研究生科技英语阅读答案

研究生科技英语阅读答案 Unit 1 Genetically Modified Foods—Feed the World? I. Comprehension and Appreciation 1. What is the author’s overall position on this issue? Is he for or against genetically modified foods? He is on the side of GM foods, and he thinks that fears that genetically modified, pest-resistant crops might kill good insects as well as bad appear unfounded. 2. Do you know GM foods are already part of our lives? What kind of GM foods have you had? How does the author support the fact that the genetic is out of the bottle? Have you got any clue of allusion and parody used in the expression ―the genetic is out of the bottle‖? The author uses the fact that a third of the corn and more than half the soybeans and cotton grown in the US last year were the product of biotechnology and more than 65 million acres of genetically modified crops will be planted in the US this year to show the genetic is out of the bottle. It is frome Genie in a Bottle, the first hit single and signature song from Christina Aguilera’s debut album. 3. The entry of GM foods into the food chain raises the debate about biotech in many countries, what is the general attitude of wealthy countries toward this issue? What about the developing countries on this issue? In wealthy countries, the debate about biotech is tempered by the fact that we have a rich array of foods to choose from -- and a supply that far exceeds our needs. In developing countries desperate to feed fast-growing and underfed populations; the issue is simpler and much more urgent: Do the benefits of biotech outweigh the risks? 4. What are the effects of the fact that nearly 800 million people around the world are undernourished? The effects are devastating. About 400 million women of childbearing age are iron deficient, which means their babies are exposed to various birth defects. As many as 100 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, a leading cause of blindness. Tens of millions of people suffer from other major ailments and nutritional deficiencies caused by lack of food. 5. How can biotech help to cure the children with vitamin A deficiency? Biotechnologists have developed genetically modified rice that is fortified with beta-carotene -- which the body converts into vitamin A -- and additional iron. 6. How do you like the GM, pest-resistant crops? How does the author support the idea that fears that GM, pest-resistant crops might kill good insects as well as bad appear groundless? The GM, pest-resistant crops can improve farming productivity in places where food shortages are caused by crop damage attribution to pests, drought, poor soil and crop viruses, bacteria or fungi. They are quite amazing and seemingly a mircle. The author uses 2 examples to support his idea that fears that GM, pest-resistant crops might kill good insects as well as bad appear groundless: (1). The European corn borer, for example, destroys 40 million tons of the world's corn crop annually, about 7% of the total. Incorporating pest-resistant genes into seeds can help restore the balance. (2). In trials of pest-resistant cotton in Africa, yields have increased significantly. 7. How does biotech help to solve the problem of crop failures due to viruses, droughts and soils with excess aluminum? By incorporating varieties of genes into the seeds, biotech can help to create virus-resistant crops, which can reduce that damage, as can drought-tolerant seeds in regions where water shortages limit the amount of land under cultivation. Biotech can also help solve the problem of soil that contains excess aluminum, which can damage roots and cause many staple-crop failures. A gene that helps neutralize aluminum toxicity in rice has been identified. 8. Is biotech the only chance for developing countries to overcome hunger? Biotech is far from being the whole answer. In developing countries, lost crops are only one cause of hunger. Poverty plays the largest role. 9. What problems is biotech confronted with? Are there some companies responding to the needs of poor countries? How did they help the poor countries? Biotech has its own "distribution" problems. Private-sector biotech companies in the rich countries carry out much of the leading-edge research on genetically modified crops. Their products are often too costly for poor farmers in the developing world, and many of those products won't even reach the regions where they are most needed. To our great joy and ease, there are some of these companies responding to needs of poor countries. A London-based company, for example, has announced that it will share with developing countries technology needed to produce vitamin-enriched "golden rice". 10. If GM foods fail to transform agriculture in many developing countries, what is the daunting question the author visualizes for the developing countries? Why is it daunting? Biotech is not a panacea, but it does promise to transform agriculture in many developing countries. If that promise is not fulfilled, the real losers will be their people, who could suffer for years to come. II. Vocabulary 1. alternative 2. modification 3. devastating 4. rigorous 5. collaborate 6. recoup 7. incentive 8. restriction 9. subjected to 10. array of 11. attribute … to 12. being exposed…to 13. incorporate… into 14. fortified with 15. suffers from III. Translation (1) vocal green lobbies 主张环保的游说集团 arable land 耕地面积 vitamin A deficiency 缺乏维生素A nutritionally improved crops 增进营养成分的农作物 restore the balance 避免这一损失 staple crops主要粮食作物 neutralize aluminum toxicity中和铝的毒性 overall crop productivity农业总产量 transport infrastructures运输基础设施 target rich markets把富裕国家的市场作为目标 (2) 转基因食品来源于转基因生物体。转基因生物体自身发生了特定变化，基因 工程技术使得其DNA发生这种变化成为可能。这些技术比突变(突变育种)精确 的多，因为突变只使某个生物体暴露于辐射或化学物质从而创造一种非特异性而 稳定的变化。人类改变食物机体的其他技术还包括选择性育种(植物育种和养殖 动物)，和体细胞无性系变异。 转基因食品于90年代初首次推出市场。通常情况下，转基因食品为转基因植物 产品:大豆，玉米，油菜，棉花子油。但动物产品也已得到开发。2006年研究 人员通过一种名为线虫的基因，在一头猪身上有争议的研发出ω- 3脂肪酸。研 究人员还开发了一种转基因品种的猪，它能够更高效地吸收植物磷，因此其粪便 的磷含量也减少高达60%。 批评家反对转基因食品的若干理由，包括理论或想象的安全问 题 快递公司问题件快递公司问题件货款处理关于圆的周长面积重点题型关于解方程组的题及答案关于南海问题 ，生态问题，经 济问题，上述问题的提出是由于转基因生物体受知识产权法支配。 2.Translate the following Chinese into English. (1) 挑起争论to spark a debate 转基因食品genetically modified foods 解决问题 to resolve issues 食物链the food chain 供大于求The supply exceeds the needs 世界人均耕地the world's cultivable land per person 大幅度提高to increase significantly 罪魁祸首 to play the largest role 从整体上看 taken as a whole 尖端研究the leading-edge research (2) Finding it difficult to adapt to the climate there (3) to have no access to the health service (4) an important role in prospering and developing (5) a depression in yield and a reduction in quality (6) could have made a good salary (7) We cannot estimate the value of modern science and technology too much. (8) The insurance company will recoup the farmers for the loss caused by the flood. (9) During the SARS outbreak, the lack of hygiene in poor countries had devastating consequences to all people of the world. (10) This University Library is one of the largest Libraries in China, with a stack of over 2.3 million volumes. It supports the University’s research and teaching across a full range of subjects, and provides information about the Library’s collections and services in each subject area. (11) The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans as job layoffs ravaged household budgets. (12) China's government declared two strains of genetically modified rice safe to produce and consume, taking a major step toward endorsing the use of biotechnology in the staple food crop of billions of people in Asia. China is the world's top producer and consumer of rice, so its use of modified varieties has the potential to alter the grain's global supply patterns. China's officials have been less constrained by public pressure over the sometimes-controversial use of biotechnology in food than officials in other countries. The government has long supported research into agricultural biotechnology as part of a drive to ensure the nation remains self-sufficient in staple crops. IV. Cloze 1. species 2. predictable 3. unrelated 4. different 5. into 6. produce 7. seeing 8. also 9. obvious 10. inserted 11. nobody 12. approved 13. apparently 14. humans 15. risks Unit 2 The Biology of Skin Color: Black and White I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. How do you like this title ―The Biology of Skin Color: Black and White‖? It is a great one. On one hand, the phrase-Black and White is likely to remind us readers of the alleged white superiority over the Blacks and racial discrimination against them by association established with the well-known song ―Black and White‖ sung by Michael Jakson. On the other hand, the word-biology provides the follow-up discussion a scientific ground and therefore may change the way people think about skin color. 2. Why did anthropologist Nina Jablonski feel dismayed when she went through the literature on human skin? She felt dismayed because she found some theories on human skin advanced before the 1970s tended to be racist, and others were less than convincing. After the 1970s, when researchers were presumably more aware of the controversy such studies could kick up, there was very little work at all. 3. Jablonski and her husband have formulated the first comprehensive theory of skin color, and what did their new findings on skin color show? Their findings, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, show a strong, somewhat predictable correlation between skin color and the strength of sunlight across the globe. But they also show a deeper, more surprising process at work: Skin color, they say, is largely a matter of vitamins. 4. Why did our ancestors have to develop a better cooling system? And what was the answer? Once on the savanna, the early humans not only had to cope with more exposure to the sun, but they also had to work harder to gather food. Mammalian brains are particularly vulnerable to overheating: A change of only five or six degrees can cause a heatstroke. That is the reason why our ancestors had to develop a better cooling system, and the answer was sweat, which dissipates heat through evaporation. 5. How many sweat glands does each human have after a million years of natural selection? Why does human skin dry much quicker than chimpanzee skin? A million years of natural selection later, each human has about 2 million sweat glands spread across his or her body. Human skin is less hairy than chimpanzee skin, and it dries much quicker. 6. What is the weak point of hariless skin? Hairless skin is particularly vulnerable to damage from sunlight. 