1 . New research led by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has revealed that the spiny pollen (带刺花粉) of plants in the sunflower family can reduce infection of a common bee parasite (寄生生物) by up to 94 percent. The sunflowers'spiny pollen can destroy a parasite called C. bombi (熊蜂短膜虫), which has been significantly reducing bumblebee populations.
To investigate how sunflowers help bumblebees resist C. bombi, the researchers separated the spiny outer shell of the pollen from the chemical metabolites (代谢物) in the pollen’s core. They then mixed the spiny pollen shells of sunflowers, with the chemistry removed, into the pollen fed to one group of bees.
Another group was fed wildflower pollen with sunflower metabolites and no sunflower shells. The researchers discovered that the bees that ate the spiny sunflower pollen shells had the same response as bees feeding on whole sunflower pollen. These bees had a markedly reduced risk of C. bombi infection compared to those fed sunflower metabolites.
Bumblebees, which are vital pollinators of crops and wildflowers, are experiencing a rapid decline in their populations worldwide. Habitat loss due to urbanization and agricultural intensification is the greatest threat to bumblebees. Climate change is also taking a toll on bumblebees. As temperatures rise, bumblebees are forced to move further north to cooler climates, which can affect their ability to find food and nesting sites. Pesticide use is another significant threat to bumblebees. These chemicals are harmful to them and can damage their navigation and immune systems, leading to reduced reproductive success. Bumblebees play a vital role in maintaining healthy and diverse ecosystems. Understanding how sunflowers protect bees from disease could help us identify other flowers that have similar protective properties. Through this, researchers can work towards developing new strategies to help conserve bumblebees.
1. How does the spiny pollen of sunflowers benefit bees?| A．It protects them from predators. | B．It improves their sense of smell. |
| C．It can be used for their nest building. | D．It helps them resist parasite infections. |
| A．By collecting data. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By referring to previous studies. | D．By surveying experienced farmers. |
| A．Habitat loss. | B．Climate change. | C．The use of pesticides. | D．Environmental pollution. |
| A．It offers a way to increase sunflower yield. |
| B．It draws public attention to the role of ecosystems. |
| C．It provides a new idea for protecting bumblebees. |
| D．It allows people to distinguish between different plants species. |
2 . Dogs and humans clearly have a special bond. But do dogs, like humans, produce more tears at times when they are flooded with emotion? A new study, which may be the first to look at this question, says that, indeed, the eyes of dogs do well up with tears. In fact, it happens regularly when they’re reunited (团聚) with the owners.
“We found that dogs produce tears associated with positive emotions,” says Takefumi Kikusui of Azabu University in Japan. “We also made the discovery of a chemical, oxytocin, as a possible mechanism (机制) behind it.”
Kikusui and his colleagues made the discovery after one of his two dogs had babies 6 years ago. He noticed that, when his dog was nursing the babies, something changed in the dog’s face — there were tears. Those tears don’t fall as they often do in humans but they do get teary eyes. “That gave me the idea that oxytocin is likely to increase tears,” Kikusui says.
They decided to run a reunification experiment and see if oxytocin brought dogs to tears. First, they used a standard test to measure dogs’ tear volume (量) before and after reuniting with their owners. They found that tear volume indeed ascended when they got back together with the familiar human and not with a person they didn’t know. When they added oxytocin to the dogs’ eyes, their tear volume also increased. That finding supports the idea that the release of oxytocin plays a role in tear production when dogs and their owners get back together. They also asked people to rate pictures of dogs’ faces with and without artificial tears in them, and it turned out that people gave more positive responses when they saw dogs with teary eyes. These findings suggest that dogs’ tear production helps to develop stronger connections between people and their dogs.
Kikusui says they had never heard of the discovery that animals produce tears in joyful situations, such as reuniting with their owners, and that they were all excited that this would be a world first!
