Humans kill large carnivores---a category of ...

Humans kill large carnivores---a category of animals that includes wolves, bears, lions, tigers and pumas---at more than nine times their death rate in the wild. Although they may not be our prey (猎物) in the traditional sense, new research shows that some of the world’s biggest carnivores are responding to humans in a way that resembles how prey animals react to predators (捕食者). Biologists at the Santa Cruz Puma Project, an ongoing research effort in the mountains of California’s central coast, report that even the scary puma, or mountain lion, shows its fearful side when people are around.

In a recent study, the researchers followed 17 mountain lions outfitted with GPS collars (项圈) to the animals’ deer kill sites. Once the cats naturally left the scene between feedings, ecologist Justin A. Smith, now at the University of California Berkeley, and her team trained motion-activated cameras on the prey bodies. On the animals’ return, the cameras triggered nearby speakers, which broadcast recordings of either frogs croaking (呱呱叫) or humans conversing.

The pumas almost always fled immediately on hearing the human voices, and many never returned to resume feeding or took a long time to do so. But they only rarely stopped eating or fled when they heard the frogs. They also spent less than half as much time feeding during the 24 hours after first hearing human chatter, compared with hearing the frogs, the team reported.

The human presence in such a situation has far-reaching consequences. A previous study found that Santa Cruz pumas living near residential areas killed 36 percent more deer than those in less populated places. The new finding could explain why: if the cats are scared away from their kills before they finish feeding, they may be taking more prey to compensate. And fewer deer could mean more plants go uneaten, according to Chris Darimont, a professor of conservation science at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, who was not involved in the study. Thus, fear of humans may alter the entire food chain.

“Humans are the most significant source of death for pumas in this population even though the cats are not legally hunted for food or sport,” Smith says. “Many are hunted illegally, struck by vehicles or legally killed by governmental agencies as a means of protecting livestock. So they have good reason to be fearful of us,” she adds. Darimont predicts other large carnivores would show similar responses because humans have effectively become the planet’s top predator---even if we often do not eat what we kill.

1.How did researchers make the discovery?

A. By fitting GPS collars to the animals’ prey and following them.

B. By getting to the kill sties and broadcasting all types of sounds.

C. By observing pumas’ reaction to frogs’ croaking or humans’ voices.

D. By counting how long pumas spent eating in different backgrounds.

2.According to the passage, humans’ presence will lead to ______.

A. less deer being eaten　　 B. more plants left uneaten

C. pumas occupying less populated areas　　 D. more puma feeding times within a day

3.Smith’s attitude towards the government hunting pumas is ______.

A. doubtful　　 B. disapproving　　 C. disappointing　　 D. objective

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How can we measure animals’ emotions? A new study of animal’s emotions suggests that, as in humans, emotions can tell animals about how dangerous their world is, and guide the choices that they make. The article of the study by Bristol University’s professor Mike Mendl was published online.

An animal living in an environment where it is often threatened by predators(捕食者）will develop a negative emotion or “mood”, such as anxiety. However, one in an environment with plenty of opportunities to get resources for survival will be in a more positive mood state.

The researchers say that these emotional states not only show the animal’s experiences, but also help it decide how to make choices, especially in unclear situations. This could have good or bad results. An animal in a negative mood state will make a safety-first with a “pessimistic” response to an unclear event. For example, it considers a noise in the grass as a signal of the predator. At the same time, an animal in a positive mood state will benefit from a more “optimistic” response. It considers the noise as a signal of prey(猎物）.

Professor Mike Mendl, head of the Animal Welfare and Behavior Research Group at Bristol University’s School of Clinical Veterinary Science said, “ We can use “optimistic” or “pessimistic”decision-making as a symbol of an animal’s emotional state. Recent studies by our group and others suggest that this is a meritorious new approach to studying a variety of animal species.”

“Public interest in animal welfare remains high, with widespread concern about the way in which animals are treated, used and included in society. To understand how animals should be treated, we need to better understand their emotional lives,” Mike Mendl said. The researchers believe Mike Mendl’s study can help them to better understand and assess an animal’s emotions.

1.When an animal is in a negative mood state, _______.

A. its response to an unclear event is pessimistic

B. it will pay little attention to an unclear event

C. it is easy for it to make right decisions

D. it has more opportunities to get food

2.The underlined word “meritorious” in Paragraph 4 can be replaced by “_______”.

A. valuable　　　　　　　 B. useless　　　　　　 C. fashionable　　　　　 D. hopeless

3.We can infer from the passage that ________.

A. the animals with positive emotions live longer

B. there is no way to assess an animal’s emotions

C. few people care about animal welfare nowadays

D. the environment can influence animal’s emotions

4.Mike Mendl advised people to better understand animal’s emotions in order to _____.

