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  3. A Genome Milestone It was the biggest scientific grudge match since the space race. The Genome Wars had everything: two grou

A Genome Milestone It was the biggest scientific grudge match since the space race. The Genome Wars had everything: two grou

admin2013-07-11  20
问题                         A Genome Milestone
    It was the biggest scientific grudge match since the space race. The Genome Wars had everything: two groups with appealing leaders ready to fight in a scientific dead heat, pushing the limits of technology and rhetoric as they battled to become the first to read every last one of the 3 billion DNA "letters" in the human body. The scientific importance of the work is unquestionable. The completed DNA sequence is expected to give scientists unprecedented insights into the workings of the human body, revolutionizing medicine and biology. But the race itself, between the government’s Human Genome Project and Rockville, Md. , biotechnology company Celera Genomics, was at least partly symbolic, the public/private conflict played out in a genetic lab.
    Now the race is over. After years of public attacks and several failed attempts at reconciliation, the two sides are taking a step toward a period of calm. HGP head Francis Collins (and Ari Patrinos of the Department of Energy, an important ally on the government side) and Craig Venter, the founder of Celera, agreed to hold a joint press conference in Washington this Monday to declare that the race was over(sort of) , that both sides had won (kind of) and that the hostilities were resolved (for the time being).
    No one is exactly sure how things will be different now. Neither side will be turning off its sequencing machines any time soon the "finish lines" each has crossed are largely arbitrary points, "first drafts" rather than the definitive version. And while the joint announcement brings the former Genome Warriors closer together than they’re been in years, insiders say that future agreements are more likely to take the form of coordination, rather than outright collaboration.
    The conflict blew up, this February when Britain’s Wellcome Trust, an HGP participant, released a confidential letter to Celera outlining the HGP’s complaints. Venter called the move " a lowlife thing to do". But by spring, there were the first signs of a thaw. "The attacks and nastiness are bad for science and our investors," Venter told Newsweek in March, "and fighting back is probably not helpful." At a cancer meeting earlier this month, Venter and Collins praised each other’s approaches, and expressed hope that all of the scientists involved in sequencing the human genome would be able to share the credit. By late last week, that hope was becoming a reality as details for Monday’s joint announcement were hammered out. Scientists in both camps welcomed an end to the hostilities. "If this ends the horse race, science wins." With their difference behind them, or at least set aside, the scientists should now be able to get down to the interesting stuff: figuring how to make use of all that data.
The word "thaw"(Line 7, Para. 4) most probably means______.
选项 A、aggravation of tension
B、improvement in relation
C、intensification in attacks
D、ending of coordination
答案B
解析 本题考查词义的理解。第四段开始讲到矛盾的爆发。第三句but转折指出，there were the first signs of a thaw，下文又以塞莱拉公司创始人认为对抗不好的讲话和一次癌症会议上双方的互相称赞为例，对该句话进行论证。可见他们的关系是改善了，所以[B]项正确。thaw原义为“解冻”，[B]项为其引申义。其他项均是说不好的方面，与文意不符。
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