Killer Rabbits
You'd never think of rabbits as dreadful, destructive creatures, would you? Rabbits are cute and loveable. However, Australians discovered harm these cute creatures can do the hard way.
Rabbits were introduced to Australia in 1788 as food animals. By 1827, they were running around large estates, and in 1859, disaster struck. A man released 12 wild rabbits onto his property for hunting and he have thought that was harmless fun. But Australia has no predators(捕食者)(adapt) to killing rabbits and none of the diseases that kept their populations control in Europe. The loose rabbits bred like, well, rabbits, and began to take over the countryside. Within a few decades, there were millions. By 1950, there were 600 million rabbits in Australia.
Six hundred million hungry rabbits could do real harm. They caused more damage than any other species introduced to the continent. They ate native plant species they disappeared. They competed for food and shelter with native animals. They caused the extinction or endangerment of numerous plant and animal species. And they were a nightmare for cattle and sheep farmers, animals couldn't get enough grass to eat and starved.
The rabbits did some good, of course. They provided food for poor families. They supported fur industries. But their impact on the environment and major livestock economy was too negative (ignore). People tried trapping them. They even built a huge wall against them. But (effective) weapon was a virus.
(test) multiple times, the deadly myxoma virus was released on Australia's rabbits in 1950. The virus had been developed very carefully to affect only rabbits. Nearly 100 percent of the rabbits who caught the disease (die). Populations fell. It was a huge success. Cattle and sheep farming recovered gradually, and threatened plants were better protected. Eventually, rabbits became resistant to the virus.
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A. string B. contained C. representing D. detailing E. scientific F. currents G. recovered H. encountered I. estimated J. instructions K. decoration |
Bottle Found at Sea Used for Scientific Purpose
Combing the beach for shells, sea glass, or colorful rocks is a leisure activity enjoyed by many. Some even use metal detectors to find buried treasure or other objects. Only the lucky few have a message in a bottle that was dropped off by the tide. The tradition of putting a letter to an unknown recipient into a bottle and throwing it into the ocean has an interesting past. An early use for the practice was revealed when the oldest recorded message in a bottle was found by Tonya on a beach near Wedge Island, Australia.
Tonya was on a family outing when she noticed the antique glass bottle in the sand and thought it would make a nice . While she was cleaning the sandy gin bottle, a rolled up paper tied with a fell out. The damp page was a message written in German and dated June 12, 1886. According to official documents from the German sailing vessels, Paula, a crew member tossed the bottle overboard a(n) 950 km off the coast of Western Australia. Further research authenticated(验证)the letter, which had been sent afloat 132 years ago and is the oldest message in a bottle ever .
Historians confirm that thousands of similar bottles were cast overboard by German ships between 1864 and 1933. And inside were official documents written by the captain of the ship, routes, coordinates, and other information. These early messages in a bottle were an attempt by the German Naval Observatory to map ocean around the world.
On the back of the notes were to write the time and place the bottles were found and return them to the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg or the nearest German authorities. Using this information for reference was an early system of studying patterns in nature and the vast ocean in particular.
A star athlete stopped by my office and she was eaten up by self-criticism after committing a few errors during a weekend match. "I'm at peak1 and I practise hard. How is this happening?" This student, like many I teach, believes she should be able to2the outcomes of her life by virtue of her hard work.
I study and write about resilience(复原力), and I'm noticing a(n)3increase in students like this athlete. When they win, they feel powerful and smart. When they fall short of what they imagine they should4, however, they are crushed by self-blame.
We talk often about young adults struggling with failure because their parents have protected them from5But there is something else at play among the most advantaged in particular: a6promise that they can achieve anything if they are willing to work for it.
Psychologists have sourced this phenomenon to a misapplication of "mind-set" research, which has found that praising children for7will increase academic performance. Developed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, mind-set education has spread across classrooms worldwide. But a 2018 analysis found that while praising hard work over ability may benefit economically disadvantaged students, it does not8help everyone.