7. What sort of connections did Jablonski find respectively in a 1978 study and at a seminar on embryonic development? She found the effects of ultraviolet light on folate in a 1978 study that showed an hour of intense sunlight is enough to cut folate levels in half if your skin is light. And she made the second crucial connection that low folate levels are correlated with neural-tube defects such as spina bifida and anencephaly, in which infants are born without a full brain or spinal cord at a seminar on embryonic development. 8. What had the biochemist W. Farnsworth Loomis suggested as far back as the 1960s? Is his hypothesis absolutely sound and reasonable by the time Jablonski did her research? He had suggested that skin color is determined by the body's need for vitamin D. The vitamin helps the body absorb calcium and deposit it in bones, an essential function, particularly in fast-growing embryos. By the time Jablonski did her research, Loomis's hypothesis had been partially disproved. 9. Why have people in the tropics developed dark skin and people far from the equator developed fair skin? People in the tropics have developed dark skin to block out the sun and protect their body's folate reserves. People far from the equator have developed fair skin to drink in the sun and produce adequate amounts of vitamin D during the long winter months. 10. What is the significane of this research? This research is helpful to alert people to the importance of vitamin D and folate in their diet. More important, this work will begin to change the way people think about skin color, a topic that has caused so much disagreement, so much suffering, and so much misunderstanding, and completely disarm it. II. Vocabulary 1. dismayed 2. formulated 3. dissipate 4. evaporation 5. forage for 6. dispersing 7. hampered 8. correlated with 9. defect 10. inhibits 11. overdose 12. disproved 13. block out 14. reserves 15. complement III. Translation 1. (1) went through the literature on the subject 查阅这一专题的文献 a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution 最近一期的《人类进化杂志》 exposure to the sun 强烈阳光 are particularly vulnerable to overheating 特别易受过热温度的伤害 to absorb or disperse ultraviolet light 吸收或散射紫外线 children's neural-tube defects 婴儿的神经管缺陷 overdosing on vitamin D 过量摄取维生素D hard data correlating skin color to light levels 与肤色与光线水平有关联的过 硬数据。ultraviolet radiation 紫外线辐射 alert people to the importance of vitamin D 使人们注意他们饮食中富含维生 素D的重要性 (2) 20世纪80年代以前，研究人员只能对究竟有多少紫外线辐射到达地球表面 做出估计。但在1978年，美国航空航天局(NASA)发射了―臭氧总量测绘分光 计‖。3年前，杰布隆斯基和卓别林得到了该分光计所测的全球紫外线测量数据。 他们把这些数据与已经发表的来自50多个国家的有关当地人口肤色的数据进行 了比较。令他们欣慰的是，它们之间有着明确无误的相关性:紫外线越弱，皮肤 就越白皙。杰布隆斯基进而表明，生活在纬度50度以上的人缺乏维生素D的风 险最高。―这曾是人类定居历史上最后的障碍之一，‖ 杰布隆斯基说。―只是在人 类学会了捕鱼，因而能获得富含维生素D的食物后，他们才能够定居在这些地 区。‖ 2. (1) 中暑 heatstroke 浅色的皮肤 light skin 早在20世纪60年代 As far back as the 1960s 阻挡紫外线 block the light 明确无误的相关性 an unmistakable correlation 缺乏维生素D vitamin D deficiency 富含维生素D的食物 food rich in vitamin D 远离赤道的人 People far from the equator 吸收阳光 drink in the sun 云雾迷漫的地方 cloudy climes (2) He was not severely punished for his crime (3) advance our knowledge of the HIV virus. (4) when taken according to the direction/instruction (5) to have no access to the health service (6) He has some vague ideas about what to do (7) After three days of dismay they submitted to him and begged his forgiveness. (8) No sooner had the controversy within the administration been settled than another more violent storm burst over the country (9) The UN and its agencies protect vulnerable groups, like children, refugees, displaced persons, minorities, indigenous people and the disabled. (10) A recent research finds that listening to loud music while driving can seriously hamper reaction times and cause accidents. (11) During the SARS outbreak, the lack of effective medicines had devastating consequences to all people of the world. (12) When it comes to your skin, there is an extremely important fact that you must keep in mind: Your skin is the largest organ of your body. As an obvious result, skin health and maintenance is crucial. Your skin does everything from protecting you from the elements to assisting you with breathing. Your skin keeps your body hydrated and regulates your body's temperature. In the end, this really is only the beginning of all of the various vital functions that your skin provides to you every moment of your life. IV. Cloze 1 hard 2 surprisingly 3 represents 4 out 5 identify 6 within 7 damaged 8 down 9 comes 10 why Unit 3 Can Dirt Do a Little Good? I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. Why does the author begin by saying infants are enchanting all over the world as the new movie ―Babies‖ shows? How do you like the description ―a rooster struts around little Bayar's bed, a goat drinks from his bathwater and livestock serve as babysitters‖? He wants to establish sort of identification in the readers to evoke sympathy towards the babies with poor hygiene. It is very vivid, the readers may feel both the sense of humor used and work out the poor living condition of this baby. 2. Do the four babies captured in the new film share the same living condition? How are their living conditions diverse in details? No, they don’t. In a nomadic family in Namibia, Ponijao drinks from muddy streams, chews on dry bones and uses her many siblings' body parts as toys. On a small family farm in Mongolia, a rooster struts around little Bayar's bed, a goat drinks from his bathwater and livestock serve as babysitters. By contrast, Mari, growing up in high-rise, high-tech Tokyo, and Hattie, whose doting parents live a "green" lifestyle in San Francisco, both have modern conveniences and sanitation. 3. What health problems do the upscale urban infants have? They have some health problems, such as allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. 4. Does the film make any mention of hygiene in any of the countries of the four diverse babies? And what controversy does the images in the film evoke? The film makes no mention of hygiene in any of the countries. Well, the images in the film evoke an intriguing medical controversy: Are we too clean, with our preoccupation for hand-sanitizers, disinfectants and anti-microbial products? 5. What does Dr. Weinstock think of dirt? And what kind of clinical trials is he behind? Dr. Weinstock thinks that exposure to a certain amount of dirt and germs carried by livestock may help the body build up resistance to disease. He is behind clinical trials using pig whipworm eggs to treat peanut allergies, MS and other autoimmune diseases. 6. Does exposure to a variety of bacteria, viruses and parasitic worms do good to the children? Yes, it does. Exposure to a variety of bacteria, viruses and parasitic worms early in life helps prime a child's immune system, much like sensory experiences program his brain. Without such early instruction, the immune system may go haywire and overreact with allergies to foods, pollen and pet dander or turn on the body's own tissue, setting off autoimmune disorders. 7. How do you understand the so-called ―old friends‖ theory? Many of these microorganisms evolved symbiotically with humans over millions of years. They are a key part of human development. The vast majority of microbes are harmless. There are only a few dozen that can cause lethal infections. The most important thing is we should work on ways to separate good germs from bad ones. Studies have shown that children who grow up with household pets have fewer allergies and less asthma than those who don't. 8. Is the incidence of allergic diseases in industrialized countries as serious as in Africa and Aisa? According to the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood, a global research initiative, in 1998, about 1 in 5 children in industrialized countries suffered from allergic diseases such as asthma, allergies and rashes. The incidence of peanut allergy in the U.S. tripled between 1997 and 2008, according to a report from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. But such diseases are still relatively rare in Africa and rural Asia, as are Type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis. 9. Does the premise that exposure to some dirt does good to human health mean that there is no danger at all in the muddy water and animal feces? As a matter of fact, there are other dangers lurking in muddy water and animal feces. Nearly 70% of the 8.8 million deaths of children under age 5 worldwide in 2008 were caused by infectious diseases, most frequently pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria, according to an analysis in the Lancet last week. 10. Is that OK for kids to play in the dirt? Do we need to live in total sanitation? There's nothing wrong with kids playing in the dirt. They don't have to live in total sanitation, and they won't die from eating something off the floor. It's probably more healthy than not. II. Vocabulary 1. enchant 2. upscale 3. evoke 4. intriguing 5. preoccupation 6. trade… for 7. eradicating 8. virtually 9. stimulating 10. lurk 11. stunted 12. harness 13. teem with 14. vigilance 15. suspended III. Translation 1. (1) standards of hygiene卫生状况 upscale urban infants生活在高消费城市的婴儿 makes no mention of没有提到 evoke an intriguing medical controversy激起了一场医疗争议 anti-microbial products抗菌产品 traded one problem for another problem将一种问题转化为另外一种问题 build up resistance to disease建立抵抗疾病的免疫系统 prime a child's immune system帮助婴儿建立免疫系统 decontaminated water纯净水 (2) 说起母乳喂养，有好消息也有坏消息。好消息是的是美国75%的母亲都开始用母乳喂哺孩子，不好的消息是只有不到四分之一的妈妈坚持全年的母乳喂养。而这只是美国儿科学会建议的母乳哺育婴儿的最低 标准 excel标准偏差excel标准偏差函数exl标准差函数国标检验抽样标准表免费下载红头文件格式标准下载 。 来自美国疾病控制和预防中心的研究人员发现，只有43%的美国母亲会坚持护理六个月，尽管美国儿科学会提醒在此期间婴儿还需要母乳哺育。(情况还是这样，尽管超级名模吉赛尔邦辰在上周大肆吹嘘支持国际法规定母亲至少要哺乳孩子六个月) 一年下来，还有22% 的妇女仍在坚持母乳喂哺。 疾病防控中心营养搭配，身体活动与肥胖科主任威廉迪茨说，―我们需要采取更多地措施来保障母亲们在医院，工作场所以及社会中能得到应有的支持，支持母亲们在婴儿出生后的最初几天里可以继续用母乳喂养，从而她们就可以完成那六个月和十二个月的哺育指标了。‖ 大量的研究已经把母乳哺育同它母亲和婴儿的诸多益处联系了起来。母乳喂养的孩子不容易得肥胖症耳部感染或糖尿病，而用母乳哺育孩子的妈妈得乳腺癌和子房癌的风险也会降低。由于母乳喂养的婴儿更健康，母乳喂养率的显著提高一年可以减少40亿美元的医疗保健支出。 