人教版（2019）高中英语选择性必修第一册 Unit5 单元限时作业.docxVIP

PAGE2 / NUMPAGES2 Unit 5 Working the Land单元限时作业 刷阅读理解 体裁：说明文 题材：介绍说明 词数：372 难度：中 建议用时：9分钟 [湖北仙桃中学2020高一期中]Since humans first walked the Earth，we have relied on plants for our survival. They provide us with food，shelter，medicine and even the oxygen we breathe. Now，a group of scientists is wondering if can protect us from climate change as well. Researchers in San Diego launched a new initiative to improve the ability of plants to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it deep in the soil. One of the group’s goals is to find a way to help plants better keep the carbon they absorb from the atmosphere securely locked away in the soil. All plants make a substance called suberin（软木脂）that protects their roots. You are likely familiar with it even if you don’t know it. It’s the material that makes up the skin of a potato. The unique properties of suberin help plants in many ways. It makes them more tolerant of drought and, at the same time，better able to survive floods. It also serves as protection against disease. But perhaps most importantly for the group’s goals，suberin is a substance which is very difficult for bacteria and fungi to break down. Further research in the lab revealed that suberin is one of the most stable forms of carbon in the soil. That means once carbon from the atmosphere is made into the ground in the form of suberin，it will remain there. Armed with this information, one of the group’s first goals is to breed a variety of plants that can produce more suberin than they currently do.“We want them to have bigger and deeper roots with more suberin,”said Joanne Chory, a plant biologist who is leading the initiative. Of course, to have an impact on the global carbon cycle, they will have to exist on an enormous scale. In the longer term, the group plans to partner governments around the world to distribute seeds to farmers. “Five percent of the world’s crop land is what we want to change over, ”Chory said. It’s an enormous goal, and even Cho