英语长文章

众所周知，阅读作为人类汲取知识的主要手段和认知世界的主要途径之一，一度成为语文、外语等文科类学科学习的主要方式，而倍受关注和青睐。下面是我带来的英语长篇 文章 阅读，欢迎阅读!

英语长篇文章阅读1

寒武纪大爆发 动物王国出现

Science and technology

The Cambrian explosion

Kingdom come

Chinese palaeontologists hope to explain the rise of the animals

AMONG the mysteries of evolution, one of the most profound is what exactly happened at the beginning of the Cambrian period.

Before that period, which started 541m years ago and ran on for 56m years, life was a modest thing.

Bacteria had been around for about 3 billion years, but for most of this time they had had the Earth to themselves.

Seaweeds, jellyfish-like creatures, sponges and the odd worm do start to put in an appearance a few million years before the Cambrian begins.

But red in tooth and claw the Precambrian was not—for neither teeth nor claws existed.

Then, in the 20m-year blink of a geological eye, animals arrived in force.

Most of the main groups of the animal kingdom—arthropods, brachiopods, coelenterates, echinoderms, molluscs and even chordates, the branch from which vertebrates went on to develop—are found in the fossil beds of the Cambrian.

The sudden evolution of this megafauna is known as the Cambrian explosion.

But two centuries after it was noticed, in the mountains of Wales after which the Cambrian period is named, nobody knows what detonated it.

A group of Chinese scientists, led by Zhu Maoyan of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, plan to change that with a project called “From the Snowball Earth to the Cambrian explosion: the evolution of life and environment 600m years ago”.

The “Snowball Earth” refers to a series of ice ages that happened between 725m and 541m years ago.

These were, at their maxima, among the most extensive glaciations in the Earth’s history.

They alternated, though, with periods that make the modern tropics seem chilly: the planet’s average temperature was sometimes as high as 50C.

Add the fact that a supercontinent was breaking up at this time, and you have a picture of a world in chaos.

Just the sort of thing that might drive evolution.

Dr Zhu and his colleagues hope to find out exactly how these environmental changes correspond to changes in the fossil record.

The animals’ carnival

Fortunately, China’s fossil record for this period is rich.

Until recently, the only known fossils of Precambrian animals were what is called the Ediacaran fauna—a handful of strange creatures found in Australia, Canada and the English Midlands that lived in the Ediacaran period, between 635m and 541m years ago, and which bear little resemblance to what came afterwards.

In 1998, however, a team led by Chen Junyuan, also of the Nanjing Institute, and another led by Xiao Shuhai of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in America, discovered a 580m-year-old Lagersttte—a place where fossils are particularly well preserved—in a geological formation called the Doushantuo, which spreads out across southern China.

Portents of the modern world

This Lagersttte has yielded many previously unknown species, including microscopic sponges, small tubular organisms of unknown nature, things that look like jellyfish but might not be and a range of what appear to be embryos that show bilateral symmetry.

What these embryos would have grown into is unclear. But some might be the ancestors of the Cambrian megafauna.

To try to link the evolution of these species with changes in the environment, Chu Xuelei of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing and his colleagues have been looking at carbon isotopes in the Doushantuo rocks.

They have found that the proportion of 12C—a light isotope of carbon that is more easily incorporated by living organisms into organic matter than its heavy cousin, 13C—increased on at least three occasions during the Ediacaran period.

They suggest these increases mark moments when the amount of oxygen in seawater went up, because more oxygen would mean more oxidisation of buried organic matter. That would liberate its 12C, for incorporation into rocks.

Each of Dr Chu’s oxidation events corresponds with an increase in the size, complexity and diversity of life, both plant and animal.

What triggered what, however, is unclear.

There may have been an increase in photosynthesis because there were more algae around.

Or eroded material from newly formed mountains may have buried organic matter that would otherwise have reacted with oxygen, leading to a build-up of the gas.

The last—and most dramatic—rise in oxygen took place towards the end of the Ediacaran.

Follow-up work by Dr Zhu, in nine other sections of the Doushantuo formation, suggests this surge started just after the final Precambrian glacial period about 560m years ago, and went on for 9m years.

