1 . Spending your nights sleeping for just four seconds at a time might sound painful, but not for chinstrap penguins (帽带企鹅), which fall asleep thousands of times a day, new research finds.
Scientists studying the chinstrap penguins on King George Island in Antarctica found they nod off more than10,000 times a day, allowing them to keep an eye on their nests all the time, protecting eggs and chicks from predators (捕食性动物).
“Nesting penguins took over 600 ‘microsleeps’ an hour, each lasting only four seconds,” researchers wrote in the paper, published in the journal Science. The findings suggest “microsleeps can perform at least some of the functions of sleep”.
Sleep seems to be common among animals, but it makes them vulnerable because they lose the ability to respond quickly to the outside environment.
The researchers studied chinstrap penguins in the wild using electronicephalogram (EEG) monitoring. Microsleeps were shown by sleep-related brain activity and eye-closure. They noticed a slight increase in the depth of sleep at around noon, when risk of predation could be at its lowest.
Studies have shown some species routinely sleep very little, seemingly without negative costs to their performance while awake. African bush elephants sleep on average for two hours a day, and mostly while standing up, one study found. Sometimes they went 48 hours without sleeping.
Giant frigate birds can spend months on the wing during ocean migrations (迁徙). During this period they can sleep for less than an hour a day, while still flying and hunting. When they get back to the nest they sleep for nearly 13 hours a day.
“Sleep seems to be flexible among species,” a researcher said. “I believe that there are still many things unknown about animal sleep.”
1. Why do Chinstrap Penguins nod off more than 10,000 times a day?A.To find family meals. | B.To guard their newborns. |
C.To enjoy good sleep. | D.To get more rest. |
A.Easily hurt. | B.Fully prepared. | C.Totally satisfied. | D.Widely known. |
A.Potential attacks from predators. | B.Movements of eyes. |
C.The number of nests. | D.Changes of temperature. |
A.Larger animals are likely to have less sleep. |
B.Some animals sleep more during migration. |
C.Birds can sleep when they are standing up. |
D.Sleeping little may not affect waking performance. |
2 . A new study from the University of Cambridge shows how small environmental changes can have great effects on human behavior. Even the rise of skateboarding is the result of the deep relationships between humans and the climate.
“To make connections between climate and society, we often look into the past, but as we go further back, the evidence gets thinner,” said lead author Professor Büntgen. “We wanted to find a more modern example where we had lots of data to look at. That is how we began to study skateboarding.”
As was recorded, the prosperity (繁荣) of post-war America resulted in the building of more than 150,000 swimming pools in California during the 1960s. However, California suffered the greatest drought (旱灾) in the 1970s. The government’s water agencies responded by mandating strict cuts, including a ban stopping people from filling backyard swimming pools. As a result, many of these pools were empty, making them ideal playgrounds for freestyle skateboarders. Naturally, skateboarding exploded in popularity.
Büntgen said, “California used to be the center of US surf culture. The popularity and influence of surf culture was very important to the rise of skateboarding, which is why it could have only happened in California. You could have had the same drought, the same pools in somewhere like Phoenix, but since Phoenix doesn’t have a rich surf culture, professional skateboarding couldn’t have started there.”
With the rise of professional skateboarding came the industrial production of polyurethane (聚氨酯) wheels, which allowed skaters to make faster turns at higher speeds than they could with earlier steel wheels. All these factors made skateboarding more popular. Nowadays, it is a multibillion-dollar industry.
The example of California best shows that local climate change can have major effects on human society.
1. What is the finding of the new study?A.Climate changes affect human behavior. |
B.Popular games benefit greatly from droughts. |
C.The environment changes people’s relationships. |
D.Culture contributes to the industry development. |
A.Carrying out. | B.Counting on. | C.Sticking with. | D.Getting over. |
A.Drought. | B.Location. | C.Swimming pools. | D.Surf culture. |
A.Society. | B.Health. | C.Education. | D.Business. |
3 . Birds rely on their keen sense of hearing to detect prey(猎物) and identify other birds on the basis of their songs. In fact, birds have better hearing than humans, so they hear with much more detail. So how do birds hear?
Birds and humans both have an inner ear and a middle ear. However, birds differ from humans in that they lack an external ear structure. Where humans have an outer ear organ, birds have a funnel-shaped(漏斗状的) opening that functions as their outer ear, located on each side of their head. These openings are usually positioned behind and slightly below a bird’s eyes and are protected by soft feathers.