1. What’s the author’s purpose in raising the question in the first paragraph?| A．To compare different ideas. |
| B．To express his personal doubt. |
| C．To lead in the topic for discussion. |
| D．To introduce the rich emotions of dogs. |
| A．A lesson at university. | B．An experience of his own. |
| C．The interaction with a dog. | D．A reminder from his colleagues. |
| A．remained unchanged | B．rose |
| C．became zero | D．decreased |
| A．came as a big surprise | B．required further evidence |
| C．were within their expectation | D．were contrary to previous ones |
3 . The effect of climate change extends beyond ruining Earth’s environment and our physical safety. A report published this week suggests that climate change has a negative effect on our mental health, too.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States(PNAS), links an increase in monthly temperatures to a rise in mental health issues. The experimental evidence stems from meteorological (气象的) data paired with information collected from nearly 2 million randomly sampled residents in the United States. The data was collected over the span (跨度) of a decade.
“We find that experiences with hotter temperatures and added rainfall each worsen mental health, that long-lasting warming associates with an increased popularity of mental health issues, and that exposure to tropical cyclones(热带气旋), likely to increase in frequency in the future, is linked to worsened mental health,” authors of the study stated. “These results provide added large-scale evidence to the growing link between climate change and mental health.”
The report specifically focused on mental health outcomes due to the effects of environmental stress - such as temperature, rainfall, and tropical cyclones - but other climate change-related issues are likely to affect mental health as well - specifically, the stress and anxiety of knowing natural disasters could be more frequent as temperatures rise.
1. From the newly-published report, we learn that the climate change may _________.| A．save a lot of people’s lives |
| B．cause unbelievable disasters |
| C．influence people’s mental health |
| D．greatly change people’s life styles |
| A．To stress the importance of the study. |
| B．To show that the study cost too much money. |
| C．To explain the difficulties and hardships of the study. |
| D．to indicate that the study is objective and believable. |
| A．In Paragraph 1 | B．In Paragraph 2 |
| C．In Paragraph 3 | D．In Paragraph 4 |
| A．The study has its limits. |
| B．The results of the study aren’t satisfactory. |
| C．The environmental problems can’t be solved. |
| D．Mental health is determined by climate change. |
4 . “A lot of the time when climate change is discussed in mainstream media, people are asking ‘can humans overcome this?’, or ‘what technology can solve this?’. It’s high time we recognized that animals also have to adapt to various changes. We know some animals change their skin colors to escape from natural enemies or due to environment pollution,” says Ryding. “The climate change that we have created is putting a lot of pressure on them, and some species try to adapt by shapeshifting (变形). ”
Strong shapeshifting has particularly been reported in birds. Several species of Australian parrot have shown, on average, a 4%—10% increase in beak (鸟喙) size since 1871, and this is positively linked with the summer temperature each year. North American dark-eyed juncos, a type of small songbird, had a link between increased beak size and short-term temperature extremes in cold environments. There have also been reported changes in mammalian species. Researchers have reported tail length increases in wood mice and leg size increases in masked shrews (鼩鼱).
“The increases in some body parts size we see so far are quite small—less than 10%—so the changes are unlikely to be immediately noticeable,” says Ryding. “However, some body parts such as ears are predicted to increase.”
Ryding intends to investigate shapeshifting in Australian birds firsthand by 3D scanning museum bird specimens from the past 100 years. It will give her team a better understanding of which birds are changing their body parts and why. “Shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is ‘fine’,” says Ryding. “It just means they are adapting to survive it—but we’re not sure what the other ecological consequences of these changes are, or indeed that all species are capable of changing and surviving. ”
1. What may cause animals’ shapeshifting according to Ryding?| A．Human hunting. | B．Climate change. |
| C．Natural enemies. | D．Polluted surroundings. |
| A．Giving examples. | B．Cause-effect analysis. |
| C．Making comparison. | D．Process analysis. |
| A．Animals can well adapt to changes and survive. |
| B．Influence of animals’ shapeshifting is uncertain. |
| C．Rdying will research into bird museums in Australia. |
| D．All adaptations of animals to climate change are beneficial. |
| A．Technology. | B．Health care. | C．Environment. | D．Education. |
Have you ever heard of the largest and most beautiful salt lake in China? If the answer is no, you can take
Qinghai Lake is
The lake
These lakes,
6 . Avebury is near the far more famous Stonehenge. What is interesting about it is that a village has grown up around the stones, unlike Stonehenge, which stands alone. Avebury and Stonehenge are just two of about 1,300 stone circles all over the UK. Many of them are in fantastic locations, like Castlering in Cumbria, from which you can see England’s highest mountain; and the Ring of Brodgar in the beautiful Orkney Island, off Scotland’s northern coast.