These dates overlap with those of signs of oxidation found in rocks in other parts of the world, confirming that whatever was going on affected the entire planet.

Dr Zhu suspects this global environmental shift propelled the evolution of complex animals.

Dr Zhu also plans to push back before the Ediacaran period.

Other researchers have found fossils of algae and wormlike creatures in rocks in northern China that pre-date the end of the Marinoan glaciation, 635m years ago, which marks the boundary between the Ediacaran and the Cryogenian period that precedes it.

Such fossils are hard to study, so Dr Zhu will use new imaging technologies that can look at them without having to clean away the surrounding rock, and are also able to detect traces of fossil organic matter invisible to the eye.

Besides digging back before the Ediacaran, the new project’s researchers also intend to analyse the unfolding of the Cambrian explosion itself by taking advantage of other Lagersttten—for China has several that date from the Cambrian.

Dr Chen, indeed, first made his name in 1984, when he excavated one at Chengjiang in Yunnan province.

It dates from 525m years ago, which make it 20m years older than the most famous CambrianLagersttte in the West, the Burgess shale of British Columbia, in Canada.

The project’s researchers plan to see how, evolutionarily speaking, the various Lagerst?tten relate to one another, to try to determine exactly when different groups of organisms emerged.

They will also look at the chemistry of elements other than carbon and oxygen—particularly nitrogen and phosphorous, which are essential to life, and sulphur, which often indicates the absence of oxygen and is thus antithetical to much animal life.

Dr Zhu hopes to map changes in the distribution of these chemicals across time and space.

He will assess how these changes correlate, whether they are related to weathering, mountain building and the ebb and flow of glaciers, how they could have affected the evolution of life, and how plants and animals might themselves have altered the chemistry of air and sea.

Most ambitiously, Dr Zhu, Dr Xiao and their colleagues hope to drill right through several fossiliferous sites in southern China where Ediacaran rocks turn seamlessly into Cambrian ones.

Such places are valuable because in most parts of the world there is a gap, known as an unconformity, between the Ediacaran and the Cambrian.

Unconformities are places where rocks have been eroded before new ones are deposited, and the widespread Ediacaran-Cambrian unconformity has been a big obstacle to understanding the Cambrian explosion.

With luck, then, a mystery first noticed in the Welsh mountains in the early 19th century will be solved in the Chinese ones in the early 21st.

If it is, the origin of the animal kingdom will have become clear, and an important gap in the history of humanity itself will have been filled.

英语长篇文章阅读2

巴西水资源 无水可喝

Water in Brazil

Nor any drop to drink

Dry weather and a growing population spell rationing

BRAZIL has the world's biggest reserves of fresh water. That most of it sits in the sparsely populated Amazon has not historically stopped Brazilians in the drier, more populous south taking it for granted. No longer. Landlords in S?o Paulo, who are wont to hose down pavements with gallons of potable water, have taken to using brooms instead. Notices in lifts and on the metro implore paulistanos to take shorter showers and re-use coffee mugs.

S?o Paulo state, home to one-fifth of Brazil's population and one-third of its economic activity, is suffering the worst drought since records began in 1930. Pitiful rainfall and high rates of evaporation in scorching heat have caused the volume of water stored in the Cantareira system of reservoirs, which supplies 10m people, to dip below 12% of capacity. This time last year, at the end of what is nominally the wet season, it stood at 64%.

On April 21st the governor, Geraldo Alckmin, warned that from May consumers will be fined for increasing their water use. Those who cut consumption are already rewarded with discounts on their bills. The city will tap three basins supplying other parts of the state, but since these reservoirs have also been hit by drought and supply hydropower plants, fears of blackouts are rising.

Without a downpour, Sabesp, the state water utility, expects Cantareira's levels to sink beneath the pipes which link reservoirs to consumers a week after S?o Paulo hosts the opening game of the football World Cup on June 12th. To tide the city over until rains resume in November, it is installing kit to pump half of the 400 billion litres of reserves beneath the pipes, at a cost of 80m reais. The company says this “dead volume”, never before used, is perfectly treatable. Some experts have expressed concerns about its quality.

