Questões de Inglês

Secret life of the dodo revealed
By Helen Briggs BBC News
24 August 2017

The dodo lived on the island of Mauritius until it died out about 350 years ago.

Scientists are piecing together clues about the life of the dodo, hundreds of years after the flightless bird was driven to extinction
 

Few scientific facts are known about the hapless bird, which was last sighted in 1662. A study of bone specimens shows the chicks hatched in August and grew rapidly to adult size.

[1]     The bird shed its feathers in March revealing fluffy grey plumage recorded in historical accounts by
mariners.
   Delphine Angst of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, was given access to some of the
dodo bones that still exist in museums and collections, including specimens that were recently donated to a
[5] museum in France.
    Her team analysed slices of bone from 22 dodos under the microscope to find out more about the
bird’s growth and breeding patterns.
    “Before our study we knew very very little about these birds,” said Dr. Angst.
   “Using the bone histology for the first time we managed to describe that this bird was actually
[10] breeding at a certain time of the year and was moulting just after that.”

    The scientists can tell from growth patterns in the bones that the chicks grew to adult size very
rapidly after hatching from eggs around August.

    This would have given them a survival advantage when cyclones hit the island between November
and March, leading to a scarcity of food.
[15]    However, the birds probably took several years to reach sexual maturity, possibly because the adult
birds lacked any natural predators.
    The bones of adult birds also show signs of mineral loss, which suggests that they lost old damaged
feathers after the breeding season.
    Ancient mariners gave conflicting accounts of the dodo, describing them as having “black down” or
[20] “curled plumes of a greyish colour”.
    The research, published in Scientific Reports, backs this historical evidence.
    “The dodo was quite a brown-grey bird, and during the moulting it had downy, black plumage,”
explained Dr. Angst.
    “What we found using our scientific methods fit perfectly with what the sailors had written in the
[25] past.”

Egg theft

    The research could also shed light on the dodo’s extinction about 350 years ago, less than 100 years
after humans arrived on the island.
    Hunting was a factor in the dodo’s demise, but monkeys, deer, pigs and rats released on the island
from ships probably sealed their fate.
[30]   Dodos laid their eggs in nests on the ground, meaning they were vulnerable to attack by feral
mammals.
   Dr. Angst said the dodo is considered “a very big icon of animal-human induced extinction”,
although the full facts are unknown. [...]
Disponível em: <http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41002562>. Acesso em: 27 ago. 2017. Adaptado.

Secret life of the dodo revealed
By Helen Briggs BBC News
24 August 2017

The dodo lived on the island of Mauritius until it died out about 350 years ago.

Scientists are piecing together clues about the life of the dodo, hundreds of years after the flightless bird was driven to extinction
 

Few scientific facts are known about the hapless bird, which was last sighted in 1662. A study of bone specimens shows the chicks hatched in August and grew rapidly to adult size.

[1]     The bird shed its feathers in March revealing fluffy grey plumage recorded in historical accounts by
mariners.
   Delphine Angst of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, was given access to some of the
dodo bones that still exist in museums and collections, including specimens that were recently donated to a
[5] museum in France.
    Her team analysed slices of bone from 22 dodos under the microscope to find out more about the
bird’s growth and breeding patterns.
    “Before our study we knew very very little about these birds,” said Dr. Angst.
   “Using the bone histology for the first time we managed to describe that this bird was actually
[10] breeding at a certain time of the year and was moulting just after that.”

    The scientists can tell from growth patterns in the bones that the chicks grew to adult size very
rapidly after hatching from eggs around August.

    This would have given them a survival advantage when cyclones hit the island between November
and March, leading to a scarcity of food.
[15]    However, the birds probably took several years to reach sexual maturity, possibly because the adult
birds lacked any natural predators.
    The bones of adult birds also show signs of mineral loss, which suggests that they lost old damaged
feathers after the breeding season.
    Ancient mariners gave conflicting accounts of the dodo, describing them as having “black down” or
[20] “curled plumes of a greyish colour”.
    The research, published in Scientific Reports, backs this historical evidence.
    “The dodo was quite a brown-grey bird, and during the moulting it had downy, black plumage,”
explained Dr. Angst.
    “What we found using our scientific methods fit perfectly with what the sailors had written in the
[25] past.”

Egg theft

    The research could also shed light on the dodo’s extinction about 350 years ago, less than 100 years
after humans arrived on the island.
    Hunting was a factor in the dodo’s demise, but monkeys, deer, pigs and rats released on the island
from ships probably sealed their fate.
[30]   Dodos laid their eggs in nests on the ground, meaning they were vulnerable to attack by feral
mammals.
   Dr. Angst said the dodo is considered “a very big icon of animal-human induced extinction”,
although the full facts are unknown. [...]
Disponível em: <http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41002562>. Acesso em: 27 ago. 2017. Adaptado.

