【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障3系列】【3-03】科技

CHRISTINE2010

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Nature or Nurture? It May Depend On Where You Live

ScienceDaily (June 12, 2012) — In a study published June 12 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from the Twins Early Development Study at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry studied data from more than 6700 families relating to 45 childhood characteristics, from IQ and hyperactivity to height and weight. They found that genetic and environmental contributions to these characteristics vary geographically in the UK and have published their results online as a series of nature-nurture maps.
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Our development, health and behaviour are determined by complex interactions between our genetic make-up and the environment in which we live. For example, we may carry genes that increase our risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but if we eat a healthy diet and get sufficient exercise, we may not develop the disease. Similarly, someone may carry genes that reduce his or her risk of developing lung cancer, but heavy smoking may still lead to the disease.
The UK-based Twins Early Development Study follows more than 13,000 pairs of twins, both identical and non-identical, born between 1994 and 1996. When the twins were age 12, the researchers carried out a broad survey to assess a wide range of cognitive abilities, behavioural (and other) traits, environments and academic achievement in 6759 twin pairs. The researchers then designed an analysis that reveals the UK's genetic and environmental hotspots, something which had never been done before.
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"These days we're used to the idea that it's not a question of nature or nurture; everything, including our behaviour, is a little of both," explains Dr Oliver Davis, a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry. "But when we saw the maps, the first thing that struck us was how much the balance of genes and environments can vary from region to region."
"Take a trait like classroom behaviour problems. From our maps we can tell that in most of the UK around 60 per cent of the difference between people is explained by genes. However, in the South East genes aren't as important: they explain less than half of the variation. For classroom behaviour, London is an 'environmental hotspot'."
The maps give the researchers a global overview of how the environment interacts with our genomes, without homing in on particular genes or environments. However, the patterns have given them important clues about which environments to explore in more detail.
"The nature-nurture maps help us to spot patterns in the complex data and to try to work out what's causing these patterns," says Dr Davis. "For our classroom behaviour example, we realised that one thing that varies more in London is household income. When we compare maps of income inequality to our nature-nurture map for classroom behaviour, we find income inequality may account for some of the pattern.
"Of course, this is just one example. There are any number of environments that vary geographically in the UK, from social environments like healthcare or education provision to physical environments like altitude, the weather or pollution. Our approach is all about tracking down those environments that you wouldn't necessarily think of at first."
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It may be relatively easy to explain environmental hotspots, but what about the genetic hotspots that appear on the maps: do people's genomes vary more in those regions? The researchers believe this is not the case; rather, genetic hotspots are areas where the environment exposes the effects of genetic variation.
For example, researchers searching for gene variants that increase the risk of hay fever may study populations from two regions. In the first region people live among fields of wind-pollinated crops, whereas the second region is miles away from those fields. In this second region, where no one is exposed to pollen, no one develops hay fever; hence any genetic differences between people living in this region would be invisible.
By contrast, in the first region, where people live among the fields of crops, they will all be exposed to pollen and differences between the people with a genetic susceptibility to hay fever and the people without will stand out. That would make the region a genetic hotspot for hay fever.
"The message that these maps really drive home is that your genes aren't your destiny. There are plenty of things that can affect how your particular human genome expresses itself, and one of those things is where you grow up," says Dr Davis.
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Humans Are Primary Cause of Global Ocean Warming Over Past 50 Years, Research Shows

ScienceDaily (June 11, 2012) — The oceans have warmed in the past 50 years, but not by natural events alone.

