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Koalas, an Australian tree-climbing animal, are very particular about what they eat, devoting themselves entirely to a diet of the leaves of eucalyptus trees. But there are problems associated with an exclusive diet of leaves, especially if, like the koala, you happen to be a relatively small animal. One of these problems is that the leaves of trees are rich in fibre, and so resist digestion. Eucalyptus leaves are worse than most, for they contain large amounts of lignin, the indigestible, woody material found in the cell walls of many plants. But there is another drawback for the koala. The ratio of an animal’s gut volume to its energy requirements depends on body mass; the smaller it is, the lower the ratio. So tiny leaf-eaters are likely to have difficulty processing sufficient quantities of their poor-quality food to meet their metabolic needs. S. J. Cork and T. J. Dawson of the University of New South Wales and I. D. Hume of the University of New England have made a study of the koala’s digestion. They have identified three major factors that allow koalas to exploit its fibre-laden diet. In the first place, the koala has a discerning digestive system; like the rabbit, it can regulate the passage of food through its gut in a way that discriminates between particles of different sizes. The alimentary canal retains and solutes smaller, more digestible particles, while expelling unwanted, coarser matter. This is probably a space-saving exercise; it has the effect of increasing the rate at which raw material can be fed into the system. The second factor behind the koala’s success is that it has a low overall requirement for metabolic energy, compared to other Australian animals of similar size. So it saves on its fuel needs. In this respect, the koala is not dissimilar to another slow-moving, leaf eating mammal, the three-toed sloth. Thirdly, eucalyptus leaves have hidden qualities. Despite the large quantity of lignin, such leaves are rich in digestible energy -especially in the form of fatty substances. Not all such resources are available to the koala’s metabolic machinery; essential oils are passed out, for example. But some fatty substances are available, as are sugar and starch. It is these compounds that satisfy the bulk of the koala’s energy needs. Surprisingly, constituents of the eucalyptus’s cell walls, such as cellulose, are less important. Some cellulose is digested, but the koala’s accomplishments in this field do not rival those of other animals that reshow. One of the problems of eating too much of tree leaves is that
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患者男，21岁。汉族，初中文化，干部，未婚。因情绪低落、不语、独处伴自杀行为2个月，于2008年4月18日入院。于2个月前从外地出差回来后，开始向朋友借钱达2万多元，然后去很多地方游玩、购物，在钱花光后患者开始发愁，不知怎样向朋友交代，之后开始心烦、闷闷不乐，说话逐渐减少，变得沉默寡言，问话不答或问多答少。活动明显减少，常把自己关在房间不出来，后喝敌敌畏自杀，经医院抢救康复。但回家后，仍不语，不外出，活动减少，整天呆坐或卧床懒动，不换衣服，不洗脸，不修边幅。不愿出门，不肯见人。进食需要家人催促或喂食，但食量很少，每日只吃一小碗饭，甚至不吃，体重明显下降。睡眠明显减少，早上2～3点钟就醒来，再也不能入睡。曾到某医院做过心理咨询，为求进一步治疗，故来就诊。 此患者睡眠的特点为
A new variety of sugar cane, bred from crosses of ordinary cultivated strains with a wild type found in Argentina, could become an important source of energy as well as sugar. Two conditions need to be fulfilled to make it worthwhile to cultivate an agricultural crop for energy. The crop must be easy to harvest and process, and it must be high-yielding. On both these counts, sugar cane is ideal: the technology for harvesting and milling has been thoroughly tested over the years, and sugar cane is one of the most productive plants ever recorded. Professor Mike Giamalva and his colleagues at Louisiana State University have now produced a plant that is super-productive. Their new variety grows to 3.6 metres high. On experimental plots, it gives yields of 253 tons per hectare -equal to the highest yield of any plant recorded. But even this record has been exceeded. On good soil, yields may reach 321 tons per hectare. Another advantage of Giamalva’s new strain of sugar cane is its high fibre content. Traditionally, researchers have selected strains that produce large amounts of juice rich in sugar, and low quantities of fibre. The fibre is either discarded, or sometimes burnt as fuel. The new sugar cane gives exceptional quantities of fibre for only modest amounts of juice. When it comes from the mill, the bagasse has about 70 per cent of the heat content of wood, or 30-40 per cent of that of coal. Burning bagasse to provide energy is not a new idea. Many sugar factories throughout the world are now self-sufficient in energy, while some, for example, in Mauritius, Hawaii and South Africa, "export" electricity