Before birth, babies can tell the difference between loud sounds and voices. They can even distinguish their mother’s voice from that of a female stranger. But when it comes to embryonic learning (胎教), birds could rule the roost. As recently reported in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, some mother birds may teach their young to sing even before they hatch (孵化). New-born chicks can then imitate their mom’s call within a few days of entering the world.
This educational method was first observed in 2012 by Sonia Kleindorfer, a biologist at Flinders University in South Australia, and her colleagues. Female Australian superb fairy wrens were found to repeat one sound over and over again while hatching their eggs. When the eggs were hatched, the baby birds made the similar chirp to their mothers—a sound that served as their regular ＂feed me!＂ call.
To find out if the special quality was more widespread in birds, the researchers sought the red-backed fairy wren, another species of Australian songbird. First they collected sound data from 67 nests in four sites in Queensland before and after hatching. Then they identified begging calls by analyzing the order and number of notes. A computer analysis blindly compared calls produced by mothers and chicks, ranking them by similarity.
It turns out that baby red-backed fairy wrens also emerge chirping like their moms. And the more frequently mothers had called to their eggs, the more similar were the babies’ begging calls. In addition, the team set up a separate experiment that suggested that the baby birds that most closely imitated their mom’s voice were rewarded with the most food.
This observation hints that effective embryonic learning could signal neurological (神经系统的) strengths of children to parents. An evolutionary inference can then be drawn. ＂As a parent, do you invest in quality children, or do you invest in children that are in need?＂ Kleindorfer asks. ＂Our results suggest that they might be going for quality.＂
1.The underlined phrase in Paragraph 1 means＂____________＂.
A.be the worst B.be the best
C.be the as bad D.be just as good
2.What are Kleindorfer’s findings based on?
A.Similarities between the calls of moms and chicks.
B.The observation of fairy wrens across Australia.
C.The data collected from Queensland’s locals.
D.Controlled experiments on wrens and other birds.
3.Embryonic learning helps mother birds to identify the baby birds which ____________.
A.can receive quality signals
B.are in need of training
C.fit the environment better
D.make the loudest call
Hollywood’s theory that machines with evil(邪恶) minds will drive armies of killer robots is just silly. The real problem relates to the possibility that artificial intelligence(AI) may become extremely good at achieving something other than what we really want. In 1960 a well-known mathematician Norbert Wiener, who founded the field of cybernetics（控制论）, put it this way: “If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot effectively interfere(干预), we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire.”
A machine with a specific purpose has another quality, one that we usually associate with living things: a wish to preserve its own existence. For the machine, this quality is not in-born, nor is it something introduced by humans; it is a logical consequence of the simple fact that the machine cannot achieve its original purpose if it is dead. So if we send out a robot with the single instruction of fetching coffee, it will have a strong desire to secure success by disabling its own off switch or even killing anyone who might interfere with its task. If we are not careful, then, we could face a kind of global chess match against very determined, super intelligent machines whose objectives conflict with our own, with the real world as the chessboard.
The possibility of entering into and losing such a match should concentrate the minds of computer scientists. Some researchers argue that we can seal the machines inside a kind of firewall, using them to answer difficult questions but never allowing them to affect the real world. Unfortunately, that plan seems unlikely to work: we have yet to invent a firewall that is secure against ordinary humans, let alone super intelligent machines.
Solving the safety problem well enough to move forward in AI seems to be possible but not easy. There are probably decades in which to plan for the arrival of super intelligent machines. But the problem should not be dismissed out of hand, as it has been by some AI researchers. Some argue that humans and machines can coexist as long as they work in teams—yet that is not possible unless machines share the goals of humans. Others say we can just “switch them off” as if super intelligent machines are too stupid to think of that possibility. Still others think that super intelligent AI will never happen. On September 11, 1933, famous physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, with confidence, “Anyone who expects a source of power in the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.” However, on September 12, 1933, physicist Leo Szilard invented the neutron-induced(中子诱导) nuclear chain reaction.
