Great white sharks! Just hearing that name makes many people’s hair stand on end. In reality, these big fish have more to fear from us than we do from them. For many years, people killed countless great white sharks in the waters around the United States.
But thanks to conservation (protection) efforts, great whites are making a comeback in the U.S. Two recent studies show that the population of these sharks is rising along the east and west coast.
Why is the growing population of a killer fish something to celebrate? “When you fish too many of them, you start to lose balance in the environment,” says shark researcher Tobey Curtis. As the biggest killer, sharks help keep the populations of fish, seals, and other creatures they eat from growing too large.
In spite of their importance, great white sharks had long been hunted for their meat and their fins (鳍). Then, in 1997, the U.S. government passed a law that didn’t allow the hunting of great whites. Afterwards, the numbers of these sharks in the U.S. waters started to increase.
The law wasn’t the only thing that has helped great whites. Conservationists have also played a part in the sharks’ comeback. The research group OCEARCH is using a method called tagging (加标签) to help change people’s attitudes about great white. They let the public follow each shark as it travels the world’s oceans. OCEARCH also gives each tagged shark a name to help people form a closer connection with the big fish.
The group’s most well-known shark is named Katharine. She was tagged last year near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Since then, thousands of people have tracked Katharine’s movements on Twitter and the OCEARCH website.
This helps people see sharks in a new way. Chris Fischer, the founder of OCEARCH believes learning to appreciate great whites will encourage people to do more to protect them.
1. The underlined part “makes many people’s hair stand on end” in Paragraph 1 can best be replaced by_____.| A．worries many people | B．bores many people |
| C．interests many people | D．frightens many people |
| A．introduce an experiment result |
| B．inform us that great whites are making a comeback |
| C．make an advertisement for OCEARCH |
| D．remind us that big killers are dying out |
| A．seemed very helpful | B．helped the sharks by tagging them |
| C．let scientists down | D．made people like great whites |
| A．great whites are in fact lovely animals |
| B．the OCEARCH website has a lot of visitors |
| C．OCEARCH help people get closer to great whites |
| D．the number of great whites is growing quickly |
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【推荐1】Bees are unimaginably territorial（地盘意识强的）, fighting to death to defend their home with painful stings (螫刺). But killer bees are particularly fierce. They appeared after African bees were imported to Brazil in the 1950s. By the 1980s, they had spread north to the United States, outgunning native bees along the way. Their massive attacks have killed more than 1,000 people.
Mario Palma, a biochemist at Sao Paulo State University in Brazil, who studies social behavior in bees, wanted to understand the basis of this aggression. So he and his colleagues swung a black leather ball in front of some killer bees and collected the bees whose stingers got stuck in the ball during the attack. They also collected killer bees that remained in the cell. The analysis suggested that killer bee brains have two proteins that—in the aggressive bees—quickly break into pieces to form a so-called “neuropeptide( 神 经 肽 )”, they reported this week in the Journal of Proteome Research.
Palma and his colleagues already knew that bee brains have these two proteins. “We were astonished when we identified some very simple neuropeptides, which were produced in a few seconds,” Palma said. Killer bees that remained in the cell did not make these neuropeptides, he reported. And when his team put these neuropeptides into young, less aggressive bees, they “became aggressive like older individuals”.
Palma added that these neuropeptides also increase the production of energy and alarm chemicals. They could also encourage the nerve cells in killer bees needed to make the stinging attack. “There is a fine biochemical regulation in the killer bee brain,” he said. Researchers have found these neuropeptides in other insects, but few had associated them with “fight” behavior.
1. What is special about bees?| A．They are particularly fierce. | B．They show territorial behavior. |
| C．They were imported to Brazil. | D．They live in harmony with other insects. |
| A．There are two proteins in killer bee brains. |
| B．Young killer bees are fiercer than older ones. |
| C．The killer bees make an attack immediately. |
| D．Killer bee brains produce neuropeptide quickly. |
| A．Killer bees fight to death to protect their home. |
| B．Aggressive killer bees killed many people with neuropeptide. |
| C．Neuropeptide makes killer bees have “fight” behavior. |
| D．Neuropeptide has a great effect on killer bees. |
【推荐2】Jennifer Fish, a weather forecaster may soon be replaced by something truly fishier---the shark.
Research by a British biology student suggests that sharks could be used to predict storms.
