I was 10 when I received a monkey as a pet in Singapore. Later, I knew my family did not have the necessary international permit to own it
One species I have studied is the critically
One of the biggest threats to these and other monkeys
2 . In our human-centric view, the ability to shoot ink or change colors may seem odd, but you know what’s really odd? Menopause (更年期). You can count species other than humans known to experience and outlive menopause on one hand. Only Oracs (虎鲸) and some whale populations have females that live long past their reproductive years to become grandmothers. But a new, landmark study confirms that at least one population of chimpanzees can now be added to the list.
The discovery comes as the result of 21 years’ worth of observing the Ngogo community of wild chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Studying urine from 66 Ngogo females, aged 14 to 67, showed that their hormone levels changed after approaching 50, confirming they were in menopause. Interestingly, 50 is also the age when many people begin to experience menopause. “It’s really cool to finally have that piece of the puzzle come into place,” says Catherine Hobaiter, a primatologist who was not part of the new study.
But Catherine points out that the Ngogo community lives in a chimp paradise: the resource-rich, well-protected Kibale National Park that also lacks leopards, their main predator. And because the Noggo community is found in the heart of the park, its only neighbors are other chimps — not humans who can expose chimpanzees to viruses that have devastated other communities. “The Ngogo population may be an outlier (局外人) when it comes to the rest of the species,” she cautions.
And there is a question concerning “the grandmother effect”, according to which a grandmother has a decidedly beneficial effect on her children and grandchildren. Chimpanzees do not form long-term pair-bonds and females leave in search of new communities when they reach maturity, which means grandmother chimpanzees likely don’t know who their grandchildren are in the same way humans or even orcas do. What they do after the menopause remains a question of interest. “And that’s all future work to be done.” said Catherine.
1. What can be learned about menopause?| A．It is rare among animals. | B．It is unique to human beings. |
| C．It just occurs at the age of 50. | D．It is experienced only by females. |
| A．Scientist have found the solution to menopause. |
| B．What happens to the 66 Ngogo females remains a puzzle. |
| C．There is a puzzle whether chimpanzee females experience menopause. |
| D．The latest discovery casts new light on the puzzle of animal menopause. |
| A．To stress the importance of protecting chimpanzees from viruses. |
| B．To remind researchers of the potential limitation of the new study. |
| C．To prove that Ngogo chimpanzees are perfect subjects of the study. |
| D．To argue that the discovery of the new study is completely groundless. |
| A．By offering a definition. | B．By drawing a conclusion. |
| C．By presenting relevant facts. | D．By giving examples and opinions. |
3 . A dinosaur footprint found by a four-year-old girl on a Welsh beach has been regarded as the “finest find in a decade” by experts.
Lily Wilder was walking her dog with her family at Bendricks Beach in Barry when she spotted the fossilized (石化的) footprint in the rocks. Her mother said that after making the find, she uploaded a picture to Facebook and was shocked to receive a “huge response” from fossil hunters. Mrs. Wilder then contacted National Museum Wales, who advised her to take down the post to avoid a wild rush of fossil fans towards the protected section of land.
The 110-mm footprint fossil has now been legally detached, after permission was given by the landowners and Natural Resources Wales, and is currently in safekeeping. The footprint fossil, believed to be around 220 million years old, will be taken to National Museum Wales, on a temporary or permanent basis.
Cindy Howells, who arranged for the legal removal of the footprint, said: “This is an amazing discovery. It’s the best-preserved footprint fossil that’s ever been found in South Wales-normally they’re hollow (中空的) or less well-defined, but on this one you can see the claws (爪子) and the points at the end. This discovery is unique and worth protecting — we will be studying the footprint and it will teach us a lot more about dinosaur feet and their bone and muscle structure.”
The footprint is believed to be that of a meat-eating dinosaur from the early days when dinosaurs were first starting to evolve (进化), around 10 million years after dinosaurs first emerged on Earth.
Lily, who now plans to get more dinosaur toys, will forever be named as the footprint fossil’s finder and will be invited into the museum once it reopens.
