Climate change, not human hunting, may have destroyed the thylacine(袋狼) , according to a new study based on DNA from thylacine bones.
The meat-eating marsupials (有袋动物) died out on mainland Australia a few thousand years ago, but survived in Tasmania, an island of southeast Australia separated from the mainland, until the 1930s. Until now, scientists have believed the cause of this mainland extinction was increased activity from native Australians and dingoes (Australian wild dogs).
Scientists behind the University of Adelaide study, which was published in the Journal of Biogeography on Thursday, collected 51 new thylacine DNA samples from fossil bones and museum skins. The paper concluded that climate change starting about 4,000 years ago was likely the main cause of the mainland extinction.
The ancient DNA showed that the mainland extinction of thylacines was rapid, and not the result of loss of genetic diversity. There was also evidence of a population crash in thylacines in Tasmania at the same period of time, reducing their numbers and genetic diversity.
Professor Jeremy Austin said Tasmania would have been protected from mainland Australia’s warmer, drier climate due to its higher rainfall. He argued that climate change was “the only thing that could have caused, or at least started, an extinction on the mainland and caused a population crash in Tasmania.”
“They both occurred at about the same time, and the other two things that have been talked about in the past that may have driven thylacines to extinction on the mainland were dingoes and humans. So the only explanation that’s left is climate change. And because that population collapse happened at the same time that the species went extinct on the mainland, our argument is there’s a common theme there and the only common theme is that there is this change in climate.”
1. What did scientists believe in the past according to the passage?A.Marsupials were all meat-eating animals. |
B.Dingoes should be removed from Australia. |
C.Thylacines had no enemies on mainland Australia. |
D.Human activities may cause the extinction of thylacines. |
A.Tasmania has more dingoes. |
B.Tasmania has more native activities. |
C.Tasmania has a higher temperature. |
D.Tasmania has more rainy days. |
A.change | B.aging | C.decline | D.increase |
A.The result of warmer climate in Australia |
B.The ways of protecting meat-eating animals |
C.The cause of disappearance of thylacines |
D.The effect of climate change on wildlife |
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【推荐1】It was a very hot day in late Summer. I was a young dad working in a local wood mill. It was dangerous, back-breaking work that paid very little. In the year I worked there, only four other people hadn’t quit and been replaced with new feces. Those of us who stayed did so only because there was no other work to find to support our families.
On this day all of us were covered in sweat and dust. When I looked around, every face I saw looked angry and frustrated. Suddenly, a voice called out, “Hey! There’s a deer in here.” A lost little female deer had wandered through the open loading bay doors and was now cowering (蜷缩) in between the huge stacks of wood. All of us stopped working and went looking for her as she ran about looking for a way out.
Now most people where I live hunt deer for meat in the Fall but also treat them with great kindness the rest of the year. Many will even buy 50 bags of corn to help feed them during the harsh Winter months. It was no surprise then that all of us were soon quickly working together to free this little creature. By blocking off all the other routes, we were able to guide her frantic search back to the open bay doors. We watched as she jumped out of the building and back into the woods. Then we walked back in to work. I noticed something, though. On every face there was a joyful smile. It was as if this one single act of kindness had energized us again and reminded us of what life is all about.
1. Why were few people willing to work in the wood mill?A.They were dissatisfied with the pay and working conditions. |
B.They were tired of wood cutting and wanted more freedom. |
C.They wanted to move to big places to seek more pleasure. |
D.They disliked the treatment of the boss and animals around. |
A.The deer made the workers unable to work. |
B.The workers there wanted to kill the deer for meat. |
C.It was common for the workers to see a deer there. |
D.The deer was a ray of light to the dull workers there. |
A.They blocked all the routes except the proper ones. |
B.They caught her and then sent her to the wide wild. |
C.They used signals to guide the deer out of the woods. |
D.They used foods to guide the deer out to the open doors. |
A.Cruel and impatient. | B.Hard-working and caring. |
C.Cautious and courageous. | D.Bad-tempered and demanding. |
【推荐2】The situation of the world’s plants is not good. One fifth of the kinds of plants are in danger of disappearing, according to a report.
