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  3. The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conc

The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conc

admin2012-07-05  69
问题     The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conclusion of a new study which shows that blue whales feeding off the coast of California stop calling to each other when a nearby naval base powers up its sonar (声纳) for training exercises.
    It’s not exactly news that sonar can disturb whales. What’s different about this study is that it shows an underwater sound outside a whale’s voice range can still affect its calling behavior. Because the endangered blue whale may depend on communication to keep its family group together and alert them to the presence of food, the effects of that sonar are a serious concern.
    But it’s not only sonar that’s getting to them. When ships come by, sound of the engines falls within the blue whales’ vocalization range, which means the creatures have to raise their voices. Unsurprisingly, this sort of effect—like living inside a noisy, dark bar—is not ideal for intelligent and social animals trying to have a conversation.
    Luckily it’s not all bad news. Technology can help—if people are willing to pay for it. In terms of shipping noise, efforts are under way by the International Maritime Organization to develop and encourage the use of quieter engines on ships. Even the U. S. Navy is now working on the problem of ocean noise. In fact, over the last ten years the U. S. Navy has been the primary funder of marine mammal research on the planet.
    Some say this isn’t simply a conservation issue. It’s a moral one. Last month, a group of scientists and ethicists (伦理学家) presented a "Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans (鲸目动物)" to the largest science conference in the world, the AAAS meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The Declaration states that because of their intelligence and social complexity, whales and dolphins should be respected as non-human persons with a right to life. " We’ve had decades of work demonstrating what kinds of beings they are, what kind of brains they have," says Lori Marino, a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University, whose groundbreaking work has shown that dolphins, like humans, can recognize themselves in the mirror. Science, it seems, is telling us how undersea noise is affecting whales and dolphins. It also may be telling us why we should do something about it.  
Lori Marino’s groundbreaking work suggests that______.
选项 A、dolphins are influenced by human
B、dolphins are as intelligent as human
C、dolphins are intelligent to some degree
D、dolphins are affected by undersea noise
答案C
解析 推理判断题。本题考查Lori Marino的研究成果。定位句提到，Lori Marino的研究表明海豚和人类相似，它们能够认出镜子中的自己。由此推断海豚是有一定智力的生物，故C)正确。A)“海豚受到了人类的影响”、B)“海豚和人类一样聪明”和D)“海豚受到了海下噪音的影响”都不是Lori Marino的研究结果，故排除。
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