| A. objected B. choices C. inequality D. combination E. paid F. respond G. personality H. fade I. reduce J. inherited K. environmental |
What makes us happy?
You probably know the type of personality in some people: they seem to be hopeful in almost everything. Are they simply born happy? Is it the product of their environment? Or does it come from their life decisions?
If you are familiar with genetics research, you will have guessed that it is a
To put this in context, the heritability of IQ is thought to be around 80%, so
Interestingly, many important life
Parenthood is even more complex. For decades, social scientists have found that people with children at home are significantly less happy than those without. More recent research, however, suggests that there are important regional differences.
Analyses show that these differences can be almost completely explained by variations in
Our life satisfaction, then, is shaped by our genes, health, economic prospects, relationships and the culture around us. While many of these things may be beyond your control, there is now good evidence that certain psychological strategies will help you to
Kangaroos can “talk” to us
Kangaroos can “talk” to people, according to a new study. The report is the first research of its kind to be done on marsupials—a type of creature whose young get carried in skin pockets on their mother’s body. It suggests kangaroos are cleverer than previously thought.
Researchers from the University of Roehampton in the UK and the University of Sydney in Australia tested kangaroos at the Australian Reptile (爬行动物) Park, Wildlife Sydney Zoo and Kangaroo Protection Co-operative. The scientists put food in a box that the kangaroos could not open, and waited to see what the animals would do. Rather than giving up, 10 out of the 11 kangaroos actively looked at the person who had put the food in the box and then looked at the box. The researchers said this could be interpreted as the kangaroos requesting help to open the container.
Dr Alexandra Green, a co-author of the study, told The Guardian newspaper that some of the kangaroos actually approached the person and started scratching (挠) and sniffing (嗅) him, then looked back at the box. “So they were really trying to communicate,” Green said. This behaviour is not uncommon in animals. However, it is usually only seen in domesticated animals, such as pets or farm animals. The lead author of the study, Dr Alan McElligott, explained, “Through this study, we were able to see that communication between creatures can be learnt and that the behaviour of looking at humans to access food is not related to domestication. “Indeed, kangaroos showed a very similar pattern of behaviour we have seen in dogs, horses and even goats, when put to the same test,” he added.
It is hoped that the study will give people a more positive attitude towards kangaroos, which are sometimes seen as harmful creatures that damage farmers’ crops.
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Men may eat more in summer
Winter may be seen as the time to fill up with food, but in fact, sunny summer months are when men eat more calories—unlike women.
The effect seems to occur because sunlight makes the skin release an appetite-stimulating hormone (激素), says Carmit Levy at Tel Aviv University in Israel. Levy and her colleagues noticed the effect in experiments in mice, in which male animals exposed to UV light (紫外线) ate more food.
To see if humans do the same, the team used data on about 3000 people who had filled in questionnaires as part of the Israeli government’s national health and nutrition survey. Between March and September, the men consumed about 17 per cent more calories per day than they did during the rest of the year, while the women’s food intake stayed about the same.
Human appetite is influenced by many complex systems, but a substance called ghrelin, a hormone produced in the body that stimulates appetite, seems to be the only hormone that directly stimulates eating. It was thought to be mainly produced by the stomach when empty. “It tells the brain to eat more,” says Caroline Gorvin at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Further investigation revealed that exposing male mice to UVB (紫外线 B 段波) radiation, which is present in sunlight, raised levels of ghrelin production by fat cells in their skin. This was blocked by the female sex hormone, which may explain why the effect wasn’t seen in the female mice or the women. Boosted ghrelin production was also seen in men’s skin samples that were exposed to UV light in the lab.
Skin hasn’t previously been thought to play a role in appetite, says Gorvin. The reason for the effect is unclear, but it may be an adaptive response to fuel greater physical activity in summer, says Levy.
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4 . You may have heard of a Japanese TV show called PUI PUI MOLCAR. The show features cute guinea pig cars getting into all sorts of crazy situations. In addition to the charming characters, people love the show’s quirky style of animation, which is known as stop motion, and it’s a technique with a long and interesting history.
In a stop-motion film, the characters are represented by models, puppets, or toys. The animator arranges them in the desired position, takes a photograph, adjusts each object’s position slightly, takes another photo, and repeats the process. When all these photos are arranged in sequence, the objects appear to be moving. The first use of this technique was in a short film called The Humpty Dumpty Circus in 1898.
In early Hollywood, film directors began to blend stop-motion with live action to create (at the time) jaw-dropping special effects. For example, the 1925 fantasy film The Lost World featured scary stop-motion dinosaurs chasing real actors. Indeed, the brains behind those revolutionary techniques, the animator Willis O’Brien, would go on to create perhaps the world’s most famous stop-motion monster—the giant gorilla in 1933’s King Kong.