Some of them are UNESCO World Heritage sites, and several have local stories connected to them. For example, the Merry Maidens in West Cornwall is a group of nineteen stones. According to the story, they were young women — maidens — who were turned into stone for dancing on a Sunday.
Early historians thought that the stone circles were temples for the people who arrived in the UK in about 500 BC. Later research has shown that they are far older than that, at least 4,000 years old. Stonehenge could have been built 5,000 years ago, but it’s still nowhere near as old as the nearby wooden circle built about 10,000 years ago. Some experts believe they acted like calendars and have shown that some stones line up with sunrise or sunset on the longest and shortest days of the year. Others believe they were places for the dead bodies of the local rich and powerful.
We may never know why they were built, but each one leaves the visitor with a strong sense of the shortness of our existence in the sea of history. There are groups of stone circles and other prehistoric (史前的) monuments throughout the British Isles, so wherever you are staying you should include at least one in your tour.
1. What can we learn about Avebury?| A．It stands alone. | B．It is a part of Stonehenge. |
| C．It has a village around it now. | D．It consists of a couple of Merry Maidens. |
| A．Stone circles. | B．Mountains. |
| C．Temples. | D．Islands. |
| A．The local stories of stone circles. |
| B．The original purpose of stone circles. |
| C．The historic value of stone circles. |
| D．The time when stone circles were built. |
| A．Building more monuments. | B．Protecting World Heritage sites. |
| C．Learning more about our history. | D．Visiting some of those stone circles. |
7 . Chimney swift (烟囱雨燕) numbers have fallen by more than 70 percent since the 1960s, scientists believe, and by more than one-third over the past 16 years. That large drop have made the International Union for the Conversation of Nature regard chimney swifts as“vulnerable(脆弱的)”. That is the last step before they are considered “endangered”.
Chimney swift numbers are becoming smaller as the shape and design of the nation’s buildings change. People are tearing down old factory buildings and schools. Many of these buildings have chimneys. Today, most American homes do not have chimneys. And many homeowners who do have chimneys cover up the top to keep out.
People across the United States are putting up tall, narrow buildings to help chimney swifts. They hope they will use these buildings as nesting areas and resting places.
Bird lovers, Georgean and Paul Kyle, are often praised for starting the present interest in building towers. “It does give us hope that if we put them up, they will use them,” the Kyles said. They have put up more than 100 towers in Central Texas. Eighty percent of those buildings before the birds’ March arrival get nests in their first year. Hundreds of migrating swifts make use of the towers.
But the link between the drop in chimney swift numbers and chimney loss is not clear. The flying insects that swifts eat also appear to be dropping.
Professor Rubega thinks the cause of the birds’ drop could be in South America. “Chimney swifts are basically a South American bird that stays in North America for four months, ” she said. Rubega said a big problem is that scientists have only a few reports of small numbers of chimney swifts in the upper Amazon Basin. So, they do not really know where the little birds spend the winter, let alone what may be happening to them there.
1. Where are chimney swifts used to living?| A．In rooms with humans. | B．In useless old buildings. |
| C．In the woods near villages. | D．In chimneys of buildings. |
| A．Give them much food. | B．Build homes for them. |
| C．Add chimneys to new houses. | D．Open chimneys for them to get in. |
| A．Chimney swifts suffer a lot in South America. |
| B．It’s necessary to build homes for chimney swifts. |
| C．Scientists know only a little about chimney swifts. |
| D．Chimney loss has nothing to do with the birds. |
| A．Chimney Swifts Numbers Are Dropping |
| B．Chimney Swifts Will Change Their Lifestyle |
| C．Chimney Swifts Prefer Their New Homes |
| D．Chimney Swifts Live in Peace with Humans |
8 . In the United States，many teachers keep fish，hamsters(仓鼠)，and other animals in their classrooms.Teachers say students learn important lessons from the animals.More than 70 percent of teachers who have classroom pets say the animals help students learn responsibility.Research also shows that classroom pets can reduce stress.
