新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第四册 课文 te-07c_new

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[00:00.00]喜欢hxen.net，就把hxen.net复制到QQ个人资料中！Genetics and Environmental Factors in Creating Genius
[00:-1.00]Dr.Howard Gardner of Harvard University
[00:-2.00]believes that geniuses are largely made.
[00:-3.00]He has banned television from his home
[00:-4.00]because he fears it might ruin the minds of his family.
[00:-5.00]He makes time every day to listen to his seven-year-old son play the piano
[00:-6.00] —even if it is no more than a few minutes during a phone call
[00:-7.00] while he is away at a conference.
[00:-8.00]Dr.Sandra Scarr of Virginia University(弗吉尼亚大学),
[00:-9.00]president of the Society for Research in Child Development,
[00:10.00]believes geniuses are largely born.
[00:11.00]She says parents should not worry too much
[00:12.00]about whether to take their kids to a ball game or to a museum.
[00:13.00]Talent will out.
[00:14.00]It seems experts are as divided as ever over the issue of which is more important,
[00:15.00]environment or genetics.This may,however,be about to change.
[00:16.00]A conference organized earlier this year
[00:17.00]brought to London some of the biggest names from both sides of the debate.
[00:18.00]Amazing results from unpublished work were revealed
[00:19.00]— and the beginning of agreement could be perceived.
[00:20.00]The most exciting results
[00:21.00]came from those working on the biology of individual differences.
[00:22.00]Dr.Robert Plomin of Penn State University(宾夕法尼亚州立大学),
[00:23.00]hopes to announce within the next few months
[00:24.00]that he has tracked down one of the genes
[00:25.00]that plays a part in determining intelligence.
[00:26.00]A gene has been identified but the results have yet to be confirmed.
[00:27.00]At present,it is believed that genes account for at least half of
[00:28.00]what researchers call "g" —
[00:29.00]the general thinking ability that IQ tests are supposed to measure
[00:30.00]— while environmental influences account for the other half.
[00:31.00]But so far the only evidence for a genetic component has been through statistics,
[00:32.00]the relationship being inferred mathematically
[00:33.00]from comparisons of twins and other such studies of close relatives.
[00:34.00]Plomin's method makes use of new gene mapping techniques
[00:35.00]and promises to provide direct evidence of the role that genes play.
[00:36.00]Plomin stresses that the discovery of a first gene
[00:37.00]does not mean the puzzle of intelligence has been solved.
[00:38.00]A single gene will code for only one of the many molecules and cell proteins
[00:39.00]that are the building blocks of the brain.
[00:40.00]This means that hundreds,if not thousands,
[00:41.00]of genes must be involved in intelligence.
[00:42.00]The identification of even one gene does, however,
[00:43.00]have immense implications for the genetics/environment debate.
[00:44.00]Another advance,a computer-controlled brain scanning device,
[00:45.00]has led to a second discovery
[00:46.00]by those seeking the biological component of mental abilities.
[00:47.00]Professor Camilla Benbow of Iowa State University(爱荷华州立大学)
[00:48.00]is head of a long-term study of children who are unusually good at math.
[00:49.00]For many years she has been puzzled
[00:50.00]as to why so many of the children in her study should be boys
[00:51.00]—at the top level,there are more boys than girls
[00:52.00]by a ratio of thirteen to one.
[00:53.00]In a soon-to-be-published paper,
[00:54.00]Benbow reveals that the talented boys' brains
[00:55.00]appear to process information concerning the location of objects
[00:56.00]in a very different way from those of average boys and even of talented girls.
[00:57.00]The brains of children in the study
[00:58.00]were scanned while being presented with a simple visual puzzle.
[00:59.00]The boys of average ability and the gifted girls
[-1:00.00]showed strong activity on both sides of their brains
[-1:-1.00]as they thought about the puzzle.
[-1:-2.00]However,the gifted boys responded very differently.
[-1:-3.00]There was a sudden drop in activity in the left side of the brain