2. (1) 免疫性疾病allergic diseases 暴露于刺激免疫系统的细菌Exposure to immune-stimulating germs 公共卫生取得了长足的进步made enormous strides in public health 从范围和后果上讲in terms of scale and impact 增强免疫harness the immune-priming effects 临床试验Clinical trials 肉眼不可见的invisible to the naked eye 数目是人体细胞的10倍outnumber human cells by about 10 to 1 在医院工作的人health-care workers To allow diverse economic sectors to coexist with state economy (2) no place can compare with their own hometown. (3) you are at risk of losing your driver’s license (4) more and more intriguing. (5) the controversy has been settled. (6) The government is making efforts to eradicate racial discriminating. (7) In practical appraisal, the basic premise is to determine the value of the property. (8) The financial market system is being completed, and the distribution and utilization efficiency of social capital have increased steadily. (9) Only when we give full play to man's initiative can we make full use of machines to transform nature. (10) The era in which the Chinese people were regarded as uncivilized is now ended. We shall emerge in the world as a nation with an advanced culture. (11) Now a Bristol University dental scientist has discovered that a common bacteria responsible for tooth decayand gum disease can break out into the bloodstream and help blood clots to form. In turn these can cause heart attacks and strokes, which together cause more than 200,000 deaths in Britain every year. People need to be aware that as well keeping a check on their diet, blood pressure, cholesterol and fitness levels, they also need to maintain good dental hygiene to minimize their risk of heart problems. IV. Cloze 1. to 2. significant 3. breast-fed 4. who 5. hypothesized 6. months 7. laboratory 8. rate 9.terms 10. revealed 11.overfeed Unit 4 Is Time Travel Possible? I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. What do you think about the opening of the text? It is a very good one. After the introduction of his profession as a physicist and cosmologist, a solid ground for his being something of a dreamer is also established, which makes what he will tell us readers in the following sound reasonable. 2. If you want to see how time travel might be possible, what need you do? And how many dimensions do all physical object have? And what are they? We need to look at time at the fourth dimension as physicists do. All physical objects exist in three dimensions. They are width, height and length. 3. What example does the author use to make the 3 ordinary dimensions easier understood? The author takes the everyday car travel as an example to make the 3 ordinary dimesions easier understood with the aim to an introduction about the expected dimension, that is, the fourth dimension. 4. How does the author like time travle movies? According to his stereotyped ideas that time travel movies often feature a vast, energy-hungry machine which creates a path through the fourth dimension, a tunnel through time, in which a time traveller, a brave, perhaps foolhardy individual, prepared for who knows what, steps into the time tunnel and emerges who knows when, the author thinks that the concept may be far-fetched, and the reality may be very different from what is featured in the movies, but the idea itself is not that crazy. 5. Could portals to the past or the future ever be possible within the laws of nature? And what does the author call them? According to the author, portals to the past or the future are possible within the laws of nature. He calls them wormholes, and he says the truth is that wormholes are all around us, only they're too small to see. Wormholes are very tiny. They occur in nooks and crannies in space and time. 6. How does the author justify his idea of wormholes? He argues as follows: There are tiny crevices, wrinkles and voids in time. Down at the smallest of scales, smaller even than molecules, smaller than atoms, we get to a place called the quantum foam. This is where wormholes exist. Tiny tunnels or shortcuts through space and time constantly form, disappear, and reform within this quantum world. And they actually link two separate places and two different times. 7. Are time tunnels are big enough for a human to pass through? If not, why? No, they are too small for a human to pass through for these real-life time tunnels are just a billion-trillion-trillionths of a centimetre across. 8. Are there chances that a giant wormhole could be constructed in space one day in the future? Yes, there are. Theoretically, a giant wormhole could be constructed in space with the aid of given enough power and advanced technology one day in the future. 9. What does the author do to convince the readers to accept the problem of paradoxes, a well-known problem with time travel to the past? He recreates a paradoxical situation in which a scientist uses the wormhole to shoot his earlier self for it vilate a fundamental rule that governs the entire universe - that causes happen before effects, and never the other way around. 10. How does the author conclude his opinions about time travle? He concludes that any kind of time travel to the past through wormholes or any other method is probably impossible, otherwise paradoxes would occur. II. Vocabulary 1. shortcut 2. attentive 3. twisty 4. indulge in 5. emerge 6. far-fetched 7. wrinkle 8. capture 9. tricky 10. paradox 11. violation 12. transmitted 13. amplified 14. expanded 15. inflation III. Translation 1. (1) the fastest manned vehicle最快的人造交通工具 go more than 2,000 times faster达到该速度的2000倍 a tricky concept to wrap your head around需要你绞尽脑汁的抽象概念 fire the shot开枪 violate a fundamental rule违反了一个基本规定 the other way around倒过来 the sound system 声音系统 a twisty mountain road 崎岖不平的山路 a truly remarkable device 一个非同凡响的设备 real-life time tunnels 真实生活中的时间隧道 (2) 把时间看成为第4维进一步理解了爱因斯坦狭义相对论的意义。德国数学家Theodor Kaluza甚至有着更加宏伟的计划。1919年，他在送给爱因斯坦的论文中，认为如果在4维时空的基础上加进了第5维，就有可能展示引力和电磁力是同一种力的两个方面。 若干年以后，瑞典数学家，Oskar Klein采纳了Kaluza的思想，并付之于行动。他认为第5维可能是微小的，并蜷缩在4维时空的每一点上，并由此来反驳了那些认为第5维的不能立即清晰可见的反对意见。由此开始了在超空间隐藏的各个维中寻找把各种力统一起来的研究进程，一直延续到当今的弦理论。 然而，第5维也许并不见得像Kaluza所想像的那么微小。哈佛大学的物理学家Lisa Randall和马里兰约翰霍普金斯大学的Raman Sundrum于1999年用弦理论说明了第5维可能可以用来解释一个伤脑筋的难理解事:那就是为什么引力比自然界里的其他基本力都要微弱。他们的模型是把我们熟悉的4维时空漂浮在一个无穷大的曲率为负的第5维空间上。尽管电磁力和核力依然粘附在4维时空所组成的膜片上，可是引力却泄漏进了第5维。 2. (1) 发现一条捷径 find a shortcut 自然法则 the laws of nature 四维空间 the fourth dimension 太阳系 the solar system 拥有一个巨大的，高能耗的机器 feature a vast, energy-hungry machine. 从一个不同的角度 from a different angle 一个很难理解的概念 a tough concept; 一个基本的物理原则 a basic physical principle 存在于四维空间中. true of the fourth dimension 最小的缝隙 the smallest of scales (2) With the passage of time (3) the increase in demand results in /causes the rise in prices (4) that education is not complete with graduation (5) make my head swim (6) what had happened by then (7) Science seeks the unity under the chaos of natural phenomena. (8) So what we've done is to dedicate ourselves to saving something of what's left. (9) Indeed a man, whose heart is pretty clean, can indulge in this pursuit with an enjoyment that never ceases. (10) But these tasks will ultimately be restructured to better match user goals in the final design. (11) Subsequently, the fine particles are widely dispersed in the atmosphere and descend to earth very slowly. (12) A Chinese astronaut has made the historic first step in outer space for his country. With the successful spacewalk, China has become the third country, after the United States and Russia, to do so. Cheering erupted in the control room when Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang opened the hatch of the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft and went outside. IV. Cloze 1. called 2. spacecraft 3. revealed 4. feasible 5. unlikely 6. colonization 7. minerals 8. approach 9. establishing 10. added 11. available 12. as 13. solving 14. event 15. volunteer Unit 5 The End of Email Age I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. How often do you check your email box? How do you like email? Will you continue to use email since there are a lot of new services which are faster and more convenient. It depends. 2. What is your comment on the language of the text? Is there anything about the language you find interesting? The language used in this text is very interesting and vivid. The author uses several rhetorical devices, such as simile (as king of communications), personification (its reign) and so on. 3. How come does the author arrive at the conclusion that it is the end of email age? Because a new generation of services is taking its place and starting to take hold -- services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate -- in ways we can only begin to imagine. 4. Why does the author say email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet and it seems boring compared to servives like Facebook and Google Wave? If one wants to check the email, one must logg off and on and wait to check the messages in bursts. Thanks to Facebook, some questions can be answered without asking them. You don't need to ask a friend whether she has left work, if she has updated her public 'status' on the site telling the world so. Email, stuck in the era of attachments, seems boring compared to services like Google Wave, currently in test phase, which allows users to share photos by dragging and dropping them from a desktop into a Wave, and to enter comments in near real time. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun. 5. Do you think it is easy to meet the public satisfaction when it comes to the servives of communications? How do you like the changes in the ways of communications? To some extent, it is hard to meet the public satisfaction when it comes to the services of communications no matter how fast and convenient the services have changed to be. We can see it from the following: Years ago, we were frustrated if it took a few days for a letter to arrive. A couple of years ago, we'd complain about a half-hour delay in getting an email. Today, we gripe about it taking an extra few seconds for a text message to go through. In a few months, we may be complaining that our cellphones aren't automatically able to send messages to friends within a certain distance, letting them know we're nearby. 6. Why does the author say these new services also make communicating more frequent and informal? Thanks to these new services, interpersonal communcation is more like a blog comment or a throwaway aside, rather than a crafted email sent to one person. There is no need to spend time writing a long email to your half-dozen closest friends about how your vacation went. Now those friends, if they're interested, can watch it unfold in real time online. Instead of sending a few emails a week to a handful of friends, you can send dozens of messages a day to hundreds of people who know you, or just barely do. 7. How does Twitter work? What should you do if you want to use it for communications with others? The service allows users to send 140-character messages to people who have subscribed to see them, called followers. So instead of sending an email to friends announcing that you just got a new job, you can just tweet it for all the people who have chosen to 'follow' you to see. You can create links to particular users in messages by entering @ followed by their user name or send private 'direct messages' through the system by typing d and the user name. 8. Do you use Facebook or other new services to keep touch with your friends? How does a user of Facebook do to inform friends of his or her updates? It is very simple. A user just needs to post status updates that show up in their friends' 'streams.' They can also post links to content and comment on it. No in-box required by resorting to this new service. 