Mr Alckmin has not ruled out tightening the spigots. Flow from taps in parts of S?o Paulo has already become a trickle, for which Sabesp blames maintenance work. Widespread cuts could hurt the governor's re-election bid in October. Hours after he announced the latest measures, a thirsty mob set fire to a bus.

Paulistanos use more water than most Brazilians, but lose less of it to leaks: 35%, compared with a national average of 39%. Sabesp, listed on the New York Stock Exchange but majority-owned by the state government, is a paragon of good governance, says John Briscoe, a water expert at Harvard and a former head of the World Bank mission in Brazil.

The problem exposed by the drought is that supply has not kept pace with the rising urban population. Facing a jumble of overlapping municipal, state and federal regulations, investment in storage, distribution and treatment has lagged behind. And not just in S?o Paulo; the national water regulator has warned that 16 projects in the ten biggest cities must be completed by 2015 to prevent chronic water shortages over the next decade. So far only five are finished; work on some has not begun. Short-term measures should keep the water trickling for now. But the well of temporary solutions will eventually run dry.

英语长篇文章阅读3

德国公司的管理 董事会的多元化

Business

Corporate governance in Germany

Diversifying the board

German boards have long been cosy men's clubs. But things are changing

HERMANN JOSEF ABS liked to joke, What's the difference between a doghouse and the supervisory board?

The doghouse is for the dog; the supervisory board is for the cat.

For those unfamiliar with the nuances of German humour, for the cat is slang for something like trash.

The late banker would know: while running Deutsche Bank from 1957 to 1967, he also sat on dozens of supervisory boards.

This was the peak of Deutschland AG, a clique of long-serving bosses, autocratic chairmen, do-nothing board members and their financier friends.

Big German companies' supervisory boards are supposed to act as a check on their management boards.

But in practice their relations were too cosy for this.

This past year the stumbles of two titans seemed to highlight how much corporate power is still concentrated in few hands in the Germanspeaking world.

As 2013 began Gerhard Cromme was chairman of the supervisory boards of both Siemens, an industrial conglomerate, and ThyssenKrupp, a steelmaker.

But big losses at foreign mills and heavy fines over a cartel case cost him the chairmanship at ThyssenKrupp.

Then in July, a boardroom bunfight at Siemens ended with the departure of Peter Lscher, the chief executive.

Mr Cromme belatedly called for his firing—but only after hiring him and protecting him for years.

Josef Ackermann, a Swiss former boss of Deutsche Bank and a Siemens board member, had defended Mr Lscher.

When Mr Lscher went, so did he.

Shortly before this he had quit as chairman of Zurich, a Swiss insurer, whose chief financial officer had committed suicide, leaving a note berating Mr Ackermann.

Now he has no big corporate job, there have been reports that Mr Ackermann may have to step down as a trustee of the World Economic Forum after its gabfest in Davos this week.

At first glance, corporate power in Germany still looks male, German and concentrated.

But its boardrooms are slowly getting more diverse.

In 2003 the average supervisory-board member at a public company sat on 1.9 boards; now the figure is 1.6.

A 2001 cut in tax on sales of shares let banks and insurance companies, which played big roles as lenders and part-owners, start disentangling themselves from companies.

Into the gaps, and onto the boards, has come a new generation of more active members.

Boards have little choice but to be sharper, says Christoph Schalast of Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

Many companies are now paying fines and settlements for their behaviour before the financial crisis.

A 2010 change in the law doubled the statute of limitations for such misdeeds to ten years.

Progress on making boards more international is slower.

Eight of the largest 30 public companies have foreign bosses, but the rest of their boards' members are predominantly German, even at the country's most multinational firms.

But Burkhard Schwenker, the boss of Roland Berger, a consulting firm, says that counting passports is simplistic: what matters more is international experience, which German firms increasingly look for when recruiting both management-and supervisory-board members.

If boards are becoming more professional and diverse, is accumulation of board seats a bad thing in itself?

Jrg Rocholl, the president of the European School for Management and Technology, says that studies disagree on whether busy board members are better or worse for profits.

