—________the mistakes happening in history.
—________! I knew you'd get the hang of it eventually.
Why did the orangutan(猩猩)cross the road? That's not the start of a joke, but a question being asked by scientists studying these brilliant apes.
Brent Loken, who runs a group called Integrated Conservation, used camera traps to research into orangutans. That group protects 1 animals in Borneo, the largest island in Asia. Camera traps work by taking a quick photo, when something moves in front of them. In Borneo, scientists use the photos to 2 what the rare orangutans do when people aren't 3?
Scientists have been studying orangutans in the rainforests for decades. And their data had suggested that the animals almost always traveled through the 4. They were 5seen walking on the forest floor. Yet when Loken looked at the photos from his team's camera traps, he got surprised that the apes were walking on the ground, 6 using logging roads(运材道路)and paths built by people.
Were these animals simply 7to walk on the ground because logging had left too many 8? Or did they 9 down logging roads as convenient shortcut? “More10 is needed,”
People are removing trees for logging, plantations and the building of the cities. The new findings suggest orangutans might be able to learn to 11with some of these changes in their 12. It doesn't mean the animals can survive 13 forests. But it does suggest there might be ways to log forests in a way that won't greatly14 these apes.
Stephanie Spehar, primatologist at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, agrees. “The new study doesn't mean they're fine in areas with no trees,” she says. “Orangutans clearly need the forest to 15.
Sometimes it can be easy to become too satisfied when it comes to living sustainably. We may all have recycling bins in our kitchens, but here are some ways you can live more sustainably.
⒈Put an end to plastic water bottles and one-off coffee cups
The only way this is going to work is that if you have reusable options you really love, invest in a great water bottle. This is an advance payment, but it will save you money in the long run. A 750ml bottle of Evian costs 90p in Tesco, meaning if you buy one every two days you could save £10 within three weeks by filling up a reusable bottle at home.
⒉_______________________________________
The high street is problematic on so many different levels. Not only are you buying items with questionable supply chains, but the carbon footprint of each product is shocking as well. Online shopping is even worse, with overpackaging for each item and the emissions from delivery trucks. The answer is to stick to reach-me-down or previously owned items as much as possible. Not only will this save you money, but there's also a sense of satisfaction in finding a hidden treasure from the flea market where you find outstanding bargains or something used, which you simply can't get from shopping in Wal-Mart or on Amazon.
⒊Think hard about your transportation
Even if your car is supposedly a low-emissions model, it's still going to be a huge contribution to your carbon footprint. There are times when getting in a car can't be avoided, but if you can substitute just one flight a year with a train, one car journey a week with a bus, and one bus a month with a bike ride, you'll find that making more mindful transport decisions can easily make your day-to-day life more environmentally friendly with little effort.
⒋Try to buy local, seasonal produce
You may think buying strawberries in December or courgettes in spring is no big deal, but the chemicals and fuel used to artificially copy the right environment for them to grow create harmful gas emissions. Similarly, the environmental impact of transporting produce from another country is huge. Buying from local farmers also means you can often ignore the huge amounts of packaging the supermarkets use.
A recent study presents the possibility of “carbon farming” as a less risky alternative to other carbon capture and storage technologies. It suggests that a significant percentage of atmospheric CO2 could potentially be removed by planting millions of acres of a shrub known as the Barbados nut(麻疯树), in dry, coastal areas. But other experts doubted whether the Barbados nut would be able to grow well in sandy desert soils and absorb the quantity of carbon their models predict.
The researchers behind the study say Barbados nut plantations(种植园)could help to reduce the local effects of global warming in desert areas, causing a decrease in average temperature and an increase in rainfall. If a large enough portion of the Earth were blanketed with carbon farms, these local effects could become global, capturing between 17 and 25 metric tons of CO2 per hectare each year over a 20-year period.
Carbon farms would not compete with food production if they were concentrated in dry coastal areas. In their analysis, oceanside desalination(海水淡化)plants provide a low-emission irrigation method. The study states that the Barbados nut is uniquely suited to growing in regions unsuitable for other crops .The plant, which produces a non-edible seed that can be used to create biodiesel(生物柴油), is comfortable growing at temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It can also stand up to high levels of pollution in the soil, making waste water another potential source for irrigation.
The cost of carbon farming is comparable to the costs associated with other carbon capture and storage technologies, the study claims. Wulfmeyer stressed that carbon farming could have “fantastic value for the local people” if international carbon markets pick up, promoting rural development and opening up the possibility of additional agriculture as the soil quality improves around the plantation.