9. These new services offer the users both the speed and ease of communication, does this mean that there is no weakness as to the new ways of communication? As a matter of fact, the speed and ease of communication cut both ways. While making communication more frequent, they can also make it less personal and intimate. Communicating is becoming so easy that the recipient knows how little time and thought was required of the sender. Yes, your half-dozen closest friends can read your vacation updates. But so can your 500 other 'friends.' And if you know all these people are reading your updates, you might say a lot less than you would otherwise. It becomes harder for us to determine the importance of various messages. It also makes us even more dependent on technology to help us communicate. 10. What is the biggest change that these email successors bring? What do you think of the big change? The biggest change that these email successors bring is more of a public profile for users. In the email world, you are your name followed by a 'dot-com.' That's it. In the new messaging world, you have a higher profile, packed with data you want to share and possibly some you don't. Such a public profile has its pluses and minuses. It can draw the people communicating closer, allowing them to exchange not only text but also all sorts of personal information, even facial cues. You know a lot about the person you are talking to, even before you've ever exchanged a single word. II. Vocabulary 1. takes hold 2. vying… for 3. suit… to 4. prosperity 5. a host of 6. status 7. gripe about 8. crafted 9. show up 10. downside 11. fired off 12. filtered 13. deluge 14. cue 15. subscribe III. Translation 1. (1) 1. a host of new ways to communicate 一系列新的通信方式 2. a response to an email 电子邮件回复 3. over instant messaging 通过及时消息 4. currently in test phase 目前处于测试阶段 5. enter comments 输入评论 6. little wonder that 难怪 7. a half-hour delay in getting an email 电子邮件接收迟了半小时 8. a text message to go through 一条文字信息的传送 9. a blog comment 博客评论 10. in real time online 实时地在网上 (2) 互联网到底是什么, 或者，当我说起互联网 协议 离婚协议模板下载合伙人协议 下载渠道分销协议免费下载敬业协议下载授课协议下载 ，你却想起不搭界的西红柿, 互联网到底是什么, 对有些人来说，互联网是他们跟朋友交流、读取新闻、购物、打游戏的地方。对 另外一些人来说，互联网意味着他们当地的宽带供应商通过地下电缆和光纤提供 跨越城市和海洋的数据传输服务。谁的意见更确切, 互联网最先起始于1974年。那一年，智能化计算机研究人员发明了一种互联网 协议组，简写就是TCP/IP，TCP/IP协议生成一套 规则 编码规则下载淘宝规则下载天猫规则下载麻将竞赛规则pdf麻将竞赛规则pdf ，充许不同的电脑之间进 行―对话―，并来来回回传送信息。 TCP/IP协议 与人际间交往相似:当我们互相说话的时候，语法规则生成语言结 构，使人们能够相互理解并交换想法。同样地，TCP/IP协议约定信息交流的规 则，确保相互联接的设备之间相互理解并不断传递信息。当这些互联的设备从一 间屋子连向多间屋子——然后连到许多建筑群，最后到将许多城市和国家联结到 一起——这样互联网就诞生了。 2. (1) 1. 判断各种信息重要性 determine the importance of various messages 2. 屈指可数的几个朋友 a handful of friends 3. 创建链接 create links 4. 收件箱 in-box 5. 双刃剑 cut both ways 6. 发送各种各样的信息 fire off all sorts of messages 7. 对全部信息都置之不理 tune out messages altogether 8. 电子邮件的这些接班人 email successors 9. 有利也有弊 has its pluses and minuses 10. 甚至是面部表情 even facial cues (2) the reign of Gorge III. (3) take hold of my hand (4) Thanks to this contract (5) but got stuck in the last one (6) gripe about hospital services (7) All the good stuff in the house belonged to only me, and there were no brothers or sisters to vie with me for my parents' love. (8) As they had been intimate from their earliest youth, the force of habit maintained peace between them. (9) Today let 's start all over again and figure out just how we are going to market this product. (10) If, by chance, the recipient of the message happens to be online at the time that your message is received, a response may be back in just minutes. (11) Don t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you. (12) Email can be a great tool in helping us multitask and set our own timetables for communicating with friends, family and co-workers. In related research, email may make users feel less responsible for telling the truth. people are more willing to lie when communicating via email than with pen and paper, and feel more justified doing so. This was true regardless of whether the writers were told their falsehood would be discovered by others. IV. Cloze 1. Watched 2. via 3. which 4. across 5. list 6. position 7. engine 8. with 9. substantially 10.on Unit 6 Are Cell Phones Safe? I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. Are you a cell phone user? How long do you talk on it per day? 2. Why is there a controversy as to the safety of using cell phones? What should we do according to the experts? Some studies have suggested that frequent use of cell phones causes increased risk of brain and mouth cancers, others have found no such links. But since cell phones are relatively new and brain cancers grow slowly, many experts are now recommending taking steps to reduce exposure. 3. Why are cell phone users able to choose and interpret the results of using cell phones they prefer and ignore the ones they don’t? With some 4 to 5 billion cell phones now in use worldwide and hundreds of studies seeking evidence of their health effects published in peer-reviewed journals over the last 10 years, there’s precious little scientific certainty over whether cell phones pose any danger to those using them. For nearly every study that reports an effect, another, just as carefully conducted, finds none. 4. Why is it difficult to assess the effects of cell phones? The effects of cell phones have proven difficult to assess because they are relatively new, the way and the amount they’re used continues to evolve, and the problems that cell phones might cause are hard to detect. 5. What kind of radiation do cell phones produce? Is there any potential damage to DNA? Cell phones produce ―non-ionizing‖ radiation, which, unlike X- or gamma rays, doesn’t damage DNA by stripping away electrons from molecules in cell tissue. Radiofrequency energy does, however, produce heat and, at high enough levels, can damage cell tissue. 6. Both the U.S. FCC and the ICNIRP in Europe set some limits on cell phones’ SAR, is there still some question remained? It is true that the U.S. FCC and the ICNIRP in Europe set some limits on cell phones’ SAR — the measure of the amount of radiofrequency energy a cell phone user absorbs — at, respectively, 1.6 and 2.0 watts per kilogram. However, there still remains the question whether these standards are sufficient to protect against long-term exposures and whether the buildup of heat in cell tissues is more damaging where there’s less blood flow to dissipate it, such as the outer ear, brain, skin, or testes. 7. What is the subject of Congressional hearings? And what kind of warning do the consumer groups have got? The exposure standard has been the subject of Congressional hearings. Consumer groups have warned that children may be more susceptible to radiofrequency heating effects than adults. U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced a bill for a federal research program on the effects of cell phone radiation that also calls for a label warning users about potential links between long-term use and cancer. 8. How did CTIA-The Wireless Association respond to the ―Cell Phone Right-to-Know‖ law passed in San Francisco? In response, CTIA-The Wireless Association, which represents the wireless communications industry, filed suit July 23 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco to block enforcement of the new law by way of citing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) statement that ―the weight of scientific evidence has not linked cell phones with any health problems.‖ 9. Can you say something more of the study released in May of INTERPHONE? It is the largest and longest study ever conducted on whether — and by how much — cell phone use increases the odds of developing brain cancer, carried out by the International Agency for Research on Cancer — at a cost of some $25 million and nearly 10 years in the making — the study involved roughly two dozen scientists and research teams from around the world and some 10,000 patients and cell phone users from 13 countries. The study’s epic scope, however, only made its meager conclusions seem all the more unsatisfying. The final result runs as follows: ―Overall, no increase in risk of glioma [a cancer of the cells that protects the brain’s neurons] or meningioma [tumors that develop in the tissue that surrounds the brain] was observed with use of mobile phones,‖ the study concluded. ―The possible effects of long-term heavy use of mobile phones require further investigation.‖ 10. How may the odds of developing glioma increase according to the raw data of the study? According to the raw data of the study, long-term heavy use — that is, talking on a cell phone for 30 minutes a day for 10 years may increase the odds of developing glioma by 40 percent. II. Vocabulary 1. pose… to 2. parse 3. strip away 4. dissipate 5. susceptible to 6. meager 7. contentious 8. bias 9. havoc we wreak 10. irrefutable 11. enforce 12. modest 13. viable 14. confounded 15. incidence III. Translation 1. (1) taking steps to reduce exposure减少使用手机 cell phone safety standards手机安全标准 pose any danger to损害健康 consumer advocates消费者保护团体 regulatory agencies管理机构 frequent cell phone users常用手机的人 prenatal exposure to cell phone radiation胎儿受到手机辐射 ―non-ionizing‖ radiation―非电离‖辐射 cell tissue细胞组织 the subject of Congressional hearings议会听证会的议题 (2) 费雪，通过手机告诉Web MD，说他有很好的理由限制孩子使用手机，而 不是出于对癌症的恐惧。 他说:“我限制自己的孩子使用手机。我们不会在夜晚坐在床上用手机交谈，当我们还很小，我们不使用它们。比起那些科学的论断，我们应更多考虑的是给予孩子较好的养育和父母的选择。” 他说:“常识为准”，并指出手机会使孩子分心。”我认为孩子不应该无限制访问手 机24 - 7。其使用应该是有限制的。但该限制不应出于人们偏执的想法或对于那些不成立的感知风险的恐惧。” 出于自身的哲学认识和生活选择来设定限制手机的使用与因思想偏执而为之截 然不同。这就是我对来自匹兹堡民间的说法产生失望的原因…那不是呼吁人们关注生活的健康和儿童的幸福成长，那是呼吁人们对现代生活的偏执理解。” 