Even as we humans keep polluting the world. Nature somehow keeps finding a way to help correct our mistakes. First, there is a molecule(分子)that helps reduce global warming. Now, a team of Yale students may have discovered something equally amazing — plastic eating fungi(真菌).
Pestalotiopsis microspora(微孢子)is the only known fungus to be able to survive only on plastic. The plastic is so hard that it takes thousands of years to break down on its own.
The best part is that these fungi can do the job even in an oxygenless environment, which means that it could work perfectly even at the bottom of a landfill.
The discovery was the result of an effort between three Yale students who were part of the Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory Program, allowing a selected group of students to visit Ecuador’s rainforest and seek out fungi and bacteria that live inside plants without harming them, which could hold medical or scientific promise. The samples are then brought back to the University’s lab where they do wide testing to see if they are of any practical or scientific use.
In 2008, a student named Pria Anand gathered specimens for one purpose — to find a microbe that could eat plastic. That’s when she came across the Pestalotiopsis microspora. Though she did show the unbelievable characteristics of the fungi, she was unable to get the desired results by the time she graduated, in 2010.
Luckily for her Jonathan Russell, a 2011 graduating student, picked up right where she had left off. By combining her work with research performed by another of Pria’s classmates, Jeffery Huang, he was able to separate the enzyme(酶)in the fungus that is the most effective in breaking down plastic.
Hopefully, experts will take it up from here and make the project a reality and help reduce plastic!
1. What is the main character of Pestaltiopsis microspora?| A．It helps reduce global warming. |
| B．It needs less oxygen to produce. |
| C．It can break down plastic. |
| D．It can be buried in a landfill. |
| A．Jonathan continued to study what Pria failed |
| B．Jonathan drove to pick up Pria when she got off |
| C．Jonathan came across Pria at an unexpected place |
| D．Jonathan invited Pria to go on with her research |
| A．There are some kind of fungi that can eat plastic. |
| B．These fungi can only work in an oxygen environment. |
| C．The discovery was made by chance. |
| D．A group of students made the discovery that fungi can break down plastic. |
| A．Fungi Love Plastic |
| B．Plastic Is Eaten by Fungi |
| C．Fungi Are Eaten by Plastic |
| D．Fungi Are Hidden in Plastic |
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The crisis at the damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Station in northern Japan has raised worries about radiation risks. We spoke Tuesday with Jonathan Links, an expert in radiation health sciences. He is a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland.
Professor Links says workers within the nuclear plant are the only people at risk of extremely high doses of radiation.
JONATHAN LINKS: “Of course, we don’t know what doses they’ve received, but the only persons at risk of acute radiation effects are the workers.” For other people, he says, there may be a long-term worry. People can get cancer from low doses of ionizing radiation, the kind released in a nuclear accident.
Professor Links says scientists can use computers to quickly model where radioactive material has blown and settled. Then they measure how large an area is contaminated. He says if the situation is serious enough, officials could take steps like telling people not to eat locally grown food or drink the water.
JONATHAN LINKS: “But that would only be the case if there was a significant release and, because of wind direction, the radioactive material was blown over the area, and then settled out of the air into and onto water, plants, fruits and vegetables.”
The reactors at Fukushima are on the Pacific coast. But Professor Links says people should not worry about any radioactive material leaking into the ocean.
JONATHAN LINKS: “Even in a worst-case scenario accident, the sea provides a very high degree of dilution. So the concentration of radioactivity in the seawater would still be quite low.”
Japan is the only country to have had atomic bombs dropped on it. That memory from World War Two would create a stronger “psychological sensitivity” to radiation exposure, Professors Links says.
Next month is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the explosion and fire that destroyed a reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The nineteen eighty-six event was the world’s worst accident in the nuclear power industry.
A new United Nations report says more than six thousand cases of thyroid cancer have been found. These are in people who were children in affected areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The report says that by two thousand five the cancers had resulted in fifteen deaths.
The cancers were largely caused by drinking contaminated milk. The milk came from cows that ate grass where radioactive material had fallen.
To get the latest updates, go to www.unsv.com.
