To perfect a particular smell, perfume-makers often use an ingredient that comes from sperm whales, called ambergris (龙涎香). But using ambergris, which helps a perfume last longer, is strongly opposed by many people who think it is wrong to kill whales just so we can smell sweet. Joerg Bohlmann is neither a perfumer nor a whale expert. He's a plant biologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada. But his discovery of a new plant gene (基因) might push whales out of the perfume business.
The gene comes from fir trees, found throughout North America and commonly used as Christmas trees. The trees produce a chemical that can be used in perfume in place of ambergris-but with a catch "There's a problem that many people wouldn't consider. In the tree, the chemical is mixed with many others. That makes separation a challenge," Bohlmann says. "lt's like trying to isolate sugar from a biscuit. "
This is where science becomes useful. When Bohlmann learned that fir trees produce the ambergris-like chemical, he decided to use his gene know-how to find the instructions for how to make the ambergris-substitute.
Bohlmann found that gene and took it out of the tree cells. Then he did something that might sound strange to someone who doesn't work in genetics: Bohlmann put the gene from the tree into yeast (酵母) cells.
Yeast may sound familiar because it's used to make things like bread, wine and beer. Biologists like to work with yeast because it easily adopts new genes and changes its features and behaviour. When Bohlmann put the fir tree gene into the yeast, the yeast started making the same chemical that had been produced by the tree.
Perfumers pay big money for ambergris because it is a fixative, which means it holds a smell in place on a person's body.
"Cheap perfumes smell good in the first hour or so and then everything is gone," explains Bohlmann. "But expensive perfumes are much more stable. Their smell lasts much longer, for hours or even a day after you apply them. "
The new chemical, made from the tree genes, can be used as a fixative, too. And using yeast to make it is far cheaper than acquiring ambergris.
Bohlmann admits he never thought he'd get into the perfume business. But now, he says, producers have been calling to find out how to use his technology in new perfumes.
1. It can be inferred from the passage that if a perfume contains ambergris, .
A.its user probably supports whale hunting |
B.it is probably very expensive |
C.its smell will last for about an hour |
D.there will be a whale symbol on the bottle |
A.being difficult to hold |
B.being too similar |
C.having a hidden problem |
D.needing further testing |
A.They're much cheaper to use than ambergris. |
B.They can reproduce much faster than other cells. |
C.They share some of the qualities of plant genes. |
D.They can take on the characteristics of other genes. |
A.He is opposed to whale hunting. |
B.He made his discovery during Christmas. |
C.He has worked in the perfume industry for many years. |
D.He has previously done genetic research. |
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【推荐1】On Sept 25, a team of doctors made medical history. In a two-hour procedure, led by Dr Robert Montgomery at New York University (NYU) Langone Health in the US, surgeons successfully attached a kidney from a genetically-engineered (转基因的) pig to a human. The kidney functioned normally and wasn’t rejected by the person’s immune system.
Montgomery said that the success of the procedure was a “transformative (变革的) moment”. “It was a kidney that was immediately functioning,” Montgomery told CBS News. The recipient was a brain-dead patient with signs of kidney dysfunction (功能障碍) whose family agreed to the experiment before she was due to be taken off life support, researchers told Reuters.
For three days, the kidney was attached to the patient’s blood vessels (血管) by the upper leg and maintained outside her body to give researchers access. This kidney was never meant to serve as a permanently functioning organ for the patient. Instead, the point of the surgery was to test whether the body would reject the organ. Researchers have been working toward the possibility of using animal organs, namely pigs’, for transplants for years. The problem lies in how to prevent the body from rejecting the organ.
This is where the idea of using an organ from a genetically-engineered pig came into play.
According to Popular Science, pig cells contain a sugar molecule (分子) that is foreign to the human body and causes organ rejection. Montgomery’s team thought that using a modified (基因改良的) pig that wouldn’t produce this sugar molecule would overcome the issue of organ rejection. This could give hope to many down the road.