2. (1) 高频热效应radiofrequency heating effects 手机知情权Cell Phone Right-to-Know 阻止这项新法律的实行block enforcement of the new law 支持食品与药物管理局的结论stands by the FDA 患脑癌的几率the odds of developing brain cancer 世界各国的研究团队research teams from around the world 长时间大量使用手机long-term heavy use of mobile phones 选择误差selection biases 原数据The raw data 需要进一步研究worth further investigation (2) particularly in regard to taxation (3) the extent of corruption and abuse of power (4) the risks posed by hazardous materials. (5) The incidence of this disease (6) without the problems posed by global warming (7) Yet there were two main barriers to the enforcement of such regulations. (8) You can narrow the odds of a terrible accident happening in your home by being more safety-conscious. (9) Dr. Johnson argued that there is a strong correlation between teenage crime and low educational achievement. (10) Local authorities have therefore been unable, and unwilling, to part with their own meagre resources. (11) Microsoft Corp. has filed suit against a Houston computer manufacturer as part of a nationwide crackdown on software piracy. (12) Studies so far suggest a weak connection between EMFs and illness–so weak that it might not exist at all. A multinational investigation of cellphones and brain cancer, in 13 countries outside the US, has been underway for several years. It’s funded in part by the European Union, in part by a cellphone industry group. The final report should come out later this year, but data so far don’t suggest a strong link between cellphone use and cancer risk。 IV. Cloze 1. Purchased 2. from 3. worked 4. since 5. increase 6. causes 7. radiation 8. vulnerable 9. absorptive 10. found Unit 7 Seeing the Earth for Its Faults I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. Is there any difference between the meaning of faults here in the title and that of in the daily language? 2. What impact does the collision of continents have on the climate? Why? Northwestern Africa crashed and ground against North America - and mountains as tall as the Alps rose in New England. Wind and rain beat at the peaks and wore them down, and then the land on which they stood sank below the sea. Waves and tides had their turn, and the towering ranges were largely leveled. The land lifted. The balmy weather turned cold. Ice sheets scraped across bedrock, pushing a wall of rubble before them. The climate warmed again, and glaciers melted, creating a huge lake that lapped behind the wall of glacial till. Ice sheets kept melting; the lake swelled and stretched and, ultimately, broke through the wall at its lowest part. Rivers began to flow through valleys that the glaciers had carved. 3. If you have the eyes of a geologist, what do you think would happen? To see New York with the eyes of a geologist and to understand why certain things look the way they do and stand where they do. The scar where continents ground together runs down the Bronx River; the remnant of the mountains is the city's bedrock; the rubble pushed by the glaciers gave rise to Long Island; the great lake spilled over at the Verrazano Narrows; the Hudson and East rivers fill valleys deepened by glaciers. 4. Would Wall Street and Midtown get similar impact with the other parts of New York? No, Wall Street and Midtown raised modern mountains of glass and granite because there was solid bedrock to build on, but in between lay insufficient foundation for skyscrapers - hence low-slung Greenwich Village and Soho. Before garbage and landfill were strewn in its wetlands, Manhattan was cut in two when very high tides swelled the rivers and they met each other in the middle of the island, at 125th Street, where a fault slices the city. 5. How dids New York get the name of Big Apple according to Horenstein? According to Horenstein, New York got the name of Big Apple mainly because of a bordello owner named Eve and the "apples" who worked for her. 6. What does Horenstein do to make people have some geological views on New York? Horenstein makes people have some geological views on New York by giving talks and leading regional geological field trips. 7. Who is Charles Merguerian? What has he done to make New York's geologic past known more by the ordinary people? Charles Merguerian works in Hofstra University, he is an author with John E Sanders of myriad papers on the region's geology. He has designed virtual field trips of the city and environs, which can be viewed or ordered at www.dukelabs.com. 8. Who founded the New York Paleontological Society? What can you do in this society? It was Horenstein who founded the New York Paleontological Society in 1970. You can attend the moonthly meetings most of the year and join them in the field trips to look for fossils. 9. If you are not in New York, is that convinient and possible for you to see the city or state or region or country where you are? What is the average charge for a family to have its membership? Yes, it is. No matter which city or state or region or country you are in - or whether you have easy access to a natural history or related museum - you are free to see with a geologist's eyes. Many states have a paleontological society, and although you might have to join to be able to participate in the field trips, membership is typically only about $20 for a family. 10. What does the Utah Geological Survey do to help those who are interested in the geological past of it? What else can you do if you want more information about geology? The Utah Geological Survey, for instance, provides local information on dinosaur fossils. Books are very helpful resources which make it possible for us to see the earth breathe. II. Vocabulary 1. swell 2. remnants 3. give rise to 4. spilling over 5. cruises 6. involved in 7. coordinated 8. anecdotes 9. Refrain 10. rove 11. excursion 12. conjures 13. envision 14. humbled 15. Haunted III. Translation 1. (1) crash and ground against North America 与北美洲板块碰撞摩擦 the sweep of millions of years 数百万年的冲刷过程 ay insufficient foundation for skyscrapers 地基不足以支撑摩天大楼 l lead regional geological field trips. 主持区域地质实际调查旅行 check the American Museum of Natural History's Web site 点击美国自然历史博物馆网址 have easy access to a natural history or related museum 能方便参观自然历史博物馆或相关的博物馆 a helpful series of books. 一套有用的系列丛 书 关于书的成语关于读书的排比句社区图书漂流公约怎么写关于读书的小报汉书pdf the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies 美国矿物协会联盟 site of an ancient tropical sea. 古代的热带海洋 against the backdrop of aeons 在极漫长的时代背景下 (2) 科学日报(2010年8月30日) — 位于奥斯汀的德克萨斯州立大学与加利 福尼亚理工学院的计算机科学家同地球物理学家为首次建立兼顾地幔流动，大尺 寸地壳板块运动，以及独立断层活动的实时模型，开发出新的计算机算法，用以 制造一个史无前例的显示板块构造以及驾驭它的力的图像。 2. (1) 磨蚀降低 wear them down 巍峨的山脉 the towering ranges 堆积成为 give rise to 掀起了河水 swell the rivers 场外长期展览 off-site permanent exhibit 化石收藏家 fossil hunters 矿物学会 a mineral society 恐龙骨化石 dinosaur fossils 一般民众 laypeople 在你的想象中 in your mind's eye (2) expose the soldiers to unnecessary risks (3) recoup their investments soon (4) can be attributed to the greed for money (5) be toxic to a child's emotional well-being. (6) to get what you want (7) The above anecdote reminds us that translators and interpreters must be aware of the differences between peoples and cultures. (8) This enables Mobile Users to have access to latest enterprise data and applications at all times. (9) Most difficult of all is to estimate the volume of storm water likely to flow in a drain / sewer. (10) Advisory committees have a role to play in holding agency administrators accountable for the way in which they resolve these questions. (11) They want to stimulate economic growth in the region by offering incentives to foreign investors. (12) ―People are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, with residents of various continents becoming increasingly different from one another.‖ researchers say. Rapid population growth has been coupled with vast changes in cultures and ecology, creating new opportunities for adaptation. The past 10,000 years have seen rapid skeletal and dental evolution in human populations, as well as the appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and disease. IV. Cloze 1. Earthquake 2. derived 3. observed 4. unlikely 5. largest 6. opportunity 7. re-evaluate 8. showed 9. from 10. released 11. make 12.. perspective Unit 8 Why We Are Fat? I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. What leads to the fact that there are so many obese people? Nowadays, many of us eat too much high-calorie food and don't burn it off with enough exercise. If only we had more determination and willpower, the problem would go away, but it is easier said than done. 2. Do you have enough willpower to reject the delicious food? What is the general response when warned about the dangers of overeating? When warned about the dangers of overeating, we get briefly spooked and try to do better. Then we're offered a plateful of pancakes smothered in maple syrup, our appetite overpowers our reason, and before we know it, we're at it again. 3. What could be attributed to our ravenous appetites according to the scientific research within the past few years? According to the scientific research within the past few years, genes and hormones conspire to make us have ravenous appetites, and among the hormones that fuel these urges are ghrelin and leptin, known as the "hunger hormones." 4. What is the job of Ghrelin? And how does it work? Ghrelin makes you feel hungry by affecting the hypothalamus, which governs metabolism. Ghrelin levels rise in dieters who lose weight and then try to keep it off. It's almost as if their bodies are trying to regain the lost fat. 5. What is the job of Leptin? And how does it work? Leptin turns your appetite off and is made by fat cells. Low leptin levels increase your appetite and signal your body to store more fat. High leptin levels relay the opposite signal. Many obese people have developed a resistance to the appetite-suppressing effects of leptin and never feel satisfied, no matter how much they eat. Basically, your body uses these hormones to help you stay at your weight and keep you from losing fat . 6. Does lack of sleep promote obesity? Why? Lack of sleep promotes obesity by messing with these hunger hormones. If you skimp on sleep, ghrelin levels rise, making you hungry, and leptin levels dip, which signals a need for calories. 7. Is hunger the only reason people eat and get obesity? Hunger isn't the only reason people eat and eat and eat. Stress, depression, boredom, loneliness, and even joy all come into play. And some of us may just be inclined to gain weight while others are not, due to genetics. Scientists are unclear as to how much of a role genetics plays in how chubby you are, but estimates range from as low as 20 percent to as high as 90 percent. 8. The adenovirus-36 is a fascinating cause of obesity, where does it come from? How does it work? The adenovirus-36 comes from the family of common viruses that causes colds, pneumonia, diarrhea, and pinkeye and is present in 30 percent of obese people and 5 percent of non-obese people. Scientists found that when human stem cells are exposed to adenovirus-36, they turn into fat cells. 