职称英语电子教材-工程师

A branch-a division||一个部门-区分 Abandoned-given up||抛弃-放弃 Abide by-stick to||遵守 -黏住 Abnormal-unusual| -不寻常的 Abrupt-sudden||突然的-突然 Accelerate-step up||加速-加速 Account for-explain||解释-解释 Accumulate-collect||累积-收集 Alleviated-lessened||减轻-减少 Allocate-assign||分派-分配

Allocated-distributed||分派-分配

An abundant-a plentiful||丰富的- 许多的 An improved-a better||改良的- 比较好的 Annoying-irritating||令人感到懊恼的-刺激的 Arouses-excites||唤醒-刺激 Assembled-gathered||装配-聚集

Asserted-stated firmly||主张-坚固陈述 At stake-in danger||在赌注-有危险 Attended to-waited on||注意 -等候

Authentically-genuinely||确实地-真正的 Ban-forbid||禁令-禁止

Barren-bare||不育的-赤裸的 Bearing-influence||举止-影响力 Breaks-beats||休息-拍

Called me up-telephoned me||打电话给我-打电话了我

Called off-cancelled||中止 -取消 Cater for-meet||迎合 -会

Census-count||户口普查-计数

Childish-immature||天真的-不成熟的 Collaborating-cooperating||合作-合作 Collided with-ran into||碰撞由于-陷入 Compelled-forced||强迫-强迫

Complain-feel unhappy||抱怨-觉得不快乐 Comprehend-understand||了解-了解 Confidential-secret||机密的-秘密

Conscientious-careful||有责任心的-小心的 Consideration-account||考虑-帐户 Consolidated-strengthened||联合-加强 Contaminated-polluted||污染-污染 Contended-argued||奋斗-争论 Converted-changed||转换-改变

Coverage-reportage||报导-新闻报导 Damaging-harmful||损坏-有害的 Deadly-fatal||致命的-致命的 Decent-honest||有分寸的-诚实的 Deduced-derived||推论-得自

Deliberately-intentionally||故意地-企图的 Densely-compactly||浓密地-细密地 Depicts-describes||描述-描述 Deters-inhibits||制止-禁止 Dimly-faintly||微暗-微弱地

Distress-danger||苦恼-危险 Draft-formulate||草稿-制定 Duplicated-copied||复制-复印 Effects-results||效果-结果 Eligible-entitled||有资格者-给 Endeavoring-trying||努力-尝试 Eternal-everlasting||永恒的-永恒的 Exhibited-showed||展现-展现 Explored-investigated||探究-调查 Extinction-dying out||消失-日渐绝迹 Extract-take out||榨出物-取出

Fascinated-intrigued||令人入神-密谋 Final-last||结局-持续

Finds fault with-criticizes||吹毛求疵由于-批评 For love or money-at any price||对於爱或钱-以任何的价格

Fostered-cultivated||养育-种植 Framework-skeleton||结构-骨骼 Gained-put on||得到-穿上

Gangsters-violent criminals||歹徒-暴力的罪犯 Gets up-arises||起床-发生

Grasped-took hold of||抓住-握住 Hailed-acclaimed||欢呼-欢呼 Harness-utilise||马具-利用 Hazard-danger||危险-危险

Immediately-right away||立刻-现在 Inevitable-certain||不可避免的-确定的 Insist on-demand||坚持-要求 Isolated-solitary||隔离-独居者 Last-past||最后的-越过 Lately-recently||近来-最近

Lawful-legal||法律许可的-合法的 Lethal-deadly||致命的-致命的 Limited-small||限制-小的

Looking for-trying to find||找寻-尝试找 Lure-attraction||饵-吸引

Made up his mind-decided||决定-决定 Manual-physical||手册-实际的 Massive-extensive||庞大的-广泛的

Mighty-very strong||有势力的人-非常强壮的 Mildly-gently||柔和地-逐渐地 Mock-laugh at||嘲笑-笑 Motives-reasons||动机-理由

Notably-particularly||特别地-特别地 Now and then-occasionally||偶尔-有时候 Occasionally-sometimes||有时候-有时 Omitted-failed||省略-失败

Orthodox-conventional||正统的-传统的 Outcome-result||结果-结果

Outrageous-unacceptable||暴虐的-无法接受的 Particularly-especially||特别地-尤其 Permitted-allowed||允许-允许

Phase-stage||时期-阶段 Removed-took off||移走-起飞 Physician-doctor||医师-医生 Residents-occupants||居民-占有者 Planes-aircraft||飞机-飞机 Safe-secure||保险箱-固定 Poorly-inadequately||贫穷地-不充分的 Satisfactorily-acceptably||满意地-可欣然接受地 Porcelain-china||磁器-磁器 Scared-frightened||惊吓-惊吓 Postulated-assumed||要求-假定 Scene-location||现场-位置 Practically-almost||实际地-几乎 Seldom-rarely||很少-很少地 Pressing-urgent||压迫-紧急的 Settle-solve||长椅-解决 Principal organizers-planners||主要的组织者-计划Sever-hard||切断-难的 者 Shine-polish||光泽-光泽 Prior to-before||在～之前-在 Shocked-surprised||震动-感到惊讶 Probed-explored||探查-探究 Speeds-velocities||速度-速度 Proposed-suggested||计画-提议 Spurred-encouraged||刺激-鼓励 Provoked-elicited||激怒-elicited Steadily-continuously||稳定地-不断地 Quarter-fourth||四分之一-第四的 Summit-top of the mountain||高峰会-山的顶端 Rarely-seldom||很少地-很少 Talked over-discussed||讨论-讨论 Readily-willingly||不迟疑地-自动地 Tolerate-put up with||宽容-忍受 Realized-fulfilled||了解-实现 Trembled-shook||战栗-摇动 Realize-know||了解-知道 Try-test||尝试-测试 Recommended-suggested||推荐-提议 Vague-imprecise||含糊的-不严密的 Regardless of-whatever||不管-无论什么 Vanish-disappear||消失-消失 Regret-sorry||遗憾-难过的 While-although||当-的时候--虽然 Relied on-depended on||仰赖 -仰赖 Wholesome-healthy||有益健康的-健康的 Remainder-rest||剩余物-休息 Widens-broadens||弄宽-变宽 Remedy-cure||药物-治疗

二、阅读判断：

A Dog‟s Dilemma||狗的两难境地

1. The African wild dog has been endangered.-R 2. The spotted hyena is on the verge of extinction.-W 3. The remaining lions will die out within decades.-N

4. The dominant females is always left behind to protect the young.-W 5. There is a tension between babysitting and hunting.-R 6. The size of a pack must be big enough for it to survive.-R 7. Steps will be taken to protect the African wild dog.-N Biodiesel||生物柴油

1. Thailand suffers a lot due to the price slumps of its biodiesel.-N 2. Biodiesel is superior in quality to traditional petroleum.-W

3. Biodiesel can be made from coconut and palm oil, or from waste cooking oil.-R

4. Malaysia, and the Philippines are the first countries in the world to have public policy supporting the

commercialization of biodiesels.-W

5. Yuthachai‟s fuel is welcomed by both farmers and ferry operators for its low prices.-R

6. Yuthachai, the inventor of biodiesel, is currently the general manager of a US-Thailand joint venture in

Bangkok.-N

7. It seems that Yuthachai places his fellow farmers‟ interest before his own.-R Crypto||密码

1. Technology is like an art, which everybody including scientists loves.-N

2. In the passage, drawbacks means the messages we send may be intercepted or overheard by non-intended

receivers.-R

3. With the widespread use of digital communications and e-commerce, encryption will become very

urgent.-R 4. We have-R

5. More and more activities performed in the physical world will be replaced by activities in the electronic

world.-R

6. The passage clearly concludes that we need a new organization to popularize encryption and

authentication.-N

7. Encryption can protect privacy, but can stop terrorism and drug dealing as well.-W Dangers await babies with altitude||高海拔的婴儿有危险

1. According to the passage, one of the reasons why newborns in mountain communities are underweight is

that their mothers are underweight.-W

2. Giussani‟s team members are all British researchers and professors from Cambridge University.-N

3. Giussani did not expect to find that the weight of a baby had little to do with the financial conditions of the

family he was born into.-R

4. The weight of a newborn has to do with the supply of oxygen even when he was still in his mother‟s

womb.-R

5. High-altitude bodies have heads that are larger than their bodies.-W 6. High altitude babies have longer but thinner limbs than average-N

7. Giussani has arrived at the conclusion that babies in high-altitude regions are more likely to have heart

trouble when they grow up.-W Engineering ethics||工程道德

1. Engineering ethics is a compulsory subject in every institute of science and technology in the United

States.-N

2. The number of students wishing to take the course of engineering ethics is declining at Texas A & M

University.-W

3. The National Science Foundation involves itself directly in writing up material about ethical issues.-W 4. It seems that medical ethics and business ethics are more mature than engineering ethics.-R

5. Several engineering professors have quit from teaching to protest against the creation of a new course in

engineering ethics.-N

6. Many engineering professors may not have time to prepare material for class discussion on professional

ethics.-R

7. It is likely that following this introductory passage, the author will provide the necessary material related

to the topic of engineering ethics.-R Easy listening||容易的学习

1. Babies can learn language even in their sleep.-R

2. An infant can recognize a lot of vowels by the time he or she is a year old.-N 3. Finish vowels are easy to distinguish.-N

4. The three vowels mentioned in this article are all Finnish sounds.-W

5. The study shows that the infant‟s cerebral cortex is working while he is asleep.-R

6. If an adult wants to learn a language faster, he can put a language tape under his pillow.-W 7. Cheour‟s finding is worthless.-W Fermi Problem||费米问题

1. Fermi‟s team was impressed by Fermi‟s announcement in the base camp because he could even work out

the power of the atom bomb in his mind.-R

2. Fermi, an experimentalist as well as a theoretician, won a Nobel Prize for producing the first nuclear chain

reaction in the world.-W

3. Dividing a big problem into small problems is a talent Fermi had and a talent that has practical value in

life.-R

4. Fermi problem is to develop the talent of breaking a seemingly unanswerable problem into sub-problems

and finding the solution to it, which is a typical Fermi problem.-R

5. Then the fourth paragraph tells us how Fermi solved the problem of earth‟s circumference without looking

up.-W

6. The last paragraph concludes the whole writing by stressing the value of important inventions and small

discoveries.-W

7. Fermi was famous for inventing a device to calculate bomb‟s energy accurately.-N Five is the magic number||五是神奇的数字

1. The researcher, Chirs Hayes, believes that extra digits can seriously affect animals‟ opportunity of

survival.-R

2. A likely consequence of having extra digitals is that the limbs of the animal will grow longer than

normal.-N

3. The more digits an animal has, the faster it can run.-W

4. Animals can gradually adapt to fewer digits than five in the course of evolution.-R

5. Hayes is not yet able to explain why the panda has five digits plus a pad instead of having six digits on its

paw.-R

6. What is true with animals about extra digits is also true with human beings.-W 7. Those few people with more than five toes can run as fast as those with just five.-N Inhalable water droplets||Inhalable 可吸入水滴

1. The first paragraph is a question to which the author hopes to have a positive answer from the reader.-W 2. Shower nozzles shower nozzles that produce water droplets, big and small, can expose anyone using the

shower to health problems.-W

3. The chemicals contained in wayer kill bacteria to make it safe for drinking.-R

4. The problem that inhalable water droplets produce is that they may expose people with respiratory

problems to health hazards.-R

5. The adjustable type of nozzles are less dangerous than the fixed one.-W

6. People with asthma and other respiratory problems should avoid taking showers.-N

7. To overcome the problem caused by inhalable water droplets, Sethi, per haps with some other researchers,

is drawing up standards for safe shower head designs.-R Micro-chip research center created||微- 芯片研究中心成立

1. The country says that the investment of US$14 million is big enough for developing that country‟s chip

industry.-W

2. That country gives top priorities to developing chips for military purposes.-N

3. Although the licensing fees are not very high, that far-east country cannot afford to pay.-N

4. Many western countries ban the exporting of the most advanced chip-making technologies to that country

to prevent them from being used for military purposes.-R

5. Currently, almost all the flagship chipmakers in that country are owned by American investors.-N 6. Mainstream chip production technology develop rapidly.-R

7. More than 10 chip plants being built in that country are an example of self-reliance.-W Rescue platform||救生平台

1. A rescue platform called the Eagle is capable of moving vertically but not sideways.-W 2. The four propellers are fitted horizontally to the Eagle.-R

3. With the help of jet engines, the Eagle can fly at a speed of 100 miles an hour.-N 4. In the third paragraph, the word helicopter refers to the Eagle.-W

