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。
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学英语单词
abducens oris
acupuncture and moxibustion prescription
arrested topographic wave
base of a vector space
Bast-parenchyma
bmt (basic motion time study)
bottle packing paper
broad hint
celltype
Ceropegia stenophylla
chernyy irtysh
childrearing
circumferencing
come into the market
coupling loop
cumbies
curb-roof
dallaways
darrel
designer's load waterline
diplodocoids
environment economy
fabaliss
father-long-legs
fetoglobulin
flowmeter counter
going-concern principle
gospa
ground guidance computer
half-first cousins
history of buffering of input/output
Hold your row!
Holy I.
Honolulu
incomplete fertilizer
interest lag
intermelling
intersection of set algebra
invalid chairs
jewel orchids
kahana
kolibri
late-nighter
laying waste
liquid scintillation counting (LSC)
machine for enamel(l)ing
metsons
middle a rope
monitor signal
Morison
movie enterprise statistics
musculus intermedius scutulorum
narrow-gate pulse
nativelikeness
neossin
oddity discrimination
Olānpāra
outbearing
Owen Glendower
pachydactyly
Partry
peraction
Peňa da Francia, Sa.de la
plug gauge (gauge)
polymetacarpia
pomm
projection mask aligner
protable mold
pypkin
reactiveness
redcrossed
residue by distillation
rheomodes
runner's trots
Sankt Veit an der Glan
secondary reflecting image
Senetosa, Capu di
shared control
sheet pilings
siccative oil
sick field
silver-tin amalgam
spontaneous atlanto-axial dislocation
strain energy theory
strategic transitions
stress power
stylistic features
surface breakdown
swooneth
Tachysterin
ternated leaf
time of setting up a call
torricelli vacuum
tough rubber sheathed cable
urophasianus
uses and trusts
valvular pulmonary stenosis
vertical scale factor
vertivert oil
Wargalo
wembleys
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