One possible explanation comes from Nina Kumar, who argued in a research paper last year that for teens in wealthy, pressure-cooker communities, "It is not a 9of motivation and perseverance that is the big problem.10, it is unhealthy perfectionism and difficulty with backing off when they should, when the fierce drive for achievements is over the top." This can11physical and emotional stress. In a 2007 study, psychologists Gregory Miller determined that adolescent girls who refused to give up the 12goals showed elevated levels of CRP, a protein that serves as a marker of systemic inflammation(炎症)linked to diabetes, heart disease and other medical conditions.
The cruel reality is that you can do everything in your power and still fail. This knowledge comes early to underrepresented minorities whose experience of discrimination(歧视） and inequality teaches them to13what is, for now, largely beyond their control to change. Yet for others, the belief that success is always within their grasp is a setup. Instead of allowing our kids to beat themselves up when things don't go their way, we should all question a culture that has taught them that how they perform for others is more important than what 14inspires them and that where they go to college matters more than the kind of person they are. We should be wise to remind our kids that life has a way of disappointing us when we least15it. It's often the people who learn to say "stuff happens" who get up the fastest.
David Miles, an Australian inventor has been accused of cheating desperate farmers by charging up to $50,000 Australian dollars for delivering rain on demand without so much as explaining the technology behind his business.
On the official Miles Research website, Miles explains that in the 1990's he realized that it was possible to influence weather patterns by creating a bridge between 'the present' and a 'near-future event' in the physical space-time continuum. He found that by applying small amounts of energy intelligently, even a large, messy weather system approaching from the future could be eased.
While somewhat fascinating, Miles' explanation does little to explain how he is able to bring rainfall to the lands of farmers. He makes references to famous but debatable concepts like "the butterfly effect". "We were advised against patenting because it's basically exposing how it works. There are a lot of big companies that invest in hunting out patents," Miles said. "I understand the doubts, the only other way is to fully prove up our science and physics. If we did that, we'll lose it, it will be taken up as a national security interest and it'll then be weaponized."
Miles' claims raised suspicions for obvious reasons, including a since-deleted section of his company website, which claimed that his technology used "electromagnetic scalar waves", which scientists say don't even exist.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has warned people against doing business with him, but the Australian inventor claims the ACCC is only trying to defame him and his company, as in reality they are success based – if it doesn't rain, they don't get paid.
"Consumers signed the agreement that if by the end of June they receive 100mm, they pay $50,000, if they only receive 50mm, they would only pay $25,000. Anything under half, we don't want to be paid," Miles said of a handful of Wimmera farmers who agreed to take him up on his offer to deliver rain.
Believe it or not, one of the farmers who paid David Miles for his so-called rain-making capabilities told ABC Radio that he was quite happy with the results.
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How and why, roughly 2 million years ago, early human ancestors evolved large brains and began fashioning relatively advanced stone tools, is one of the great mysteries of evolution. Some researchers argue these changes were brought about by the invention of cooking. They point out that our bite weakened around the same time as our larger brains evolved, and that it takes less energy to absorb nutrients from cooked food. As a result, once they had mastered the art, early chefs could invest less in their digestive systems and thus invest the resulting energy savings in building larger brains capable of complex thought. There is, however, a problem with the cooking theory. Most archaeologists (考古学家) believe the evidence of controlled fire stretches back no more than 790,000 years.
Roger Summons of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a solution. Together with his team, he analyzed 1.7 million-year-old sandstones that formed in an ancient river at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. The region is famous for the large number of human fossils(化石)that have been discovered there, alongside an impressive assembly of stone tools. The sandstones themselves have previously yielded some of the world's earliest complex hand axes -- large tear-drop-shaped stone tools that are associated with Homo erectus(直立人). Creating an axe by repeatedly knocking thin pieces off a raw stone in order to create two sharp cutting edges requires a significant amount of planning. Their appearance is therefore thought to mark an important moment in intellectual evolution. Trapped inside the Olduvai sandstones, the researchers found distinctive but unusual biological molecules（分子）that are often interpreted as biomarkers for heat-tolerant bacteria. Some of these live in water between 85℃ and 95℃. The molecules' presence suggests that an ancient river within the Gorge was once fed by one or more hot springs.