9. Often, hard-to-budge weight is a symptom of a hidden medical problem, and what sort of diseases might be there? If you stay fat and fail to get your hard-to-budge weight under control, you could have hypothyroidism, a condition that slows down your metabolism and makes it tough to lose weight, or Cushing's disease, characterized by high levels of the hormone cortisol in the blood. A glut of cortisol triggers weight gain, mostly in the trunk and face. Some women have polycystic ovary syndrome, a treatable condition that involves a hormone imbalance. 10. How do you like the lanuage of this text? The author is skilled at making some medical terms eaisly understood by providing more explanation for us readers, and the language used in this text is humours which can be seen in the following sentences: Sufferers don't just munch on a few potato chips, they inhale the whole bag; our genes and hormones may be conspiring to makes us eat more; to name just a few. II. Vocabulary 1. spooked 2. smother 3. ravenous 4. suppress 5. mess with 6. skimp on 7. chronically 8. panned out 9. wind up with 10. is inclined to 11. thrifty 12. symptom 13. a glut of 14. trigger 15. inhale III. Translation 1. (1) clichéd-but-true answer 老生常谈但又真实的答案 burn it off with enough exercise 足够的运动消耗它 overpowers our reason 战胜了我们的理智 a powerful driver of behavior 强大的推动力 governs metabolism 控制新陈代谢 messing with these hunger hormones 干扰了这些饥饿激素 survive frequent famines 渡过频繁发生的饥荒 a vaccine to prevent obesity 防止肥胖疫苗 throw up our hands and say 投降说 chronically sleep-deprived 长期缺觉 (2) 众所周知，肥胖有害健康。人们常说，肥胖会引发各种各样的内科疾病:胆 固醇过高，胰岛素抵抗，还很可能患糖尿病和心脏病。不过，德州大学西南医疗 中心的科学家们提出了不同意见。他们在《内分泌学与新陈代谢新动向》杂志中 提出:其实，肥胖可以使人们免遭上述疾病困扰。 这些科学家并未否认人们吃的太多，尤其是吃了太多高热量的食品。那些―奢侈 品‖以前只供王室享用;而现在，这些东西随处可见，人人买得起，肥胖在所难 免。人体将脂肪储藏在脂肪组织中，肥胖就这么来了。不过，这恰好保护了人体 其他器官。 既然如此，那病又是从何而来呢,脂肪组织也有―满仓‖的时候。如果那个时候还 肆无忌惮地吃下去的话——胰岛素抵抗还有并发症可就要找上门了。为了健康， 也就只能眼睁睁地看着超大汉堡咽咽口水了。 2. (1) 饥饿激素 hunger hormones 减肥 to lose weight 肥胖的人 obese people 体重增加了不少 gain a lot of weight 起作用 come into play 易于发胖 be inclined to gain weight 他们亲生父母 their natural parents 一周以后 a week from now 人类干细胞 human stem cells 激素不平衡 a hormone imbalance (2) speculate on the reasons for this kind of bad thinking. (3) characterized by the intense contrasts of dark and light. (4) hoping that other crew would see it. (5) the manifold pressures about to descend him. (6) retained enough authority to manage (7) it provides as large an evaporation area as possible (8) His appetite became ravenous and his caloric intake doubled, yet he lost 10 kg. (9) Why permit such a criminal to speculate on some plan of escape? (10) Obesity is one of the leading causes of accelerated aging, according to Cooper. (11) They had to skimp (on everything) to send their sons to college (12) It is a cliché to say that money can't buy happiness, but the old saying seems to be supported by research. (13) The obesity problem in the US is well documented. While the World Health Organisation has declared obesity a global epidemic, the US is at the top of the table, with two-thirds of its adults and a fifth of its children overweight or obese. Super-sized, super-sweet sodas are the norm from the corner store to the cinema, and Americans suck down not only those but even 32oz and 64oz servings, at mealtime and as refreshment in the day.The Centers for Disease Control, the official public health agency, is urging a reduction in sweetened drinks to reduce obesity, which has been linked to heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes. IV. Cloze 1. Why 2. was 3. governing 4. at 5. kind 6. with 7. which 8. influence 9. cancer 10. upon Unit 9 The History of UFOs I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. What does UFO refer to? How much do you know about UFOs? In popular culture, the term UFO–or unidentified flying object–refers to a suspected alien spacecraft, although its definition encompasses any unexplained aerial phenomena. UFO sightings have been reported throughout recorded history and in various parts of the world, raising questions about life on other planets and whether extraterrestrials have visited Earth. They became a major subject of interest–and the inspiration behind numerous films and books–following the development of rocketry after World War II. 2. Why was the first UFO sighting called flying saucers? The first well-known UFO sighting occurred in 1947, when businessman Kenneth Arnold claimed to see a group of nine high-speed objects near Mount Rainier in Washington while flying his small plane. Arnold estimated the speed of the crescent-shaped objects as several thousand miles per hour and said they moved ―like saucers skipping on water.‖ In the newspaper report that followed, it was mistakenly stated that the objects were saucer-shaped, hence the term flying saucer. 3. What project did the U.S. Air Force launch to begin its investigation of sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena? To name the projects in sequence. Sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena increased, and in 1948 the U.S. Air Force began an investigation of these reports called Project Sign. Then there were its successors as follows: Project Grudge, Project Blue Book. 4. After three days’ meeting and interview and review of films and photographs of UFOs, what conclusions did the the Robertson Panel get? Their conclusions were that (1) 90 percent of the sightings could be easily attributed to astronomical and meteorologic phenomena (e.g., bright planets and stars, meteors, auroras, ion clouds) or to such earthly objects as aircraft, balloons, birds, and searchlights, (2) there was no obvious security threat, and (3) there was no evidence to support the ETH. 5. How come did the second committee come into being? And did it share anything with the Robertson Panel? And what conclusion did it come to? A second committee was set up in 1966 at the request of the Air Force to review the most interesting material gathered by Project Blue Book. Like the Robertson Panel, the committee concluded that there was no evidence of anything other than commonplace phenomena in the reports and that UFOs did not warrant further investigation. 6. What did J. Allen Hynek do despite the failure of the ETH to make headway with the expert committees? J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., who had been involved with projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book, concluded that a small fraction of the most-reliable UFO reports gave definite indications for the presence of extraterrestrial visitors. Hynek founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), which continues to investigate the phenomenon. 7. Where were the only other official and fairly complete records of UFO sightings kept aside from Project Blue Book? Aside from Project Blue Book, the only other official and fairly complete records of UFO sightings were kept in Canada, where they were transferred in 1968 from the Canadian Department of National Defense to the Canadian National Research Council. The Canadian records comprised about 750 sightings. 8. What attitude did the Soviet Union hold towards sightings of UFOs? And what about China? In the Soviet Union, sightings of UFOs were often prompted by tests of secret military rockets. In order to obscure the true nature of the tests, the government sometimes encouraged the public's belief that these rockets might be extraterrestrial craft but eventually decided that the descriptions themselves might give away too much information. UFO sightings in China have been similarly provoked by military activity that is unknown to the public. 9. Do all the UFO reports have the same reliability? Why do the witnesses who take the trouble to report a sighting consider the object to be of extraterrestrial origin or possibily a military carft but certainly under intelligent control? No, UFO reports have varied widely in reliability, as judged by the number of witnesses, whether the witnesses were independent of each other, the observing conditions and the direction of sighting. Their inference is usually based on what is perceived as formation flying by sets of objects, unnatural—often sudden—motions, the lack of sound, changes in brightness or colour, and strange shapes. 10. Why are ―contact events‖, such as abductions, often associated with UFOs? What do the most psychologists think about the ETH as an explanation for abductions? ―Contact events,‖ such as abductions, are often associated with UFOs because they are ascribed to extraterrestrial visitors. The credibility of the ETH as an explanation for abductions is disputed by most psychologists who have investigated this phenomenon. They suggest that a common experience known as ―sleep paralysis‖ may be the culprit, as this causes sleepers to experience a temporary immobility and a belief that they are being watched. II. Vocabulary 1. encompass 2. inspire 3. sophisticated 4. compile 5. obsession 6. attribute to 7. convincing 8. inversely 9. transferred 10. prompted 11. provoked 12. abduction 13. disconcerted 14. reflects 15. infer III. Translation 1. (1) 1. in popular culture 通俗地说 2. UFO sightings UFO 目击事件 3. a major subject of interest 人们感兴趣的一大主题 4. a flying saucer 飞碟 5. the official inquiries into UFOs UFO 官方研究计划 6. make an identification with a known phenomenon 用已知的现象定性 7. climbed to a record high 攀升到历史最高 8. an expert panel of scientists 一支由科学家组成的专家小组 9. long period of secrecy 长时间的保密 10. release its results 发表了它的结论 (2) 澳大利亚天体物理学家斯蒂芬?休斯称球状闪电和其他大气现象可以解释人 们看到一些不明飞行物(UFO)现象。这位科学家在2006年仔细研究了一个非 常罕见的现象，这一年在布里斯班市观测到了大量的流星。这些流星出现的同时， 有人看到一个亮绿色的物体在附近的山顶上滚过。休斯博士提出了一个理论，把 这个物体与火球联系在一起。他推测这个物体实际上是球状闪电。他认为这些火 球中的一个可能瞬间造成了高层大气与地面之间的回路，形成了出现在山顶的球 状闪电。他在皇家学会的一份杂志中对此做出了详细的解释。休斯博士说，这种 不寻常的现象如果发生在晴朗的夜晚，会使人觉得看到了飞碟活动。他告诉BBC 新闻:―你会发现，把令人费解的大气现象，这些现象可能是放电的现象，与人 的心理以及对看到罕见现象的愿望联系在一起考虑，可以解释许多UFO现象。‖ 休斯博士是昆士兰科技大学的一位高级讲师。当地电视台邀请他检查公众用摄像 手机拍摄的火球照片，并对这些照片做出解释。之后他发起了这项研究。 2. (1) 1. 引起争论 raise questions 2. 地外访问者存在 the presence of extraterrestrial visitors 3. 掩盖测试的真相 obscure the true nature of the tests 4. 泄漏的情报太多 give away too much information 5. 不辞辛劳前来报告目击事件 take the trouble to report a sighting 6. 裸眼 the unaided eye 7. 点状光源 point sources of light 8. 光学幻觉 optical illusions 9. 睡眠性麻痹 sleep paralysis 10. 