5. The more jet engines are fitted to the propellers, the more people the platform can carry.-N

6. In the wake of September 11, Mr. Metreveli has secured enough funding to build up a small-scale model of

the Eagle to test his idea.-W

7. Mr. Metreveli is designing for Israel a more advanced form of rescue platform than the Eagle or the

Eaglet.-N Smoking||抽烟

1. It is easy to determine whether smoking is hazardous.-W 2. Smoking reduces one‟s life expectancy.-R 3. Smoking may induce lung cancer.-R

4. There is evidence that smoking is responsible for breast cancer.-N

5. Male smokers have a lower death rate from heart disease than female smokers.-W 6. Nicotine is poisonous.-R

7. Filters and low tar tobacco make smoking safe.-W The cold places||寒冷的地带

1. The lowest temperature that man has ever known was recorded in Antarctica.-R 2. Winter temperatures average 85 degrees below zero in Antarctica.-W

3. The Arctic and Antarctica are no man‟s lands because of their notorious coldness.-W 4. Polar explorers can stay alive without heaters and windproof shelters.-W

5. Despite the the hostile environment, both animals and plants can be found in the oceans and on land in

polar areas.-R

6. As discovered by expedition scientists, Antarctica has not always been so cold as it is today, so has the

Arctic.-N

7. At one time, the weather in Antarctica was so warm and damp that trees grew there.-R Tanning parlors take heat||人工日照美容院吸收热量

1. The passage confirms that using tanning equipment is harmful to one‟s health.-R

2. The highest rate of skin cancers is found in teenagers who use sun lamps frequently.-W 3. Melanoma is a more serious cancer than lung cancer.-N

4. Karagas‟s reported her research results basing on interviews with a group of skin cancer patients and a

control group of people with no skin cancers.-R

5. Doctor James Spencer‟s argument implies that in the long run, getting an infrequent sunbum is worse than

the small, day-to-day exposure.-W

6. The passage mentions three forms of skin cancers, of which squamous cell skin cancer is the most

dangerous.-W

7. It is implied in Mr. Levy‟s argument (paragraph 5) that frequent exposure to sun lamps is safe.-R Will we take vacations in spaces?||我们将在太空间度假吗?

1. Mike Kelly planned to turn his business of making bread and butter into a business that is engaged in space

tourism.-W

2. Kelly hoped to develop space tourism, which he thought would be a good market.- R

3. Space Adventure in Arlington has taken 130 deposits totaling $98,000 for a two-hour space tour.-N 4. It sounds great that soon there will be space residence, although it is still a tentative plan.-W 5. Some of the hurdles space tourism faces include a lack of oxygen and life support equipment.-W

6. Little guys, who do not have plenty of money but have great interest in space tourism, are trying to make

the space travel less expensive but more reliable.-R

7. We can infer from the context that the Michelin ratings can help people to find prices of hotels.-R

三、概括大意与完成句子：

A Strong Greenhouse Gas一种强烈的温室气体

1. Paragraph 1: Methane as a Strong Greenhouse Gas. 2. Paragraph 2: Livestock as a Prime Factor of the Greenhouse Effect.

3. Paragraph 4: Agriculture Also Contributes to Increased Concentrations of Methane in the Atmosphere.

4. Paragraph 5: Why Livestock Releases Methane. 5. Methane is one of the major contributors to the intensifying greenhouse effect.

6. Greenhouse gases are indispensable to mankind, but the problem mankind is faced with is the ever-increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

7. Generally people heap criticism on big industries and gas-guzzling vehicles for the planet‟s temperature

rise.

8. Nothing has been mentioned in the passage about how to cut down the cattle populations. Blasts from the Past过去的火山爆发

1. Paragraph 2：Association of Mass Extinctions with Volcanic Eruptions. 2. Paragraph 3：Calculation of the Killing power of Older Eruptions. 3. Paragraph 4：A Mass Extinction.

4. Paragraph 5：Volcanic Eruptions That Caused no Mass Extinction. 5. Older eruptions were more devastating than more recent ones.

6. The Permian extinction is used to illustrate the killing efficiency for older eruptions. 7. The cause of the extinction of dinosaurs has remained controversial. 8. Courtillot rejects Wignall‟s calculations as acceptable. Carl Sagan卡尔 萨根

1. Paragraph 1: Honour Sagan Enjoyed.

2. Paragraph 2: Description of the First Meeting with Sagan. 3. Paragraph 3: Sagan in Trouble with Other Scientists.

4. Paragraph 5: Sagan‟s Criticism on Pseudoscience.

5. In Sagan‟s opinion, Velikovsky might be a pseudo- scientist. 6. With cosmos and others, Sagan enjoyed his fame as a science populariser.

7. From the passage, we may conclude that the author of the passage may be a reporter. 8. From the description we know that Sagan was an astronomer. English and English Community英语和英语群体

1. Paragraph 2: The Definition of a Speech Community.

2. Paragraph 3: The Composition of the English Community. 3. Paragraph 4: The Wide Use of English. 4. Paragraph 5: The Advantages of Learning a Second Language.

5. Only through the shared language can a speech community be formed.

6. The idea of the national boundaries is often different from that of a speech community. 7. Speakers are classified into two groups for the sake of simplicity. 8. An understanding of English has played an important role in the field of education. Ford 福特

1. Paragraph 1: Ford‟s Manufacturing Talent. 2. Paragraph 2: Assembly Line Used to Speed up Production. 3. Paragraph 3: Ford‟s Biggest Contributions.

4. Paragraph 4: Ford‟s Quest for Making His Cars Accessible to All. 5. One of Ford‟s biggest innovations was to install in his car plant an assembly line. 6. Along with his $5-a-day minimum wage scheme, Ford was the first to practice an 8-hour work shift. 7. Ford‟s cars were accessible to more car purchasers thanks to their lower prices. 8. The U.S. media at that time did not welcome Ford‟s daily minimum wage scheme. Geology and Health地质与健康

1. Paragraph 1: Geology and Health Problems.

2. Paragraph 3: No Evidence to Indicate Bad Effects of Naturally Contaminated Soil. 3. Paragraph 4: Potential Hazards of Human Contaminated Soils.

4. Paragraph 6: Research on Channels of Heavy Metals Getting into Human Food Chain. 5. Some serious diseases is connected with deficiency of the element of iodine. 6. It is extremely necessary to study the long-term effects caused by living on naturally polluted soils. 7. Geologists are indispensable in the research project on geology and health due to their knowledge on rock and soil chemistry.

8. Industrially contaminated sites usually require a thorough clean-up due to the persistence of heavy metals. Hurricanes飓风

1. Paragraph 1: A Short History of Naming Hurricanes.

2. Paragraph 2: No Much Difference Between Hurricane and Typhoon. 3. Paragraph 4: Huge Energy Stored in a Hurricane.

4. Paragraph 5: Difficulty in Forecasting the Course of a Hurricane. 5. The main consideration of using males and females‟ names for hurricanes is sex equality. 6. Using weather satellites can ensure timely discovery of hurricane. 7. From the passage we may rightly deduce that energy specialists may be interested in the hurricane‟s huge power. 8. Scientists cannot predict the course of a hurricane accurately due to its uncertainty. How We Form First Impression对别人的第一印象是怎样形成的

1. Paragraph 2: Comparing Incoming Sensory Information Against Memories. 2. Paragraph 3: Illustration of First Impression. 3. Paragraph 4: Comment on First Impression.

4. Paragraph 5: Ways of Departure from Immature and Simplistic Impressions.

5. Sensory information is one that is perceived through the sights and sounds of the world. 6. You interpret the meaning of incoming sensory information.

7. The way we stereotype people is a less mature form of thinking, which is similar to the immature form of thinking of a very young child.

8. We can use our more mature style of thinking thanks to the most complex areas of our cortex. Icy Microbes冰冻微生物

1. Paragraph 2: Antarctic Frozen Life Sampled and Revived. 2. Paragraph 3: Significance of Testing Techniques for Sampling Microbes in the Deep Ice Sheet. 3. Paragraph 4: Accidental Discovery of Ice-sealed Lake Water in Antarctica. 4. Paragraph 6: 2004 Revisit Planned for Collecting Lake Water Specimens. 5. Scientists ignored Lake Vida because they thought that a lake of ice was of little scientific value. 6. Scientists expect that the life, if found in deeper water below the ice sheet, may be older than that collected below 39 feet of ice. 7. What the scientists will do in 2004 is to collect some briny lake water for analysis.

8. The salt concentration in the liquid water of Lake Vida is found to be a great deal higher than that of seawater.

Intelligence: a Changed View智力：一个转变了的观念 1. Paragraph 2: Effect of Environment on Intelligence. 2. Paragraph 4: Main Results of Recent Researches. 3. Paragraph 5: A changed View of Intelligence. 4. Paragraph 6: Impact on School Education. 5. It was once believed that intelligence was something a baby was born with, and thus we can tell how successful she/he will be in the future according to his/her intelligence.

6. More recent researches has shown that intelligence is only partly inherited (出现partly的句子)

7. If can be inferred from the passage that a child will have a better chance to develop his intelligence if he

has more opportunities to communicate with others by means of language.

8. Children were not just born to be more intelligent or less intelligent, but they can be taught to be more intelligent at school.

More Rural Research Is Needed需要进行更多的农业研究

1. Paragraph 1: Increase in Investment on Agricultural Research. 2. Paragraph 3: The Same or Improved Food Supply Situation in 2020. 3. Paragraph 4: More Research Funding Needed. 4. Paragraph 7: Research Focus on Increased Yield.

5. Dr. Fischer claims that agriculture will continue to develop when we use modern technologies and develop new ones. 6. Land can be saved for other purposes if we can drive yield up.

7. The investment can be regarded as efficient when strategic research can be utilized worldwide.

8. The global decrease in investment should be changed if we want to fight against malnutrition and poverty. Screen Test透视检查

1. Paragraph 2: Harm Screening May Do to a Younger Woman. 2. Paragraph 3: Investigating the Effect of Screening. 3. Paragraph 4: Effects Predicted by two Different Models. 4. Paragraph 5: Small Risk of Inducing Cancers from Radiation. 5. Early discovery of breast cancer may save a life.

6. Advantages of screening women under 50 are still open to debate. 7. Delaying the age at which screening starts may reduce the risk of radiation triggering a cancer. 8. Radiation exposure should be reduced to the minimum. The Magic io Personal Digital Pen神奇的IO 私人数字笔

1. Paragraph 2: Working Principle of the io Personal Digital Pen. 2. Paragraph 3: Ways to Download the Stored Information. 3. Paragraph 5: A Friendly and Convenient Device. 4. Paragraph 6: Examples of Other Potential Applications of the io Pen.

5. There is no need to learn how to use the io Personal Digital Pen because it works like an ordinary pen. 6. If you want to download what you have done with the magic pen, you simply place the pen into its computer-connected cradle.

7. The magic pen is particularly convenient when you work away from home or office because you don‟t

have to carry your laptop along.

8. No matter what you write or draw, the movement of your pen is recorded digitally inside the pen. The Mir Space Station和平号空间站

1. Paragraph 4: Rewards Following the U.S. Financial Injection. 2. Paragraph 5: Mir‟s Firsts in Scientific Experiments and Space Exploration. 3. Paragraph 6: Mir‟s Problem Year. 4. Paragraph 8: Undeniable Mir‟s Achievements.

5. Mir enhanced the confidence in the scientists that humans living in space for a long time was quite possible. 6. In Mir, the U.S. astronauts created many firsts. 7. When we think of Mir in terms of its achievements, its setbacks are nothing. 8. The writer tend to think that Mir was great success. Volts from the Sky来自天空的电压

1. Paragraphs 2 and 3: Cause of Lightning. 2. Paragraph 4: Types of Lightning. 3. Paragraph 5: Shock Waves as Thunder. 4. Paragraph 6: Frequencies of Thunderstorms Occurring in the World and the U.S. 5. In most cases of cloud-to-ground lightning, the ground‟s surface is positively charged. 6. One form of lightning that occurs most infrequently is ball lightning. 7. Cloud lightning looks like a ribbon when its lightning channel is shifted sideways by strong winds.

8. Although not fully understanding processes of lightning, man is equipped with a good knowledge of various forms of lightning.

四．阅读理解：

Adaptation of Living Things 生物的适应性

1. Some plants and animals develop superior characteristics so that they may become better adapted to the environments than others of their kind.

2. In the first paragraph, the word “environments” could best be replaced by surroundings. 3. It can be inferred from this passage that the feathers of a bird are colored to match its environment.