1. Why was Mrs. Wilder advised to take down her post?| A．To avoid misleading fossil hunters. | B．To block out negative responses online. |
| C．To keep her daughter from being exposed. | D．To protect the footprint from fossil fans. |
| A．Named. | B．Purchased. | C．Removed. | D．Recognized. |
| A．It is complete and clear. | B．It will end up in a museum. |
| C．It is around 110 million years old. | D．It belongs to a grass-eating dinosaur. |
| A．The significance of dinosaur footprints | B．The finest find in the fossil world |
| C．Little girl’s love for dinosaurs | D．Little girl’s big discovery |
4 . One of the ocean’s noisiest creatures is smaller than you’d expect — snapping shrimp (鼓虾). They create a widespread background noise in the underwater environment, which helps them communicate, protect their homes and hunt for food. When enough shrimp snap (发出噼啪声) at once, the noise can be deafening.
Aran Mooney, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, suggested that with increased ocean temperatures, snapping shrimp will snap more often and louder than before. This could raise the background noise of the global ocean. “They make a sound by closing a claw so fast. This makes a bubble (泡泡) and when that bubble bursts, it makes that snapping sound,” said Mooney.
Mooney discovered a strong relationship between warmer waters and more frequent snapping shrimp sounds after experimenting with the shrimp in tanks in the lab and by listening to the shrimp in the ocean at various water temperatures. “As the temperature rises, the snap rate increases,” he said. This makes sense because shrimp are essentially cold-blooded animals, meaning their body temperature and activity levels are largely controlled by their living environment. “We can actually show in the field that not only do snap rates increase, but the sound levels increase as well.”
How the louder snapping shrimp would affect or benefit the surroundings remained to be seen. “We know that fish use sound to communicate,” Mooney said. “If the environment gets noisy, it has the possibility to influence that communication. That’s something we have to follow up on.” There is also the possibility that the change of snapping shrimp affects machines humans use to discover mines, which could lead to unpleasant results.
1. What can we know about the snapping shrimp’s sound?| A．It aims to protect the shrimp. | B．It is important to the ecosystem. |
| C．It has different uses for the shrimp. | D．It is hard to be discovered by other creatures. |
| A．By observing snapping shrimp in the field. | B．By recording the snap rates in the lab. |
| C．By analyzing the way shrimp make noise. | D．By comparing shrimp’s sound in different places. |
| A．Other uses of shrimp’s sound. | B．Influences of the noise on other creatures. |
| C．Means of communication among fish. | D．Methods of stopping shrimp’s snapping. |
| A．Underwater World Is No Longer Quiet | B．Small Animals Make a Big Difference |
| C．Warming Oceans Are Getting Louder | D．Snapping Shrimp’s Noise Speaks Much |
5 . Antarctica (南极洲) is a great, icy land, surrounded by the huge Southern Ocean. The ice in Antarctica doesn’t just cover the land. There’s also a large area of sea ice, which floats (漂浮) on the ocean’s surface.
Scientists have been measuring the area of the sea ice in Antarctica since 1979. For most of this time, Antarctica has seemed to be almost not influenced by the changing weather conditions experienced in other parts of the planet. In fact, until recent years, Antartica’s sea ice area mainly set records for growing.
That began to change around 2016. Now, for several years, the area of Antartica’s sea ice has been getting smaller. This year, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported that Antartica’s sea ice reached its maximum on September 10 — almost two weeks earlier than normal. And the sea ice was at a new record low — not just by a little bit, but by a lot.
The last time Antartica’s low sea ice set a record at the end of winter was in 1986. And this year, there’s about 1.03 million square kilometers less sea ice than in 1986. It’s hard to picture such a large area, but it’s around 1.6 times the size of France.
Scientists are still trying to understand what is driving the change in Antarctica. Ted Scambos, a research scientist at the University of Colorado, says, “Antarctica’s ice levels have always changed some, but the situation this year is pointing towards warmer ocean conditions around the area.”
The new low record has scientists worried. The sea ice is important, because it helps cool the planet. When it’s frozen, sea ice reflects sunlight back out into space. But when the sea ice melts (融化), the water left behind is darker, and takes in and keeps more heat.
