单选题Researchers at Yale University Medical School and the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Conn., have taken a pretty good look at what happens in the brain of a drunken driver. And it isn"t pretty. Using【C1】______scans, the scientists compared the neural activity that【C2】______on and off like lights on a police car as both sober【C3】______game. The maps of activity in different areas of the brain【C4】______in new detail the impact that drinking has on a complicated【C5】______task such as driving. "No one had seen that in a scanner【C6】______." said Dr. Godfrey Pearlson, a Yale psychiatrist and director of the Olin Center. Pearlson and Vince Calhoun, a researcher at Yale and Olin, first conducted brain scans on【C7】______drivers as they played the driving simulation game and then as they watched others play the game. Those scans gave the researchers a baseline of【C8】______activity in the unimpaired driver. Subjects were then given a low dose or a high dose of booze—enough to get their blood alcohol content to either 0.04 percent or 0.10 percent. An inebriated driver often will speed because alcohol has affected the cerebellum, a primitive area of the brain involved in【C9】______function, the researchers found. But drunken drivers【C10】______in and out of traffic because of errors in the front parietal cortex, which translates sensory information and helps in the decision-making process, Pearlson said. Drinking did not seem to change activity in five other areas of the brain associated with driving, such as vision centers, the researchers found. But to the surprise of no one, the more the subjects drank, the more trouble they had with their driving.

单选题On September 7, 2001, a 68-year-old woman in Strasbourg, France, had her gall bladder (胆囊) removed by-surgeons operating, via computer form New York. It was the first complete telesurgery procedure performed by surgeons nearly 4, 000 miles away from their patient. In New York, Marescaux teamed up with surgeon Michel Gagner to perform the historic long-distance operation. A high-speed fiber-optic service provided by France Telecom made the connection between New York and Strasbourg. The two surgeons controlled the instruments using an advanced robotic surgical system, designed by Computer Motion Inc. that enabled the procedure to be minimally invasive. The patient was released from the hospital after about 48 hours and regained normal activity the following week. The high-speed fiber-optic connection between New York and France made it possible to overcome a key obstacle to telesurgery time delay. It was crucial that a continuous time delay of less than 200 milliseconds be maintained throughout the operation, between the surgeon's movements in New York and the return video (from Strasbourg) on his screen. The delay problem includes video coding decoding and signal transmission time. France Telecom's engineers achieved an average time delay of 150 milliseconds. "I felt as comfortable operating on my patient as if I had been in the room, " says Marescaux. The successful collaboration (合作) among medicine, advanced technology, and telecomm unications is likely to have enormous implications for patient care and doctor training. Highly skilled surgeons may soon regularly perform especially difficult operations through long-distance procedures. The computer systems used to control surgical movement can also lead to a breakthrough in teaching surgical techniques to a new generation of physicians. More surgeons-in-training will have the opportunity to observe their teachers in action in telesurgery operating rooms around the world. Marescaux describes the success of the remotely performed surgical procedure as the beginning of a "third revolution" in surgery within the last decade. The first was the arrival of minimally invasive surgery, enabling procedures to be performed with guidance by a camera, meaning that the abdomen (腹部) and thorax (胸腔) do not have to be opened. The second was the introduction of computer-assisted surgery, where complicated software algorithms (计算法) enhance the safety of the surgeon's movements during a procedure, making them more accurate, while introducing the concept of distance between the surgeon and the patient. It was thus natural to imagine that this distance-currently several meters in the operating room could potentially be up to several thousand kilometers.