“Plants are very vital to human beings,” said Kathy Willis, who led the new report. “Plants provide us with everything—food, fuel, and medicine, and they are very important for our climate controlling. Without plants we would not be here.”
The good news is that deforestation rates around the world have dropped largely since the 1950s. However, this report on the health of plants around the world shows that there is much more to be done.
The report predicts that there are now 390,900 kinds of plants. And about 21 percent of those plants are in danger of disappearing. “The good side is that we’re still discovering lots of new plants, about 2,000 each year,” said Dr. Willis. “The bad side is that we’ve seen a huge change in land cover, mainly caused by cultural activity, with a little bit of climate change in there as well.”
Human activity has a great effect on the danger of plants disappearing. As humans cut down forests to make room for agriculture, towns and cities, biodiversity is lost. This could not only affect our own food supply directly, but also affect the food web.
1. What does the underlined word “vital” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?A.Useless. | B.Friendly. | C.Equal. | D.Important. |
A.New plants are more than ever before. | B.About half the plants will disappear soon. |
C.Many new plants are found every year. | D.Plants mustn’t be used to produce medicine. |
A.We have made little progress. | B.There is a long way for us to go. |
C.We have achieved our goal. | D.There will be nothing we can do. |
A.Biodiversity Being Lost | B.Human Social Activity |
C.Environment Protection | D.Nature Climate Change |
It is the elephant’s great desire for food that makes it a disturber of the environment and an important builder of its habitat. In its continuous search for the 300 pounds of plants it must have every day, it kills small trees and under-bushes, and pulls branches off big trees. This results in numerous open spaces in both deep tropical forests and in the woodlands that cover part of the African savannas. In these open spaces are numerous plants in various stages of growth that attract a variety of other plant-eaters.
Take the rain forests for example. In their natural state, the spreading branches overhead shut out sunlight and prevent the growth of plants on the forest floor. By pulling down trees and eating plants, elephants make open spaces, allowing new plants to grow on the forest floor. In such situations, the forests become suitable for large hoofed plant-eaters to move around and for small plant-eaters to get their food as well.
What worries scientists now is that the African elephant has become an endangered species. If the elephant disappears, scientists say, many other animals will also disappear from vast areas of forest and savanna, greatly changing and worsening the whole ecosystem.
1. What does the underlined phrase “setting the terms” most probably mean?
A.Improving the quality. |
B.Worsening the state. |
C.Fixing the time. |
D.Deciding the conditions. |
A.showing the effect and then explaining the causes |
B.giving examples |
C.pointing out similarities and differences |
D.describing the changes in space order |
A.Forests and savannas as habitats for African elephants. |
B.The eating habit of African elephants. |
C.Disappearance of African elephants. |
D.The effect of African elephants’ search for food. |
A.They are home to many endangered animals. |
B.They result from the destruction of rain forests. |
C.They are attractive to plant-eating animals of different kinds. |
D.They provide food mainly for African elephants. |
【推荐1】Water poisoning is caused by too much consumption of water during a short period of time. Water in and of itself is not poisonous by any means, but rapid intake of a large quantity of water can break the careful balance of sodium(钠)in the body fluids(体液). This contributes to a swelling of the cells, often in the central nervous system, including the brain.
When the cells can no longer bear the pressure, they can begin to die. This is indicated in serious forms of water poisoning. Symptoms of this condition include vomiting, headache and unresponsiveness. When the sodium in the blood falls to dangerous levels, brain damage and possibly death may occur.
What is a fatal(致命的)amount of water can vary from person to person, depending on one’s state of health, his or her physical activity at the time, the temperature and the amount of time in which the person consumes the water. For some, a one-time consumption of three liters can prove deadly. Although the person consuming the water may lose a lot of fluid during heavy labor or exercise, the electrolytes(电解质)are not replaced fast enough to avoid water poisoning.
