1 . Bees are being trained to do the job of sniffer(嗅)dogs in Scotland, UK. And they could be ready to get to work in five years, saving many people’s lives.
By using sugar water as reward, the researchers have been teaching bees to recognize the smell of explosives(炸药)as though it was nectar(花蜜)from a flower. The bees can detect the smell of explosives, which are used to make bombs. They can detect the landmines from about 100 m distance but that should go up to kilometres. It should happen immediately once they’re trained and sent out.
Landmines are a type of bomb hidden just below the surface of the ground, so that a per-son walking or a car driving on it sets it off. When landmines are used in wars, the land is not safe for people to return to after the war is over until all the landmines have been cleared.
In the trials, as soon as the bees are sent out of the hive, they settle almost instantly on the spot where a landmine is. Bees have an advantage in that they cannot accidentally set off landmines and can cover ground not readily accessible for dogs. When the bees find the explosives but no reward of nectar they quickly realize they have been fooled and stop detecting the explosives. They get used to it so they realize after a couple of days that they have been hoodwinked. Every few days you have to retrain them but hopefully by that time they have found the explosives.
There has been a similar trial of bees detecting explosives in the US. Bees can also be trained to sniff out drugs, chemicals and radioactive substances. Training and keeping bees is quicker and cheaper than training dogs. They are considered at least as sensitive as dogs, and dogs are known to underperform when poorly treated.
1. Why should landmines be cleared after war?| A．They are too dangerous to soldiers. |
| B．The army gets them back to reuse. |
| C．They cause pollution to the soil. |
| D．People need to go back to their normal life. |
| A．They can’t access everywhere. | B．They can set off landmines. |
| C．They must be trained continually. | D．They consume too much nectar. |
| A．Selected. | B．Adopted. | C．Experienced. | D．Cheated. |
| A．Critical. | B．Positive. |
| C．Suspicious. | D．Unconcerned. |
2 . A handful of old mobile phones lay in a grey bucket. These outdated devices, which are about to be chopped into thousands of pieces, will be given a second life as recycled e-waste. But many phones won't.
According to the latest estimates, the world gets rid of approximately 50 million tonnes of waste annually. E-waste is full of dangerous materials that can cause damage to human health and the environment if not managed properly. But only 20 percent of global e-waste is recycled.The rest ends up in landfill, or burned—or is not recycled at all.
And yet,Switzerland is a good example of how to deal with the growing environmental issue. The country collects and recycles roughly 7S percent of this discarded material. This is thanks to a strong voluntary take-back system, where consumers can take e-waste to a reclining collection point or any electronic shop retailer（零售商）. A recycling station can be found within at most 300 meters from any residential area. Everyone gets involved. Switzerland's e-waste system is unique and can't be easily copied-due to a strong recycling culture within the country.
However, Switzerland faces the same global challenges as every nation.The built-in lithium batteries（锂电池）aren't easy to take out. The only way to remove these potentially dangerous components is with a bar and hammer. This poses a significant risk to those handling the goods. As such, producers need to be more transparent(信息透明的) and show more clearly where the harmful substances are, and how they can be removed.
Once the battery is removed, e-waste is sorted into different component parts—-metals, plastics and other materials. Roughly 70 percent of the device can be recycled. The material that cannot be recycled is used for other purposes like construction material or is burned to generate energy. Mobile phones—from a material perspective (角度), from a value perspective，and also from an environmental impact perspective -are very important.
For the past 15 years, Switzerland has been actively encouraging and supporting electrical waste disposal practices. They are happy to share their knowledge, experience, lessons learned, and they are happy if other people pick up on it.
1. What can we know about the global e-waste?| A．Only 20% of the e-waste is useful. |
| B．It is becoming an environmental problem. |
| C．Most of it has been given a second life. |
| D．It has been the major cause of pollution. |
| A．It is unique and easy to copy. |
| B．It features many devoted volunteers. |
| C．It gains great support and understanding. |
| D．It is complicated and not easily accessible. |
| A．Remove harmful substances. |
| B．Use less dangerous components. |
| C．Offer customers free bars and hammers. |
| D．Help make the removal easier and safer. |
| A．How to fight against e-waste. |
| B．Why E-waste gets out of control. |
| C．How to be champion of recycling. |
| D．How to lead an Eco-friendly lifestyle. |
3 . Human beings are not alone in having invented vaccination, while honeybees got there first and they can run what look like vaccination programmes, which has been confirmed by Gyan Harwood of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Queen bees vaccinate their eggs before they are laid. But the question is how the queen receives her antigen supply, for she lives purely on royal jelly, a substance secreted by nurse bees when they are in the life stage of feeding the young. Dr Harwood wondered if the nurses combined the royal jelly they produced with pieces from pathogens they had consumed while eating something brought in from outside.
