1 . Say “Sit” to your dog, and he’ll likely sit on the floor. But would he respond correctly if the word were spoken by a stranger, or someone with a thick accent? A new study shows he will, suggesting dogs understand spoken words in a clever and complicated way long thought unique to humans.
Holly Root-Gutteridge, a biologist, and her colleagues ran a test. The researchers filmed 42 dogs of different breeds as they sat with their owners near an audio speaker that played noncommand words with similar sounds, such as “had”, “hid”, and “who’d”. The words were spoken-not by the dog’s owner-but by several strangers, men and women of different ages and with different accents.
In the video above, the dog Max turns quickly and listens seriously when he hears a woman say “had” for the first time. But as other women with different accents repeat the word, he loses interest, indicating he knows they are all saying the same word. When a speaker says a new word, like “who’d”, Max cheers up again, but his attention flags when a new voice returns to saying “had”. Together, these reactions suggest dogs recognize words regardless of the speaker-and that they don’t need any training to do it, the team reports today in Biology Letters.
“It’s wonderful—and novel—to see research looking at dogs’ reactions to words that are not commands or requests,” says Alexandra Horowitz, a researcher at Barnard College in New York City. Because of the nature of the test, however, the scientists cannot show that the dogs “understood” what the words meant, Horowitz points out. “But the work clearly demonstrates that dogs are listening to us,” she says, even when our speech is not about them.
1. What can we learn from this study?| A．Dogs can hear some simple words. | B．Dogs can hear words like humans. |
| C．Dogs cannot understand a stranger. | D．Dogs know their owners’ meaning. |
| A．Record their sounds. | B．Record their reactions. |
| C．Train their hearing ability. | D．Train their learning ability. |
| A．The result of the study. | B．A dog filmed in the study. |
| C．An example of the research. | D．Different reactions of the dogs. |
| A．Objective. | B．Favorable. |
| C．Opposed. | D．Unclear. |
2 . Thanks to Ventana Wildlife Society’s feeding program in central California, the condors (秃鹫) were finally returning to their natural habitat (栖息地)in Big Sur. However, the Do-lan Fire in Big Sur which has so far burned through 129 km² has destroyed the society’s efforts.
In the last week of August, the house built for condors burned down and although there were no people or condors when the house caught fire, at least four of the birds were missing. “We made sure that two of the chicks in the four houses were in the burned area, and the other two we have not been able to check,” Kelly Sorenson, executive director of Ventana Wildlife Society, told Discovery.
“We still have nine free flying condors that are missing. We are actively searching, but it's also a lot of waiting. We're not giving up hope yet. ” Condors once lived from Baja California all the way to British Columbia. But, in 1987, the last wild California condor was taken into cage after many years of shooting, catching, and habitat destruction led to the birds' fall. As part of a 10-year-long feeding program, the condors had been gradually returned to their natural habitat.
On September 3, the society announced it had found one of its chicks, Iniko, after fire department gave the green light to go into the Dolan Fire burned area and view the chick's Redwood nesting tree. Iniko's father Kingpin remains missing, but the chick’s mother Redwood Queen, was found caring for her chick.
The fire burned just 10 feet below the nest, yet Ventana Wildlife Society biologists, Joe Burnett and Darren Gross were overjoyed to find the chick and its mother alive and well. “We were not expecting the best as we hiked through the fire's ruins. To find Iniko alive and well is simply a marvel,” said Burnett.
1. How many condors are missing in the fire?| A．2. | B．4. | C．9. | D．13. |
| A．They disappeared in the wild. | B．They returned to the wild. |
| C．They once ranged widely. | D．They died out. |
| A．A baby condor. | B．A missing chick. |
| C．A missing male condor. | D．A surviving female condor |
| A．Wonder. | B．Truth. | C．Puzzle. | D．Fear. |
3 . As people get older, the types and numbers of friends they have tend to change. As young adults, humans have large groups of friends. With age, they often prefer to spend their time with just a few close, positive individuals. Researchers long believed that this aging attraction toward meaningful relationships was unique to humans, but a new study finds that chimps (大猩猩) also have similar tendencies.