美国人对 UFO 现象着迷 An American obsession with the UFO phenomenon (2) If an unidentified aircraft is spotted (3) has taken 12 years to compile. (4) one per cent inspiration (5) was under way (6) are especially good. comprise the first part of the novel (7) While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple. (8) It would be appreciated if you could give us a prompt answer to solve the problem. (9) Only products manufactured with sophisticated skill and high in quality can win praise from numerous customers. (10) Analysts estimate sales could reach $ 300 million a year once regulatory hurdles are cleared and full marketing gets under way. (11) So the company canceled its initial call for bids and issued a second one, to which other three companies eventually responded. (12) It can be nice to feel needed - but two men returning home from an evening out in taffordshire were less than happy when a lemon-headed alien supposedly S appeared beneath a hovering UFO and wanted to take them away. Dashing to their local police station, the terrified men filed a report which ended up with the Ministry of Defence. It can now be found among the many mysterious incidents featured in official UFO files released today. IV. Cloze 1. land 2. but 3. identified 4. attributed 5. threat 6. concluded 7. program 8. accounted 9. evidence 10. however Unit 10 Video Gamers Can Control Dreams, Study Suggests I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. Do you often have dreams? What kind of dreams do you have? Do you think there is sort of association between what you have done in the daytime and what you dream at night? 2. What has Live Science learned about playing video games? Live Science has learned that playing video games before bedtime may give people an unusual level of awareness and control in their dreams. 3. What is the difference between dreams and video games according to Jayne Gackenbach, the psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada? According to the psychologist, dreams arise biologically from the human mind, while video games are technologically driven by computers and gaming consoles. 4. Have you ever seen other expressions of the same type as ―virtural reality‖ in which a rhetorical figure - oxymoron is employed? How much do you know about this rhetorical device? There are a lot of such expressions in our daily life, such as: an open secret, a necessary evil, a sweet sorrow, walking corpses, a disagreeable smile, democratic centralism, a fine mess, horribly good, to name just a few. Oxymoron is a rhetorical figure by which two or more seemingly contradictory or incongruous terms are conjoined so as to give point to the statement or expression. Expressions or statements of this type are usually witty remarks. 5. What made Gackenbach have interest in video games? What had she focused on previously? Gackenbach first became interested in video games in the 1990s, when she watched her son repeatedly kiss a new Nintendo gaming console on the way home from a Toys "R" Us. She had previously focused on studying lucid dreams, in which people have awareness of being in a dream. 6. What did Gackenbach find when she examined past research on games? She found that both lucid dreamers and gamers seemed to have better spatial skills and were less prone to motion sickness. And the two groups have also demonstrated a high level of focus or concentration, whether honed through lucidity-training activities, such as meditation, or through hours spent fighting virtual enemies to reach the next level in a game. 7. Did Gackenbach get any new progress in her study after being encouraged to survey the dreams of both non-gamers and hardcore games? Yes, she did. The first study suggested that people who frequently played video games were more likely to report lucid dreams, observer dreams where they viewed themselves from outside their bodies, and dream control that allowed people to actively influence or change their dream worlds – qualities suggestive of watching or controlling the action of a video-game character. A second study tried to narrow down the uncertainties by examining dreams that participants experienced from the night before, and focused more on gamers. It found that lucid dreams were common, but that the gamers never had dream control over anything beyond their dream selves. 8. Did Gackenbach use her findings in the class? How did she employ her findings to let students know more? Gackenbach eventually replicated her findings about lucid dreaming and video games several times with college students as subjects, and refined her methods by controlling for factors such as frequency of recalling dreams. 9. How have virtual reality simulators been used to help PTSD patients? If Gackenbach’s hunch is correct, what might video games do? Virtual reality simulators have already been used to help PTSD patients gradually adjust to the threatening situations that plague their waking and sleeping thoughts. If Gackenbach's hunch is correct, perhaps video games could also help relieve the need for nightmares. 10. Gackenbach does so much in the research on video games and dream control, does she want to convey the message that games are all good? No, she doesnot. She admits that some gamers get more aggressive, there are more problems with addiction and there are obesity issues. Well, she does also think as with everything else, there is a balance as to video games. II. Vocabulary 1. lucidly 2. are prone to 3. hone 4. hardcore 5. flip 6. detachment 7. replicate 8. explicable 9. assess 10. adjust to 11. range from 12. obesity 13. verify 14. refine 15. simulate III. Translation 1. (1) 1. mind-bending Hollywood films 让令人费神才能理解的好莱坞电 影 2. provide an edge 提供一点优势 3. a virtual reality 虚拟现实 4. have awareness of 认识到 5. game-related research 游戏相关的研究 6. suggestive associations 暗示性的联系 7. a featured speaker 重要演讲者 8. be less prone to motion sickness 不容易晕车 9. conduct larger surveys 通过更大的调查 10. get a sense of 知道 (2) 每个梦境都是心理结构的一部分，都充满着意义，而且都和清醒状态下的某 一心理活动有所关联。随后，我将阐明混沌奇怪梦境产生的原因，并推论心灵力 量斗争和配合的特性对我们梦境产生影响的过程。这样我的研究也就告一段落 了，因为还将对梦境进行更为全面的讨论，在这之前我们必须搜集不同种类的资 料。 我将会对早期作家对梦境的观点和梦境问题在当代科学中的地位加以阐述。尽管 经过几千年的努力，对梦境科学认识的进展却不大。事实上这是先前的作家普遍 达成共识的，所以几乎没有必要引用他们的个人观点。读者将会发现在许多有关 这个话题的启发性观点和有趣的资料，但是他们无一例外的都没有涉及到梦境的 本质或明确的解答任何谜团。当然，受过教育的外行人对此知道的更少。梦境的 概念可以追溯到史前时代，在那时就开始对原始人的宇宙、灵魂观念的形成施加 影响，但是其重要性恕我不在这里阐述。 2. (1) 1. 清醒训练活动 lucidity-training activities 2. 在接受基金资助上的的最高优先性 the highest priority for receiving funds 3. 进行一个新的研究 pursue a new study 4. 缩小不确定性 narrow down the uncertainties 5. 以大学学生为研究对象 with college students as subjects 6. 达到极高的程度 go off the top 7. 减少做噩梦 relieve the need for nightmares 8. 吸引了更多同事的兴趣和尊重 attracted more interest and respect from colleagues 9. 过度肥胖的问题 obesity issues 10. 了解如何参与 find out how to participate (2) experience trauma differently (3) I concur with your assessment of the novel (4) a symptom of political instability (5) have the edge over its competitors. (6) arose out of the social injustices (7) The scene of the previous night now came back to his mind with startling clearness (8) A senior Asian executive asked his American buddy half jokingly whether Asians or Americans are more prone to corruption. (9) Some of the members have been intriguing to get the manager dismissed. (10) They had announced that they would oppose any attempts of the Federal Government to coerce the states. (11) Listening skills allow one to make sense of and understand what another person is saying. (12) Lots of people have had dreams that seem to foretell the future. Some psychologists attribute this to ―retrieval cues。‖ A retrieval cue is a coincidence in the real world that triggers a dream memory which otherwise would have gone unnoticed。maybe the real event triggered a recollection of a dream, which not seems like it must have been in your thoughts all along. Coincidences are bound to come up. And if the coincidence acts as retrieval cue, the sense that you predicted something can be pretty convincing… even if it’s just a dream。 IV. Cloze . access 2. activity 3. why 4. with 5. volunteer 6. was 7. 1 psychologist 8 .data 9. possible 10. patients Unit 11 For Mobile Touch Technology, It's Only the Beginning. I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. Do you like the mobile phone with easy-to-use touch-screen technology that allows users to surf the Web, tap out messages or control any number of inventive applications? Which one do you prefer, a phone with a physical keyboard or the one with a touch screen? 2.What is the significance of Apple Inc.'s iPhone? And what functions does it have? Apple Inc.'s iPhone revolutionized the mobile phone with easy-to-use touch-screen technology that allows users to surf the Web, tap out messages or control any number of inventive applications. What is the main work of the next generation of touch technology? The next generation of touch technology promises to be even more intuitive and user-friendly, the main work of it is on improving the speed of devices, the reliability and how they interact with humans. 4. What is one of the most eye-catching features of iPhone when introduced in 2007? And how could photos be resized when users use the iPhone? When the iPhone was introduced in 2007, its multitouch capability was among its most eye-catching features. Photos could be resized simply with a pinching or expanding gesture using a thumb and a finger on the screen. 5. What can users do on the phone now that the software developers set to work on multitouch applications? Nowadays software developers set to work on multitouch applications. By doing this in the software development of mobile phones, users can play virtual musical instruments and games. What is the next move of Immersion, according to its general manager of touch business, Craig Vachon? According to Craig Vachon, Immersion's general manager of touch business, the next move is to develop a phone that can deliver a physical sensation based on the position of a finger on a touch screen. One application would be a touch-screen keyboard that feels like a traditional keyboard, so that users could more easily distinguish exactly where each key begins and ends. The idea would be to help users avoid errant taps on the screen and the resulting garbled messages. What factor is taken into account when France's Gameloft SA released a Terminator Salvation game for the iPhone to coincide with the release of the movie with the same title? The game takes into account the natural rotation of the thumb bone to achieve the most comfortable and intuitive movements by the user. 8. How does Illusion Labs AB use touch technology in its former prouct Sway? The Swedish company is the creator of Sway, in which the user's thumbs control the swinging movements of a monkey-like character, and TouchGrind, in which two fingers of one hand direct the motion of a skateboard. 9. What will mobile phone developers do to meet the need of many users’ preference for the accuracy of a physical keyboard rather than a touch screen? They are working on a new technology designed to allow the best of both worlds: a keyboard that can also respond to touch commands. 