Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of Deniliquin, a country town in New South Wales, misses the constant whir of the rice mill whose giant fans dried the rice. The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people globally. But six years of drought have had a destructive effect, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.
Drought affects every agriculture industry based in Australia, not just rice – from sheep farming, the country’s other backbone, to the cultivation of grapes for wine, the fastest-growing crop there, with that expansion often coming at the expense of rice. The drought’s effect on rice has produced the greatest impact on the rest of the world, so far. It is one factor contributing to skyrocketing prices, and many scientists believe it is among the earliest signs that a warming planet is starting to affect food production.
Researchers are looking for solutions to global rice shortages – for example, rice that blooms earlier in the day, when it is cooler, to fight against global warming. Rice plants that happen to bloom on hot days are less likely to produce grains of rice, a difficulty that is already starting to emerge in inland areas of China and other Asian countries as temperatures begin to climb. “There will be problems very soon unless we have new varieties of rice in place,” said Reiner Wassmann, climate change director at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The recent reports on climate change carried a warning that could make the news even worse: that existing models for the effects of climate change on agriculture did not yet include newer findings that global warming could reduce rainfall and make it more variable.
Meanwhile, changes like the use of water to grow wine grapes instead of rice carry their own costs, as the developing world is discovering. "Rice is an essential food," sail Graeme Haley, the general manager of the town of Deniliquin. "Wine is not."
Yet the effects of climate change are not uniformly bad for rice. Rising concentrations (浓度) of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, can actually help rice – although the effect reduces or disappears if the plants face unnecessary heat, inadequate water, severe pollution or other stresses. Still, the flexibility of farmers here has persuaded some climate experts that, particularly in developed countries, the effects of climate change may be relieved, if not completely avoided. “I’m not as negative as most people,” said Will Steffen, director of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University. “Farmers are learning how to do things differently.”
| Phenomenon | Six years of drought has reduced Australia’s rice crop by 98%, leaving the largest rice mill |
| ◎Every Australian agriculture industry is affected, sheep farming ◎The cultivation of grapes for wine may stop ◎Rice prices are rising ◎Food production will be reduced for a recent report reveals that global warming may reduce rainfall and cause it to | |
| ◎ ◎Use water instead of rice to grow wine. | |
| Some good news | ◎Rice can actually ◎Though the effects of climate change are |
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【推荐1】Harbor seals have spotted coats in a variety of shades from silver-gray to black or dark brown. They reach five to six feet in length and weigh up to 300 pounds.
Harbor seal pups (幼崽) are born in May and June and weigh about 30 pounds at birth. A pup can swim at birth and will sometimes ride on its mother’s back when tired. Pups make a noise that sounds like, “maaaa”.
Harbor seals can dive to 1,500 feet for up to 40 minutes. They eat a variety of fishes. Natural enemies of the harbor seal include sharks and killer whales. The total harbor seal population in the eastern North Pacific is estimated to be 330,000.
People often find harbor seal pups on the beach and pick them up, thinking the pups have been abandoned. Actually, they are not. The mothers are just out hunting or watching nearby. Human handling has caused many seals to be orphaned (成为孤儿).
| A．Males are slightly larger than females. |
| B．If you find a seal pup on the beach, leave it alone. |
| C．Therefore, harbor seals are not listed as endangered. |
| D．Harbor seals usually spend about half their time in water. |
| E．After about four weeks, the pups begin to live on their own. |
| F．Harbor seals are found in the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. |
| G．During the breeding season, males don’t leave their places, so they cannot eat. |
【推荐2】Bees and butterflies are active during the daytime. They get a lot of attention of their roles as pollinators. As these insects have become more endangered, many people have taken action to protect them. But it's a different story for moths. Moths are seen much less often, because they are active at night. They're mainly known for beating against windows when they are attracted by lights. As a result, they are often ignored by humans. But moths also play an important role in pollinating plants.
Last year, scientists studied insects around nine ponds on farmlands in the United Kingdom. They visited these ponds once a month from March to October. The researchers studied three groups of insects: moths, bees that normally work together(like honeybees or bumblebees), and flying insects which work alone, such as butterflies, wasps, hoverflies and other bees.
The bodies of bees and hoverflies are hairy(when you look close enough). Moth bodies often seem furry. All of these insects spread pollen more or less by accident, when pollen from one flower sticks to their bodies and falls off when they move to other flowers.
At the ponds, the scientists caught these flying insects and tried to collect pollen from their bodies. In all, the researchers checked 838 moths, 632 other insects which work alone, and 1548 honeybees and bumblebees. By studying the pollen they collected, the scientists were able to see which plants the moths had pollen from 47 different kinds of plants, including seven plants that bees don't normally visit. The honeybees and bumblebees had pollen from 46 different kinds of plants. The other insects that work alone had visited 45 different kinds of plants.
Richard Walton, who led the study, says that bees usually choose the plants with the most nectar and pollen. But moths are less choosy. There are many different kinds of moths and they pollinate many different plants, filling in the gaps left by the daytime pollinators.