Contributing: James Brooke
1. The passage mainly tells us __________.| A．What measures the Japan Government takes to solve the nuclear crisis. |
| B．Worries and influences caused by the nuclear crisis. |
| C．With great efforts of scientists , the Japan Government has put the nuclear crisis under control. |
| D．To explain that the nuclear crisis has less effect on its neighboring countries. |
| A．Workers at the nuclear station are suffering the risk of death. |
| B．People can get cancer from low doses of ionizing radiation, the kind released in a nuclear accident. |
| C．The radioactive material may be blown over the area causing the pollution to water. |
| D．The concentration of radioactivity in the seawater can not be diluted. |
| A．Chemical. | B．Salt. | C．Dissolution. | D．Elimination. |
| A．Water people drink, food and vegetables people eat may be polluted by nuclear radiation. |
| B．Japan is the only country to have had atomic bombs dropped on it. |
| C．You can go to www.unsv.com. to get the latest news. |
| D．The nuclear accident in Japan is the worst in the nuclear power industry. |
【推荐2】Just like children, baby animals spend countless hours at play. After studying animal play for many years, scientists recognize that young animal play is practice for adult behavior. Today this play is roughly divided into the following groups.
Locomotor play refers to the movements animals carry out in their play. Running, leaping, turning, and kicking are some of the most common examples of locomotor play. An adult deer may run, leap, and twist (曲折前进) to escape its attackers. Play movements like these surely make young animals nimble. Someday these skills might help save their lives.
Moving forward slowly, attacking suddenly and biting are examples of predatory play that help young predators(食肉动物) prepare for a life of running after and taking hold of other animals. Wild cats, wolves, and bears are predators. It is very common to see these young animals play this kind of games which sharpen their skills and teach them about their strengths and limitations.
For children, playing with toys is both fun and educational. It helps improve their hand and eye movements as well as develop hand skills to accomplish tasks. It is the same with animals. Young chimpanzees improve their hand skills while playing with sticks. Birds also play with things in ways that teach. Swallows drop and recover feathers in mid air. Diving suddenly to catch the feathers is good practice for catching flying insects.
Social play helps animals learn how to behave when they run into other animals. And it teaches animals about communication. An animal gives signals to let another animal know it wants to play. Many animals give signals by showing a “play face”. In some ways this face is like a human smile; the animal holds its mouth in a relaxed and open manner. During play-fights, some animals may step backwards to signal that they are playing and not acting seriously.
Until now, scientists have understood playful acts help prepare animals for their serious adult situations. But the numbers of playful species and examples of animal play are vast. The purpose of animal play may have meanings scientists have not discovered yet.
1. The main purpose of the text is to ______.| A．ask us to take good care of wild animals |
| B．encourage us to learn more about animals |
| C．entertain us with interesting animal stories |
| D．show us something about animal behavior |
| A．cruel | B．swift |
| C．curious | D．strong |
| A．A deer runs, leaps, and turns. |
| B．A chimpanzee plays’ with a stick. |
| C．A lion moves slowly and makes an attack suddenly. |
| D．A dog holds its mouth in a relaxed and open manner. |
| A．a type of signal between animals |
| B．a name for a kind of animal play |
| C．an activity that involves adult animals |
| D．an action that is taught to another animal |
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
【推荐3】Scientists, conservation organizations and governments trying to reverse the tide of extinction often focus efforts on protected areas such as national parks and wildlife preserves. But with as many as a million species at risk, this strategy may not be enough to conserve wildlife, especially in a world increasingly disrupted by climate change.
Slowing the mass extinction that now appears to be underway will require more creative means of coexisting alongside wild plants and animals. A new study emphasizes the effectiveness of some such approaches by examining indigenous-managed lands.
“We show really strongly that, from a biodiversity standpoint in terms of species richness, indigenous-managed lands are at least comparable to protected areas,” says biologist Richard Schuster of Carleton University. And in some places, they do far better than parks and preserves - even though indigenous communities may use their lands’ resources by hunting for food.
Schuster and his team analyzed more than 15,000 areas in Australia, Brazil and Canada. They found that the total diversity of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles was highest on lands either managed or co-managed by indigenous groups, while randomly selected locations with no formal protection were the least bio-diverse. For threatened species in particular, indigenous lands scored slightly higher than protected lands on overall species richness in Brazil and Canada, as well as higher for threatened amphibians and reptiles in Australia, mammals in Brazil, and brids and reptiles in Canada.
Each country has a different geography, climate and colonization history. Yet remarkably, Schuster says, the best indicator for species diversity is whether a given area was managed by an indigenous community. He points out that practices such as sustainable hunting and fishing, as well as prescribed(规定的)burning, are more likely to occur in such areas. Don Hankins, an ecologist at California State University, Chico, who is a member of the Plains Miwok indigenous nation and was not involved in the study, agrees. “There’s probably going to be more of a connection to the land,” he says, “and a use of the land for the things that are there, compared to a national park.”