单选题Modern biology is based on several unifying themes, such as the cell theory, genetics and inheritance, Francis Crick's central dogma of information flow, and Darwin and Wallace's theory of evolution by natural selection. In this first unit we will examine these themes and the nature of science. The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxiamander (611- 547 B. C. ) and the Roman philosopher Lucretius (99 – 55 B. C. ) coined the concept that all living things were related and that they had changed over time. The classical science of their time was observational rather than experimental. Another ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, developed his Scala Naturae, or Ladder of Life, to explain his concept of the advancement of living things from inanimate matter to plants, then animals and finally man. This concept of man as the "crown of creation" still plagues modern evolutionary biologists. Post-Aristotlean "scientists" were constrained by the prevailing thought patterns of the Middle Ages—the inerrancy of the biblical book of Genesis and the special creation of the world in a literal six days of the 24-hour variety. Archbishop James Ussher of Ireland, in the late 1600's calculated the age of the earth based on the geneologies from Adam and Eve listed in the biblical book of Genesis. According to Ussher's calculations, the earth was formed on October 22, 4004 B. C. These calculations were part of Ussher's book, History of the World. The chronology he developed was taken as factual, and was even printed in the front pages of Bibles. Ussher's ideas were readily accepted, in part because they posed no threat to the social order of the times; comfortable ideas that would not upset the linked apple carts of church and state. Often new ideas must "come out of left field", appearing as wild notions, but in many cases prompting investigation which may later reveal the "truth". Ussher's ideas were comfortable, the Bible was viewed as correct, therefore the earth must be only 5, 000 years old. Geologists had for some time doubted the "truth" of a 5, 000 year old earth. Leonardo da Vinci (painter of the Last Supper, and the Mona Lisa, architect and engineer) calculated the sedimentation rates in the Po River of Italy. Da Vinci concluded it took 200, 000 years to form some nearby rock deposits. Galileo, convicted heretic for his contention that the Earth was not the center of the Universe, studied fossils (evidence of past life) and concluded that they were real and not inanimate artifacts. James Hutton, regarded as the father of modern geology, developed the Theory of Uniformitarianism, the basis of modern geology and paleontology. According to Hutton's work, certain geological processes operated in the past in much the same fashion as they do today, with minor exceptions of rates, etc. Thus many geological structures and processes cannot be explained if the earth was only a mere 5, 000 years old.

单选题I remember meeting him one evening with his pushcart. I had managed to sell all my papers and was coming home in the snow. It was that strange hour in downtown New York when the workers were pouring homeward in the twilight. I marched among thousands of tired men and women whom the factory whistles had unyoked. They flowed in rivers through the clothing factory districts, then down along the avenues to the East Side. I met my father near Cooper Union. I recognized him, a hunched, frozen figure in an old overcoat standing by a banana cart. He looked so lonely; the tears came to my eyes. Then he saw me, and his face lit with his sad, beautiful smile — Charlie Chaplin"s smile. "Arch, it"s Mikey," he said. "So you have sold your papers! Come and eat a banana." He offered me one. I refused it. I felt it crucial that my father sell his bananas, not give them away. He thought I was shy, and coaxed and joked with me, and made me eat the banana. It smelled of wet straw and snow. "You haven"t sold many bananas today, pop," I said anxiously. He shrugged his shoulders. "What can I do? No one seems to want them." It was true. The work crowds pushed home morosely over the pavements. The rusty sky darkened over New York building, the tall street lamps were lit, innumerable trucks, street cars and elevated trains clattered by. Nobody and nothing in the great city stopped for my father"s bananas. "I ought to yell," said my father dolefully. "I ought to make a big noise like other peddlers, but it makes my throat sore. Anyway, I"m ashamed of yelling, it makes me feel like a fool." I had eaten one of his bananas. My sick conscience told me that I ought to pay for it somehow. I must remain here and help my father. "I"ll yell for you, pop," I volunteered. "Arch, no," he said, "go home; you have worked enough today. Just tell momma I"ll be late." But I yelled and yelled. My father, standing by, spoke occasional words of praise, and said I was a wonderful yeller. Nobody else paid attention. The workers drifted past us wearily, endlessly; a defeated army wrapped in dreams of home. Elevated trains crashed; the Cooper Union clock burned above us; the sky grew black, the wind poured, the slush burned through our shoes. There were thousands of strange, silent figures pouring over the sidewalks in snow. None ot them stopped to buy bananas. I yelled and yelled, nobody listened. My father tried to stop me at last. "Nu," he said smiling to console me, "that was wonderful yelling. Mikey. But it"s plain we are unlucky today! Let"s go home." I was frantic, and almost in tears. I insisted on keeping up my desperate yells. But at last my father persuaded me to leave with him.

