Reading Test 4

There is no doubt that dogs are the oldest of all species tamed by humans and their domestication was based on a mutually beneficial relationship with man. The conventional view is that the domestication of wolves began between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. However, a recent ground-breaking paper by a group of international geneticists has pushed this date back by a factor of 10. Led by Dr. Robert Wayne, at the University of California, Los Angeles, the team showed that all dog breeds had only one ancestor, the wolf. They did this by analysing the genetic history through the DINA of 162 wolves from around the world and 140 domestic dogs representing 67 breeds. The research also confirms, for the first time, that dogs are descended only from wolves and do not share DNA with coyotes or jackals. The fact that our companionship with dogs now appears to go back at least 100,000 years means that this partnership may have played an important part in the development of human hunting techniques that developed 70,000 to 90,000 years ago. It also may even have affected the brain development in both species. The Australian veterinarian David Paxton suggests that in that period of first contact, people did not so much domesticate wolves as wolves domesticated people. Wolves may have started living at the edge of human settlements as scavengers, eating scraps of food and waste. Some learned to live with human beings in a mutually helpful way and gradually evolved into dogs. At the very least, they would have protected human settlements, and given warnings by barking at anything…

The crop circle phenomenon has puzzled and mystified humanity for many years. The designs just appear, placed carefully in fields of food grains. Some are larger than football fields and highly complex in design and construction. Others are smaller and more primitive. We call them crop circles, but many of them are not circular. Some are elongated abstract designs, a few resemble insects or other known forms, and some are mixtures of lines, circles, and other shapes melded into intricate patterns. Most become visible overnight, though it has been claimed that a few have appeared within a half-hour in broad daylight. Crop circles have appeared all over the world. About 10,000 instances from various countries have been reported in recent years. The first modern rash of crop circles appeared in Australia in December of 1973. A strange circular imprint appeared in a wheat field near Wokurna, a community southeast of Adelaide. Soon seven swirled circles up to 14 feet in diameter appeared in an oatfield nearby. In December of 1989, an amazing set of circles, ranging from a few inches to a few feet in diameter appeared in the wheat best west of Melbourne. As many as 90 crop circles were found. The best documented and largest modern spread of crop circles began in southern England during the summer of 1980. By the end of 1988, 112 new circles had been formed. At that time circles were being reported worldwide, 305 by the end of 1989. The total grew to an outstanding 1,000 newly -formed circles in 1990. In 1991,200 to 300 circles were reported. Crop circles have been documented in…

An essay by scientist, educator and environmentalist, Dr. David Suzuki A number of books, articles and television programs have disputed the reality of the claimed hazards of global warming, overpopulation, deforestation and ozone depletion. Two newspaper commentaries show the profound differences of opinion on critical issues affecting the planet. The first, by Robert Kaplan, has generated both fear and denial. Entitled The Coming Anarchy, the report paints a horrifying picture of the future for humanity. The author suggests that the terrible consequences of the conjunction between exploding human population and surrounding environmental degradation are already visible in Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. As society is destabilised by the AIDS epidemic, government control evaporates, national borders crumble beneath the pressure of environmental refugees and local populations revert to tribalism to settle old scores or defend against fleeing masses and bands of stateless nomads on the move. Kaplan believes what he has seen in Africa and Southeast Asia is the beginning of a global pattern of disintegration of social, political and economic infrastructure under the impact of ecological degradation, population pressure and disease. As ecosystems collapse, this scenario could sweep the planet, first in Eastern Europe and then the industrialised countries. It is a frightening scenario, built on a serious attempt to project the aftermath of ecological destruction. It comes from a core recognition that the planet is finite and consumption has vast social, political and…