would kill the Patriarch Organization. |
| B．It would create the largest carmaker. |
| C．It would hurt the electric car market. |
| D．It would present a big threat to Tesla. |
| A．To celebrate its achievements in car making. |
| B．To present the huge challenges facing Tesla. |
| C．To show Tesla’s influence on other electric carmakers. |
| D．To encourage great investment in the electric car industry. |
【推荐3】War has long been understood as men’s business. The memoirs of generals and front-line soldiers compete for shelf space with edited collections of letters from soldiers and military histories largely written by men. This book is a good reminder that it is not only men who experience wars, and it is not only men who report on them. War reporters such as the Sunday Times’ Marie Colvin, killed in Syria covering the siege of Homs in 2012, have brought the realities of war into our homes.
Mackrell’s lively book tells the stories of six of the female reporters who reported on the Second World War. Some, such as Martha Gellhom and Lee Miller, are well known, others, like Virginia Cowles and Helen Kirkpatrick, now less so. Clare Hollingworth, the only British war reporter included here, filed the first eyewitness account of the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
Mackrell also tells the story of the war through their writing. As France fell in the early summer of 1940, Cowles travelled to Paris. Her description of the mass escape from that city as Nazi troops approached—think of noise and confusion, of the thick smell of petrol, of shouts, curses and tears—is still a vivid reminder of the impact of war today.
The women whose lives and work are recorded here regularly put their lives in danger—perhaps none more so than Sigrid Schultz, whose reports from Berlin conveyed the horror of Hitler's rule to an American audience. In 1945 she returned, with fellow reporters Kirkpatrick and Ed Murrow, to report on the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp. Mackrell reveals the full extent of the danger faced by Schultz only at the end of this book. Like the copy by her subject, it is an essential read.
1. What makes it special about the book?| A．It is a report of wars and their impacts. |
| B．It is a memoir of generals and front-line soldiers. |
| C．It is an edited collection of letters from soldiers. |
| D．It is a collection of stories about women war reporters. |
| A．Marie Colvin worked and died in the World War II. |
| B．Clare Hollingworth was the first to report the German invasion of Poland. |
| C．Cowles' detailed description of her travel reminded readers of the war. |
| D．Sigrid Schultz may often risk her life while doing her job in Berlin. |
| A．To advertise for a book about World War II. |
| B．To introduce a book about women reporters. |
| C．To provide guidance on becoming a good reporter. |
| D．To stress the importance of female reporter in history. |