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New research by a team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and international collaborators shows that the observed ocean warming over the last 50 years is consistent with climate models only if the models include the impacts of observed increases in greenhouse gas during the 20th century.
Though the new research is not the first study to identify a human influence on observed ocean warming, it is the first to provide an in-depth examination of how observational and modeling uncertainties impact the conclusion that humans are primarily responsible.
"We have taken a closer look at factors that influence these results," said Peter Gleckler, an LLNL climate scientist and lead author of the new study that appears in the June 10 edition of the journal Nature Climate Change. "The bottom line is that this study substantially strengthens the conclusion that most of the observed global ocean warming over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities."
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The group looked at the average temperature (or heat content) in the upper layers of the ocean. The observed global average ocean warming (from the surface to 700 meters) is approximately 0.025 degrees Celsius per decade, or slightly more than 1/10th of a degree Celsius over 50 years. The sub-surface ocean warming is noticeably less than the observed Earth surface warming, primarily because of the relatively slow transfer of ocean surface warming to lower depths. Nevertheless, because of the ocean's enormous heat capacity, the oceans likely account for more than 90 percent of the heat accumulated over the past 50 years as Earth has warmed.
In this study the team, including observational experts from the United States, Japan and Australia, examined the causes of ocean warming using improved observational estimates. They also used results from a large multi-model archive of control simulations (that don't include the effects of humans, but do include natural variability), which were compared to simulations that included the effects of the observed increase in greenhouse gases over the 20th century.
"By using a "multi-model ensemble," we were better able to characterize decadal-scale natural climate variability, which is a critical aspect of the detection and attribution of a human-caused climate change signal. What we are trying to do is determine if the observed warming pattern can be explained by natural variability alone," Gleckler said. "Although we performed a series of tests to account for the impact of various uncertainties, we found no evidence that simultaneous warming of the upper layers of all seven seas can be explained by natural climate variability alone. Humans have played a dominant role."
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New Evidence Supports Theory of Extraterrestrial Impact

ScienceDaily (June 11, 2012) — An 18-member international team of researchers that includes James Kennett, professor of earth science at UC Santa Barbara, has discovered melt-glass material in a thin layer of sedimentary rock in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Syria. According to the researchers, the material -- which dates back nearly 13,000 years -- was formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 degrees Celsius (3,100 to 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit), and is the result of a cosmic body impacting Earth.
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These new data are the latest to strongly support the controversial Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) hypothesis, which proposes that a cosmic impact occurred 12,900 years ago at the onset of an unusual cold climatic period called the Younger Dryas. This episode occurred at or close to the time of major extinction of the North American megafauna, including mammoths and giant ground sloths; and the disappearance of the prehistoric and widely distributed Clovis culture. The researchers' findings appear June 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"These scientists have identified three contemporaneous levels more than 12,000 years ago, on two continents yielding siliceous scoria-like objects (SLO's)," said H. Richard Lane, program director of National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research. "SLO's are indicative of high-energy cosmic airbursts/impacts, bolstering the contention that these events induced the beginning of the Younger Dryas. That time was a major departure in biotic, human and climate history."
Morphological and geochemical evidence of the melt-glass confirms that the material is not cosmic, volcanic, or of human-made origin. "The very high temperature melt-glass appears identical to that produced in known cosmic impact events such as Meteor Crater in Arizona, and the Australasian tektite field," said Kennett.
"The melt material also matches melt-glass produced by the Trinity nuclear airburst of 1945 in Socorro, New Mexico," he continued. "The extreme temperatures required are equal to those of an atomic bomb blast, high enough to make sand melt and boil."
The material evidence supporting the YDB cosmic impact hypothesis spans three continents, and covers nearly one-third of the planet, from California to Western Europe, and into the Middle East. The discovery extends the range of evidence into Germany and Syria, the easternmost site yet identified in the northern hemisphere. The researchers have yet to identify a limit to the debris field of the impact.
"Because these three sites in North America and the Middle East are separated by 1,000 to 10,000 kilometers, there were most likely three or more major impact/airburst epicenters for the YDB impact event, likely caused by a swarm of cosmic objects that were fragments of either a meteorite or comet," said Kennett.
The PNAS paper also presents examples of recent independent research that supports the YDB cosmic impact hypothesis, and supports two independent groups that found melt-glass in the YDB layers in Arizona and Venezuela. "The results strongly refute the assertion of some critics that 'no one can replicate' the YDB evidence, or that the materials simply fell from space non-catastrophically," Kennett noted.
He added that the archaeological site in Syria where the melt-glass material was found -- Abu Hureyra, in the Euphrates Valley -- is one of the few sites of its kind that record the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to farmer-hunters who live in permanent villages. "Archeologists and anthropologists consider this area the 'birthplace of agriculture,' which occurred close to 12,900 years ago," Kennett said.
"The presence of a thick charcoal layer in the ancient village in Syria indicates a major fire associated with the melt-glass and impact spherules 12,900 years ago," he continued. "Evidence suggests that the effects on that settlement and its inhabitants would have been severe."
Other scientists contributing to the research include Ted Bunch and James H. Wittke of Northern Arizona University; Robert E. Hermes of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Andrew Moore of the Rochester Institute of Technology; James C. Weaver of Harvard University; Douglas J. Kennett of Pennsylvania State University; Paul S. DeCarli of SRI International; James L. Bischoff of the U.S. Geological Survey; Gordon C. Hillman of the University College London; George A. Howard of Restoration Systems; David R. Kimbel of Kimstar Research; Gunther Kletetschka of Charles University in Prague, and of the Czech Academy of Science; Carl Lipo and Sachiko Sakai of California State University, Long Beach; Zsolt Revay of the Technical University of Munich in Germany; Allen West of GeoScience Consulting; and Richard B. Firestone of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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PS：字数里包含标题下面的文章概要，所以。。看的时候不要跳过去哦~~

