The best title of this passage can be______.
A. Volcanoes killed off Neanderthals
B. Modern humans escaped extinction due to their farther-flung populations
Climate Change wiped out Neanderthals
D. The competition between Neanderthals and Modern humans TEXT D
Which of the following is NOT the reason for girls drinking?
A. More alcohol is made oriented to young females.
B. Girls drink to avoid problems and relieve stress.
C. Girls regard drinking as a necessary ingredient for a party.
D. Girls may seek alcohol as a way to self-medicate.
About 40,000 years ago in what we now call Italy and the Caucasus Mountains, which straddle Europe and Asia, several volcanoes erupted in quick succession, according to a new study to be published in the October issue of the journal Current Anthropology. It's likely the eruptions reduced or wiped out local bands of Neanderthals and indirectly affected farther-flung populations, the team concluded after analyzing pollen and ash from the affected area. The researchers examined sediments layer from around 40,000 years ago in Russia's Mezmaiskaya Cave and found that the more volcanic ash a layer had, the less plant pollen it contained.
"We tested all the layers for this volcanic ash signature. The most volcanic-ash-rich layer"—likely corresponding to the so-called Campanian Ignimbrite eruption, which occurred near Naples—"had no (tree) pollen and very little pollen from other types of plants," said study team member Naomi Cleghorn. "It's just a sterile layer." The loss of plants would have led to a decline in plant-eating mammals, which in turn would have affected the Neanderthals, who hunted large mammals for food. "This idea of an environmental cause for the Neanderthals' demise has been out in the literature. What we're trying to do is point out a specific mechanism," said Cleghorn, an anthropologist at the University of Texas, Arlington.
Other theories propose that modern humans played a vital role in the fall of the Neanderthals, either through competition, warfare, or interbreeding. If the volcanoes theory is correct, the Neanderthals' end was much more tragic: dying slowly in a cold and desolate landscape bereft of food sources. "It's hard to say what it would have been like to be the last few groups out there, seeing other groups less and less over the years," Cleghorn said.
The Neanderthals were a hardy species that lived through multiple ice ages and would have been familiar with volcanoes and other natural calamities. But the eruptions 40,000 years ago were unlike anything Neanderthals had faced before, Cleghorn and company say. For one thing, all the volcanoes apparently erupted around the same time. And one of those blasts, the Campanian Ignimbrite, is thought to have been the most powerful eruption in Europe in the last 200,000 years. "It's much easier to adapt to something that's happening over a couple of generations," Cleghorn said. "You can move around, you can find other places to live, and your population can rebound. " "This is not that kind of event," she said, "This is unique. "
There may also have been small bands of Homo sapiens living in Europe at the time, Cleghorn said. They too would have been affected by the eruptions. But modern humans likely avoided extinction because they had larger populations in Africa and Asia, she said, while most Neanderthals were in Europe around this time. "With their small population groups, Neanderthals did not really have a great source population," Cleghorn said. "They didn't really have the numbers and the density" to rebuild their populations after the eruptions.
The researchers acknowledge that there are gaps in the volcanoes theory. For instance, the time line needs to be better defined—did the volcanic eruptions occur in a period of months, years, or decades? "At this point, it's impossible to pin down a reliable date" for the eruptions, Cleghorn said. "We can't say that this eruption happened 50 years before the next eruption. We just don't have that kind of resolution. " It's also unknown exactly how long it took the Neanderthals to die out—or how long after the eruptions modern humans began settling Europe in force, s
A. leap suddenly
B. recover from a terrible situation
C. refuse to accept
D. come back after being refused
These numbers are more indicative of a long-term trend than a sudden uptick. In 2005 the rate of girls who had used alcohol in the past year as surveyed by the partnership hit 57 percent, only to fall back to 55 percent in 2007 and 53 percent in 2008. (During that same time, boys continued to fall within a couple of percentage points of 50 percent, but the changes were not statistically significant. )
These aren't the only data to note issues involving girls and drinking. According to Monitoring the Future, an ongoing study that monitors the habits and attitudes of young Americans, the number of high-school students who admitted being drunk in the previous 30 days has changed dramatically for boys compared with girls. In 1998, 39 percent of boys reported being drunk in the previous 30 days, compared with 26. 6 percent of girls. Ten years later, in 2008, 29.2 percent of boys reported being drunk during the 30-day period, while girls stayed relatively steady at 26. 2 percent. "The numbers go down for boys and girls, but they go down much more dramatically for boys," says Amelia Arria, director of the center on young adult health and development at the University of Maryland, School of Public Health. "It represents a 25 percent decrease for boys, but only a 1 percent decrease for girls. Girls are staying kind of level, and boys are dropping. "
For years, boys were the focus of underage-drinking interventions, but for the past decade, researchers have seen a close in the gender gap. Researchers speculate that more products devoted to making drinking easier and tastier—the sugar-laden beverages known as alco-pops—are a factor. "There's a whole new raft of products that have come out in the last 10 to 12 years that were oriented to young females," says David Jerigan, executive director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. "Alcohol now gets sold to girls as a functional food: it gets sold with calorie information, a drink of fitness, a drink with health benefits. "
But girls may be less concerned about their figure than they are about, well, everything else. The Partnership for a Drug Free America results also show that girls are more likely to associate drugs and alcohol with a way to avoid problems and relieve stress. (Boys, on the other hand, show dramatic increases in seeing drugs and alcohol as social lubricants: in 2009 compared with 2008, they were 16 percent more likely to see them as a way to make socializing easier, and 23 percent more likely to label drinking as a necessary ingredient for a party. )
Teen girls are more likely to be attuned to their feelings, says Leslie Walker, M. D. , director of adolescent medicine at Seattle Children's Hospital, and therefore may seek alcohol as a way to self-medicate. "Girls tend to be more internalized with issues that are happening anyway. It makes sense that if they have some stress and things that they are dealing with, they're going to take care of themselves instead of reaching out. "
Recent research on the adolescent brain has shown significant differences between males and females. Arria says, "Girls tend to be more sensitive to emotional stress, neurologically. Girls mature a little bit earlier in parts of the brain; boys develop later in those areas. " That increased sensitivity, she says, combined with more relaxed attitudes and easier access to alcohol, may explain th
A. Teen girls are drinking more than boys for different reasons.
B. Measures should be taken to relieve the stress and worries of teen girls.
C. Teen girls are feeling more stress than boys.
D. Teen girls are drinking mainly for fun.