时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:Scientific American(一)月


英语课

What was around the bend in rivers hundreds of millions of years ago? It’s a trick question—because there weren’t any bends. Ancient rivers were typically just wide, sheetlike flows of water. New reports in the journals Geology and Earth-Science Reviews say we can thank the very first landlubbing plants for putting the turn in the river.


Researchers from Dalhousie University examined dozens of sites, from the Channel Islands off France to Death Valley. They say that well before dinosaurs 1 or, really, much of anything roamed the Earth, rivers were just vast expanses of water heeding 2 only gravity and heading straight to sea.


The first vascular 3 plants took advantage of the abundant water, and put down roots. The roots began to hold sediment 4 in place. Thus the riverbank was born and waterways began to get thinner and more defined. The communities of Paleozoic plants congregated 5 at the water’s edge and began to colonize 6 the Earth’s surface.


Over the next 50 million years this co-evolution of flora 7 and flow led to the meandering 8 rivers we know today, and a barren landscape made lush. And, also, the seven-dollar toll 9 to cross the Hudson on the George Washington Bridge.


 


—Adam Hinterthuer


 



1 dinosaurs
n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 );守旧落伍的人,过时落后的东西
  • The brontosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. 雷龙是所有恐龙中最大的一种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. 恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
2 heeding
v.听某人的劝告,听从( heed的现在分词 )
  • This come of heeding people who say one thing and mean another! 有些人嘴里一回事,心里又是一回事,今天这个下场都是听信了这种人的话的结果。 来自辞典例句
  • Her dwarfish spouse still smoked his cigar and drank his rum without heeding her. 她那矮老公还在吸他的雪茄,喝他的蔗酒,睬也不睬她。 来自辞典例句
3 vascular
adj.血管的,脉管的
  • The mechanism of this anomalous vascular response is unknown.此种不规则的血管反应的机制尚不清楚。
  • The vascular changes interfere with diffusion of nutrients from plasma into adjacent perivascular tissue and cells.这些血管变化干扰了营养物质从血浆中向血管周围邻接的组织和细胞扩散。
4 sediment
n.沉淀,沉渣,沉积(物)
  • The sediment settled and the water was clear.杂质沉淀后,水变清了。
  • Sediment begins to choke the channel's opening.沉积物开始淤塞河道口。
5 congregated
(使)集合,聚集( congregate的过去式和过去分词 )
  • The crowds congregated in the town square to hear the mayor speak. 人群聚集到市镇广场上来听市长讲话。
  • People quickly congregated round the speaker. 人们迅速围拢在演说者的周围。
6 colonize
v.建立殖民地,拓殖;定居,居于
  • Around 700 Arabs began to colonize East Africa.公元700年阿拉伯人开始把东非变为殖民地。
  • Japan used to colonize many countries in Asia.日本曾经殖民过许多亚洲国家。
7 flora
n.(某一地区的)植物群
  • The subtropical island has a remarkably rich native flora.这个亚热带岛屿有相当丰富的乡土植物种类。
  • All flora need water and light.一切草木都需要水和阳光。
8 meandering
蜿蜒的河流,漫步,聊天
  • The village seemed deserted except for small boys and a meandering donkey. 整个村子的人都像是逃光了,只留下了几个小男孩和一头正在游游荡荡的小毛驴。 来自教父部分
  • We often took a walk along the meandering river after supper. 晚饭后我们常沿着那条弯弯曲曲的小河散步。
9 toll
n.过路(桥)费;损失,伤亡人数;v.敲(钟)
  • The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
  • The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。
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.cnf
accruement
aerial inductance
afetal pregnancy
al-naimi
alkaline denaturation
anesthesiology
angular bevel gear pair
annunciator system
antempered
apparent storage
archaeobotany
auxiliary feedwater pump
balance patch
chimney-pieces
contract labo(u)r
crest of tibia
Cycas szechuanensis
cylinder separator
design pattern
determining work method
Dienheim
dimension of closed grab
dimethylpolysiloxanes
discount of bill
dismore
Display Data Channel
diveroli
dorsispinal veios
doussepers
drain control device
EBITA
economization on man power
espousers
EthD-1
exercise of right
eyelet fabric
febli
file transliteration
filippinoes
fimbrilla
floating point underflow trap
free alongside ship
gave instructions to
glycolpropylene
good sense
health physics research reactor
Herba Duchesnea Indica
highest-quintile
homomolecular preteins
horn-book
imprisonment reaction
in the crowd
in-house counsels
inholdings
joseph goebbelss
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Majorana microphone
marriage ceremonies
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opposingly
Ourofane
peak demand capacity
plant operations control center
pollute with
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pseudo random number
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read/write random-access memory
rectangular-shaped pulse
registered trust company
religious movement
resource planning
revive a barred right
right half back
rocketmakers
sambaqui
self-supporting capacity of surrounding rock
sentence accent
shallow-pocket classifier
sliding slot linkage
spark igniter
submerged arc
superhots
swooshed
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taspinic acid
top of overcast
transverse stratification
undulation
unmixedness factor
variable phase shifter
WNLF
xonvergiometer
Yekaterininka