The position of a bird’s head also plays a role in its hearing abilities. Scientists have determined that noises register(显示) at different frequencies on each side of the bird’s head. Depending on the angle from which the noise originates, it registers with a certain frequency in the left eardrum(耳膜) but with a different frequency in the right eardrum. This allows the bird to locate a sound’s origin.
Let’s take a look at owls. They are known for their extremely accurate hearing, which helps them locate prey at night. This hearing ability is partly due to the unbalanced arrangement of the ear openings, with one opening being lower than the other. Sounds register in these openings at slightly different times. Owls can use this time difference, which is only 30 millionths of a second, to determine whether the sounds are coming from their left or their right. Other birds of prey have small covers in front of their ears that help them determine whether sounds are coming from above them or below them. Some owls do appear to have ears on the top of their head, but those are actually feathers controlled by small muscles under the skin that do not affect their hearing at all.
1. According to paragraph 2, what is the major difference between birds’ ears and humans’ cars?A.Size | B.Position. | C.Structure. | D.Function. |
A.Each side of the bird’s head. |
B.Sound quality around the bird. |
C.The angle from which the noise comes. |
D.The difference in frequencies between the eardrums. |
A.To give examples. | B.To present the main idea. |
C.To draw a conclusion. | D.To compare different opinions. |
A.Different Senses of Birds | B.Amazing Abilities of Birds |
C.The Secret of Birds’ Hearing | D.The Origin of Birds’ Hearing |
4 . Eating insects is one of those ideas that never quite seem to catch on. The United Nations spread the idea a decade ago, but, in the West at least, insects remain mostly absent from supermarket shelves. Faced with an unsatisfied public, scientists have been exploring other options. One is to feed the insects instead to farm animals, which are not so picky.
Of course, the insects need to eat, too. To date, they have mostly reared (饲养) on leftover chicken feed. But the supply of that is limited, and if insect-reared meat is to take off, new sources will be needed. Niels Eriksen, a biochemist at Aalborg University, suggests feeding them on the waste products of the beer industry.
The world knocks back around 185bn litres of beer every year. Each litre produces between three and ten litres of wastewater full of thrown-away grains. The mix is rich in protein but lacking in carbohydrates (碳水化合物), especially compared with chicken feed.
Most insects grown for feed depend, in the wild, on the carbohydrates found in bad fruit. Whether insects would actually consider beer waste a square meal was, therefore, unclear.
The researchers used the baby insects of the black soldier fly. The young insects were divided into three groups, which were offered beer waste, chicken feed or a mixture of both. The researchers monitored both their weight gain and the amount of CO, they produced. They found the baby insects happily consumed both beer waste and chicken feed, and grew equally well on either food source. Dr Eriksen found few differences in how nutritious the insects would be to farm animals.
The experiment may have implications beyond the beer business, too. Bone meal from farms, and waste from other food industries are all likewise plentiful and protein-rich.
All now look to be reasonable targets for nutrient recycling by insects. Whether consumers will be willing to eat insect-reared beef, though, remains to be seen.
1. What is the purpose of Niels Eriksen’s research?A.To find alternatives to chicken feed. |
B.To recycle the wastewater in beer industry. |
C.To change public’s attitude toward insects. |
D.To reduce the consumption of waste products. |
A.The future application of the research. | B.The importance of protein in the cycle. |
C.The extended influence of the research. | D.The contribution of the beer industry. |
A.chickens-insects-cows-humans | B.humans-beer waste-insects-cows |
C.beer waste-insects-cows-humans | D.cows-chickens-insects-beer waste |
A.Waste recycling will be taking off soon |
B.Eating insects is the new option for people |
C.Insects could help turn beer waste into beef |
D.Insects could gain popularity in supermarket |
5 . Climate change is not only a human problem; animals have to adapt to it as well. Some “warm-blooded” animals are shapeshifting (变形) and getting larger legs, ears, and beak s to better control their body temperatures as the planet gets hotter. Bird researcher Sara Ryding of Deakin University in Australia describes these changes in a review.
“It’s high time we recognized that animals also have to adapt to these changes, and this is occurring over a far shorter time than would have occurred through most of evolutionary time,” says Ryding. “The climate change that we have created is putting a lot of pressure on them, and while some species will adapt, others will not.”