A. tell people to build more protected areas for animals

B. explain animals should be regarded as people’s friends

C. raise people’s interest in studying animals

D. make people know how to treat animals properly

5.What would be the best title for the passage?

A. Different kinds of Animals’ Emotions

B. Emotions Helps Animals to Make Choice

C. The Living Environment of Wild Animals

D. The Best Way to Measure Animals’ Emotions

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That the success of humans as a species depends to a large extent on our ability to cooperate in groups is widely believed. Much more so than any other animal, people are able to coordinate and join their forces and actions to produce mutual benefits.

New research involving Dr Molleman, an expert at the University of Nottingham, suggests that successful cooperation in groups depends on how people gather information about their peers, and how they base their cooperative decisions on it.

Biologists wonder how cooperation could have developed by natural selection: it is puzzling how cooperation can be beneficial when it is possible to behave selfishly and take advantage of the cooperative efforts of your group. Psychologists and economists try hard to understand why many people are willing to sacrifice their own welfare to benefit their social environment. They asked questions like “How do people make decisions when their actions can affect the welfare of others?” “How people determine their behavior when they have to cooperate in groups?”.

Dr Pieter Van Den Berg from the University of Groningen said, “From previous research we know that some people are ‘majority-oriented (以……为中心)’ and tend to look at the behavior of the majority in their group, whereas others are ‘success-oriented’ and try to find out what kind of behavior pays off best for themselves.”

Dr Molleman, from the center of the Decision Research and Experimental Economics, said, “It turns out that behavior in groups of success-oriented people was much more selfish than it in groups of majority-oriented people. As a consequence, the people in the majority-oriented groups tended to cam more money in the experiment since they cooperated more.”

1.Compared with other animals, human beings are capable of ________.

A. communicating well with others B. working together with each other

C. surviving some natural disasters D. getting access to various information

2.What are the psychologists and economists most interested in?

A. Whether people’s personal efforts will pay off eventually.

B. How cooperation has developed over a long lime naturally.

C. Why people offer to affect those around them unselfishly.

D. What benefit that good cooperation can bring immediately.

3.We can infer that the success-oriented people________.

A. are careful to select a group to join

B. are likely to be successful in the future

C. pay more attention to the result of their effort

D. have some skills in collecting useful information

4.What is the new finding of the research?

A. Having good relationship gets us to live fullest life.

B. Focusing on individual success makes people selfish.

C. Being considerate can ensure our long-term benefit.

D. Mastering social skills help create harmonious society.

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Cryonics is the practice of cooling dead organic tissue. This is used on humans or animals that have recently died. The hope is to bring them back to life in the near future. By law, it can only be performed on humans after they are legally dead. Many scientists and doctors think cryonics is totally morally unacceptable. However, there are also many who support cryonics.

Supporters of cryonics hope that future technology will improve. Molecular technology is especially hoped to reverse (逆转) the early stages of clinical death. It is hoped that this will enable the repair of tissue on a very tiny level. It could also allow damaged tissues and organs to regenerate. They also assume that disease and aging will one day be reversible.

These supporters want to store the memory and identity from the brain of people who have recently died. Cryonics attempts to do this by using liquid that preserves the brain. If this is done before cooling, it will prevent injury. This cooling liquid saves the fine cell structures of the brain where memory and identity exist.

Critics of cryonics think this process is a waste of time and money. They base their opinions on the current level of science. It is true that cells, tissues, blood vessels, and some small animal organs can be reversibly preserved. Some frogs can even survive for a few months in a partially frozen state if they are kept a few degrees above freezing. But this is not true cryopreservation. There is no proof that the identity and memory of a person can be restored after death has occurred.

Critics also think that if it were possible to bring dead people back to life, it would cause many social problems. Critics worry it would cause a huge overpopulation problem. Many also think trying to reverse death is immoral because it is against the will of their God.

1.What can we know about cryonics from paragraph 1?

A.Cryonics is used before people's death.

B.All scientists aren't in favor of the use of cryonics.

C.Laws forbid the use of cryonics on legally dead people.

D.Cryonics tries to cool dead organic tissue by using liquid.

2.What does the underlined word ''regenerate'' in paragraph 2 mean?

A.copy. B.return.

C.freeze. D.regrow.

3.Why do critics oppose the use of cryonics?

A.It will make people's memory lost.

B.Injury will occur during the process.

C.There is scientific uncertainty about it.

D.It goes along with their religious belief.

4.What is the main idea of the text?

A.The use of cryonics has a bright future.

B.Cryonics is still a controversial practice.

C.The practice of cryonics is limited by law.

D.There is an advance in medical technology.

