【正文】 on dead cows. In India, cows are sacred animals and are traditionally left in the open6 when they die in their thousands upon thousands every year. The disappearance of the vultures has led to an explosion in the numbers of wild dogs feeding on the remains of these dead animals. There are fears that rabies may increase as a result. And this terrifying disease may ultimately affect humans in the region, since wild dogs are its main carriers. Rabies could also spread to other animal species, causing an even greater problem in the future . The need for action is urgent , so an emergency project has been launched to find a solution to this serious vulture problem. Scientists are trying to identify the disease causing the birds‘ deaths and, if possible, develop a cure. Largescale vulture deaths were first noticed at the end of the 1980s in India. A population survey at that time showed that the three species of vultures had declined by over 90 per cent. All three species are now listed as critically endangered. As most vultures lay only single eggs and take about five years to reach maturity, reversing their population decline will be a long and difficult exercise. 第九篇 Wonder Webs【奇妙的網(wǎng)】 Spider webs are more than homes, and they are ingenious traps. And the world‘s best web spinner may be the Golden Orb Weaver spider. The female Orb Weaver spins a web of fibers thin enough to be invisible to insect prey, yet tough enough to snare a flying bird without breaking. The secret of the web‘s strength? A type of superresilient silk called dragline. When the female spider is ready to weave the web‘s spokes and frame, she uses her legs to draw the airy thread out through a hollow nozzle in her belly. Dragline is not sticky, so the spider can race back and forth along it to spin the web‘s trademark spiral. Unlike some spiders that weave a new web every day, a Golden Orb Weaver reuses her handiwork until it falls apart, sometimes not for two years. The silky thread is five times stronger than steel by weight and absorbs the force of an impact three times better than Kevlar, a highstrength humanmade material used in bulletproof vests. And thanks to its high tensile strength, or the ability to resist breaking under the pulling force called tension, a single strand can stretch up to 40 percent longer than its original length and snap back as well as new. No humanmade fiber even es close . It is no wonder manufacturers are clamoring for spider silk. In the consumer pipeline: Highperformance fabrics for athletes and stockings that never run. Think parachute cords and suspension bridge cables. A steady supply of spider silk would be worth billions of dollars – but how to produce it? Harvesting silk on spider farms does not work because the territorial arthropods have a tendency to devour their neighbors. Now, scientists at the biotechnology pany Nexia are spinning artificial silk modeled after Golden Orb dragline. The first step: extract silkmaking genes from the spiders. Next, implant the genes into goat egg cells. The nanny goats that grow from the eggs secrete dragline silk proteins in their milk . ―The young goats pass on the silkmaking gene without any help from us,‖ says Nexia president Jeffrey Turner. Nexia is still perfecting the spinning process, but they hope artificial spider silk will soon be snagging customers. As fast as the real thing snags bugs. 第十篇 Chicken Soup for the Soul: Comfort Food Fights Loneliness【心靈雞湯：爽心食品排解孤獨感】 Mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, may be bad for your arteries , but according to a study in Psychological Science, they39。re good for your heart and emotions . The study focuses on ―fort food‖ and how it makes people feel. ―For me personally , food has always played a big role in my family, ‖ says Jordan Troisi, a graduate student at the University of Buffalo, and lead author on the study. The study came out of the research program of his coauthor Shira Gabriel. It has looked at nonhuman things that may affect human emotions. Some people reduce loneliness by bonding with their favorite TV show, building virtual relationships with a pop song singer or looking at pictures of loved ones. Troisi and Gabriel wondered if fort food could have the same effect by making people think of their nearest and dearest. In one experiment, in order to make participants feel lonely, the researchers had them write for six minutes about a fight with someone close to them. Others were given an emotionally neutral writing assignment. Then, some people in each group wrote about the experience of eating a fort food and others wrote about eating a new food. Finally , the researchers had participants plete questions about their levels of loneliness. Writing about a fight with a close person made people feel lonely. But people who were generally secure in their relationships would feel less lonely by writing about a fort food. ―We have found that fort foods are consistently associated with those close to us, ‖ says Troisi. ―Thinking about or consuming these foods later then serves as a reminder of those close others. ‖ In their essays on fort food, many people wrote about the experience of eating food with family and friends. In another experiment, eating chicken soup in the 天宇 考王職稱英語 、新東方 理工類 6 lab made people think more about relationships, but only if they considered chicken soup to be a fort food. This was a question they had been asked long before the experiment, along with many other questions, so they wouldn39。t remember it. Throughout everyone39。s daily lives they experience stress, often associated with our connections with others, ― Troisi says. ‖Comfort food can be an easy remedy for lonelines