时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:Scientific American(七)月


英语课

This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin. This will take just a minute.


What’s in a neck? Well, it’s a good place to hang a pendant or a tie. Or to rest your head. Now scientists say that by separating our heads from our bodies, the neck gave our brains a leg up in evolution. Their findings appear in the online journal Nature Communications.


Not all animals have necks. A fish's head is pretty much continuous with its body. And a fish gets around just fine. Nerves based in the fish’s brain instruct its fins 1 to move, and off it goes.


But something happened when our aquatic 2 ancestors first slithered onto the land. The source of the nerve cells that power the animals’ forelimbs shifted, from the brain down to the spinal 3 cord. That move allowed the body to grow more distant from the head, taking the arms with it. And so the neck was born.


That neck, say the scientists, was more than just a way to keep the head off the shoulders. The anatomical relocation improved dexterity 4 by leaving the arms free to move in new ways. And the resulting flexibility 5 helped shape the evolution of our heads and our hands, and how we can use them together to do all sorts of nifty things—like tie a perfect Windsor knot.


Thanks for the minute for Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin



1 fins
[医]散热片;鱼鳍;飞边;鸭掌
  • The level of TNF-α positively correlated with BMI,FPG,HbA1C,TG,FINS and IRI,but not with SBP and DBP. TNF-α水平与BMI、FPG、HbA1C、TG、FINS和IRI呈显著正相关,与SBP、DBP无相关。 来自互联网
  • Fins are a feature specific to fish. 鱼鳍是鱼类特有的特征。 来自辞典例句
2 aquatic
adj.水生的,水栖的
  • Aquatic sports include swimming and rowing.水上运动包括游泳和划船。
  • We visited an aquatic city in Italy.我们在意大利访问过一个水上城市。
3 spinal
adj.针的,尖刺的,尖刺状突起的;adj.脊骨的,脊髓的
  • After three days in Japan,the spinal column becomes extraordinarily flexible.在日本三天,就已经使脊椎骨变得富有弹性了。
  • Your spinal column is made up of 24 movable vertebrae.你的脊柱由24个活动的脊椎骨构成。
4 dexterity
n.(手的)灵巧,灵活
  • You need manual dexterity to be good at video games.玩好电子游戏手要灵巧。
  • I'm your inferior in manual dexterity.论手巧,我不如你。
5 flexibility
n.柔韧性,弹性,(光的)折射性,灵活性
  • Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
  • The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。
标签: SSS 托福听力
学英语单词
acuated
Alpinia pricei
amaranthus hypochondriacuss
anorogenic time
antidimming ointment
armouring cables wire
avulsion of the bulb
base path
baton dance
bauchman
Benbecula
billones
billy-le-grand
blazered
Bothwell, James Hepburn
boulezs
capsulae olei viticis nequndo
causal network
Chungsan
cleaning of meter
conscious-practice method
containerful
cooling water circulation system
Copyright Act
cornfactors
crooked chisel
cutting compound
daily husbandry
dead man's eyes
dead mould casting
description of final design
distributng slide valve
dual rates
electric crane
electroantennographically
embedded pointer
engine driven pick up baler
failure circuit
fault clearance
flow region
FM receiver
General Fault
give strength
grzimeks
handshake transceiver unit
hemilaryngectomy
hempen swab
hot-pressed ferrite
indirect clock control
injection heparin
ivimey
labelled common block
LCD types
linear isotherm
littoraria coccinea
marginal community
Matagami
mean tidal range
measuring truck
microprosopous fetus
modified alkyd resin
monitor control panel
night eyes
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin
nnadine
no-load steam loss
office expenses account
operation guidance
Oriental Republic of Uruguay
parapophysis
phonotranstwduce
plain film
pozzuolanic
pseudocalamobius niisatoi
Quilp
racial differences
represented
republics of bolivia
resistance electro-slag welding
retractor
rhizomyids
river basin morphology
rosendo
Sea Shadow
sector lock
segment overlay
self-oppression
snags
spot size divergence
springbeam
surface roughening
tenaplate
TG
the american way
trachinotuss
trimethyl-isoalloxazine
underweighting
uniformly varying stress
unrepetitive
venae conjunctivales
Watauga L.
wool tricot lining