4. Which of the following is not directly mentioned in the passage? A living organism may adapt in its sleeping habit.

5. The author cites the behavior of warm-blooded mammals in order that a living thing may have the ability

to create an environment of its own.

Air Pollution Cloud Measured on Both Sides of Pacific 污染云团在太平洋两岸均被测量

1. The haze of pollution mentioned in the first paragraph is a cloud of desert dust and hydrocarbons. 2. One of the Prices‟s findings (Paragraph 2) about the particles of the air is that their ability to reflect light is much stronger.

3. What did Price not do during her research? She collected samples of pollutants on the Northwest coast for further tests.

4. According to the last paragraph, which of the following statements about the two research teams is true?

The two research teams whose findings Price correlates hers with are based in Asia. 5. Which of the statements is closest in meaning to the sentence “…, we expect that sources in Europe will

contribute less than Asian sources.”? Pollution is studied in more depth in Europe than in Asia.

Crystal ear 晶体助听器

1. Why did the writer refuse to wear a hearing aid at first? It would make him look like an old man.

2. Which of the following about the features of Crystal Ear is NOT true according to Paragraph 2? It is inexpensive.

3. According to Paragraph 3, Crystal Ear is very convenient and you can wear it any time you like. 4. What does the writer say about hearing loss? Hearing loss is the world‟s most frequent health problem. 5. Why do many people leave their hearing problem untreated according to Paragraph 4? A conventional way of treating it is very troublesome.

Cousteau Remembered 纪念库恩托

1. According to the passage, Cousteau‟s influence is great because he made contributions to science and engineering. 2. From the second paragraph, we know that Cousteau‟s contributions were not limited to science and engineering. 3. Of all the careers he followed, his main concern was concentrated on ocean and ocean pollution. 4. What debt do we owe Cousteau according to Paragraphs 3 and 4? His work has made us realize we should improve the way things are done.

5. Which of the following statements about Cousteau‟s family life is NOT true? His second wife died some time ago.

Cars May Get Their Hydrogen from Wastewater Plants 汽车可以从污水厂得到氢气

1. The Bush Administration has partnered with the automakers in Detroit to develop cars driven by hydrogen fuel cells.

2. The hydrogen release fermentation can produce high volumes of gas for a variety of fuel cell applications. 3. According to the third paragraph, which statement is true of the fermentation process the researchers

experiment with? Hydrogen is released continuously. 4. During the experiment of hydrogen release fermentation, researchers treated the collected soil with glucose and sucrose. 5. What else can the fermentation process produce in addition to hydrogen? Methane.

Can Buildings Be Designed to Resist Terrorist Attack? 建筑设计能使建筑抵御恐怖袭击吗？

1. The question raised in the first paragraph is one that was never thought of before the terrorist attack. 2. The project funded by the National Science Foundation was to find out why some buildings could survive the blasts. 3. The column mentioned by Dr. Whittaker was part of the building close to the World Trade Center. 4. A surprising discovery made by the investigators during their visit to ground zero is that some floor framing systems demonstrate resistance to explosion. 5. What Dr. Reinhorn said in the last paragraph may imply all the following EXCEPT that blast engineering emerges as a new branch of science.

Clone Farm 克隆农场

1. Which statement is the best description of the new era of factory farming according to the first paragraph?

Cloned chickens are bulk-produced with the same growth rate, weight and taste.

2. Which institution has offered $4.7 million to fund the research? The US‟s National Institute of Science and Technology.

3. In the third paragraph, by saying “Producers would like the same meat quantity but to use reduced inputs

to get there.” Mike Fitzgerald means that he wishes chickens could grow to the same weight but with less feed.

4. Which of the following statements about Origen and Embrex is correct according to the fifth paragraph?

Origen has joined hands with Embrex in producing cell-injecting machines. 5. The technology of freezing stem cells from different strains of chicken can do all the following EXCEPT

that farmers can order certain strains of chicken only.

Controlling Robots with the Mind 以大脑操控机器人

1. Belle would be fed some fruit juice if she moved the joystick to the side of the light. 2. According to the second paragraph, the wires fixed under the cap Belle wore were connected to a box which, in turn, was linked to two computers. 3. Which of the following statements is NOT true of the robot arm built by Srinivasan? It could convert the electrical patterns into instructions for another robot arm.

4. Which of the following statements indicates the success of the experiment? (the 4th paragraph) The two robot arms moved the joysticks in time.

5. The final aim of the research was to help a person who is unable to move but whose motor cortex is not damaged.

Driven to Distraction分散注意力驾驶

1. Which statement is true of the description in the first two paragraphs? Coyne is not really driving so it is impossible for him to have hit the woman. 2. What do researchers want to find out, according to the third and fourth paragraphs? All of the above. 3. What are the preliminary results given in the fifth paragraph? In challenging driving situations, drivers do not have any additional mental energy to deal with something else.

4. The sixth paragraph mainly state that the researchers want to determine the best ways of giving navigational information system. 5. What kind of directions do men and women prefer? Men prefer more general directions and women prefer route directions.

“Don‟t Drink Alone” Gets New Meaning 不要在就餐时间以外饮酒有了新含义

1. Researchers have found that the risk of cancer in the mouth and neck is higher with people who drink alcohol at outside of meals. 2. Which of the following is NOT the conclusion made by the researchers about “drinking with meals”? It increases by 20 percent the possibility of cancer in all sites.

3. Approximately how many drinks do the lowest-intake group average per day? 3 drinks.

4. Which cancer risk is the lowest among all the four kinds of cancer mentioned in the passage? Laryngeal cancer.

5. According to the last paragraph, tissue‟s lower exposure to alcohol reduces the risk of laryngeal cancer.

Defending the Theory of Evolution Still Seems Needed 捍卫进化论仍必要

1. According to the first paragraph, which of the following statements about the theory of evolution is true?

School boards oppose AIBS‟s effort to defend the theory of evolution.

2. Which one of the following is NOT the reason for an overall lack of teaching Darwin‟s theory? Darwin‟s theory is denied as the central theory of biology.

3. AIBS‟s is composed of more than 80 societies and 250,000 members. 4. According to Weis in the 5th paragraph, the theory of evolution is fundamental to the development of

modern genetics, molecular biology and genomics.

5. Why do people replace the term creationism with the term intelligence design nowadays? Because the

term creationism is too direct.

Digital Realm 数码王国

1. The techniques of voice recognition are in its initial stage of development.

2. According to the second paragraph, when we reach the stage of artificial intelligence, machines can be our agents as they understand our thoughts.

3. What‟s the best description of Gordon Moore‟s law as mentioned in the third paragraph? It motivates the development of the digital world.

4. What can people do in a future scene as described in the fourth paragraph? All of the above. 5. Which of the following statements is true of a personalized market? In a personalized market, products are tailored to each consumer.

Don‟t Count on Dung 不要轻信象粪

1. The word “threatened” in the first sentence of the first paragraph could be best replaced by “endangered”. 2. Why do researchers estimate elephant numbers in an area by counting dung piles? Because it is not possible to count elephants from a plane. 3. Piles of dung can‟t be relied upon when it comes to estimating elephant numbers because they are different in decay rate. 4. When researchers carry out a dung-pile census, according to Plumptre, the area selected should be so large that elephants can‟t move in and out of it freely.

5. All of the following are indirect evidence EXCEPT trunks.

Electronic Mail (E-mail)电子邮件

1. The reasons given below about the popularity of E-mail can be found in the passage EXCEPT direct and reliable. 2. How is the Internet or net explained in the passage? Electronic routes connected among millions of users, home and abroad.

3. What does the sentence “If it is not yet speeding discoveries, it is certainly accelerating communication.”

Most probably mean? It quickens mutual communication even if it does not accelerate discoveries. 4. What does the sentence “On the Internet, nobody knows you‟re a dog.” Imply in the last paragraph?

E-mail has become very popular.

5. What will happen to fax, land mail, overnight mail, etc. according to the writer? Less and less people will use them.

Eiffel Is an Eyeful 引人注目的埃菲尔铁塔

1. Why does the author think the Eiffel Tower is transformed into symbol of a world on the move? Tourists of all nationalities come to scribble on the cold iron of the tower. 2. What seems strange to the author? Visitors prefer wasting time scribbling to enjoying the view.

3. Which statement is NOT true of Hugues Richard? He climbed 747 steps up the tower in 19 minutes and 4 seconds. 4. What did the builder use the Eiffel Tower for? Conducting research in various fields.

5. Which of the following is nearest in meaning to “(The Eiffel Tower is like) a blank canvas for visitors to

make of it what they will”? Visitors can imagine freely what the tower represents.

Ebbysemeyer-King of Currents 埃比赛米尔-洋流之王

1. What happened to those hockey gloves that fell overboard? Some of them reached shore at last. 2. Why does Ebbysemeyer study ocean currents? For pragmatic purposes.

3. All the factors that affect ocean currents are discussed in the passage EXCEPT gravitational force. 4. What creates deep ocean currents? Low temperatures near the two Poles.

5. What does the example of a Nike sneaker given in the last paragraph indicate? Sometimes, objects may drift in the ocean for years.

Eat to Live 为生活而食

1. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true? We have to begin dieting since childhood. 2. Why does the author mention an elderly mouse in paragraph 2? To illustrate the effect of meager food on mice. 3. What can be inferred about completely normally fed mice mentioned in the passage? They are more likely to suffer from inflammation. 4. According to the author, which of the following most interested the researchers? The mice that started dieting in old age. 5. According to the last two paragraphs, Spindler believes that dieting is not a good method to give us health and long life.

Egypt Felled by Famine 埃及饱受饥荒折磨

1. Why does the author mention “pyramid builders”? Because even they were unable to rescue their civilization. 2. Which of the following factors was ultimately responsible for the fall of the civilization of ancient Egypt?

Change of climate.

3. Which of the following statements is true? The White Nile and the Blue Nile are branches of the River Nile. 4. According to Krom, Egypt‟s Old Kingdom fell immediately after a period of drought. 5. The word “devastating” in the paragraph could be best replaced by “damaging”.

Food Fright 食物的危险

1. Paragraphs 1,2 &3 try to give the idea that GM foods may bring about great benefits to humans.

2. Why is the case of the pollen-sprayed milkweed cited in Paragraph6? It is cited to show GM foods also have a dark side. 3. What happens to those insects when not killed by the spray of insecticide? They may have higher ability to adapt to the environment.

4. Which of the following statements concerning banning GM foods is true according to the passage? The United States has not banned GM foods. 5. What is the writer‟s attitude to GM foods? We cannot tell from the passage.

Florida Hit by Cold Air Mass 弗罗里达遭受冷气团袭击

1. Which of the following statements is not meant in the first two paragraphs? The temperature in the United States except the South dropped below the freezing mark. 2. According to the second paragraph, in which area(s) did the temperature fall below zero? Parts of interior South Florida.

3. King‟s statement that “We brought shorts, T-shirt, and I had to go out and buy another coat.” shows that he was caught by the sudden cold. 4. Governor Jeb issue the emergency order because he wanted to encourage trucks to transport as much fruit to market as possible.

5. Which statement is NOT true according to the last paragraph? Florida Citrus Mutual sprayed trees with sprinklers for citrus growers.

Forecasting Methods 天气预报的方法

1. What factor is NOT mentioned in choosing a forecasting method? Imagination of the forecaster. 2. Persistence method will work well if weather conditions do not change much. 3. The limitation of the trends method is the same as the persistence method in that the weather features need to be constant for a long period of time. 4. Which method may involve historical weather data? Both climatology method and analog method. 5. It will be impossible to make weather forecast using the analog method when the current weather scenario differs from the analog.

How Animals Keep Warm 动物怎样保暖

1. How does the dormouse defend itself against cold in winter? It sleeps continuously. 2. What keeps animals alive during hibernation? The fat stored in their bodies. 3. During hibernation, animals breathe at a slower rate. 4. According to the passage, what is “migration”? Moving from one place to another with the season. 5. How do ermines survive in winter? They stay in their burrows and live on the food stored there.

Hacking 黑客

1. People usually regard computers as isolated or personal machines. 2. Why does the writer mention “a thief” in the second paragraph? To show that a hacker is more dangerous than a thief.

3. According to the passage, all the damages listed below could be done by a hacker EXCEPT creating many electronic-age terms.

4. By saying “Now exists the possibility of terrorism by computer”, the writer means that some people may spread fear in public by destroying computer systems.

5. The main reason why business or government has not taken tough measures to stop hacking is that

communication may be interrupted.

Japanese Drilling into Core of Earth 日本人的地心旅行 1. According to the passage, Mount Unzen erupted in 1991. 2. According to the passage, the study of the Mount Unzen volcano may benefit Japan in all the following

aspects EXCETP predicting volcano eruptions.

