Практика Shadowing: Why Pandas Are Impressively Bad at Existing - Изучайте разговорный английский по видео
Создание урока...
1
I think it's easy to look at a panda and forget it's an actual, real animal.
2
It's hard to conceive that the incredible forces of evolution that create highly effective, lethal predators would turn one into this?
3
And for all the creationists
4
that are inevitably frothing to write a comment about how this is proof that animals are created and not evolved,
5
why would our Lord Creator create something so terrible?
6
This spherical ball of evolutionary mistakes is clinging to existence.
7
And while this is very sad, because they are very cute,
8
they don't necessarily garner a ton of sympathy when you learn just how bad they are at being animals.
9
Pandas have evolved to eat a very narrow range of food, a range so narrow it's basically just one thing, bamboo.
10
A plant that has almost no nutritional value and is full of cyanide.
11
It's so toxic that pretty much all other animals avoid it, and it's so nutritionally deficient that they have to spend up to 12 hours a day,
12
almost all of their waking hours, eating enough of it to survive.
13
And for a bear, this makes even less sense.
14
They're members of the Ursidae family, related to grizzly bears, polar bears, and black bears.
15
Every other species in the Ursidae family eats meat, either as omnivores or as obligate carnivores like polar bears.
16
And scientists think that pandas need to eat so much bamboo
17
that in the wild they have to keep their distance from one another to get enough.
18
This means that they can have a hard time finding a mate.
19
This contributes to pandas having an exceedingly low birth rate, which contributes to the fact that they are this close to not existing anymore.
20
And on top of this uphill battle that they've already created for themselves, they act as if they have absolutely no survival instincts hardwired into their brains.
21
They fall off and get stuck in trees, and just generally act like every day is their first day on earth.
22
And on top of this, one of their favorite hobbies is poop.
23
They poop over 40 times a day, and given the chance, pandas will absolutely cover themselves in horse poop.
24
I am talking head to toe, full body immersion.
25
The official term for a group of pandas is an embarrassment of pandas.
26
And even if they are lovable, it sure seems like they are an evolutionary accident that maybe came about just for our amusement.
27
But as we all know, evolution doesn't work like that.
28
Everything evolves for some reason.
29
But how is being a clumsy idiot beneficial?
30
And why would they evolve to eat the worst thing imaginable?
31
And why are they absolutely obsessed with poop?
32
Giant pandas are herbivorous bears native to the bamboo forests of south central China.
33
And although they are members of the Ursidae family, they have taken a unique evolutionary path.
34
Around 40 million years ago, the ancestors of bears split away from the other caniforms.
35
Then, around 23 .4 million years ago, the Ursidae family split in two.
36
The genus Aeleropoda was all alone on one branch, and this is what pandas evolved from.
37
All the other bear species evolved on the other side of that branch.
38
And as pandas continued to evolve, they did something truly baffling.
39
They evolved to stop eating meat, transitioning to eating almost exclusively bamboo.
40
Scientists assume this happened between 6 -7 million years ago, and they make that assumption about the timing
41
because of one adaptation they seemed to have gained that allowed for better bamboo manipulation, a pseudo -thumb.
42
This is like a whole extra weird little thumb, essentially one of their wrist bones grew extra large so
43
that it curves in an opposite direction as the other five of their fingers.
44
The thumb isn't as widely useful as a human thumb, but it's perfect for grasping bamboo.
45
But at first glance, suddenly adapting to only eat bamboo fundamentally makes no sense.
46
And in most ways, pandas still look like the other bears.
47
They have sharp claws and sharp canines foods, even their guts still resemble the gut of other carnivores.
48
When we look at carnivores vs herbivores, carnivores have much shorter and simpler digestive tracks.
49
That's because their high protein diet requires a lot less digestion time to extract all the nutrients they need.
50
Herbivores take longer to digest plant foods because there are higher levels of indigestible materials, like cellulose, the main structural molecule in plant cells.
51
It's tough and hard to break down, which is why certain herbivores, like cows, have multiple stomach compartments.
52
They spend a long time digesting so that they can extract as many carbohydrates and other nutrients as possible.
53
But pandas, surprisingly, have a carnivore gut.
54
They don't have the multi -chambered stomachs of ruminants, so of their nearly 100 % diet of bamboo, they can only digest around 20 % of it.
55
This means they have to eat a lot of bamboo, up to 35 kilograms per day.
56
Which is also why they poop 40 times per day.
57
The food stays in their guts a little longer than most carnivores, but still, this seems wildly inefficient.
58
And not only do pandas have a digestive tract that looks like that of a carnivore, their gut microbes also match the pattern of carnivores.
