1 . Biologists Slagsvold and Wiebe have spent years studying tits, flycatchers, and other birds that lay their eggs into holes in trees, walls and even human-made boxes. “Holes are rare, so there’s great competition,” Wiebe said. Birds will sometimes get into fights. Even after a bird gets a hole, it has to watch out: There’s always a chance that a passerby tries to possess it. Owners don’t have many options to wait for and stop thieves. Some police their nest’s entrance hole, but preparing for parenthood is hungry work, and eventually the birds have to leave to get food. So Slagsvold and Wiebe started to look for alternative home-defense systems the birds might be using.
They noticed feathers, usually helping animals keep warm, but that doesn’t seem to be how these particular birds are using them. Blue tits, for instance, get feathers on top of the nest, rather than putting them in. Some other birds dump feathers into holes before gathering other materials. “They’re white, and often noticeable,” Wiebe said, “as if the birds want to send a message.”
To find out, they built nest boxes — some feathery, some not — in Europe and America, and recorded how tits, flycatchers and swallows reacted. The birds entered feather-free boxes quickly. But they froze at the sight of white feathers, sometimes hesitating outside for an hour. Black feathers scared them less, perhaps because they were harder to see. The feathers didn’t stop the birds as most eventually went inside. But even a brief delay can make a huge difference, Wiebe said. “Even 20 minutes can give the owner enough time to circle back, and fight off their competitors.”
The birds’ behavior shows their high-risk lifestyle. They have to think twice as the holes may be hiding danger. The feathers represent possible violence, showing a predator might be inside.
The experiment reflects the lies animals tell where nest sites are rare. They build a scene so horrible to discourage nest stealers. Birds are terrified of death. And they can exploit that reality to safeguard what’s theirs.
1. What inspired Slagsvold and Wiebe to seek birds’ other possible ways to protect homes?| A．Birds have to fight to get the limited holes. | B．Birds get tired from watching out in nests. |
| C．Birds face many nest stealers on their own. | D．Birds leave their nests unattended sometimes. |
| A．To show a friendly welcome. | B．To help stealers avoid danger. |
| C．To buy time for the nest owners. | D．To confirm this place is occupied. |
| A．Understandable. | B．Confusing. | C．Possible. | D．Worrying. |
| A．Some birds refuse to build their nests | B．It’s important for birds to have feathers |
| C．High risks of life lead birds to turn to lies | D．Birds create a false scene to protect their nests |
2 . When wind blows through a bigleaf maple (大叶枫), paper-thin, wing-like seeds called samaras gently spin towards the ground. The fruit’s tissue allows the wind to guide it further away from the tree. Inspired by the seeds, researchers designed a tiny, winged microchip, no larger than a grain of sand, that is powerful enough to monitor environmental pollution and airborne disease.
Called the microflier, the microchip has no motor to push it forward in the air but instead was designed to catch the wind. To perfect the microchip’s flying capability and shape, scientists took inspiration from the forms of various airborne seeds. The research team improved various designs until the microfliers flew slowly and more steadily than nature’s samara seeds. The slower falling rate allows the microchip to keep flying for longer, which gives it more time to collect data and monitor air pollutants and airborne diseases.
To perfect the microflier’s flight, researchers took inspiration from children’s pop-up books to create the three-dimensional wings. Usually, electronic microchips are flat, two-dimensional objects, but something flat won’t take flight. To make the 3-D shape, John A. Rogers and his team built a stretched rubber base that the microchip rests on. The wings pop into flight mode when the rubber base is relaxed.
The chip gathers data with sensors across its surface that can sense and monitor pH levels, test for heavy metals or chemicals, and track air pollution. An antenna (天线) on the microflier then sends all the collected data to a computer or phone. Rogers and his team are planning to test out the electronic chips soon by dropping thousands of the chips in a field. The microfliers will change color depending on the number of heavy metals present in the field where they land. A drone will then fly over the area and take photos of the microflier’s colors, allowing researchers to map out the pollutants.
Rogers and his team also designed the microchips to break down over time to prevent environmental pollution.