“It’s really important to listen to the people who live on the land and have them drive the efforts going forward” Schuster says, adding that partnering with indigenous communities may enable the world’s countries to better meet a wide range of conservation goals: “We really need all the help we can get as a global community to avoid the extinction crisis that we’re facing right now.”
1. The word “indigenous” is closest in meaning to _________.| A．creative | B．effective | C．local | D．traditional |
| A．Some threatened species were in an even worse situation. |
| B．Protected lands failed to preserve overall species richness. |
| C．Indigenous groups play a positive role in wildlife conservation. |
| D．The total diversity of wildlife was higher in Brazil than in Australia. |
| A．Proper hunting or fishing won’t have a negative effect on biodiversity. |
| B．We should stop counting on national parks for wildlife conservation. |
| C．The extinction crisis is much more serious than previously thought. |
| D．More studies are needed to explore the human-nature balance. |
| A．Biodiversity: What We Have Neglected |
| B．Partnering with National Parks |
| C．Efforts Moving Forward |
| D．Beating Back Extinction |
【推荐1】In just a few decades the United States could eliminate fossil fuels（矿物燃料）and rely 100 percent on clean, renewable energy. That's the vision of, a Stanford engineering professor who has produced a state-by-state road map of how the country could rid itself of coal oil, natural gas, and nuclear power.
By 2050, Jacobson expects the nation's transportation network - cars, ships, airplanes - to run on batteries or hydrogen produced from electricity. He sees the winds blowing across the Great Plains powering vast stretches of the country's middle while the burning sun helps electrify the Southwest. "There's no state that can't do this," Jacobson says.
Today only 13% of U. S. electricity comes from renewables（再生性能源）. Jacobson's goal would be one of the nation's most ambitious undertakings. This transformation would cost roughly $15 trillion, or $47,000 for each American, for building and installing systems that produce and store renewable energy.
What would it take? Seventy-eight million rooftop solar systems, nearly 49,000 commercial solar plants, 156,000 offshore wind turbines（风力涡轮机）, plus wave-energy systems. Land-based wind farms would need 328,000 turbines, each with blades longer than a football field,. These farms would occupy as much land as North Carolina.
For now, he says, prospects are encouraging. Thanks in part to government funding and large-scale production, costs are falling. The amount of power generated nationwide by wind and solar increased 15-fold each between 2003 and 2013. This summer Barack Obama moved to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, and Hawaii committed to having all its electricity provided by renewables by 2045.
Still, many experts aren't convinced. “It has zero chance,”Stephen Brick, an energy fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, says of Jacobson's plan. Political, regulatory, and social barriers are huge, especially in a nation where the energy systems - and much of its political influence - is rooted in the oil, gas, and coal industries. Some critics are concerned about whether the resulting grid（输电网）would be reliable. And neighborhood battles would likely occur over wind farms and solar plants. Even outspoken scientist James Hansen, who warned the government a quarter century ago about climate change, insists that nuclear power is essential to rid the country of fossil fuels.
Yet Jacobson’s work at least offers a starting point. Scientists and policymakers may keep arguing about solutions, but as Obama points out, the nation must continue its march toward a clean-energy future even if it's not yet clear how that will look in 35 years. “If we don't do it,” he said this summer, “nobody will.”
1. Which of the following does Professor Mark Jacobson engage in?| A．Organizing projects to build and install solar energy systems state by state. |
| B．Persuading the U. S. President to realize his renewable energy goal. |
| C．Outlining a plan detailing how energy in the U. S. could be carbon free by 2050. |
| D．Arguing about opportunities and obstacles of his plan. |
| A．The huge investment in solar and wind projects. |
| B．The unshakeable foundation of traditional energy systems. |
| C．The job losses in oil and coal industries. |
| D．The inevitable land-use battles between states. |
| A．one state of the U. S. will be first to become carbon free before 2050 |
| B．developing clean-energy industry will drive the world's market |
| C．fossil fuels will soon be eliminated in the U. S. |
| D．there will be no vacant land for wind farms |
| A．has no scientific grounds | B．unreasonably excludes nuclear power |
| C．will be eventually lacking in funds | D．is not feasible in some aspects |
| A．The Coexistence of Fossil Fuels and Renewables |
| B．A Blueprint for a Carbon Free America |
| C．One Man's Dream: Determination and Innovation in Energy Future |
| D．Professor and his Solar and Wind Technology |
【推荐2】Glacier National Park in Montana shares boundaries with Canada, an American Indian reservation, and a national forest. Along the North Fork of the Flathead River the park also borders about 17 000 acres of private lands that are currently used for ranching timber(木材)and agriculture. This land is a crucial part of the habitat and migratory routes for several endangered species that frequent the park. These private lands are essentially the only ones available for development in the region.
