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Scientists recently discovered that Emperor Penguins-one of Antarctica’s most celebrated species-employ a particularly unusual technique for surviving the daily chill. As detailed in an article published today in the journal Biology Letters, the birds minimize heat loss by keeping the outer surface of their plumage below the temperature of the surrounding air. At the same time, the penguins’ thick plumage insulates their body and keeps it toasty$\dots$

The researchers analyzed thermographic images$\dots$ taken over roughly a month during June $2008$. During that period, the average air temperature was $0.32$ degrees Fahrenheit. At the same time, the majority of the plumage covering the penguin’s bodies was even colder: the surface of their warmest body part, their feet, was an average $1.76$ degrees Fahrenheit, but the plumage on their heads, chests and backs were$-1.84,-7.24$ and $-9.76$ degrees Fahrenheit respectively. Overall, nearly the entire outer surface of the penguin’s bodies was below freezing at all times, except for their eyes and beaks. The scientists also used a computer simulation to determine how much heat was lost or gained from each part of the body-and discovered that by keeping their outer surface below air temperature, the birds might paradoxically be able to draw very slight amounts of heat from the air around them. The key to their trick is the difference between two different types of heat transfer: radiation and convection.

The penguins do lose internal body heat to the surrounding air through thermal radiation, just as our bodies do on a cold day. Because their bodies(but not surface plumage) are warmer than the surrounding air, heat gradually radiates outward over time, moving from warmer material to a colder one. To maintain body temperature while losing heat, penguins, like all warm-blooded animals, rely on the metabolism of food. The penguins, though, have an additional strategy. Since their outer plumage is even colder than the air, the simulation showed that they might gain back a little of this heat through thermal convection-the transfer of heat via the movement of a fluid (in this case, the air). As the cold Antarctic air cycles around their bodies slightly warmer air comes into contact with the plumage and donates minute amounts of heat back to the penguins, then cycles away at a slightly colder temperature.

Most of this heat, the researches note, probably doesn't make it all the way through the plumage and back to the penguin’s bodies, but it could make a slight difference. At the very least, the method by which a penguin's plumage wicks heat from the bitterly cold air that surrounds it helps to cancel out some of the heat that's radiating from its interior. And given the Emperor's unusually demanding breeding cycle, every bit of warmth counts$\dots$ Since [penguins trek as far as $75$ miles to the coast to breed and male penguins] don't eat anything during[the incubation period of $64$ days], conserving calories by giving up as little heat as possible is absolutely crucial.

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.     A distinguishing feature of language is our ability to refer to absent things, known as displaced reference. A speaker can bring distant referents to mind in the absence of any obvious stimuli. Thoughts, not limited to the here and now, can pop into our heads for unfathomable reasons. This ability to think about distant things necessarily precedes the ability to talk about them. Thought precedes meaningful referential communication. A prerequisite for the emergence of human-like meaningful symbols is that the mental categories they relate to can be invoked even in the absence of immediate stimuli.

  1.  Thoughts are essential to communication and only humans have the ability to think about objects not present in their surroundings
  2.  The ability to think about objects not present in our environment precedes the development of human communication
  3. Displaced reference is particular to humans and thoughts pop into our heads for no real reason
  4. Thoughts precede all speech acts and these thoughts pop up in our heads even in the absence of any stimulus
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