If it looks like a fish and swims like a fish, it usually is a fish. But not the new, lifelike robot fish developed by UK scientists, which have been swimming around the London Aquarium(水族馆) as they wait for their release off northern Spain in 2011.
Equipped with tiny chemical sensors(传感器),the fish will collect data on pollution in the port of Gijón and wirelessly send the information back to the control center. “It’s a little lab onboard the fish,” said Rory Doyle, a scientist at BMT Group. The robots were designed, and are being built, by professor Huosheng Hu and his team at the University of Essex, UK.
The sensors will search for dangers such as chemical waste and will allow officials to map in real time the sources and effects of pollution, Doyle said.
He and his colleagues chose a fish design because hundreds of millions of years of evolution(进化) has created an energy-efficient creature, he said. “Nature has done it very, very well.” But copying such a successful design comes at a cost: nearly 29,000 u.s. dollars per robot. w w w.k s 5 u.c o mThe fish, therefore, will be built “robust” enough to handle any possibilities, Doyle said. They can’t get caught in nets easily, for instance, and the tracking systems inside can help the robot fish avoid crashes with boats and other things in the way.
So far, it also seems unlikely the robot fish will be mistaken: At the London Aquarium, sharks swim away from the fake fish, possibly because they find the robots electromagnetic fields(电磁场) unpleasant, Doyle said.
At the same time, scientists are working to ensure that the sounds of the robots and other factors don’t disturb the natural environment, he added.
64．The robot fish was developed in order to_______.
A．be displayed on a robot exhibition in Spain
B．be sent to London Aquarium as a gift
C．get information of ocean pollution
D．collect data on the fishes in deep sea
65．According to Doyle, the robot was designed into fish shape in order to_______.
A．cut the cost of the robot
B．make the robot beautiful
C．reduce the sounds of the robot
D．make the robot work better with less energy
66．We can infer from the passage that the robot fish______.
A．would send pictures of sea life back
B．would not be looked on as a real fish by fishes
C．could swim much faster than fishes like sharks
D．could help find new forms of energy in the sea
67．The underlined word “robust” in Paragraph 6 probably means_____.
A．small and light B．big and heavy
C．smooth and soft D．strong and smart