Module 6 判断题 - Exercise 3

1. In the media, it is usually large, charismatic animals such as pandas, elephants, tigers and whales that get all the attention when loss of biodiversity is discussed.

2. The cactus moth whose caterpillar is a voracious eater of prickly pear was introduced to Australia to control the rampant cacti. It was so successful that someone thought it would be a good idea to introduce it to Caribbean islands that had the same problem. It solved the cactus menace, but unfortunately some of the moths have now reached the US mainland—borne on winds and in tourists’ luggage—where they are devastating the native cactus populations of Florida.

3. Problems such as illegal logging are being tackled through sustainable forestry programmes, with the emphasis on minimising the use of rainforest hardwood in the developed world and on rigorous replanting of whatever trees are harvested.

4. As in Egypt, Sumerian and Babylonian mathematics initially arose largely as a response to bureaucratic needs when their civilisation settled and developed agriculture, possibly as early as the 6th millennium BC.

5. The idea of square numbers and quadratic equations arose naturally in the context of the measurement of areas of land. Clay tablets found in Sumer, dating from the 3rd millennium BC and inscribed with such calculations, give us the first ever evidence of the solution of quadratic equations. The Babylonian approach to solving them usually revolved around a kind of geometric game of slicing up and rearranging shapes. What is more, at least some of the examples we have appear to indicate problem-solving for its own sake, rather than in order to resolve a concrete practical problem.