Exercises

1. Practise reading the words from the article. Learn their Russian equivalents.

abattoir, allure, to assess, baboon, catastrophic, eland, f(o)etus, gaur, gorilla (Cf.: guerilla), hybrid, ocelot, oocyte, panda, primate, recipe, to retrieve, Sumatran, viable.

2. Explain what is meant by:

A. 1) surrogate mom; 2) biotech; 3) IUCN; 4) primate; 5) the dodo; 6) a zoo-based breeding programme; 7) genetic diversity; 8) inbreeding; 9) to gestate; 10) the DNA 11) ibex; 12) ranger; 13) abattoir;

B. 1) a crowd pleaser; 2) a critically endangered animal;

C. 1) Noah; 2) Noah’s ark; 3) Mount Ararat; 4) Dolly; 5) Jurassic Park.

3. Find in the article the English for:

1) биологические виды, которым грозит исчезновение; 2) он появится на свет только через месяц; 3) Ной будет рожден не гауром, а обычной молочной коровой; 4) живое свидетельство тому, что…; 5) выносить и родить к-л; 6) четверть всех млекопитающих находятся на грани исчезновения; 7) взмахнуть волшебной палочкой; 8) пресноводный; 9) открыть второй фронт; 10) зачатие в пробирке; 11) генетик; 12) музейная редкость / музейный экспонат/экземпляр.

Make up one sentence for oral translation in class with any of the items.

4. Find in the article the words and phrases with the same meanings:

1) he must do (sth); 2) to stop, to arrest; 3) misfortune, failure; 4) to expose (sb to sth); 5) hardships.

5. VOCABULARY (define the lexical items, say in what context each of them was employed and exemplify their use with your own sentences/situations):

1) to replicate (Cf: replica); 2) call (n) (as in to get the call to do sth); 3) to dwindle; 4) to clone (cloning, a clone); 5) in/on the cards; 6) to stir up a hornet’s nest; 7) to be a recipe for sth; 8) resort (to be/seem a last resort).

6. Rephrase the given sentences or say how you understand them:

1. If cloning seems like a last resort, it is. 2. …the habitat destruction and hunting … keep sending species the way of the dodo. 3. … cloning could increase the genetic diversity of endangered species and prevent catastrophic inbreeding. 4. Even getting this far “represents an important milestone”, says Ian Wilmut… 5. Cloning something as extinct as the stars of Jurassic Park remains fiction (the DNA must be viable)… 6. … conservationists worry that high-tech reproduction will divert scarce resources from programs that could save a greater number of animals… 7. Cells from Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, late of the National Zoo, are already on ice…

7. Write out from the article the names of the animals mentioned in it. Learn their Russian equivalents.

8. DISCUSSION

1. Give a detailed description of the procedure of cloning Noah.

2. What are the advantages of cloning over test-tube conception?

3. What facts give one the right to speak of cloning endangered species as “a last resort”?

4. What problems does cloning the endangered entail?

5. How do you understand the concluding sentence of the article?

6. Do you think cloning endangered species is a way out? Why (not)?

7. Retell the article.