1. What is the winged microchip designed to do?| A．Guide seeds from the tree. | B．Prevent airborne diseases. |
| C．Keep track of air qualities. | D．Catch the wind to fly away. |
| A．Where researchers draw inspiration. | B．How the microflier has improved. |
| C．What the microchip does for humans. | D．Why the microflier flies more stably. |
| A．Drop chips in the field. | B．Monitor the soil color. |
| C．Map out air pollutants. | D．Handle soil pollution. |
| A．Winged microchips for monitoring environment |
| B．Microflier: A flying device of spreading seeds |
| C．Drone: A photographer of microflier’s colors |
| D．Electronic chips for finding airborne diseases |
An art exhibition themed on the bird Zhuhuan is being held in Shanghai as part of efforts
Zhuhuan is known as a
“People from the three countries have deep affection for the bird, which has become a symbol of
Since 1985, these birds from China have been settling down in Japan and South Korea. This has not only created conditions for the protection and rebuilding of the bird community in the two countries,
A seminar of
| A．Where goats live. | B．What goats feed on. | C．Why goats can stop wildfires. |
1. What animal is Simba?
| A．A lion. | B．A tiger. | C．A monkey. |
| A．By his size. | B．By his character. | C．By his birthday. |
| A．She is outgoing. | B．She is caring. | C．She is serious. |
| A．Play with others. | B．Take care of others. | C．Have a good sleep. |
Liulichang Cultural Street is known throughout China and the world for its ancient books, calligraphy, paintings, rubbings, ink stones and ink. The street, which is only 750 meters long,
Liulichang’s history can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty,
In 1979, the Chinese government
7 . Working at a bank in New York City in the mid-2010s, Anna Sacks was not living the life she wanted. Sure, she was happy. But she wanted to do something that felt important.
Some people seeking meaning might read a self-help book or perhaps volunteer a few hours a week. Sacks packed up her life and moved to Connecticut to participate in Adamah, a farming program that focuses on sustainable living and growing sustainable food. When she returned to New York, her life was with a new purpose and many new skills to make her dreams a reality.
“One of the things that really stuck with me from Adamah was how little waste they produced and how they handled the waste they did have, primarily through composting (堆肥),” she says. The Adamah program opened Sacks’ eyes to the damage consumer culture is doing on a local, national, and global level, and the need to find solutions. So in 2017, she began what she calls “trash walking”.
During tours around her community, Sacks picks through garbage to look for reusable items. Soon, her “trash walking” expanded to include corporate trash along with residential trash. Surprisingly, she discovered a wide range of really great stuff-like clothing, decorations, and food -all of which she documents on TikTok.
Under the name The Trash Walker, Sacks quickly gained popularity for her videos that highlight the problems with consumerism. “The root issue is overproduction, which leads to overconsumption, which leads to a large amount of waste,” she says.
The fact is, companies often choose to trash items rather than give them away to people who might need them. A big reason for this waste is the way our current tax laws are structured, Sacks says. Sellers who destroy goods can claim the cost as a loss on their taxes and be refunded. If they give away goods, they can claim only a small amount as a charitable reduction on their taxes.
Sacks’ main focus is simply getting people to pay attention to how many unnecessary things they buy and then throw away. “Once you become aware of the way you consume, you can see ways you improve, ”she says.
1. Why did Anna Sacks leave New York?| A．To learn how to grow food. | B．To pursue a more meaningful life. |
| C．To realize her dream as a volunteer. | D．To accept the invitation from a program. |
| A．The significance of trash walking. | B．The hard truth of consumer culture. |
| C．The sustainable food people produced. | D．The way people there dealt with the waste. |
| A．The tax refund. | B．The tax reduction. |
| C．The overproduction. | D．The poor quality of goods. |
| A．Consumer culture accounts for wasting. | B．Corporate trash outweighs residential trash. |
| C．Turning to farming leads to sustainable living. | D．Trash walking is the key to becoming wealthy. |
South Koreans have enjoyed their first close-up look of new baby giant pandas at a name-revealing ceremony that is also
What to name the twin sisters was widely discussed among netizens after they were born on July 7 in theme park Everland. The names were
The baby pandas,
Everland said it would monitor the twins’ health
9 . Scientists have been experimenting with playing sounds to plants since at least the 1960s, during which time they have been exposed to everything from Beethoven to Michael Jackson. Over the years, evidence that this sort of thing can have an effect has been growing. One paper, published in 2018, claimed that an Asian shrub known as the telegraph plant grew substantially larger leaves when exposed to 56 days of Buddhist music — but not if it was exposed to Western pop music or silence. Another, published last year, found that marigolds and sage plants exposed to the noise of traffic from a busy motorway suffered growth difficulty.
