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
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Walking with dinosaurs Peter L
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Walking with dinosaurs Peter L
admin
2017-04-14
31
问题
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Walking with dinosaurs
Peter L Falkingham and his colleagues at Manchester University are developing techniques which look set to revolutionise our understanding of how dinosaurs and other extinct animals behaved.
The media image of palaeontologists who study prehistoric life is often of field workers camped in the desert in the hot sun, carefully picking away at the rock surrounding a large dinosaur bone. But Peter Falkingham has done little of that for a while now. Instead, he devotes himself to his computer. Not because he has become inundated with paperwork, but because he is a new kind of palaeontologist: a computational palaeontologist.
What few people may consider is that uncovering a skeleton, or discovering a new species, is where the research begins, not where it ends. What we really want to understand is how the extinct animals and plants behaved in their natural habitats. Drs Bill Sellers and Phil Manning from the University of Manchester use a’genetic algorithm’-a kind of computer code that can change itself and ’evolve’ - to explore how extinct animals like dinosaurs, and our own early ancestors, walked and stalked.
The fossilised bones of a complete dinosaur skeleton can tell scientists a lot about the animal, but they do not make up the complete picture and the computer can try to fill the gap.The computer model is given a digitised skeleton, and the locations of known muscles.The model then randomly activates the muscles.This, perhaps unsurprisingly, results almost without fail in the animal falling on its face. So the computer alters the activation pattern and tries again... usually to similar effect.The modelled ’dinosaurs’ quickly ’evolve’. If there is any improvement, the computer discards the old pattern and adopts the new one as the base for alteration. Eventually, the muscle activation pattern evolves a stable way of moving, the best possible solution is reached, and the dinosaur can walk, run, chase or graze. Assuming natural selection evolves the best possible solution too, the modelled animal should be moving in a manner similar to its now-extinct counterpart. And indeed, using the same method for living animals(humans, emu and ostriches)similar top speeds were achieved on the computer as in reality. By comparing their cyberspace results with real measurements of living species, the Manchester team of palaeontologists can be confident in the results computed showing how extinct prehistoric animals such as dinosaurs moved.
The Manchester University team have used the computer simulations to produce a model of a giant meat-eating dinosaur. It is called an acrocanthosaurus which literally means’high spined lizard’because of the spines which run along its backbone. It is not really known why they are there but scientists have speculated they could have supported a hump that stored fat and water reserves.There are also those who believe that the spines acted as a support for a sail. Of these, one half think it was used as a display and could be flushed with blood and the other half think it was used as a temperature-regulating device. It may have been a mixture of the two.The skull seems out of proportion with its thick, heavy body because it is so narrow and the jaws are delicate and fine. The feet are also worthy of note as they look surprisingly small in contrast to the animal as a whole. It has a deep broad tail and powerful leg muscles to aid locomotion. It walked on its back legs and its front legs were much shorter with powerful claws.
Falkingham himself is investigating fossilised tracks, or footprints, using computer simulations to help analyse how extinct animals moved. Modern-day trackers who study the habitats of wild animals can tell you what animal made a track, whether that animal was walking or running, sometimes even the sex of the animal. But a fossil track poses a more considerable challenge to interpret in the same way. A crucial consideration is knowing what the environment including the mud, or sediment, upon which the animal walked was like millions of years ago when the track was made. Experiments can answer these questions but the number of variables is staggering.To physically recreate each scenario with a box of mud is extremely time-consuming and difficult to repeat accurately.This is where computer simulation comes in.
Falkingham uses computational techniques to model a volume of mud and control the moisture content, consistency, and other conditions to simulate the mud of prehistoric times. A footprint is then made in the digital mud by a virtual foot. This footprint can be chopped up and viewed from any angle and stress values can be extracted and calculated from inside it. By running hundreds of these simulations simultaneously on supercomputers, Falkingham can start to understand what types of footprint would be expected if an animal moved in a certain way over a given kind of ground. Looking at the variation in the virtual tracks, researchers can make sense of fossil tracks with greater confidence.