With encouragement from the park, local landowners launched a land use planning effort to guide the future of the North Fork. The park is a partner in an interlocal agreement that appeals to resource managing agencies to work together with more than 400 private owners in the area. A draft plan has been prepared with the objective of maintaining traditional economic uses but limiting new development that would damage park resources. Voluntary action by landowners, teaming up with the park and the county, is helping to restrict small lot subdivisions, maintain wildlife corridors, and minimize any harmful impact on the environment.
The willingness of local landowners to participate in this protection effort may have been stimulated by concerns that congress would impose(强制实行)a legislative solution. Nevertheless，many local residents want to retain the existing character of the area. Meetings between park officials and landowners have led to a dramatically improved understanding of all concerns.
1. Why are the private lands surrounding Glacier National Park so important?| A．They are heavily populated. |
| B．They function as a hunting preserve. |
| C．They are restricted to government use. |
| D．They contain natural habitats of several threatened species. |
| A．indifferent | B．favourable | C．cooperative | D．disappointing |
| A．limit land development around the park |
| B．establish a new park in Montana |
| C．influence national legislation |
| D．settle border disputes with Canada |
| A．The endangered species in Glacier National Park. |
| B．The protection of lands surrounding Glacier National Park. |
| C．Conservation laws imposed by the state of Montana. |
| D．Conservation laws imposed by Congress. |
【推荐3】The specific cultural values of a country may determine whether concern about environmental issues actually leads individuals to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors, according to research published in Psychological Science.
Kimin Eom, a psychological scientist of the University of California, Santa Barbara, was inspired to investigate the links between culture, environmental concern, and environmental action after noticing that both public discussion and academic research on environmental behavior typically focus on people from Western countries. It is worth noticing because Western countries tend to have cultural values that prioritize individuals’ own attitudes and beliefs and encourage expression of them.
“The theory seemed to be that once individuals are led to believe in the urgency of environmental issues and have stronger concerns about sustainability (持续性), they will change and act to address the issues,” explains Eom. But this relationship might not hold for individuals living in more collectivistic (集体主义的) societies, which place more emphasis on social harmony and uniformity than on self-expression, Eom and his team assumed.
To examine what drives environmental action in individualistic and collectivistic cultures, the researchers conducted a study with participants from the United States (an individualistic culture) and Japan (a collectivistic culture). They found environmental concern was closely connected with environmental behavior — in this case, choosing environmentally friendly products — but only among American participants. On the other hand, believing that a large percentage of people engage in environmentally friendly behaviors was associated with making eco-friendly choices among Japanese participants, but not American participants.
The findings suggest that personal concerns are more likely to motivate people to take environmental action if they live in individualistic countries, while social norms (准则) are more likely to drive people to engage in environmentally friendly behavior if they live in collectivistic countries.
“Getting citizens actively engaged is critical to addressing urgent social challenges, such as climate change,” says Eom. “Our research suggests that scientists, policymakers, and activists need to understand how culture shapes the psychological factors of action to develop policies, campaigns, and interventions (干预) that address important social issues.”
1. What does Eom find about previous research on environmental behavior?| A．Its study participants are too limited. |
| B．Its results need a while to be achieved. |
| C．It prioritizes individuals’ attitudes and beliefs. |
| D．It draws much evidence from public discussion. |
| A．If he sees many others do so. |
| B．If he is affected by collectivistic values. |
| C．If he moves to an individualistic country. |
| D．If he worries about the environment personally. |
| A．It fails to take participants’ psychological factors into account. |
| B．It encourages scientists and policymakers to make joint efforts. |
| C．It has a further study direction towards urgent social challenges. |
| D．It provides insights into promoting public engagement in social issues. |
| A．Social Norms Play a Part in Addressing Pollution |
| B．Environmental Issues Originate from National Cultures |
| C．Motivating Eco-Friendly Behaviors Depends on Cultural Values |
| D．More Environmental Concerns Usually Mean More Green Action |