By the 1990s, stop-motion was being used in everything, including movies, TV advertisements, and music videos. Programs like the Swiss claymation series Pingu charmed audiences with their endearing characters and style. Then suddenly, everything changed. Computer-generated images (CGI) with special effects began to really take off. Directors were eager to explore the possibilities of this cutting-edge technology and quickly gave stop motion the boot. And although several outstanding stop-motion movies were released in the ‘90s (The Nightmare before Christmas, for example), it was Pixar’s 3-D animated hit Toy Story that would become the decade’s defining animated movie.
For more than 10 years, stop-motion mostly fell out of fashion. By the late 2000s, however, audiences were becoming tired of the look and feel of CGI. Today, stop-motion movies are once again making waves. TV series like Shaun the Sheep are popular all over the world. Films like The Lego Movie even use CGI to imitate stop-motion animation. One studio in particular, Laika, has created five stop-motion pictures since 2009, all of which were nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars.
1. A stop-motion film is made by______.| A．creating stop-motion effects based on video clips of real humans |
| B．arranging photos of slightly different positions in order |
| C．taking photographs of various characters randomly |
| D．using computer techniques to create moving objects |
| A．The special effects created in the 1925 film “The Lost World” was poorly-received. |
| B．The performance of a real gorilla in 1933’s King Kong caused great excitement. |
| C．Stop-motion films began to lose its popularity in the 1990s, giving way to CGI. |
| D．Toy Story was not as successful as the stop-motion movie The Nightmare before Christmas. |
| A．dismissed | B．praised | C．released | D．recalled |
| A．some film companies intend to further improve the stop-motion filmmaking by cooperating with the Oscars. |
| B．though CGI films are not as popular as they used to be, they are still favored by the Oscars. |
| C．audiences across the world are ready to appreciate the impressive art of stop-motion films once again. |
| D．stop-motion films are regaining popularity because of the declining computer-generated special effects. |
Brainpower: Use It or Lose It?
Where brainpower is concerned, the old rule of ‘use it, or lose it’ holds true from the start. Babies who receive love and encouragement from their parents develop the neural (神经的)connections they need to get on in life. But what happens to those who fail to get this support?
It would be comforting to believe that such children escape long term damage by being too young to speak, or know any different, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
At a recent meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine, the participants were shown slides taken with a powerful scanner comparing the brains of ‘normal’ three-year-old with those who had been raised in poverty or in orphanages. The work was done by Bruce Perry of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas. The scans showed that the frontal-temporal areas of the brain, those responsible for personality and enabling a person to display and regulate emotions, showed little activity.
For years it has long been known to scientists that animals brought up in enriched environment have larger and more complex brains than animals that grow up in disadvantaged situations, so experts like Perry assumed that the same would hold true for humans. However, it is only now, thanks to powerful scanners that allow this theory to be put to the test, that the damage is clearly visible. Perry explains the reason for the abnormality is that the brain develops in a ‘use-dependent’ way, growing, organising and working according to experience. With the right stimulation, the brain makes the connections it needs. Without it, synapses (突触), junctions between the neurons used to transport the brain’s messages, actually dissolve. “Negative experiences play a vital role in organising the neural system in the developing brain,” says Perry; in other words, ill-treatment in infancy leads to faulty wiring in the brain.
6 . It seems difficult to explain the persistent success of scientific theories at describing nature. I explore this challenge in my book, What Science Is and How It Really Works. If the history of science teaches us anything, it is that the ability of a theory to predict unobserved phenomena and lead to amazing new technologies is no proof that said theory is “true”.
For example, Isaac Newton’s mechanics enabled surprisingly accurate predictions of other astronomical phenomena, such as Halley’s comet （哈雷彗星） arriving later than normal in 1759 due to the gravitational effects of passing close to Jupiter. Even more impressive, in the early 1800s when astronomers determined that the orbit （轨道） of Uranus failed to match Newtonian predictions, they concluded that Newton’s theory was not wrong; rather, the existence of a previously unobserved planet was proposed and was later found exactly where it was expected to be （and named Neptune）.
Such successes of the scientific revolution were so impressive that philosophers developed whole new theories of knowledge to try to explain how scientists appeared to have used observation and reason to discover fundamental truths. In doing so, scientists attempted to dismiss what logicians have known for long: that no amount of correctly predicted effects can prove a supposed cause.
But don’t the successes of Newtonian mechanics prove that the laws Newton proposed must really be true? Otherwise how could the theory have picked a single spot in the vast expanse of the universe and found exactly where Neptune was?
Things do not always work out this way, however. In 1859, astronomers determined that the orbit of Mercury was not behaving, over time, as Newtonian mechanics predicted. So another new planet （named Vulcan） was proposed. Unlike the prediction of Neptune’s existence, this supposition did not pan out; rather, Newtonian mechanics was an incorrect theory in this context. A different scientific theory- Einstein’s theory of relativity—was required to later explain Mercury’s movement.
