首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Many people today are worried about bird flu. They are afraid that it will pass from birds to humans and that thousands of peopl
Many people today are worried about bird flu. They are afraid that it will pass from birds to humans and that thousands of peopl
admin
2009-12-11
70
问题
Many people today are worried about bird flu. They are afraid that it will pass from birds to humans and that thousands of people will die in a pandemic. In 1918 a flu virus killed about 50 million people around the world. The virus was called Spanish influenza (or Spanish flu, for short) because Spanish newspapers first described the disease. Now, after nine years of work, scientists in an American laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, have produced a copy of the Spanish flu virus. They are also going to publish the genetic sequence of the virus on the Internet and some experts are a-fraid that other laboratories could copy the virus.
Scientists have copied the virus because they want to understand why the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic killed so many people. In a report in the journal Science, Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger and a team of scientists in the USA show that the copied virus is extremely powerful. The scientists injected the virus into mice and the mice began to lose weight very quickly. They lost 13% of their weight in two days and all of the mice died within six days.
“I didn’t expect it to be as lethal as it was, ”Dr. Terrence Tumpey, one of the scientists in the team, told the journal Nature. In another experiment, they injected more mice with a normal type of flu. The mice lost weight at first but then they got better and did not die. The experiments showed that the mice with the Spanish flu virus had 39, 000 times more flu virus in their bodies than the second group of mice.
The scientists who copied the virus say their work has already provided important information a-bout the virus and helps to explain why it is so lethal. But other experts are worried that the virus could escape from the laboratory. "Some people will think that they have really created a biological weapon, ”said Professor Ronald Atlas of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. “I am even more worried now than I was before about the possibility of a flu pandemic. The 1918 flu pandemic started with bird flu and that might happen again today with Asian bird flu.
Some scientists are worried about the publication of the genetic sequence on the Internet. They are afraid that biologists could copy the virus using the information on the Internet. This could be very dangerous.
It took a long time to copy the virus. Scientists used material taken from the lungs of people who died from the flu virus in 1918. In a second report in Nature, Taubenberger and his colleagues analyzed the genetic make-up of the virus. They were surprised to find that it was completely different from all the normal human flu viruses. This probably means that Spanish flu jumped from birds to humans and did not mix with a human virus first. This is very worrying for scientists because in the past everyone believed that a pandemic was only possible if a bird flu virus mixed with a human flu virus.
Taubenberger says it is very important to know what changes in the virus caused the 1918 Spanish flu virus. This will help scientists to work out which viruses might cause a pandemic. The H5N1 bird flu in Asia is already changing and it could infect humans, he said.
Viruses have escaped from high-security labs before. The SARS virus escaped at least twice, once in Taiwan and once in Singapore. But some scientists believe a pandemic will not happen even if the virus escapes, because most people are naturally immune and there are now a lot of drugs which protect people from flu.
Questions:
Where did the scientists produce a copy of the Spanish flu virus?
选项
答案
Atlanta,Georgia,USA(in a laboratory).
解析
(文章第一段提到scientists in an American laboratory in Atlanta,Georgia,have produced acopy of the Spanish flu virus.)
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/uBVK777K
本试题收录于:
C类竞赛(非英语专业本科)题库大学生英语竞赛(NECCS)分类
0
C类竞赛(非英语专业本科)
大学生英语竞赛(NECCS)
相关试题推荐
(1)GrowingupasanAsianinBritainismuchmorethanaquestionoffacingdiscriminationandtryingtofindadecentjob—espec
Moresurprising,perhaps,thanthecurrentdifficultiesoftraditionalmarriageisthefactthatmarriageitselfisaliveandth
Intheearly1800’s,over80percentoftheUnitedStateslaborforcewasengagedinagriculture.Machineryand【C1】________tech
(1)Afterbreakfasttheboyswanderedoutintotheplayground.Herethedayboysweregraduallyassembling.Theyweresonsofthe
(1)Thedoctorswantedtoprolongherlife,buttheyalsohadtorespectLi’slivingwillforanaturaldeath,withoutmachines
Goodmorning,everyone.AndwelcometotheEnglishforAcademicPurposeCenter.I’dliketobeginbybrieflyintroducingthe【T1】
HowtoWriteResumesPreparations.consideryour【T1】________.decidewhichjobtitlesneedtheskillsandknowledg
ThearchitectoftheWalkieTalkiebuildinginLondonhasadmittedthathepredicteditmightreflecthotsunraystothestreet
Turninyourcollectionofindustry-suppliedfreebiesandGoodmanwillsendbackafewreplacementpensbearingtheNoFreeLunc
收到我的电子邮件,请尽早回复。(assoonas)
随机试题
蛋白质变性的描述中合适的是
A、打粉B、煎煮浓缩成膏C、单提挥发油或双提法D、提取单体E、制成醇浸膏制片剂时,处方中的淮山药、天花粉的一般处理方法为
2007年,张某请风水先生选了块墓地安葬亡父,下葬时却挖到十年前安葬的刘某父亲的棺木,张某将该棺木锯下一角,紧贴着安葬了自己父亲。后刘某发觉,以故意损害他人财物为由起诉张某,要求赔偿损失以及精神损害赔偿。对于此案,合议庭意见不一。法官甲认为,下葬棺木不属于
T型头地脚螺栓安装时,其光杆部分和基础板应()。
采取税收强制执行措施时,对纳税人、扣缴义务人、纳税担保人未缴纳的滞纳金及罚款必须同时强制执行。()
()是商业银行董事会、监事会、高级管理层和全体员工参与的,通过制定和实施系统化、流程和方法,实现控制目标的动态过程和机制。
汉地寺院的天王殿正中供奉的是()。
已知一棵含有n个节点的树中,只有度为k的节点和度为0的叶子节点,则该树中含有的叶子节点个数为______。
______VaterhatdenWagen.
The"standardofliving"ofanycountrymeanstheaverageperson’sshareofthegoodsandserviceswhichthecountryproduces.A
最新回复
(
0
)