考研英語美文閱讀欣賞

　　在全國碩士研究生入學英語考試中,閱讀理解試題在整個試卷中佔很大比重,其重要程度不言而喻。想要提高英語閱讀能力，最好的辦法就是多看多練。為了提高大家的閱讀水平，下面是小編為大家帶來，希望大家喜歡!

　　：梳子能讀懂你的心

　　No, this brush is not a mind-reader in the psychic sense. What it does is take precise measurements of the levels of neurological activity in a brain.

　　梳子能讀懂你的心，這可不是從什麼神祕莫測的讀心術。這把神奇的數字能夠精確地測量你大腦內部神經活動的水平。

　　Technology already exists to track your mental activity. It’s called functional near infraredspectroscopy ***fNIRS***, which images blood flowing through the brain and measures the difference of levels of oxygen in the blood in order to evaluate mental activity.

　　最早的追蹤大腦活動的技術稱之為功能性近紅外光譜方法，這種方法可以對你大腦裡的血液流動成像，並且記錄大腦學血液裡面的氧氣含量以評估你的精神狀態。

　　But it has a major drawback: it’s usually impaired by hair.

　　但是這種方法有一個致命的弱點，它會傷害到你的頭髮。

　　That’s why researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas and University of Texas at Arlington have been working on a device that is essentially a hairbrush that can measure and monitor brain activity.

　　這就是為什麼德克薩斯大學位於達拉斯和阿靈頓的分校要聯合致力於發明這種能夠測量和檢測大腦活動的梳子的緣由。

　　The device is officially known as a “brush optrode,” which uses that same fNIRS technology, but in a way no other device has been able to up to this point. It’s designed to provide increased sensitivity with fiber tips that thread through hair to increase direct scalp contact. The technique is much more accurate when its sensors can actually touch the scalp.

　　這種梳子的學名稱之為“梳子光極”，它的原理和近紅外光譜法差不多，但是卻超越了之前所有的裝置。這種裝置的敏感度很高，它的光纖觸頭能夠在頭髮之間穿過，直接接觸到頭皮，因此這種感測器的測量結果要比其他感測器精確很多。

　　Duncan MacFarlane is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas, and one of the lead researchers on this project. He says, “It is easy for a patient’s hair to get in the way and block the signal” with conventional fNIRS technology. “So we developed a new tip for the fNIRS fibers-a brush optrode that slides the fibers between the hair follicles. Signal levels increase three- to five-fold, and patients report that the brush optrode is considerably more comfortable than the conventional fiber ends.”

　　杜康·麥克法蘭是德克薩斯大學達拉斯分校電子工程學院的一名教授，也是這個專案的帶頭人。他說，“用傳統的近紅外光譜分析法，頭髮很容易就糾纏在一起，影響到訊號的傳遞。因此我們發明了一種新的光纖，一種近似梳子的光極，它使得光纖可以在頭皮的小囊之間自由地穿梭。訊號的傳遞程度增加了三到五倍，治療者也反映這種梳子的光極要比傳統的裝置舒服很多。”

　　：大猩猩和人類一樣偏好用右手

　　Humans are not the only species to prefer to use their right hand-chimpanzees also share the trait, according to a new study by Spanish scientists.

　　根據西班牙科學家的一項最新研究顯示，人類並不是唯一偏好用右手的物種，大猩猩和人類一樣具備這個特點。

　　The researchers reached their findings, published in the latest edition of the American Journal of Primatology, after observing 114 chimpanzees from two primate rescue centers, one in Spain and the other in Zambia.

　　這項最新研究發表在美國期刊《靈長類動物學》上。科學家們是通過對兩個靈長類動物救助中心裡的114 只大猩猩進行觀察而得出這一結論的。這兩個救助中心一個在西班牙，一個在尚比亞。

　　The primates were provided with food hidden inside tubes and the scientists monitored them to see which hand they used to get at it, either their fingers or with the help of tools.

　　科學家在大猩猩面前放了一個管子，管子內藏著食物。研究者就是想觀察大猩猩到底是用哪知手取出食物，不管是用手指還是藉助工具。

　　“The chimpanzees showed a preferential use of the right hand to get the food from the tube,” the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution, which coordinated the study, said in a statement. “This feature had traditionally been considered exclusively human and had been believed to be caused by asymmetries observed in the human brain that are related to the realization of complicated activities that require the use and coordination of both hands.”

　　大猩猩偏好用右手取食物，” 協助這項研究的加泰隆尼亞古生態學和社會發展研究所在報告中稱。“使用右手一直以來被認為是人類獨有的特點，這個特點是由於人類左右腦發展不平衡造成的。人類為了完成複雜的活動，往往需要兩手並用。”

　　The study also found that female chimpanzees, like their human counterparts, are more likely to be right-handed than males.

　　這項研究還發現，母猩猩同人類女性一樣，比起他們的另一半來說更偏好用右手。

　　The researchers said this suggests “that just like in our species, there are shared biological factors, genetic and hormonal, that modulate the functioning of our brain.”

　　這項研究表明，“就像在人類內不一樣，物種之間也存在共同的生理基因和荷爾蒙特徵，這些特徵控制著我們的大腦。”