3. Why is this research project so important to Japan? Because Japan has many living volcanoes. 4. The drilling site on Mount Unzen is about half way up the mountain.

5. The title of this passage Japanese Drilling into Core of Earth actually means that they drill a hole into the core of a volcano.

Kasparov: Chess Computers Beatable… For Now 电脑下国际象棋是可以被打败的。。。到目前为止 1. According to Kasparov, humans can beat computers in individual games. 2. In the contest with Deep Junior in the United States, Kasparov settled for a draw. 3. Which of the following statements is true about Kasparov‟s contest with Deep Blue in 1997? Kasparov was unwilling to admit his defeat by Deep Blue. 4. According to Kasparov, a human vs machine chess game may involve all the following qualities EXCEPT

that it creates an exchange of errors between man and machine. 5. Kasparov‟s remarks on his 1997 defeat imply that if the had made no blunders, he should have beaten Deep Blue.

Late-night Drinking 在深夜饮咖啡

1. The author mentions “pick-me-up” to indicate that coffee is a stimulant.

2. Which of the following tells us how caffeine affects sleep? Caffeine halves the body‟s levels of sleep hormone. 3. What does paragraph 3 mainly discuss? Different effects of caffeinated coffee and decaf on sleep. 4. What does the experiment mentioned in paragraph 4 prove? Caffeine drinkers produce less sleep hormone. 5. The author of this passage probably agrees that we should not drink coffee after supper.

Male and Female Pilots Cause Accidents Differently 男女飞行员引起飞行事故的差异

1. What is the research at Johns Hopkins University about? Gender difference in relation to types of aircraft crashes. 2. Which of the statements is NOT true according to the second paragraph? Only mature pilots are studied to determine the gender differences in the reasons for aircraft crash. 3. How did the researchers carry out their study? They studied the findings of several previous research projects.

4. What is the most common circumstance of crash with female pilots? Loss of control on landing or takeoff and stalling.

5. In the comparison of female and male pilots, male pilots are found to make more errors in decision-making.

Orbital Space Plane 轨道航天飞机

1. The orbital space craft has been designed for carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. 2. From the passage we know that the design of the orbiter indicates NASA‟s determination to continue its space exploration projects. 3. When did the scientists start working on a successor to the shuttle? Years before the explosion of Columbia.

4. Besides the main missions stipulated by NASA, the orbiter would also be used as a space ambulance. 5. According to the passage, the funds, if granted, would be equally shared by the two projects under Space Launch Initiative.

Powering a City? It’s a Breeze 风力发电轻而易举

1. What are the symbols of Netherlands according to the first paragraph? Wooden shoes and wooden windmills.

2. Which statement is best describes the urban turbine mentioned in the second paragraph? It is a high-tech machine designed to generate energy for urban people. 3. The smallest models of an urban turbine can be carried up to the rooftop without a crane. 4. Netherlands leads in the urban turbine technology because Netherlands is a small country with a large

population.

5. According to the last paragraph, what are the advantages of wind power technology? Both A and C. (A: It can be used for different purposes. C: It can be installed in one‟s backyard.)

Prolonging Human Life延长人类生命

1. The writer believes that the population explosion results from a decrease in death rates. 2. It can be inferred from the passage that in hunting and gathering cultures infants could be left dead in times of starvation. 3. According to the passage, which of the following statements about retired people in the United States is

true? Many of them have a very hard life.

4. In Paragraph 3, the phrase “this need” refers to the need to take care of sick and weak people.

5. Which of the following best describes the writer‟s attitude toward most of the nursing homes, and

convalescent hospitals? Critical.

Pool Watch 泳池监护

1. AI means the same as artificial intelligence. 2. What is required of AI software to save a life? It can distinguish between a swimmer and a shadow. 3. How does Poseidon save a life? It alerts the lifeguard.

4. Which of the following statements about Travor Baylis is NOT true? He runs. 5. The word “considered” in paragraph 5 could be best replaced by rated.

Retinal Prosthesis Help the Blind Regain Eyesight 视网膜修复术帮助盲人重获光明

1. Why did Steve Wonder visit Mark Humayan? He thought Mark‟s device might recover his eyesight. 2. Whom is Mark‟s retinal prosthesis ready for? For the blind who once had eyesight. 3. For detecting colors, we depend, in the first place, on cones of the retina.

4. Why does macular degeneration cause blindness and other vision problems? Macular degeneration causes inadequate supply of blood in the retina.

5. Which of the following statements about the function of retinal prosthesis is true according to the passage?

It can help recover eyesight to some degree.

Pushbike Peril 脚踏车的危险

1. According to the passage, some engineers are trying to improve the handlebars because they may kill children.

2. In paragraph 2, the author mentions a study of serious abdominal injuries to tell us why Kristy Arbogast began the project. 3. Paragraph 3 mainly discusses how serious injuries occur.

4. The passage implies that it is not easy to persuade manufacturers to adopt the new design. 5. The handgrip works in which of the following ways? It reduces the dangerous forces in bicycle accidents.

Superconducting Ceramic 超导陶瓷

1. What are the benefits of the revolution mentioned in the first paragraph? Great amounts of power can be conserved. 2. What is the difference between superconductors and common electrical conductors? Superconductors have much lower electrical resistance than common electrical conductors.

3. How low is the temperature for a superconducting material to lose its resistance now? –143 degree Celsius.

4. What is the element that enables the ceramic tape to lower its temperature? Liquid nitrogen. 5. According to the last paragraph, what is NOT true of superconductors? The United States loses great amounts of electricity using superconductors.

Snowflakes 雪花

1. What does professor Libbrecht believe to be true? No two snowflakes are exactly the same in shape.

2. What do the simplest snow crystals look like? They are six-sided.

3. What are the factors that affect the shape and growth rate of a snow crystal? Humidity and temperature. 4. It can be felt from the description in the 2nd paragraph that the author admires the beauty of the snowflakes.

5. Libbrecht is not able to create snowflakes that are exactly alike.

Spacing in Animals 动物的间隔距离

1. Which of the following is the most appropriate definition of Flight Distance? Distance between an animal and its enemy before fleeing. 2. If an animal‟s critical distance is penetrated, it will begin to attack.

3. According to the passage, social distance refers to psychological distance. 4. Social distance differs among animal species. 5. The example of the children holding hands when crossing the street in the last paragraph shows that social distance is sometimes determined by outside factors.

Sauna 桑拿浴

1. Ceremonial bathing has various forms.

2. What is understood by some people to be the true sauna experience? Saunas with smoke. 3. According to the third paragraph, saunas can do all of the following EXCEPT curing asthma. 4. According to the fourth paragraph, sauna gives the skin a healthy glow because pores are cleaned by sweat.

5. Who are advised not to take a sauna? All of the above.

Shrinking Water Supply Poses Threat to Peace供水紧张对和平构成威胁

1. According to the passage, which of the following statements is true? Water now has become more expensive than it was.

2. Which of the following is NOT the author‟s purpose of mentioning the oil crises in the 1970‟s? To prove that water is as expensive as oil. 3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a factor that is making the water situation in

the world more and more severe? The popularity of swimming pools. 4. Which of the following is cited by the author as the place where the supply of water is most likely to

threaten social stability? Africa.

5. To solve the water supply problem the world today faces, the author suggests at the end of the article doing

all the following except blowing up dams that affect the supply of fresh water.

Sleep Lets Brain File Memories 睡眠促使记忆归档存储

1. Which of the following statements is nearest in meaning to the sentence “To sleep. Perchance to file?”?

Does brain arrange memories in useful order during sleep? 2. What is the result of the experiment with rats and mice carried out at Rutgers University? Somatosensory neocortex and hippocampus work together in memory consolidation. 3. What is the relation of memory to glucose tolerance, as is indicated by a research mentioned in paragraph

4? The poorer the memory, the poorer glucose tolerance.

4. In what way is memory related to hippocampus shrinkage? The more hippocampus shrinks, the poorer one‟s memory.

5. According to the last paragraph, what is the ultimate reason for going to the gym? To control glucose levels.

Single-parent Kinds Do Best 单亲家庭的孩子表现最佳

1. With which of the following statements would the author probably agree? Two-parent families produce less attractive children.

2. According to the passage, in what way does family conflict affect the quality of the offspring? The young males get less care.

3. What is the relationship between paragraph 4 and paragraph 5? Experiment and result.

4. According to Hartley, which of the following is NOT influenced by sexual conflict? The offspring‟s body size. 5. According to the passage, people believe that a female‟s reproductive strategy is influenced by ecological factors.

Star Quality 明显的素质

1. Which of the following was the final result of the pairs figure-skating event at the Winter Olympics in Salt

Lake City? The Russian pair and the Canadian pair were each awarded a gold medal. 2. According to the new rules proposed by the ISU, only half of the scores will count. 3. What does Jerry Bingham express by saying “I remain to be convinced”? His doubt. 4. Which of the following is NOT true of the scoring system for diving when it is compared with that for

ice-skating? It is more biased.

5. The attitude of those concerned in the UK to the new rules proposed by ISU can be best described as

reserved.

The Net Cost of Making a Name for Yourself 网上申请个人域名的费用 1. The domain name “.edu”is operated by the company Network Solutions.

2. The .firm, shop, .web, .arts, .rec, .info and .nom domains are NOT run by the US government. 3. Global Names of Singapore is a registrar.

4. How can a company successfully register a name with the Internet? It must pay up to $10,000 or a

nonrefundable deposit.

5. What is the meaning of the phrases “net cost”in the title? The registration fee for a domain name on the

Internet.

Thirsty in Karachi 在卡拉奇体验干渴

1. According to the passage, people in Karachi today suffer from a short supply of water because old networks can not meet the need of the city‟s greatly-increased population. 2. Now people in Karachi do not hide or disguise the suction pumps they use to steal water because many households have them and there are very few inspectors around to try to find them. 3. Confronted with a severe shortage of water supply, the city‟s Water and Sewerage Board tries to improve the water supply system with borrowed money.

4. Which of the following true of the owners of the suction pumps, if their neighbors gave equally powerful

pumps as they do? They only pay more for electricity.

5. Which of the following is true about the author when he is back home in London? He is content with the water supply in London.

The Wasteland 荒地

1. All of the following are causes of the environmental crisis in Afghanistan EXCEPT heavy monsoon rains. 2. According to the passage, the main cause of the loss of the country‟s forests is the improper use of the trees for benefits during Taliban rule.

3. Most of the migratory birds no longer fly across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India because they have been threatened by the bombs dropped on the country.

4. In which of the following ways do the refugees threaten the survival of such wild animals as the snow

leopards? They hunt the animals to make profits.

5. Which of the following CANNOT be inferred from the last paragraph? Fewer people were killed in bombing in Afghanistan than in Kosovo.

The Gene Industry 基因产业

1. According to the passage, the exhaust from a car engine could probably be checked by making use of enzymes.

2. According to the passage, which of the following would worry the critics the most? The unexpected release of destructive microbes. 3. Which of the following notions is NOT mentioned? Using genetic forecasting to cure diseases.

4. According to the passage, Hitler attempted to kill the people he thought of as inferior.

5. What does Jeremy Rifkin and Ted Howard‟s statement imply? The commercial applications of genetic engineering are inevitable.

Urban Rainforest 城市雨林

1. What is this passage mainly about? The reproduction of the rainforest at a New York museum.

2. How did the museum collect the data in the Central African Republic? It sent a large team of scientists there.

3. To give the forest a sense of realness, all the following are used EXCEPT that the forest is surrounded by front and back walls. 4. What is the main theme of the last paragraph? Preservation of the rainforest exhibition as an artifact. 5. What does the last sentence of the passage most probably mean? The exhibit reflects the hope that natural rainforests will be well preserved.

Underground Coal Fires a Looming Catastrophe 地下煤引发即将来临的灾难

1. According to the first paragraph, one of the warnings given by the scientists is that poisonous elements released by the underground fires can pollute water sources. 2. According to the third paragraph, what will happen when the underground heat does not disappear? Coal heats up on its own and catches fire and burns. 3. What did Stracher analyze in his article published in the International Journal of Coal Ecology? Coal fires can have an impact on the environment. 4. Which of the following statements about Paul Van Dijk is NOT true? He has detected and monitored underground fires in Netherlands. 5. According to the fifth paragraph, what is the suggested method to control underground fires? Cutting off the oxygen supply.

