2. 外语
  3. Much ink has been spilled on the question of human hairlessness: why, as Desmond Morris put it in the title of a book published

Much ink has been spilled on the question of human hairlessness: why, as Desmond Morris put it in the title of a book published

admin2013-12-04  44
问题     Much ink has been spilled on the question of human hairlessness: why, as Desmond Morris put it in the title of a book published in 1967, humankind is "The Naked Ape." Less attention has been paid, though, to the fact that humans are not really hairless at all. Per square centimeter human skin has as many hair follicles(毛囊)as that of other great apes. The difference is in the fineness of the hair. These fine human hairs do not seem to perform any of the functions of their counterparts in more hairy species(insulation and signaling). So what are they for?
    That is a question addressed by Isabelle Dean and Michael Siva-Jothy of Sheffield University, in Britain, who took tremendous persuasion and effort to recruit 29 volunteers—19 men and 10 women. Each had a patch of skin on one arm shaved, marked with a pen and surrounded by petroleum jelly, and a patch of the same size on the other marked and surrounded, but not shaved. The bugs had been fed a week and then starved, so they were eager to eat. Volunteers were asked to look away while a researcher put a bug on one of the skin patches. The volunteer was then supposed to record, using a press-button counter, the number of times he perceived the insect moving on his skin.
    The difference was significant. When the bug was on a hairy patch it was detected, on average, every four seconds. When it was on a shaved patch, more than ten seconds elapsed between detections. Moreover, the bugs seemed to find it harder to locate a good spot to bite when they were surrounded by hair. Though no volunteer was actually bitten, because the vigilance of the watching researcher meant the insects were removed when they were ready for biting, bugs on hairy skin took about a fifth longer than those on shaved skin to attempt to bite their hosts.
    In both cases men were better off than women when the bugs were released on unshaven patches of skin, though there was no significant difference between the sexes when they were shaved. The conclusion is that one reason human body hair has not disappeared completely is to warn and protect us from the attention of hostile insects.
The author thinks that Desmond Morris and those holding similar views______.
选项 A、have overlooked the fact
B、have never studied human hairlessness
C、have challenged common sense
D、have raised a good argument
答案A
解析 第一段前几句说人们花费了许多笔墨探讨人类没有遍体覆毛这个问题：就像Desmond Morris在1967年出版的一本书的书名中所写的那样，为什么人类是“赤裸的猿猴”。不过，人们似乎忽略了这样一个事实，即人类并非真的完全没有体毛。人类皮肤上每平方厘米拥有的毛囊数量和其他大型猿类一样多。区别在于从这些毛囊中长出的毛发的粗细。因此说Desmond Morris没有如实地反映现实。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/XhHO777K
0

研究生英语学位课统考（GET）

相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)