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Humans are responsible for causing changes in the environment that hurt animals and species(物种). We take up more space on Earth for our homes and cities. We pollute habitats(栖息地). ________1.  illegally hunt and kill animals. All of these activities take resources and habitats away ________2.________ plants and animals.

Human activity often changes or destroys the habitats that plants and animals need to survive.  3.________ human populations are growing so fast, animals and plants are disappearing many times faster 4.________ they have in the past 65 million years.

Animals and plants have always had a ________5.________ time surviving. Animals became extinct (灭绝的) in the past for a wide variety of reasons. In some cases, competition for resources among animals led to extinction and in ________6.________ cases, environmental changes caused extinction.

Fortunately, we humans are beginning to realize our mistakes, ________7.________ we could destroy everything on Earth. We must not only use our knowledge and abilities to manage the Earth, but to make the Earth ________8.________ safe and healthy place where all animals and plants——including humans ourselves——can live.

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4. It used to ______ that humans and animals were different and had little in common.

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Most of the new diseases we humans have faced in the past several decades have come from animals. The more we come into contact with wild animals, the more we risk a so-called disease “spillover” from animals to humans.

“As people move and wildlife move in response to a changing environment, humans and wildlife and animals will come in contact more regularly,” said Jeanne Fair from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Fair argues that by shifting　 animal habitats, climate change will also make the opportunities for disease spillover more frequent. “Everything is sort of shifting and will shift into the future as the environment changes through climate change,” Fair said.

Scientists, including climatologists and epidemiologists on Fair’s team at Los Alamos, are beginning to model how changes to the climate will impact the spread of infectious diseases. It’s early days for this kind of research, but previous studies suggest that extreme weather has already played a role in at least one outbreak. Scientists say drought and deforestation have combined to force bats out of rainforests and into orchards（果园）in Malaysia to find food. Those bats, a common disease reservoir, then passed the Nipah virus through pigs to humans for the first time in the late 1990s.

“We’re going by the past data to really predict what’s going to happen in the future,” Fair said, “And so, anytime you increase that wildlife-human interface, that’s sort of an emerging disease hot spot. And so, that’s just increasing as we go forward.”

Jeffrey Shaman, head of the climate and health program at Columbia University’s public health school, argues we don’t yet know whether climate change will cause a net increase in infectious disease rates globally. For example, mosquitoes carry disease that affects millions of people across the world every year. As their habitats expand in some parts of the world, they might contract diseases elsewhere. Shaman says what we know for certain about climate change is that it will make it harder to predict where disease outbreaks will pop up.

1.How does climate change affect the spread of disease according to Fair?

A.By breaking animals’ habits.

B.By increasing animals’ varieties.

C.By promoting animals’ breeding.

D.By changing animals’ living environment.

2.What is the example of bats for in paragraph 3?

A.Explaining the influence of Nipah virus.

B.Proving the harm of bats to human beings.

C.Showing the effects of climate change on disease.

D.Presenting scientists’ early study about the cause of disease.

3.What can we infer from Fair’s words in paragraph 4?

A.Humans should give up studying animals.

B.Past data can solve the problems in the future.

C.Disease hot spots will disappear if animals die out.

D.Frequent contact with animals can cause disease outbreaks.

4.What could be the best title for the text?

A.Climate Change and Disease Spillover

B.Animals’ Interaction with Humans

C.Scientists’ Prediction for Disease Outbreaks

D.Early Studies about Extreme Weather

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We found it astonishing that the bush fire in Australia _______ one billion animals.

A.must kill B.could have killed C.should have killed D.might kill

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52. ______ killing of so many protected animals made _______ stir in the local people.

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When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals. They suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.

That the seas are being overfished has been known for years. What researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.

Dr. Worm acknowledges that the figures are conservative. One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today's vessels (船)can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines (多钩长线) would have been more filled with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks (带饵钩)would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now。

Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the “shifting baseline". The idea is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield （产量）that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels。. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.

1.The extinction of large prehistoric animals is noted to suggest that____.

A.large animals were easily hurt in the changing environment

B.small species survived as large animals disappeared

C.large sea animals may face the same threat today

D.slow-growing fish outlive fast-growing ones

2.By saying these figures are conservative , Dr. Worm means that____ .

A.fishing technology has improved rapidly

B.the catch-sizes are actually smaller than recorded

C.the marine biomass has suffered a greater loss

D.the data collected so far are out of date

3.Dr. Myers and other researchers hold that____ .

A.people should look for a baseline that can't work for a longer time

B.fisheries should keep the yield below 50% of the biomass

C.the ocean biomass should restore its original level

D.people should adjust the fishing baseline to changing situation

4.The writer seems to be mainly concerned with most fisheries’____ .

A.biomass level B.management efficiency

C.catch-size limits D.technological application

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