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Science is committed to the universal. A sign of this is that the more successful a science becomes, the broader the agreement about its basic concepts. There is not a separate Chinese or American or Soviet thermodynamics, for example; there is simply thermodynamics. For several decades of the twentieth century there was a Western and a Soviet genetics, the latter associated with Lysenko’s theory that environmental stress can produce genetic mutations. Today Lysenko’s theory is discredited, and there is now only one genetics. As the corollary of science, technology also exhibits the universalizing tendency. This is why the spread of technology makes the world look ever more homogeneous. Architectural styles, dress styles, musical styles—even eating styles—tend increasingly to be world styles. The world looks more homogeneous because it is more homogeneous. Children who grow up in this world therefore experience it as a sameness rather than a diversity, and because their identities are shaped by this sameness, their sense of differences among cultures and individuals diminishes. As buildings become more alike, the people who inhabit the buildings become more alike. The result is described precisely in a phrase that is already familiar: the disappearance of history. The automobile illustrates the point with great clarity. A technological innovation like streamlining or allwelded body construction may be rejected initially, but if it is important to the efficiency, or economics of automobiles, it will reappear in different ways until it is not only accepted but universally regarded as an asset. Today’s automobile is no longer unique to a given company or even to a given national culture, its basic features are found, with variations, in automobiles in general, no matter who makes them. As in architecture, so in automaking. In a given cost range, the same technology tends to produce the same solutions. The visual evidence for this is as obvious for cars as for buildings. Today, if you choose models in the same price range, you will be hard put at 500 paces to tell one make from another. In other words, the specifically American traits that lingered in American automobiles in the 1960s—traits that linked American cars to American history—are disappearing. Even the Volkswagen Beetle has disappeared and has taken with it the visible evidence of the history of streamlining that extends from D’Arcy Thompson to Carl Breer to Ferdinand Porsche. If man creates machines, machines in turn shape their creators. As the automobile is universalized, it universalizes those who use it. Like the World Car he drives, modern man is becoming universal. No longer quite an individual, no longer quite the product of a unique geography and culture, he moves from one climatecontrolled shopping mall to another, one airport to the next, from one Holiday Inn to its successor three hundred miles down the road; but somehow his location never changes. He is cosmopolitan. The price he pays is that he no longer has a home in the traditional sense of the word. The benefit is that he begins to suspect home on the traditional sense is another name for limitations, and that home in the modern sense is everywhere and always surrounded by neighbors. When a science is becoming more advanced,
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The human nose is an underrated tool. Humans are often thought to be insensitive smellers compared with animals, (31) this is largely because, (32) animals, we stand upright. This means that our noses are (33) to perceiving those smells which float through the air, (34) the majority of smells which stick to surfaces. In fact, (35) , we are extremely sensitive to smells, (36) we do not generally realize it. Our noses are capable of (37) human smells even when these are (38) to far below one part in one million. Strangely, some people find that they can smell one type of flower but not another, (39) others are sensitive to the smells of both flowers. This may be because some people do not have the genes necessary to generate (40) smell receptors in the nose. These receptors are the cells which sense smells and send (41) to the brain. However, it has been found that even people insensitive to a certain smell (42) can suddenly become sensitive to it when (43) to it often enough. The explanation for insensitivity to smell seems to be that the brain finds it (44) to keep all smell receptors working all the time but can (45) new receptors if necessary. This may (46) explain why we are not usually sensitive to our own smells—we simply do not need to be. We are not (47) of the usual smell of our own house, but we (48) new smells when we visit someone else’s. The brain finds it best to keep smell receptors (49) for unfamiliar and emergency signals (50) the smell of smoke, which might indicate the danger of fire.
Although numbers of animals in a given region may fluctuate from year to year, the fluctuations are often temporary and, over long periods, trivial. Scientists have advanced three theories of population control to account for this relative constancy. The first theory attributes a relatively constant population to periodic climatic catastrophes that decimate populations with such frequency as to prevent them from exceeding some particular limit. In the case of small organisms with short life cycles, climatic changes need not be catastrophic: normal seasonal changes in photoperiod (daily amount of sunlight), for example, can govern population growth. This theory—the density independent view—asserts that climatic factors exert the same regulatory effect on population regardless of the number of individuals in a region. A second theory argues that population growth is primarily density-dependent—that is, the rate of growth of a population in a region decreases as the number of animals increases. The mechanisms that manage regulation may vary. For example, as numbers increase, the food supply would probably diminish, which would increase mortality. In addition, as Lotka and Volterra have shown, predators can find prey more easily in high-density populations. Other regulators include physiological control mechanisms: for example, Christian and Davis have demonstrated how the crowding that results from a rise in numbers may bring about hormonal changes in the pituitary (垂体) and adrenal glands (肾上腺) that in turn may regulate population by lowering sexual activity and inhibiting sexual maturation. There is evidence that these effects may persist for three generations in the absence of the original provocation. One challenge for density-dependent theorists is to develop models that would allow the precise prediction of the effects of crowding. A third theory, proposed by Wynne-Edwards and termed "epideictic", argues that organisms have evolved a "code" in the form of social or epideictic behavior displays, such as winter roosting aggregations or group vocalizing; such codes provide organisms with information on population size in a region so that they can, if necessary, exercise reproductive restraint. However, Wynne-Edwards’ theory, linking animal social behavior and population control, has been challenged, with some justification, by several studies. Which of the following may be a density-independent factor that affects animal population
Questions 29 and 30 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions. Now, listen to the news. When did the term lobbyist become popular
Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now, listen to the passage. Jules Verne’s descriptions about future inventions were
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