59
Gut microbiome diversity is highest in herbivores, then omnivores, with carnivores coming in last.
60
You'd think that millions of years of only eating bamboo would introduce a bit of diversity into the panda's gut bacteria, but that's not the case.
61
In fact, once panda cubs are weaned off their mother's milk and transition to eating bamboo, the diversity of their gut bacteria decreased.
62
As the scientists write in their paper on the subject,
63
a carnivorous digestive system fed with a bamboo dominated diet is not a typical feature of evolution.
64
But as dumb as this seems, there's usually a reason behind long -standing animal adaptations.
65
And in this instance, starting to eat bamboo kind of made sense for pandas, sort of.
66
Bamboo may be low in energy, but in southern China, when this adaptation came about, it was abundant.
67
Plus, it grows exceptionally quickly.
68
Bamboo is one of the world's fastest growing plants, plants, with one species growing more than one meter per day,
69
and reaching its maximum height of 20 meters in just under two months.
70
And the highest diversity of species of bamboo is in southern China, and as it so happens,
71
it perfectly overlaps the limited territory that giant pandas exist in, even though they probably lived over a much wider range in the past.
72
Bamboo is such a dominant species, that in a bamboo forest, almost no other plant life grows.
73
And not many other animals eat bamboo.
74
So for any animal that can evolve to consume it, bamboo provides a bounty of food unlike anything else.
75
But it does seem particularly weird for a meat eater to
76
suddenly be okay going from eating delicious succulent meat to poisonous sticks.
77
But scientists think pandas underwent another strange adaptation to make them fine with this, an adaptation that is as weird as it is sad.
78
Around 4 .2 million years ago, pandas lost the function of their T1R1 gene, which is what's involved in detecting umami flavors in meat,
79
which are driven by L -glutamate.
80
L -glutamate is an amino acid present in high quantities in protein, so it signals that something is especially full of calories and nutrition.
81
And suddenly, pandas could no longer detect it, which probably made meat a lot less enticing, at least going by flavor.
82
What a curse.
83
Likely at first, pandas just adapted to eat a little bit of bamboo due to its abundance, and then after a long time,
84
they gradually lost their ability to enjoy meat, and thus lost most of their hunting instincts.
85
They might have still People eaten fruit for a while, and even today they'll eat fruit if you give them some, but almost no fruit grows in a bamboo forest.
86
Given all of these factors, some scientists think that pandas were probably eating nothing but bamboo as far back as 2 .4 million years.
87
But regardless of when it happened, a carnivore evolving to eat only bamboo is unprecedented evolutionarily speaking.
88
In fact, anything eating only bamboo is kind of unthinkable.
89
Because even if there is a bounty of bamboo, it's still toxic.
90
Bamboo is full of cyanide, in quantities high enough that eating it raw would kill most mammals.
91
In fact, there have been numerous cases of poisoning among humans who accidentally ate raw bamboo or prepared it incorrectly badly.
92
Other herbivores have a way to detoxify cyanide using an enzyme called mitochondrial rodanese,
93
because many plants use cyanide as a defense mechanism and herbivores encounter it in small doses over their lifetime.
94
But pandas have far less of this detoxification enzyme than normal herbivores.
95
And yet these pandas are consuming up to 66 mg of cyanide every day, close to a fatal dose for humans, and they seem just fine.
96
It might seem like they are too stupid to realize they're supposed to die.
97
but it turns out they actually have a way to get
98
around this poison that's different from the way most herbivores do it.
99
When researchers looked more closely at the panda's gut bacteria, as diverse as it wasn't,
100
they found an abundance of one unique and powerful bacteria, Pseudomonas fluorescens.
101
This bacteria helps degrade cyanide compounds, which seems to completely protect the pandas.
102
Plus, pandas are strategic in what parts of the bamboo they eat.
103
Depending on the species of bamboo and time of year, the pandas may target different parts of the plant to avoid the highest dose of cyanide.
104
This targeted feeding is also the case when it comes to nutrients.
105
In fact, although 99 % of the pandas diet is bamboo, a recent study found that they're actually eating the same amount of protein as carnivores.
106
How?
107
Because young bamboo shoots roots actually have a lot of protein in them, and so do the leaves at certain points in their life cycle.
108
And pandas target these to get as much protein as wild cats do.
109
In the end, their bamboo diet is 61 % protein energy, 23 % carb energy, and 16 % fat.
110
This is even reflected in panda milk, which has a higher ratio of protein than the milk of herbivorous mammals.
111
So at first, I'm kind of impressed that pandas found a way to cheat the system and turn a crappy food source into something usable.