To test this idea, they collected about 150 nurse bees and divided them among six queenless mini hives equipped with the young to look after. They fed the nurses on sugar-water, and for three of the hives they added Paenibacillus larvae, a bacterium causing a disease, to sugar-water.
Dr Harwood and Dr Salmela labeled the bacteria with a certain dye, to make them easy to track. And, sure enough, microscope confirmed that Paenibacillus larvae were getting into royal jelly secreted by those bees which had been fed with the sugar-water. Moreover, examination of this royal jelly revealed higher levels of defensive substance, compared with royal jelly from bees that had not been mixed with Paenibacillus larvae. This substance is thought to help bee immune systems fight against bacterial infections.
All told, these findings suggest that nurse bees are indeed, via their royal jelly, passing antigens on to the queen, then into eggs. They also mean, because the young receive royal jelly for the first few days after they hatch, the nurses are giving the young the second antigens. Each young bee is therefore being vaccinated twice.
1. What puzzled Dr Harwood from paragraph 2?| A．What the royal jelly consists of. |
| B．Where nurse bees receive pathogens. |
| C．How the antigen come into the queen bees' bodies. |
| D．Whether honeybees run vaccination earlier than man. |
| A．By dividing bees into different roles. |
| B．By keeping track of the special bacterium. |
| C．By changing the components of royal jelly. |
| D．By observing nurse bees' different behaviors. |
| A．Nurse bees are the key to vaccination for bee group. |
| B．The nurse bees pass the antigen only to the queen. |
| C．Bacteria-used royal jelly has fewer defense substances. |
| D．Two vaccinations are given to young bees by caregivers directly. |
| A．A pet guide. | B．A social website. |
| C．An official document. | D．A medical magazine. |
4 . It's our galactic(银河系的) home, but the Milky Way contains many mysteries scientists are working to uncover. Now, as The Guardian reports, astronomers at the European Space Agency (ESA) have built a 3D map that provides the most detailed look at our galaxy yet.
The -data has been seven years in the making. In 2013, the ESA launched its Gaia Space .Observatory from Kourou in French Guiana. Since then, two high-powered telescopes aboard the spacecraft have been sweeping the skies, recording the locations, movements, and changes in brightness of more than a billion stars in the Milky Way and beyond.
Using Gaia's findings, astronomers put together a 3D map that allows scientists to study the galaxy in greater depth than ever before. The data has made it possible to measure the acceleration (加速度) of the solar system. By comparing the solar system's movements to those of more faraway objects in space, researchers have determined that the solar system is slowly falling toward the center of the galaxy at an acceleration of 7 millimeters per second per year, The Guardian reports. Additionally, the map shows how matter is distributed (使分配)throughout the Milky Way. With this information, scientists should be able to measure the mass of the Milky Way.
Gaia's observations may also hold clues to the Milky Way's past and future. The data holds small remaining parts of the 10-billion-year-old round flat object that made up the edge of the star system. By comparing it to the shape of the Milky Way today, astronomers have determined that the flat object will continue to increase in size as new stars are created.
The Gaia observatory was launched with the mission of carrying out an updated star census. The previous one was conducted in 1957, and Gaia's new data reaches four times farther and accounts for 100 times more stars.
1. According to the findings, what is happening to the solar system?| A．It is becoming larger and larger slowly. |
| B．It is attracting more new stars to its edge. |
| C．It is losing a 10-billion-year-old round flat star. |
| D．It is slightly accelerating toward the galactic center. |
| A．The size of the galaxy. |
| B．The origin of the galaxy. |
| C．The features of matter in the galaxy. |
| D．The speeds of new stars in the galaxy. |
| A．Filming. · | B．Locating. |
| C．Counting. | D．Comparing. |
| A．How the Gaia Space Observatory works |
| B．The solar system has changed since 2013 |
| C．Why the galaxy is also called “Milky Way” |
| D．3D map shows the galaxy in more exact detail |
5 . Scientists have discovered a new behaviour among bumblebees that tricks plants into flowering early.
When lack of pollen, bumblebees will bite little by little on the leaves of flower-less plants. The damage seems to fool the plant into flowering, sometimes up to 30 days earlier than normal.
With their hairy appearance and special sounds, bumblebees are hard to miss in gardens all over the world. Their hairy bodies make them excellent pollinators for crops like tomatoes and blueberries. They are among the first bees to appear each year and work a long season.
But despite their key role, bumblebees, like many other pollinators have seen their numbers decline suddenly in recent decades. One recent study pointed to climate change, reporting that an increasing number of hot days in Europe and North America was raising local bumblebees extinction rates.
But researchers have now made a discovery about bumblebees that could have something to do with their long term survival. Scientists in Switzerland found that when the bumblebees were out of pollen, they started to bite on the leaves of plants that hadn't yet flowered. They used their mouths to cut clearly-shaped holes in the leaves. But the creatures didn't eat the material or use it in their nests.