Rosati and her colleagues used 78,000 hours of observations made over 20 years from the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in Uganda. The data looked at the social interactions of 21 male chimps between 15 and 58 years old. The researchers only studied male chimps because they show stronger social bonds and have more social interactions than female chimps.
Researchers found that wild chimpanzees share a similar pattern of social aging with humans. Rosati says, “They prefer strong, mutual social bonds and interact with others in more positive ways as they get older.” The older chimpanzees preferred spending more time with chimps that they had become friends with over the years. They would sit close to these long-time companions and groom (梳毛) each other. By contrast, younger chimps had more one-sided relationships where they would groom a friend, but the action wasn’t returned.
Older male chimps were also more likely to spend more time alone. The researchers said that they showed a shift from negative interactions to more positive ones, preferring to spend their later years in nonconfrontational (非对抗性的), positive relationships. Researchers call the preference a “positivity bias”.
Researchers theorize that chimps, like humans, are able to change their social focus as they age. “We propose that this aging pattern may be the result of shared changes in our abilities to regulate our emotions with age,” Rosati says. “This shared pattern between chimpanzees and humans could represent an adaptive response where older adults focus on important social relationships that provide benefits and avoid interactions that have negative consequences as they lose competitive fighting ability.”
1. What does the new study find about chimps?| A．Male chimps show more interactions than females. |
| B．Old chimps don’t care about friends as much as young ones. |
| C．Chimps concentrate more on meaningful relations with age. |
| D．Chimps share aging problems similar to human beings. |
| A．By studying the data provided by other researchers. |
| B．By making scientific investigations and observations. |
| C．By setting up models on the computer in the lab. |
| D．By monitoring both the humans’ and chimps’ behavior. |
| A．Inability to regulate emotions. |
| B．Eagerness to build closer relationships. |
| C．Loss of competitiveness in strength. |
| D．Failure to adapt to the changeable nature. |
| A．A short story collection. | B．A popular science magazine. |
| C．A graduate research paper. | D．A biology textbook. |
The Xi’an City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived China’s long history. It
We accessed the wall through the South Gate. The wall is 12 meters high and from here you can see streams of people moving inside and outside the City Wall.
After
We
5 . Ants have the almost unique ability among animals to switch between individual and collective(集体的) action, according to new research which uncovers the mystery behind their impressive teamwork.
The insects are able to transport objects such as food that are much larger than themselves by naturally understanding when to be part of the collective muscle and when to play an individual “scouting(侦察)” role for the group, researchers found.
Experiments using the breakfast cereal showed how groups of a dozen or more ants working together could transport much bigger items by pushing in the same direction. But more importantly, when the group moves off course or heads for trouble, the ant who first realizes the problem transforms into a highly individualistic leader.
This ant signals the need for a direction change by pulling at a different angle — and her colleagues instantly accept the decision and follow suit.
“The individual ant has the idea of how to pass a thing that blocks their way but lacks the muscle power to move the load. The group is there to promote the leader’s strength so that she can actually carry out her idea,” said Ofer Feinermann, the study’s lead author.
But the lead ant will only carry the baton for a short period, typically shouting to others for 10 to 20 seconds, by which point another ant has become best placed to make leadership decisions.
“As far as we can tell the scout is no different to the other ants, such as in creativity. No one designates(指派) her as the leader, and she designates herself because she has current knowledge about the correct direction,” he added.
Ants are among the very few creatures, besides humans, that can collectively carry loads far heavier than an individual member of their creatures.
The study by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel was published in the journal Nature Communications.
