Questões de Inglês

  A team from Northwestern University, Illinois, found that when you eat, not just how you eat, could make a big difference. Scientists found that when mice ate at unusual hours, they put on twice as much weight, despite exercising and eating as much as the other mice. The study, in the journal Obesity, is said to be the first to show directly that there is a “wrong” time to eat. Recent studies have suggested that circadian rhythms, the body’s internal clock, have a role in how our bodies use up energy. However, this had been difficult to prove definitively.

  Deanna Arble, the main author of the study, said: “One of our research interests is shift workers1, who tend to be overweight. This got us thinking that eating at the wrong time of day might be contributing to weight gain”.

  The researchers looked at two groups of mice over a six-week period. Both groups were fed a high-fat diet, but at different times of the mice “waking cycle”. One group of mice ate at times when they would normally be asleep. They put on twice as much weight. This was despite the fact that they did the same level of activity, and ate the same amount of food, as the other mice. The researchers believe that the findings may have implications for people worried about their weight.

¹ shift workers = people who work at night

(http//www.bbc.co.uk – 08/09/2009. Adapted.)

  In recent years there have been suggestions that, instead of raising sheep, Australia should be raising kangaroos, which (unlike sheep) are native Australian species that are adapted to Australian plants and climates. It is claimed that the soft paws of kangaroos are less damaging to soil than are the hard hooves of sheep. Kangaroo meat is lean, healthy, and (in my opinion) absolutely delicious. In addition to their meat, kangaroos yield valuable hides1. All of those points are cited as arguments to support replacing sheep herding with kangaroo ranching.   

  However, that proposal faces real obstacles, both biological and cultural ones. Unlike sheep, kangaroos are not herd animals that will docilely obey one shepherd and a dog, or that can be rounded up and marched obediently up ramps into trucks for shipment to the slaughterhouse. Instead, kangaroo ranchers have to hire hunters to chase down and shoot their kangaroos one by one. Further problems with kangaroos are their mobility and ability to jump fences: if you invest in promoting growth of a kangaroo population on your property, and if your kangaroos perceive some inducement to move (such as rain falling somewhere else), your valuable crop of kangaroos may end up 30 miles away on somebody else’s property. Kangaroo meat is accepted in Germany and some is exported there, but the sale of kangaroo meat faces cultural obstacles elsewhere. For Australians, kangaroo meat has little appeal, and they continue to prefer their more traditional types of meat, especially lamb and beef. Many Australian animal welfare advocates oppose kangaroo harvesting, not taking into consideration the fact that living conditions and slaughter methods are much crueler for domestic sheep and cattle than for wild kangaroos. The U.S. explicitly forbids the importation of kangaroo meat because we find the beasts cute, and because a congressman’s wife heard that kangaroos are endangered. Some kangaroo species are indeed endangered, but ironically the species actually harvested for meat are abundant pest animals in Australia.

(DIAMOND, J. Collapse. New York: Penguin, 2005. Adaptado)

  In recent years there have been suggestions that, instead of raising sheep, Australia should be raising kangaroos, which (unlike sheep) are native Australian species that are adapted to Australian plants and climates. It is claimed that the soft paws of kangaroos are less damaging to soil than are the hard hooves of sheep. Kangaroo meat is lean, healthy, and (in my opinion) absolutely delicious. In addition to their meat, kangaroos yield valuable hides1. All of those points are cited as arguments to support replacing sheep herding with kangaroo ranching.   

  However, that proposal faces real obstacles, both biological and cultural ones. Unlike sheep, kangaroos are not herd animals that will docilely obey one shepherd and a dog, or that can be rounded up and marched obediently up ramps into trucks for shipment to the slaughterhouse. Instead, kangaroo ranchers have to hire hunters to chase down and shoot their kangaroos one by one. Further problems with kangaroos are their mobility and ability to jump fences: if you invest in promoting growth of a kangaroo population on your property, and if your kangaroos perceive some inducement to move (such as rain falling somewhere else), your valuable crop of kangaroos may end up 30 miles away on somebody else’s property. Kangaroo meat is accepted in Germany and some is exported there, but the sale of kangaroo meat faces cultural obstacles elsewhere. For Australians, kangaroo meat has little appeal, and they continue to prefer their more traditional types of meat, especially lamb and beef. Many Australian animal welfare advocates oppose kangaroo harvesting, not taking into consideration the fact that living conditions and slaughter methods are much crueler for domestic sheep and cattle than for wild kangaroos. The U.S. explicitly forbids the importation of kangaroo meat because we find the beasts cute, and because a congressman’s wife heard that kangaroos are endangered. Some kangaroo species are indeed endangered, but ironically the species actually harvested for meat are abundant pest animals in Australia.