1. What did NSIDC find about the sea ice in Antarctica this year?| A．It protected the wildlife in the ocean. | B．It grew and covered a wider area. |
| C．It turned out to be difficult to observe. | D．It reached a new record low level. |
| A．To present the total area of the country. |
| B．To introduce a new topic for discussion. |
| C．To show the sharp loss of Antarctica’s sea ice. |
| D．To explain the position of the wonderful land. |
| A．Low rainfall. | B．Rising temperatures. |
| C．Cold weather. | D．Short summer months. |
| A．It’s key to the earth’s cooling system. | B．It’s just a short-term problem. |
| C．It reminds us to find water resources. | D．It offers humans a bright future. |
6 . Soaring to 29, 035 feet, the famous Mount Everest had long been considered unclimbable due to the freezing weather, the obvious potential fall from cliffs and the effects of the extreme high altitude, often called “mountain sickness.” But that was to be changed by Edmund Hillary.
When he was invited to join the British Everest expedition in 1953, Edmund Hillary was a highly capable climber. The glacier-covered peaks in his hometown in New Zealand proved a perfect training ground for the Himalaya. It was his fourth Himalayan expedition in just over two years and he was at the peak of fitness.
On May 28, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, an experienced Sherpa (夏尔巴人) set out and reached the South Summit by 9 a. m. next day. But after that, the ridge (山脊) slightly fell before rising suddenly in a rocky spur (尖坡) about 17 meters high just before the true summit. The formation is difficult to climb due to its extreme pitch because a mistake would be deadly. Scratching at the snow with his ax, Hillary managed to overcome this enormous obstacle, later to be known as the Hillary Step.
At 11:30 a. m, the two men found themselves standing at the top of the world. “Not until we were about 50 feet of the top was I ever completely convinced that we were actually going to reach the summit.” Hillary later recounted, “Of course I was very, very pleased to be on the summit, but my first thought was a little bit of surprise. After all, this is the ambition of all mountaineers.”
Emerging as the first to summit Mount Everest, Hillary Hillary continued by helping explore Antarctica, and establishing the Himalayan Trust (信托基金), through which he provided a number of beneficial services to the Himalayan peoples. He also a sizeable legacy that mountain climbers have chased ever since. As a young climber said, “It was not just Hillary and Tenzing that reached the summit of Mount Everest. It was all of humanity. Suddenly, all of us could go.”
1. What made Edmund Hillary a capable climber on the 1953 expedition?| A．His undisputed reputation. | B．His remarkable physical condition. |
| C．His previous training on Mount Everest. | D．His exceptional ability to adapt to the cold. |
| A．A mistake Hillary avoided making. | B．A steep spur of rock Hillary conquered. |
| C．An ax Hillary used to scratch snow. | D．A sudden fall of a ridge Hillary skipped. |
| A．Overwhelming joy. | B．Enormous pride. |
| C．Complete disbelief. | D．A touch of astonishment. |
| A．It opens up possibilities for other climbers. |
| B．It enabled him to give back to his hometown. |
| C．It left financial benefits for climbers to pursue. |
| D．It led to friendly regulations for mountaineering. |
7 . High-resolution (高分辨率) satellite imagery has been used to map every single tree in Africa, showing a technique that could help improve the monitoring of deforestation (森林砍伐) across the world. Florian Reiner at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues used images from sate lies to map canopy (树冠) across the entire African continent.
Modern sate lies usually catch tree canopies at a resolution of 30 meters — fine for measuring the size of forests, but less good at mapping individual trees. The satellite data Reiner and his colleagues used had a resolution of 3 meters, enabling the study to map all trees, including those not part of a forest.
The results suggest that 30 percent of all trees in Africa aren’t in a forest and instead are across farmland, savannah and urban areas. “Many countries in Africa lack thick forests, but have a lot of trees.” says Reiner. “These trees are extremely important to the local ecosystems, the people and the economy. By tracking every single tree, researchers can start to monitor how these trees are coping with climate change or whether they are sensitive to deforestation.” It could also improve the monitoring of reforestation efforts, which are growing in popularity as a way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
“At a local level, being able to consistently monitor when and where trees are disappearing or reappearing can lead to more actionable insights,” says John Francis at the Alan Turing Institute in London.