U.S. Marks 175 Locomotive Years 美国纪念机车诞生175周年

1. William Mason was the oldest locomotive in operation in America.

2. The oldest locomotive will be put to tests again to make sure it is up to the federal standards before operation. 3. Which of the following statements is NOT a correct description of the Rocket? It sped up the development of railroading in America. 4. How large is the museum‟s roundhouse? One-thirty-second of the museum. 5. Which of the following best describes the collection of the artifacts in the museum? Its collection is important and representative.

Will Quality Eat up the U.S. Lead in Software? 质量问题会使美国的软件业失去主导地位吗？ 1. What country has more highest-rating companies in the world than any other country has? India. 2. Which of the following statements about Humphrey is true? India honors him highly. 3. By what means did Japan grab its large market share by the 1970s and the 1980s? Its products were cheaper in price and better in quality.

4. What does the founding of the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute symbolize? It symbolizes the Indian ambition to take the lead in software. 5. What is the writer worrying about? The US will no longer be the first software player in the world.

五、补全短文：

Ants as a Barometer of Ecological Change生态变化的气压计-蚂蚁

At picnics, ants are pests. But they have their uses. In industries such as mining, farming and forestry, they can help gauge the health of the environment by just crawling around and being antsy.

It has been recognized for decades that ants-which are highly sensitive to ecological change-can provide a near-perfect barometer of the state of an ecosystem. Only certain species, for instance, will continue to thrive at a forest site that has been cleared of trees. Others will die out for lack of food. And still others will move in and take up residence.

By looking at which species populate a deforested area, scientists can determine how “stressed” the land is. They do this by sorting the ants, counting their numbers and comparing the results with those of earlier surveys. Where mine sites are being restored, for example, some ant species will recolonize the stripped land more quickly than other. This allowed scientists to gauge the pace and progress of the ecological recovery. Australian mining company Capricorn Coal Management has been successfully using ant surveys for years to determine the rate of recovery of land that it is replanting near its German Creek mine in Queensland.

Ant surveys also have been used with mine-site recovery projects in Africa and Brazil, where warm climates encourage dense and diverse ant populations. “we found it worked extremely well there,” says Jonathan Majer, a professor of environmental biology. Yet the surveys are perfectly suited to climates throughout Asia, he says, because ants are so common throughout the region. As Majer puts it: “that‟s the great thing about ants.”

Ant surveys are so highly-regarded as ecological indicators that governments worldwide accept their results when assessing the environmental impact of miming and tree harvesting. yet in other businesses, such as farming and property development, ant surveys aren‟t used widely.

Why not? Because many companies can‟t afford the expense or the laboratory time needed to sift results for a comprehensive survey. The cost stems, also, from the scarcity of ant specialists. Employing those people are expensive.

Agitated Sunsports Cause Trouble太阳黑子活动频造成的影响

If the lights in your house keep flickering, blame frequent sunspots.

A sunspot is actually charged particles flying at the speed of 3 million kilometers an hour out of the surface of the sun to form sun storms.

Every 11 years, the sun, as its energy accumulate inside up to a certain point, will send out streams of charged particles, which affect the earth in different ways.

The earth, which is directly energized by the sun, is influenced by sun storms in a number of ways.

One is that the magnetic field of the earth is much disturbed because of the sun‟s interference in the ionosphere, which is 80 to 500 kilometers above the earth. Wireless short-wave communication, which depends on the wave‟s reflection against this layer of atmosphere, is likely to be jammed. It is said that mobile phone communication may be affected too.

Scientists also say that the active movement of the charged sun storm also has effects on earthquakes. According to a research conducted by the Russian scientists from 1957 to 1960, the frequency of earthquakes can be linked to the movement of the sunspots.

Though little research has been carried out about how exactly the sunspot will negatively harm the health of the people, a paper published by a North Korea observatory says that sun storms may cause an increase in the incidence of heart disease and skin disease. So, scientists warn that people going outdoors should be careful to protect their exposed skin and eyes with clothes, umbrellas and sunglasses from the strong sunlight rich in ultraviolet rays.

Besides, the nervous system is also affected, and traffic accidents are more frequent when sunspots are active.

It is hard to say when the sunspots are most violent during their active year, but generally one active period is believed to last possibly eight days. Not long ago there were two violent sun storms breaking out, which seriously affected mobile phone communication, etc. in many parts of the world. But the communication situation in each case returned to normal in about 24 hours.

Don„t Rely on Plankton to Save the Planet不要靠浮游生物拯救这个星球

Encouraging plankton growth in the ocean has been touted by some as a promising way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It opponents fear that it will damage the marine ecosystem, and now a computer model shows that the trick would also be remarkably inefficient.

Adding iron to patches of ocean can make plankton bloom temporarily. The microscopic organisms suck up dissolved carbon dioxide from the water, which in turn is replaced by carbon dioxide from the air. As plankton die and settle on the ocean floor, their carbon is supposedly locked up in the seabed.

Jorge Sarmiento from Princeton and his colleagues developed a complex computer model to analyse how

factors such as ocean chemistry and water circulation would affect the process if 160,000 square kilometers of ocean were seeded with iron for a month. They found that 100 years only between 2 and 11 per cent of the extra carbon that was originally taken up by plankton had actually been removed from the atmosphere. In their scenario, which covers an area 10 times as big as the largest experiment of this kind ever proposed, fertilising the ocean removes 1 million tones of carbon from the atmosphere-just 0.2 per cent of the carbon dioxide humankind spews out each month.

Rough estimates in the past have predicted similarly disappointing results. “there are newer and better models,” says Sallie Chisholm, an environmental engineer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “But the take-home message is the same. Ocean fertilization is not the answer to global warning.”

Dung to Death施肥致死

Fields across Europe are contaminated with dangerous levels of the antibiotics given to farm animals. The drugs, which are in manure sprayed onto fields as fertilizers, could be getting into our food and water, helping to create a new generation of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs”.

The warning comes from a researcher in Switzerland who looked at levels of the drugs in farm slurry. His findings are particularly shocking because Switzerland is one of the few countries to have banned antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed. Some 20,000tons of antibiotics are used in the European Union and the US each year. More than half are given to farm-animals to prevent disease and promote growth. But recent research has found a direct link between the increased use of these farmyard drugs and the appearance of antibiotic-resistant bugs that infect people.

Most researchers assumed that humans become infected with the resistant strains by eating contaminated meat. But far more of the drugs end up in manure than inn meat products, says Stephen Mueller of the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology in Dubendorf. And manure contains especially high levels of bugs that are resistant to antibiotics, he says.

With millions of tons of animals manure spread on to fields of crops such as wheat and barley each year, this pathway seems an equally likely route for spreading resistance , he said. The drugs contaminate the crops, which are then eaten, they could so be leaching onto tap water pumped from rocks beneath fertilized fields. Mueller is particularly concerned about a group of antibiotics called sulphonamides. The do not easily degrade or dissolve in water. His analysis found that Swiss farm manure contains a high percentage of sulphonamides; each hectare of field could be contaminated with up to 1 kilogram of the drugs. This concentration is high enough to trigger the development of resistance among bacteria. But vets are not treating the issue seriously.

There is growing concern at the extent go which drugs, including antibiotics, are polluting the environment. Many drugs given to humans are also excreted unchanged and are not broken down by conventional sewage treatment.

Einstein Named “person of the Century”爱因斯坦被称作“世纪之人”

Albert Einstein, whose theories on space time and matter helped unravel the secrets of the atom and of the universe, was chosen as “Person of the Century” by Time magazine on Sunday.

A man whose very name is synonymous with scientific genius, Einstein has come to represent more than any other person the flowering o 20th century scientific thought that set the stage for the age of technology.

“The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic, but technological-technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science,” wrote theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in a Time essay explaining Einstein‟s significance. “Clearly, no scientist better represents those advances than Albert Einstein.”

Time chose as runner-up President Franklin Roosevelt to represent the triumph of freedom and democracy over fascism, and Mahatma Gandhi as an icon for a century when civil and human rights became crucial factors in global politics.

“what we saw was Franklin Roosevelt embodying the great theme of freedom‟s fight against totalitarianism, Gandhi personifying the great theme of individuals struggling for their rights, and Einstein being both a great genius and a great symbol of a scientific revolution that brought with it amazing

technological advances that helped expand the growth of freedom,” said Time Magazine Editor Walter Isaacson.

Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany in 1879. In his early years, Einstein did not show the promise of what he was to become. He was slow to learn to speak and did not do well in elementary school. He could not stomach organized learning and loathed taking exams.

In 1905, however, he was to publish a theory which stands as one of the most intricate examples of human imagination in history. In his “Special Theory of Relativity,” Einstein described how the only constant in the universe is the speed of light. Everything else-mass, weight, space, even time itself-is a variable. And he offered the world his now-famous equation: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared-E=mc.

“Indirectly, relativity paved the way for a new relativism in morality, art and politics,” Isaacson wrote in an essay explaining Time‟s choices. “There was less faith in absolutes, not only of time and space but also of truth and morality.”

Einstein‟s famous equation was also the seed that led to the development of atomic energy and weapons. In 1939, six years after he fled European fascism and settled at Princeton University, Einstein, an avowed pacifist, signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging the United States to develop an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany did. Roosevelt heeded the advice and formed the “Manhattan Project” that secretly developed the first atomic weapon. Einstein did not work on the project.Einstein died in Princeton, New Jersey in 1955.

“Happy Birthday to You”祝你生日快乐

The main problem in discussing American popular culture is also one of its main characteristics: it won‟t stay American. No matter what it is, whether it is films, food and fashion, music, casual sports or slang, it‟s soon at home elsewhere in the world. There are several theories why American popular culture has had this appeal.

One theory is that it has been “advertised” and marketed through American films, popular music, and more recently, television. But this theory fails to explain why America films, music, and television programs are so popular in themselves. They are, after all, in competition with those produced by other countries.

Another theory, probably a more common one, is that American popular culture is internationally associated with something called “the spirit of America.” This spirit is variously described as being young and free, optimistic and confident, informal and disrespectful.

The final theory is less complex: American popular culture is popular because a lot of people in the world like it.

Regardless of why it spreads, American popular culture is usually quite rapidly adopted and then adapted in many other countries. As a result, its American origins and roots are often quickly forgotten. “Happy Birthday to You,” for instance, is such an everyday song that its source, its American copyright, so to speak, is not remembered. Black leather jackets worn by many heroes in American movies could be found, a generation later on all those young men who wanted to make this manly-look their own.

Two areas where this continuing process is most clearly seen are clothing and music. Some people can still remember a time when T-shirts, jogging clothes, tennis shoes, denim jackets, and blue jeans were not common daily wear everywhere. Only twenty years ago, it was possible to spot an American in Paris by his or her clothes. No longer so: those bright colors, checkered jackets and trousers, hats and socks which were once made fun of in cartoons are back again in Paris as the latest fashion. American in origin, informal clothing has become the world‟s first truly universal style.

The situation with American popular music is more complex because in the beginning, when it was still clearly American, it was often strongly resisted. Jazz was once thought to be a great danger to youth and their morals, and was actually outlawed in several countries. Today, while still showing its rather American roots, it has become so well established. Rock „n‟ roll and all its variations, country & western music, all have more or less similar histories. They were first resisted, often in America as well, as being “low-class,” and then as “a danger to our nation‟s youth.” The BBC, for example, banned rock and roll until 1962. And then the music became accepted and was extended and developed, and exported back to the U.S..

High Dive从高空往下跳

Cheryl Sterns aims to go boldly where no human has ever gone before in a balloon: 40 kilometers up into

the atmosphere. From there, she‟ll take a death-defying leap back to earth at supersonic speed. No one has ever leapt from such a height or gone supersonic without an airplane or a spacecraft. Yet Sterns, an airline pilot, is not the only person who wants to be the first to accomplish those feats. Two other brave people, an Australian man and a Frenchman, are also planning to make similar leaps.

How will Sterns make her giant jump. First, she‟ll climb into a cabin hanging from a balloon the size of a football field. Then the balloon will take her high onto the stratosphere-the layer of Earth‟s atmosphere 12 to 50 kilometers above the planet. “The ascent will take two and a half to three hours,” said Sterns. “I‟ll be wearing a fully pressurized, temperature-controlled space suit.”

At 40 kilometers Sterns will be able to see the gentle curve of Earth and the blackness of space over head. Then she‟ll unclip herself from the cabin and dive headfirst, like a bullet, into the atmosphere, “In 30 seconds, I‟ll be going Mach speed,” said Sterns.