Ryding notes that climate change is a complex phenomenon that’s been occurring gradually, so it’s difficult to determine just one cause of the shapeshifting. But these changes have been occurring across wide geographical regions and among a variety of species, so there is little in common apart from climate change.
Strong shapeshifting has particularly been reported in birds. Several species of Australian parrot have shown, on average, a 4% to 10% increase in size since 1871, and this is positively associated with the summer temperature each year. North American dark-eyed juncos, a type of small songbird, had a link between increased size and short-term temperature extremes in cold environments. There have also been reported changes in mammalian (哺乳动物) species. Researchers have reported tail length increases in wood mice. “The increases in appendage (附肢) size we see so far are quite small — less than 10% — so the changes are unlikely to be immediately noticeable,” says Ryding. “However, prominent (突起的) appendages such as ears are predicted to increase.”
Next, Ryding intends to investigate shapeshifting in Australian birds by 3D scanning museum bird samples from the past 100 years. Undoubtedly, it will give her team a better understanding of which birds are changing appendage size due to climate change and why.
1. What is the purpose of paragraph 1?A.To introduce a bird researcher. | B.To present a shapeshifting phenomenon. |
C.To explain the cause of climate change. | D.To state the terrible influence of climate change. |
A.It is slower than their evolution. | B.It’s impossible to determine its cause. |
C.It is a global phenomenon beyond species. | D.Climate change is its potential cause. |
A.The examples of shapeshifting. | B.The effects of shapeshifting. |
C.The explanations of shapeshifting. | D.The history of shapeshifting. |
A.The speed of shapeshifting. | B.The cause of climate change. |
C.The samples of Australian birds. | D.The understanding of bird history. |
6 . Hummingbirds (蜂鸟) are a very important part of Mexico’s ecosystem, but because of the ever-spreading city landscape, they face all sorts of serious dangers. That’s where 73-year-old Catia Lattouf de Arida comes in. As a self-taught hummingbird care-taker, she devotes most of her free time and resources to nursing the tiny birds back to health. Her home in Mexico City has become known as a hummingbird hospital
Catia’s story as a hummingbird nurse began in 2011, at a very dificult moment in her life. At that time, she focused on her battle with cancer and fell into a depression (抑郁) . She was walking on the strect one day when she noticed a hummingbird that had suffered a serious eye injury. The kindhearted woman took it home and named it Gucci. She managed to nurse Gucci back to health, but she said it was Gucci that saved her. Why? Because the hummingbird managed to pull her out of the sadness and loneliness that had taken over her life.
Word of her success spread among Catia’s friends, and before long some of them began bringing her injured hummingbirds. She didn’t repulse them at all. She began to study the bird and their habits in order to better take care of them, and after 11 years of experience, the 73-year-old woman is considered an expert on hummingbirds.
In order to raise awareness of the difficult situation of hummingbirds in Mexico, Catia Lattouf de Arida started posting videos of the patients in her Mexico City apartment on social media, and many of them became popular. That’s when the need for her nursing services really blew up. She has cared for hundreds of hummingbirds in her 11-year career, when she has had as many as 50 of them in her apartment at any one time. She spends pretty much all her time looking after the tiny birds.
1. Which saying can best show the main idea of the first two paragraphs?A.It is better to give than to take. |
B.Actions speak louder than words. |
C.Helping others is helping ourselves. |
D.A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. |
A.Expect. | B.Refuse. | C.Accept. | D.Recognize |
A.When her friends heard about her success. |
B.When she was considered as a bird expert. |
C.After she shared the birds’ videos on the media. |
D.After she looked after a large number of the birds. |
A.honest and kind | B.generous and creative |
C.devoted and strict | D.caring and responsible |
7 . Spring turns Europe into a world of colours. If you want to experience spring in all its colourful glory, here are four of the best places for you.
Blooming Baroque, Ludwigsburg, Germany
The Blooming Baroque garden show in Ludwigsburg, Germany, has been welcoming visitors since 1954. Visit the 18th-century palace between March and May and you can not only see displays filled with flowers, but also watch different kinds of birds and visit gardens, climb Rapunzel’s tower and get lost in a giant hedge maze (树篱迷宫).