“The study is a proof of concept rather than a map ready for immediate commercial use,” says Reiner. “It’s research work. It’s showing what could be done,” he says. But he is already working with colleagues to scale up the tracking approach to cover the entire global canopy: “We’re hoping that this will be seen as a way forward in monitoring tree resources.”
1. Why is high-resolution satellite imagery used to map every single tree?| A．To know the exact height of the tree. |
| B．To have a clear picture of the canopy. |
| C．To help monitor the deforestation. |
| D．To improve the satellite technology. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Disapproving. | C．Indifferent. | D．Favorable. |
| A．Protect the trees only in Africa. |
| B．Put the map into commercial use. |
| C．Track the entire global canopy. |
| D．Improve the imagery technology. |
| A．Ways to Measure the Size of Forests in Africa |
| B．Coping with Climate Change by Tracking Every Single Tree |
| C．A Map from the Satellite Ready for Immediate Commercial Use |
| D．High-resolution Satellite Imagery Used in Monitoring Deforestation |
8 . Goldfish may seem like simple creatures swimming in a glass tank, but they possess a rather complicated navigation system, as discovered by researchers at the University of Oxford Led by Dr. Adelaide Sibeaux, the study aims to shed light on our understanding of how fish, and potentially humans, estimate distances using what could be described as an internal GPS.
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Sibeaux and colleagues report how they created a tank in their experiment with 2cm-wide black and white vertical stripes (条纹) on the walls, connected by similar stripes across the floor. The team trained nine goldfish to swim a set distance of 70cm and then return to their starting point when waved at. The experiment aimed to investigate how the fish would estimate this distance without any gestures, under different patterns.
Over multiple trials, the goldfish averaged a swim distance of 74cm, give or take 17cm, when presented with the vertical 2cm-wide stripes. However, when the stripe pattern was altered to either narrower vertical stripes, checked patterns, or horizontal stripes, the fish’s behavior changed significantly. Narrower vertical stripes led them to overestimating the distance by 36%, while horizontal stripes resulted in highly inconsistent estimations.
According to the researchers, the goldfish appeared to be using an “optic (光学的) flow mechanism” based on the visual density of their environment. They kept track of how frequently the vertical pattern switched between black and white to estimate how far they had traveled. The study suggests that different optic flow mechanisms are used by mammals, including humans, based on angular (有角度的) motion of visual features. The study implies that the use of visually based distance information could have emerged early in the evolutionary timeline.
“This study is novel because, despite knowing that fish respond to geometric information regarding direction and distance, we don’t know how they estimate distances,” Professor Colin Lever, although not involved in the study, said, “it’s exciting to explore fish spatial mapping because fish navigation evolved earlier and better than most mammals.”
1. Why did Dr. Adelaide Sibeaux conduct the study on goldfish?| A．To test the accuracy of goldfish’s internal GPS. |
| B．To create an advanced navigation system for humans |
| C．To uncover how an inbuilt GPS helps calculate distances. |
| D．To explore the relationships between goldfish and humans |
| A．People gestured the goldfish throughout the experiment |
| B．The tank was decorated with colorful background patterns |
| C．Goldfish tended to underestimate distances with horizontal stripes. |
| D．The change in the tank setting led to the goldfish's incorrect judgment. |
| A．optic flow mechanism is unique to humans |
| B．mammals developed flow mechanism long before goldfish |
| C．goldfish evaluated the distance with multidimensional visual information |
| D．visual density of the environment strengthened the locating ability of goldfish |
| A．Neutral. | B．Ambiguous. | C．Disapproving. | D．Favorable. |
9 . Scientists have shown that bees have some surprising math skills. Now, new study shows that bees can even be trained to tell the difference between odd and even numbers. Before this, humans were the only animals known to have this ability.
In 2018, researchers in Australia discovered that bees could understand the idea of “zero”. The researchers were perplexed, since only a few animals, like dolphins, monkeys, and some birds, had shown that they understood zero. Later, the same scientists showed that bees could be trained to add and subtract (减).