For high dive, astronaut escape suits are a key to success. Current pilot and astronaut escape suits are guaranteed only a maximum altitude of 21 kilometers DEL Rosso, a NASA engineer of spacesuits and life-support systems, said the suit designed for Stern‟s jump could serve as a model for the lethal environment of higher climbs. It will handle several major hazards. The first hazard is oxygen-deficient air. Any person without an additional oxygen supply at 40 kilometers would die within three to five seconds. The second hazard is low atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure is much lower at high altitudes than it is at sea level. The low atmospheric pressure of the upper stratosphere causes the gases in body fluids to fizz out of solution like soda bubbles. In short, blond boils. Other hazards include temperatures as low as- 55 degrees Celsius, flying debris, and solar radiation.

For Sterns to survive, her spacesuit will have to protect her from all of these hazards. “A spacesuit is like a one-person spaceship,” Del Rosso explained. “You have to bake everything you need in a package that‟s light enough, mobile enough, and tough enough to do the job. You can‟t exist without it.”

Looking to the Future 展望未来

When a magazine for high-school students asked its readers what life would be like in twenty years, they said: Machines would be run by solar power. Buildings would rotate so they would follow the sun to take maximum advantage of its light and heat. Walls would “radiate light ” and “change color with the push of a button.” Food would be replaced by pills. School would be taught “by electrical impulse while we sleep.” Cars would have radar. Does this sound like the year 2000? Actually, the article was written in 1958 and the question was, “what will life be like in 1978?”

The future is much too important to simply guess about, the way the high school students did, so experts are regularly asked to predict accurately. By carefully studying the present, skilled businessmen, scientists, and politicians are supposedly able to figure out in advance what will happen. But can they? One expert on cities wrote: cities of the future would not be crowded, but would have space for farms and fields. People would travel to work in “airbuses”, large all-weather helicopters carrying up to 200 passengers. When a person left the airbus station he could drive a coin-operated car equipped with radar. The radar equipment of cars would make traffic accidents “almost unheard of”. Does that sound familiar? If the expert had been accurate it would, because he was writing in 1957. his subject was “the city of 1982”.

If the professionals sometimes sound like high-school students, it‟s probably because future study is still a new field. But economic forecasting, or predicting what the economy will do, has been around for a long time. It should be accurate, and generally it is. But there have been some big mistakes in this field, too. In early 1929, most forecasters saw an excellent future for the stock market. In October of that year, the stock market had its worst losses ever, ruining thousands of investors who had put their faith in financial foreseers. One forecaster knew that predictions about the future would always be subject to significant errors. In 1957, H.J. Rand of the Rand Corporation was asked about the year 2000, “Only one thing is certain, ” he answered. “children born today will have reached the age of 43.”

Mobile phones移动电话

Mobile phones should carry a label if they proved to be a dangerous source of radiation, according to Robert Bell, a scientist. And no more mobile phone transmitter tower should be built until the long-term health effects of the electromagnetic radiation they emit is scientifically evaluated, he said. “nobody‟s going to drop dead overnight but we should be asking for more scientific in formation,” Robert Bell said at a conference on

the health effects of low-level radiation. “if mobile phones are found to be dangerous, they should carry a warning label until proper shields can be devised,” he said.

A report widely circulated among the public says that up to now scientists do not really know enough to guarantee there are no ill-effects on humans from electromagnetic radiation. According to Robert Bell, there are 3.3 million mobile phones in Australia alone and they are increasing by 2,000 a day. By the year 2000 it is estimated that Australia will have 8 million mobile phones: nearly one for every two people. As well, there are 2,000 transmitter towers around Australia, many in high density residential areas. For example, Telstra, Optus and Vodaphone build their towers where it is geographically suitable to them and disregard the need of the community. The electromagnetic radiation emitted from these towers may have already produced some harmful effects on the health of the residents nearby.

Robert Bell suggests that until more research is completed the Government should ban construction of phone towers from within a 500 metre radius of school grounds, child care centers, hospitals, spots playing fields and residential areas with a high percentage of children. He says there is emerging evidence that children absorb low-level radiation at a rate more than three times that of adults. He adds that there is also evidence that if cancer sufferers are subjected to electromagnetic waves the growth rate of the disease accelerates.

Robert Bell calls on the major telephone companies to fund adequate research and urges the Government to set up a wide ranging inquiry into possible health effects.

Reinventing the Table重新发明元素表

An earth scientist has rejigged the periodic table to make chemistry simpler to teach to students.

There have been many attempts to redesign the periodic table since Dmitri Mendeleev drew it up in 1871. But Bruce Railsback from the University of Georgia say she is the first to create a table that breaks with tradition and shows the ions of each element rather than just the elements themselves.

“I got tired of breaking my arms trying to explain the periodic table to earth students,” he says, criss-crossing his hands in the air and pointing to different bits of a traditional table. Railsback has still ordered the elements according to the number of protons they have. But he has added contour lines to charge density, helping to explain which ions react with which.

“Geochemists just want an intuitive sense of what‟s going on with the elements,” says Albert Galy from the University of Cambridge. “I imagine this would be good for undergraduates.” Railsback has listed some elements more than one. He explains that sulphur, for example, shows up in three different spots-one for sulphide, which is found in minerals, one for sulphite, and one for sulphate, which is found in sea salt, for instance.

He has also included symbols to show which ions are nutrients, and which are common in soil or water. And the size of element‟s symbol reflects how much of it is found in the Earth‟s crust.

Stonehenge巨石阵

Stonehenge, the mysterious ring of ancient monoliths from the dawn of Britain‟s proud civilization, could be the work of a central European immigrant, archaeologists said not long ago in a shock statement, an early Bronze Age archer, whose grave was discovered near the stone circle last year, may have helped build the monument. And tests on the chemical components of his tooth enamel showed he grew up in the region that is now known as Switzerland. Or he might have brought up in a region neighboring Switzerland, such as southern Germany or western Austria

The archer “would have been a very important person in the Stonehenge area,” said Andrew Fitzpatrick, Wessex Archaeology‟s project manager. “It is fascinating to think that someone from abroad could have played an important part in the construction of Britain‟s most famous archaeological site. ”

The 4,000-year-old man was identified as an archer because of the flint arrowheads found by his body, along with other artifacts belonging to the Beaker Culture in the Alps during the Bronze Age. The artifacts found in his rich grave discovered about 5 kilometers from Stonehenge indicated he was obviously a very prominent man. Though it could be coincidence that the man lived close to Stonehenge at about the time the great stones were put in place, archaeologists suspect that he was involved in constructing the monument. The archer, dubbed “the king of Stonehenge” by the British press, lived around 2300 B.C., about the time the great stone circle was formed in Amesbury, 120 kilometers southwest of London.

The splendid artifacts found in his grave indicated he was a man of wealth, leading archaeologists to

speculate he was an important dignitary involved in the monument‟s creation/ Stonehenge was built about the time the rich Beaker Culture came to Britain. And people of that time would have been able to communicate in early Celtic tongues. The archer was between 35 and 45 years old when he died. He was strongly built but suffered an accident a few years before his death that severed his left knee cap. Truman said the cause of death was not known, but it could have been a bone infection caused by his leg injury.

Archaeologists also found the grave of a younger man, aged 20 to 25, nearby. He and the archer shared an unusual bone structure in their feet . this indicated they were related and were possibly father and son. Tests on the younger man‟s tooth enamel showed that he grew up in Britain. The archaeologists thus speculated the archer lived in Britain for many years and had a family, and was not just passing through..

Sleeping Giant沉睡的巨人

Right now, an eruption is brewing in Yellowstone National Park. Sometime during the next two hours, the park‟s most famous geyser, old Faithful, will begin gurgling boiling water and steam. Then, an enormous fountain will shoot high into the air. Old Faithful is not only a spectacular sight; it‟s also a constant reminder that Yellowstone sits on one of the largest volcanoes in the world. If you‟ve never heard of Yellowstone‟s volcano, you‟re not alone. The volcano is so inconspicuous that few people know it exists. Yet it has erupted three times during the last 2 million years. And one of those eruptions spewed enough volcanic ash and other debris to blanket half the United States.

Yellowstone‟s volcano is sometimes called a “supervolcano,” or extremely large and explosive caldera volcano. Three calderas make up more than a third of Yellowstone National Park. This supervolcano formed over a hot spot, an extremely hot area in Earth‟s mantle. John Valley, a volcano professor, said that as the crust moves across a hot spot, the hot spot melts a section of the plate moving over it, forming “one volcano after another.”

The Yellowstone hot spot melts thick continental crust, which any cause catastrophic eruptions. According to experts the eruptions that created each of the three calderas in and around Yellowstone National Park were larger than any other volcanic eruption in recorded history. The most recent eruption, which happened 640,000 years ago, produced at least 1,000 cubic kilometers of ash and debris, which blanketed most of the western half of the United States. The first Yellowstone eruption, 2 million years ago released more than double that amount of ash and debris. Geological evidence shows Yellowstone has blown its stack every 700,000 years or so. “If nature were truly that regular and reliable, we would be due for another eruption soon,” said Valley. “However, these processes are subject to variability, so we don‟t really know when the next eruption will happen.”

While the active geologist processes at Yellowstone do pose some risk to the pubic, they also make it a unique treasure. It is the volcanic energy that powers the geysers and hot springs, creates the mountains and canyons, and generates the unique ecosystems that support Yellowstone‟s diverse wildlife.

The world‟s longest bridge世界上最长的桥

Rumor has it that a legendary six-headed monster lurks in the deep waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea between Italy and the island of Sicily. If true, one day you might spy the beast while zipping across the Messina. When completed in 2010, the world‟s longest bridge will weigh nearly 300,000tonw-equivalent to the iceberg that sank the Titanic and stretch 5 kilometers long. “that‟s nearly 50 percent longer than any other bridge ever built,” says structural engineer Shane Rixon.

What do the world‟s longest bridges have in common? They‟re suspension bridges, massive structures built to span vast water channels or gorges. A suspension bridge needs just two towers to shoulder the structure‟s mammoth weight, thanks to hefty supporting cables slung between the towers and anchored firmly in deep pools of cement at each end of the bridge. the Messina Strait Bridge will have two 54,100-ton towers, which will support most of the bridge‟s load. The beefy cables of the bridge, each 1.2 meter in diameter, will hold up the longest and widest bridge deck ever built.

When construction begins on the Messina Strait Bridge in 2005, the first job will be to erect two 370 meter-tall steel towers. The second job will be to pull two sets of steel cables across the strait, each set being a bundle of 44,352 individual steel wires. Getting these cables up will be something. It‟s not just their

length-totally 5.3kilometers-but their weight. They will tip up the scales at 166,500tons-more than half the bridge‟s total mass. After lowering vertical “suspender” cables from the main cables, builders will erect a 60-meter-wide 54,630-ton steel roadway, or deck-wide enough to accommodate 12 lanes of traffic. The deck‟s weight will pull down on the cables with a force of 70,500tons. In return, the cables yank up against their firmly rooted anchors with a force of 139,000tons-equivalent to the weight of about 100,000cars. Those anchors are essential. They‟re what will keep the bridge from going anywhere.

Tests Show Women Suited for Space Travel妇女更适合太空飞行

Between 1977 and 1981, three groups of American women, numbering 27 in all, between the age of 35 and 65, were given month-long tests to determine how they would respond to conditions resembling those aboard the space shuttle.

Though carefully selected from among many applicants, the women were volunteers and the pay was barely above the minimum wage. They were not allowed to smoke or drink alcohol during the tests, and they were expected to tolerate each other‟s company at close quarters for the entire period. Among other things they had to stand pressure three times the force of gravity and carry out both physical and mental tasks while exhausted from strenuous physical exercise. At the end of ten days, they had to spend a further twenty days absolutely confined to bed, during which time they suffered backaches and other discomforts, and when they were finally allowed up, the more physically active women were especially subject to pains due to a slight calcium loss.

Results of the tests suggest that women will have significant advantages over men in space. They need less food and less oxygen and they stand up to radiation better. Men‟s advantages in terms of strength and stamina, meanwhile, are virtually wiped out by the zero-gravity condition in space.

Watching Microcurrents Flow观察微电流流程

We can now watch electricity as it flows through even the tiniest circuits. By scanning the magnetic field generated as electric currents flow through objects physicists have managed to picture the progress of the currents. The technology will allow manufacturers to scan microchips for faults, as well as revealing microscopic defects in anything from aircraft to banknotes.

Gang Xiao and Ben Schrag at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, visualize the current by measuring subtle changes in the magnetic field of an object and converting the information into a color picture showing the density of current each point. Their sensor is adapted from an existing piece of technology that is used to measure large magnetic fields in computer hard drives. “We redesigned the magnetic sensor to make it capable of measuring very weak changes in magnetic fields,” says Xiao.