1. What does the new research mainly tell us?| A．Ants usually work together to look for food. |
| B．Ants usually turn to others for help when finding food. |
| C．Ants are good at delivering food larger than themselves. |
| D．Ants are able to work both individually and collectively. |
| A．the scout usually works individually |
| B．ants work together towards the same direction |
| C．every ant wants to play a role of the leader |
| D．ants elect a leader through a discussion |
| A．Act as a leader. | B．Win the respect. |
| C．Work very hard. | D．Lose heart. |
| A．a good sense of direction | B．the strongest body |
| C．the great creativity | D．a good reputation |
6 . Many of the New World supermarkets in New Zealand are letting their fruits and vegetables go packaging-free. In an innovative project pioneered by the New World supermarket located at Bishopdale in Christchurch, this change has led to an amazing increase in sales according to The New Zealand Herald. "We monitor them year on year and after we introduced the idea, we noticed sales of spring onions, for example, had increased by 300 percent," Bishopdale’s owner Nigel Bond told NZ Herald. "There may have been other factors at play, but we noticed similar increases in other vegetables." Bond explained, "When we first set up the new shelving, our customers were blown away. It reminded me of when I was a kid going to the fruiterer with my Dad you could smell the fresh oranges and spring onions. By wrapping products in plastic, we sanitize and keep people away from this experience, it was a huge regret for us."
This new project is part of the movement to do away with all single-use plastic packaging. There are actually government regulations that went into effect on July 1, 2019 for a phase out(强制逐步淘汰) of plastic bags by all retailers. Plastics take up as much as 20 percent of New Zealand's landfill space to 252,000 tons per year.
The idea for the unwrapped produce came from Bond. He went on a study tour in the US and was impressed by the sales at Whole Foods. Then he spoke to growers and suppliers who were more than happy to look at different ways to provide produce without the plastic packaging.
Now, most of the produce is plastic-free but some items - including grapes and some tomatoes - still come wrapped in plastic. Nine New World supermarkets in the South Island have followed the Bishop dales stores example. And New World is testing another new way to BYO (=bring your own) containers for the meat and seafood departments. All of this is a part of the supermarket chain commitment to sustainable practices.
1. What's the result of making vegetables go packaging-free?| A．An innovative project was carried out. |
| B．More vegetables have been sold. |
| C．Nigel Bond monitored sales stricter. |
| D．Other factors were found to play the role. |
| A．Not using all single-use plastic packaging. |
| B．Limiting the development of retailers. |
| C．Stopping using plastic bags gradually. |
| D．Building more New Zealand's landfill space. |
| A．Whole Foods’ sales. |
| B．His study in the college. |
| C．His impression from work. |
| D．Growers and suppliers' requirements. |
| A．New World's Fruits and Vegetables Going Packaging-Free. |
| B．New Zealand's Supermarkets Calling for Environmental protection. |
| C．New Zealand's Contribution to Reducing the Use of Plastics. |
| D．New World's Supermarkets' New Ways to Promote Sales. |
7 . The far side of the moon is a strange and wild region, quite different from the familiar and mostly smooth face we see nightly from our planet. Soon this rough space will have even stranger features: it will be crowded with radio telescopes.
Astronomers are planning to make the moon's distant side our newest and best window on the cosmic(宇宙的) dark ages, a mysterious era hiding early marks of stars and galaxies. Our universe was not always filled with stars. About 380,000 years after the big bang, the universe cooled, and the first atoms of hydrogen formed. Gigantic hydrogen clouds soon filled the universe. But for a few hundred million years, everything remained dark, without stars. Then came the cosmic dawn: the first stars flickered, galaxies came into existence and slowly the universe's largescale structure took shape.
The seeds of this structure must have been present in the darkage hydrogen clouds, but the era has been impossible to probe using optical(光学的) telescopes—there was no light. And although this hydrogen produced longwavelength(or lowfrequency) radio emissions,radio telescopes on Earth have found it nearly impossible to detect them. Our atmosphere either blocks or disturbs these faint signals; those that get through are drowned out by humanity's radio noise.
