雅思閱讀材料大集合：時間與幸福指數的關係

爲了幫助大家在備考雅思閱讀的時候能夠多多練習一些材料，下面小編給大家帶來雅思閱讀材料大集合：時間與幸福指數的關係。

雅思閱讀材料大集合：時間與幸福指數的關係

While on vacation in distant locales, people often find that time moves quite differently than in the places they’re used to. In the tropics, we settle into the grooves of “island time” and relax thanks to a more leisurely rhythm. A trip to a big city can leave us exhilarated but also drained by the energetic whir of life there.

據科技雜誌Nautilus報道，當人們去遠方度假時，往往會發現時間過得與平時很不一樣。熱帶地區悠閒的節奏讓我們習慣於“島上的時間”，過得更加放鬆。去大城市令人興奮，卻也被充滿活力的快節奏生活弄得筋疲力盡。

The different paces of different communities also seem to be connected to other cultural characteristics. Robert Levine and his colleagues have studied the speed of life in cities around the world and across the U.S. In a series of experiments they measured how fast solitary pedestrians in a downtown core covered a distance of 60 feet (being careful to exclude those who are obviously window shopping), timed how long it took to complete a simple commercial transaction, and recorded the accuracy of randomly selected clocks in the downtown business area. They found that places with a faster pace of life also had more robust economies (as measured by GDP per capita, average purchasing power, and average caloric intake), and that people in larger cities tended to move faster than those in less populated areas. They also found truth to the stereotype that people move slower in hotter places.

羣體間不同的生活節奏是與他們的文化有關的。羅伯特?萊文和他的同事們對全球各個城市和美國各地的生活節奏做了一個調查。通過一系列的實驗，他們計算出了每個城市裏的人走過60英尺需要的時間(他們仔細地將其中明顯是在逛街的人排除在外)，計算了一樁買賣成交需要的時間，並且記錄了在中心商業區隨機挑選的時鐘的準確性。他們發現節奏快的地方往往是那些經濟更加發達的地方(通過對比人均GDP、平均購買力還有平均熱量攝入)，並且人們在大城市裏比在人口少的地方走得更快。他們也發現了人們在熱的地方走得更慢這一慣例。

So as you might expect, fast-moving people are associated with fast-moving economies. But does that faster life translate into greater happiness? In faster places (specifically, economically developed areas of North America, Western Europe, and Asia), people were more likely to smoke, less likely to take the time to help strangers in need, and more likely to die from coronary heart disease. Yet Levine and his colleagues found that residents in faster places tended to report feeling somewhat happier with their lives than those who lived in slower places. A city’s pace of life was indeed “significantly related” to the physical, social, and psychological well-being of its inhabitants.

正如你所想象的那樣，快節奏的人們和高速增長的經濟相關。但是快節奏的生活就意味着幸福麼?在快節奏的地方(尤其是經濟發達地區，如北美、西歐和亞洲)，更多的人抽菸，更少的人會去幫助那些需要幫助的人，並且更容易死於冠心病。但是萊文和他的同事們發現，在快節奏城市生活的人覺得自己比那些生活在慢節奏城市的人更加幸福。一個城市的生活節奏明顯與居民的身體健康、社會意識和心理狀態息息相關。

雅思閱讀材料大集合：爲什麼有人直髮有人是捲髮

Hair is curly or straight, depending upon the number of disulfide bonds between hair proteins found in the hair shaft(毛幹).

The greater the number of links, the curlier the hair, and the fewer the number of links, the straighter the hair.

Hair is primarily composed of keratin(角蛋白), a protein, which grows from a sac called the follicle. Cells in the hair follicle generate keratin, and various other proteins, which become a part of the hair shaft. These proteins contain sulfur atoms, and when two of these sulfur atoms pair up and bond, they form a disulfide bond. If the two sulfur atoms in the same protein are at a distance, and join to form the disulfide bond, the protein will bend.

The amount of humidity in the air not only makes for what some label a "bad hair day," but alters the degree of curliness or of straightness of hair. This occurs when high humidity forces water back into the hair fiber, acts on its protein structure, and forces the hair shaft to return to its original structure.