In the study, researchers divided honeybees into two control groups. They showed bees cards containing printed shapes that numbered from one to ten. One group was trained to fly to even-numbered cards, which earned them a sugar water treat if they successfully completed the task. If they flew to an odd-numbered card, they received a sour liquid. The second group had a similar approach, but the numbers were reversed(相反的). An odd card would earn them a sweet treat and an even card would give them a sour liquid. Researchers continued this lesson until the bees succeeded at least 80% of the time.
Then, they added a new challenge. They had the bees choose between cards with 11 and 12 shapes on them. The bees had never seen these numbers in their training. Even so, they succeeded 70% of the time.
The reason for this study is that the scientists believe that studying bee brains might help us learn how to build better and faster computers. After all, a bee’s brain is about 86,000 times smaller than a human brain. How does it handle such complicated ideas? Unless the brain structures for processing numbers aren’t so complicated. Then, the scientists built an extremely simple computer system with just five connections called neurons(神经元) , and they were able to train it to tell the difference between even and odd numbers up to 40.
1. What does the underlined word ‘‘perplexed’’ in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Tolerant | B．Creative | C．Puzzled | D．Discouraged |
| A．By mixing the two drinks. | B．By drawing the right shapes. |
| C．By removing correct numbers. | D．By landing on specified cards. |
| A．Finding potential technology innovations. |
| B．Teaching bees different means of learning. |
| C．Speeding the learning behavior of humans. |
| D．Training bees to serve mankind more easily. |
| A．Bees Calculate Numbers like Humans | B．Scientists Train Bees to Count Numbers |
| C．Odds and Evens Are Significant to Bees | D．Bees Can Learn Odd and Even Numbers |
10 . The streets, sidewalks and roofs of cities all absorb heat during the day, making some urban areas across the United States up to 6 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than rural ones during the day—and 22 degrees F hotter at night. These “urban heat islands” can also develop underground as the city heat spreads downward, beneath the surface. And basements, subway tunnels and other underground infrastructure also constantly bleed heat into the surrounding earth, creating hotspots. Now the underground heat is building up as the planet warms.
According to a new study of downtown Chicago, underground hotspots may threaten the very same structures that emit the heat in the first place. Such temperature changes make the ground around them expand and contract (收缩) enough to cause potential damage. “Without anyone realizing it, the city of Chicago’s downtown was deforming,” says the study’s author Alessandro F. Rotta Loria, a civil and environmental engineer at Northwestern University.
The findings, published in Communications Engineering, expose a “silent hazard (危险)” to civil infrastructure in cities with soft er ground — especially those near water — Rotta Loria says. “There might have been structural issues caused by this underground climate change that happened, and we didn’t even realize,” he adds. While not an immediate or direct danger to human lives, this previously unknown effect highlights the impacts of a lesser-known component of climate change.
Similar to climate change above the surface, these underground changes occur over long periods of time. “These effects took decades, a century, to develop,” Rotta Loria says, adding that elevated underground temperatures would likewise take a long time to dissipate (逐渐消失) on their own.
But other researchers interviewed for this story all say this wasted energy could also be recycled, presenting an opportunity to both cool the subsurface and save on energy costs. Subway tunnels and basements could be updated with technologies to recapture the heat. For example, water pipes could be installed to run through underground hotspots and pick up some of the heat energy.
1. What can we learn about the “urban heat islands”?| A．They can develop underground structures. |
| B．They are impacted by global warming. |
| C．They can destroy the ground around. |
| D．They only exist in the United States. |
| A．To discuss structural issues. |
| B．To categorize climate change. |
| C．To explain underground heat. |
| D．To emphasize the neglected reality. |
| A．The future of tunnels and basements. |
| B．The reusing approaches of heat energy. |
| C．The cost of maintaining structures. |
| D．The evolution of underground environment. |
| A．Warming Underground, Weakening Surface |
| B．A Silver Lining of Global Warming |
| C．Urban Silent Islands in the Making |
| D．A Silent Crisis in Downtown Chicago |