Those particularly at risk for water poisoning are athletes engaged in long distance running like a marathon. Due to the need to replace large quantities of lost fluid, runners must drink a lot of water. This can lead to poisoning, so runners must replace their fluids with sports drinks that have added electrolytes. Other factors that contribute to water poisoning include activities that stimulate heavy sweating. The person working under extreme heat or intense humidity(湿气)must be careful when consuming water in order to maintain electrolyte balance. Mental diseases can also lead to water poisoning. Psychogenic polydipsia is a condition in which the affected person feels a need to drink a lot of water for unknown reasons.
1. What harm does water poisoning bring?A.It can affect brain function. | B.It disturbs the balance of sodium. |
C.It causes a drop in blood pressure. | D.It tends to make its victims nervous. |
A.Three liters per day is deadly. | B.No single rule fits everyone. |
C.It doesn’t bother healthy people. | D.Physical activity is its decisive factor. |
A.A patient suffering from stomachache. |
B.A laborer working with heavy sweating. |
C.An athlete fond of drinking sports drinks. |
D.A teenager doing appropriate exercise daily. |
A.What has been found about sports drinks. |
B.What else contributes to water poisoning. |
C.What are the symptoms of water poisoning. |
D.What can be done to avoid water poisoning. |
【推荐2】It is a practice favored by Lena Dunham, Tom Hanks and Lady Gaga to improve their focus and bring about calmness in an often busy, distracted world. Now researchers have found evidence that frequent meditation (冥想) over several years, may help change human gut (肠道), boost the body’s immune (免疫的) system and reduce the risk of anxiety, depression and heart disease. The findings are published by the British Medical Journal.
Meditation is increasingly used to help treat drug abuse, overwhelming stress, eating disorders and long-lasting pain. But until now it has not been clear whether it could also be able to change the composition of the gut microbiome (微生物组). In an effort to find out, researchers led by the Shanghai Mental Health Centre at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University analyzed the stool (粪便) and blood samples of 37 Tibetan Buddhist monks from three temples and 19 residents in the neighboring areas. The Tibetan meditation from the ancient Indian medical system, is a form of psychological training. The monks in the study had practiced it for at least 2 hours a day for 3-30 years. Both groups were matched for age, blood pressure, heart rate and diet. Stool sample analysis revealed significant differences in the diversity and volume of microbes between the monks and their neighbors. “Bacteria enriched in the meditation group had a positive effect on human physical and mental health,” the researchers wrote. “This changed gut microbiome composition could improve immune function in the body.” Blood sample analysis also revealed the levels of markers associated with risk of heart disease were significantly lower in the monks.
The researchers emphasized that the study was observational and the number joining was small, all male and living at high altitude, making it difficult to draw any firm or general conclusions. However, based on their findings, the researchers said the role of meditation in helping to prevent or treat mental and physical illness deserved further research.
1. Why do many people do meditation according to the passage?A.To bring about inner peace. |
B.To cure some certain illnesses. |
C.To reduce some extra movement. |
D.To change the gut microbiome composition. |
A.Stool and blood sample. | B.Immune system. |
C.Human gut. | D.Tibetan Meditation. |
A.The Drugs taken before. |
B.The religion people belong to. |
C.The eating habit formed already. |
D.The bacteria produced in the meditation. |
A.It tracked the joiners over a long period. |
B.It explored the way how the bacteria influences the gut microbiome. |
C.It involved a large sample size of different genders, age groups, and areas. |
D.It provides evidence that meditation changes gut microbiome composition. |
【推荐3】If you ever get the impression that your dog can “tell” whether you look content or annoyed, you may be onto something. Dogs may indeed be able to distinguish between happy and angry human faces, according to a new study.
