PTE Highlight Incorrect Words Practice

You've heard the old saying, denial ain't just a river in Egypt. And it's true. The Nile, as it turns out, is also a river on Titan, provided you squint and take a little creative license with your architecture. NASA's Cassini orbiter recently took some radar readings of the saturnian moon Titan. And what Cassini spotted there was a river system that NASA likens to a miniature version of the Nile river on Earth. It's long and relatively twisted, just like the real Nile. But unlike the famed Egyptian river, Titan's river flows not with oxygen but with liquid hydrocarbons such as ethane and methane. Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is the only place in the solar system other than Earth where large bodies of liquid orbit the surface. In Titan's north polar region, the river flows some 400 kilometers into Ligia Mare, a giant sea of hydrocarbons. Recently, planetary scientists proposed that NASA launch a floating spacecraft to explore the seas of Titan. But when NASA opted for a Mars lander instead, the plans for a space boat were approved.

You've heard parrots repeat human speech. But what about this? That strange buzzing sound is from a whale. It's a captive beluga whale named NOC. And researchers say it's his attempt to mimic the sound of humans talking. Back in 1984, a diver at the National Marine Mammal Foundation appeared from the whale tank and said, "Who told me to get out?" Turns out, no one did. Well, no human did. The "out" sound came from NOC, the whale. When researchers compared recordings of NOC to human speech, they found that the rhythm of his words indeed matched that of humans. So did the pitch, at several octaves lower than the whales' usual clicks and whimpers . NOC made these 'human' sounds by tweaking the pressures in his nasal cavity and stretching a pair of vibrating lip-like structures within his blowhole. Their research appears in the journal Current Biology. For centuries, sailors have called belugas "sea canaries," for their musical squeaks and chirps. But this beluga turned out to be less canary and more parrot.

You've landed a small role in a low budget horror movie. To get ready, you need to practice your reaction shot. You know that look you'll get when your boss peels off his face to reveal the dust oozing alien he really is? So look in the mirror and give us some terror. If you're doing it right, your eyes are wide open and your eyebrows are raised. But why is that? I mean, how come people, when they're scared, all make a similar face? Darwin thought there was a reason that our expressions evolved, because they offer some problem. And scientists from Ontario think Darwin was right. They asked volunteers to try to look frightened and then they measured the emotional effects. They found that making a fraidy face allows people to see farther, locate noises faster, and take in more air when they breathe. The findings appear in the current online issue of Nature Neuroscience. Those reactions make sense because if you see something startling or out of the ordinary, you can use your fear enhanced vision to ignore the situation and if need be, take a deep fear boosted breath and run.

You survived the Mayan apocalypse or at least transition to the next Baktun number 14 according to the Mayan calendar. What real lessons does this ancient culture hold? First and foremost, the Maya are a case study in destruction. Their complex civilization of powerful city states collapsed and the jungle retook those urban centers. But the Mayan people vanished. Today being the principal ethnic population of parts of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, European invaders did not end the era of the Mayan city state, although it was descendants of those Europeans who came up with this apocalypse mumbo jumbo. Research shows that what laid low Mayan society was something more obvious. Climate change. A subtle shift in weather patterns brought less rain, and the Mayan civilization was simply unable to cope with a prolonged dry period punctuated by several severe droughts. Given that our highly complex civilization is also facing climate change, it might make sense to look back to the Maya for a memory of our future. Today, much of the former Mayan city states are nature factories dotted by ruins. Will we do better when faced with crippling and long lasting drought? In this the 14th Baktun.

You can't hold back the tide or sea level rise. There's melting ice, of course, but H2O, that's already liquid shrinks as it warms and the oceans are warming from climate change. That sea level rise isn't the same everywhere. The moon's pull, oceanic currents, the Earth's pollution — these all play a role in what ocean water is where. Turns out the US east coast is experiencing sea level rise three to four times higher than the global average, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change. That's bad news for the highly populated region and suggests storm surges are going to prevent ever more problematic. From New York City to Cape Hatteras by the end of the century, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could reduce sea level rise of as much as 80cm along the east Coast. Further into the future, even a low emissions scenario sees the seas rise by a meter and a half. And if we continue emitting at our present pace, sea level rise might be close to 3 meters and still shrinking. No matter what some folks choose to believe.