理工類輔導資料:閱讀理解Why Humans Walk
A team of scientists that studied chimpanzees trained to use treadmills has gathered new evidence suggesting that our earliest apelike ancestors started walking on two legs because it required less energy than getting around on all fours.
“When our earliest ancestors started walking on two legs，they took the first steps toward becoming human，” said lead researcher Michael Sockol of UC Davis1.“Our findings help an，swer why.” Sockol worked for two years to find an animal trainer willing to coax adult chimps to walk on two legs and to “knucklewalk” on all fours on the sort of treadmill found in most gyms.
The five chimps also wore face masks used to help the researchers measure oxygen consumption.While the chimps worked out，the scientists collected metabolic and other data that allowed them to calculate which method of locomotion used less energy and why.The team gathered the same information for four adult humans walking on a treadmill.
Tile researchers found that human walking used about 75 percent less energy and burned 75 percent fewer calories than quadrupedal and bipedal2 walking in chimpanzees. They also found that for some but not all of the chimps，walking on two legs was no more costly than knucklewalking.
“We were prepared to find that all of the chimps used more energy walking on two legs but that finding wouldn‘t have been as interesting，” Sockol said.“What we found was much more telling. For three chimps，bipedalism3 was more expensive，but for the other two chimps，this wasn’t the case.One spent about the same energy walking on two legs as on four.The other used less energy walking upright.” These two chimps had different gaits and anatomy than their knucklewalking peers.
Taken together，the findings provide support for the hypothesis that anatomical differences affecting gait existed among our earliest apelike ancestors，and that these differences provided the genetic variation which natural selection could act on when changes in the environment gave bipeds an advantage over quadrupeds.
Fossil and molecular evidence suggests the earliest ancestors of the human family lived in forested areas in equatorial Africa in the late Miocene era some 8 to 10 million years ago，when changes in climate may have increased in distance between food patches.That would have forced our earliest ancestors to travel longer distances on the ground and favored those who could cover more ground using less energy.
“This isnt the complete answer，” Soekol said.“But it‘s a good piece of a puzzle humans have always wondered about;How and why did we become human？ And why do we alone walk on two legs？”
詞匯：
chimpanzee/5tFimpEn5zi：/n.黑猩猩 （又作 chimp ）
biped/5baiped/n.二足動物
gait/^eit/n.步態，步法
anatomic/7AnE5tCmik/adj.解剖 （學）的
quadruped/5kwCdrJped/n.四足動物的
Miocene/5maiEsi：n/n.＆。adj.中新世 （的）
Calorie/5kAlEri/n.卡 （路里） ，小卡
treadmill/5tredmIl/n.踏輪；踏車；單調工作
coax/kEuks/v.哄，哄勸
knucklewalk v.用膝關節走路
metabolic/7metE5bClik/adj.（新陳） 代謝的
locomotion/lEJkE5mEJF（E）n/n.運動 （力）
注釋：
1. UC Davis：加州大學戴維斯分校。UC是University of California（加利福尼亞大學）的縮寫，該校有多個分校，UC Davis是其中一個。Davis以前是UC Berkeley分校的農學院，后來獨立小來。Davis是一個大學城，很小的城市，Davis校園基本就構成了這個城市。
2. quadrupedal andbipedal：quad-：構詞詞素，是“四”的意思；bi-：構詞詞素，是“二”的意思； ped-：構詞詞素，是“腳”的意思；-al是構成形容詞的后綴，表示“……的”。因此，quadrupedal 意為“凹足動物的”，bipedal意為“二足動物的”。
3. bipedalism：系bipedal（二足動物的）的對應名詞，這里后綴-ism表示“特征”、“特性”。
練習：
1. What did Michael Sockol and his team find out in their study of chimpanzees？
A Tile evidence why chimpanzees can be trained to use treadmills.
B The evidence why our apelike ancestors came to walk on four legs.
C The evidence why our apelike ancestors came to walk on two legs.
D The evidence why chimpanzees can be trained to walk on two legs.