1.Paragraph 1 mainly tells us that artificial intelligence may .
A.run out of human control
B.satisfy human’s real desires
C.command armies of killer robots
D.work faster than a mathematician
2.Machines with specific purposes are associated with living things partly because they might be able to .
A.prevent themselves from being destroyed
B.achieve their original goals independently
C.do anything successfully with given orders
D.beat humans in international chess matches
3.According to some researchers, we can use firewalls to .
A.help super intelligent machines work better
B.be secure against evil human beings
C.keep machines from being harmed
D.avoid robots’ affecting the world
4.What does the author think of the safety problem of super intelligent machines?
A.It will disappear with the development of AI.
B.It will get worse with human interference.
C.It will be solved but with difficulty.
D.It will stay for a decade.
Plastic-Eating Worms
Humans produce more than 300 million tons of plastic every year. Almost half of that winds up in landfills(垃圾填埋场), and up to 12 million tons pollute the oceans. So far there is no effective way to get rid of it, but a new study suggests an answer may lie in the stomachs of some hungry worms.
Researchers in Spain and England recently found that the worms of the greater wax moth can break down polyethylene, which accounts for 40% of plastics. The team left 100 wax worms on a commercial polyethylene shopping bag for 12 hours, and the worms consumed and broke down about 92 milligrams, or almost 3% of it. To confirm that the worms’ chewing alone was not responsible for the polyethylene breakdown, the researchers made some worms into paste(糊状物) and applied it to plastic films. 14 hours later the films had lost 13% of their mass — apparently broken down by enzymes (酶) from the worms’ stomachs. Their findings were published in Current Biology in 2017.
Federica Bertocchini, co-author of the study, says the worms’ ability to break down their everyday food — beeswax — also allows them to break down plastic. ＂Wax is a complex mixture, but the basic bond in polyethylene, the carbon-carbon bond, is there as well, ＂she explains, ＂The wax worm evolved a method or system to break this bond. ＂
Jennifer DeBruyn, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, who was not involved in the study, says it is not surprising that such worms can break down polyethylene. But compared with previous studies, she finds the speed of breaking down in this one exciting. The next step, DeBruyn says, will be to identify the cause of the breakdown. Is it an enzyme produced by the worm itself or by its gut microbes(肠道微生物)?
Bertocchini agrees and hopes her team’s findings might one day help employ the enzyme to break down plastics in landfills. But she expects using the chemical in some kind of industrial process — not simply ＂millions of worms thrown on top of the plastic.＂
1.What can we learn about the worms in the study?
A.They take plastics as their everyday food.
B.They are newly evolved creatures.
C.They can consume plastics.
D.They wind up in landfills.
2.According to Jennifer DeBruyn, the next step of the study is to .
A.identify other means of the breakdown
B.find out the source of the enzyme
C.confirm the research findings
D.increase the breakdown speed
3.It can be inferred from the last paragraph that the chemical might .
A.help to raise worms
B.help make plastic bags
C.be used to clean the oceans
D.be produced in factories in future
4.What is the main purpose of the passage?
A.To explain a study method on worms.
B.To introduce the diet of a special worm.
C.To present a way to break down plastics.
D.To propose new means to keep eco-balance.
There’s a new frontier in 3D printing that’s beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook, and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn’t stopping there.
Food production
With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that — it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to “re-create forms and pieces” of food that are “exactly the same,” freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed,rather than farm to table.
Sustainability(可持续性）
The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydrocolloids (水解胶体) from plentiful renewables like algae(藻类) and grass to replace the familiar ingredients(烹饪原料). 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock "food" that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.
Nutrition
Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, “Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday’s bread from the supermarket, you’d eat something baked just for you on demand.”
Challenges
Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing, the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste(糊状物) before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are skeptical about 3D food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurants than homes and high-end restaurants.
1.What benefit does 3D printing bring to food production?
A.It helps cooks to create new dishes.
B.It saves time and effort in cooking.