Keukenhof Gardens, Lisse, the Netherlands
The largest flower garden in the world, Keukenhof in the Netherlands is the best place to see the symbolic Dutch flower at its finest. Tulips explode across the gardens, with more than 800 different varieties. After you’ve wandered through the gardens, you can hire a bike at the main gate and then ride through the endless rows of picture-perfect flowered rainbows. The show runs from March 21 to June 10.
Normandy Tulip Festival, Vendeuvre, France
The French garden of the 18th-century Vendeuvre Chiteau in Normandy springs to life in April, as over 30,000 tulips, narcissi and grape hyacinths awaken. Open afternoons throughout April between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Temps de Flors, Girona, Spain
Girona’s medieval centre is transformed into a living gallery as flower carpets and special sculptures explode throughout the city centre each May. The Girona A Cappella Festival invites music lovers to engage all their senses as the sound, smell and sight of spring fill the city for 10 days in May.
1. What can you do in Ludwigsburg, Germany?A.Watch birds. | B.Appreciate rainbows. | C.Taste grapes. | D.Visit a flower gallery. |
A.Climb a tower. | B.Admire tulips. | C.Join a bike tour. | D.Host an art show. |
A.To Germany. | B.To Dutch. | C.To France. | D.To Spain. |
8 . After my diagnosis (诊断) with a cancer, I loved the
I told Hannah I wanted to
The cancer
Before I fell sick, I had worked as a family doctor. I was used to being the one who
Over the next few months, I recovered from surgery and
A.idea | B.photo | C.conclusion | D.story |
A.cried | B.nodded | C.smiled | D.escaped |
A.hunt for | B.wish for | C.call for | D.care for |
A.grow | B.lose | C.decorate | D.shake |
A.limited | B.strengthened | C.questioned | D.showed |
A.hopeful | B.painless | C.weak | D.energetic |
A.success | B.change | C.support | D.failure |
A.Besides | B.Unfortunately | C.However | D.Therefore |
A.achievement | B.closeness | C.humour | D.adventure |
A.proud | B.useless | C.amazed | D.equal |
A.accepted | B.approached | C.required | D.provided |
A.purpose | B.personality | C.dream | D.identity |
A.people | B.memories | C.jobs | D.diseases |
A.insisted on | B.gave up | C.returned to | D.resulted in |
A.observes | B.needs | C.connects | D.respects |
9 . On January 3, Preet Chandi made history by becoming the first woman to complete a solo expedition across Antarctica to the South Pole.
Chandi, who calls herself Summit Preet,
“I want my eight-year-old niece to grow up without
Chandi
Chandi now
A.went on with | B.came up with | C.set off on | D.got by on |
A.challenge | B.press | C.approach | D.inspire |
A.sufferings | B.regrets | C.limits | D.aims |
A.fixed | B.endless | C.slim | D.faraway |
A.preparing | B.calling | C.waiting | D.looking |
A.ran | B.shipped | C.transported | D.covered |
A.measuring | B.pulling | C.lifting | D.getting |
A.wrote | B.put | C.recorded | D.downloaded |
A.more than | B.rather than | C.less than | D.other than |
A.change | B.set | C.realize | D.push |
A.unexpected | B.unknown | C.unprotected | D.unrecognized |
A.nowhere | B.somewhere | C.thoroughly | D.passively |
A.doubtful | B.free | C.capable | D.fortunate |
A.rises | B.plans | C.fails | D.sticks |
A.original | B.visual | C.eventual | D.unique |
10 . Caring for plants is a fantastic skill for kids to have. There are so many benefits of gardening for kids, yet the importance of gardening in early childhood is often undervalued. Here are some reasons why to teach your kids to garden.
Gardening makes kids stronger.
Gardening is good for kids’ well-being. Studies find that kids who garden have reduced large amounts of anxiety, stress and tend to be in a better mood.
Gardening is beneficial for picky eaters.
Gardening strengthens connection. Through gardening activities, kids grow closer to their parents and make many new friends.
A.Gardening helps build teamwork skills. |
B.Gardening activates kids’ sensory skills. |
C.It is the perfect activity for growing bodies. |
D.Learning to garden can be very tiring for children. |
E.Spending time outdoors in nature can bring a sense of well-being. |
F.Kids are more likely to eat the vegetables and fruit they’ve helped grow. |
G.They also develop a connection to the earth and a need to care for our planet. |