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  3. For centuries, people have described unusual animal behavior just ahead of seismic events: dogs barking incessantly, cows haltin

For centuries, people have described unusual animal behavior just ahead of seismic events: dogs barking incessantly, cows haltin

admin2021-09-25  19
问题     For centuries, people have described unusual animal behavior just ahead of seismic events: dogs barking incessantly, cows halting their milk, toads leaping from ponds. A few researchers have tried to substantiate a link. In a 2013 study, Germany scientists videotaped red wood ants that nested along a fault line and found they changed their usual routine before a quake, becoming more active at night and less active during the day. But such attempts have relied largely on anecdotal evidence and single observation.
    Now researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Konstanz, say they have managed to precisely measure increased activity in a group of farm animals prior to seismic activity. Though a definitive link has still not been proved, the scientists say their findings are a significant step forward in the search for one.
    The researchers used highly sensitive instruments that record accelerated movements—up to 48 each second—in any direction. During separate periods totaling about four months in 2016 and 2017, they attached these biologgers and GPS sensors to six cows, five sheep and two dogs living on a farm in an earthquake-prone area of northern Italy. A total of more than 18,000 tremors occurred during the study periods, with more seismic activity during the first one—when a magnitude 6. 6 quake and its aftershocks struck the region. The paper’s statistical analysis took the animals’ normal daily movements and interactions into account. It showed their activity significantly increased before magnitude 3. 8 or greater earthquakes when they were housed together in a stable—but not when they were out to pasture. Martin Wikelski, the study co-author and managing director of Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, says this difference could be linked to the increased stress some animals feel in confined spaces.
    Wendy Bohon, a geologist at the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology in Washington, D. C., who was not involved with the new study, is skeptical of the idea. Numerous geologists have unsuccessfully tried to find such a precursory signal of impending earthquakes, she notes. Bohon does allow that Wikelski and his co-authors did some "cool things" to explore the possibility of animals predicting earthquakes. But she wonders whether there were instances in which the creatures showed unusual activity and there was no earthquake or did not react before one did occur. "My cat could act crazy before an earthquake," she says. "But my cat also acts crazy if somebody uses the can opener. " " In order to use the animals as prognosticators, it would be imperative to establish that they exhibited unusual behavior only in reaction to upcoming seismic events”, Bohon says. "Otherwise," she adds, "it becomes the ’ Boy Who Cried Wolf problem. "
    Heiko Woith, a geologist at GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, praised the authors of the new study for measuring more than a single occasion of abnormal behavior. But he says the time frame was still too short. Woith also points out that many studies claiming to show precursory earthquake signals often rely on too little data collection over time, making it impossible to determine whether a measured signal was related to a quake or was simply noise.
What did Wendy Bohon think of Wikelski and his co-authors’ work?
选项 A、She questioned the preciseness of the testing instruments.
B、She doubted that the animals chosen in the experiment were unhealthy.
C、She held that the unusual activity of animals could be caused by various factors.
D、She believed cats should be involved in the experiment.
答案C
解析 观点态度题。根据关键词wendy Bohon定位到第四段。温迪.波洪对维克斯基与其合著者们的研究结果持怀疑态度，认为动物的异常活动并不一定是由地震引发的，通过猫的例子，她想表达其他的外界干扰因素也会造成动物活动异常，因此答案选[C]。[A]文中没有提到，温迪.波洪没有对实验仪器的精确度有异议；[B]文中也没有提到，属于无中生有；[D]属于过度延伸，她列举猫的例子只是为了辅证自己的疑虑。
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