14.(2011·四川卷)C

The pound new Library of Birmingham(LoB)will be the most visible sign of the way the city is accepting the digitalization(数字化)of everyday life.

Set to open in 2013, the £188m LoB is already beginning to tale shape next to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, with which it will share some equipment.

As digital media(媒介)is important to its idea. the project is already providing chances for some of the many small new local companies working at the new technologies.

Brian Gambles, the LoB project director, says it is about giving people the right tools for learning,“The aim is to mix the physical with the digital. Providing 24-hour services which can be used through, many different ways. It is important to enable us to reach more people, more effectively.”

The digital library will, he says, be as important as the physical one, allowing the distant use of the services, making sure that it is never closed to the public.

Even before the LoB is complete, the public has been able to go online to visit the Virtual(虚拟的)LoB, designed by Baden, the Birmingham virtual worlds specialists. Not only have the public been able to learn about LoB, but the virtual one has also enabled those working on the LoB to understand the building and how it will work before it even opens.

Two other small Birmingham-based digital companies are working on the LoB projects. Substrat, a digital design company, is developing what it calls an example of an “enlarged  reality” project. It is about the use of an exciting smart phone, an important part of the  which is the early stages of development  is an online library of figures of the city being built up by a content company in Cahoots, in which users with the encouraged to add to and comment on the material.

   Gambles says: “Technology will enable us to make the library’s  and services open to citizens as sever before.”

13.(2011·全国II)B

 For those who study the development of intelligence(智力)in the animal world, self-awareness is an important measurement. An animal that is aware(意识)of itself has a high

level of intelligence.

Awareness can be tested by studying whether the animal recognizes itself in the mirror, that is, its own reflected image(反射出的影像).Many animals fail this exercise bitterly, paying very little attention to the reflected image. Only humans, and some intelligent animals like apes and dolphins, have been shown to recognize that the image in the mirror is of themselves.

Now another animal has joined the club. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report that an Asian elephant has passed the mirror self-reflection test. "We thought that elephants were the next important animal," said Diana Reiss of the Wildlife Conservation Society, an author of the study with Joshua M. Plotnik and Fans B.M. de Waal of Emory University. With their large brains, Reiss said, elephants "seemed like cousins to apes and

dolphins."

The researchers tested Happy, Maxine and Patty, three elephants at the Bronx Zoo. They put

an 8-foot-square mirror on a wall of the animals' play area (out of the sight of zoo visitors) and recorded what happened with cameras, including one built in the mirror.

The elephants used their long noses to find what was behind it, and to examine parts of their bodies.

 Of the three, Happy then passed the test, in which a clear mark was painted on one side of her face. She could tell the mark was there by looking in the mirror, and she used the mirror to touch the mark with her long nose.

Diana Reiss said, "We knew elephants were intelligent, but now we can talk about their intelligence in a better way."

12.(2011·上海卷)(B)

Humpback whales

Quick Facts
Size:  14m-18m in length;
    30-50 tons in weight
Living: Open ocean and
shallow coastline
waters
Environment: From warm tropical(热带的) waters, where they breed, to cold
   polar waters, where they eat
Diet:  Shellfish, plants and
fish of small size
Hunting: Sometimes in groups, in which several whales form a circle under the water, blowing bubbles that form a “net” around a school of fish. The fish are then forced up to the surface in a concentrated mass.
Current state; endangered; it
 is estimated that there
 are about 5000-7500
humpback whales
 worldwide
 
Blowhole      dorsal fin

tail
flukes
 

                   Pectoral fin

    Humpback whales are sometimes called performers of

the ocean. This is because they can make impressive

movements when they dive. The name “humpback”, which

is the common name for this whale, refers to the typical

curve shape the whale’s back forms as it dives.

    Sometimes the humpback will dive with a fantastic

movement known as a breach. During breaching the whale

uses its powerful tail flukes to lift nearly two-thirds of its

body out of the water in a giant leap. A breach might also

include a sideways twist with fins stretched out like wings,

as the whale reaches the height of the breach.

    A humpback whale breathes air at the surface of the

Water through two blowholes which are located near the top

of the head. It blows a double stream of water that can rise

up to 4 meters above the water.

    The humpback has a small dorsal fin located towards

the tail flukes about two-thirds of the way down its back.

other distinguishing features include large pectoral fins,

which may be up to a third of the body length, and unique

black and white spots on the underside of the tail flukes.

These markings are like fingerprints: no two are the same.

    Humpback whales live in large groups. They

communicate with each other through complex “songs”.

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