首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Mummies capture our imaginations and our hearts. Full of secrets and magic, they were once people who lived and loved, just as w
Mummies capture our imaginations and our hearts. Full of secrets and magic, they were once people who lived and loved, just as w
admin
2011-04-11
32
问题
Mummies capture our imaginations and our hearts. Full of secrets and magic, they were once people who lived and loved, just as we do today. I believe we should honor these ancient dead and let them rest in peace.
There are some secrets of the pharaohs, however, that can be revealed only by studying their mummies. By carrying out CT scans of King Tutankhamun’s mummy, we were able in 2005 to show that he did not die from a blow to the head, as many people believed. Our analysis revealed that a hole in the back of his skull had been made during the mummification process. The study also showed that Tutankhamun died when he was only 19—perhaps soon after he suffered a fracture to his left leg. But there are mysteries surrounding Tutankhamun that even a CT scanner cannot reveal. Now we have probed even deeper into his mummy and returned with extraordinary revelations about his life, his birth, and his death.
Ten years after ascending the throne, Tutankhamun is dead, leaving no heirs to succeed him. He is hastily buried in a small tomb, designed originally for a private person rather than a king. In a backlash against Akhenaten’s heresy, his successors manage to delete from history nearly all traces of the Amarna kings, including Tutankhamun.
Ironically, this attempt to erase his memory preserved Tutankhamun for all time. Less than a century after his death, the location of his tomb had been forgotten. Hidden from robbers by structures built directly above, it remained virtually untouched until its discovery in 1922. More than 5,000 artifacts were found inside the tomb. But the archaeological record has so far failed to illuminate the young king’s most intimate family relationships. Who were his mother and father? What became of his widow, Ankhesenamun? Are the two mummified fetuses found in his tomb King Tutankhamun’s own prematurely born children, or tokens of purity to accompany him into the afterlife?
To answer these questions, we decided to analyze Tutankhamun’s DNA, along with that of ten other mummies suspected to be members of his immediate family. In the past I had been against genetic studies of royal mummies. The chance of obtaining workable samples while avoiding contamination from modern DNA seemed too small to justify disturbing these sacred remains. But in 2008 several geneticists convinced me that the field had advanced far enough to give us a good chance of getting useful results. We set up two state-of-the-art DNA-sequencing labs, one in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the other at the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University. The research would be led by Egyptian scientists: Yehia Gad and Somaia Ismail from the National Research Center in Cairo. We also decided to carry out CT scans of all the mummies, under the direction of Ashraf Selim and Sahar Saleem of the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University. Three international experts served as consultants: Carsten Pusch of the Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen, Germany; Albert Zink of the EURAC-Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy; and Paul Gostner of the Central Hospital Bolzano.
The identities of four of the mummies were known. These included Tutankhamun himself, still in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, and three mummies on display at the Egyptian Museum: Amenhotep III, and Yuya and Tuyu, the parents of Amenhotep Ill’s great queen, Tiye. Among the unidentified mummies was a male found in a mysterious tomb in the Valley of the Kings known as KV55. Archaeological and textual evidence suggested this mummy was most likely Akhenaten or Smenkhkare.
Our search for Tutankhamun’s mother and wife focused on four unidentified females. Two of these, nicknamed the "Elder Lady" and the "Younger Lady," had been discovered in 1898, unwrapped and casually laid on the floor of a side chamber in the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV35) , evidently hidden there by priests after the end of the New Kingdom, around 1000 B. C. The other two anonymous females were from a small tomb (KV21) in the Valley of the Kings. The architecture of this tomb suggests a date in the 18th dynasty, and both mummies hold their left fist against their chest in what is generally interpreted as a queenly pose.
Finally, we would attempt to obtain DNA from the fetuses in Tutankhamun’s tomb—not a promising prospect given the extremely poor condition of these mummies. But if we succeeded, we might be able to fill in the missing pieces to a royal puzzle extending over five generations.