In an email, Van Noordwijk, a chief science advisor, questioned the growth rate and the atmospheric carbon capture rate assumed by the study's authors, calling the estimated carbon price of the plantations a “considerable underestimate”. “We are talking about a plant with a shrubby growth habit and a long track record of misleading farmers with production potentials that are not being realized,” he said, and “Even with abundant water, the nutrient storage in sandy desert soil is low. He added, “The estimated carbon price of this option already indicates that there are far better opportunities for reducing ongoing emissions from peatland(泥炭地)use and deforestation.”
Empathy is the ability to share and understand the emotions of others. It is a construct of multiple components, each of which is associated with its own brain network. New research has found empathy may have a genetic component that affects personality, and cognition, psychiatric (relating to mental illness) conditions. The findings are highlighted in a new study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, the University Paris Diderot and the Institute Pasteur, and 23andMe.
Published yesterday in Molecular Psychiatry, the first study found evidence that genes influence our ability to read and understand emotions in others. The team at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge analyzed data from 89,000 individuals worldwide, the majority of whom were 23andMe customers, who were willing to be researched.
Participants completed a “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test”, in which they were shown photos of the area around the eyes and asked to identify one of two possible emotions. This assessed Theory of Mind and the ability to recognize and appreciate another person's mental state. Researchers identified that women with certain genetic variants(变异)on chromosome(染色体)3 performed better, with higher levels of empathy. Interestingly, male performance on the test was not associated with a genetic variant. Overall, women consistently performed better than men, exhibiting higher levels of empathy.
The genetic variant associated with empathy in women is near the gene LRRN1(Leucine Rich Neuronal 1) on chromosome 3, which is highly active in an area of the human brain. Brain scans have indicated that this section of the brain may play a role in cognition empathy.
This is also the unprecedented study that relates measures of empathy with variation in the human genome(基因组). Previous research that has attempted to assess the genetic associations of personality and psychological traits has sometimes been unreliable, due to their small sample size. 23andMe's large data offering enables scientists to gain insight into the biology behind features such as empathy.
23andMe is committed to furthering such research and approximately 85 percent of customers agrees to allow their de-identified(去识别的)data to be made available for study. By allowing scientists access to its unique and powerful research resource engine, 23andMe helps open up genetics to qualified researchers, providing novel insights into individuals' features, genetic diseases and a variety of other conditions.
My professor brother and I have an argument about head and heart, about whether he overvalues IQ while I lean more toward EQ. We commonly have this debate about people—can you be friends with a really smart jerk(怪物)?—but that also applies to animals as well .I'd love it if our dog could fetch the morning paper and then read it to me over coffee, but I actually care much more about her loyal and innocent heart. There's already enough thinking going on in our house, and we probably spend too much time in our heads. Where we need some role modeling is in instinct, and that's where a dog is a vivid example.
I did not grow up with dogs, which meant that my older daughter's respectful but firm determination to get one required some adjustment on my part. I often felt she was training me: from ages of 6 to 9, she gently schooled me in various breeds and their personalities, whispered to the dogs we met with so they would charm and persuade me, demonstrated by her self-discipline that she was ready for the responsibility. And thus came our dog Twist, whom I sometimes mistake for a third daughter.
At first I thought the challenge would be to train her to sit, to follow, to walk calmly beside us and not go wildly chasing the neighborhood rabbits. But I soon discovered how much more we had to learn from her than she from us.
If it is true, for example, that the secret to a child's success is less rare genius than raw persistence, Twist's ability to stay on task is a model for us all, especially if the task is trying to capture the sunbeam that touches softly around the living room as the wind blows through the branches outside. She never succeeds, and she never gives up. This includes when she runs straight into walls.
Then there is her unfailing patience, which breaks down only when she senses that dinnertime was 15 minutes ago and we have somehow failed to notice. Even then she is more eager than annoyed, and her refusal to complain shows a self control of which I'm not always capable when hungry.
But the lesson I value most is the one in forgiveness, and Twist first offered this when she was still very young. When she was about 7 months old, we took her to the vet to be spayed(切除卵巢). We turned her over to a stranger, who was to perform a procedure that was probably not pleasant. But when the vet returned her to us, weak and tender, there was no accusation, no how could you do that to me? It was as though she already knew that we would not intentionally cause her pain, and while she did not understand, she forgave and curled up with her head on my daughter's lap.
I suppose we could have concluded that she was just blindly loyal and obedient. But eventually we knew better. She is entirely capable of disobedience, as she has proved many times. She will ignore us when there are more interesting things to look at, scold us when we are careless, bark into the twilight when she has urgent messages to send. But her patience with our failings and carelessness and her willingness to give us a second chance are a daily lesson in gratitude.
My friends who grow up with dogs tell me how when they were teenagers and trusted no one in the world, they could tell their dog all their secrets. It was the one friend who would not gossip or betray, could provide in the middle of the night the soft, unselfish comfort and peace that adolescence plots to disturb. An age that is all about growth and risk needs some anchors and weights, a stable model when all else is changing. Sometimes I think Twist's devotion keeps my girls on a benevolent leash, one that hangs quietly at their side as they walk fast along but occasionally pulls them back to safety and solid ground.
