Science and technology are advancing at tremendous speed. We may think we’re a culture that gets rid of our     1     technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices well after they go out of style. That’s bad news for the environment — and our wallets — as these outdated devices     2     much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York     3     the environmental costs for each product throughout its life — from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has     4     since the early 1990s. The devices were     5     by generation — Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the     6     in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn’t throw out our old ones. “The living-room television is replaced and gets     7     in the kids’ room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house,” said one researcher. The     8     number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to thirteen in 2007. We’re not just keeping these old devices — we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt’s team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and     9     to greenhouse gas emissions more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

So what’s the possible solution? The team’s data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers would replace old products with new electronics that     10     more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

Imagine living on the edge of a vast desert, which is moving quietly closer to your village every day and covering your fields. The desert is on the move. This is called desertification.

Desertification occurs in regions close to an already existing desert. It generally arises from two related causes. The first is over-use of water in the area. There is not enough water in any case, and if it is not carefully used, disaster can follow. As time goes on, water shortages make farming more and more difficult. In some places, locals can remember local lakes and marshes which were once the homes for all kinds of fish and birds. They have been completely buried by the sand now. Farmers leave the land, and fields are replaced by deserts.

The second cause is misuse or over-use of the land. This means that the wrong crops are planted and need more water than is available. Ploughing large fields and removing bushes and trees means that the wind will blow away the soil. Once the soil is lost, it is hard to replace, and if there is rain, it has nowhere to go, and brings no benefit.

It is not only the farmers and villagers who suffer. Every spring, the skies over some of eastern cities, thousands of kilometers away from the deserts, can be darkened by sandstorms. Dust from deserts can have a great effect on weather systems. While desertification is perhaps being partly caused by global warming, these sandstorms can make global warming worse by adding to what is known as the greenhouse effect.

What can be done to slow down or stop the process of desertification? A great deal of work is already under way. Obviously first steps are to find new water sources. Tree planting can help, by providing barriers between desert and rich field. Some types of grass also hold the soil together, and stop the wind taking it. Without these efforts, it will be harder and harder to stop the world’s deserts in their tracks, and more and more farmers will give up and head for cities. The lesson to be learnt lies beneath the sand.

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4 . Ecotourism is often regarded as a form of nature-based tourism and has become an important alternative source of tourists. It is broadly defined as low __________ travel to endangered and often undisturbed locations. It is different from traditional tourism because it allows the traveler to become educated about the areas. And it often provides funds for conservation and __________ the economic development of places that are frequently poverty-stricken.

Ecotourism and other forms of sustainable travel have their __________ with the environmental movement of the 1970s. Ecotourism itself did not become prevalent (流行的) as a travel concept until the late 1980s. During that time, increasing environmental awareness and a desire to travel to natural locations as __________ to built up tourist locations made ecotourism desirable.

Since then, several different organizations specializing in ecotourism have developed and many different people have become experts on it. Martha D. Honey, PhD, a co-founder of the Center for Responsible Tourism, __________, is just one of many ecotourism experts.

Opportunities for ecotourism exist in many different locations worldwide and its activities can vary __________.

Madagascar, for instance, is famous for its ecotourist activity as it is a biodiversity hotspot, but also has a high priority for environmental conservation and is devoted to reducing poverty. Conservation International says that 80% of the country's animals and 90% of its plants are __________ to the island. Madagascar's lemurs (马达加斯加狐猴) are just one of many __________ that people visit the island to see.

Because the island's government is __________ to conservation, ecotourism is allowed in small numbers because education and funds from the travel will make it easier in the future. __________, this tourist revenue also aids in reducing the country's poverty.

Despite the popularity of ecotourism in the above-mentioned examples, there are several __________ of ecotourism as well. The first of these is that there is no one definition of the term so it is difficult to know which trips are __________ considered ecotourism.

Critics of ecotourism also cite that increased tourism to __________ areas or ecosystems without proper planning and management can actually harm the ecosystem and its species because the infrastructure needed to sustain tourism such as roads can contribute to environmental degradation (恶化).

Ecotourism is also said by critics to have a negative impact on __________ communities because the arrival of foreign visitors and wealth can shift political and economic conditions and sometimes make the area __________ tourism instead of the domestic economic practices.

Regardless of these criticisms though, ecotourism and tourism, in general, are increasing in popularity all over the globe and tourism plays a large role in many worldwide economies.

Would a person born blind, who has learned to distinguish objects by touch, be able to recognize them purely by sight if he regained the ability to see? The question, known as Molyneux’s problem, is about whether the human mind has a built-in concept of shapes that is so innate(天生的) that such a blind person could immediately recognize an object with restored vision. The alternative is that the concepts of shapes are not innate but have to be learned by exploring an object through sight, touch and other senses.