But he agrees that boards are becoming more capable, and says this has been a factor in Germany's economic revival.

Pay for German board members is going up; but these days, members are earning it.

回来了啊什么也没干呢

The Positive Meanings of Love We'd like to share some of the positive meanings love has for us. Love means that I know the person I love. I'm aware of the many sides of the other person - not just the beautiful side but also the limitations, inconsistencies and faults. I have an awareness of the other's feelings and thoughts, and I experience something of the core of that person. I can penetrate social masks and roles and see the other person on a deeper level. Love means that I care about the welfare of the person I love. To the extent that it is genuine, my caring is not possessive, nor does it hold the other person back. On the contrary, my caring frees both of us. If I care about you, I'm concerned about your growth, and I hope you will become all that you can become. Consequently, I don't put up obstacles to what you do that enhances you as a person, even though it may result in my discomfort at times. Love means having respect for the dignity of the person I love. If I love you, I can see you as a separate person, with your own values and thoughts and feelings, and I do not insist that you surrender your identity to match an image of what I expect you to be for me. I can allow and encourage you to stand alone and to be who you are, and I avoid treating you as an object or using you primarily to satisfy my own needs. Love means having a responsibility toward the person I love. If I love you, I respond to most of your major needs as a person. This responsibility does not include my doing for you what you are capable of doing for yourself; nor does it mean that I run your life for you. It does mean acknowledging that what I am and what I do affects you, so that I am directly involved in your happiness and your suffering. A lover does have the capacity to hurt or ignore the loved one, and in this sense we see that love involves an acceptance of some responsibility for the impact my way of being has on you. Love means making a commitment to the person I love. This commitment does not mean surrendering our total selves to each other; nor does it imply that the relationship is necessarily permanent. It does involve a willingness to stay with each other in times of pain, struggle, and despair, as well as in times of calm and enjoyment. Love means trusting the person I love. If I love you, I trust that you will accept my caring and my love and that you won't deliberately hurt me. I trust that you will find me attractive, and that you won't abandon me; I trust the mutual nature of our love. If we trust each other, we are willing to be open to each other and reveal our true selves. Love can tolerate imperfection. In a love relationship there are times when I am bored, times when I may feel like giving up, times of real strain, and times I feel I can't move forward. Authentic love does not imply enduring happiness. I can stay during rough times, however, because I can remember what we had together in the past, and I can picture what we will have together in our future if we care enough to face our problems and work them through. We agree with the idea that love is a spirit that changes life. Love is a way of life that is creative and that transforms. However, love