The resulting device is capable of detecting a current as weak as 10 microamperes, even when the wire is buried deep within a chip, and it shows up features as small as 40 nanometers across.

At present, engineers looking for defects in a chip have to peel off the layers and examine the circuits visually; this is one of the obstacles to making chips any smaller. But the new magnetic microscope is sensitive enough to look inside chips and reveal faults such as short circuits, nicks in the wires or electro migration-where a dense area of current picks up surrounding atoms and moves them along. “It is like watching a river flow,” explains Xiao.

As well as scanning tiny circuits, the microscope can be used to reveal the internal structure of any object capable of conducting electricity. For example, it could look directly at mjcroscopic cracks in an aeroplane‟s fuselage, faults in the metal strip of a forged banknote or bacteria in a water sample. The technique cannot yet pick up electrical activity in the human brain because the current there is too small, but Xiao doesn‟t rule it out in the future. “I can never say never,” he says.

Although the researchers have only just made the technical details of the microscope public, it is already on sale, from electronics company Micro Magnetics in Fall River. Massachusetts. It is currently the size of a refrigerator and takes several minutes to scan a circuit, but Xiao and Schrag are working to shrink it to the size of a desktop computer and cut the scanning time 30 seconds.

六、完型填空： A biological clock生物钟

Every living thing has what scientists call a biological clock that controls behavior. The biological clock tells plants when to form flowers. And when the flowers should open. It tells insects when to leave the protective cocoon and fly away, and it tells animals and human beings when to eat, sleep and wake.

Events outside the plant and animal affect the actions of some biological clocks. Scientists recently found, for example, that a tiny animal changes the color of its fur because of the number of hours of daylight. In the short days of winter, its fur becomes white. The fur becomes gray brown in color in the longer hours of daylight in summer.

Inner signals control other biological clocks. German scientists found that some kind of internal clock seems to order birds to begin their long migration flight twice each year. Birds prevented from flying become restless when it is time for the trip, but they become calm again when the time of the flight has ended.

Scientists say they are beginning to learn which parts of the brain contain biological clocks. An American researcher, martin Moorhead, said a small group of cells near the front of the brain seems to control the timing of some of our actions. These cells tell a person when to awaken, when to sleep and when to seek food. Scientists say there probably are other biological clock cells that control other body activities.

Dr. Moorhead is studying how our biological clocks affect the way we do our work. For example, most of us have great difficulty if we must often change to different work hours. It can take many days for a human body to accept the major change in work hours. Dr. Moorhead said industrial officials should have a better understanding of biological clocks and how they affect workers. He said such understanding could cut sickness and accidents at work and would help increase a factory‟s production.

Charter schools特许学校

American public education has changed in recent years. One change is that increasing numbers of American parents and teachers are starting independent public schools called charter schools.

In 1991 there were no charter schools in the United States. Today, more than 2,300 charter schools operate in 34 states and the District of Columbia. 575,000 students attend these schools. The students are from 5 years of age through 18 or older. A charter school is created by groups of parents, teachers and community members. It is similar in some ways to a traditional public school. It receives tax money to operate just as other public schools do. The amount it receives depends on the number of students. The charter school must prove to local or state governments that its students are learning. These governments provide the school with the agreement, or charter that permits it to operate.

Unlike a traditional public school, however, the charter school does not have to obey most laws governing public schools. Local, state or federal governments cannot tell it what to teach.

Each school can choose its own goals and decide the ways it wants to reach those goals. Class sizes usually are smaller than in many traditional public schools. Many students and parents say teachers in charter schools can be more creative.

However, state education agencies, local education-governing committees and unions often oppose charter schools. They say these schools may receive money badly needed by traditional public schools. Experts say some charter schools are doing well while others are struggling.

Congress provided 200 million dollars for establishing charter schools in the 2002 federal budget. But, often the schools say they lack enough money for their programs. Many also lack needed space.

For example, many of the 36 charter schools in the District of Columbia hold classes in crowded

buildings. These schools have almost 11,000 students. District officials say they have provided 14 former school buildings for charter education. Yet, charter-school supporters say officials should try harder to find more space.

Dark forces dominate universe黑暗力量控制宇宙

The Earth, moon, sun and all visible stars in the sky make up less than one percent of the universe. Almost all the rest is dark matter and dark energy, unknown forces that puzzle astronomers.

Observations in recent years have changed the basic understanding of how the universe evolved and have emphasized for astronomers how little is known about the major forces and substances that shaped our world.

Astronomers now know that luminous matter-stars, planets and hot gas-accounts for only about 0.4 percent of the universe. Non-luminous components, such as black holes and intergalactic gas, make up 3.6 percent. The rest is either dark matter, about 23 percent, or dark energy, about 73 percent.

Dark matter, sometimes called “cold dark matter,” has been known for some time. Only recently have researchers come to understand the pivotal role it played in the formation of stars, planets and even people. “we owe our very existence to dark matter,” said physicist Paul Steinhardt and a co-author of a review on dark matter which appeared not long ago in the journal Science.

Steinhardt said it is believed that following the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning of the universe, dark matter caused particles to clump together. That set up the gravitation processes that led to the formation of stars and galaxies. Those stars, in turn, created the basic chemicals such as carbon and iron, that were fundamental to the evolution of life.

“dark matter dominated the formation of structure in the early universe,” Steinhardt said. “for the first few billion years dark matter contained most of the mass of the universe. You can think of ordinary matter as a froth of an ocean of dark matter. The dark matter clumps and the ordinary matter falls into it, that led to the formation of the stars and galaxies.”

Without dark matter, “there would be virtually no structures in the universe”

The nature of dark matter is unknown. It cannot be seen or detected directly. Astronomers know it is there because of its effect on celestial objects than can be seen and measured.

But the most dominating force of all in the universe is called dark energy, a recently proven power that astronomers say is causing the galaxies in the universe to separate at a faster and faster speed.

One scientist said it is clear now that dark matter and dark energy engaged in a gravitational tug of war that, eventually, dark energy won.

Earth‟s inner core地球的内核

Scientists have long struggled to understand what lies at the planet‟s center. Direct observation of its center is impossible, so researchers must turn to other evidence. In 1889, a German scientist discovered that a severe earthquake in Japan registered on his earthquake detector in Potsdam, geophysicists concluded that shock waves create jolts from one side of earth through the center to the other side, then in 1936, Danish geophysicist Inge Lehamann studied the waves‟ patterns to determine that within earth‟s core of molten iron lies a solid inner core-but what that core was made of eluded her. Other geophysicists quickly determined that Lehmann‟s inner core was composed mostly of iron crystals-smooth-faced solids made of atoms arranged in geometric patterns. Since then, Lehmann‟s discovery has dominated conventional earth science.

But now scientists are challenging traditional theory with new findings and radical ideas. For example, earth‟s center could actually contain an “inner core within the inner core,” claim Ishii and colleague Adam

Dziewonski.

Analyzing hundreds of thousands of earthquake wave records, they maintain that the inner core-an estimated 2,317km in diameter and a scalding 5,000F-has at its heart a tiny, even more solid sphere just 579km wide. This sphere “may be the oldest fossil left from the formation of earth,” says Dziewonski.

Dziewonski and Ishii speculate that shortly after earth formed around 4.8 billion years ago, a giant asteroid smashed into the young planet and nearly melted it. One flying chunk probably formed the moon! But earth‟s center didn‟t quite melt; it gained mass and layers as the planet cooled. The core within a core may be the kernal that endured. “its presence could change our basic ideas about the origin of the planet,” Dziewonski says. However: “the idea of a new region of earth should generate quite a bit of controversy.”

Dziewonski‟s idea is tame compared to the radical theories of independent geophysicist J. Marvin Herndon. Earth‟s inner core is made not of iron, he claims, but a compound of two elements, nickel and silicon called nickel silicide. Herndon‟s truly revolutionary notion: Within the nickel silicide inner core is also an “inner” inner core-an 8 km-wide ball of the element uranium. Uranium is radioactive-the nucleus of each atom spontaneously decays over time. Herndon thinks the uranium releases heat energy as its atoms experience fission-split and crash into one another in a chain reaction, in other words, we may live on top of a gigantic, “natural” nuclear power plant.

Less is more更少是更多

It sounds all wrong-frilling holes in a piece of wood to make it more resistant to knocks. but it works because the energy from the blow gets distributed throughout the wood rather than focusing on one weak spot. The discovery should lead to more effective and lighter packaging materials.

Carpenters have known for centuries that some woods are tougher than others. Hickory, for example, was turned into axe handles and cartwheel spokes because it can absorb shocks without breaking. White oak, for example, is much more easily damaged, although it is almost as dense. Julian Vincent at Bathe University and his team were convinced the wood‟s internal structure could explain the differences.

Many trees have tubular vessels that run up the trunk and carry water to the leaves. In oak they are large, and arranged in narrow bands, but in hickory they are smaller, and more evenly distributed. The researchers thought this layout might distribute a blow‟s energy throughout the wood, soaking up a bigger hit. To test the idea, they drilled holes 0.65 millimetres across into a block of spruce, a wood with no vessels, and found that it withstood a harder knock only when there were more than about 30 holes per square centimeter did the wood‟s performance drop off

A uniform substance doesn‟t cope well with knocks because only a small proportion of the material is actually affected. All the energy from the blow goes towards breaking the material in one or two places, but often the pieces left behind are pristine.

But instead of the energy being concentrated in one place, the holes provide many weak spots that all absorb energy as they break, says Vincent “you are controlling the places where the wood breaks, and it can then absorb more energy, more safely.”

The researchers believe the principle could be applied to any material-for example, to manufacture lighter and more protective packaging. It could also be used in car bumpers, crash barriers and armour for military vehicles, says Ulrike Wegst, at the Max Plank Institute for Mental Research in Stuttgart. But she emphasizes that you‟d need to do design the substance with the direction of force in mind. “the direction of loading is crucial,” she says.

Making the leap 纵身一跃

Jumps play a big role in many styles of dancing. Generally, what makes a jump impressive is its hang time, the amount of time a dancer spends in the air.

The quest for greater hang time is a battle against gravity, the constant downward pull of earth, said laws. To leave the ground at all, a dancer has to use leg muscles to create an upward push that is greater than earth‟s downward pull. But the final height of any jump depends on just one thing; the upward speed of the body just as the dancer leaves the ground.

Strengthening muscles so they can push harder is one obvious way to achieve higher jumps and increase hang time. But ballet dancers also use a simple trick to gain the illusion of staying in the air longer without actually doing so.

In a huge sideways jump called a grand jete, a skillful ballet dancer seems to float for an impossible length of time. Of course, a dancer can‟t really hang in the air. The laws of physics decree that during any jump, a dancer‟s center of gravity must follow a parabola. A parabola is the same curved path a ball takes when you throw it into the air. So how do dancers make it look like they‟re hanging in the air?

A dancer creates the illusion of floating in the air by lifting her legs and arms as she approaches the peak of the jump. The rest of her body-her torso and her head-respond by sinking a bit. If her timing is just right, she‟ll seem to float sideways, instead of rising and falling. The effect is not only beautiful; it also makes the jump seem bigger by “stretching out” the peak.

Of course, what goes up must come down. During a typical grand jete, a dancer‟s center of gravity rises 2 feet off the ground. Pulled by gravity from such a height, the dancer‟s body falls very fast-roughly 3.4 meters per second-by the time it reaches the floor.

As it falls, the body carries with it momentum. Momentum is the weight of the body multiplied by its speed. The bigger the body is and the faster it falls, the greater its momentum. The only way a dancer can stop dropping through the air is by stopping the body‟s momentum, which requires an opposing force from the ground. Landing can be very jarring to a dancer and can cause injuries. The dancer can ease the landing by bending her knees and letting her arms fall, but she also gets help from an unexpected source; the floor. Wooden dance floors are designed to act like shock absorbers. They are springy and can recoil as much as an inch under extreme pressure. That little bit of give makes a big difference . landing on a springy floor, the dancer undergoes a slower change in momentum than she would hitting a rigid floor. The give in the floor allows the decrease in momentum to happen more gradually-with less force and less chance of injury.

Migrant workers移民工人

In the past twenty years, there has been an increasing tendency for workers to move from one country to another. While some newly independent countries have understandably restricted most jobs to local people, others have attracted and welcomed migrant workers. This is particularly the case in the Middle East, where increased oil incomes have enabled many countries to call in outsiders to improve local facilities. Thus the Middle East has attracted oil-workers from the U.S.A. and Europe. It has brought in construction workers and technicians from many countries, including South Korea and Japan. In view of the difficult living and working conditions in the Middle East, it is not surprising that the pay is high to attract suitable workers. Many engineers and technicians can earn at least twice as much money in the Middle East as they can in their own country, and this is a major attraction. An allied benefit is the low taxation or complete lack of it. This increases the net amount of pay received by visiting workers and is very popular with them.

