Questões de Inglês

ANTI-SEMITISM

[1]   In one Jewish school in London, pupils train for a possible terrorist attack. A synagogue has cancelled a children’s trip to Disneyland in France. Police and community groups have increased patrols in Jewish areas. After the murderous attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris on January 9th, British Jews are scared. Should they be?

[2]   Jews worried even before the killings. In a study of British Jews last year by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), almost 70% said that they felt anti-Semitism had increased in the past five years. Considering the atrocities in Paris, it should come as no surprise that many Jews feel uneasy in a way that they have not for some time, says Ephraim Mirvis, Britain’s chief rabbi. But he cautions against alarmism. Indeed: though some statistics suggest otherwise, anti-Semitism is not rising.

[3]   Research last year from the Pew Global Attitudes survey suggests that just 7% of Britons hold unfavourable views of Jews. That is a little less than in France and much lower than in Italy or Greece, where the rates are 24% and 47% respectively. The figure in Britain has been fairly stable—varying between 7% and 9%—for a decade, points out Daniel Staetsky of JPR. Levels of prejudice against Muslims are higher in Britain, as in other European countries.

[4]   The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that monitors anti-Semitic incidents, calculates that there were 529 in 2013, the lowest number since 2005. None involved serious violence. But the organization calculates that there was a rise in 2014. The first half of the year saw a 36% increase on 2013. Last July the CST recorded 302 incidents, its highest ever monthly total. London’s Metropolitan Police say the numbers of hate crimes against Jews reported last year almost doubled, though they remain low.

[5]   That has much to do with events elsewhere in the world. Anti-Semitic incidents tend to track violence in the Middle East. A sharp rise in 2009 coincided with Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. A rise in 2014 would coincide with Israel’s summer incursion into Gaza. Criticism of Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism, and the CST is careful to distinguish between the two. But, the organisation points out, the former can be used to bash Jews more generally.

[6]   The CST also notes that many incidents occur around the Jewish high holy days, when more people are going to and from synagogues. In 2013 incidents most commonly involved public verbal abuse hurled at visibly Jewish people, including shouts of “Heil Hitler” and “fucking Jewish bastards”. Changes in the demography of British Jews may exacerbate this. The haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, are a growing proportion of British Jews. Their clothes mark them out clearly as Jewish, as do the schools they attend and the areas where they live. As their numbers grow, abuse could increase, even as anti-Semitism more generally does not change.

Adapted from The Economist, January 24, 2015.

ZEBRAS

Lesley Evans Ogden 

[1]   Why zebras have stripes has long perplexed naturalists and continues to challenge scientists. Among the proposed explanations are that stripes promote social cohesion, regulate temperature, or confuse predators and biting flies. The matter, however, is far from settled.

[2]   Ecologist Brenda Larison of the University of California, Los Angeles, and six colleagues decided to have a fresh look at three hypotheses: predator evasion, thermoregulation, and biting fly avoidance. Plains zebras, Equus quagga, show a marked geographic variation in their stripes, which range from heavy black-and-white patterns covering the entire body to thinner, lighter stripes restricted to particular areas. For example, a now extinct subspecies from South Africa, E. q. quagga, had stripes on its neck, head, and torso but not on its belly or legs. The difference from region to region prompted the team to search for associations between environmental factors and striping patterns.

[3]   The researchers chose sixteen populations of plains zebras and photographed a minimum of eight animals per site. Using image-processing software, they noted the number of stripes and their length, thickness, and color saturation on the legs, torso, and belly. They also gathered data on twenty-nine environmental variables, including temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, leaf water content, and tree canopy cover. In addition, they used the Food and Agricultural Organization’s published distribution of tsetse flies and modeled the historic geographic distribution of lions and tsetse flies. The team then ran a computer model and looked at which variables best predicted the observed geographic variation of stripes.

[4]   Surprisingly, they found no clear link between striping patterns and escape from predators or avoidance of biting flies. Instead, temperature was the strongest predictor of stripe variation. Plains zebras living in warmer regions had thicker, more defined stripes than those in cooler regions. This, say the authors, seems to support the idea that contrasting black and white stripes lead to differential air currents, potentially giving the zebras an onboard air conditioner. Such a mechanism has previously been proposed but still remains to be investigated directly. Another untested possibility is that it’s not tsetse fly distribution that matters, but rather the distribution of the disease-causing parasites carried by the flies. “It’s something I want to follow up on,” says Larison, who is also studying the genetics that underlies zebra striping.

[5]   “We usually think about zebra stripes in terms of benefits of striping, but the fact that they lose their striping in certain areas suggests that perhaps there are also some costs,” she says. The mystery of zebra stripes is still being resolved, but for now, one possible explanation has been seriously considered.