is not reserved for a perfect world. Love is meant for our imperfect world where things go wrong. Love is meant to be a spirit that works in painful situations. Love is meant to bring meaning into life where nonsense appears to rule. In other words, love comes into an imperfect world to make it possible to live. Love is open. If I love you, I encourage you to reach out and develop other relationships. Although our love for each other and our commitment to each other might prohibit certain actions on our parts, we are not totally and exclusively married to each other. It is a false love that cements one person to another in such a way that he or she is not given room to grow. Love is selfish. I can only love you if I genuinely love, value, appreciate, and respect myself. If I am empty, then all I can give you is my emptiness. If I feel that I'm complete and worthwhile in myself, then I'm able to give to you out of my fullness. One of the best ways for me to give you love is by fully enjoying myself with you. Love involves seeing the potential within the person we love. In my love for another, I view her or him as the person she or he can become, while still accepting who and what the person is now. By taking people as they are, we make them worse, but by treating them as if they already were what they ought to be, we help make them better. To sum it up, mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's individuality. In love, two beings become one and yet remain two. 爱的真谛我们想把我们对爱情的一些积极看法跟大家分享。爱就意味着了解所爱的人。能够认识到这个人多个方面--不仅仅是美好的一面，还有他的局限，他的矛盾之处和他的缺点。要看到对方的情感、思想，感觉他的内心，要能够透过他在社交场合的表现和他的社会角色而看到他内心的深处。爱就意味着关心所爱之人的幸福。事实上，爱不是占有，也不是束缚。相反，两人都在爱中得到自由。关心一个人就是关心他的成长，希望他可以成为最好的他。因此，我不会为他的个人发展设置障碍，即使这样有时使我难受。爱就意味着尊重所爱之人。爱一个人，就是将其卸任一个独立的人，有自己的价值观、思想和感情。我不会为自己而坚持要他放弃个性变成我所希望的他。我能允许，也鼓励他我行我素，成为他自己。我不会视他为物，或利用他主要来满足自己的需要。爱就意味着对所爱之人负责。爱一个人，就要对他作为独立个体的需求做出回应。这种负责并不包括替他做他可以自己做到的事，也不是操纵他的生活。这种负责是承认我的所作所为会影响到他，他的欢乐痛苦都与我直接相关。相爱者确有伤害或忽略所爱的人的能力。从这个意义上说，我们认为，爱就要为自己的行为对对方产生的影响承担某种责任。爱就意味着对所爱之人做出承诺。这种承诺并非意味着把自己完全交给对方，也并不是说这一关系必然是天长地久，这种承诺否认在平静愉快时，还是困苦挣扎、失意绝望时，都愿意厮守相伴。爱就意味着信赖所爱之人。爱一个人，就要相信他会接受我的关心，接受我的爱，相信他不会故意伤害我;相信他会认为平静愉快有吸引力，相信他不会抛弃我;相信爱是相互的。如果我们彼此信赖，我们就愿彼此坦诚相待，敞开心扉。爱能够容忍不完美。爱人之间也会有时感到厌倦，有时想放弃，有时感到压力，有时感到无法前进。真正的爱并不意味着永远的幸福。但是，在困难时期我能坚守，因为我仍记得我们共同度过的日子，我也能想象如果我们愿意面对我们之间的问题、渡过难关、我们将共同拥有什么样的未来。我们一致认为爱是一种能改变人生的精神。爱是一种生活方式，它具有创造和改变的力量。但是爱并不是为完善世界而存在的，爱本来就是我们这个不完美、有缺陷的世界而存在的。爱应该是一种能缓解痛苦的精神力量。爱应该给我们这无聊的生活带来意义。换言之，是爱使我们能够在这不完美的世界上生活下去。爱是包容的。爱一个人，就要鼓励他与他人建立联系。尽管对彼此的爱与承诺不允许我们有某些行为，这种结合也不是全然排他的。两个人密不可分，再无个人发展的余地，这样的爱是不真实、不明智的。爱又是自私的。只有真正自爱自重、自赏自尊，才能接受别人。如果自己空虚，那么我能给所爱之人的也只是空虚。如果认为自己是充实的、出色的，那么我就能以自己的充实为所爱之人增光，给对方以爱的最好方法之一就是与所爱之人一起充分体验自己。爱就要看到所爱之人身上的内在潜力。爱一个人，在接受今日的他的同时，还要了看作明天他会成为的人。视人静止不变，则令其退步，而视其进步发展、如同他的潜力已经发挥，则助其进步。总而言之，成熟的爱就是在保持个体独立条件下的双方结合。在爱情中，两个人变成了一个人同时还保持着两个独立的个体。

Children’s Song 作者：R.S.托马斯Welive in our own world,A world that is too smallFor you to stoop and enterEven on hands and knees,The adult subterfuge.And though you probe and pryWith analytic eye,And eavesdrop all our talkWith an amused look,You cannot find the centreWhere we dance, where we play,Where life is still asleepUnder the closed flower,Under the smooth shellOf eggs in the cupped nestThat mock the faded blueOf your remoter heaven.孩子们的歌我们生活在自己的世界，一个对你们而言太小的世界，即使手脚并用俯下身子，你们也难以进来。成年人的托辞。即使你们用善于分析的眼睛去探究、窥视，用愉快的表情去偷听我们所有的谈话，你们仍然不能找到那个中心，在那里，我们跳舞，我们玩耍，生命仍在酣睡，在那紧闭的花朵下，在那光滑的蛋壳下，杯状的巢内的蛋，嘲笑着你们那更为遥远的天堂中褪色的忧郁。