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  3. Why past generations regarded women as the weaker sex is a mystery to anyone who has examined the question objectively, for they

Why past generations regarded women as the weaker sex is a mystery to anyone who has examined the question objectively, for they

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问题     Why past generations regarded women as the weaker sex is a mystery to anyone who has examined the question objectively, for they are far stronger than men—outliving them in pretty well every society in the world. Partly that is because men are more violent, and their violence is largely directed at other men. But partly it is physiological. Men seem to wear out faster than women do. Yet no one knows why.
    Madeleine Beekman of the University of Sydney and her colleagues, however, have a hypothesis. They think at least some of the blame lies with subcellular structures called mitochondria (线粒体), which provide the body with its power by burning glucose and using the energy thus released to make a molecule that is biology’s universal fuel.
    Mitochondria are amusing. They are descendants of bacteria that teamed up with the ancestors of animal and plant cells about a billion years ago. They retain their own genes, which is where problems start. To avoid fights between genetically different mitochondria in the same cell, most species have arranged for their mitochondria to come from only one parent—usually the mother so that a male’s mitochondria are stuck in an evolutionary dead end. They can neither evolve in male-specific ways nor be passed on to the next generation.
    Male and female physiologies are sufficiently similar for this not to be a central problem, but Dr. Beekman thinks it may matter at the margins. She observes that one disease, caused by a faulty mitochondrial gene, occurs in only 10% of women whose cellular power-packs include the damaged gene, but in 50% of men whose mitochondria are so hindered. The gene in question, in other words, is less likely to harm a woman than a man. She then lists a lot of other diseases, including ones far commoner that sometimes have a mitochondrial component, and speculates that some of these may prove to be either more common or more serious in men than in women. As far as her literature search can show, this is not something that has yet been looked into.
    Part of the reason for this absence of information may be that few doctors think like evolutionary biologists, so they fail to ask appropriate questions. Dr Beekman’s hypothesis may turn out to be wrong, but sounds remarkably plausible and certainly worth investigating.
This passage focuses on the relationship between________.
选项 A、physiology and evolution
B、scientific findings and human health
C、mitochondria and male lifespan
D、a hypothesis and experimentation
答案C
解析 此选项可能有点难。第一个选项是physiology and evolution，题目太大了，估计需要写一本书。第二个选项是scientific findings and human health，但是文章没有探讨科研成果如何促进人类健康。最后一个选项是a hypothesis and experimentation，可是文章并没提及做任何实验，而是介绍科学家们观察到的现象。文章的关键词是mitochondria，也谈到了男性在健康和寿命等方面的短板，怀疑与mitochondria有关。
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