1 . Scientists have long considered the question of whether and how plants communicate. For years, the topic sparked controversy. Books like 1973’s The Secret Life of Plants suggest that plants grow well if you sing or play classical music. Such statements were later debunked: Any evidence that music helps plants grow is not convincing at all. Still, researchers firmly believe there is some sort of communication going on between plants.
Plant communication is a complicated topic. What we do know is that plants have a wide range of mechanisms for communicating with each other and their surroundings. “It’s quite clear that plants are not just unresponsive victims, but that they are very aware of nearby things,” says Richard Karban, an entomologist at the University of California. “And they respond to reliable information.”
When a plant sends out chemicals in the air in response to a perceived threat, other sensitive leavcs on that same plant, as well as the leaves of their neighbors, perceive those signals and subsequently increase their own defenses. Karban’s research, for instance, shows that plants sound the alarm when they’re attacked by pests, so that other plants respond by growing faster and stronger. Even other species, like tobacco, can sense and react to the alarm.
In a study published in the journal Cell this March, Lilach Hadany, a professor at Tel Aviv University, put tomato and tobacco plants in an isolated box and then recorded ultrasonic (超声的) sounds. They experimented with, cutting stems or leaving them without water to simulate drought. The researchers found that the plants emitted (popping and clicking sounds at around 60 decibels in response, approximately as loud as human chatter. These sounds were at an ultrasonic frequency that humans can’t naturally hear, however. Hadany’s team even matched different sounds to the plants’ environment. And each type of stress could be matched with a specific, identifiable sound.
“We don’t know if they’re using the sound, or if the sounds are emitted in a completely passive way due to physiological changes,” Hadany says. “But we do know they are in the air, and they contain information.”
1. What does the underlined word “debunked” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Confirmed. | B．Ignored. | C．Disproved. | D．Promoted. |
| A．Plants can make no response to their attackers. |
| B．Chemicals are sent by plants to attack the perceived threat. |
| C．Plants rely little on their neighbors’ information to survive. |
| D．The alarm sounded by one plant travels beyond plants and species. |
| A．The sounds are loud enough to scare away pests. |
| B．The sounds are produced when plants are in danger. |
| C．The sounds can be heard by man without equipment. |
| D．The sounds can be matched to the human environment. |
| A．To inform readers. | B．To compare things. |
| C．To warn readers. | D．To advertise things. |
2 . Some of the oldest living things on our remarkable planet are trees. The record holders are bristlecone pines (狐尾松) of the western United States, quite a few of which are known to be more than 3,000 years old. One individual, discovered in 2012, is estimated to be more than 5,060 years old, making it the oldest known non-clonal tree in the world!
So, how do trees survive for thousands of years?
The other part of the answer has to do with how trees age. In fact, there is quite a debate about whether ancient trees can be considered “immortal (永生的)”. That is, will such trees ever die if they are not killed by an outside force? We may never know the answer to that, but, at the very least,
Older trees benefit greatly from having bodies made mostly of dead woody tissue. In fact, an old tree might be as much as 95 percent dead tissue! Given that it isn’t alive, wood does not require metabolic (新陈代谢的) activity to maintain it,
| A．so an old tree doesn’t really need to do much to keep living |
| B．This is a question that has something to do with the good luck of trees |
| C．However, bristlecones are certainly not alone in terms of the oldest creatures |
| D．This is a fascinating question for biologists that does not yet have a settled answer |
| E．What’s more, some ancient trees have superior chemical defenses against pests and diseases |
| F．which means that trees can survive everywhere without being limited by external and internal conditions |
| G．we know that ancient trees age in ways that are dramatically different from the ways that most animals and even other plants age |
3 . Fashion house Alabama Chanin has a new line of organic cotton clothing made from its own cotton field. It’s not just an experiment in keeping production local but also an attempt to bring back to life the tradition of clothes-making in the Deep South.
Alabama Chanin, the fashion and lifestyle company founded by Natalie Chanin and Billy Reid, is best known for her flowing, made-to-order organic garments (衣服), entirely hand-made and inspired by the rural South of the 1930s and ‘40s’. “It’s not just ‘factory work’,” Chanin says. “This is a skill that’s dying out in this country. ” “It’s part of the nation’s ‘cultural sustainability to preserve these things’,” Chanin says, “to be able to make our clothes.”
Her business partner, K. P. McNeill, is the one who first thought about growing their own cotton. The ideas of going from field to garment made Chanin think of how generations ago, manufacturing was of a vertical (纵向的) affair. Could that be done today? And organically? They came up with a plan to test it. Reid says it meant no artificial chemicals. “A lot of the weeds had to be pulled by hand. It’s not just your normal cotton operation that’s automated,” Reid says.
Chanin holds a piece of ivory-colored cloth made from the hand-picked cotton grown in the Alabama field. “I’ve never seen cotton quite as clean and clear as this,” Chanin says, “I don’t think people have seen that since cotton was really a driving factor of destruction in this country.”
Chanin says this project is about transforming cotton into something more modern. “I mean, cotton has an ugly history. It has built fortunes, it’s destroyed nations, it’s enslaved people,” says Chanin. “But to me this cotton is part of making a new story for cotton.”
1. What do we know about Alabama Chanin?| A．It just focuses on the ready-made suits. |
| B．It preserves traditional craftsmanship. |
| C．It leads the way in the fashion industry. |
| D．It ensures sustainable economic growth. |
| A．To highlight production efficiency. |
| B．To question the cotton’s cleanliness. |
| C．To contrast cotton’s historical image. |
| D．To praise the cotton of high quality. |
| A．Fashion keeps changing all the time. |
| B．A bad reputation often ruins tradition. |
| C．Honoring the past builds the future. |
| D．Modernization easily beats tradition. |
| A．From Cotton Field to Garment |
| B．Creating Clothes That Do Matter |
| C．From Old Times to Modern Days |
| D．Launching a Fashion Movement |