Not only do moths pollinate plants, they also provide important food for birds and bats. But, like many other insects, the number of moths has dropped greatly in the last 50 years, mainly because of pesticides and the loss of natural lands. Just like bees and butterflies, moths are worth protecting. "Moths are not at all less important," says Dr. Walton.
1. Why is it a different story for moths?| A．Because they have very good fame. | B．Because they often don't get the same respect as bees. |
| C．Because they are considered amazing. | D．Because they are famous pollinators to humans. |
| A．Moth bodies are actually furry. | B．Moths are actually very good pollinators. |
| C．The bodies of bees and hoverflies are hairy. | D．Insects are most active from March to October. |
| A．They land on more kinds of plants. | B．They prefer plants with the most nectar. |
| C．They prefer very rare plants in the wild. | D．They work both in the daytime and at night. |
| A．Helpful insects are worth protecting. | B．Humans need pollinators to survive. |
| C．Moths are important and worth protecting. | D．Moths are important to local ecosystem. |
【推荐3】Humans have sailed the oceans’ surfaces for millennia, but their depths remain effectively uncharted. Only about a quarter of the seafloor has been mapped at high performance. Maps of most regions display only approximate depths and often miss entire underwater mountains or valleys.
So a group of researchers has selected some deep-diving experts: Elephant Seals and Weddell Seals. Scientists have been placing trackers (跟踪装置) on these marine mammals around Antarctica compared these divers’ location and depth data with some of the less detailed seafloor maps. They for years, gathering data on ocean temperature and salinity. For a new study, the researchers spotted places where the seals (海豹) dove deeper than should have been possible according to the maps — meaning the existing depth estimates were inaccurate.
In eastern Antarctica’s Vincennes Bay, the diving seals helped the scientists find a large, hidden underwater valley. An Australian research ship called the RSV Nuyina later measured the valley’s exact depth using sonar (声呐). “The seals discovered the valley, and the ship confirmed it,” says Clive McMahon, a researcher at the Integrated Marine Observing System in Australia and a co-author of the new study.
But seals can’t map the entire ocean floor. The trackers used in the study could mark a seal’s geographical location only within about 1.5 miles, which allows for useful but not exactly high-resolution data. Plus, because the seals don’t always dive to the bottom of the ocean, they can show only where the bottom is deeper than in existing maps — not shallower. McMahon notes that scientists could improve on these data by means of more precise GPS trackers and analyzing the seals’ diving patterns to determine whether they have reached the seafloor or simply stopped going down.
The current seal-dive data can still be valuable for an important task, says Anna Wahlin, an oceanographer at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. The deep ocean around Antarctica is warmer than the icy waters at the surface, and seafloor valleys can allow that warmer water to flow to the ice along the continent’s coast, Wahlin explains. To predict how Antarctica’s ice will melt, scientists will need to know where those valleys are and how deep they go.
1. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?| A．Humans are at the mercy of the oceans. |
| B．The oceans are too vast to describe. |
| C．Humans have taken charge of the oceans. |
| D．The oceans call for further exploration. |
| A．By equipping the seals with advanced devices. |
| B．By following the seals to the deeper seafloor. |
| C．By using sonar to measure the sea directly. |
| D．By checking the previous seafloor maps. |
| A．Train the seals’ diving ability. |
| B．Update the existing ocean map. |
| C．Turn to more exact GPS trackers. |
| D．Seek cooperation opportunities. |
| A．It’s greatly creative. | B．It’s a little incredible. |
| C．It’s highly significant. | D．It’s a little impractical. |
【推荐1】Dr. Tijana Blanusa, the principal scientist of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), has a passion for both science and the well-being of children. When she stood at the gate of her children’s school, an idea flashed her mind: What if there are more hedges (树篱) in playgrounds? Therefore, she decided to start a project to find out the best species of hedge to plant in urban areas.
Dr. Blanusa’s inspiration for this research came from a personal realization. As a parent herself, she noticed that her own children had very limited access to nature in their urban state primary school. “We’ve looked at hedges because they’re cheap, people can relate to them, and they can do some good things for relatively little money in the urban environment in terms of improving air quality, and maybe reducing noise.”
About 90 pupils of 10 years old will be involved in the experiment. A mix of hedges were planted bordering the roadside in the school playground at Hoe Valley school, Working. Then a weather station was set up where the pupils can take measurements of the leaf surface’s ability to influence soil moisture (水分) and the temperatures around the hedge. Then they will take more measurements as time goes on.
The children will be involved in learning more about the role of plants in improving air quality and summertime cooling through hands-on science classes in school, led by the science team. They will get an insight into what working as a scientist involves—planning and taking measurements on the hedge and from the soil, and then analyzing collected data. Results will be available in late spring.
Blanusa hopes that the project can be rolled out across the country, and the RHS is figuring out how to do that. “We really want to make it as easy as practically possible for other schools to do it. But because you are working with living things, they need looking after and that needs to be a person on site who knows how to do it.”
