Unit 2: Selection Vocabulary 3

I clutched its mate to my chest like a baby, though of course it was futile. What is one boot without the other boot? It is nothing. It is useless, an orphan forevermore, and I could take no mercy on it.

In the wake of her death, my stepfather morphed from the person I considered my dad into a man I only occasionally recognized.

Traversing the entire length of the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, the PCT passes through national parks and wilderness areas as well as federal, tribal, and privately held lands; through deserts and mountains and rain forests; across rivers and highways.

I turned the book over and gazed at its front cover—a boulder-strewn lake surrounded by rocky crags against a blue sky—then placed it back on the shelf, paid for my shovel, and left.

It was an idea, vague and outlandish, full of promise and mystery.

I’d started walking in the Mojave Desert and I didn’t plan to stop until I touched my hand to a bridge that crosses the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border with the grandiose name the Bridge of the Gods.

If you were stranded at sea in a small inflatable raft, or stuck in the mountains with a broken leg, or just generally up in the proverbial creek without a paddle, what do you suppose you would do?

He collected rainwater for drinking and fashioned a makeshift spear for fishing.

Callahan—an experienced mariner—possessed seafaring skills that were undoubtedly critical to his survival, but were these alone enough to save him?

I am captain of my tiny ship in treacherous waters.

And as presented by Simpson, in particular, the choice was an imperative rather than an opportunity; you might squander the latter, but it’s almost impossible to resist the former.

And as presented by Simpson, in particular, the choice was an imperative rather than an opportunity; you might squander the latter, but it’s almost impossible to resist the former.

Two centuries later a global network of geneticists analyzing DNA bread-crumb trails of modern human migration would prove Cook right: Tupaia’s ancestors had colonized the Pacific 2,300 years before.

In meeting each other, Cook and Tupaia closed the circle, completing a journey their forebears had begun together, so many millennia before.

Yet as a species we’re curious enough, and intrigued enough by the prospect, to help pay for the trip and cheer at the voyagers’ return.

They know that any notion about why we explore might soon face revision as their young disciplines—anthropology, genetics, developmental neuropsychology—turn up new fundamentals.

Most provocatively, several studies tie 7R to human migration.

Neither study necessarily means that the 7R form of the gene actually made those ancestors especially restless; you’d have to have been around back then to test that premise with certainty. But both studies support the idea that a nomadic lifestyle selects for the 7R variant.

We have great mobility, extraordinary dexterity, “and, the big one, brains that can think imaginatively.” And each amplifies the others: Our conceptual imagination greatly magnifies the effect of our mobility and dexterity, which in turn stirs our imaginations further.

With warning lights blinking on, one oxygen tank appeared to be completely empty, and there were indications that the oxygen in the second tank was rapidly being depleted.

Thirteen minutes after the explosion, Lovell happened to look out of the left-hand window, and saw the final evidence pointing toward potential catastrophe.

Ground controllers in Houston faced a formidable task. Completely new procedures had to be written and tested in the simulator before being passed up to the crew.

The full LM descent tank alone would suffice, and in addition, there were two ascent-engine oxygen tanks, and two backpacks whose oxygen supply would never be used on the lunar surface.

Mission Control devised a way to attach the CM canisters to the LM system by using plastic bags, cardboard, and tape—all materials carried on board.