So, what really helps credibility more? To insist that we know that atoms, black holes, and dark matter are real because of how many observations we can explain and predictions we can make by supposing their existence? Or to simply admit that science cannot support a claim of absolute truth regarding the abstract, unobserved scientific objects and laws that are proposed to govern this world?
One could argue that if scientists don’t bang the gong （锣） of “truth”, then it may only quicken the dismissal of science as just another opinion. However, I would argue that this position does not give the intended audience enough credit, and that claiming absolute truth does more harm than good, not only for the interaction of science with the public, but for the practice of science. If data are important to the sciences, then let us accept the historical data on science itself.
1. Which of the following did the laws of Newton fail to provide accurate predictions for?| A．The planet of Mercury varied in its composition. |
| B．Halley’s comet arrived later than normal in 1759. |
| C．Neptune was located where it was expected to be. |
| D．The Sun had another planet named Vulcan. |
| A．To introduce another way of scientific thinking. |
| B．To imply what mistake scientists may have made. |
| C．To make a comparison between logicians and scientists. |
| D．To help explain the cause and effect of certain phenomena. |
| A．appear | B．be divided | C．shrink | D．be proved |
| A．Only by enough observations can a theory be proved true. |
| B．Never can we rule out the possibility that a theory is wrong. |
| C．Einstein’s theory of relativity works better than any other theory in astronomy. |
| D．Newtonian mechanics doesn’t fit today s context because it was established long ago. |
7 . What Are the Limits of Human Endurance?
Paragraph 1:______
When it comes to running, how far and how fast you can go is determined by a number of physical factors, including your VO2 max (the volume of oxygen you can pump round your body) and your lactate (乳酸盐) threshold, which is the point at which your body produces more lactate than it can break down (a build-up of this chemical makes you run less efficiently). Some of this is genetic, some of it comes from training. But in recent years, sports scientists have also come to recognise the importance of mental strength. The longer you run, the more important a well-thought-out mental strategy is. Common strategies for coping with pain include motivational self talk and distraction techniques to help block negative thoughts.
Paragraph 2:______
Thirty years ago, scientists calculated that the fastest possible marathon, in perfect conditions and with the perfect athlete, would be 1 hour 58 minutes. And we’re getting close. This September, Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge set a new world record of 2:01:39 at the Berlin Maraton—a race ideally suited to fast times because of its flat course, few corners, and typically good weather conditions. Sports physiologists think that the two-hour limit could be broken in the next few decades, as a bigger talent pool of runners, plus advances in training technology, create ever more ideal combinations of athlete and running conditions.
Paragraph 3: ______
Long-distance running stresses the body; recent research from the University of the Peloponnese in Greece found that post-race levels of inflammation(炎症) in the blood of ultra endurance runners (those who run races longer than a marathon)showed similar descriptions to people with cancer or cirrhosis. However, over the next few days, the runners’ levels returned to normal, suggesting that they have a remarkable ability to recover after an extreme workout. Good training is partly about helping you know when, for instance, you’ve crossed the line from ‘good pain’ into ‘bad pain’.
1. Match each paragraph with one of the following questions, and then make the choice.①Is endurance in the mind or in the muscles?
②Is endurance running bad for you?
③Will endurance running become a hit?
④Will anyone ever run a two-hour marathon?
| A．Paragraph l:①; Paragraph2:②; Paragraph3:③ |
| B．Paragraph 1:④; Paragraph 2:①; Paragraph3:② |
| C．Paragraph 1:④; Paragraph 2:②; Paragraph3:③ |
| D．Paragraph 1:①; Paragraph2:④; Paragraph3:② |
| A．By raising their VO2 max. |
| B．By helping them concentrate. |
| C．By lowering their lactate threshold. |
| D．By preventing them feeling discouraged. |
| A．Good training can help you find out your limits. |
| B．The world marathon record is 1 hour 58 minutes. |
| C．Marathon training technology hasn’t changed a lot. |
| D．Long distance running causes lasting harm to our health. |
8 . When David Nurse turned 30, he wanted to find out how his biological age compared with his real one. He hoped that the ultra-healthy lifestyle he advocates to players had kept his own body young and healthy, too.
If you google “telomeres”, you are likely to find them described as an ageing clock. They are parts of DNA at the ends of each chromosome that become shorter every time a cell divides.
If only it were that simple. We’ve discovered that telomeres are an unreliable ageing clock, which raises questions about the effectiveness of ageing tests based on them.
These discoveries won Blackburn and Szostaka the Nobel prize in 2009. Hype soon followed and researchers began piling into the field. However, as we find out more about telomeres, the mythology that has built up around them is starting to break.
| A．People all over the world are sparing no effort to lengthen their lifespan. |
| B．So he decided to take a test to assess the length of his telomeres. |
| C．We now know that telomere length is highly heritable. |
| D．They have repeating units of DNA at their ends that stop them from separating. |
| E．If this shortening happens slowly, it suggests that your body is wearing well. |
| F．The links between telomere length and lifestyle choices aren’t as straightforward as we thought. |