1. What is the main aim of the project?| A．To reduce urban noise levels. | B．To increase hedges in schoolyards. |
| C．To identify best hedge species for cities. | D．To boost green spaces in public schools. |
| A．Air Pollution out of school. | B．Kids’ lack of nature access. |
| C．School principal’s request. | D．Hedge education for kids. |
| A．Experience on science team. | B．Hedge planting without soil. |
| C．Country-wide project rollout. | D．Hands-on work as a scientist. |
| A．Extra labor cost. | B．A tight budget. | C．Strict regulations. | D．Limited hedge species. |
【推荐2】Many children are introduced to animals through TV shows or movies. Shaun the Sheep, a popular cartoon series, features a variety of animals living at the Mossy Bottom Farm. Among them, naughty Shaun is the clever leader of his flock of sheep. Sheep in this series look a bit different from common ones because the TV show used the Valais Blacknose sheep the model.
There are few animals that make people say “Aww!” in a high-toned voice as quickly as the Valais Blacknose sheep. As the cutest sheep in the world, these animals come from the Valais region in Switzerland. They are instantly recognizable thanks to their charming appearance. With spiral-shaped horns (螺旋形的角), they have soft, white wool, which contrasts with the black patches spread evenly over their faces and found on their ears, knees, and ankles.
The Valais Blacknose sheep have a rich history deeply rooted in the Swiss Alps. They were originally raised in the 15th century for their highly valued wool. However, it was not until 1962 that they were officially recognized as a breed (品种). Their population once dwindled, but continuous efforts have been made to protect this unique breed. These efforts have been successful, and the Valais Blacknose sheep can now be found in various parts of the globe.
Looking like a combination of a lamb and a teddy bear, the Valais Blacknose sheep has found its place in the hearts of many people. They are also raised as pets due to their adorable, gentle, and friendly nature, which makes them perfect companions. However, it’s important for owners to consider their needs, including suitable living environment, nutrition (营养), and space to get around. Whether as wool producers or beloved pets, the Valais Blacknose sheep have gained their fame in being helpful animals.
1. What do we know about the Valais Blacknose sheep?| A．They were officially recognized as a breed in 1962. |
| B．They make a sound of “Aww” when seeing people. |
| C．They are often raised as pets due to their valuable wool. |
| D．They are only found in the Valais region of Switzerland. |
| A．Increased rapidly. | B．Decreased gradually. |
| C．Remained stable. | D．Changed constantly. |
| A．Sheep’s food needs. | B．Owner-sheep relationship. |
| C．Sheep’s appearance. | D．Owners’ living environment. |
| A．The rich history of raising the Valais Blacknose sheep. |
| B．The popularity of the Valais Blacknose sheep in cartoons. |
| C．The unique characteristics of the Valais Blacknose sheep. |
| D．The importance of protecting the Valais Blacknose sheep. |
【推荐3】What fisherman Moul Thun from a remote island in the Mekong River, in northern Cambodia, didn’t know was that stingray he hooked would eventually be named the largest recorded freshwater fish. For Zeb Hogan, who’s been documenting large freshwater fishes for almost two decades, the discovery of the stingray, which was released alive back into the river, filled him with hope. “It proves these underwater big fish, which are in critical danger, still exist,’’ says Hogan.
Hogan’s pursuit for big fish, called the Megafishes Project and supported by National Geographic Society , began in 2005 when fishermen in northern Thailand pulled a 646-pound cafish out of the Mekong River. The species is known that it was the largest, that is, the heaviest-ever caught in the area.
Arriving at the island, the team found Thun’s fish, a female that appeared to be in good health. It was more than 13 feet from nose to tail. The researchers were shocked to see her weight at 661 pounds. She set a new world record. The original aim of the Megafishes Project was to find, study, and protect the world’s largest freshwater fishes. The project focused on species that could grow to at least the size of a human and that lived only in freshwater.
Hogan initially drew up a list of roughly 30 species to focus on.
The challenge, as Hogan soon learned, was that many of these fish are hard to find. They live in remote, inaccessible places, and often in deep waters. Early on in the search, there were relatively few scientists studying them.
What was clear was that the river giants were shrinking in number, threatened by a host of factors including overfishing, water pollution, and the presence of dams, which block migrating fish from completing their life cycles. As Hogan’s work progressed, its focus increasingly turned to conservation. “It was never about just finding the biggest fish,” Hogan says, “but looking for ways to protect these extraordinary animals that, in some cases, have been on Earth for hundreds of millions of years but are now drifting out of entities.”
1. Why was Zeb Hogan full of hope?| A．Freshwater fishes weren’t in danger. | B．Some large fishes didn’t die out |
| C．The stingray was put into the river. | D．Many large fishes existed in rivers. |
| A．It was also caught by Moul Thun. | B．It’s the largest recorded freshwater fish. |
| C．It was injured very seriously. | D．It was caught in the Mekong River. |
| A．Finding about 30 species of big fishes. | B．Studying fishes smaller than humans. |
| C．Protecting big freshwater fishes. | D．Setting new record in finding fishes. |
| A．Dying out. | B．Getting ill. |
| C．Being protected. | D．Living well. |