Scientists have dreamed for decades of studying the cosmic dark ages from the moon's far side. Now multiple space agencies plan lunar missions carrying radiowavedetecting instruments—some within the next three years—and astronomers' dreams are set to become reality.
“If I were to design an ideal place to do lowfrequency radio astronomy, I would have to build the moon,” says astrophysicist Jack Burns of the University of Colorado Boulder. “We are just now finally getting to the place where we're actually going to be putting these telescopes down on the moon in the next few years.”
1. What's the purpose of building radio telescopes on the moon?| A．To research the big bang. | B．To discover unknown stars. |
| C．To study the cosmic dark ages. | D．To observe the far side of the moon. |
| A．Explore. | B．Evaluate. |
| C．Produce. | D．Predict. |
| A．there was no light in the dark ages |
| B．they cannot possibly get through our atmosphere |
| C．gigantic hydrogen clouds no longer fill the universe |
| D．radio signals on Earth cause too much interference |
| A．Scientists have to rebuild the moon. |
| B．We will finally get to the moon's distant side. |
| C．The moon is a perfect place to set up radio telescopes. |
| D．A favorable research environment will be found on the moon. |
8 . How wonderful would it be if new technology could help the physically challenged? A smart wearable device that enables people with speaking disabilities to communicate normally is giving hope to those without a voice.
Tao Luqi, a research fellow at Chongqing University, used a material called graphene (石墨烯) to produce an artificial throat with a tiny sensor (感应器) that allows people with speech impairments (障碍) to speak normally, according to a paper published in Nature Communications in 2017. Tao has continued his work on the device for the last four years.
“Although the speaking impaired people can’t speak, their throats can vibrate (振动) ,” Tao told The Paper. “If I put a device made of graphene into the throat of a person, it can detect the vibrations and make sounds using electrical signals.”
Even whispers, screams and coughs at different frequencies (频率) can be recorded and encoded (编码) by the device, and it can arrange them into groups. When the device detects the sounds in a particular group, it will reproduce the words, phrases or sentences, according to Tao.
“But the speaking impaired people need to classify their own language sounds in groups and memorize them, just like typing keys on a keyboard,” Tao said. Tao’s artificial throat has brought the possibilities of graphene to reality. It’s been 17 years since the discovery of graphene, and the world has been waiting for the “wonder material” to provide innovations (创新) . At only the width of an atom (原子), graphene is the thinnest material known to humans and also the strongest. The material is also an efficient conductor (导体) of heat and electricity, and is ultra-lightweight, China Daily reported.
“Graphene really does have fantastic properties and its potential is huge,” said Khasha Ghaffarzadeh, a director at UK-based research consultancy IDTechEx.
China has emerged as a key country for production. Around 3,000 Chinese companies are exploring uses for graphene, according to government statistics in 2018, while half of the world’s graphene-related patents (专利) have been filed in China, according to China Daily.
“It’s a brand-new science, and China is trying to take the lead,” said Neill Ricketts, chief executive at Versarien, a UK-based advanced material company.
1. How does the artificial throat give those who are speaking impaired the ability to speak?| A．It makes their throat vibrate. |
| B．It transforms vibrations into readable words. |
| C．It detects sounds normal people cannot hear. |
| D． |
| A．Identify frequencies of different sounds. | B．Arrange the words into sentences. |
| C．Memorize their sound groups. | D．Type the words with the device. |
| A．It is widely used in innovations. |
| B．It is the thinnest and strongest material ever found. |
| C．It can improve the efficiency of heat and electricity. |
| D．It weighs less than any other material. |
| A．Graphene’ s potential widespread use in China. |
| B．Development of technology using graphene. |
| C．Graphene-related patents in China. |
| D．China’s leading role in graphene production. |
9 . Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows
Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, according to new research, threatening to all but erase some of the world's great coastal cities.
