Questões de Inglês

    For 35 years, toy Garfield phones have inexplicably washed up onto the beaches along the coastal waters of Brittany, France, and now we finally know why. As it happens, the astonishing phenomenon of the lasagna-loving cat phones making their way to the French coast for years started at the height of the comic strip star’s popularity in the mid-80s when people were warming up to Jim Davis’s cartoon creation. As many as 200 Garfield’s parts were discovered strewn across France’s beaches just last year, according to FranceInfo.

    The environmental activist group Ar Vilantsou didn’t give up on finding the source. They even made Garfield the kid-friendly face of the mission to clean up the ocean pollution in the area. Recently, a farmer got in touch with the organization to say that he discovered that a metal shipping container with a massive stash of the orange Garfield telephone cargo was tucked away in the deepest recesses of a cave after a storm back in the ’80s. Both Ar Viltansou and local officials told the BBC that they are going to continue to collect these phones.

Internet: time.com/ (adapted).

    For 35 years, toy Garfield phones have inexplicably washed up onto the beaches along the coastal waters of Brittany, France, and now we finally know why. As it happens, the astonishing phenomenon of the lasagna-loving cat phones making their way to the French coast for years started at the height of the comic strip star’s popularity in the mid-80s when people were warming up to Jim Davis’s cartoon creation. As many as 200 Garfield’s parts were discovered strewn across France’s beaches just last year, according to FranceInfo.

    The environmental activist group Ar Vilantsou didn’t give up on finding the source. They even made Garfield the kid-friendly face of the mission to clean up the ocean pollution in the area. Recently, a farmer got in touch with the organization to say that he discovered that a metal shipping container with a massive stash of the orange Garfield telephone cargo was tucked away in the deepest recesses of a cave after a storm back in the ’80s. Both Ar Viltansou and local officials told the BBC that they are going to continue to collect these phones.

Internet: time.com/ (adapted).

    There have always been myths about immortality, that is, being able to live forever. Well, our Marine Biologists have found a creature that comes close – a tiny transparent jellyfish. While it has the unofficial name of Immortal Jellyfish, its official name is Turritopsis dohrnii. After an adult male T. dohrnii squirts his sperm into the ocean waters, some of them end up inside a female T. dohrnii. This creates the fertilised eggs, which then turn into tiny free-swimming larvae called “planula”. After a while, the planula give up swimming, dive down to the sea floor, and attach themselves to a rock. They then change shape entirely into columns of highly branched polyps. After a few days, another change of shape happens. Tiny jellyfish (about 1 mm across) “bud” off from the tips of the polyp and, like miniature asexual umbrellas with tentacles, float through the ocean. After 2-4 weeks, they become sexually mature males or females.

    Now T. dohrnii jellyfish can be eaten by bigger creatures – so they are not truly immortal. But when T. dohrnii suffers a physical attack, instead of dying, they change firstly into a tiny blob, and then back to the polyp stage within 3 days. They become another polyp colony sitting on a rock. The polyp is genetically identical to the original jellyfish – but is packaged differently.

    Did that original jellyfish die? Not really. Did that original jellyfish continue to live in the same body? No. It’s kind of like a butterfly that instead of dying changes back to a caterpillar – or an aged chicken turning back into an egg. So technically it’s more like “Regeneration”, but it’s the closest that we have to immortality. And once we learn how T. dohrnii does it, we could apply this knowledge to medical science for humans.

Internet:www.natgeokids.com (adapted).

    There have always been myths about immortality, that is, being able to live forever. Well, our Marine Biologists have found a creature that comes close – a tiny transparent jellyfish. While it has the unofficial name of Immortal Jellyfish, its official name is Turritopsis dohrnii. After an adult male T. dohrnii squirts his sperm into the ocean waters, some of them end up inside a female T. dohrnii. This creates the fertilised eggs, which then turn into tiny free-swimming larvae called “planula”. After a while, the planula give up swimming, dive down to the sea floor, and attach themselves to a rock. They then change shape entirely into columns of highly branched polyps. After a few days, another change of shape happens. Tiny jellyfish (about 1 mm across) “bud” off from the tips of the polyp and, like miniature asexual umbrellas with tentacles, float through the ocean. After 2-4 weeks, they become sexually mature males or females.

    Now T. dohrnii jellyfish can be eaten by bigger creatures – so they are not truly immortal. But when T. dohrnii suffers a physical attack, instead of dying, they change firstly into a tiny blob, and then back to the polyp stage within 3 days. They become another polyp colony sitting on a rock. The polyp is genetically identical to the original jellyfish – but is packaged differently.

    Did that original jellyfish die? Not really. Did that original jellyfish continue to live in the same body? No. It’s kind of like a butterfly that instead of dying changes back to a caterpillar – or an aged chicken turning back into an egg. So technically it’s more like “Regeneration”, but it’s the closest that we have to immortality. And once we learn how T. dohrnii does it, we could apply this knowledge to medical science for humans.

Internet:www.natgeokids.com (adapted).

Dave Coverly. Speed Bump. 2/10/2024.

Read the poster from the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom to answer the question.

(https://campaignresources.dhsc.gov.uk. Adaptado.)