Chinese scientist Yuan Longping, famous     1     developing the first hybrid rice strains that have pulled many people out of hunger, passed away at 91 last year. Yuan Longping, born in     2     [sepˈtembər] 1930, helped China work a great wonder-feeding nearly one     3     (five) of the world’s population with less than 9 percent of the world’s total land. He cultivated the world’s first high-yielding hybrid rice strain in 1973, which was later     4     (grow) on a large scale in China and other countries to substantially raise output. Since the 1980s, Yuan’s team has offered training courses in dozens of countries in     5    /ˈæfrɪkə/, the Americas and Asia—providing a robust food source in areas with a high risk of famine.

Yuan Longping was quite     6     (satisfy) with his life. In his free time, he enjoyed listening to violin music, playing mah-jong, swimming and reading. He was well-known at home and abroad.     7     , he himself didn’t care about being famous. He felt it gave him less freedom to do his     8     [ˈri:sɜ:rtʃ]. Spending money on himself or leading a comfortable life also meant very little to him. He believed that a person with too much money would not have less but     9     trouble. So he gave     10     (million) of yuan to help others for their study in agriculture.

【推荐2】As a fossil (化石) scientist, Mary Anning (1700—1847) made great c    1     to her field in the 19th century. Her name is now widely known in Britain and even Europe. But that was not always the case.

Anning was a talented woman. She was born in a poor family in Lyme Regis, Britain. She did not receive any p    2     education and had to teach herself geology (地质学) and paleontology (古生物学).

Anning grew up by the sea. At a young age, she showed great i    3     in studying the fossils along the coastline. Anning worked very hard. She went out in all weathers to search for fossils. At the age of 12, she uncovered a skeleton that looked like a crocodile. Then, after ten years of tireless e    4    , she m    5     an amazing discovery. It was a huge fossil of something that the world had never seen before.

However, many of Anning’s findings differed with the w    6     accepted theories (理论) at that time. So most of the scientists didn’t believe or r    7     the value of her findings. What’s more, in that period, people seldom respected women. Anning’s findings were eveh published without her name. During her lifetime, the woman was never seriously considered to be a scientist.

But such t    8     didn’t stop Anning from making more discoveries. The woman was still keen on studying different sizes and types of fossils alongside the sea. Some of them were as large as a huge rock while others were smaller than an egg. Until 1829, she carefully uncovered a skeleton of a fossil fish which made her k    9     among first-class scientists. Her discoveries helped to study some extinct (已灭绝的) animals. They formed the basis for Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (《物种起源》) .

In recent years, more and more people have come to realize the importance of Anning’s work. She is now listed among the top ten British women who have greatly a    10     the history of science. Anning was an ambitious and hard-working woman in history. She deserves to be remembered.