To obtain workable samples, the geneticists extracted tissue from several different locations in each mummy, always from deep within the bone, where there was no chance the specimen would be contaminated by the DNA of previous archaeologists—or of the Egyptian priests who had performed the mummification. Extreme care was also taken to avoid any contamination by the researchers themselves. After the samples were extracted, the DNA had to be separated from unwanted substances, including the unguents and resins the priests had used to preserve the bodies. Since the embalming material varied with each mummy, so did the steps needed to purify the DNA. In each case the fragile material could be destroyed at every step.
The next paragraph is most probably about______.
选项
A、how to separate the DNA unwanted substances
B、how different the embalming materials are from mummy to mummy
C、how to take steps to purify the DNA
D、how to take steps to avoid the destruction of the tissue
答案
C
解析
文章下一段最有可能提及——。该题为推断题。文章最后一段主要讲述提取木乃伊DNA时应该注意的事项及其原因。其中最重要的是将木乃伊DNA提纯。由此可以推断下一段极有可能讲述如何提纯木乃伊。DNA。注意选项A和选项C的区别,将木乃伊DNA与其他物质分离开来的最终目的还是提纯木乃伊DNA。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/yNYO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
THEPRESSURETHATWORKINGPEOPLEHAVETOFACEINCHINAInthefirstpartofyourwritingyoushouldpresentyourthesisstate
SomerecenthistorianshavearguedthatlifeintheBritishcoloniesinAmericafromapproximately1763to1789wasmarkedbyin
Inthe1950s,thedevelopmentofantipsychoticdrugscalledneuroleptics(抑制精神病药物)radicallychangedtheclinicaloutlookforpati
TheDepartmentofHomelandSecurityhasfilledthenation’stopcyber-securitypostafterthepreviouschiefabruptlyresignedl
Maslow’sHierarchyofNeedsAbrahamMaslowhasdevelopedafamoustheoryofhumanneeds,whichcanbearrangedinorderofim
Asweknow,therearetwokindsofelephants:theAfricanandtheAsianelephants,whicharethelargest【1】______animalsinthe
今天的老年人是昨天的劳动者。他们对物质文化的发展作出了许多贡献,理所当然应享受物质文化发展的成果。若全社会都把尊敬老人看作当代的美德,人们就会有一种安全感。这使得各个年龄层的人都感到他们将来的日子肯定也是愉快的,就会全力以赴地投入工作。去年,宣武医
NathanielHawthornewasmostfamousforhis
Itishardtotrackthebluewhale,theocean’slargestcreature,whichhasalmostbeenkilledoffbycommercialwhalingandis
北京故宫建于明永乐年间,至今已有500多年的历史。它占地72公顷,建筑面积15万平方米,共有殿宇9999.5间。它的前面是天安门广场。故宫既是一座举世无双的古代宫殿建筑群.又是一座明清宫廷史迹和中国古代文化艺术博物馆。这里是两朝24个皇帝的历史舞台,是中国
随机试题
患者,女,34岁。因外伤导致肘关节脱位,其特有体征是
A.标准误B.把握度C.决定系数D.变异系数E.标准差表示均数分布的离散程度的指标是
留置导尿患者的护理措施,正确的是
对累犯的处罚应遵循:
下列属于不可辨认无形资产的是()。
法定解除合同的条件包括( )等。
根据真实票据理论,以商业行为为基础的短期贷款的特点是()。
某企业对旧办公楼进行改造,办公楼账面原值600万元,为改造办公楼账面支付费用150万元,加装中央空调支付50万元,当地的一次性减除费用比例是20%,该企业应纳房产税()万元。
注册会计师在对应收账款函证的回函进行分析判断时,下列处理中,正确的有()。
数据库的物理设计是为一个给定的逻辑结构选取一个适合应用环境的______的过程,包括确定数据库在物理设备上的存储结构和存取方法。
最新回复
(
0
)