“Pets can comfort kids who are having a bad day,”says Lisa Robbins，who works fora group called Pets in the Classroom.
But others think pets should be expelled from classrooms. In January，the Durango School District in Colorado began following a no-pet policy(政策).Now animals can be brought into Durango schools for certain lessons，but they can't stay.Officials were worried that animals might create problems for kids with allergies(过敏症).They were also concerned about the animals getting proper care.
Here's what two of our readers think.
Having classroom pets gives students a fun way to learn about animals. In my class last year，we had a class pet named Elliot.Our teacher also used him to teach us about different subjects.For example，in math，we calculated (计算)how much it costs to feed Elliot for a year.
Pets also help kids learn how to work as a team. My classmates and I took turns feeding Elliot and cleaning his tank,
If teachers are worried about students with allergies，they could get pets that don't have fur.
—D' Lasia Mays，Texas
Classroom pets can take away valuable class time.Some students might have a hard time focusing on the teacher when there are animals in the room.
Plus，having a classroom pet can cause safety problems. You never know how an animal will react to students.Even a cute little hamster might hurt a kid who sticks his or her hand in its cage.
—Patrick McKinney，Ohio
1. What does the underlined word " expelled”in Paragraph 3 probably mean?| A．Allowed. | B．Removed. |
| C．Protected. | D．Educated. |
| A．Classroom pets are not allowed at schools. |
| B．Animals are not allowed at schools. |
| C．Many teachers have pets without fur. |
| D．Many students are allergic to animals. |
| A．He needs special training. | B．He needs more proper care. |
| C．He has educational value for kids. | D．He is not only lovely but very smart. |
| A．The author. | B．Lisa Robbins. |
| C．Patrick McKinney. | D．D' Lasia Mays’ teacher. |
The average temperature of the Earth’s surface has increase by 0.85°C in the last hundred years. It’s too late to reverse the changes. Now we have to find ways
However, we can reduce greenhouse gas missions or make
emissions from animals are
And rich countries have the resources to adapt to
And countries where lack of water is a problem like Australia, China, and Spain, have built plants,
10 . Manta rays (魔鬼鱼)are some of the creatures in the ocean who allow divers to swim right up to and interact (互动) with them. Unfortunately, these gentle animals are in big trouble. Since 2011, manta rays have been listed as a threatened species worldwide.
Peru, a country in South America, recently took a big step to protect giant manta rays: It banned fishing for them. Although 12 other countries have passed laws to protect rays, Peru's may be the most important one yet. That's because there are more manta rays in the Pacific Ocean near Peru than in any other place in the world.
Giant manta rays are unusual — looking creatures. The giant, flat rays are typically about 4.5 meters wide and can grow up to 8 meters wide! "They're" sort of like giant flying carpets underwater, says Joshua Stewart of the Manta Trust, an organization that researches manta rays.
People catch rays for their meal. Overfishing is bad for any sea creature, but it's even worse for manta rays. Female manta rays usually have only one baby every two to five years. So every ray that's caught hurts the population in a big way. People who break Peru's new law can be fined or have their fishing licenses taken away. Even rays caught accidentally in fishing nets must be set free.
Earlier this year, the Manta Trust attached video cameras, called Crittercams, to manta rays off the west coast of Mexico. The footage(连续镜头)the cameras collect could help researchers predict where rays swim and when. The scientists could use the information to warn fishing boats to avoid these areas, helping reduce the number of accidentally caught rays.
Stewart says it's important to protect these unique creatures. "There's really no other animal that compares in size and that you can have interactions with in the wild.
1. What's a characteristic of manta rays?| A．They can fly like a bird. |
| B．They are usually of small size. |
| C．They are very friendly to people |
| D．They like swimming up and down. |
| A．They haven't their own home. |
| B．They only live in the Pacific Ocean. |
| C．Their number has dropped greatly. |
| D．Almost no female rays give birth. |
| A．protect them | B．look for more rays |
| C．make films about them | D．reduce their population |
| A．It makes no sense. | B．It is hard to follow. |
| C．It is really essential, | D．It needs improvement. |
