Understanding how nature responds to climate change will require monitoring key life cycle events—flowering, the appearance of leaves, the first frog calls of the spring—all around the world. But ecologists can’t be everywhere so they’re turning to non-scientists, sometimes called citizen scientists, for help.
Climate scientists are not present everywhere. Because there are so many places in the world and not enough scientists to observe all of them, they’re asking for your help in observing signs of climate change across the world. The citizen scientist movement encourages ordinary people to observe a very specific research interest—birds, trees, flowers budding, etc.—and send their observations to a giant database to be observed by professional scientists. This helps a small number of scientists track a large amount of data that they would never be able to gather on their own. Much like citizen journalists helping large publicat
A. to provide their personal life cycles
B. to observe the life cycle of plants
C. to collect data of the life cycle of living things
D. to teach children knowledge about climate change
| Nature has devised many ways to protect
creatures’ eyes. The most common protection is the eyelid--a fold of skin that
closes over the eye, protecting it from damage. Eyelashes are useful for keeping
out dust and other irritants, and tears wash away any particles that get through
the other defenses. Some creatures, including most birds, have three eyelids. The upper and lower lids act like human lids and keep out twigs, dirt and sand. The third eyelid, however, is a semitransparent tissue that crosses over the eye from the inside corner to the outside corner. Because of this protective membrane, birds seldom have to blink. They close their eyes only when they go to sleep. In ducks, this third eyelid self as an underwater diving mask that helps the ducks find food. Most fish and snakes have no eyelids at all. Instead, a har A. to keep windblown sand out of its eyes B. that get in the way of its sight C. to help it see better D. to attract other camels [单项选择]The Nature of Civilizations
During the Cold War the world was divided into the First, Second and Third Worlds. Those divisions are no longer relevant. It is far more meaningful now to group countries not in terms of their political or economic systems or in terms of their level of economic development but rather in terms of their culture and civilization.
What do we mean when we talk of a civilization A civilization is a cultural entity. Villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups, all have distinct cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity. The culture of a village in southern Italy may be different from that of a village in northern Italy, but both will share in a common Italian culture that distinguishes them from German villages. European communities, in turn, will share cultural features that distinguish them form Arab or Chinese communities. Arabs, Chinese and Westerners, however, are not part of any broader cultural entity. They constitute civilizations. A civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans form other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people. People can and do redefine their identities and, as a result, the composition and boundaries of civilizations change.
Civilizations may involve a large number of people, as with China("a civilization pretending to be a state," as Lucian Pye put it), or a very small number of people, such as the Anglophone Caribbean. A civilization may include several nation states, as is the case with Western, Latin American and Arab civilizations, or only one, as is the case with Japanese civilization. Civilizations obviously blend and overlay, and may include sub civilizations. Western civilization has two major variants, European and North American, and Islam has its Arab, Turkic and Malay subdivisions. Civilizations are nonetheless meaningful entities, and while the lines between them are seldom sharp, they are real. Civilizations are dynamic; they rise and fall; they divide and merge. And, as any student of history knows, civilizations disappear and are buried in the sands of time.
Westerners tend to think of nation states as the principal actors in global affairs.
They have been that, however, for only a few centuries. The broader reaches of human history have been the history of civilizations. In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee identified 21 major civilizations; only six of them exist in the contemporary world.It can be inferred from the passage that the author of this passage______the following statement: "Westerners tend to think of nation states as the principal actors in global affairs."
A. agrees with B. disagrees with C. detests D. does not mention if he agrees or not with 我来回答: 提交
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