Montgomery said that the NYU kidney transplant experiment should pave the way for trials in patients with end-stage kidney failure, possibly in the next year or two, CNN reported. While there is still much to be done before entire pig organs are regularly used in people, the prospect itself is encouraging. Amy Friedman, a former transplant surgeon, told The New York Times that she hopes that in the future, it will be possible to use other organs grown in pigs as well. “It’s truly mind-boggling (难以置信的) to think of how many transplants we might be able to offer.”
1. What can we know about the NYU kidney transplant surgery?A.The patient was cured completely. |
B.The kidney would serve as a life-long organ for the patient. |
C.The kidney worked without rejection. |
D.The pig’s genes were successfully engineered. |
A.A modified pig has a special sugar molecule. |
B.A modified pig contains an organ that will not cause rejection. |
C.A sugar molecule is absent in a modified pig. |
D.Using a modified pig is much easier for the transplant. |
A.Favourable. | B.Disapproving. |
C.Ambiguous. | D.Neutral. |
A.The future of organ transplants is unpromising. |
B.Organs from other animals will be used in the future. |
C.This kind of transplants will not be offered any more. |
D.There is a long way to go before regularly using pig organs in people. |
【推荐2】Golden eagle populations in the UK are set to increase as some chicks are reintroduced to the north of England. Ten birds will be released(释放)from south of Edinburgh in summer 2018, with the hope of bringing the species back from disappearing in England. More eagles will be released in the summertime of the next five years.
The project received £ 1.3 million of lottery funding in March and has now been awarded a further £ 150,000 to employ workers to run the operation. Project manager Cat Barlow said: “This is a really exciting time as the project is now starting to happen and we will soon start to see its benefits. Work will start next summer, when we will collect a number of golden eagle chicks in the Highlands and bring them south to be reared and released from an already selected place.”
The birds will be released with satellite tracking tags that will allow the scientists to gather information about their behavior and find if they suddenly go offline.
Recently, golden eagles have died out in England as the last known individual is believed to have died. Due to the popularity of shooting birds of prey(食肉猛禽), those birds in the wild struggle to survive. Main causes of death are systematic poisoning, shooting and nest disturbance by gamekeepers.
It is hoped that the newly released birds will move further south in search of new living areas and food supplies. The project expects to see the number of wild birds in Scotland and England increase as the range of the animals develops. While the birds were gone in England, in the Highlands of Scotland the number of golden eagles rocketed. With up to 500 breeding pairs, the chicks will be sourced from here. It is hoped that golden eagles may finally return to the north of England, and if all goes well, numbers should grow steadily.
1. Why will some golden eagles be set free from south of Edinburgh?A.To keep the balance of nature |
B.To prevent eagles from dying out |
C.To bring back the number of other species |
D.To encourage more birds to live in the wild |
A.Raised | B.Stored |
C.Sold | D.Exhibited |
A.Harmful effects of shooting birds |
B.Why animal hunting should be forbidden |
C.Reasons for golden eagles’ dying out |
D.The difficult situation golden eagles face |
A.Ambiguous | B.Cautious |
C.Doubtful | D.Hopeful |
【推荐3】Mistletoe (槲寄生) has many mysterious abilities. It is an evergreen herb (草本植物) that grows on branches of other trees. There is a mystery about how mistletoe came into being. It has no roots in the ground, but it lives on its host (寄主). The myth surrounding mistletoe interests mankind, especially researchers.
Mistletoe is found all over the world wherever there are big trees, and it has many species. Long ago it was hung on walls in Australia to drive the evil power. Similar beliefs existed in Sweden and many other European countries. The ancient Druids believed mistletoe had magical and healing (愈合的) power, thus a myth was created around the herb. To treat diseases, in most cases, the leaves of mistletoe are boiled and the water is used as tea. Drinking this tea reduces the effect of cancer, and it helps blood flow. It cures many diseases and serves as a tonic for the entire human body. Users around the world have mythical stories about what mistletoe can do.
