时间:2018-12-05 作者:英语课 分类:英语听力文摘 English Digest


英语课

  Don: Some people seem to need significantly less sleep than others.

Yael: Tell me about it. I have a friend who swears that she sleeps only five hours a night. If she's telling the truth, then she must be bionic. She seems to have plenty of energy, and she's not fuzzy-brained and incompetent 1 the way I am after several nights of only five hours of sleep. You know what really irks me? Because she sleeps less, she has more time to accomplish more in her days than I do. It's not fair.

D: I know what you mean. I need eight to nine hours of sleep a night myself. What I would do for three more hours every day! That's twenty-one more hours a week!      I'm getting off track though. Scientists have discovered a gene 2 in fruit flies that determines how much rest the individual needs. Fruit flies with a version of this gene are actually programmed to need less sleep than others. And humans possess a similar gene.

Y : So the amount of sleep one needs seems to be genetically 3 inherited?

D: Yes. And families of flies with a lower sleep requirement don't seem to suffer any      impairments in their performance of daily tasks. It may very well be that people who      claim to need less sleep to operate normally are telling the truth.

Y: That's depressing.

D: Well, you might be interested to know that flies programmed to sleep less tend to die earlier.

Y: Really? So maybe I'll end up with the same hours of waking time as my friend after all. It'll just take me a few extra years of living to catch up with her!

D: Maybe.



1 incompetent
adj.无能力的,不能胜任的
  • He is utterly incompetent at his job.他完全不能胜任他的工作。
  • He is incompetent at working with his hands.他动手能力不行。
2 gene
n.遗传因子,基因
  • A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
  • The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。
3 genetically
adv.遗传上
  • All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
  • Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物
学英语单词
a pinhead
abwa
adeno-satellite virus
agro-ecosystem
animal food poisoning
antineuritc factor
antivehicle mine
Balladoran
bareboat charter party
beckles
blowing and scutcher machinery
bombs around
booze-up
bus compartment
carbon cloth
cash-for-work
catadrome side
chambering
charmen
collision rate density
cosmopolitan
Cox's treatment
cyst of seminal vesicle
design code
detailed examination program
detraditionalise
diphenylimidazolidin-4-one
distribution of stock
doup heald
engage in trade
englehardt
feltless packing
fiansals
film evaporation
first-come first-serve
flash mixing
forecast-type budget
genus Wyethia
greed-is-good
hanger type crankcase
Huey test
illposed
input format control
inter-orbit link
internal drive
knowledge-bases
Leitrim, Co.
leverage point
libfs
load distribution line
magnies
marine pulley
meateaters
media operation
Medicine R.
meralluride sodium
multicuspidate
musscular syphilis
nonpaged computer system
nonradiation
organosilicons
out-band system
Pareto-relevant externality
pinelands
platyopic
potassamide
PPS (Plant protective system)
prematerial
protidemia
pruderies
prunicythere apiumalia
pudends
quasi stationary oscillation
radar safety beacon system
red-lead putties
redrapes
region forbidden to tree cutting and hunting
review of operations
ribbon lapper
salted out
scheduled cost
scooch
shocktox
short bearing of tooth
stellar component
Stictidaceae
subsidiary headend
sync pulse regeneration
TCPA
thermodiffusion coefficient
threshold population
tidying up
time of departure
trigenerative
tuffeau
Turkey umber
upon her best behaviour
v-bombers
video card
white-winged
white-yellow
xanthomonas ricinicola(elliott)dowson