单选题Where one stage of child development has been left out, or not sufficiently experienced, the child may have to go back and capture the experience of it. A good home makes this possible, for example by providing the opportunity for the child to play with a clockwork car or toy railway train up to any age if he still needs to do so. This principle, in fact, underlies all psychological treatment of children in difficulties with their development, and is the basis of work in child clinics. The beginnings of discipline are in the nursery. Even the youngest baby is taught by gradual stages to wait for food, to sleep and wake at regular intervals and so on. If the child feels the world around him is a warm and friendly one, he slowly accepts its rhythm and accustoms himself to conforming to its demands. Learning to wait for things, particularly for food, is a very important element in upbringing, and is achieved successfully only if too great demands are not made before the child can understand them. Every parent watches eagerly the child's acquisition of each new skill—the first spoken words, the first independent steps, or the beginning of reading and writing. It is often tempting to hurry the child beyond his natural learning rate, but this can set up dangerous feeling of failure and states of anxiety in the child. This might happen at any stage. A baby might be forced to use a toilet too early, a young child might be encouraged to learn to read before he knows the meaning of the words he reads. On the other hand, though, if a child is left alone too much, or without any learning opportunities, he loses his natural zest for life and his desire to find out new things for himself. Learning together is a fruit source of relationship between children and parents. By playing together, parents learn more about their children and children learn more from their parents. Toys and games which both parents and children can share are an important means of achieving this co-operation. Building-block toys, jigsaw puzzles and crossword are good examples. Parents vary greatly in their degree of strictness or indulgence towards their children. Some may be especially strict in money matters, others are severe over times of coming home at night, punctuality for meals or personal cleanliness. In general, the controls imposed represent the needs of the parents and the values of the community as much as the child's own happiness and well-being.

单选题Researchers have recently found a connection between disease and stressful situations. To test this theory, psychologists are trying to find a link between the brain and the immune system. The immune system in our bodies fights the bacteria and viruses which cause disease. Therefore , whether or not we are likely to get various diseases depends on how well our immune system works. Biologists used to think that the immune system was a separate, independent part of our bodies. Recently, however, they have found that our brain can affect our immune system. This discovery indicates that there may be a connection between emotional factors, such as stress or depression, and illness. Although many doctors in the past suspected a connection between emotional factor and disease, they had no proof. Scientists have only recently discovered how the brain and the immune system function. Before this, no one could see a link between them. As a result, medical science never seriously considered the idea that psychological factors could cause disease. Several recent studies showed a connection between stress and illness, for example, researchers went to an American military school to study the students. They found that the sick students there had a lot of academic pressure and wanted to achieve, but they were not very good students. In a similar study, researchers studied a group of student nurses and found that the nurses who developed cold sores were the ones who described themselves as generally unhappy people. In addition to these results, which support their theory, researchers are also looking for proof that stress can damage the immune system. Researchers studied recently bereaved people, i. e. , people whose loved ones have just died, because they are more likely to become ill or die. By examining the immune system of recently bereaved people, the researchers made an important discovery. They examined some white blood cells which are an important part of the immune system. They were not functioning properly. The fact that they were not working correctly indicates that severe psychological stress, such as a loved one" s death, may damage an important part of our immune system. There is still no positive proof of a connection between the immune system and psychological factors. Researchers also say that the results of the studies on bereaved people could have a different explanation. For example, bereaved people often sleep and eat less than normal, or may drink alcohol or take medication. These factors can also affect the immune system. More research is needed to clearly establish the connection between the immune system and psychological factors.

单选题Here is a shaming statistic: divide the US by race, sex and county of residence, and differences in average life expectancy across the various groups can exceed 30 years. The most disadvantaged look like denizens of a poor African country: a boy born on a Native American reservation in Jackson County, South Dakota, for example, will be lucky to reach his 60th birthday. A typical child in Senegal can expect to live longer than that. America is not alone in this respect. While the picture is extreme in other rich nations, health inequalities based on race, sex and class exist in most societies—and are only partly explained by access to healthcare. But fresh insights and solutions may soon be at hand. An innovative project in Chicago to unite sociology and biology is blazing the trail (开创), after discovering that social isolation and fear of crime can help to explain the alarmingly high death rate from breast cancer among the city's black women. Living in these conditions seems to make tumors more aggressive by changing gene activity, so that cancer cells can use nutrients more effectively. We are already familiar with the lethal effect of stress on people clinging to the bottom rungs of the societal ladder, thanks to pioneering studies of British civil servants conducted by Michael Marmot of University College London. What's exciting about the Chicago project is that it both probes the mechanisms involved in a specific disease and suggests precise remedies. There are drugs that may stave tumors of nutrients and community coordinators could be employed to help reduce social isolation. Encouraged by the US National Institutes of Health, similar projects are springing up to study other pockets of poor health in populations ranging from urban black men to white poor women in rural Appalachia. To realize the full potential of such projects, biologists and sociologists will have to start treating one other with a new respect and learn how to collaborate outside their comfort zones. Too many biomedical researchers still take the arrogant view that sociology is a "soft science" with little that's serious to say about health. And too many sociologists reject any biological angle—fearing that their expertise will be swept aside and that this approach will be used to bolster discredited theories of eugenics, or crude race-based medicine. It's time to drop these outdated attitudes and work together for the good of society's most deprived members. More important, it's time to use this fusion of biology and sociology to inform public policy. This endeavor has huge implications, not least in cutting the wide health gaps between blacks and whites, rich and poor.