Researchers trained a group of 11 dogs to distinguish between images (图像) of the same person making either a happy or an angry face. During the training stage, each dog was shown only the upper half or the lower half of the person’s face. The researchers then tested the dogs’ ability to distinguish between human facial expressions by showing them the other half of the person’s face on images totally different from the ones used in training. The researchers found that the dogs were able to pick the angry or happy face by touching a picture of it with their noses more often than one would expect by random chance.
The study showed the animals had figured out how to apply what they learned about human faces during training to new faces in the testing stage. “We can rule out that the dogs simply distinguish between the pictures based on a simple cue, such as the sight of teeth,” said study author Corsin Muller. “Instead, our results suggest that the successful dogs realized that a smiling mouth means the same thing as smiling eyes, and the same rule applies to an angry mouth having the same meaning as angry eyes.”
“With our study, we think we can now confidently conclude that at least some dogs can distinguish human facial expressions,” Muller told Live Science.
At this point, it is not clear why dogs seem to be equipped with the ability to recognize different facial expressions in humans. “To us, the most likely explanation appears to be that the basis lies in their living with humans, which gives them a lot of exposure to human facial expressions, and this exposure has provided them with many chances to learn to distinguish between them,” Muller said.
1. The new study focused on whether dogs can_________.A.distinguish shapes | B.make sense of human faces |
C.feel happy or angry | D.communicate with each other |
A.Researchers tested the dogs in random order. |
B.Diverse methods were adopted during training. |
C.Pictures used in the two stages were different |
D.The dogs were photographed before the lest. |
A.A suggestion for future studies. | B.A possible reason for the study findings. |
C.A major limitation of the study | D.An explanation of the research method. |
【推荐1】Does it matter if a language dies out? The traditional answer is yes, because every language is a repository (智囊) of ideas and culture and represents a unique way of looking at the world. The planet only has about 7,000 languages; the extinction of even one decreases the sum total of human knowledge.
But in some cases, extinction can be seen in a more positive light. Take Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language(ABSL)for example, restricted to about 1,000 users in a small Israeli village with a high level of born deafness, the language seems to be bound to die by the spread of Israeli sign language.
The natural reaction to the loss of ABSL is regret. It is a fascinating language that has kept linguists busy since it came to their attention around 15 years ago. But for the deaf villagers, Israeli sign language is an upgrade: it allows them to speak to tens of thousands of people rather than a few hundred, and enables them to work and marry outside the village. It is hard to see that as anything other than progress. Similarly, other endangered languages die out because people abandon them in favor of ones that serve their needs better.
Technology also softens the blow, as endangered languages can now be captured in detail — which also means they could eventually be brought back from the dead, much as the Hebrew language was in the 19th century. It is now the first language of 9 million people.
Linguists naturally condemn the loss of language much as conservationists (环保主义者) once mourned the loss of every single species. But they are moving towards acceptance that not all species can be saved, that invasive species are not always bad and that human-engineered ecosystems are not necessarily inferior to natural ones. Perhaps our attitudes to language extinction are due for a similar change.
1. What can we infer about ABSL?A.Another language replaced it. | B.It is an endangered language. |
C.Deaf villagers prefer to use it. | D.It has been studied for over 15 years. |
A.Recovery. | B.Opportunity. |
C.Improvement. | D.Update. |
A.Technology can remove people’s regret. |
B.Languages may be rescued from the extinction. |
C.Technology increases the number of endangered languages. |
D.Endangered languages might be abandoned because of technology. |
A.More and more languages are dying out. |
B.Technology creates some new languages. |
C.People feel ashamed of language extinction. |
D.Language extinction is not necessarily a bad thing. |
【推荐2】“Don’t be a victim.” That’s a phrase you’ll hear a lot if you take a crime-prevention class. Basically, it means that there are steps you can take to reduce the likelihood that you’ll be mugged, assaulted, or otherwise attacked. Don’t wave your cash around like you’re a billionaire. Don’t be distracted on the subway. Walk with a purpose.
