Questões de Inglês do ENEM

Mozambique Cyclone: “Almost everything is destroyed.”

People carry their personal effects through a flooded section of Praia Nova in Beira after the cyclone. Tropical Cyclone Idai destroyed and damaged homes and knocked out electricity and communications.

Cyclone Idai hit the city of Beira hard and the scale of damage is massive, say Red Cross and Red Crescent aid workers who reached the Mozambican city a few days ago. The scale of devastation is enormous. It seems that 90 per cent of the area is completely destroyed.”

The Red Cross and Red Crescent team was among the first to arrive in Beira since Cyclone Idai made landfall March 14-15. With Beira’s airport closed and roads cut off due to flooding, the team drove from Maputo, the capital city, before taking a helicopter for the last leg of the journey. “Almost everything is destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have

been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible,” said LeSueur. “Beira has been severely battered. But we are also hearing that the situation outside the city could be even worse. Yesterday, a large dam burst and cut off the last road to the city.”

While the physical impact of Idai is beginning to emerge, the human impact is still unclear. Authorities in the country are warning that the death toll may climb beyond 1,000 people.

Heavy rain will continue in the coming days which may only exacerbate the dire situation and cause already saturated rivers to overflow.

Following its landfall in Mozambique, the cyclone continued west to Zimbabwe as a tropical storm, wreaking havoc in the eastern part of the country, with Manicaland Province being the hardest-hit. At least 31 deaths have been reported and over 100 people are missing in Zimbabwe.

Source: www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and -events/news/2019/mozambique-cyclone.html 

Leia o infográfico para responder à questão.

Wood wide web: trees’ social networks are mapped 

    Research has shown that beneath every forest and wood there is a complex underground web of roots, fungi and bacteria helping to connect trees and plants to one another. This subterranean social network, nearly 500 million years old, has become known as the “wood wide web”. Now, an international study has produced the first global map of the “mycorrhizal fungi networks” dominating this secretive world.

    Using machine-learning, researchers from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Stanford University in the US used the database of the Global Forest Initiative, which covers 1.2 million forest tree plots with 28,000 species, from more than 70 countries. Using millions of direct observations of trees and their symbiotic associations on the ground, the researchers could build models from the bottom up to visualise these fungal networks for the first time. Prof Thomas Crowther, one of the authors of the report, told the BBC, “It’s the first time that we’ve been able to understand the world beneath our feet, but at a global scale.”

    The research reveals how important mycorrhizal networks are to limiting climate change — and how vulnerable they are to the effects of it. “Just like an Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan of the brain helps us to understand how the brain works, this global map of the fungi beneath the soil helps us to understand how global ecosystems work,” said Prof Crowther. “What we find is that certain types of microorganisms live in certain parts of the world, and by understanding that we can figure out how to restore different types of ecosystems and also how the climate is changing.” Losing chunks of the wood wide web could well increase “the feedback loop of warming temperatures and carbon emissions.”

    Mycorrhizal fungi are those that form a symbiotic relationship with plants. There are two main groups of mycorrhizal fungi: arbuscular fungi (AM) that penetrate the host’s roots, and ectomycorrhizal fungi (EM) which surround the tree’s roots without penetrating them.

                                                (Claire Marshall. www.bbc.com, 15.05.2019. Adaptado.)

Wood wide web: trees’ social networks are mapped 

    Research has shown that beneath every forest and wood there is a complex underground web of roots, fungi and bacteria helping to connect trees and plants to one another. This subterranean social network, nearly 500 million years old, has become known as the “wood wide web”. Now, an international study has produced the first global map of the “mycorrhizal fungi networks” dominating this secretive world.

    Using machine-learning, researchers from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Stanford University in the US used the database of the Global Forest Initiative, which covers 1.2 million forest tree plots with 28,000 species, from more than 70 countries. Using millions of direct observations of trees and their symbiotic associations on the ground, the researchers could build models from the bottom up to visualise these fungal networks for the first time. Prof Thomas Crowther, one of the authors of the report, told the BBC, “It’s the first time that we’ve been able to understand the world beneath our feet, but at a global scale.”

    The research reveals how important mycorrhizal networks are to limiting climate change — and how vulnerable they are to the effects of it. “Just like an Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan of the brain helps us to understand how the brain works, this global map of the fungi beneath the soil helps us to understand how global ecosystems work,” said Prof Crowther. “What we find is that certain types of microorganisms live in certain parts of the world, and by understanding that we can figure out how to restore different types of ecosystems and also how the climate is changing.” Losing chunks of the wood wide web could well increase “the feedback loop of warming temperatures and carbon emissions.”