112
But this feeling doesn't last long.
113
Because even if pandas can technically get enough nutrients out of bamboo, they still have to eat an ungodly amount of it to get enough nutrients,
114
spending pretty much their entire life doing nothing else but gorging on it.
115
To cope with this, their metabolism has adapted to slow way down, and they can't afford to move around that much.
116
They are fairly sedentary animals trying to hold on to every ounce of energy that they can.
117
And while this is a somewhat effective evolutionary reaction, it doesn't solve all of their problems.
118
The winters in China can be brutally cold, and unlike other bear species that can pack on fat and hibernate for the winter,
119
pandas can't afford to ever stop eating.
120
So they just have to endure it, meaning they have to spend even more energy using thermoregulation to maintain a stable internal temperature.
121
Eating bamboo became a positive feedback loop requiring them to eat more and more bamboo, and it might also explain why they're so clumsy,
122
or at least why they appear to be.
123
Pandas look clumsy in part because they're always looking for the lowest energy way to get around, and sometimes the easiest way to get somewhere is to fall there.
124
And their round shape just lends itself to rolling.
125
Scientists think they might partly do this just for fun.
126
So at this point in the panda story, it seems like they've found a sort of novel way to get enough nutrients,
127
something they don't have to compete with other species for and is readily abundant.
128
Which is sort of an evolutionary win as long as they can eat enough of it.
129
But there are still even more problems with this plan.
130
Although they don't have to compete with other species much for bamboo, they still sort of have to compete with each other.
131
And because they need to eat so much of it, each wild panda keeps a large territory to themselves.
132
They live solitary lives, using their sense of smell to avoid each other as best as they can.
133
Male pandas tend to have territories that are around 6 .5 square kilometers, while female territories are usually about 4 .5 square kilometers.
134
This isn't a problem in itself.
135
They don't seem to mind living solitary lives.
136
However, it becomes a big problem when it's time to mate.
137
Pandas only seek out other pandas in spring for mating.
138
And female pandas have a fertility window of just two to seven days per year.
139
And conception has to be timed exactly.
140
Like, come on guys, I'm actually just getting annoyed at this point.
141
So when it's getting close to time to mate, pandas leave scent messages for one another by rubbing their scent glands on trees, rocks, and grass, and they just hope
142
that other pandas get the message in time to hike miles over mountainous terrain to mate in the minuscule two -day window.
143
If they succeed, which they rarely do, female pandas are pregnant for five months before giving birth to a tiny cub about 1 800th of their size.
144
Half of panda pregnancies result in twins.
145
Awesome.
146
Except for the weaker of the two cubs is often abandoned.
147
Pandas can typically only care for one infant at a time, because the tiny cubs need constant and careful attention.
148
I get that this happens in many animals, but this just seems like yet another way pandas are begging to go extinct.
149
Their evolutionary path is just kind of an impossible one.
150
But what about the poop thing?
151
Could this maybe be the secret to their ongoing survival?
152
Giant pandas in central China's Foping National Nature Reserve have been seen absolutely smearing horse poop all over their entire bodies,
153
really focusing on their face and necks.
154
Is this fun?
155
Or is this some other weird adaptation that somehow helps them?
156
Recently scientists think they made a breakthrough in this horse poop mystery.
157
They noticed that the pandas seemed to do this most when it was cold outside.
158
Could it somehow be a way to keep them warm?
159
Because pandas are fiercely protected, scientists rarely get access to do direct experiments with them.
160
So for this scientific question, the researchers used mice.
161
They covered the mice in the poop compounds of interest, and found that poop -treated mice walked on cold surfaces more readily, and huddled together for warmth less.
162
And what the researchers realized was that these poop compounds inhibit cold receptors in mice, and also in pandas.
163
Some experts argue that this could be a way for the pandas to endure those brutally cold winters while forgoing hibernation.
164
But while it might be a coping mechanism, it seems like it could be an incredibly bad one.
165
If their bodies no longer feel the sensation of cold, this could prevent them from seeking shelter, and would actually be incredibly dangerous.
166
Because of this, some scientists aren't convinced, and they think the pandas just really like poop for fun.
167
So at best, this behavior is weird and gross, and at worst, it's downright stupid and maybe suicidal.
168
Horse poop is probably not the secret sauce to their unlikely ongoing survival.
169
I know I'm kind of joking about all of this, but it really looks like pandas are just simply bad at surviving.
170
It looks like they exploited the environmental niche of bamboo, but at a great cost, basically dooming themselves.
171
Because of all of this, certain simulations make some scientists think that pandas have been on the decline for thousands of years or even longer.
