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
?-scintillation
acalolepta grossescapa
acheampong
aco1
Amboina button
amuni
Angkor
arginine-glycinetransamidinase
arturian
assimilative sulfate reduction
asynchronous communication interface
atomic paramagnetism
bloody shames
boiler control system
bone house
buncoes
butterbur
cat nip
catalytic coal gasification
center of driving resistance
comparative information
craxes
debt deflation
dense lymphoid tissue
dilapidated
drift sand
ebooks
eddied
elastic network(s)
electronic distance measuring device
endwise mismatch
eterylate
Everything in the garden is rosy .
falconry
fancy diagonals
flibber gibber
florentinas
flow control meter
funnel weavers
general internment
Greinerville
Hedmark Fylke
hopfnerite
hot-air heating
hydroblading
hypromellose
immediate and deffered credit
jerusalem sages
kalaemia
kheta r.
killbots
kilomegabit
lamellifer
lbsen
lenzite
lianpu drink
long offset addressing
master of one's destiny
mean acceleration
mega-hits
message meter
metallic reducing agent
metaphire schmardae schmardae
mitrephora maingayi hook.f. et thomas.
money-bag
Mountains of the Moon
muggin
multicoes
naquas
oceloid
OJI
oolala
Osler-Weber-Rendu
packstring
pakeha Maori
parallel product
paraquets
photoresistor-cell relay
physo-
pied-billed grebes
playford dances (england)
plow steel wire rope
podsols
privileged job
proton activation analysis(PAA)
relocation table
renal glomerulus
rip entry
rishi
sectionalizing switch
Sight-seeing launch
ST_business_selling
stabilizing
submarine seepages
to do one's exercises
torsion of pedunculated fibroid
triethyl phosphate
unspecificity
vapourization temperature
Vigonza
welder's hand shield