Azeri Hills Hold Secret of Long Life

    You can see for kilometers from the mountains where Allahverdi Ibadov herds his small flock of sheep amid a sea of yellow, red, and purple wildflowers. The view from Amburdere in southern Azerbaijantoward the Iranian border is spectacular, but Mr. Ibadov barely gives it a second glance.

    Why should he? He’s been coming here nearly every day for 100 years.

    According to his carefully preserved passport, Mr. Ibadov, whose birth was not registered until he was a toddler, is at least 105 years old. His wife, who died two years ago, was even older. They are among the dozens of people in this beautiful, isolated region who live extraordinarily long lives.

    Mr. Ibadov’s eldest son has just turned 70. He lost count long ago of how many grandchildren he has.¹ “I’m an old man now I look after the sheep, and I prepare the wood for winter. I still have something to do. “

    A lifetime of toil, it seems, takes very few people to an early grave in this region. Scientists admit there appears to be something in the Azeri mountains that gives local people a longer, healthier life than most.

    Miri Ismailov’s family in the tinyvillageofTatoniare convinced that they know what it is. Mr. Ismailov is 110, his great-great-grandson is four. They share one proud boast: Neither has been to a doctor. “There are hundreds of herbs on the mountain, and we use them all in our cooking and for medicines”; explained Mr. Ismailov’s daughter,Elmira. “We know exactly what they can do. We are our own doctors.，’

    There is one herb for high blood pressure，another for kidney stones，and a third for a hacking cough. They are carefully collected from the slopes surrounding the village. Experts from the Azerbaijan Academy of Science believe the herbs may be part of the answer. They have been studying longevity in this region for years. It began as a rare joint Soviet-American project in the 1980s，but these studies are not being funded any more.

    Azeri scientists have isolated a type of saffron unique to the southern mountains as one thing that seems to increase longevity. Another plant, made into a paste, dramatically increases the amount of milk that animals are able to produce. “Now we have to examine these plants clinically to find out which substances have this effect,” said Chingiz Gassimov, a scientist at the academy.

    The theory that local people have also developed a genetic predisposition to long life has been strengthened by the study of a group of Russian emigres whose ancestors were exiled to the Caucasus 200 years ago.² The Russians’ life span is much shorter than that of the indigenous mountain folk — though it is appreciably longer than that of their ancestors left behind in the Russian heartland.

    “Over the decades，I believe local conditions have begun to have a positive effect on the new arrivals” , Professor Gassimov said. “It’s been slowly transferred down the generations.”

    But Mr. Ismailov, gripping his stout wooden cane, has been around for too long to get overexcited. “There’s no secret,” he shrugged dismissively. “I look after the cattle and I eat well. Life goes on.”

词汇：

herd /hɜ:d/ vt.放牧 

boast /bəʊst/ vt.以有……而自豪
longevity / lɑnˈdʒɛvɪti/  n.长寿

Caucasus /ˈkɔ:kəsəs/ n.高加索

Dismissively  轻蔑地
spectacular / spekˈtækjələadj. / adj.壮观的

hacking cough 干咳
saffron /ˈsæfr(ə)n/ n.藏红花

indigenous /ɪnˈdɪdʒinəs/ adj.本土的

注释：

Amburdere is a city in Southern Azerbaijan

A:Right B:Wrong C:Not mentioned

下列关于Southern杂交的说法，正确的是（）。

A:Southern杂交检测的是RNA B:Southem杂交中只能使用RNA探针 C:Southern杂交中电泳分离的是DNA片段 D:Southem杂交可以在凝胶上直接进行 E:Southern杂交只能使用DNA探针

Southern blotting:Southern印迹

Northern杂交与Southern杂交的根本区别是( )。

A:膜上的物质：Southern杂交是：DNA，Northern杂交是RNA B:杂交条件不一致 C:探针不一致 D:电泳条件不同，Northern杂交为变性条件，Southern杂交为非变性条件