Mistletoe has a long history of being the most powerful herb through the ages. In ancient Greek mythology, some gods such as Venus, Apollo, and Odin were known to use mistletoe to achieve wonderful sill. The herb was used as power to attract love, health and protection. Women with children took mistletoe tea as an aid to them, and men used it for good luck in hunting. Besides myths and beliefs, proven uses of this herb include the treatment for cough, bleeding, high blood pressure, and many others.
It is clear from the above that mistletoe has excised as a magic plant given by mysterious nature in many countries and cultures. In the presence of this herb of all-round power, man’s search for treatment for diseases is well on course.
1. How does the plant mistletoe grow?A.It lives on its host like trees. | B.It mainly grows in the deserts. |
C.It grows with its few roots in soil. | D.It has no roots and depends on animals. |
A.Bring them good luck. | B.Prevent them from getting ill. |
C.Protect their houses against the evil power. | D.Stop wild animals entering their houses. |
A.Something that is very delicious. | B.Something people like and respect. |
C.Something that makes people happy. | D.Something that gives strength or energy. |
A.The ancient Greek mythology. | B.The mysterious abilities of mistletoe. |
C.The most mysterious thing in nature. | D.What diseases mistletoe can cure. |
【推荐1】The secrets of dreaming are always interesting psychologists. It is generally acknowledged in the field that dreams people have during this time between childhood and full adulthood, that’s around 30, are the strongest and most influential. Yet not enough is known about the repeated patterns of dreaming. Researchers are still trying to answer a basic question: How does dreaming relate to the life experiences and developmental challenges?
G. William Domhoff and Adam Schneider, at the University of California, help to answer this question by examining the lengthy dream series of two individuals, Izzy and Jasmine. Izzy provided a collection of 4,329 dream reports from between the ages of 12 and 25, while Jasmine provided 664 dreams recorded between the ages of 14 and 25.
Large collections of dreams like these pose challenges to researchers. Until recently, the means of studying dream series was to employ a team of recorders who take the time to code each dream for a predetermined number of content categories, and then compare their results. Nowadays, digital technologies enable the analysis of language usage in dreams with high speed, precision, and objectivity. This marks a revolutionary advance in the science of dreaming. However, it can only lead so far.
To gain more specific and detailed insights, Domhoff and Schneider tailored word strings for each dreamer, mixing elements of traditional research with digital tools for analyzing large data sets. For Izzy these word strings included “family and relatives”, “celebrities” and “fantasy”, while the word strings they created for Jasmine included “familiar places”, “electrical equipment” and “music”. The researchers used these word strings to identify connections between their dreams and real lives. Surprisingly, the results of the analysis revealed a great deal of consistency and continuity in both sets of dreams. Izzy pays much attention to pop culture, and has affection for famous actors. Jasmine is an accomplished musician and performer.
“The frequencies of dream elements reveal the intensity of the dreamer’s personal concern with that element in waking thought,” Domhoff and Schneider conclude. For anyone who still claims dreaming is merely random nonsense from the brain and mental world, these findings are hard to explain away.
1. What do psychologists agree with about dreams?A.Dreams are interesting at all times. |
B.Dreams are influenced by life experiences. |
C.The patterns of dreaming are usually repeated. |
D.Dreams in one’s teens and twenties are most intense. |
A.The digital method. | B.The collection of dreams. |
C.The revolutionary advance. | D.The research into dreaming. |
A.By analyzing large data sets. |
B.By identifying the patterns of dreaming. |
C.By developing individualized word strings. |
D.By making comparison with traditional research. |
A.New tech, new finding | B.Dreams: reflections of waking reality |
C.Lives, languages, dreams | D.Life experiences: elements of dreams |
【推荐2】Of the more than 3,000 species of mosquitoes in the world, just a small number specialize in sucking human blood. How mosquitoes track us down so effectively isn’t currently known, but it matters, since they carry dangerous diseases which may cause death.
“In fact, stopping these annoying insects in their tracks could save up to half a million lives lost to those diseases each year,” said Carolyn Gauff, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. That’s why Gauff’s team wants to understand how they find and target humans.
