题型：阅读理解 题类：常考题 难易度：普通
吉林省舒兰市第一高级中学2018届高三上学期英语期中考试试卷
For years,Hagelin has studied what role scents（气味）play in wild birds' behavior.In 2010,Hagelin heard Jan Straley,a marine biologist,talk about the behavior of whales.Straley mentioned that whales often leap into the air,but nobody knew why.
The mystery interested Hagelin.So Hagelin asked Straley whether they might leap to smell the air—maybe to locate food or look for danger.Straley replied that it was an interesting idea but there wasn't much evidence that whales have a sense of smell.To investigate the idea further,the two scientists teamed up.
In the summer of 2011,they set up a post on the coast of southern Alaska.The researchers spent hours monitoring the direction of the whales and of the wind.The whales headed into the wind half of the time.This didn't prove that whales leap to smell,but it suggested that it is possible.
Meanwhile,other researchers in Alaska were studying a region of the brain called the olfactory bulb（嗅觉球）in whales.Olfaction means the ability to smell.Humans also process smells in the olfactory bulb.
In identifying a scent,you might think the nose does all of the work.However,the major role of a nose is to draw chemicals on the air and pass them across sensing cells.As chemicals come into contact,they give signals that travel directly to the bulb and then in the brain for further interpretation.
The researchers discovered that the bulb in a whale was more complex than the one in a human.In whales,this smell-processing center takes up a share of the brain six times larger than it does in humans.
The brain research suggested that whales probably can smell just as well as people—and possibly better than humans can.It is supposed that a good sense of smell could help them find food more easily.
However,Hagelin is not sure of that.Now he is planning a new study that will examine whether whales do use the sense of smell to find food.
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