That last one is particularly important, because according to a new study from the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, some criminals are very good at sensing weakness based on the way you walk. Actually, serial killer Ted Bundy admitted in a personal interview in 1985 that “he could tell a victim by the way she walked down the street, the tilt of her head, the manner in which she carried herself, etc…” Unfortunately, research demonstrated the reality that criminals do in fact look for, or at least notice certain characters when selecting potential victims. While nothing excuses crime, knowledge is power in the sense that there are things we can do to protect ourselves when we are out alone.
In the report titled “Psychopathy and Victim Selection” the researchers surveyed 47 criminals at a maximum-security prison in Ontario and found that social predators are very good at picking victims based on their posture and gait(步伐). They noted that people might be releasing vulnerability to criminals through their postures, gestures, and exaggerated movements.
The researchers secretly filmed 12 people walking — eight women and four men, some of whom had been attacked before. Then, they showed the video to a group of criminals and asked them whether or not each person would make a good victim. These “victim ratings” were then compared against each person’s actual history of victimization. Sure enough, the people whom the criminals picked as “likely victims” were usually the ones who had been victimized in the past. These people were often said to have “walked like an easy target” — slowly, unfocused, with short steps.
The sample size here is really small. Maybe we shouldn’t give this study’s findings too much weight. Nevertheless, it emphasizes something that seems pretty unconscious. Criminals aren’t looking for a challenge. Rather, they want someone timid and inattentive. So stride down the street like you own it. Your new, aggressive gait may scare off criminals. And even if this study turns out to be total bullshit, you’ll still get where you’re going a lot faster.
1. Why does the author mention the serial killer Ted Bundy?A.To call on more people to learn psychology. |
B.To prove that someone can be a natural criminal. |
C.To demonstrate some skills to distinguish criminals. |
D.To emphasize the importance of the right walking habit. |
A.By analyzing crime data in various neighborhoods. |
B.By filming people walking and getting criminals’ opinions. |
C.By filming criminals as they selected their potential victims. |
D.By studying the psychology of crime victims in a maximum-security prison. |
A.Distracted walking with short steps. |
B.Purposeful walking with slow steps. |
C.Walking with a group of people cheerfully. |
D.Walking with confident and exaggerated movements. |
A.Favorable. | B.Doubtful. | C.Disapproving. | D.Indifferent. |
【推荐3】San Francisco has long been a favorite place for travelers who are ready to learn languages. The mild (温和的) year-round climate, shops and restaurants, bars and night life, and some of the most beautiful scenery attract many visitors to this relaxing and welcoming city. Students are sure to find the San Francisco Bay Area a fun, safe and friendly place to live and study. This is the most important.
English School in San Francisco lies in the heart of the city. It is one of the best San Francisco English language schools. You can see views of the city from your classroom! Many buses stop less than a five-minute walk from the school, which is also just a two-minute walk from the famous Union Square, San Francisco Shopping Centre, the Financial District, Yerba Buena Gardens and the Museum of Modern Art. The school is minutes away from the cable cars (缆车) to Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf.
San Francisco is a great place to study English and learn about American culture, offering excellent opportunities in sports, entertainment and arts. The city borders (毗邻) excellent beaches, and you can sail or surf all year round.
San Francisco has more restaurants than any other city in the US, and is the home of many theaters, music and dance companies, as well as museums. Just walking through many areas of San Francisco, you are certain to find something wonderful.
1. What attracts students most in San Francisco might be _________.A.the mild year-round climate |
B.its beautiful scenery |
C.shops and restaurants, bars and night life |
D.that it’s a good place for living and studying |
A.is the best tourist place in the US |
B.is in the center of the city |
C.can only offer English courses |
D.is not easy to get to |
A.English School has the most beautiful scenery in the US. |
B.Most of the restaurants in the US lie in San Francisco. |
C.San Francisco is a good place to learn English and American culture. |
D.English School in San Francisco is one of the best schools in the US. |
A.about English schools in America |
B.about the places around the English School |
C.about the beautiful scenery in San Francisco |
D.San Francisco is a good place to learn language |