Mosquitoes mostly choose what to bite based on odor (气味). Knowing how a potentially disease-carrying mosquito finds a person, while ignoring other warm-blooded animals, is a key question. But it’s not easy to answer, since any animal smell is made up of hundreds of chemicals mixed together in specific percentage. “The actual chemicals that are found in human odor are basically the same as the chemicals found in animal odor—it’s the percentages and the relative large amount of those substances in human mixtures that’s unique,” said Gauff.
To investigate, researchers decided to record neural activity in the brain of mosquitoes while exposing them to natural human and animal odor samples. They collected odor samples from about 40 different animals. When they compared some of those with the 16 human samples, something jumped out. Decanal is particularly rich in human skin. Common in the natural world, in humans, decanal comes from another, more complex substance. When one component of our skin’s natural oils, sapienic acid, breaks down, decanal is left over. This acid is only found in human beings. It’s what likely leads to the high levels of decanal that help the mosquitoes smell their way to us.
Understanding what the mosquitoes are targeting is only part of the story; knowing how they do it is also important. To see exactly how mosquitoes use this sense, scientists used genetically modified (转基因的) mosquitoes so that they could cut open mosquitoes’ heads and watch neurons firing when they’re exposed to human and animal odors. The research team already knew that mosquitoes have about 60 different types of neurons that sense odors, so when they looked in the insects’ brains, they thought they might see a lot of activity. But it was surprisingly quiet, meaning that the signal was perhaps quite simple, down to just a couple types of neurons. “One type of neuron responded really strongly to both humans and animals. Another type of neuron responded to both—but it responded much more strongly to humans than animals,” Gauff said.
How to keep mosquitoes’ decanal signal from being transmitted will be the research team’s next focus. Gauff hoped their current work could be used to make mosquito killers and attractants to prevent disease.
1. What’s the final purpose of the research conducted by Gauff’s team?A.To study why only certain mosquitoes suck human blood. |
B.To investigate the neural activity in mosquitoes’ brains. |
C.To help prevent deadly diseases caused by mosquitoes. |
D.To test the effectiveness of mosquito killers. |
A.Natural oil from human skin. |
B.Chemicals in the environment. |
C.Decanal generated in human blood. |
D.Remains of decomposed sapienic acid. |
A.Most mosquito neurons are not involved in responding to human odor. |
B.Genetically modified mosquitoes are not sensitive to human odor. |
C.Further research will focus on odor signal and neural connection. |
D.Chemicals found in human and animal odors are quite different. |
【推荐3】You know those lovely little ears of corn that show up in some of your favorite Chinese take-out dishes? Ever wondered how they grow so small? Are there tiny little farmers out somewhere taking care of tiny cornfields? Are they specially grown to be tiny or are they just little baby regular corn? Well the answer is that they truly are just baby ears of regular corn. The corn is harvested in an early stage from nearly any variety of regular-sized corn plant.
There’s evidence showing that humans’ love for miniature(微型的)things can date back 3000 years. By the 1400s,miniature things had become more popular, with painters like Jean Fouquet creating images only7.5 centimeters wide. Somewhere along the way, our fascination with things in miniature from goats and owls to tiny houses came to include vegetables, too.
Baby carrots, little ears of corn, and micro greens are common today from fresh produce and frozen meals to take-out and fancy restaurant foods. But where do those tiny vegetables come from? It turns out, a vegetable packaged, sold or served as a baby may actually be a young vegetable-or it may not.It’s also entirely possible that a baby vegetable is a dwarf(侏儒)or hybrid version of a full-sized vegetable.
Baby bok choy for example, is a young vegetable that is harvested early for its tender and mild qualities. However there also are dwarf varieties of baby bok choy that have a similar look and taste to their early-harvested cousins.
There are about 50 different types of vegetables that are grown or imported as miniatures in the United States. And while the United States produces the most com in the world, it imports almost all of its baby com from other countries. Thailand produces the most baby corn, followed by Sir Lanka.
