Unit 5 Revealing Nature Starting out and understanding ideas - 高二英语同步精品课堂（外研版2019选择性必修第一册）

Period 1 Starting out & Understanding ideas 1 Starting out Step 1. Starting out Step 2: Extensive Reading of the Passage Step 3: Intensive Reading of the Passage 2 Starting out What so you know about these unusual animals？ Komodo dragon Komodo dragons: Komodo dragons were first encountered by Western researchers 1910. The researcher said the ancestor of the Komodo dragon most likely evolved in Australia ans spread westward, reaching the Indonesia island of Flores 900,000 years ago. 科莫多巨蜥最早是在1910年被西方研究人员发现的。研究人员说，科莫多巨蜥的祖先很可能是在澳大利亚进化而来，并向西传播，在90万年前到达印度尼西亚的弗洛雷斯岛。 3 Starting out What so you know about these unusual animals？ Duck-billed platypus The fist scientists to examine a preserved platypus body judged it a fake in the late 18th century. The oldest discovered fossil of the modern platpus dates back to about 100,000 years ago. 18世纪晚期，第一批查看保存下来的鸭嘴兽尸体的科学家判定它是赝品。 已发现的最古老的现代鸭嘴兽的化石可以追溯到大约10万年前。 Duck-billed platypus 4 Starting out What so you know about these unusual animals？ Nautilus Fossil records indicate that the nautilus has survived relatively unchanged for around 500 million years. It is often considered a “living fossil”. 化石记录表明，鹦鹉螺在大约5亿年的时间里相对稳定地存活了下来。经常被认为是“活化石”。 Nautilus 5 Starting out Imaginantion creates reality. Richard Wagner Evolutionary tree Darwin's Theory of Evolution Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the widely held notion that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers — all related. Darwin's general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected不受干扰的) "descent with modification". That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations(基因突变) occur within an organism's genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival — a process known as "natural selection." These beneficial mutati