The authors of a paper published on Tuesday developed a more accurate way of calculating land elevation based on satellite readings, and found that the previous numbers were far too optimistic. The new research shows that some 150 million people are now living on the land that will be below the high-tide line by mid-century. In Thailand, more than 10 percent of citizens now live on the land that is likely to be covered with water by 2050, compared with just 1 percent according to the earlier technique. The political and commercial capital, Bangkok, is particularly dangerous.
In other places, the migration caused by rising seas could cause or worsen regional conflicts. Basra, the second largest city in Iraq, could be mostly underwater by 2050. If that happens, the effects could be felt well beyond Iraq's borders, according to John Castellaw, a retired Marine Corps general.
“Further loss of land owing to rising waters there threatens to drive further social and political instability in the region, which could lead to armed conflicts again and increase the likelihood of terrorism,” said Castellaw, who is now on the advisory board of the Center for Climate and Security, a research and advocacy group in Washington. “So, this is far more than an environmental problem,” he said. “It's a humanitarian, security and possibly military problem too.”
1. How many people will be threatened by 2050 according to the research?| A．About 15 million. | B．About 50 million. |
| C．About 150 million. | D．About 450 million. |
| A．The migration caused rising seas. |
| B．Basra could be entirely underwater by 2050. |
| C．Rising seas could erase all the world's great coastal cities. |
| D．Further loss of land owing to rising waters could cause armed conflicts. |
| A．To advise people to move house. | B．To tell new research. |
| C．To warn the danger of conflicts. | D．To appeal for environmental protection. |
| A．A science magazine. | B．A geography textbook. |
| C．Science fiction. | D．A medical journal. |
10 . Fast fashion has changed the way we dress. We buy more clothes, more often, but wear them less. The average lifespan of a piece of clothing is just two years, and 87 percent of unwanted clothing ends up in landfill or incinerators (焚化炉).
Alina Bassi, founder, of Kleiderly, wants to give our clothing waste another chance of a useful life. The 30-year-old chemical engineer has always cared about the threat of climate change — in her teens she made a film highlighting the environmental impact of Heathrow Airport — but she actually started her career in the oil industry. “I learned so much there, but knew it wasn’t quite right for me,” Bassi says. As a junior engineer, it was difficult to affect change in large corporations and she wanted to make an impact. “I really wanted to work in sustainability. (可持续性).”
After a few more years in the energy industry, she landed a job with bio-bean, a company that turned waste coffee grounds from major UK cafe chains into products that could be burned for heat and fuel. After a year in Berlin as chief operating officer of Kaffeeform, another coffee recycling company, Bassi was eager to step into a different field — used coffee grounds are not the biggest threat faced by the planet. Instead, Bassi poured her efforts into tackling a much bigger polluter.
Kleiderly hopes to change the landscape of clothing waste. Using the principles of a circular (循环的) economy, Bassi has developed a low-energy, multi-stage process to turn clothing fibers into an alternative to oil-based plastic. She is reluctant to reveal any further details as the process is still being patented. This plastic can then be fed to manufacturers that can use it in their existing machines, so that your old T-shirts and jeans are reused as brand new products. “I wanted to take the fibers and turn them into something that would be used for many years to come.” Bassi says.
1. What do we learn about Bassi’s work in the oil industry?| A．It gave her much joy. |
| B．It inspired her to make a film. |
| C．It went against her personal goals. |
| D．It made her worry about the oil industry. |
| A．She should enter the energy industry. |
| B．She should do more to help prevent pollution. |
| C．She should take advantage of coffee grounds |
| D．She should accept the principles of a circular economy. |
| A．Determined. | B．Unwilling. |
| C．Unlucky. | D．Proud. |
| A．Engineers find a new way to produce oil-based plastic |
| B．A lady makes great efforts to promote the fashion industry |
| C．Engineers appeal to various industries to fight climate change |
| D．A lady devotes herself to giving clothing waste a second life |
