1 . Kew Gardens is not only a popular tourist destination in London, but also a botanic garden and a research center that has the largest collection of living plants at a single site. So, let’s explore the Royal Botanic Gardens with CGTN’s reporter Robyn Dwyer.
Palm House
The first stop is the Palm House, a giant indoor rainforest with a wide range of plants. Visitors can enjoy these exotic plants while researchers can study the secrets of these flora. Eatable plants such as cocoa tree and African oil palm are all preserved here to keep the diversity of food resources. At the same time, it houses many medical use plants, including some that are used to treat cancer.
Temperate House
Known as the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse, the Temperate House is home to1,500 species of plants from temperate regions of the world. Some of the species kept here have gone extinct in the wild, such as Encephalartos woodii, a cycad from South Africa. And some are already extinct like Saint Helena olive, but the Kew has stored its DNA.
Mediterranean Garden
In the Mediterranean Garden, one can see plants from the Southern Europe, such as rosemary, olives and cork oak. Walking in the garden, one can feel the non-indoor vibe (氛围) of the Mediterranean and learn about the economic as well as scientific uses of these plants.
On International Day for Biological Diversity this year, join CGTN to travel around the world’s national parks and reserves across seven continents. Our next program is to visit penguins and seals in the Antarctic Ice Aquarium Norway. Please stay tuned!
1. What do the three stops have in common?| A．They store plants for medical use. |
| B．They have plants of economic value. |
| C．They house plants of seven continents. |
| D．They own plants for scientific research. |
| A．Palm House. | B．Temperate House. |
| C．Antarctic Ice Aquarium. | D．Mediterranean Garden. |
| A．A botanic dictionary. | B．A TV travel series. |
| C．A trip advertisement. | D．A biodiversity essay. |
2 . You don’t have to use a dandelion (蒲公英) to know which way the wind blows. But it can help. Dandelion seeds fly freely in the wind. But those seeds on any given dandelion have different fates. Some are to float north when the wind blows them, while others are fated to fly east, south, west or some direction in between. “How do dandelion seeds respond to the wind depends on where they sit on the dandelion head?” says Jena Shields, a biophysicist at Cornell University in Ithaca.
One day, Jena happened to watch her little child play with dandelions. She noticed that the dandelion seeds didn’t all fall off the same. Some came loose more easily than others, but it depended on how the child blew on the seed heads. Jena got the inspiration for the research from it. So Jena set out to study what was going on.
She measured the force it takes to blow dandelion seeds away. To start with, she glued (粘贴) a wire to the different seeds. Then she pulled them at various angles. This seed-by-seed study mimicked what happens when the wind pushes them over.
The findings show that each seed falls off most easily in the wind from one direction, and seeds from one head don’t go the same way. The feathery seeds on the side facing the wind will fall off most easily. The others hold on more tightly until the wind shifts. Besides, once blown off a dandelion, a seed’s umbrella-like feather carries it on the wind that pulled it away. And it helps explain why the plants are so successful in spreading.
However, Jena also found an exception. A sudden strong blow was still able to blow all the seeds away in the same direction. So when a strong wind blows or excited children try their best to blow, all the seeds could be blown off at once.
1. Why did Jena do research on dandelion seeds?| A．To correct people’s misconception of dandelions. |
| B．To figure out how dandelion seeds react to wind. |
| C．To explain why dandelions fly far without wind. |
| D．To satisfy her child’s curiosity about dandelions. |
| A．Predicted. |
| B．Proved. |
| C．Explored. |
| D．Copied. |
| A．They fly for the similar distance. |
| B．They tend to fly in one direction. |
| C．They come off easier in the wind from one direction. |
| D．They break free from feathers to fly once coming off. |
| A．To make up for the research. |
| B．To stress the point of the text. |
| C．To make a summary of the text. |
| D．To provide examples for the research. |
3 . A recent study suggests that logging (cutting down trees to use the wood) does not necessarily mean that things can’t live in the left-over forest any more. In fact, chopping down trees sometimes attracts more plants and wildlife than in forests where the trees have been left untouched.
Experts believe that about 70% of the world’s forests have had at least some logging. Until recently it wasn’t clear exactly what impact this had on other wildlife in forests. However, new research carried out on the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia, shows that logging can encourage healthy animal and plant life.
Scientists from Oxford University used tens of thousands of camera traps (cameras connected to sensors that only photograph when movement is detected) to find out how many animals were in forests that had been logged and how many were in forests where the trees just died naturally. The scientists worked out that the total weight of birds in logged forests was more than double, and for mammals it was more than three times as much. They also found that animals in logged forests get two and a half times as much energy from food than in untouched forests. The scientists think there is more food available in logged forests because more light reaches the forest floor when some of the canopy (dense tree tops) has been cleared away. This extra light helps smaller plants grow bigger, giving more food to wildlife like insects, deer and wild pigs. Yadvinder Malhi, an ecologist, said, “The whole forest gets more edible and more tasty.”
The study makes it clear that although more animals and plants might be able to live there, logging even part of a forest is still bad. That’s because untouched forests, with more and bigger trees, absorb lots of carbon dioxide, a gas that causes climate change. However, the study is important because conservationists didn’t think logged forests were important to protect. The new research shows that even damaged forests can have lots of wildlife that needs protecting.
1. What does the recent study find?| A．More plants and wildlife will live in forests where humans don’t cut down the trees. |
| B．Cutting down the trees in a forest will attract more plants and animals to live there. |
| C．70% of the world’s forests have had at least some logging. |
| D．Plants and wildlife can’t live in the left-over forest any more. |
| A．Monitoring the changes in the number of animals. |
| B．Detecting how many trees in the forests died naturally. |
| C．Finding out how many animals were in the forests. |
| D．Connecting the sensors to detect any movement. |
| A．Ambiguous. | B．Objective. | C．Doubtful. | D．Favorable. |
| A．Conservationists are supposed to protect the wildlife in the logged forest. |
| B．Logging forests is the direct reason that causes climate change. |
| C．Conservationists think untouched forests are more important than the logged ones. |
| D．Compared with untouched forests, Logged forests can’t absorb any carbon dioxide. |