Laura Smith, 24, is close to completing her study on shark’s ability to sense pressure.
If her studies prove the theory, scientists may be able to monitor the behaviour of sharks to predict bad weather.
Miss Smith had previously studied the behaviour of lemon sharks in the Bahamas.
She then used their close relatives, lesser spotted dogfish (猫鲨), for further research at Aberdeen University.
Her work---thought to be the first of its kind to test the pressure theory---resulted from the observation that juvenile blacktip sharks off Florida moved into deeper water ahead of a violent storm in 2001.
Miss Smith said: “I’ve always been crazy about traveling and diving and this led me to an interest in sharks.”
“I was delighted to have been able to research in the area for my degree. I know there’s so much more we need to understand---but it certainly opens the way to more research.”
It has been discovered that a shark senses pressure using hair cells in its balance system.
At the Bimini Shark Lab in the Bahamas, Miss Smith fixed hi-tech sensors to sharks to record pressure and temperature, while also tracking them using GPS (Global Positioning System) technology.
In Aberdeen, she was able to study the effects of tidal (潮汐的) and temperature changes on dogfish---none of which were harmed. She also used a special lab which can mimic (模拟) oceanic pressure changes caused by weather fronts.
She is due to complete her study and graduate later this year. She says she will be looking for a job which will give her the chance to enrich her experience of shark research.
1. The passage is most probably taken from .| A．a short-story collection | B．a personal diary |
| C．a research paper | D．a popular science magazine |
| A．Jennifer Fish is not fit for her job. |
| B．Sharks’ behaviour can be controlled. |
| C．Sharks may be used to predict bad weather. |
| D．Laura Smith will become a weather forecaster. |
| A．monitoring sharks’ reaction to weather changes |
| B．measuring the air pressure of weather fronts |
| C．recording sharks’ body temperature |
| D．removing hair cells from a shark’s balance system |
| A．A popular way of forecasting weather. |
| B．Biologists, interest in the secrets of sharks. |
| C．A new research effort in predicting storms. |
| D．Laura Smith’s devotion to scientific research. |
【推荐3】Social distancing is not a new concept in the natural world, where infectious diseases are commonplace. Through specialized senses animals can detect certain diseases and change their behavior to avoid getting ill.
In 1966, while studying chimps (猩猩) in a Tanzanian national park, zoologist Jane Goodall observed a chimp named McGregor who had caught a highly infectious virus. His fellow chimps attacked him and threw him out of the troop. In one instance, McGregor approached chimps in a tree. He reached out a hand in greeting, but the others moved away without a backward glance.
“For a full two minutes, old McGregor sat motionless, staring after them,” Goodall notes in her 1971 book In the Shadow of Man. “It’s really not that different to how some societies react today to such a tragedy.”
Not all animals are so aggressive toward their ailing neighbors. Sometimes it’s as simple as avoiding those who may infect you.
When Kiesecker, a lead scientist in America, studied American bullfrog in the late 1990s, he found that bullfrogs could not only detect a deadly smell of infection in other bullfrogs, but healthy members actively avoided those that were sick. Bullfrogs rely on chemicals signals to determine who is sick or not.
Caribbean lobsters also shun diseased members of their community, well before they become infectious. It takes about eight weeks for lobsters infected with the deadly virus Panulirus argus mininuceovirus to become dangerous to others. Normally social animals, lobsters begin keeping away from the diseased as early as four weeks after infection – once the lobsters can smell certain chemicals released by sick individuals.
Overall, it’s important to note that, unlike us, animals don’t realize if they stay home, they might actually reduce the infection rate,” Kiesecker explains. “As humans, we have that ability. It’s a big difference.”
1. What can we learn about the chimps from Goodall’s observation?| A．They kept a distance from one another. |
| B．They became aggressive when infected. |
| C．The infected avoided contact with others. |
| D．The infected were forced to leave the group. |
| A．Avoid. | B．Cure. | C．Get rid of. | D．Get along with. |
| A．Humans are more sensitive to virus. |
| B．Humans are less likely to get infected. |
| C．Humans treat infectious diseases in a wiser way. |
| D．Humans can detect chemical signals more quickly. |
| A．Help Me Out |
| B．Leave Me Alone |
| C．Stay Away From Us |
| D．Stay Home Stay Healthy |
