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  3. Passage One Amazon rain forest, normally one of the world’s wettest regions, shows the weather cycle is swinging to one extr

Passage One Amazon rain forest, normally one of the world’s wettest regions, shows the weather cycle is swinging to one extr

admin2010-06-11  64
问题     Passage One
    Amazon rain forest, normally one of the world’s wettest regions, shows the weather cycle is swinging to one extreme rather than signaling climate change, local meteorologists said Thursday. Water levels on two major Amazon tributaries, Madeira and Solimoes, dropped to record--38-year lows respectively, creating long delays in fiver traffic, the main form of regional transport.
    Dry weather also fanned huge forest fires, notably in the remote western State of Acre. But weather forecasters added that elsewhere in continentally sized Brazil, seasonal spring rains had started in the south and were spreading northwards through Brazil’s major coffee belt and gradually into soybean areas in the center-west. "The Amazon drought shows extreme climate variability, not climatic change," said Jose Marengo, researcher at the Weather Forecasting and Climatic Studies Center, part of the National Institute of Space Research. Marengo said that normal rains were forecast for the south Amazon --the States of Acre and Rondonia, southern part of Para State and northern part of Mato Grosso State.
    "Rain is forecast in Acre in the next couple of weeks," he said, adding that the region is normally dry between June and September and wettest in December and January. But we are a bit worried that there could be less rain than usual at the mouth of the Amazon, around Belem, he said, noting that extreme climatic events were occurring more frequently, "We could be seeing the first symptoms of changing cycles." Meteorologists discounted a link between unusually severe hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and drought in the Amazon.
    Dry weather in the Amazon is linked to warmer ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific and to low sunspot activity, said Expedito Rebello, head of applied meteorology at the government’s National Institute of Meteorology in Brasilia. "It’s a phenomenal (不同寻常的) drought and could be linked to a warmer Pacific and little sunspot activity," Rebello said, noting extremely low water levels in the Amazon. But he added that the weather cycle would reach a low next year and then start to moderate. Paulo Etchitchury, director of private meteorologists Somar, said that the Pacific should start to enter a cooler period next Brazilian summer and this could result in a weak La Nina weather pattern. "It won’t affect summer rains and it’s still very early to talk about next winter," he said, adding that La Nina doesn’t necessarily signal a cold winter and extra risk of frost damage to Brazil’s coffee crop, the world’s biggest.
    Brazil was in a transitional period between the dry May/August winter and rainy spring which started in south Brazil in September, Etchitchury said. He said that this year weather conditions are in general seasonally normal in Brazil’s main farming areas, except that drought in the Amazon could affect Mate Grosso, Brazil’s main soy state. "Rains in the south are replenishing (补充) a water deficit and providing reserves for summer soy and com harvests," he said, adding, "Last September was hot and dry and people were worried about drought damage to crop flowering."
    Passage Two
    Even today, many experts say women scientists are often not treated fairly. The Washington Post newspaper reported a study about the number of research articles published in medical magazines in which a woman was the main writer. Women were the main writers only twenty-nine percent of the time. Nancy Andreasen is a scientist at the University of Iowa. Scientists like Miss Andreasen often send stories about their research to special professional publications. Miss Andreasen says her research is published more often when she signs them as N.C. Andreasen rather than Nancy Andreasen. In that way, the editors of the publications do not know if the writer is a man or a woman.
    Women also receive fewer patents for their inventions. A patent forbids others from copying an invention and makes the invention valuable in the world of business. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, anything a woman invented belonged to her husband under the law. But a current study in the United States says there are still more patents awarded to men. The researchers said that this is partly because it is easier for male scientists to receive financial support for their work
    The National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio includes only six women on its list of two hundred thirty-five inventors. Stephanie Kwolek worked for the chemical company DuPont when she invented a cloth called Kevlar. It is five times stronger than steel. It is used to make clothing that stops bullets from a gun. It is also used in space. Miss Kwolek also works to improve science education for all children.
   In two thousand five, the issue of female scientists caused much debate. The president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, was pressured to resign after he made some statements about female scientists. He was discussing why there are so few female college professors in subjects like engineering and mathematics. He said this might be due to differences in ability between men and women.
    One person in the United States has a very unusual personal experience about women in science. Ben Banes is a professor of biology at Stanford University in California. Ten years ago, at the age of forty-two, he chose to have a medical process to change his sex. Before that Ben Barres was a woman named Barbara.
    He wrote about his experience as both a female and male scientist in a recent issue of the publication Nature. He found that he was treated with more respect as a male. He said this is evidence of the unequal treatment that harms female scientists. Several organizations in the United Stales are trying to help women in science. For example, the L’Oreal USA company has a Fellowships for Women in Science Program. Each year it recognizes, rewards and supports five women in the United States. These women have earned doctoral degrees in science, mathematics or engineering. Other organizations support efforts to help young girls increase their interest in math, science and technology. The Girl Scouts of America has a Web site, www. girlsgotech.org.
    Christiane Nusslein-Volhard of Germany shared the Nobel Price for medicine in nineteen ninety-five. She was the tenth woman to win this prize in one of the sciences. She directs the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology in Tubingen, Germany. Doctor Nnsslein-Volhard says women in Germany often stop working as scientists when have children. So she has started an organization that gives money to young women scientists who need help paying for someone to care for their children and homes. Doctor Nnsslein-Volhard says she hopes life will become easier for women scientists in Germany while Angela Merkel is the chancellor. The leader of Germany has a doctorate degree in physics.
The Amazon drought shows extreme______ rather than climatic change.
选项
答案climate variability
解析 本考题出现在第二段的第四行，variability是“多样性”。
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