(DIAMOND, J. Collapse. New York: Penguin, 2005. Adaptado)

  In recent years there have been suggestions that, instead of raising sheep, Australia should be raising kangaroos, which (unlike sheep) are native Australian species that are adapted to Australian plants and climates. It is claimed that the soft paws of kangaroos are less damaging to soil than are the hard hooves of sheep. Kangaroo meat is lean, healthy, and (in my opinion) absolutely delicious. In addition to their meat, kangaroos yield valuable hides1. All of those points are cited as arguments to support replacing sheep herding with kangaroo ranching.   

  However, that proposal faces real obstacles, both biological and cultural ones. Unlike sheep, kangaroos are not herd animals that will docilely obey one shepherd and a dog, or that can be rounded up and marched obediently up ramps into trucks for shipment to the slaughterhouse. Instead, kangaroo ranchers have to hire hunters to chase down and shoot their kangaroos one by one. Further problems with kangaroos are their mobility and ability to jump fences: if you invest in promoting growth of a kangaroo population on your property, and if your kangaroos perceive some inducement to move (such as rain falling somewhere else), your valuable crop of kangaroos may end up 30 miles away on somebody else’s property. Kangaroo meat is accepted in Germany and some is exported there, but the sale of kangaroo meat faces cultural obstacles elsewhere. For Australians, kangaroo meat has little appeal, and they continue to prefer their more traditional types of meat, especially lamb and beef. Many Australian animal welfare advocates oppose kangaroo harvesting, not taking into consideration the fact that living conditions and slaughter methods are much crueler for domestic sheep and cattle than for wild kangaroos. The U.S. explicitly forbids the importation of kangaroo meat because we find the beasts cute, and because a congressman’s wife heard that kangaroos are endangered. Some kangaroo species are indeed endangered, but ironically the species actually harvested for meat are abundant pest animals in Australia.

(DIAMOND, J. Collapse. New York: Penguin, 2005. Adaptado)

  In recent years there have been suggestions that, instead of raising sheep, Australia should be raising kangaroos, which (unlike sheep) are native Australian species that are adapted to Australian plants and climates. It is claimed that the soft paws of kangaroos are less damaging to soil than are the hard hooves of sheep. Kangaroo meat is lean, healthy, and (in my opinion) absolutely delicious. In addition to their meat, kangaroos yield valuable hides1. All of those points are cited as arguments to support replacing sheep herding with kangaroo ranching.   

  However, that proposal faces real obstacles, both biological and cultural ones. Unlike sheep, kangaroos are not herd animals that will docilely obey one shepherd and a dog, or that can be rounded up and marched obediently up ramps into trucks for shipment to the slaughterhouse. Instead, kangaroo ranchers have to hire hunters to chase down and shoot their kangaroos one by one. Further problems with kangaroos are their mobility and ability to jump fences: if you invest in promoting growth of a kangaroo population on your property, and if your kangaroos perceive some inducement to move (such as rain falling somewhere else), your valuable crop of kangaroos may end up 30 miles away on somebody else’s property. Kangaroo meat is accepted in Germany and some is exported there, but the sale of kangaroo meat faces cultural obstacles elsewhere. For Australians, kangaroo meat has little appeal, and they continue to prefer their more traditional types of meat, especially lamb and beef. Many Australian animal welfare advocates oppose kangaroo harvesting, not taking into consideration the fact that living conditions and slaughter methods are much crueler for domestic sheep and cattle than for wild kangaroos. The U.S. explicitly forbids the importation of kangaroo meat because we find the beasts cute, and because a congressman’s wife heard that kangaroos are endangered. Some kangaroo species are indeed endangered, but ironically the species actually harvested for meat are abundant pest animals in Australia.

(DIAMOND, J. Collapse. New York: Penguin, 2005. Adaptado)

RUSSELL, BERTRAND (3rd Earl Russell) (1872–1970), philosopher and peace campaigner. Grandson of Whig prime minister Lord John Russell, he established his reputation with his work at Cambridge on mathematical logic, resulting in the publication (with A. N. Whitehead) of Principia Mathematica (1910–13). Removed from his Cambridge lectureship in 1915 for his open opposition to World War I and his support for conscientious objectors, he was imprisoned in 1918 for seditious writings. Although he was restored to the Cambridge post in 1919, he gave it up to devote himself to writing. His later works include The Analysis of Matter (1927) and History of Western Philosophy (1948), as well as a large number of broadcasts and works of popular philosophy. These made him famous, and as a result he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950. An opponent of nuclear weapons, he was a co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1958 and its first president, and was imprisoned in 1961 for his CND activities.

(GARDNER, J. & Wenborn, N., Eds. The History Today Companion to British History. London: Collins & Brown, 1995. Adapted)