IN the famous fairy tale, Snow White eats the Queen’s apple and falls victim to a curse; in Shakespeare’s novel, Romeo drinks the poison and dies; some ancient Chinese emperors took pills that contained mercury, believing that it would make them immortal, but they died afterward.
Poison has long been an important ingredient in literature and history, and it seems to always be associated with evil, danger and death. But how much do you really know about poison?
An exhibition, The Power of Poison, opened last month at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, intended to give the audience a more vivid understanding of poison. The exhibition will continue until Aug 2014, reported The New York Times.
The museum tour starts in a rainforest setting, where you can see live examples of some of the most poisonous animals: caterpillars, frogs and spiders. Golden poison frogs, for instance, aren’t much bigger than a coin, but their skin is covered in a poison that can cut off the signaling power of your nerves, and a single frog has enough venom to kill 10 grown humans.
The exhibition also features interactive activities. In an iPad-based game, visitors are presented with three puzzling illnesses and asked to identify the poisons based on symptoms. In one case, for example, a pet dog is found sick in a backyard and visitors have to figure out whether it was the toad (蟾蜍), the leaky batteries in the trash or the dirty pond water that did it.
“Poisons can be bad for some things,” Michael Novacek, senior vice president of the museum, told NBC News. “Yet they can also be good for others.”
This is what visitors learn from the last part of the exhibition, which displays how poisons can be used favorably by humans, including for medical treatment.
The blood toxins of vampire bats, for example, can prevent blood from clotting (凝结), which may protect against strokes. A poisonous chemical found in the yew tree is effective against cancer, which is what led to the invention of a cancer-fighting drug called Taxol. One chemical in the venom of Gila monsters can lower the blood sugar of its victims, so it has been used to treat diabetes.
The benefits from natural poisons are not limited to just medicine. Believe it or not, many substances that we regularly take in – chili, coffee and chocolate, etc. – owe their special flavors or stimulating effects to chemicals that plants make to poison insects.
68. By mentioning Snow White and Romeo at the beginning of the story, the author intends to ____________.
A. show that poison has long been involved in literature
B. show that poison is always linked with evil and death
C. draw readers’ attention to the topic of the article
D. get readers to think of more examples of the use of poison in stories
69. What is the main purpose of the exhibition The Power of Poison?
A. To give people more in-depth knowledge about poison.
B. To teach people how to handle poisonous animals.
C. To inform people about which animals are the most poisonous.
D. To show how poison has been used for medical treatment.
70. Which of the following statements about the exhibition is TRUE according to the article?
A. The exhibition will lead visitors to a real rainforest .
B. Golden poison frogs are the most poisonous animals on display.
C. Those who visit the exhibition can join in some iPad-based interactive games.
D. Visitors can listen to lectures on recent studies of poisonous animals.