Surprisingly enough, modern historians have rarely interested themselves in the history of the American South in the period before the South began to become self-consciously and distinctively " Southern"—the decades after 1815. Consequently, the cultural history of Britain’s North American empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been written almost as if the Southern colonies had never existed. The American culture that emerged during the Colonial and Revolutionary eras has been depicted as having been simply an extension of New England Puritan culture.
However, Professor Davis has recently argued that the South stood apart from the rest of American society during this early period, following its own unique pattern of cultural development. The case for Southern distinctiveness rests_ upon two related premises: first, that the cultural similarities among the five Southern colonies were far more impressive than the differences, and second, that what made those colonies alike also made them different from the other colonies. The first, for which Davis offers an enormous amount of evidence, can be accepted without major recitations, the second is far more problematic.
What makes the second premise problematic is the use of the Puritan colonies as a basis for comparison. Quite properly,Davis decries the excessive influence ascribed by historians to the Puritans in the formation of American culture. Yet Davis inadvertently adds weight to such ascriptions by using the Puritans as the standard against which to assess the achievements and contributions of Southern colonials. Throughout, Davis focuses on the important and undeniable differences between the Southern and Puritan colonies in motives for and patterns of early settlement, in attitudes toward nature and Native Americans, and in the degree of receptivity to metropolitan cultural influences.
However, recent scholarship has strongly suggested that those aspects of early New England culture that seem to have been most distinctly Puritan, such as the strong religious orientation and the communal impulse, were not even typical of New England as a whole, but were largely confined to the two colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Thus, what in contrast to the Puritan colonies appears to Davis to be peculiarly Southern-acquisitiveness. A strong interest in polities and the law, and a tendency to cultivate metropolitan cultural models were not only more typically English than the cultural patterns exhibited by Puritan Massachusetts and Connecticut, but also almost certainly characteristic of most other early modern British colonies from Barbados north to Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Within the larger framework of American colonial life, then, not the Southern but the Puritan colonies appear to have been distinctive, and even they seem to have been rapidly assimilating to the dominant cultural patterns by the last Colonial period.
What is Davis’ attitude toward the Puritans

A:Davis cries for the excessive influence historians attributed to the Puritans. B:Davis believes in using the Puritans as the standard to evaluate the contributions of Southern colonials. C:Davis concerns more about the differences between the Southern and Northern colonials. D:Davis objects to the difference between the Southern and Puritan colonies.

According to the text, which of the following is true of wages in southern cities in 1910

A:They were being pushed lower as a result of increased competition. B:They began to rise so that southern industry could attract rural workers. C:They had increased for skilled workers but decreased for unskilled workers. D:They had increased in large southern cities but decreased in small southern ones.

Surprisingly enough, modern historians have rarely interested themselves in the history of the American South in the period before the South began to become self-consciously and distinctively " Southern"—the decades after 1815. Consequently, the cultural history of Britain’s North American empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been written almost as if the Southern colonies had never existed. The American culture that emerged during the Colonial and Revolutionary eras has been depicted as having been simply an extension of New England Puritan culture.
However, Professor Davis has recently argued that the South stood apart from the rest of American society during this early period, following its own unique pattern of cultural development. The case for Southern distinctiveness rests_ upon two related premises: first, that the cultural similarities among the five Southern colonies were far more impressive than the differences, and second, that what made those colonies alike also made them different from the other colonies. The first, for which Davis offers an enormous amount of evidence, can be accepted without major recitations, the second is far more problematic.
What makes the second premise problematic is the use of the Puritan colonies as a basis for comparison. Quite properly,Davis decries the excessive influence ascribed by historians to the Puritans in the formation of American culture. Yet Davis inadvertently adds weight to such ascriptions by using the Puritans as the standard against which to assess the achievements and contributions of Southern colonials. Throughout, Davis focuses on the important and undeniable differences between the Southern and Puritan colonies in motives for and patterns of early settlement, in attitudes toward nature and Native Americans, and in the degree of receptivity to metropolitan cultural influences.
However, recent scholarship has strongly suggested that those aspects of early New England culture that seem to have been most distinctly Puritan, such as the strong religious orientation and the communal impulse, were not even typical of New England as a whole, but were largely confined to the two colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Thus, what in contrast to the Puritan colonies appears to Davis to be peculiarly Southern-acquisitiveness. A strong interest in polities and the law, and a tendency to cultivate metropolitan cultural models were not only more typically English than the cultural patterns exhibited by Puritan Massachusetts and Connecticut, but also almost certainly characteristic of most other early modern British colonies from Barbados north to Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Within the larger framework of American colonial life, then, not the Southern but the Puritan colonies appear to have been distinctive, and even they seem to have been rapidly assimilating to the dominant cultural patterns by the last Colonial period.

A:Davis cries for the excessive influence historians attributed to the Puritans B:Davis believes in using the Puritans as the standard to evaluate the contributions of Southern colonials C:Davis concerns more about the differences between the Southern and Northern colonials D:Davis objects to the difference between the Southern and Puritan colonies

Northern杂交与Southern杂交的根本区别是( )。

A:膜上的物质：Southern杂交是：DNA，Northern杂交是RNA B:杂交条件不一致 C:探针不一致 D:电泳条件不同，Northern杂交为变性条件，Southern杂交为非变性条件