英语听力：2013-12-01 地平线：什么害死了我们的蜜蜂—5

 -Do we have any fruits?-No fruits. There's no fruits available today.

-Perhaps some tomatoes?

-Tomatoes? No, no. Absolutely no tomatoes. It's fruit pollinated by bees. Like it, enjoy your meal?

-No, it's little bit dry, though.

-Bit bland¹.

-OK. You may know I've been looking into the disappearance² of our bees and what's been going wrong, and I thought I have an experiment to see what the impact would be on our lives, if there were no honey bees in Britain. And this is the result. So without bees, no much pollination³ goes on, so that's all you left with. But to make up for it, here's a breakfast you can have, while we've still got honey bees. So, tuck in.

To be honest, this is a bit of treat. It's not what they used to. Take away bees, and you risk losing this, most fruits, but not bananas and pineapples, and most vegetables along with protein-rich beans. And because most animal feed is made from plants pollinated by bees, it means meat and dairy products could also become more scarce. 

-So what we really need to do is to save bees, if we want our breakfast.

It does give you a sense of just how important bees are. I want to track down the most groundbreaking research into what's killing⁴ our bees in such numbers.

I'm starting at a rather special place, R* Research. They've been studying bees here for 90 years and they recently invented some rather ingenious ways of observing them. I'm here to look at the first suspect in our mystery, the veroller* might.

-This is tiny parricide⁵ is led to the spread of some of the most contentious⁶ and widely distributed gareties on the planet, killing billions of bees and truly earning its name, veroller distracter. It can be utterly⁷ devastating⁸. 

1 bland   

adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的

参考例句：

• He eats bland food because of his stomach trouble.他因胃病而吃清淡的食物。
• This soup is too bland for me.这汤我喝起来偏淡。

2 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

3 pollination   

n.授粉

参考例句：

• The flowers get pollination by insects.这些花通过昆虫授粉。
• Without sufficient pollination,the growth of the corn is stunted.没有得到充足的授粉，谷物的长势就会受阻。

4 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

5 parricide   

n.杀父母；杀亲罪

参考例句：

• In ancient Greek stories,Oedipus was a parricide.在古希腊故事里，俄狄浦斯是个杀父者。
• There's a case of parricide immediately after,which will take them some time.在您之后，立刻就要办一件弑父案。

6 contentious   

adj.好辩的，善争吵的

参考例句：

• She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.她委实不是好吵好闹的人。
• Since then they have tended to steer clear of contentious issues.从那时起，他们总想方设法避开有争议的问题。

7 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

8 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。