Adapted from Natural History, March 2015.

ZEBRAS

Lesley Evans Ogden 

[1]   Why zebras have stripes has long perplexed naturalists and continues to challenge scientists. Among the proposed explanations are that stripes promote social cohesion, regulate temperature, or confuse predators and biting flies. The matter, however, is far from settled.

[2]   Ecologist Brenda Larison of the University of California, Los Angeles, and six colleagues decided to have a fresh look at three hypotheses: predator evasion, thermoregulation, and biting fly avoidance. Plains zebras, Equus quagga, show a marked geographic variation in their stripes, which range from heavy black-and-white patterns covering the entire body to thinner, lighter stripes restricted to particular areas. For example, a now extinct subspecies from South Africa, E. q. quagga, had stripes on its neck, head, and torso but not on its belly or legs. The difference from region to region prompted the team to search for associations between environmental factors and striping patterns.

[3]   The researchers chose sixteen populations of plains zebras and photographed a minimum of eight animals per site. Using image-processing software, they noted the number of stripes and their length, thickness, and color saturation on the legs, torso, and belly. They also gathered data on twenty-nine environmental variables, including temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, leaf water content, and tree canopy cover. In addition, they used the Food and Agricultural Organization’s published distribution of tsetse flies and modeled the historic geographic distribution of lions and tsetse flies. The team then ran a computer model and looked at which variables best predicted the observed geographic variation of stripes.

[4]   Surprisingly, they found no clear link between striping patterns and escape from predators or avoidance of biting flies. Instead, temperature was the strongest predictor of stripe variation. Plains zebras living in warmer regions had thicker, more defined stripes than those in cooler regions. This, say the authors, seems to support the idea that contrasting black and white stripes lead to differential air currents, potentially giving the zebras an onboard air conditioner. Such a mechanism has previously been proposed but still remains to be investigated directly. Another untested possibility is that it’s not tsetse fly distribution that matters, but rather the distribution of the disease-causing parasites carried by the flies. “It’s something I want to follow up on,” says Larison, who is also studying the genetics that underlies zebra striping.

[5]   “We usually think about zebra stripes in terms of benefits of striping, but the fact that they lose their striping in certain areas suggests that perhaps there are also some costs,” she says. The mystery of zebra stripes is still being resolved, but for now, one possible explanation has been seriously considered.

Adapted from Natural History, March 2015.

ZEBRAS

Lesley Evans Ogden 

[1]   Why zebras have stripes has long perplexed naturalists and continues to challenge scientists. Among the proposed explanations are that stripes promote social cohesion, regulate temperature, or confuse predators and biting flies. The matter, however, is far from settled.

[2]   Ecologist Brenda Larison of the University of California, Los Angeles, and six colleagues decided to have a fresh look at three hypotheses: predator evasion, thermoregulation, and biting fly avoidance. Plains zebras, Equus quagga, show a marked geographic variation in their stripes, which range from heavy black-and-white patterns covering the entire body to thinner, lighter stripes restricted to particular areas. For example, a now extinct subspecies from South Africa, E. q. quagga, had stripes on its neck, head, and torso but not on its belly or legs. The difference from region to region prompted the team to search for associations between environmental factors and striping patterns.

[3]   The researchers chose sixteen populations of plains zebras and photographed a minimum of eight animals per site. Using image-processing software, they noted the number of stripes and their length, thickness, and color saturation on the legs, torso, and belly. They also gathered data on twenty-nine environmental variables, including temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, leaf water content, and tree canopy cover. In addition, they used the Food and Agricultural Organization’s published distribution of tsetse flies and modeled the historic geographic distribution of lions and tsetse flies. The team then ran a computer model and looked at which variables best predicted the observed geographic variation of stripes.

[4]   Surprisingly, they found no clear link between striping patterns and escape from predators or avoidance of biting flies. Instead, temperature was the strongest predictor of stripe variation. Plains zebras living in warmer regions had thicker, more defined stripes than those in cooler regions. This, say the authors, seems to support the idea that contrasting black and white stripes lead to differential air currents, potentially giving the zebras an onboard air conditioner. Such a mechanism has previously been proposed but still remains to be investigated directly. Another untested possibility is that it’s not tsetse fly distribution that matters, but rather the distribution of the disease-causing parasites carried by the flies. “It’s something I want to follow up on,” says Larison, who is also studying the genetics that underlies zebra striping.

[5]   “We usually think about zebra stripes in terms of benefits of striping, but the fact that they lose their striping in certain areas suggests that perhaps there are also some costs,” she says. The mystery of zebra stripes is still being resolved, but for now, one possible explanation has been seriously considered.