After their attempt to test it in blind children failed, Lars Chittka of Queen Mary University of London and his colleagues have taken another attempt at finding an answer, this time using another species. To test whether bumblebees can form an internal representation of objects, they first trained the insects to distinguish globes from cubes using a sugar reward. The bees were trained in the light, where they could see but not touch the objects. Then they were tested in the dark, where they could touch but not see the globes or cubes. The researchers found that the bumblebees spent more time in contact with the shape they had been trained to associate with the sugar reward, even though they had to rely on touch rather than sight to distinguish the objects.

The researchers also did the reverse test with untrained bumblebees, first teaching them with rewards in the dark and then testing them in the light. Again, the bees were able to recognize the shape associated with the sugar reward, though they had to rely on sight rather than touch in the test. In short, bees have solved Molyneux's problem because the fact suggests that they can picture object features and access them through sight or touch.

However, some experts express their warnings. Jonathan Birch, a philosopher of science, cautions that the bees may have had prior experience associating visual and tactile(触觉的) information about straight edges and curved surfaces in the context of their nests, so it is not possible to eliminate the possibility that some of the cross-sensory concept is learned rather than innate.

Surprise! A New Penguin

A team of scientists in New Zealand recently came across the remains of a previously unknown species of penguin—by mistake. The discovery of the Waitaha penguin species, which has been extinct for 500 years, is exciting news for the scientific community     1     it gives new insight into how past extinction events can help shape the present environment.

The researchers uncovered the Waitaha penguin remains while studying New Zealand’s rare yellow-eyed penguin. The team wanted to investigate the effects     2     humans have had on the now endangered species. They studied centuries-old bones from     3     they thought were yellow-eyed penguins and compared them with the bones of modern yellow-eyed penguins. Surprisingly, some of the bones were older than     4     (expect). Even more shockingly, the DNA in the bones indicated that they did not belong to yellow-eyed penguins. The scientists concluded that these very old bones     5     have belonged to a previously unknown species, which they named the Waitaha penguin.

By studying the bones, scientists further concluded that the Waitaha penguin was once native     6     New Zealand. But after the settlement of humans on the island country, its population     7     (wipe) out.

Based on the ages of the bones of both penguin species, the team discovered a gap in time between the disappearance of the Waitaha and the arrival of the yellow-eyed penguin. The time gap indicates that the extinction of the Waitaha penguin created the opportunity for the yellow-eyed penguin population     8     (migrate) to New Zealand.

    9     yellow-eyed penguins thrived (兴盛) in New Zealand for many years, that species now also faces extinction. The yellow-eyed penguin today is considered one of the world’s     10     (rare) species of penguin, with an estimated population of 7,000 that is now the focus of an extensive conservation effort in New Zealand.

10 . Throughout history, many lives have been lost at the hands of severe weather. Meteorologists (气象学家) and scientists alike are always investigating new ways to increase the warning time for storms, with the hope of reducing the ______ of lives. In the past few decades, local weather radar advancements have been made, which allow for better accuracy in ______ the paths of storms.

Meteorologists and scientists have been able to successfully track severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes by using an advanced tracking system called NEXRAD (Next-Generation Radar). NEXRAD is a tracking network ______ 158 Doppler weather radars. And during a storm this high-resolution computerized ______ takes readings on the amount of precipitation (降水) in the air, the movements in the clouds, and the wind speeds.

These ______ are bounced back to a local weather computer, and a colorful image appears on the screen, giving meteorologists a clear picture of what kind of weather is on the horizon. This final image is what you see when the meteorologist breaks in with severe weather reports and warnings. ______, on your television screen you will see a computer animated image of the approaching storm.

If the storm is severe enough, then the National Weather Service (NWS) will ______ severe weather reports of severe thunderstorm warnings for your area. ______, the storm captured on the radar will have produced strong readable winds, detectable lightning, and some hail (冰雹). Paying attention to the weather map is ______ when severe weather is around.

On the television screen you will see several colors on the precipitation map, ______ from blue (the lightest) to black (the heaviest). If the colors for your ______ area are yellow, take caution. If the colors range between orange and red, take cover immediately, as damaging winds and dangerous lightning have been reported.

When local weather radar in Atlanta, Georgia reported high winds, ______ wind patterns and large hail earlier this year, the National Weather Service issued a tornado ______. Meteorologists in the area used the collected data to predict what path the storm would take, ______ which areas needed to be warned.

Thanks to this technology, most residents received the severe weather reports early enough to seek ______ before the storm hit. Paying attention to your local weather source during severe weather plays a vital role in your safety.