We've weighed so many decisions so carefully in raising our daughters—what school to send them to and what church to attend, when to give them cell phones and with what precautions. But when it comes to what really shapes their character and binds our family, I never would have thought we would owe so much to its smallest member.
It is easy to miss amid the day-to-day headlines of global economic recession, but there is a less obvious kind of social upheaval(剧变)underway that is fast changing both the face of the planet and the way human beings live. That change is the rapid growth in urbanization. In 2008, for the first time in human history, more than half the world's population was living in towns and cities. And as a recently published paper shows, the process of urbanization will only accelerate in the decades to come—with an enormous impact on biodiversity and potentially on climate change.
As Karen Seto, the lead author of the paper, points out, the wave of urbanization isn't just about the migration of people into urban environments, but about the environments themselves becoming bigger to provide enough room for all those people. The rapid expansion of urban areas will have a huge impact on biodiversity hotspots and on carbon emissions in those urban areas.
Humans are the ultimate invasive species-when they move into new territory, they often displace the wildlife that was already living there. And as land is cleared for those new cities—especially in the dense tropical forests-carbon will be released into the atmosphere as well. It's true that as people in developing nations move from the countryside to the city, the shift may reduce the pressure on land, which could in turn be good for the environment. This is especially so in desperately poor countries, where residents in the countryside slash and burn forests each growing season to clear space for farming. But the real difference is that in developing nations, the move from rural areas to cities often leads to an accompanying increase in income—and that increase leads to an increase in the consumption of food and energy, which in turn causes a rise in carbon emissions. Getting enough to eat and enjoying the safety and comfort of living fully on the grid is certainly a good thing-but it does carry an environmental price.
The urbanization wave can't be stopped—and it shouldn't be. But Seto's paper does underscore the importance of managing that transition. If we do it the right way, we can reduce urbanization's impacts on the environment “There's an enormous opportunity here, and a lot of pressure and responsibility to think about how we urbanize,” says Seto. “One thing that's clear is that we can't build cities the way we have over the last couple of hundred years. The scale of this transition won't allow that.” We're headed towards an urban planet no matter what, but whether it becomes heaven or hell is up to us.
Title | Urbanization |
Present | Throughout the world, over half population live in urban areas with the process of urbanization still up in the coming decade. |
Characteristics | ·People into urban environments. ·Environments become bigger to all those from rural areas. |
| Biodiversity hot-spots and carbon emissions in the areas will be . |
Means of urbanization | the wildlife away from where they used to live. ·Clear land to make for new cities. more food and energy, causing a rise in carbon emissions. |
Conclusion | We should the way we have built cities so as to manage the transition and reduce the impacts on environment. |
In the nineteenth century, a novelist would bring his story to a c by presenting his readers with a series of coincidences-most of them wildly improbable.
What i happens is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at precisely the same moment.
A truly d bargain hunter of art treasures must have patience, and above all, the ability to recognize the worth of something when he sees it
We might say that justice has been done when a man's innocence or guilt has been proved b doubt.
As if this were not enough to reduce you to tears, your husband arrives, u bringing three guests to dinner.
China Daily∣Updated:2016-12-26 07:44
THE COMPOUND surrounding Dayun Temple in Shangluo, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, has been encroached(侵犯)upon by the urban regeneration process. This has caused damage to several relics including an ancient mulberry tree and four houses built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Beijing News commented on Saturday.
The construction work endangering a cultural and historical site on the provincial cultural heritage protection list stopped when the Shangluo museum published an open letter calling for official involvement. However, damage had already been done to the temple, which has a history of more than 600 years. An old tree and a decorated archway were relocated and four houses torn down. There are also cracks in the walls and gates.
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27(Xinhua)--Two key UN agencies and some countries on Sunday joined Interpol(国际刑警)to launch a major new program to strengthen the protection of cultural heritage targeted by terrorists and illegal sales against a background of a sharp rise of terrorist attacks and destruction of cultural heritage in armed conflict.
“Culture is on the frontline of conflict--we must place it at the heart of peace-building,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.
For his part, the executive director of UNODC, Yury Fedotov, said it was important to address sales and the destruction of cultural property as “crimes that strike at the key of our civilization and heritage.”
[写作内容]
1)用约30个单词写出上文概要;
2)用约120个单词发表你的观点,内容包括:
⑴保护文化遗产的重要性(至少两点原因);
⑵如何有效保护文化遗产(至少两点措施)。
[写作要求]
1)阐述观点或提供论据时,不能直接引用原文语句;
2)作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称;
3)不必写标题。