全国通用版2019版高考英语大一轮复习单元检测卷38Unit3Inventorsandinventions新人教版选修.docVIP

Unit 3 Inventors and inventions Ⅰ.阅读理解 A Humans have launched themselves into the outer space. Theyve landed on the moon. Theyve built habitable space stations that orbit the Earth. The next giant leap for mankind is to reach another planet—specifically, Mars. The problem is that its no easy task. The planet is 586 times further away from the Earth than the moon, and itll take around 180 to 220 days to reach Mars, depending on where each planet is in its orbit. Such long periods in space have suggested many potential health problems, including hormonal changes, skin conditions, and muscle and bone deterioration(损耗)． Heres where some furry friends come in. A wide range of animals have been in space, from fruit flies and spiders to cats, and dogs. Such experiments began as far back as the late 1940s in first tests to see if living things could withstand the extreme g–force(重力) of a rocket launch. Mice continue to play a very important part in space experiments, mainly because the animals make excellent test subjects. Theyre small, which makes them inexpensive and easy to care for. In addition, their size and short life span make it possible to do the equivalent of several human years of tests in a much shorter time. Finally, because mice are mammals, they share many common characteristics with humans in terms of genetics, biology and behavior. Astromice have hit the headlines recently, as a team of scientists led by Betty Nusgens, professor of biology at the University of Liege in Belgium, found that the mice suffered a 15 percent thinning of their skin after 91 days aboard the International Space Station(ISS)． This experiment was part of a wider NASA mission(任务) called the Mice Drawer System(MDS). The Italian Space Agency developed the facility, which allows six mice to be housed, monitored, and automatically fed and watered aboard the ISS, among which three survived during the mission. The mice have participated in 20 separate experiments, to study such effects as