The application of computational techniques in palaeontology is becoming more prevalent every year. As computer power continues to increase, the range of problems that can be tackled and questions that can be answered will only expand.
Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
Several attempts are usually needed before the computer model of a dinosaur used by Sellers and Manning manages to stay upright.
选项
A、TRUE
B、假
C、NOT GIVEN
答案
A
解析
The third paragraph talks about the model making ’several attempts’: ’This, perhaps unsurprisingly, results almost without fail in the animal falling on its face. So the computer alters the activation pattern and tries again ... usually to similar effect’(Sellers and Manning are mentioned in the previous paragraph but there is nothing about a computer model).
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/mSNO777K
本试题收录于:
雅思阅读题库雅思(IELTS)分类
0
雅思阅读
雅思(IELTS)
相关试题推荐
African-Americanfilmmakersshouldbeinanenviableposition,forsincetheearly1990stherehasbeenasteadywaveof
Hitherto,thereisnoevidenceyetthatwoulddefinitivelyprovewhetherornotsomedinosaurswerewarm-blooded,butsci
Peopleshouldnottakegoodconstitutionforgranted,forhumangeneticcodeis______thedevelopmentof______.
Itmaybe______toobtainsoapthatisnotantibacterial,givenits______asahouseholdcleansingproduct,butaccordingtoa
DIGRESSION:STATEMENT::
ThispassageisadaptedfromTheAmericanRepublic:Constitution,Tendencies,andDestinybyO.A.Brownson,1866.Thean
ThispassageisadaptedfromTheAmericanRepublic:Constitution,Tendencies,andDestinybyO.A.Brownson,1866.Thean
Howisanewbornstarformed?Fortheanswertothisquestion,wemustlooktothefamiliarphysicalconceptofgravitat
OnlookersconsideredJustina(i)______afterwatchinghimeat;however,littledidtheyknowthathewas(ii)______followingawee
Thispassageisadaptedfrommaterialpublishedin2001.FrederickDouglasswasunquestionablythemostfamousAfricanAmerican
随机试题
"SubstanceAbuse"—SevereAnxietytoSocietyTechnically,anysubstanceotherthanfoodthataltersourbodilyor【W1】______fu
患者女性,35岁,G1P1,2年前顺娩一女孩。放置宫内节育器后10个月,经量增多症状仍不见好转,要求取出IUD后改用其他避孕方法。该患者不存在放置皮下埋植剂的禁忌证,在术前咨询中有关皮下埋植避孕的表述正确的是
4岁,男孩,面容特殊,眼距宽,鼻梁平,舌厚肥大,面部臃肿,皮肤粗糙,头发干稀,智力低下,身高80cm,腕部X线检查显示一枚骨化中心,最可能的诊断是
消火栓箱按箱门型式可分为()。
甲企业为客户生产一台专用设备。双方约定,如果甲企业能够在30天内交货,则可以额外获得100股客户的股票作为奖励。合同开始日,该股票的价格为每股5元。由于缺乏执行类似合同的经验,当日,甲企业估计该100股股票的公允价值计入交易价格将不满足累计已确认的收入极可
夫妻中的一方死亡后,家庭财产由()继承。
在我国教育史上,最早试图用马克思主义观点研究教育问题的是()。
警察是一个历史范畴,是人类社会一定历史阶段的产物。哪些学说不包括该观点?()
甲,22岁,因为盗窃罪被判处有期徒刑10年,在狱中执行6年后,因表现良好被假释。假释考验期满后的第三年,甲又盗窃他人汽车一辆。法院在审理此案时,发现甲曾经在假释考验期的第二年还犯有强奸罪。甲的第二个盗窃罪,成立累犯吗?为什么?
MangroveResortSpecialPackagesBaskinclearbeachwatersatMangroveResortandenjoyfive-startreatmentinourluxuriousr
最新回复
(
0
)