C.It improves the cooking conditions.
D.It contributes to restaurant decorations.
2.What can we learn about 3D food printing from Paragraphs 3?
A.It solves food shortages easily.
B.It quickens the transportation of food.
C.It needs no space for the storage of food.
D.It uses renewable materials as sources of food.
3.According to Paragraph 4, 3D-printed food ________.
A.is more available to consumers
B.can meet individual nutritional needs
C.is more tasty than food in supermarkets
D.can keep all the nutrition in raw materials
4.What is the main factor that prevents 3D food printing from spreading widely?
A.The printing process is complicated.
B.3D food printers are too expensive.
C.Food materials have to be dry.
D.Some experts doubt 3D food printing.
5.What could be the best title of the passage?
A.3D Food Printing: Delicious New Technology
B.A New Way to Improve 3D Food Printing
C.The Challenges for 3D Food Production
D.3D Food Printing: From Farm to Table
We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices(装置) well after they go out of style. That’s bad news for the environment — and our wallets — as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.
To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life — from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation — Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.
As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones. "The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids' room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices — we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions（排放）more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.
So what's the solution（解决方案）? The team's data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.
1.What does the author think of new devices?
A.They are environment-friendly. B.They are no better than the old.
C.They cost more to use at home. D.They go out of style quickly.
2.Why did Babbitt's team conduct the research?
A.To reduce the cost of minerals.
B.To test the life cycle of a product.
C.To update consumers on new technology.
D.To find out electricity consumption of the devices.
3.Which of the following uses the least energy?
A.The box-set TV. B.The tablet.
C.The LCD TV. D.The desktop computer.
4.What does the text suggest people do about old electronic devices?
A.Stop using them. B.Take them apart.
C.Upgrade them. D.Recycle them.
In the 1960s, while studying the volcanic history of Yellowstone National Park, Bob Christiansen became puzzled about something that, oddly, had not troubled anyone before: he couldn’t find the park’s volcano. It had been known for a long time that Yellowstone was volcanic in nature — that’s what accounted for all its hot springs and other steamy features. But Christiansen couldn’t find the Yellowstone volcano anywhere.
Most of us, when we talk about volcanoes, think of the classic cone(圆锥体) shapes of a Fuji or Kilimanjaro, which are created when erupting magma(岩浆) piles up. These can form remarkably quickly. In 1943, a Mexican farmer was surprised to see smoke rising from a small part of his land. In one week he was the confused owner of a cone five hundred feet high. Within two years it had topped out at almost fourteen hundred feet and was more than half a mile across. Altogether there are some ten thousand of these volcanoes on Earth, all but a few hundred of them extinct. There is, however, a second less known type of volcano that doesn’t involve mountain building. These are volcanoes so explosive that they burst open in a single big crack, leaving behind a vast hole, the caldera. Yellowstone obviously was of this second type, but Christiansen couldn’t find the caldera anywhere.
Just at this time NASA decided to test some new high-altitude cameras by taking photographs of Yellowstone. A thoughtful official passed on some of the copies to the park authorities on the assumption that they might make a nice blow-up for one of the visitors’ centers. As soon as Christiansen saw the photos, he realized why he had failed to spot the caldera: almost the whole park—2.2 million acres—was caldera. The explosion had left a hole more than forty miles across—much too huge to be seen from anywhere at ground level. At some time in the past Yellowstone must have blown up with a violence far beyond the scale of anything known to humans.
1.What puzzled Christiansen when he was studying Yellowstone?
A.Its complicated geographical features.
B.Its ever-lasting influence on tourism.
C.The mysterious history of the park.
D.The exact location of the volcano.
2.What does the second paragraph mainly talk about?
A.The shapes of volcanoes.
B.The impacts of volcanoes.
C.The activities of volcanoes.
D.The heights of volcanoes.
3.What does the underlined word “blow-up” in the last paragraph most probably mean?
A.Hot-air balloon. B.Digital camera.
C.Big photograph. D.Bird’s view.