The damaged plants responded by flowering earlier than normal- -in some cases up to 30 days ahead of schedule. Researchers also found that the bee damaged plants flowered 30 days earlier than undamaged plants and 25 days earlier than ones damaged by the scientists.
“I think everything that we've found is consistent with the idea that the bumblebees are damaging the plants and that that's an adaptation that brings flowers earlier and that benefits the bees,” said Dr Mark Mescher, one of the authors from ETH Zurich.
1. How do bumblebees fool plants into flowering earlier?| A．By making use of the hot weather. | B．By putting the false flowers on the leaves. |
| C．By attacking the leaves of flowerless plants. | D．By taking away the pollen from the other flowers. |
| A．Making plants flower early. | B．Spreading pollen to flowers and plants. |
| C．Sending information about weather change. | D．Finding out whether the plant has flowers. |
| A．They are becoming homesick. | B．They are not as friendly as before. |
| C．There is a sharp decrease in number. | D．They have been busy year by year. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Skeptical. | C．Tolerant. | D．Objective. |
6 . Every year the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the New York Botanical Garden open their doors to thousands of visitors. They go there for the world-famous orchid (兰花) shows. But these organizations are not just protecting living plants but also recording the culture connected with them.
Working with the Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Beijing, Kew has developed a collection of plants--including orchids. The plants are collected in the forms they are used in traditional Chinese medicine. This is a storehouse of medical knowledge and a tool for cultural research.
Dr. Barnabas Seyler, assistant researcher in the department of environment at Sichuan University, believes in the key role of botanical gardens. As an ethnobotanist (民族植物学家), Seyler is looking at the relationship between orchids and local culture of Liangshan. “They can help the culture continue to exist through providing protection, educating the general public, and supporting traditional knowledge, stories, and cultural traditions connected with these plants,” he says.
In China, orchids are more than just wild plants. “If you walk into any Chinese-restaurant around the world, or into any teahouse in China, you will likely find paintings, place settings, or other cultural things showing orchids,” he says. “Many people, especially in the west, do not fully understand the weight that the plant has held throughout history in traditional Han Chinese culture.
The researchers have noticed that orchid species native to Sichuan are disappearing rapidly. Their beauty is killing them. Wild-collected rare forms could be sold for thousands of dollars. In his study, Seyler asked locals of Yiand Han communities whether they could recognize different orchid species. They also asked them about how to find and grow orchids, and knowledge about orchids in arts and language. They found that when species were locally dying out, knowledge about them would be forgotten.
Culture doesn't soon disappear because of the loss of one plant or group of plants. But what happens if species loss continues?
1. Why does the author mention the collection of plants?| A．To explain why the two orchid shows are so popular. |
| B．To explain how Kew saves living plants across the world. |
| C．To show the importance of working with foreign countries. |
| D．To show how botanical gardens are protecting the environment. |
| A．They can help keep orchid culture alive. |
| B．They will win more support from the public. |
| C．They should pay more attention to local cultures. |
| D．They can play a key role in environmental protection. |
| A．The long history of orchids in China. |
| B．The many uses of orchids in the world. |
| C．The importance of orchids in Chinese culture. |
| D．The great influence of orchids on Western people. |
| A．How to prevent orchids from dying out. |
| B．What will happen to orchids in Sichuan. |
| C．How to increase knowledge about orchids. |
| D．What the loss of orchids will bring about. |
1. What can visitors do in the sea park?
| A．Feed sharks. | B．Swim with whales. | C．Take part in family activities. |
| A．Having fun. | B．Staying with their parents. | C．Sharing experience. |
| A．By providing useful information. |
| B．By giving sea creature models. |
| C．By offering free school trips. |
| A．In the sea parks. | B．In zoos all over the world. | C．In their natural homes. |
8 . An Ontario teen is making waves by turning old fishing gear into new treasures. Since last year, Natalie, 15, has been taking lost or thrown — away fishing nets and rope and transforming them into bracelets, rope art, mats, baskets and necklaces.
Last year, Natalie was working on an assignment for her science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) class. As part of the assignment, she learned about “ghost nets”, which are fishing nets that have been left or lost in the ocean by people who fish.
“They have huge effects on our environment. They can kill coral reefs and many animals,” said Natalie. “46 percent of the Pacific garbage is ghost gear.” The Great Pacific Garbage is a huge collection of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California.
Natalie told her mom she wanted to do something to help. She got in touch with a handful of charities, including the Sea Protection Society and Coastal Action.
After getting some shipments of ghost nets and rope from those organizations, Natalie, with the help of her family, started turning the discarded gear into new artworks. “We've made bracelets, rope art, mats, baskets, and we've made necklaces, which also use beach glass in them,” she said. Natalie then started selling the artworks online, the crafty buying and selling website.
