雅思学习-The Chicken Came Before the Egg

（单词翻译:单击）

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This is one of life’s oldest questions and everyone has their own opinion. Now scientists believe they have cracked it and have unscrambled this mystery. Researchers from Sheffield and Warwick Universities in England discovered the answer by mistake. They used a super computer to zoom¹ in on the shell-making process while a new shell was forming. They said it all boils down to one protein called OC17 that is essential for forming eggshell. This is only found inside a chicken's ovaries, which is proof² that the chicken came first. The team was originally looking at how animals and birds make eggshells but suddenly made their surprising discovery. The big question now is where chickens came from. The answer to that is from dinosaurs³.

The research team said eggshells are one of nature’s most amazing creations⁴. Professor John Harding from Sheffield University told reporters: "Understanding how chickens make eggshells is fascinating in itself but can also give clues towards designing new materials and processes." Eggshells are very lightweight but incredibly strong. The most cutting-edge materials designed by the world’s top engineers cannot produce anything as brilliant as an eggshell. Professor Harding added that studying eggshells could help find new answers to bone-healing processes and materials used by the construction industry: "Nature has found innovative⁵ solutions that work for all kinds of problems in materials science and technology -- we can learn a lot from them," he said.

WARM-UPS



1. CHICKENS AND EGGS: Walk around the class and talk to other students about chickens and eggs. Change partners often. Sit with your first partner(s) and share your findings⁶.
2. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words from the article are most interesting and which are most boring.

chickens / eggs / opinions / mysteries / zoom in / protein / eggshells / discoveries / amazing creations / fascinating / new materials / cutting-edge / brilliant / construction

Have a chat about the topics you liked. Change topics and partners frequently.
3. LIFE’S MYSTERIES: What do you think? Complete this table and show it to your partner(s). Change partners and share what you heard. Change and share again.

Mystery	Your answer
Why are we here?
Are there aliens?
Why are there poor people?
What happened to the dinosaurs?
Do we have a 6th sense?
Why is English so hard?

4. CHICKEN OR EGG?: Students A strongly believe the chicken came before the egg; Students B strongly believe the egg came before the chicken.  Change partners again and talk about your conversations.
5. QUESTIONS: What questions would you love to know the answer to? Think of questions for the following. Talk to your partner(s) about possible answers.

eggs life your family English

your country’s leader money technology famous people

6. EGG: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word ‘egg’. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.

点击查看更多