题目内容

Two People, Two Paths
You must be familiar with the situation: Dad's driving, Mum's telling him where to go.He's sure that they need to turn left. But she says it's not for another two blocks. Who has the better sense of direction Men or women.
They both do, a new study says, but in different ways.
Men and women,- Canadian researchers have found, have different methods of finding their way. Men look quickly at landmarks (地标) and head off in what they think is the right direction. Women, however, try to picture the whole route in detail and then follow the path in their head.
"Women tend to be more detailed," said Edward Cornell, who led the study, "while men tend to be a little bit faster and...a little bit more intuitive (直觉感知的)."
In fact, said Cornell, "sense of direction" isn't one skill but two.
The first is the "survey method". This is when you see an area from above, such as a printed map. You can see, for example, where the hospital is, where the church is and that the supermarket is on its right.
The second skill is the "route method". This is when you use a series of directions. You start from the hospital, then turn left, turn right, go uphill -and then you see the supermarket.
Men are more likely to use the survey method while women are more likely to use one route and follow directions.
Both work, and neither is better.
Some scientists insist that these different skills have a long history. They argue it is because of the difference in traditional roles.
In ancient times, young men often went far away with the older men to fish or hunt.The trip took hours or days and covered unfamiliar places. The only way to know where you were was to use the survey method to remember landmarks -- the mountains, the lakes and so on.
The women, on the other hand, took young girls out to find fruits and plants. These activities were much closer to home but required learning well-used paths. So, women's sense of space was based on learning certain routes.
第 31 题 When finding his way, Dad tends to rely on.

A. his intuitive knowledge.
B. his book knowledge.
C. Mum's assistance.
D. the police's assistance.

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Psychologists find the list a good place where they can study human behavior. because________.

A. here humans behave the way animals do
B. people in a lift are all scared
C. here some people take noted
D. in a lift the bubble of personal space breaks

A.knew B.concluded C.saw D.thought

A. knew
B. concluded
C. saw
D. thought

Eat More, Weigh Less, Live Longer
Clever genetic detective work may have found out the reason why a near-starvation diet prolongs the life of many animals.
Ronald Kahn at Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, and his colleagues have been able to extend the lifespan (寿命) of mice by 18 per cent by blocking the rodent's (啮齿动物) increase of fat in specific cells. This suggests that thinness--and not necessarily diet--promotes long life in "calorie (热量卡) restricted" animals.
"It's very cool work," says aging researcher Cynthia Kenyon of the University of California, San Francisco. "These mice eat all they want, lose weight and live longer. It's like heaven."
Calorie restriction dramatically extends the lifespan of organisms as different as worms and rodents. Whether this works in humans is still unknown, partly because few people are willing to submit to such a strict diet.
But many researchers hope they will be able to trigger the same effect with a drug once they understand how less food leads to a longer life. One theory is that eating less reduces the increase of harmful things that can damage cells. But Kahn's team wondered whether the animals simply benefit by becoming thin.
To find out, they used biology tricks to disrupt the insulin (胰岛素) receptor (受体) gene in lab mice--but only in their fat cells. "Since insulin is needed to help fat cells store fat, these animals were protected against becoming fat," explains Kahn.
This slight genetic change in a single tissue had dramatic effects. By three months of age, Kahn's modified mice had up to 70 per cent less body fat than normal control mice, despite the fact that they ate 55 per cent more food per gram of body weight.
In addition, their lifespan increased. The average control mouse lived 753 days, while the thin rodents averaged a lifespan of 887 days. After three years, all the control mice had died, but one-quarter of the modified rodents were still alive.
"That they get these effects by just manipulating the fat cells is controversial," says Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who studies calorie restriction and aging.
But Guarente says Kahn has yet to prove that the same effect is responsible for increased lifespan in calorie-restricted animals. "It might be the same effect or there might be two routes to long life," he points out, "and that would be very interesting."
第 41 题 Ronald Kahn and his colleagues can make mice live longer by.

A. offering them less food.
B. giving them a balanced diet.
C. disrupting the specific genes in their fat cells.
D. preventing them growing larger.

Keeping Cut Flowers
1.While everybody enjoys fresh cut flowers around their house, few people know how to keep them for as long as possible. This may be done by keeping in mind a few simple facts.
2.An important thing to remember about cut flowers is that they are sensitive to temperature. For example, studies have shown that cut carnations (康乃馨) retain their freshness eight times longer when kept at 12OC than when kept at 26OC. Keeping freshly harvested flowers.at the right temperatures is probably the most important aspect of flower care.
3.Flowers are not intended by nature to live very long. Their biological purpose is simply to attract birds or insects, such as bees, for pollination (授粉). After that, they quickly dry up and die. The process by which flowers consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide (二氧化碳), called respiration (呼吸), generates the energy the flower needs to give the flower its shape and colour. The making of seeds also depends on this energy. While all living things respire, flowers have a high level of respiration. A result of all this respiration is heat,and for flowers the level of heat relative to the mass of the flower is very high. Respiration also brings about the eventual death of the flower. Thus the greater the level of respiration, the sooner the flower dies.
4.How, then, to control the rate at which flowers die By controlling respiration. How is respiration controlled By controlling temperature. We know that respiration produces heat, but the reverse is also true. Thus by maintaining low temperatures, respiration is reduced and the cut flower will age more slowly.
5.Another vital factor in keeping cut flowers is the quality of the water in which they are placed. Flowers find it difficult to "drink" water that is dirty or otherwise polluted. Even when water looks and smells clean, it almost certainly contains harmful substances that can endanger the flowers. To rid the water of these unwanted substances, household chlorine bleach (含氯漂白剂) can be used in small quantities. It is recommended that 15 drops of chlorine bleach (at 4% solution) be added to each litre of water. The water and solution should also be replaced each day.
第 23 题 Paragraph 2______

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