时间:2019-02-16 作者:英语课 分类:英语听力文摘 English Digest


英语课

  Most people who hold babies know that the moment babies go to sleep, they seem to gain weight. Of course, a baby’s weight doesn’t really change when they fall asleep, so why does the limp, floppy 1 weight of a sleeping baby seem greater than it actually is?

A sleeping baby in your arms feels heavier because you must constantly adjust your own movements to compensate 2 for their floppiness 3. Your muscles work harder to carry a child who’s asleep, and your brain perceives this increase in work as an increase in the child’s weight, though, of course, the weight of the baby stays the same.

To picture this, think about carrying a twenty-pound bag of water. You would continually have to rearrange how you were holding that bag to make up for how the weight shifted due to the water sloshing around.

In a similar way, you must continually adjust how you are holding or carrying a sleeping baby because they aren’t able to control their own muscles to maintain a steady posture 4. Their inability to control their posture and movements makes them floppy, just like that bag of water.

Now, freeze your twenty-pound bag of water. Though it would be cold and slippery, it would feel lighter 5 because it is a solid weight that doesn’t require you to constantly make minute adjustments in order to carry it. This is how you perceive the weight of a conscious person.

Babies aren’t the only ones who seem heavier when they go limp. Dogs and cats also seem to gain weight when they go to sleep. And political protesters take advantage of this phenomenon by completely relaxing their muscles when police try to drag them away from a protest.

limp:无精神的

floppy:松软的

slippery:滑的



adj.松软的,衰弱的
  • She was wearing a big floppy hat.她戴了顶松软的大帽子。
  • Can you copy those files onto this floppy disk?你能把那些文件复制到这张软盘上吗?
vt.补偿,赔偿;酬报 vi.弥补;补偿;抵消
  • She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
  • Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。
n.姿势,姿态,心态,态度;v.作出某种姿势
  • The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
  • He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣,摆出一副打架的架势。
n.打火机,点火器;驳船;v.用驳船运送;light的比较级
  • The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色,色调明朗了一些。
  • The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。
学英语单词
Abelian function
acamylophenine
adverse situation
agc amplifiers
air aperture
angiosperm
anti-curl cutter fax
astroimagers
astrophotometry
automatic digital recording and control
barreres
be easy prey
be peeved
berrettas
beta scintillation spectrometer
betacytotropic
Boost Converter
Buprestis sibirica
calibrator of accelerometer
capsule of cricothyroid joint
ciprostene
classically trained
combined aural and visual alarm
concentric line
configuration interval
consolidated taxation
cotswold hillss
dcps
decimeter-wave tube
dodonas
Dow Sar
Drexel Hill
dry adiabats
Dumfries sandstone
ental membrane
feed variator
finit precision number
fluoroethylene
fryer
fused magnesia
gettime
gmag
golnick
gruel
heaver
holotrichia horishana niijimaet kinoshita
horizontal keying pulse
hybrid fiber coaxial network
john lennons
laboratory phonetics
lead computing gun mode
lead deposits
maggotts
magnetic flip-flop
Malacanthidae
master trust scheme
mould sb like wax
naturalization right
nearshore waters
no amount policy
off-shore bar
oneiric
optical visual binary
overall indicator
paurometabolism
phase balance relay
physical mass unit
pit furnace
plywood parquet
pull the fat out of the fire
Queen of heaven
rate of descent
reconnaissance exploitation report
red borer
repairing mass
rock forming minerals
roulston
salable condition
sclerotizing
security device
self-identify
shetley
Siebengebirge
simple tubuloacinar gland
slategray
special language
synchronized diving
takeoff altitude
Thaify
thoracoacromial artery
Toleran
trivage
trombonist
turband
Tyrrhene, Tyrrhenian
vapour-phase system
vertical bracing
vibroacoustic monitoring
wasabis
yots