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
2012-12-01
59
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 t,he tissue
答案
C
解析
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/1WaO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
PeopleintheUnitedStatesinthenineteenthcenturywerehauntedbytheprospectthatunprecedentedchangeinthenation’seco
EducationalattainmentinruralAmericareachedahistoricheightin2000,withnearlyoneinsixruraladultsholdinga【M1】__
______wasfamousforhisabdicationbecauseofhismarriagewithadivorcedAmerican.
Peopledonothavesecrettrolleysatthesupermarket,sohowcanitbeaviolationoftheirprivacyifagrocersellstheirpur
Inaccordancewiththemissionithassetitselftofurtherthedevelopmentofsport,theInternationalOlympicCommitteestrive
ThepreindustrialperiodofthedevelopmentofcitiesintheUnitedStatesbeganwiththeestablishmentofthecoloniesinthe
Accordingtoreportsinmajornewsoutlets,astudypublishedlastweekincludedastartlingdiscovery:thenation’sJewishpopu
Accordingtoreportsinmajornewsoutlets,astudypublishedlastweekincludedastartlingdiscovery:thenation’sJewishpopu
ThetradeandinvestmentrelationshipbetweentheEuropeanUnionandtheUnitedStatesisthemostimportantintheworld.Despi
Itisthenewsthatallslothshavebeenwaitingfor.ScientistsinGermanyhavefoundthattoomuchexerciseisbadforyouand
随机试题
联合免疫缺陷病易感病菌是
女性,32岁,月经稀发3年,经期3~5天。周期2~6个月,现停经5个月。既往月经规律,15岁初潮,3—7/28—32天,已婚5年,未避孕,G1P0A1L0,4年前人工流产1次,无痛经。患者出现以下体征可辅助诊断该病
某建筑物周围有水量充足、水温适宜的地表水可供利用时,其空调的冷热源应优先选用以下哪种方式?
冷轧是在常温状态下,通过轧机设备对轧制钢材进行冷态压延、拉拔、挤压等形成最终产品。下列对冷轧工艺中机械伤害控制措施的说法,正确的是()。
第五代移动通信系统无线技术的创新包括()等。
洛克在其教育著作()中提倡“绅士教育”。
在法律、法规或其他的法律文件在发生效力后,或者行为已经实施后进行的违宪审查称为
陈某为报复男友张某的始乱终弃,应聘到张某单位附近的饭店当了一名杂工。当得知张某会在2003年除夕那天来该饭店吃团圆饭时,除夕那天下午,趁着厨房没人,陈某把半包“闻到死”拌进了准备做团圆饭的食用油和生粉里。随后她回到家里也服下了毒药,在毒性发作的最后一刻,她
主机板有许多分类方法。按芯片组的规格可分为()。
Oncloser______,thenotesprovedtobefalse.
最新回复
(
0
)