1. What can be known about the little ears of corn in some Chinese take out dishes?A.They are grown by tiny little farmers. |
B.They are just little baby regular corn |
C.They are specially grown to be tiny. |
D.They grow in tiny cornfields. |
A.The advantages of miniature things. |
B.The characters of miniature things. |
C.The reason why people love miniature things. |
D.The history of people’s love for miniature things. |
A.To show it is of high quality. |
B.To compare it with other baby vegetables. |
C.To present the difficulty in producing it. |
D.To show baby vegetables may exist for different reasons. |
A.What benefits baby vegetables bring. |
B.How many kinds of vegetables are developed. |
C.Where baby vegetables come from. |
D.How popular baby vegetables are. |
【推荐1】Better grades might be found on the playground. A new study of elementary-age children shows that those who were not part of an after-school exercise program tended to pack on a particular type of body fat that can have deleterious impacts on brain health and thinking. But prevention and treatment could be as simple as playing more games of tag (捉迷藏,捉人游戏).
Most children do not meet the federal health guidelines for exercise, which call for at least an hour of it a day for anyone under the age of 18. Physical inactivity can result in weight gain especially around the midsection-including visceral (内脏的) fat, a type of tissue deep inside the abdomen (腹部) that is known to increase inflammation (炎症) throughout the body. It is also linked to heightened risks for diabetes and cardiovascular complications (并发症) even in children, and may contribute to declining brain function. Obese adults often perform worse than people of normal weight on tests of thinking skills.
But little has been known about visceral fat and brain health in children. For a soon-to-be-published study, researchers from Northeastern University in Boston and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaion tracked hundreds of 8-to-10-year-old children in a nine-month after-school exercise program in Urbana. Every day, one group of children played tag and other active games for about 70 minutes. The subjects in a control group continued with their normal lives, with the promise that they could join the program the following year. All the children completed tests of fitness, body composition and cognitive skills at the start and end of the program. The researchers did not ask the children to change their diets.
After the trial the exercising children who were obese at the study’s onset had less visceral fat relative to their starting weight, even if they remained overweight. They also showed significant improvements in their scores on a computerized test that measures how well children pay attention, process information and avoid being impulsive. Notably a similar effect was observed in children whose weight was normal at the start. Across the board the more visceral fat a child shed during the nine months of play, the better he or she performed on the test.
The children in the control group, in contrast had generally added to their visceral fat; this was particularly true among those who were already obese. They gained on average, four times as much visceral fat as the normal-weight children in the control group, and also did not perform as well on the subsequent test. Lauren Raine, a postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University who conducted the study with Charles Hillman and others, says that the trial was designed to study aerobic fitness and children’s ability to think not the relation of abdominal flab to inflammation. But a reduction in overall inflammation very likely plays a role because it is thought to be unhealthy for the brain. More broadly, Raine says the study suggests that getting children to run around won’t just enhance their bodies-it might also improve their report cards.
1. What does the word “deleterious” in Paragraph One probably mean?A.inevitable | B.vigilant | C.harmful | D.beneficial |
A.games may help reduce visceral fat in children and thus improve their brain power |
B.obesity contributes to declining brain function in children |
C.children have fewer weight-related health and medical problems than adults |
D.obese children have trouble staying focused and paying attention |
A.to find the relationships between physical activity and health in children |
B.to discover the relationships between obesity and health problems in children |
C.to understand and assess the risks of obesity in young children in school |
D.to understand how games affect children in terms of academic performances |
A.Visceral Fat And Sugar-Heavy Diet Harms Your Brain |
B.Losing Fat, Gaining Brain Power, on the Playground |
C.This Is What Weight Loss Does To Your Brain |
D.Why children Shouldn’t Sit Still Under the Age of Eighteen |
【推荐2】When you swim in the sea, have you ever accidentally drunk the seawater? How did it feel? It must have tasted salty. So, why is the seawater salty?