People can temporarily alter their hair to force it into a straight state, or a curly state, but only on a temporary, not on a permanent, basis. When a straight-haired person gets a "permanent wave," known as a "perm(燙髮),"he or she is chemically forcing the making of strong disulfide bonds. The wave does not stay permanently, because new hair, which is straight, grows in as the "perm" grows out. People with curly hair may chemically alter their hair to give it a straighter appearance, but this, too, is also a temporary solution to a permanent "problem," with the same end result.

雅思閱讀材料大集合：人變胖是什麼原理

The discovery of the obesity gene in humans half a decade ago offered evidence that chronic weight gain is the consequence of a mismatch between nature and nurture. Simplistic explanations, such as blaming obesity on a drop in fat consumption, ignore scientific reality. In countries like India and China, obesity was virtually unknown until the introduction of a high-fat, western-style diet.

One well-known reason for this is that dietary fat converts to (轉換爲 )body fat more efficiently than does protein or carbohydrate, but recently scientists have uncovered what appears to be an equally important factor. Some researchers in universities are investigating the possibility that high levels of fat and fructose are mucking up(擾亂 ) our brain chemistry, and thereby muting the signals that would normally tell us to put down the fork. These signals are produced by peptides, which are regulated by a number of hormones. Under normal conditions these hormones help maintain a stable body weight by adjusting levels of the peptides that control eating. But a diet loaded with fat and fructose hampers the regulation of these hormones. Complicating matters still further is that the brain loses its ability to respond to these hormones as body fat increases -- so the obese are doubly penalized.

Other researchers are finding evidence that constant exposure to fat and sugar can cause some humans to crave (渴望)them as they do an addictive drug. A Princeton University psychologist recently showed that rats fed a high sugar diet were, when the sugar was removed, thrown into a state of anxiety similar to that seen in withdrawal from morphine or nicotine. Sarah Leibowitz, a neurobiologist, believes that frequent exposure to fatty foods may configure the brain to crave still more fat. She has shown in animal studies that galanin, a brain peptide that simulates eating behavior and decreases energy expenditure, increases when the animal eats a high-fat diet.

There are many factors contributing to the explosion of obesity in the United States, and the world, but the radical changes in the composition of our diet are first among them. While scientific work in this area is in its infancy, it's already clear that varying the amount of fat and other nutrients in the diet affects brain chemistry by activating certain genes, and this in turn directs our dietary preferences. By submitting ourselves to a steady dose of highly processed, sweet, high-fat foods, we have unwittingly entered into a dangerous experiment, the long term consequences of which are only now beginning to surface.

雅思閱讀材料大集合：交通擁堵下的輪滑交警

There's the canine unit and the equine unit and now police in car-congested Jakarta, where gridlock is legendary, have set up a new force to combat traffic jams -- the in-line skate unit.

With a run-down public transportation system and some 14 million residents, Jakarta is known to be one of the most difficult cities in Asia to navigate, even for the traffic police who is often stymied by the congestion.

But the 20 officers who have spent the past four weeks weaving through the streets on their skates don't have to worry about gridlock any more.

"We park our vehicles as close as we can to the traffic jams. Then we go into the jam area on rollerblades to direct the traffic," said Commander Sutirto who heads the special squad.

Decked out in helmets, knee and elbow pads, the skating police received a month of intensive training. Many officers said their biggest challenge was staying upright on the city's bumpy and sometimes pock-marked roads.

Some motorists welcomed the rollerblading officers as a time-saving solution, but others said the police needed to crack down on the bad driving that causes the jams rather than just resolve them.

"Motorists must be disciplined. They must not cross into other people's lanes," said motorist Eko Juli.

Getting around sprawling Jakarta and suburbs is a time-consuming and often arduous feat.

Traffic crawls along at a frustrating snail's pace during rush hours and is often chaotic due to the rising number of vehicles and frequent flooding.

Jakarta's governor has promised to tackle the traffic problem by building more busways, a monorail and a subway. But a remedy is unlikely any time soon as it will cost billions of dollars and take several years to complete.