    Mycorrhizal fungi are those that form a symbiotic relationship with plants. There are two main groups of mycorrhizal fungi: arbuscular fungi (AM) that penetrate the host’s roots, and ectomycorrhizal fungi (EM) which surround the tree’s roots without penetrating them.

                                                (Claire Marshall. www.bbc.com, 15.05.2019. Adaptado.)

Wood wide web: trees’ social networks are mapped 

    Research has shown that beneath every forest and wood there is a complex underground web of roots, fungi and bacteria helping to connect trees and plants to one another. This subterranean social network, nearly 500 million years old, has become known as the “wood wide web”. Now, an international study has produced the first global map of the “mycorrhizal fungi networks” dominating this secretive world.

    Using machine-learning, researchers from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Stanford University in the US used the database of the Global Forest Initiative, which covers 1.2 million forest tree plots with 28,000 species, from more than 70 countries. Using millions of direct observations of trees and their symbiotic associations on the ground, the researchers could build models from the bottom up to visualise these fungal networks for the first time. Prof Thomas Crowther, one of the authors of the report, told the BBC, “It’s the first time that we’ve been able to understand the world beneath our feet, but at a global scale.”

    The research reveals how important mycorrhizal networks are to limiting climate change — and how vulnerable they are to the effects of it. “Just like an Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan of the brain helps us to understand how the brain works, this global map of the fungi beneath the soil helps us to understand how global ecosystems work,” said Prof Crowther. “What we find is that certain types of microorganisms live in certain parts of the world, and by understanding that we can figure out how to restore different types of ecosystems and also how the climate is changing.” Losing chunks of the wood wide web could well increase “the feedback loop of warming temperatures and carbon emissions.”

    Mycorrhizal fungi are those that form a symbiotic relationship with plants. There are two main groups of mycorrhizal fungi: arbuscular fungi (AM) that penetrate the host’s roots, and ectomycorrhizal fungi (EM) which surround the tree’s roots without penetrating them.

                                                (Claire Marshall. www.bbc.com, 15.05.2019. Adaptado.)

According to the chart,

               An increasing body of evidence suggests that the time we spend on our smartphones is interfering with our sleep, self-esteem, relationships, memory, attention spans, creativity, productivity and problem-solving and decision-making skills. But there is another reason for us to rethink our relationships with our devices. By chronically raising levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, our phones may be threatening our health and shortening our lives.

          If they happened only occasionally, phone-induced cortisol spikes might not matter. But the average American spends four hours a day staring at their smartphone and keeps it within arm’s reach nearly all the time, according to a tracking app called Moment.

         “Your cortisol levels are elevated when your phone is in sight or nearby, or when you hear it or even think you hear it,” says David Greenfield, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. “It’s a stress response, and it feels unpleasant, and the body’s natural response is to want to check the phone to make the stress go away.”

          But while doing so might soothe you for a second, it probably will make things worse in the long run. Any time you check your phone, you’re likely to find something else stressful waiting for you, leading to another spike in cortisol and another craving to check your phone to make your anxiety go away. This cycle, when continuously reinforced, leads to chronically elevated cortisol levels. And chronically elevated cortisol levels have been tied to an increased risk of serious health problems, including depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, fertility issues, high blood pressure, heart attack, dementia and stroke.

(Catherine Price. www.nytimes.com, 24.04.2019. Adaptado.)

No trecho do primeiro parágrafo “But there is another reason for us to rethink our relationships with our devices”, o termo sublinhado introduz uma

               An increasing body of evidence suggests that the time we spend on our smartphones is interfering with our sleep, self-esteem, relationships, memory, attention spans, creativity, productivity and problem-solving and decision-making skills. But there is another reason for us to rethink our relationships with our devices. By chronically raising levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, our phones may be threatening our health and shortening our lives.

          If they happened only occasionally, phone-induced cortisol spikes might not matter. But the average American spends four hours a day staring at their smartphone and keeps it within arm’s reach nearly all the time, according to a tracking app called Moment.

         “Your cortisol levels are elevated when your phone is in sight or nearby, or when you hear it or even think you hear it,” says David Greenfield, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. “It’s a stress response, and it feels unpleasant, and the body’s natural response is to want to check the phone to make the stress go away.”

          But while doing so might soothe you for a second, it probably will make things worse in the long run. Any time you check your phone, you’re likely to find something else stressful waiting for you, leading to another spike in cortisol and another craving to check your phone to make your anxiety go away. This cycle, when continuously reinforced, leads to chronically elevated cortisol levels. And chronically elevated cortisol levels have been tied to an increased risk of serious health problems, including depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, fertility issues, high blood pressure, heart attack, dementia and stroke.

(Catherine Price. www.nytimes.com, 24.04.2019. Adaptado.)