Sometimes a disadvantage has a compensating advantage. For example, the difficult living conditions

often lead to increased friendship when workers have to depend on each other for safety and comfort. In a similar way, many migrant workers can save large sums of money partly because of the lack of entertainment facilities. The work is often complex and full of problems but this merely presents greater challenge to engineers who prefer to find solutions to problems rather than do routine work in their home country. One major problem which affects migrant workers in the Middle East is that their jobs are temporary ones. They are nearly always on contract, so it is not easy for them to plan ahead with great confidence. This is to be expected since no country welcomes a large number of foreign workers as permanent residents. In any case, migrant workers accept this disadvantage, along with others, because of the considerable financial benefits which they receive.

One good reason to let smallpox live一个让天花存在的好理由

It‟s now a fair bet that wet that we will never see the total extinction of the smallpox virus. The idea was to cap the glorious achievement of 1980, when smallpox was eradicated in the wild, by destroying the killer virus in the last two labs that are supposed to have it-one in the US and one in Russia. If smallpox had truly gone from the planet, what point was there in keeping these reserves?

In reality, of course, it was naïve to imagine that everyone would let go of such a potent potential weapon. Undoubtedly several nations still have a few vials. And the last “official” stocks of live virus bred mistrust of the US and Russia, for no obvious gain.

Now American researchers have found an animal model of the human disease, opening the way for tests on new treatments and vaccines. so one again there‟s a good reason to keep the virus-just in case the disease puts in a reappearance.

How do we deal with the mistrust of the US and Russia? Simple. Keep the virus under international auspices in a well-guarded UN laboratory that‟s open to all countries. The US will object, of course, just as it rejects a multilateral approach to just about everything. But it doesn‟t mean the idea is wrong. If the virus is useful, then let‟s make it the servant of all humanity-not just a part of it.

Singing alarms could save the blind警报器救盲人

If you cannot see, you may not be able to find your way out of a burning building-and that could be fatal. A company in Leeds could change all that with directional sound alarms capable of guiding you to the exit. Sound alert, a company run by the university of Leeds, is installing the alarms in a residential home for blind people in Sommerset and a resource center for the blind in Cumbria. The alarms produce a wide range of frequencies that enable the brain to determine where the sound is coming from. Deborah Withington of sound alert says that the alarms use most of the frequencies that can be heard by humans. “it is a burst of white noise that people say sounds like static on the radio,” she says. “its life-saving potential is great.”

She conducted an experiment in which people were filmed by thermal-imaging cameras trying to find their way out of a large smoke-filled room. It took them nearly four minutes to find the door without a sound alarm, but only 15 seconds with one.

Withington studies how the brain processes sounds at the university. She says that the source of a wide band of frequencies can be pinpointed more easily than the source of a narrow band. Alarms based on the same concept have already been installed on emergency vehicles.

The alarms will also include rising or falling frequencies to indicate whether people should go up or down stairs. They were developed with the aid of a large grant from British nuclear fuels.

Squishy Cellphones Add a Buzz to Calls可按压手机给通话增添了震动

Vibrating rubber cellphones could be the next big thing in mobile communications. They allow people to communicate by squishing the phone to transmit vibrations along with their spoken words. According to a research team at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the idea will make phoning more fun.

Many mobile phones can already be made to vibrate instead of ring when you do not want people to know you are getting a call. But these vibrations, caused by a motor spinning an eccentric weight inside the device, are too crude for subtle communication, says Angela Chang of the lab‟s Tangible Media Group. “they‟re either on or off,” she says.

But when you grip Chang‟s prototype latex cellphone, your fingers and thumb wrap around five tiny speakers. They vibrate against your skin around 250 times per second. Beneath these speakers sit pressure sensors, so you can transmit vibration as well as receiving it. When you squeeze with a finger, a vibration signal is transmitted to your caller‟s corresponding finger. Its strength depends on how hard you squeeze.

She says that within a few minutes of being given / the phones, students were using the vibration feature to add emphasis to what they were saying or to interrupt the other speaker. Over time, people even began to transmit their own kind of ad hoc “Morse code”, which they would repeat back to show they were following what the other person was saying. “it was pretty easy to communicate, though we didn‟t specifically pre-arrange codes,” says David Milovich, one of the students who tried out the device.

Chang thinks “vibralanguages” could take off for the same reason as texting: sometimes people want to communicate something without everyone nearby knowing what they‟re saying. “and imagine actually being able to shake someone‟s hand when you close a business deal,” she says. The greatest mystery of whales鲸鱼最大的神妙之处

The whale is a mammal-warm-blooded, air-breathing, giving birth to its young alive, sucking them-and, like all mammals, originated on land. There are many signs of this . its front flippers, used for steering and stability, are traces of feet.

Immense strength is built into the great body of the big whales, and in fact most of a whale‟s body is one gigantic muscle. The blue whale‟s pulling strength has been estimated at 400horsepower. One specimen was reported to have towed a whaling vessel for seven hours at the rate of eight knots.

An enraged whale will attack a ship. A famous example of this was the fate of whaler Essex, which was sunk off the coast of South America early in the last century. More recently, steel ships have had their plates buckled in the same way. Sperm whales were known to seize the old-time whaleboats in their jaws and crush them.

The greatest mystery of whales is their diving ability. The sperm whale dive to the bottom for his favourite food, the octopus . in that search he is known to go as far down as 3,200 feet, where the pressure is 1,400 pounds, to the square inch. Doing so he will remain submerged as long as one hour. Two feats are involved in this: storing up enough oxygen (all whales are air-breathed) and withstanding the great change in pressure. Just how he does it scientists have not determined. It is believed that some of the oxygen is stored in a special system of blood vessels, rather than just held in the lungs. And it is believed that a special kind of oil in his body. But since you can‟t bring a live whale into the laboratory for study, no one knows just how these things work.

The furious storm狂怒的暴风雨

If you‟re in New Orleans when the “big one” hits, have a lifeboat handy. Some scientists warn that the right hurricane could strike the gulf coast in a way that would hurl millions of gallons of water to turn the city known as the big easy into the big soup bowl. A major flood could submerge much of central new Orleans beneath 20 feet of water, leaving many of the metropolitan area‟s 13 million residents clinging to rooftops- a

prospect that has forced engineers and city planners into looking for defensive strategies. “it‟s the luck of the draw,” says hurricane expert Hugh Willoughby. He thinks it‟s a matter of when-not if the big one will pound New Orleans during some annual hurricane season between June and November.

Not just any hurricane could engulf New Orleans, Willoughby explained, otherwise the city would have drowned long ago. New Orleans‟ s nightmare will be a “perfect” storm-one that strikes in just the right way.

Every year, an average of five or six hurricanes that form in the Atlantic ocean churn toward central and north America-often with Florida and the Caribbean islands dead in their paths. But changes in wind direction and earth‟s currents cause most hurricanes to sweep around and roll up the U.S. East coast, weakening as they move over colder seawater. About once a year, however, a hurricane stomps right over Florida, where warm water in the Gulf of Mexico can reenergize it as a monster storm, thrusting it furiously westward. Joseph Suhayda, a hurricane scientist, uses computer models to study potential hurricane hits. His surprising finding. A severe but not catastrophic category 3 storm would be enough to swamp new Orleans if it slowed down and hovered east of the city.

Engineers and city planners are racing to soften a hurricane‟s blow to New Orleans. In addition to hashing out evacuation plans, one strategy calls for slowing the loss of marshlands by building control bates. These would let the Mississippi overflow once again, spreading sediment-rich water to rebuild marshes. There would let the Mississippi overflow once again, spreading sediment-rich water to rebuild marshes. With early storm detection, most of New Orleans can be safely evacuated, Suhayda says. For those who can‟t get out, Suhayda offers his strategy: engineers would construct a 20-foot-high east/west wall along the north edge of the French quarter, which would seal off a downtown section. The existing Mississippi river levees would surround the “haven” on three sides and are high enough now for category 5 hurricane protection. The sealed off “bowl” could provide safety for several hundred thousand people.

No plan, however, would remove the hurricane threat immediately and public officials say costs for all schemes are prohibitive.

But even with a walled-off safe haven, it could take months to pump the rest of New Orleans dry. What‟s more, water damage and toxic chemical leaks from flooded industrial facilities in the area would probably make much of new Orleans impossible to live in, says Willoughby: “we may need a new New Orleans.”

Unpopular subjects?不受欢迎的课程

Is there a place in today‟s society for the study of useless subjects in our universities? Just over 100 years ago Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald contraction fame argued in a well-written letter to nature that “universities must be allowed to study useless subjects-if they don‟t, who will? ” he went on to use the example of Maxwell‟s electrodynamics as one case where a “useless subject” has been transformed to a useful subject.

Nowadays this argument is again very much active in many universities. Indeed one suspects that it is one of those arguments that must be fought anew by each generation. But now there is an added twist-subjects must not only be useful they must also be popular enough that students will flock to do them, and even flock to pay to do them.

As universities become commercial operations, to eliminate subjects or departments that are less popular will become stronger and stronger. Perhaps this is most acutely felt at the moment by physics. There has been much discussion in the press of universities that are closing down physics departments and incorporate them with mathematics or engineering departments.

Many scientists think otherwise. They see physics as a fundamental science, which must be kept alive if only to provide a base for other sciences and engineering. It is of their great personal concern that physics teaching and research is under threat in many universities. How can it be preserved in the rush towards

commercial competition? A major turnaround in student popularity may have to wait until the industrial world discovers that it needs physicists and starts paying them well.

Physics is now not only unpopular; it is also “hard”. We can do more about the latter by improving teaching in our schools and universities. We can also develop cooperative arrangements to ensure that physicists interact their research and teaching up to date. Water水

From the beginning, water has furnished man with a source of food and a highway to travel upon. The first civilizations arose where water was a dominant element in the environment, a challenge to man‟s ingenuity. The Egyptians invented the 365-day calendar in response to the Nile‟s annual folding. The Babylonians who were among the most famous law-makers in ancient times, invented laws regulating water usage. Water inspired the Chinese to build a 1,000-mile canal, a complex system which, after nearly 2,500 years, remains still practically in use and still commands the astonishment of engineers. But the ancients never found complete solutions to their water problems, the yellow river is also known as “china‟s sorrow”; it is so unpredictable and dangerous that in a single flood it may cause a million deaths. Floods slowed the great civilization of the Indus river valley, and inadequate drainage ruined much of its land. Today water dominates man as it always has done. Its presence continues to govern the location of his homes and cities; its violent variability can kill man or his herds or his crops; its routes links him to his fellows; its immense value may add to already dangerous political conflicts. There are many examples of this in our own time.

Wonder webs神妙的网

Spider webs are more than homes, and they are ingenious traps. And the world‟s best web spinner may be the golden orb weaver spider. The female orb weaver spins a web of fibers thin enough to be invisible to insect prey, yet tough enough to snare a flying bird without breaking.

The secret of the web‟s strength? A type of super-resilient silk called dragline. When the female spider is ready to weave the web‟s spokes and frame, she uses her legs to draw the airy thread out through a hollow nozzle in her belly. Dragline is not sticky, so the spider can race back and forth along it to spin the web‟s trademark spiral.

Unlike some spiders that weave a new web every day a golden orb weaver reuses her handiwork until it falls apart sometimes not for two years, the silky thread is five times stronger than steel by weight and absorbs the force of an impact three times better than Kevlar a high-strength human-made material used in bullet-proof vests. And thanks to its high tensile strength, or the ability to resist breaking under the pulling force called tension, a single strand can stretch up to 40 percent longer than its original length and snap back as well as new. No human-made fiber even comes close. It is no wonder manufacturers are clamoring for spider silk. In the consumer pipeline: high-performance fabrics for athletes and stockings that never run. Think parachute cords and suspension bridge cables. A steady supply of spider silk would be worth billions of dollars-but how to produce it? Harvesting silk on spider farms does not work because the territorial arthropods have a tendency to devour their neighbors.

Now, scientists at the biotechnology company Nexia are spinning artificial silk modeled after Goldern Orb dragline. The first step: extract silk-making genes from the spiders. Next , implant the genes into goat egg cells. The many goats that grow from the eggs secrete dragline silk proteins in their milk. “the young goats pass on the silk-making gene without any help from us,” says Nexia president Jeffrey turner. Nexia is still perfecting the spinning process, but they hope artificial spider silk will soon be snagging customers as fast as the real thing snags bugs.