172
Some argue that if humanity had never existed, the panda would still go extinct in the very near future.
173
It's undeniable that they are slow to adapt, and that their very specific niche puts them at a disadvantage if any single thing in that environment changes.
174
But humans are really, really good at changing the environment.
175
So even if pandas have been declining without humans, humans have undoubtedly made it worse.
176
Panda population decline accelerated rapidly in the 1700s, when agriculture and human civilization expanded rapidly in central China.
177
And ever since then, panda habitat has been wildly fragmented.
178
Dams, roads, and railways divide panda habitats, making it even more difficult for them to find each other to mate,
179
and reducing the amount of bamboo forests needed for them to get enough food.
180
This along with poaching absolutely slashed panda numbers.
181
Today, only around 1800 pandas are left in the wild.
182
Regardless, if we don't intervene, pandas would absolutely go extinct.
183
Captive breeding programs have saved pandas from the brink of oblivion,
184
and now humans are working to create corridors between forest reserves to link up wild pandas once again.
185
Do we as humans spend a ridiculous amount of money trying to keep an animal
186
that seems to want to go extinct alive?
187
Yes.
188
But is it maybe our responsibility to try?
189
Also yes.
190
Evolution did them dirty, but so did we.
191
Sometimes we just have to take care of the idiots amongst us.
192
My favorite part of studying biology is looking at these evolutionary questions.
193
The big causes and effects that shape every animal on earth.
194
How competitive pressure and genetic mutations led to the supremely weird bamboo diet for pandas.
195
How a drying climate caused ants to become fungus farmers.
196
How becoming upright animals allowed us to become extremely smart animals.
197
The path to higher intelligence in humans is unlike anything else in the animal kingdom.
198
And it's something I've explored in depth in a five -part Nebula original mini -series called Becoming Human.
199
In this series, I explore the major steps in human evolution, from toolmaking, to hunting, to long -distance running,
200
to language, to the birth of consciousness as we know it.
201
Nebula is the streaming platform we built for exactly this reason.
202
To create original content that takes a little longer, has a higher production value, and explores areas that we want to take a deep dive into,
203
things that don't always work on YouTube.
204
And right now for the holiday period, we're offering gift cards to Nebula for you to give to your friends or family members.
205
This is a great last minute gift idea, and one that doesn't add to the pile of stuff stuff, that Christmas so often brings.
206
It's a totally digital, instant gift that will give your friends
207
and family so much original content without having to worry about yet another subscription service.
208
One year's subscription is only $36.
209
Or to give your friend or family member access to everything Nebula will ever have to offer, you can gift a lifetime subscription for $300.
210
This is a great gift for the people who lament having to pay for
211
so many subscription services to get quality content these days.
212
With this option, you can buy once and never pay again.
213
Lifetime subscriptions, whether it's for yourself or as a gift, help fund original series like Becoming Human and so many others.
214
And I know that there are thousands of you who got access to Nebula earlier through an old bundle deal,
215
and we want to make it easier for you to come sign up directly to Nebula, so we're offering a year of Nebula for only $30.
216
So if you've ever had access to Nebula before, and want to keep supporting what we do, signing up directly is the best way to do so.
217
By becoming a Nebula subscriber, you get to watch all of the experimental and new ideas that are being made by your favorite creators all the time.
218
There are so many amazing original shows and films on Nebula, like Tom Nicholas's new feature length Boomers documentary,
219
a documentary about the rise of the gerontocracy, and the questionable legacy of the baby boomers,
220
or my recent Nebula original called Archaeology Quest where I got put to the test in Paleolithic survival tasks.
221
I made stone tools and ceramic bowls, threw spears and collected mushrooms, all to try to see if I would have had what it takes to live in ancient times.
222
So for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month, you can get access to all of Nebula's originals along with the real science full catalog without any ads.
223
You can also easily download videos to watch on the go, all for just $3 a month.
224
So go to nebula .tv slash real science
225
or click on the link in the description to get 40
226
% off a yearly subscription for the incredibly low price of $3 a month.
📺 Тот же канал
✨ Рекомендуемое видео
B21
99 предложений
How to Survive the Most Aggressive Animals
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
108 предложений
100 Day Apocalypse Simulation
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B11
912 предложений
How to Cope as a Useless Lonely Rat // EP 108
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
183 предложений
Why Babies NEED to Sleep Next to You (Science Explained)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
72 предложений
Part 2: Each day, pandas need to eat: Đề thi IELTS LISTENING (actual test)
IELTS PrepUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
37 предложений
Why Haven't We Domesticated Monkeys?