Brazil stops demarcating land for indigenous people: ex-government agency official says

    Home to the world’s largest tropical forest, Brazil has lost about one fifth of the Amazon rainforest in the last 50 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Research by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute shows that deforestation rates on land formally owned by indigenous peoples are about 2.5 times lower than other areas since they are more likely to conserve the forest than other users.
    But politicians representing rural voters¹ oppose demarcating new territories for indigenous groups, saying the land ought to be used for farming or cattle ranching to boost economic growth in the recession-hit country. Marcio Santilli, former FUNAI president, said rural politicians were proposing new steps to the demarcation process, which would make it “virtually endless”. He also said they were also proposing that Congress, rather than FUNAI or the Justice Ministry, make decisions on which lands are demarcated to indigenous groups.
(Chris Arsenault. www.reuters.com, 11.01.2017. Adaptado.)
 

¹ Politicians representing rural voters: bancada ruralista no Congresso Nacional.

Brazil stops demarcating land for indigenous people: ex-government agency official says

    Home to the world’s largest tropical forest, Brazil has lost about one fifth of the Amazon rainforest in the last 50 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Research by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute shows that deforestation rates on land formally owned by indigenous peoples are about 2.5 times lower than other areas since they are more likely to conserve the forest than other users.
    But politicians representing rural voters¹ oppose demarcating new territories for indigenous groups, saying the land ought to be used for farming or cattle ranching to boost economic growth in the recession-hit country. Marcio Santilli, former FUNAI president, said rural politicians were proposing new steps to the demarcation process, which would make it “virtually endless”. He also said they were also proposing that Congress, rather than FUNAI or the Justice Ministry, make decisions on which lands are demarcated to indigenous groups.
(Chris Arsenault. www.reuters.com, 11.01.2017. Adaptado.)
 

¹ Politicians representing rural voters: bancada ruralista no Congresso Nacional.

TEXTO:
 

Genealogy
    Genealogy — finding out about your family
history — is one of the most popular hobbies in Europe.
There seems to have been strong interest in tracing our
ancestry recently, and across the continent people are
[5] discovering their roots. Some of these people were
adopted and are now trying to find their biological parents,
but many are driven by a chance to learn more about
where they fit in to their family’s past.
    It is not surprising that the rise in popularity of
[10] genealogy is closely linked to the technological
revolution — there are hundreds, probably thousands of
websites offering to help make the work easier for you.
Society has changed too. We no longer live in close
communities because many people have had to move far
[15] from their hometowns in search of work. After the initial
excitement of moving to a new town or city, people have
a tendency to want to rediscover their identity.
    So how do you do it? It might seem obvious, but
many people forget that they can find out a lot by speaking
[20] to older family members. Call up an old aunt — or pay
her a visit. Older relatives are usually more than willing to
talk about the past. Many families have a Bible or a
photograph album with important names and dates written
in it. Keep a careful record of all the information you find.
[25]      When you have learned all you can, the next step
is to search official records. You can often do this at your
local town hall, courthouse, or church. The websites
mentioned earlier might be able to do this for you, but
you will probably have to pay to access their databases.

[30]      Researching your ancestry is not easy. If you’re
planning to look back more than three generations, you
need to be prepared. There will be many hours searching
on a computer, on microfilm, or in public offices. You
might have to go long periods of time without making any
[35] significant discoveries, or it could be worse — you might
find that your ancestors were not very nice people at all!
(Adapted from “Q Skills For Success Level 2 Unit 5”, Oxford University Press)

TEXTO:
 

Genealogy
    Genealogy — finding out about your family
history — is one of the most popular hobbies in Europe.
There seems to have been strong interest in tracing our
ancestry recently, and across the continent people are
[5] discovering their roots. Some of these people were
adopted and are now trying to find their biological parents,
but many are driven by a chance to learn more about
where they fit in to their family’s past.
    It is not surprising that the rise in popularity of
[10] genealogy is closely linked to the technological
revolution — there are hundreds, probably thousands of
websites offering to help make the work easier for you.
Society has changed too. We no longer live in close
communities because many people have had to move far
[15] from their hometowns in search of work. After the initial
excitement of moving to a new town or city, people have
a tendency to want to rediscover their identity.
    So how do you do it? It might seem obvious, but
many people forget that they can find out a lot by speaking
[20] to older family members. Call up an old aunt — or pay
her a visit. Older relatives are usually more than willing to
talk about the past. Many families have a Bible or a
photograph album with important names and dates written
in it. Keep a careful record of all the information you find.
[25]      When you have learned all you can, the next step
is to search official records. You can often do this at your
local town hall, courthouse, or church. The websites
mentioned earlier might be able to do this for you, but
you will probably have to pay to access their databases.

[30]      Researching your ancestry is not easy. If you’re
planning to look back more than three generations, you
need to be prepared. There will be many hours searching
on a computer, on microfilm, or in public offices. You
might have to go long periods of time without making any
[35] significant discoveries, or it could be worse — you might
find that your ancestors were not very nice people at all!
(Adapted from “Q Skills For Success Level 2 Unit 5”, Oxford University Press)