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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
<title>Untitled 1</title>
<style type="text/css">
@import url('style.css');
@import url('website.css');
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<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
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<body>
<center><h1>Navigational Devices</h1></center>
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From the earliest of times, sailors have found ways to
<a class="hideDisplay"><font color="blue"><ins><strong>navigate</strong></ins></font>
<span class="showDisplayOnHover"><span class="showBodyOfDisplayOnHover"> navigate (verb) [ˋnævə͵get ]<br/><br/>
(to direct the way that a ship, aircraft, etc. will travel, or to find a direction) <br/><br/>
<em>Sailors have special equipment to help them navigate.</em></span></span></a>
their ships on the seas and oceans of the world. The earliest sailors navigated by simply following the coastline. Aside from being a rather slow method
of navigating, this method was also rather dangerous and limited. It was dangerous in that waters close to the shoreline could be shallow enough to strand
a ship or the waters could be full of rocky <a class="hideDisplay"><font color="blue"><ins><strong>protrusions</strong></ins></font>
<span class="showDisplayOnHover"><span class="showBodyOfDisplayOnHover">protrusion (noun) [proˋtruʒən]<br/><br/>
(something that sticks out from a surface)<br/><br/><em>The dinosaur has a series of protrusions along its back.</em></span></span></a>
capable of sending ships to their graves. When seafarers began sailing out of sight of land more than 4,000 years ago, they used the stars to determine
their direction. They calculated the distance traveled from their speed and sailing time, and they drew rough charts and maps to find their way and to
exchange information about navigational routes with others. It had also been known as early as 300 B.C. that a <a class="hideDisplay">
<font color="blue"><ins><strong>sundial</strong></ins></font><span class="showDisplayOnHover"><span class="showBodyOfDisplayOnHover">
sundial (noun) [ˋsʌn͵daɪəl] <br/><br/>
(a device to show the time of day by the position of the shadow cast on a marked plate or disk usually by an object with a straight edge)<br/><br/>
<em>People used sundials to tell times in ancient times.</em></span></span></a>
casts a longer shadow as it is moved farther north of the equator, and this information was used by sailors from that time to get an idea of how far north
of the<a class="hideDisplay"><font color="blue"><ins><strong> equator </strong></ins></font>
<span class="showDisplayOnHover"><span class="showBodyOfDisplayOnHover">equator (noun) [ɪˋkwetɚ]<br/><br/>
(an imaginary line drawn around the middle of the earth)<br/><br/><em>Indonesia is on the equator.</em></span></span></a>
a ship was. All of these methods provided only very <a class="hideDisplay"><font color="blue"><ins><strong>rudimentary </strong></ins></font>
<span class="showDisplayOnHover"><span class="showBodyOfDisplayOnHover">rudimentary (adj) [͵rudəˋmɛntəri] <br/><br/>
(basic)<br/><br/>
<em>He has only rudimentary knowledge of math.</em></span></span></a>
means of navigating.
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This can take many forms. <a class="hideDisplay"><font color="blue"><ins>Marine</ins></font><span class="showDisplayOnHover"><span class="showBodyOfDisplayOnHover"> (meaning of the word)</span></span></a> life, for example, is influenced by tidal patterns. Animals tend to be active or inactive depending on the position of the sun or moon. Numerous creatures, humans included, are largely diurnal – that is, they like to come out during the hours of sunlight. Nocturnalanimals, such as bats and possums, prefer to forage by night. A third group are known as crepuscular: they thrive in the low-light of dawn and dusk and remain inactive at other hours.
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When it comes to humans, chronobiologists are interested in what is known as the circadian rhythm. This is the complete cycle our bodies are naturally geared to undergo within the passage of a twenty-four hour day. Aside from sleeping at night and waking during the day, each cycle involves many other factors such as changes in blood pressure and body temperature. Not everyone has an identical circadian rhythm. ‘Night people’, for example, often describe how they find it very hard to operate during the morning, but become alert and focused by evening. This is a benign variation within circadian rhythms known as a chronotype.
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Scientists have limited abilities to create durable modifications of chronobiological demands. Recent therapeutic developments for humans such as artificial light machines and melatonin administration can reset our circadian rhythms, for example, but our bodies can tell the difference and health suffers when we breach these natural rhythms for extended periods of time. Plants appear no more malleable in this respect; studies demonstrate that vegetables grown in season and ripened on the tree are far higher in essential nutrients than those grown in greenhouses and ripened by laser.
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Knowledge of chronobiological patterns can have many pragmatic implications for our day-to-day lives. While contemporary living can sometimes appear to subjugate biology – after all, who needs circadian rhythms when we have caffeine pills, energy drinks, shift work and cities that never sleep? – keeping in synch with our body clock is important.
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Source: IELTS Reading Passage
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