英语听力精选进阶版 7120（在线收听）

Background: 近日一家金融服务公司说该国的互联网速度太慢远比不上信鸽的速度。这家公司举办了一个别开生面地比赛以证明其观点。

In this digital age the one thing that drives people crazy is the internet running slow.

After constant moans from their colleagues about the snail's pace of sending data between offices the IT experts at the South African financial services firm Unlimited wondered if it would be quicker using a pigeon.

That's when they enlisted the help of Winston, the racing pigeon.

They tied a computer memory card to Winston's leg and launched him on an 80-km journey between offices in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. Unlimited's head of IT, Kevin Rolfe, says at the same time a button was pressed to send the same data online:

"When the chip was attached to Winton's leg and taken outside for release the entire office was standing there cheering and egging Winston and his colleagues on. The release of it was quite spectacular, you had these birds flying off and at the same time as that was happening the transfer was in hand and heading up the line via the traditional ADSL."

It usually takes Unlimited six hours to send four gigabytes of data online from Durban to Pietermaritzburg.

The racing pigeon did it in about an hour.

The company that operates South Africa's network of internet lines, Telkom, has told the BBC that the race was unfair because Unlimited was using standard broadband lines and not its high speed network.

Unlimited will continue to transfer data over the internet, but Winston and his flying colleagues are still likely to be used at least once a week.

GLOSSARY 词汇表

pythons 蟒蛇类动物 

giant armadillos 巨犰狳 

function well 正常运作 

conducted a study 展开了一项研究 

migrating birds 迁徙的鸟类 

evolved 演变 

conserve energy 保存能量 

needlessly 不需要地 

survive 生存 

vital functions 主要的功能 

limited resources 有限的资源 

accounts for 占… 的比例 

sitting around 闲坐着 

get injured 受伤 

detected 发现/发觉 

predators 捕食其他动物的动物

Questions and Answers

True or false? Human babies need twice as much sleep as adults. 

True. Human babies need around 16 hours while adults need around eight.

True or false? We are more likely to be discovered by predators when awake. 

False. Sleeping makes us less likely to be detected by predators.

Why does Professor Seigel think sleep evolved? 

He thinks it evolved to help animals conserve energy and make use of limited resources.

Do migrating birds need to sleep for long periods? 

No, migrating birds can survive for long periods without sleep.