新概念四Lesson 17.pptVIP

Lesson 17 A man-made disease Rabbits drinking at a waterhole in Australia What factor helped to spread the disease of myxomatosis? In the early days of the settlement of Australia, enterprising settlers unwisely introduced the European rabbit． This rabbit had no natural enemies in the Antipodes, Antipodes In geography, the antipodes of any place on Earth is the point on the Earth‘s surface which is diametrically opposite ([,dai?metrik?li]直径上对置的）to it. Two points that are antipodal ([?ntip?d?l] ) to one another are connected by a straight line running through the centre of the Earth. In the British Isles, the Antipodes is often used to refer to Australia and New Zealand, and Antipodeans ([?n,tip?di:?n] ) to their inhabitants. Geographically the antipodes of the British Isles are in the Pacific Ocean, south of New Zealand. This gave rise to the name of the Antipodes Islands of New Zealand, which are close to the antipodes of London at about 50° S 179° E. The antipodes of Australia are in the North Atlantic Ocean, while parts of Spain, Portugal ([p?:tjuɡ?l] ), and Morocco ([m?r?k?u]) are antipodal to New Zealand. The antipodes of South Africa and Zimbabwe ([zimbɑ:bwei;]) are in the North Pacific Ocean, with Botswana ([b?tswɑ:n?] )antipodal to Hawaii, though as Southern Hemisphere ([hemi,sfi?]) ex-British colonies, they are sometimes included as antipodeans in colloquial ([k?l?ukwi?l]) English. so that it multiplied with that promiscuous abandon characteristic of rabbits． It overran a whole continent． It caused devastation by burrowing and by devouring the herbage which might have maintained millions of sheep and cattle． Scientists discovered that this particular variety of rabbit (and apparently no other animal) was susceptible to a fatal virus disease, myxomatosis． By infecting animals and letting them loose in the burrows, local epidemics of this disease could be created． Later it was found that there was a type of mosquito which acted as