雅思课外读物--摩肯族孩子水下视力的奥秘

Gislen wondered whether the Moken children had a genetic anomaly(异常)to thank for their ability to see underwater or whether it was just down to practice. (Gilsen不知道，摩肯族孩子的水下视力到底是由于基因异常原因，还是练习的原因。)To find out, she asked a group of European children on holiday in Thailand, and a group of children in Sweden to take part in training sessions, in which they dived underwater and tried to work out the direction of lines on a card. After 11 sessions across one month, both groups had attained(获得;达到)the same underwater acuity(敏锐，敏度)as the Moken children.

“It was different for each child, but at some point their vision would just suddenly improve,” says Gislen. “I asked them whether they were doing anything different and they said, ‘No, I can just see better now’.”

She did notice, however, that the European kids would experience red eyes, irritated(刺激;惹怒)by the salt in the water, whereas the Moken children appeared to have no such problem. “So perhaps there is some adaptation there that allows them to dive down 30 times without any irritation,” she says.

Gislen recently returned to Thailand to visit the Moken tribes, but things had changed dramatically. In 2004, a tsunami(海啸)created by a giant earthquake within the Indian Ocean destroyed much of the Moken’s homeland. Since then, the Thai government has worked hard to move them onto the land, building homes that are further inland and employing members of the tribe to work in the National Park. “It’s difficult,” says Gislen. “You want to help keep people safe and give them the best parts of modern culture, but in doing so they lose their own culture.”

In unpublished work, Gislen tested the same kids that were in her original experiment. The Moken children, now in their late teens, were still able to see clearly underwater. She wasn’t able to test many adults as they were too shy, but she is certain that they would have lost the ability to see underwater as they got older. “The adult eye just isn’t capable of that amount of accommodation,” she says.

Unfortunately, the children in Gislen’s experiments may be the last of the tribe to possess the ability to see so clearly underwater. “They just don’t spend as much time in the sea anymore,” she says, “so I doubt that any of the children that grow up these days in the tribe have this extraordinary vision.”

Vocabulary

dolphin 海豚

archipelago 群岛

tribe 部落

nomad 流浪汉

accessible 可以使用的，可以获得的

integrate 集成;融入

vertical 垂直的

horizontal 水平的

refract 折射

convert 改变

immerse 浸入;沉浸

blurry 模糊的

manipulation 操控

pupil 瞳孔

anomaly 异常

attain 获得;达到

acuity 敏度

irritate 使生气;使受刺激

tsunami 海啸

读真题，记词汇

These misconceptions do not remain isolated but become incorporated into a multifaceted, but organized, conceptual framework, making it and the component ideas, some of which are erroneous, more robust but also accessible to modification.(剑4T1P1)

参考译文：这些错误观点不是孤立存在的，而是被融合到一个多层面、有组织的概念框架内，从而使这个框架以及组成框架的那些观点(其中一些观点是错误的)显得更有依据，但也更容易得到纠正。

This objective, agreed by the Gothenburg European Council, has to be achieved by integrating environmental considerations into Community policies, and shifting the balance between modes of transport lies at the heart of its strategy. (剑10T1P2)

参考译文：歌德堡理事会一致通过，此目标的实现需将对环境因素的考虑同国际社会的政策结合起来，并且需要调整交通方式之间的平衡，因为交通方式是此目标的战略核心。

Another strange feature of the Japanese pagoda is that, because the building tapers, with each successive floor plan being smaller than the one below, none of the vertical pillars that carry the weight of the building is connected to its corresponding pillar above.(剑7T2P1)

参考译文：日本宝塔另外一个奇怪特征就是没有一根承重立柱能和上层相应的立柱连在一起，这是因为日本宝塔每一层的楼层面都比下一层的要小，宝塔于是从下往上逐渐变细。

The history of human civilisation is entwined with the history of the ways we have learned to manipulate water resources.(剑7T1P2)

参考译文：人类文明史与我们学习如何使用水资源的过程息息相关。

This is the process by which plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon from soil or water into organic material for growth. (剑5T4P3)

参考译文：在这个过程中，植物利用来自太阳的能量，将土地或是水里的碳转化为植物生长所需的有机物质。

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