Seawater is water that comes from the ocean. Seawater is salty because it contains an average salt content of 2.5%. So the ocean is a place for the salt farmers to produce cooking salt and other salt.
Some theories explain that seawater comes from rainwater that falls and flows through rivers and estuaries (河口) and then the seawater fully fills the sea and again forms clouds because of evaporation (蒸发). When we talk about this, we talk about the rainwater cycle. But when the rainwater cycle occurs, the water that passes through the river carries mineral salts. These mineral salts are obtained from various places of the land starting from rocks and soils that the rainwater flows through. These mineral salts make seawater salty, so the salinity of seawater is different in each part of the world. But it is certain that seawater is salty or has high salinity.
The saltiest sea in the world is the Red Sea. There the temperature is extremely high so that evaporation happens frequently. High evaporation coupled with little rainfall and little input of water from the river causes its highest level of salinity. There is also the Dead Sea, which is about nine times saltier than the Red Sea. Due to the high salinity, when you swim there, you can float. However, the Dead Sea is not a sea at all, which is a lake geographically.
1. What’s the purpose of Paragraph 1?A.To draw a conclusion. |
B.To bring in the topic. |
C.To introduce a famous sea. |
D.To make the article interesting. |
A.Land. | B.Ocean. |
C.Rain. | D.Cloud. |
A.Its salinity is higher than that of the Dead Sea. |
B.The climate there causes the highest salt level. |
C.People are in danger when swimming there. |
D.The land around it contains the most salt. |
A.The reason why the seawater tastes salty |
B.The reason why the Dead Sea is not a sea |
C.The reason why the rainwater cycle occurs |
D.The reason why the sea looks blue and green |
【推荐3】Cimabue, the greatest painter in medieval(中世纪的)Italy, was surprised one day when he came back from his lunch break and discovered a fly was under the nose of a character he had been working on. So he reached out to touch the insect. To his surprise, he found only wet paint. Turning around, he saw that his apprentice(学徒), Giotto di Bondone, was doing everything he could to keep from laughing. Giotto had painted the fly when Cimabue was away, and it looked so real that Cimabue had been completely fooled.
Giotto was born into a poor farming family. Legend has it that one day when Cimabue was walking around the countryside, he spotted a young shepherd(牧羊人)boy. The boy was not tending his sheep. Instead, he was drawing pictures of them, and the sheep he drew were so lifelike that Cimabue stopped to ask the boy his name. The boy replied that it was Giotto, and Cimabue immediately asked him to come to Florence so that the young shepherd could learn how to paint.
In the Middle Ages, an artist not only had to concern himself with things like design and technique, but he also had to learn how to make paints. Almost all artists were men, and they began their apprenticeships at an early age. An apprentice’s job was to copy his master as exactly as he could. The unfortunate result of this imitation(模仿)was a lack of new ideas.
In fact, art in the Middle Ages remained the same for hundreds of years. The people in paintings didn’t look like real people, and the symbolism of art was often so remote that it must have been difficult for viewers to connect with it on a personal level. Giotto used many techniques that were uncommon at the time to bring the paintings to life for viewers. He painted people the way he saw them, instead of the overly tall people that other artists painted. He created three-dimensional space by using perspective, something that had not been done since Roman times. Finally, he threw out parts of the symbolism associated with medieval painting.
1. Why does the author mention the fly event in paragraph 1?A.To indicate Giotto drew better than Cimabue. |
B.To indicate Giotto liked making fun of others |
C.To show the fly painted by Giotto looked real. |
D.To show Cimabue disliked painting flies very much. |
A.He was taking a walk. | B.He was feeding sheep. |
C.He was playing with a shepherd boy. | D.He was drawing pictures. |
A.Lacking creativity. |
B.Having an unhappy childhood. |
C.Having a short period of apprenticeship. |
D.Supporting themselves by making paints. |
A.Giotto’s study on medieval painting. |
B.The competition between medieval artists. |
C.Giotto’s efforts to change art in the Middle Ages. |
D.The most popular forms of painting in the Middle Ages. |