单选题Just because you" re better educated doesn" t mean that you" re any more rational than everyone else, no matter how hard you may try to give that impression. Take the selection of lottery numbers. A survey in Florida described at this year" s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science shows that better educated people try to use random number systems to pick their lottery numbers. Despite the apparent logic of choosing random numbers, however, their chances of winning are no better than those of ordinary folk who use birthdays, anniversaries and other "lucky" dates. Nor are they better off than those who draw on omens and intuitions, picking numbers seen on car number-plates and in dreams. But no doubt they feel a lot more rational. That appearance of "rationality" may be a dangerous thing. Scientists are not immune to subtle and subjective influences on their judgements. Take the data from a survey of the public and member of the British Society of Toxicology discussed at the same meeting. The survey showed that most people agree with the view that animals can be used to help predict how human will react to chemicals, and that if a chemical causes cancer in an animal, we can be "reasonably sure" it will cause cancer in humans. The toxicologists, however, are more circumspect. They accept the fast statement but less likely to agree that if a chemical causes cancer in an animal, it will do so in a human. Can this difference be attributed to their expertise? Perhaps. But consider the considerable variation among toxicologists: those who were young, female, working in academia rather than industry or who felt that technology is not always used for the good of all, were more likely to agree that what causes cancer in an animal will cause cancer in a human. Maybe we need to think more about how who we are affects our "rational" decisions.

单选题Richard Satava, program manager for advanced medical technologies, has been a driving force in bringing virtual reality to medicine, where computers create a "virtual" or simulated environment for surgeons and other medical practitioners. "With virtual reality we'll be able to put a surgeon in every trench," said Satava. He envisaged a time when soldiers who are wounded fighting overseas are put in mobile surgical units equipped with computers. The computers would transmit images of the soldiers to surgeons back in the U. S.. The surgeons would look at the soldiers through virtual reality helmets that contain a small screen displaying the image of the wound. The doctors would guide robotic instruments in the battlefield mobile surgical unit that operate on the soldier. Although Satava's vision may be years away from standard operating procedure, scientists are progressing toward virtual reality surgery. Engineers at an international organization in California are developing a tele-operating device. As surgeons watch a three-dimensional image of the surgery, they move instruments that are connected to a computer, which passes their movements to the robotic instruments that perform the surgery. The computer provides feedback to the surgeon on force, textures, and sound. These technological wonders may not yet be part of the community hospital setting but increasingly some of the machinery is finding its way into civilian medicine. At Wayne State University Medical School, surgeon Lucia Zamorano takes images of the brain from computerized scans and uses a computer program to produce a 3D image. She can then maneuver the 3D image on the computer screen to map the shortest, least invasive surgical path to the tumor. Zamorano is also using technology that attaches a probe to surgical instruments so that she can track their positions. While cutting away a tumor deep in the brain, she watches the movement of her surgical tools in a computer graphics image of the patient's brain taken before surgery. During these procedures—operations that are done through small cuts in the body in which a miniature camera and surgical tools are maneuvered—surgeons are wearing 3D glasses for a better view. And they are commanding robot surgeons to cut away tissues more accurately than human surgeons can. Satava says, "We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the field of medicine."

