The first zoo in the United States opened in Philadelphia in 1874, followed by the Cincinnati Zoo the next year. By 1940 there were zoos in more than one hundred American cities. The Philadelphia Zoo was more thoroughly planned and better financed than most of the hundreds of zoos that would open later but in …
Nature on display in American zoos – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
At a time when most think of outer space as the final frontier, we must remember that a great deal of unfinished business remains here on earth. Robots crawl on the surface of Mars, and spacecraft exit our solar system, but most of our own planet has still never been seen by human eyes. It …
There are more than 160 known species of chameleons. The main distribution is in Africa and Madagascar, and other tropical regions, although some species are also found in parts of southern Europe and Asia. There are introduced populations in Hawaii and probably in California and Florida too. New species are still discovered quite frequently. Dr …
Communicating in Colour – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
Scientists studying penguins’ feathers have revealed how the birds stay ice free when hopping in and out of below zero waters in the Antarctic. A combination of nano-sized pores and an extra water repelling preening oil the birds secrete is thought to give Antarctic penguins’ feathers superhydrophobic properties. Researchers in the US made the discovery …
Penguins’ anti-ice trick revealed – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
It is easy to see why AIDS seemed so mysterious and frightening when US medics first encountered it 35 years ago. The condition robbed young, healthy people of their strong immune system, leaving them weak and vulnerable. And it seemed to come out of nowhere. Today we know much more how and why HIV – …
We know the city where HIV first emerged – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
A After 36 days of battling sharks that kept biting their equipment, scientists have returned from the remote Pacific Ocean with a new way of looking at the world’s largest – and possibly most mysterious – volcano, Tamu Massif. B The team has begun making 3-D maps that offer the clearest look yet at the underwater mountain, …
Scientists Are Mapping the World’s Largest Volcano – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
A Luke Howard had been speaking for nearly an hour, during which time his audience had found itself in a state of gradually mounting excitement. By the time that he reached the concluding words of his address, the Plough Court laboratory was in an uproar. Everyone in the audience had recognized the importance of what they …
The cloud messenger – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
A What would Sir Isaac Newton have made of it? There he was, painted in oils, gazing down at one of the strangest meetings that the Royal Society, Britain’s most august scientific body, has ever held. If Newton had flashed a huge grin, it would have been completely appropriate, for beneath him last week a two- …
In 1963, a paper appeared in the journal Nature that radically changed the way we view this planet and its resources. Tts authors, Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews, did for the Earth sciences what Crick and Watson did for biology and Einstein did for physics, and new areas of scientific development are still emerging as …
An Earth – Shaking Discovery – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
In a show-business career that spanned over seventy years, Groucho Marx successfully conquered every entertainment medium, becoming a star of the vaudeville stage, Broadway, motion pictures, radio and television. But, as the author of seven books, a play, two film screenplays and over one hundred magazine articles and essays, Groucho quietly conquered another medium, one …
Groucho Marx Arthur Sheekman – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