Dr. Summons and his colleagues say the hot springs would have provided a convenient "pre-fire" means of cooking food. In New Zealand, the Maori have traditionally cooked food in hot springs, either by lowering it into the boiling water or by digging a hole in the hot earth. Similar methods exist in Japan and Iceland, so it is plausible, if difficult to prove, that early humans might have used hot springs to cook meat and roots. Richard Wrangham, who devised the cooking theory, is fascinated by the idea. Nonetheless, fire would have offered a distinct advantage to humans, once they had mastered the art of controlling it since, unlike a hot spring, it is a transportable resource.
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A. Those with a slower pace also scored less well in physical exercises such as hand-grip strength and biological markers of good health. B. There are already signs in early life of who would become the slowest walkers. C. In fact, based on a new series of experiments, they now believe the slower a person's tendency to walk, the less able their brain. D. Brain scanning during their final assessment at 45 showed the slower walkers tended to have lower total brain volume and less brain surface area. E. Until now, however, no one knew it could signify underlying brain health so much earlier in life. F. Researchers performed walking speed analysis on hundreds of middle-aged people, comparing their psychological results. |
Slower Walkers Have Slower Minds, Scientists Reveal
Of all human activities, few are so readily credited with enhancing the power of the mind as going for a good walk. However, those who assume that strolling along at a gentle pace is the symbol of superior intellect should think again, scientists have said.
Doctors have long used walking speed to gain a quick and reliable understanding of older people's mental capability, as it is increasingly recognized that pace is associated with not only muscular strength but also the central nervous system. The relationship was so obvious, however, that the US scientists now say walking tests could be used to provide an early indication of dementia(痴呆).
Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study revealed an average difference of 16 IQ points between the slowest and the fastest walkers at the age of 45. This reflected both the participants' natural walking speed and the pace they achieved when asked to walk as fast as they could. Actually, slower walkers were shown to have "speeded aging" on a 19-measure scale devised by researchers, and their lungs, teeth and immune systems tended to be in worse shape than the people who walked faster.
The 904 New Zealand men and women who were tested at 45 were tracked from the age of three, each undergoing multiple tests over the years. The long-term data collection enabled researchers to establish that kids with lower IQ scores, lower linguistic ability and weaker emotional control tended to have slower walking speeds by middle age. .
The research team said genetic factors may explain the link between walking speed, brain capacity and physical health or that better brain health might promote physical activity, leading to better walking speed. Some of the differences in health and intellect may be the result of lifestyle choices individuals have made.
The Psychology of Spending
Dr. Thomas Gilovich, psychology professor at Cornell University, has studied the psychology of spending for over 20 years. According to Dr. Gilovich, "We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed, but only for a while. New things are exciting to us at first, but then we adapt to them." In other words, once the freshness of our newest purchase wears off, we begin looking for something else to buy to make us happy.
Dr. Gilovich found that our satisfaction with possessions fades over time. Yet our happiness over things we've experienced increases. For that reason, he has concluded that we are spending our money on the wrong things. A study out of San Francisco State University agrees. The research showed that those people who spent money on experiences instead of possessions were happier. They also thought their money was better invested.
To begin with, activities like a trip, adventure, hobby, etc. tend to bring the participants together and unite them over a shared interest. According to Gilovich, "We consume experiences directly with other people." As a result, these experiences typically create a positive link and good feelings toward the other person or people.
Besides, your experience shows others who you are and what you are. For example, you might be someone who loves taking cooking classes. More than likely, you'll become known by friends and family as a great cook. They won't know you as someone who owns the latest kitchen equipment.
Lastly, planned experiences are frequently something we look forward to. Then when the moment arrives, if we enjoy the time involved in the activity, we're left with fond memories. These memories will often last a lifetime. Even our worst trips, on many occasions, are later remembered with laughter.