University StudentsWorking Adults
B24
245 предложений
Pointless Ancient Instincts YOU Still Fight Daily
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
57 предложений
Why We’re Scared of Things That Look Too Human (Uncanny Valley)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B228
81 предложений
How to Save Our Planet
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
159 предложений
What If Jurassic Park Was Real? THEY ESCAPED
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
47 предложений
In search of monsters
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Лексика и советы по произношению к этому уроку
В этом видео 226 предложений и 3509 слов для шедоуинга. Речь длится 22:28. Говорящий говорит в естественном темпе, около 156 слов в минуту, близком к повседневной речи. Только 78% слов входят в 3000 самых частых слов английского языка, поэтому лексика сложная.
Ключевая лексика этого видео
15 слов из видео, которые стоит выучить, с произношением и значением:
| Слово | Произношение | Значение |
|---|---|---|
| bamboo существительное | /bæmˈbu/ | бамбу́к, бамбу́ковая трость |
| poop существительное | /ˈpuːp/ | кака́шка, ка́ка |
| evolve глагол | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | развива́ться, разви́ться |
| evolutionary прилагательное | /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/ | эволюцио́нный |
| nutrient существительное | /ˈnuː.tɹi.ənt/ | пита́тельное вещество́ |
| evolution существительное | /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/ | эволю́ция, разви́тие |
| subscription существительное | /səbˈskɹɪpʃən/ | подпи́ска, абонеме́нт |
| survival существительное | /sɚˈvaɪ.vəl/ | выжива́ние |
| diversity существительное | /daɪˈvɜː(ɹ)sɪti/ | разнообра́зие |
| mouse существительное | /maʊs/ | мышь, мы́шка |
| thumb существительное | /ˈθʌm/ | большо́й па́лец |
| extinct прилагательное | /ɪkˈstɪŋkt/ | поту́хший, уга́сший |
| compete глагол | /kəmˈpiːt/ | соревнова́ться, состяза́ться |
| lifetime существительное | /ˈlaɪf.taɪm/ | продолжи́тельность жи́зни, це́лая жизнь |
| incredibly наречие | /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/ | невероя́тно |
Фразовые глаголы, которые вы услышите
| Слово | Значение |
|---|---|
| sign up глагол | запи́сывать, записа́ть |
| break down глагол | ломаться, сломаться |
| turn out глагол | ока́зываться, оказа́ться |
Грамматика в этом видео
Конструкции, которые говорящий использует чаще всего, с точными словами из видео:
| Конструкция | В видео |
|---|---|
| Условные предложения if + предложение, will/would + глагол — условие и его результат | if we don't intervene, pandas would absolutely |
| Present Perfect have/has + причастие прошедшего времени — прошлое действие, важное сейчас | have evolved · they've already created · have taken |
| Пассивный залог be + причастие прошедшего времени — важно, что происходит, а не кто это делает | are created · are weaned · are driven |
| Придаточные определительные who / which + предложение — уточнение о человеке или предмете | down, which is · gene, which is · milk, which has |
Произношение, на которое стоит обратить внимание
Говорящий использует 33 сокращённых и редуцированных форм, например don't, they're, doesn't. Произносите их коротко, так, как слышите.
- Звуки «th»: thumb /ˈθʌm/, sympathy /ˈsɪm.pəθ.i/, lethal /ˈliː.θəl/
- Звуки «sh» и «zh»: evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/, subscription /səbˈskɹɪpʃən/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/
- Длинные слова — следите за ударением: evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, diversity /daɪˈvɜː(ɹ)sɪti/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/
Как заниматься с этим видео
- Прослушайте всё видео один раз молча и выпишите незнакомые слова.
- Начните со скорости 0,75×, повторяйте предложение за предложением и вернитесь к обычной скорости, когда станет легко.
- Запишите себя и сравните с оригиналом, обращая внимание на такие слова, как bamboo, poop, evolve.
Что такое техника Shadowing?
Shadowing — это научно обоснованная техника изучения языка, изначально разработанная для подготовки профессиональных переводчиков и популяризированная полиглотом доктором Александром Аргуэльесом. Метод прост, но эффективен: вы слушаете аудио на английском от носителей языка и немедленно повторяете вслух — как тень, следующая за говорящим с задержкой в 1–2 секунды. В отличие от пассивного прослушивания или грамматических упражнений, Shadowing заставляет мозг и мышцы рта одновременно обрабатывать и воспроизводить реальные речевые паттерны. Исследования показывают, что это значительно улучшает точность произношения, интонацию, ритм, связную речь, понимание на слух и беглость речи — что делает его одним из самых эффективных методов для подготовки к IELTS Speaking и реального общения на английском.