She donated all her profits-minus a small sum of change to cover supplies — to the charities that donated fishing supplies to her. She's also been donating all the income from her non-profit business, called Nautical Waters, to charity. Natalie said she hoped to continue her passion for ocean life, with plans to study marine biology in university.
1. How did Natalie help with ghost nets?| A．By turning them into artworks. | B．By asking support from her mother. |
| C．By collecting money from charities. | D．By selling ghost nets at a good price. |
| A．To collect supplies for the artworks. | B．To prepare for her study in university. |
| C．To protect coral reefs and marine animals. | D．To complete an assignment for her STEM class. |
| A．Polluted. | B．Rare. | C．Waste. | D．Discovered. |
| A．Ghost Nets Ready for Sale | B．Charities Make a Big Difference |
| C．Natalie's Passion for Ocean Treasures | D．Teen Turns Old Fishing Nets into Artworks |
9 . Can you imagine a world where more than half of our common plant species and a third of our known animals disappear from sight? That's the prediction suggested by new research on the impact of climate change.
An international team of researchers looked at the impact of rising temperatures on nearly 50,000 species of plants and animals. They came to the conclusion that these are to decline due to changes in their habitat. They looked at temperature and rainfall records for the habitats in which these species now live, and mapped the areas that would remain suitable for them under different weather conditions.
The scientists projected that if no significant efforts were made to limit greenhouse gas emissionss, by the year 2100 global temperatures would be 4C above pre-industrial levels. In this scenario, some 34% of animal species and 57% of plants would lose more than half of their current habitat ranges. The impact on species will be felt more heavily in some parts of the world such as the Amazon region.
Our society would be affected too, according to Dr. Rachel Warren, from the University of East Anglia in Britain. She says: "There'll be a knock-on effect for humans because these species are important for things like water and air purification, flood control and nutrients cycling, and eco-tourism."
In spite of the conclusions to this paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, it is not all doom and gloom. Dr Warren says: "Swift action to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases can prevent the biodiversity loss by reducing the amount of global warming to 2C rather than 4 degrees." The researcher believes that this would buy time for plants and animals to adapt to the change.
If nothing is changed and the predictions of this study are confirmed, the world might look very different in a few generations.
1. What made animals and plants decrease?| A．Temperature and rainfall. | B．The transition in their living surroundings. |
| C．Weather condition | D．The change of nature. |
| A．Assumption. | B．Theory . | C．Expectation . | D．Truth . |
| A．The temperature will not increase. | B．The biodiversity loss can be totally prevented. |
| C．Animals and plants have more time to fit. | D．Current habitat will not be affected. |
| A．The impact of climate change. | B．Massive species may die from climate change. |
| C．Plant and animals are in danger. | D．Global warming are threatening us. |
10 . If you think you’d like to live on Mars, you may have that possibility by 2023. A Dutch company called Mars One will soon advertise for people interested in colonizing (开拓) Mars. If you have all the necessary skills, you could be one of the first colonists. Are you ready for the challenge?
You won’t have to pay for the mission to Mars. Mars One has already received money from some donors and is hoping to get more from TV viewers who will become interested in the show where all applicants have a debate for the rare chances.
The main responsibility of the first colonists is to create an artificial environment on Mars where there is no air to breathe and no land to farm. Scientists know it’s quite possible because something similar has already been done in Antarctica.
Another problem is that space travel to Mars takes nearly a year to get to Mars and the colonists will live the rest of their lives there. When a human lives in an environment without gravity or with low gravity for a long time, the systems in the body weaken. Luckily, spinning (旋转) the spaceship can create artificial gravity, and artificial gravity can ease these problems. It will also be difficult for Mars colonists to be far from home, living in small spaces, and seeing the same people over and over. Colonists with depression could put the mission in danger. Fortunately, a few years ago, a joint Russian and European project called the Mars500 Mission studied people’s reactions in a Mars-like environment. It is viewed as a great success because scientists were able to see how people handle emotional and physical stresses.
Recent studies show that seven percent of people would want to go on such an adventure.
Mars One will soon start accepting its first colonists. Are you interested?
1. What do we know about the applicants to Mars from the first two paragraphs?| A．They will land on Mars in 2023. |
| B．They can get money from donors. |
| C．They will compete in a TV show. |
| D．They do not need special skills. |
| A．Create earth-like conditions. |
| B．Build labs in Antarctica. |
| C．Spin the spaceship. |
| D．Start the Mars500 Mission. |
| A．Difficult and dangerous. |
| B．Different but adaptable. |
| C．Challenging and unbearable . |
| D．Acceptable but depressing. |
| A．Mars: our final destination? |
| B．Ready to be Mars’ colonists? |
| C．Space travel: a thrilling adventure? |
| D．Are you a qualified Mars astronaut? |