10(What could a user do to scroll down a Web page and scroll faster or zoom in on a page in the age of touch technology? And what can be said about the prospects of the new technology? A user could scroll down a Web page just by running a finger lightly across the keyboard; pressing a little harder might be the command to scroll faster or zoom in on a page. The technology is expected to start being deployed in mobile phones in 2010 or 2011. II. Vocabulary 1. scratching 2. tap out 3. intuitive 4. imminent 5. feedback 6. release 7. coincide with 8. sensation 9. take into account 10. innovate 11. rotate 12. steer 13. confirm 14. frustration 15. demarcation III. Translation 1. (1) touch-screen technology触摸屏技术 surf the Web浏览网络 interact with humans, 与人类互动 broaden the possibilities拓宽了可能性 reach a new level达到了新的层次 perform certain functions 执行一定的指令 eye-catching features一些抢眼的特征 the swinging movements游戏人物的动作 steer a car 驾驶一辆汽车 be still in its infancy仍然处于萌芽阶段 (2) 苹果公司于本周礼拜三发布了新一代的iPod成员。iPod Nano， iPod touch 以 及 iPod shuffle全都改头换面，为苹果公司在便携媒体播放器市场的领头羊地位 继续保驾护航。在新发布的产品中，IPOD的改观最为有趣。以往，ipod都一直 使用它经典的环形按钮，但新一代的Nano似乎更像是腰带上的搭扣。它的多功 能触屏能够显示四个迷你图标，大小大约是iphone和ipod touch的四分之一。新 一代Nano非常纤薄，只有1.6英寸宽，1.4英寸高，就算加上腕带也只有0.3英 寸的厚度。 在新Nano的屏幕上你能看到歌手、播放表单、Genius Mixes和现在播放曲目等 选项。在屏幕上滑动你的手指，就可以获得一些新的应用程序:广播，照片， podcasts和设置。虽然没有和iPhone一样的主屏按键，但只要简单的一直按着屏 幕，你就能快退出程序。和iphone一样，你只要把手指一直按在程序上，直至 它的程序图标都晃动起来，你就能够通过移动它们对屏幕进行重新排列。 2. (1) 揭开了具有无限可能的触摸科技的冰山一角 scratch the surface of the potential of touch. 处于领先地位. lead the way 开辟全新的天地 open the door to new applications 以非语言的形式沟通感情 communicate emotions nonverbally (使用手机的)另一方 the other party 有韵律的轻拍 a rhythmic tapping 象心跳一样的系列震动 a heartbeat-like series of vibrations 传递物理感观 deliver a physical sensation 物理键盘的准确性 the accuracy of a physical keyboard 回应触摸指令 respond to touch commands 手指上下轻轻触摸键盘来 running a finger lightly across the keyboard (2) scratch the surface of the problem (3) Much to our disappointment and frustration (4) Recent scientific evidence seems to indicate (5) take Bill into account (6) coincide with the Prime Minister's visit. (7) There are many new products on display in the exhibition, which demonstrate the rapid progress you have made. (8) They were advising clients to hedge the imminent inflation by buying farmland. (9) Initially much of the software was for technical applications but later more and more commercial applications are emerging. (10) Great novelists have an intuitive understanding of the workings of human emotions. (11) The expanding use of automation may make analysts more productive, allowing them to process more data in less time. (12) China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator by subscribers, will fire the opening shot in a battle for high-value subscribers with the launch of the 3G iPhone, which runs the Android source code. China is the world's largest mobile phone market with 700m subscribers but has only recently launched third generation services, which offer broadband-speed data connections. IV. Cloze 1. Charmed 2. for 3. like 4. manufacturer 5. so 6. out 7. aimed 8. video 9. multiple 10 .fears 11. educational 12. Pediatrics 13. opaque Unit 12 Fact or Fiction: The Days (and Nights) Are Getting Longer I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. What do you think about the title ―Fact or Fiction‖? It is an attractive title, the author uses alliteration since both words begin with the letter ―F‖. Moreover, although the two simple words are seemingly controdictory and incongrous, fact and fiction are acturally used in a witty way to tell readers what is considered as fiction might be fact one day in the future. 2. Do you think it is dull and boring to read articles on science and technology? How do you like the language of this text? Sometimes, it is dull and boring to read articles on science and technology. Well, this text is interesting. The lanuage in this text is easy to understand, the author is very skilled at making those terms and theories hard to understand easier by using interesting expressions and comparison and analogy and so forth. We cam see from the following sentences: Earth's day–night cycle—one rotation on its axis—is growing longer year by year, and has been for most of the planet's history; Forces from afar conspire to put the brakes on our spinning world; Corals, for example, go through daily and seasonal growing cycles that form bands akin to growth rings in trees. 3. What has happened to the length of time it takes Earth to spin once on its axis? What sorts of evidence are used to prove this imperceptible change ? Fossilized corals, lasers beamed at a receding moon, Chinese artifacts, and other evidence have revealed that over the ages the length of time it takes Earth to spin once on its axis has increased significantly. 4. Which day marks the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, sunlight-wise? And does it set a new record? The summer solstice that falls this year on June 21 marks the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, sunlight-wise. Almost imperceptibly, however, Earth's day–night cycle—one rotation on its axis—is growing longer year by year, and has been for most of the planet's history. 5. What makes the length of a day each century longer than ever? And how much longer does it have? Forces from afar conspire to put the brakes on our spinning world—ocean tides generated by both the moon and sun's gravity add 1.7 milliseconds to the length of a day each century, although that figure changes on geologic timescales. 6. Can you explain the driving force of this day-lengthening process? The moon's gravity generates tides by pulling hardest on the side of Earth facing it. This attraction causes the planet to bulge, especially in its malleable oceans. Earth rotates faster than the moon orbits it, so the watery tidal bulge travels ahead of the moon's relative position. This displaced mass gravitationally tugs the moon forward, imparting energy and giving the satellite an orbital boost, whereas friction along the seafloor curbs Earth's rotation. 7. Does Earth keep time all the time? What natural calendars show that there was incidence of inconsistent Earthly timekeeping? No, it doesn’t. we can see the inconsistent Earthly timekeeping from natural calendars preserved in fossils and sedimentary rocks: (1)Corals go through daily and seasonal growing cycles that form bands akin to growth rings in trees; counting them shows how many days passed in a year. In the early Carboniferous period some 350 million years ago an Earth year was around 385 days, ancient corals indicate, meaning not that it took longer for the planet to revolve around the sun, but that a day–night cycle was less than 23 hours long. (2)As moon-spawned tides wash over rocks they deposit mineral specks, layer upon layer. In southern Australia, for example, these vertically accumulating tidal "rhythmites" have pegged an Earth day at 21.9 hours some 620 million years ago. This equates to a 400-day year, although other estimates suggest even brisker daily rotations then. 8. If those leap seconds will not cease, will all the people under the sun enjoy the moon at that time? If those leap seconds will not cease, the moon will continue to go farther away and Earth will continue to slow down according to Lambeck. At that time, Earth will be tidally locked, meaning only one hemisphere of our planet will see the moon in the sky. 9. How long will a single day be in 500 billion years later according to Lambeck? He thinks a single day on Earth could eventually exceed 1,000 hours in 50 billion years. By then, the oceans—the main source of tidal friction—will have long since evaporated, and Earth and the moon might be toast, gobbled up tens of billions of years earlier by the ballooning red giant sun. 10. What would happen to the moon according to Lambeck? According to Lambeck, the day-lengthening process would reverse itself upon mutual tidal locking the moon would actually begin spiraling back in toward Earth if the Earth–moon system should survive this cataclysm. The moon would be gravitationally shattered or might even smash into Earth, which would make for a long day, figuratively speaking, for anyone still around. II. Vocabulary 1. recede 2. conspire 3. malleable 4. friction 5. curb 6. peg… at 7. collide 8. team up with 9. protract 10. bolster 11. extrapolate 12. dilate 13. tacked… on 14. gobbled up 15. reckon III. Translation 1. (1) put the brakes on给...踩刹车 curbs Earth's rotation摆脱对地球的公转 moon's recession rate月球后退的节奏 daily and seasonal growing cycles季节性的生长环状条纹 akin to growth rings in trees类似树木年轮 day–night cycle日夜循环 deposit mineral specks使矿物颗粒沉积 computer simulations计算机模拟 (2) 我们中的大多数人都会因满月静静地从我们的夜空滑过而产生美的感觉。月 球看起来似乎不曾改变，就像千万年来它一直就在那里那样，掌控着地球的潮水 涨落，经历着自身的一月一次的阴晴圆缺和激发诗人和情人们的灵感与情思。可 能你会惊奇，当你得知，在过去，情况是非常不同的，并且―不同‖仍在加剧。10 亿年前，我们与月球的关系完全不同。首先，月球近得多，因此看起来更大，并 且我们能看到月球的全貌，而不是像现在，仅仅看到一面。月球绕行地球一周只 需二十天，地球的一天也只有十八小时长。每几个小时，超过一千米高的大规模 潮汐就发生一次。一开始，事情就在发生变化，月球的轨道在越变越大。每一年， 月球都会深入太空，远离地球约4厘米(约1.6英寸)。现在，月球的自转速度 与绕地球公转速度是一样的。难道这一切只是宇宙巧合吗,当你得知，曾几何时， 地球甚至还不曾拥有月亮，你是否会感到惊奇,那么，我们这个最近的邻居来自 何方，未来又将怎样,为了回答这些问题，我们必须回到遥远的过去。 2. (1) 与...协作teamed up with 冰上舞者做陀螺状旋转 a spinning figure skater 地壳变动geologic shifts 智利8.8级大地震magnitude 8.8 Chilean earthquake 闰秒leap seconds 使其与...相同步keep it in sync with 一项粗略推算a back-of-the-envelope reckoning (2) on the Basis of equality and mutual benefit. (3) to smash plate to the end of a meal. (4) to capture a fortress (5) team up with Ford (6) allowed honest athletes to prevail (7) It would get the economy going and give us the boost that we need. (8) You can't equate the education system of Britain to that of Germany. (9) In life's earnest Battle they only prevail, who daily march onward and never say fail. (10) We shall accumulate new experience and try new solutions as new problems arise. (11) Unregulated distribution networks provide more opportunities to sell contraband cigarettes. (12) The Man in the Moon has become the latest victim of contraction in the housing market。Astronomers reporting on Thursday in the US journal Science said they had found previous undetected landforms which indicate that Earth's satellite has been shrinking... albeit by only a tiny amount。Relative to the Moon's age, estimated at around 4.5 billion years, the contraction is recent, occurring less than a billion years ago, and is measured at about 100 meters (325 feet)。 IV. Cloze 1. form 2. by 3. system 4. with 5. under 6. critical 7. researchers 8. definitively 9. at 10. of 11. conditions 12. to 13. during 14. 14contributed 15. used 感谢您的阅读