jiline

来挑战头疼的科技沙发罗

1'21 Genetic and environment decide the health and behaviour
1'40 The maps show the balance of genes and environments can vary from region to region. Give an example of classroom behaviour with research results.  classroom behaviour 什么意思？？？
1'02 Explain why the genetic hotspots are different on the maps. The environment exposes the genome
0'51 The observed ocean warming is the same with climate models(include greenhouse gas), human are primarily responsible on it.
1'17 The researcher performed a series of tests, but found no evidence the the warming seas caused by natural climate alone. So humans have played a dominant role.

越障：
3'49 Discovering melt-glass material strongly supports YDB hypothesis: a cosmic impact occured 12,900 years ago.
Supporting data: temperatures required, PNAS independent research, archaeological evidence,

上邪

1:41
a survey of the relationship between the express of genes and the environment which influences it
their may have harmful genes, which lead to diabates. but they can also have beneficial genes, which reduce the risk of developing cancer unless the man with special genes smoke heavily.
they find the difference is a geographical one
so they develop a reasearch to find out this question.
1:33
a specific case of genes.
the researchers find out the hotpots on a map and the most important one was london.
the city have many facts to influence whether the genes in someone's body to influence one's appearance, health and other characteristics, such as the income, healthcare, education and so on.
1:09
your genes did not determin your destiny
so the regions of hotpots on the map make people express genes differently? the answer is no..
for example, A region is full with wind pollen whereas B region is far away from field. although people in A and people in B have same genes, they express them differently.
A's people is easy to get hay fever, but few people in B have the desease, a situation that makes genes influences insignificant.

0:49
it is obivious that humans increase the globe warming

1:19
using a model of global waring, we are assured that humans increase the globe warming....

bit00000

01:51　关于双胞胎的研究　基因和环境共同一些　一个从没有人做过的研究分析
02:33   基因和环境的影响在不同地区有差异
01:54 解释gene hotspots 更难　　　基因的表达受很多影响　比如环境
01:32 新研究让人更清楚的认识到导致全球变暖的因素　人类的行为是主要原因
02:50 不能归咎到其他原因　人类行为还是主因
越障
04:23　melt-glass materials 支持　ＹＤＢ假设　又有多组研究支持ＹＤＢ

teddybearj4

速度：
1'23     1'27      54"    43"     56"

越障：7'16
Main idea: the passage is a report of a united study of the orgin of melt-glass.
Structure:
*summary: At the very first beginning paragraph, the author has a brief introduction of the results of the study, containing the following aspects.
1.where to find?
2.when it appeared?
3.the external condition of formation(temperature)
4.it is caused by which events?
*content:
support the hypothesis of YDB that is a suddent disappear of animals.
the rest of the passage elaborates on the 4 aspects mentioned in the summary.

jolene91

1.15
1.32
1.13
0.54
1.37

小胖宝

1'34, 2'19, 1'41, 1'04, 2'20
5'42

Olina加油

1'07  1'27  1'05  0'49  1'20    3'39

树姑娘

1'12
2'16
1'29
1'20
2'07
4'07
啥都没记住。。

phoebe0624

速度
1'14''
1'04''
56''
40''
1'02''
越障
4'40''
Sciensit find a rock that has many small holes on its suface，those small holes be formed by a high temperature. The temperature may come from the comet‘s cushion on earth.
This found will support the YDB theory.
They think that the cushion lead to great animals extinction and the continent apart.
some human live in those areas and cushion lead big fire.