to the national grid. Mauritius currently gets around 10 per cent of its electricity from sugar factories. However, in Louisiana local farmers are unwilling to grow the cane until they have a guaranteed market. Yet industrialists will not invest in the new fuel until they have a constant supply. And only local factories may be able to exploit cane because, being bulky, it is costly to transport. One way of overcoming this problem would be to dry the fibrous residue and compact it. Work on compacting fibrous residue is now under way in several research centres. Whether compacting will pay its way will depend on the local situation and the cost of alternative energy supplies. A study carried out by Fay Baguant from the University of Mauritius showed that electricity could be produced there from fibrous residue about twice as cheaply as from oil or coalfired stations. The new variety can be grown with ordinary sugar cane or with other crops to provide energy for processing. It can be compressed and burned as a substitute for charcoal. Or it can be incorporated into paper, cardboard and fibreboard. Brazil, with its fleet of cars running almost entirely on alcohol fuel extracted from sugar cane, already has shown that the plant has the potential to alter radically a country’s agricultural sector. Why are Louisiana farmers reluctant to grow sugar cane
The new-technology revolution in American newspapers has brought increased circulations, a wider range of publications and an expansion of newspaper jobs in spite of reduced manning in the composing rooms. Payrolls in the publishing industry more than doubled in a decade from $3.1 billion in 1972 to $6.3 billion in 1981. Capital investment, largely as a result of re-equipment with new technology, doubled from $554m in 1972 to $1.02 billion in 1981. Circulation of weekly newspapers has grown from 21m in 1960 to 49m in 1985. Big city dailies have remained relatively static, with total circulation going from 58m to 63m. Sunday papers, though, have grown more dramatically from 8.6m to 56m. This reflects the trend toward specialisation. Growth has been especially strong in the number and circulation of suburban and small-community newspapers. In 1965 there were only 357 semi-weekly papers; in 1982, 508. There has also been a dramatic rise in newspapers circulating nationwide something that hardly existed in the old days. The Wall Street Journal is producing regional editions that have catapulted it into becoming the nation’s largest-circulation newspaper, a role formerly held by the New York Daily News. In addition, USA Today and the New York Times have used technological advances, particularly satellite-delivery of pages to regional production facilities, to achieve unprecedented growth. A number of daily papers have added Sunday editions -made possible through the new technology in response to demand from advertisers. Total newspaper employment, according to government statistics, rose from 345,000 in 1965 to 443,000 in 1984 and that figure does not fully cover the multitude of local papers. But the International Typographical Union, which formerly had a firm grip on nearly all printing jobs, has shrunk from over 100,000 in 1967 to 40,000 today, of whom about 4,000 are in fact retired members. The prospect is that the union may be reduced to 5,000 members in the near future. According to Jim Cesnik of the 33,000-member journalists’ union, the Newspaper Guild, employment of journalists has grown but not to the same extent as that of sales people pushing advertising and circulation. The guild, however, has few members on the small local papers. The New York Times spent $2m on radio advertising to boost home-delivery of the paper in the first nine months of 1985 -a campaign responding to a fall in the number of streetside news-stands. The general growth in circulations has helped increase advertising revenue among dailies from $15 billion in 1965 to $66 billion in 1982. An interesting development noted by Charles Cole, a consultant to the 1,375-member American Newspaper Publishers Association, is that local newspapers have expanded their news-gathering teams, and some now send people abroad as well as having representatives in many American cities. Other departments in papers have also advanced, according to Cole. For example, mail rooms of many newspapers employ up to 25% more people handling the national advertising inserts that have become common. However, more automatic machinery may well reduce manning here. From paragraph 6, we learn that the International Typographical Union
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