Plants have been evolving (进化) alongside the insects that eat them for hundreds of millions of years. With that in mind, Heidi Appel, a botanist now at the University of Houston, and Reginald Cocroft, a biologist at the University of Missouri, wondered if plants might be sensitive to the sounds made by the animals with which they most often interact. They recorded the vibrations made by certain species of caterpillars (毛毛虫) as they chewed on leaves. These vibrations are not powerful enough to produce sound waves in the air. But they are able to travel across leaves and branches, and even to neighbouring plants if their leaves touch.
They then exposed tobacco plant — the plant biologist’s version of the laboratory mouse — to the recorded vibrations while no caterpillars were actually present. Later, they put real caterpillars on the plants to see if exposure had led them to prepare for an insect attack. The results were striking. Leaves that had been exposed had significantly higher levels of defensive chemicals, making them much harder for the caterpillars to eat. Leaves that had not been exposed to vibrations showed no such response. Other sorts of vibration — caused by the wind, for instance, or other insects that do not eat leaves — had no effect.
“Now speakers with the right audio files are more often being used to warn crops to act when insects are detected but not yet widespread,” says Dr. Cocroft. “Unlike chemical pesticides, sound waves leave no dangerous chemicals.”
1. What can we learn about plants from the first paragraph?| A．They may enjoy Western music. | B．They can’t stand Buddhist music. |
| C．They can react to different sounds. | D．They can make different sounds. |
| A．Plants can make a cry for help. | B．Plants evolve alongside insects. |
| C．Plants are sensitive to the sounds. | D．Plants have been studied for years. |
| A．They can recongnize harmful vibrations. | B．They look like laboratory mice. |
| C．They can threaten the caterpillars. | D．They can release poisonous chemicals. |
| A．Disadvantages of chemical pesticides. | B．Application of the experimental results. |
| C．Interaction between plants and insects. | D．Warning system of widespread insects. |
10 . When a severe heat wave covered California in July 2006, it killed an estimated 650 people. But it may be tough to recall because heat waves don’t typically have names. They are already the deadliest weather-related danger, yet they remain invisible killers that few people take seriously. What if the most life-threatening heat waves did have names?
This summer, as many experience high temperatures fueled by greenhouse gas pollution and El Niño, there has been new openness to the idea of naming heat waves. People in Southern Europe have dubbed the July heat wave Cerberus. The results of a survey of more than 2,000 people found that people who knew the heat wave was named Cerberus were also more likely to take actions to stay safe, including drinking more water, spending more time indoors and warning others about the risk.
Though more research is needed, this suggests that naming heat waves, combined with stronger messaging, can not only help change people’s perception of the risk, but prompt them to take protective action. It would be more effective to broadcast that Heat Wave Zoe, a dangerous Category 3 event, will start tomorrow and here’s what you can do to protect yourself, your neighbors and co-workers. Names, after all, are easier to remember than numbers or weather forecasts.
But the World Meteorological (气象学的) Organization opposes naming heat waves on the grounds that it would confuse and distract the public. And the National Weather Service has no plans to rank or name heat waves either, saying that heat and its health impacts vary so dramatically across different regions and seasons that even coming up with a standard definition of a heat wave is impossible.
There’s nothing to lose by trying out a pilot program to name the most dangerous heat waves. It’s pretty clear the current approach to these disasters is falling far short of what’s necessary to protect lives. We need other ways to call attention to it and warn the public of the danger. It’s hard to make progress fighting an enemy with no name.
1. Why does the author mention the severe heat wave that covered California in July 2006?| A．To clarify the severity of heat waves. | B．To remind people of the tough heat wave. |
| C．To introduce the topic of naming heat waves. | D．To show people’s ignorance of the heat wave. |
| A．Due to its effectiveness, naming waves is a must. |
| B．There exist benefits of categorizing and naming heat waves. |
| C．Naming heat waves can change people’s perception of the risk. |
| D．Naming heat waves can urge people to take prompt action to protect themselves. |
| A．It will confuse and distract the public. |
| B．It is inappropriate for naming heat waves. |
| C．It is difficult to distinguish and predict heat waves. |
| D．It is unlikely to put forward a standard definition for heat waves. |
| A．Approving. | B．Indifferent. | C．Doubtful. | D．Opposed. |
