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  3. Even plants can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects

Even plants can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects

游客2023-07-25  62
问题     Even plants can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects or disease. But unlike humans, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet away-straight up. A decade ago, adapting the infrared (红外线的) scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers precisely target pesticide (杀虫剂) spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which invariably includes plants that don’t have pest(害虫)problems.
    Even better, Paley’s Remote Scanning Services Company cold detect crop problems before they became visible to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an infra-red scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were transformed into a color-coded map showing where plants were running "fevers". Farmers could then spot-spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they otherwise would.
    The bad news is that Paley’s company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long-term backers were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements in infra-red scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. "This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States," says George Other of Texas A&M. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks remote infra-red crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial backing which he failed to obtain 10 years ago. [br] Infrared scanning technology may be brought back into operation because of ______.
选项 A、the desire of farmers to improve the quality of their produce
B、growing concern about the excessive use of pesticides on crops
C、the forceful promotion by the Department of Agriculture
D、full support from agricultural experts
答案 B
解析 第三段的第三句话提到了“renewed concern”，是指人们对此重新开始关心了。 A项的内容在文中没有提及。C项中说到的农业部的强有力的推广与短文有出入，短文只提到农业部一退休工作人员的观点。而D项中的内容并不是重点，而且也未必完全正确，因为最后一段只说农业专家对该技术能发挥作用毫无怀疑，但并未说他们对此全力支持。故选B。
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