Adapted from Natural History, March 2015.

ZEBRAS

Lesley Evans Ogden 

[1]   Why zebras have stripes has long perplexed naturalists and continues to challenge scientists. Among the proposed explanations are that stripes promote social cohesion, regulate temperature, or confuse predators and biting flies. The matter, however, is far from settled.

[2]   Ecologist Brenda Larison of the University of California, Los Angeles, and six colleagues decided to have a fresh look at three hypotheses: predator evasion, thermoregulation, and biting fly avoidance. Plains zebras, Equus quagga, show a marked geographic variation in their stripes, which range from heavy black-and-white patterns covering the entire body to thinner, lighter stripes restricted to particular areas. For example, a now extinct subspecies from South Africa, E. q. quagga, had stripes on its neck, head, and torso but not on its belly or legs. The difference from region to region prompted the team to search for associations between environmental factors and striping patterns.

[3]   The researchers chose sixteen populations of plains zebras and photographed a minimum of eight animals per site. Using image-processing software, they noted the number of stripes and their length, thickness, and color saturation on the legs, torso, and belly. They also gathered data on twenty-nine environmental variables, including temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, leaf water content, and tree canopy cover. In addition, they used the Food and Agricultural Organization’s published distribution of tsetse flies and modeled the historic geographic distribution of lions and tsetse flies. The team then ran a computer model and looked at which variables best predicted the observed geographic variation of stripes.

[4]   Surprisingly, they found no clear link between striping patterns and escape from predators or avoidance of biting flies. Instead, temperature was the strongest predictor of stripe variation. Plains zebras living in warmer regions had thicker, more defined stripes than those in cooler regions. This, say the authors, seems to support the idea that contrasting black and white stripes lead to differential air currents, potentially giving the zebras an onboard air conditioner. Such a mechanism has previously been proposed but still remains to be investigated directly. Another untested possibility is that it’s not tsetse fly distribution that matters, but rather the distribution of the disease-causing parasites carried by the flies. “It’s something I want to follow up on,” says Larison, who is also studying the genetics that underlies zebra striping.

[5]   “We usually think about zebra stripes in terms of benefits of striping, but the fact that they lose their striping in certain areas suggests that perhaps there are also some costs,” she says. The mystery of zebra stripes is still being resolved, but for now, one possible explanation has been seriously considered.

Adapted from Natural History, March 2015.

ZEBRAS

Lesley Evans Ogden 

[1]   Why zebras have stripes has long perplexed naturalists and continues to challenge scientists. Among the proposed explanations are that stripes promote social cohesion, regulate temperature, or confuse predators and biting flies. The matter, however, is far from settled.

[2]   Ecologist Brenda Larison of the University of California, Los Angeles, and six colleagues decided to have a fresh look at three hypotheses: predator evasion, thermoregulation, and biting fly avoidance. Plains zebras, Equus quagga, show a marked geographic variation in their stripes, which range from heavy black-and-white patterns covering the entire body to thinner, lighter stripes restricted to particular areas. For example, a now extinct subspecies from South Africa, E. q. quagga, had stripes on its neck, head, and torso but not on its belly or legs. The difference from region to region prompted the team to search for associations between environmental factors and striping patterns.

[3]   The researchers chose sixteen populations of plains zebras and photographed a minimum of eight animals per site. Using image-processing software, they noted the number of stripes and their length, thickness, and color saturation on the legs, torso, and belly. They also gathered data on twenty-nine environmental variables, including temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, leaf water content, and tree canopy cover. In addition, they used the Food and Agricultural Organization’s published distribution of tsetse flies and modeled the historic geographic distribution of lions and tsetse flies. The team then ran a computer model and looked at which variables best predicted the observed geographic variation of stripes.

[4]   Surprisingly, they found no clear link between striping patterns and escape from predators or avoidance of biting flies. Instead, temperature was the strongest predictor of stripe variation. Plains zebras living in warmer regions had thicker, more defined stripes than those in cooler regions. This, say the authors, seems to support the idea that contrasting black and white stripes lead to differential air currents, potentially giving the zebras an onboard air conditioner. Such a mechanism has previously been proposed but still remains to be investigated directly. Another untested possibility is that it’s not tsetse fly distribution that matters, but rather the distribution of the disease-causing parasites carried by the flies. “It’s something I want to follow up on,” says Larison, who is also studying the genetics that underlies zebra striping.

[5]   “We usually think about zebra stripes in terms of benefits of striping, but the fact that they lose their striping in certain areas suggests that perhaps there are also some costs,” she says. The mystery of zebra stripes is still being resolved, but for now, one possible explanation has been seriously considered.

Adapted from Natural History, March 2015.