单选题Every day, over a million people log onto different Internet-based games. There is truly something for everyone in the gaming world. Gaines provide a quick escape from【C1】______.Game developers are the new breed of storytellers, creating alternative【C2】______Games represent the ultimate interactive movie, allowing the user to control the direction of the plot. And now the newest technologies allow you to play games no matter where you are. At home, we have PC or video game consoles.【C3】______, a desktop or laptop computer can be loaded with OS-bundled games or Web-based freebies. Even while traveling, there are many wireless computers, portable devices, wireless phones and PDAs【C4】______ Games are now pushing back all the【C5】______once placed upon them by technology, category, realism, location and time. These advances are helping to push games into the【C6】______of virtual reality. Thus, the stuff of science fiction novels is gradually emerging, the graphic aspects of the game quickly【C7】______Initially, electronic games involved【C8】______moving blocks, across a TV or computer screen.【C9】______the vast increases in processing power, games are quickly approaching three-dimensional realism. This power allows a developer to create a【C10】______world where a gamer can look around in full 360-degree vision.

单选题The brain is organized into different regions, each responsible for different functions and in humans this organization is very marked. The largest parts of the brain are the cerebral hemispheres, which occupy most of the interior of the skull. They are layered structures, the most complex being the outer layer, known as the cerebral cortex, where the nerve cells are extremely densely packed to allow great intercon-nectivity. Its function is not fully understood, but we can get some indication of its purpose from studies of animals that have had it removed. A dog, for example, can still move in a coordinated manner, will eat and sleep, and even bark if it is disturbed. However, it also becomes blind and loses its sense smell— more significantly, perhaps, it loses all interest in its environment, not responding to people or to its name, nor to other dogs, even of the opposite sex. It also loses all ability to learn. In effect, it loses the characteristics that we generally refer to as indicating intelligence—awareness, interest and interaction with an environment, and an ability to adapt and learn. Thus the cerebral cortex seems to be the seat of the higher order functions of the brain, and the core of intelligence. The cerebral cortex has been the subject of investigation by researchers for many years, and is slowly revealing its secrets. It demonstrates a localization of functions, in that different areas of the cortex fulfill different functions, such as motion control, hearing, and vision. The visual part of the cortex is especially interesting. In the visual cortex, electrical stimulation of the cells can produce the sensation of light, and detailed analysis has shown that specific layers of neurons are sensitive to particular orientations of input stimuli, so that one layer responds maximally to horizontal lines, while another responds to vertical ones. Although much of this structure is genetically pre-determined, the orientation-specific layout of the cells appears to be learnt at an early stage. Animals brought up in an environment of purely horizontal lines do not develop neuron structures that respond to vertical orientations, showing that these structures are developed due to environmental input and not purely from genetic pre-determination. This is called self-organization of the visual cortex since there is no external teacher to guide the development of these structures.

单选题The human nose is an underrated tool. Humans are often thought to be insensitive smellers compared with animals, but this is largely because,【C1】______animals, we stand upright. This means that our noses are【C2】______to perceiving those smells which float through the air, missing the majority of smells which stick to surfaces. In fact, though, we are extremely sensitive to smells, even if we do not generally realize it. Our noses are capable of【C3】______human smells even when these are【C4】______to far below one part in one million. Strangely, some people find that they can smell one type of flower but not another, whereas others are sensitive to the smells of both flowers. This may be because some people do not have the genes necessary to generate【C5】______smell receptors in the nose. These receptors are the cells which sense smells and send【C6】______to the brain. However, it has been found that even people insensitive to a certain smell at first can suddenly become sensitive to it when【C7】______to it often enough. The explanation for insensitivity to smell seems to be that brain finds it inefficient to keep all smell receptors working all the time but can【C8】______new receptors if necessary. This may also explain why we are not usually sensitive to our own smells we simply do not need to be. We are not【C9】______of the usual smell of our own house but we notice new smells when we visit someone else's. The brain finds it best to keep smell receptors【C10】______for unfamiliar and emergency signals such as the smell of smoke, which might indicate the danger of fire.

单选题Biotechnology is expected to bring important advances in medical diagnosis and therapy, in solving food problems, in energy saving, in environmentally compatible industrial and agricultural production, and in specially targeted environmental protection projects. Genetically altered microorganisms can break down a wide range of pollutants by being used, for example, in bio-filters and wastewater-treatment facilities, and in the clean-up of polluted sites. Genetically modified organisms can also alleviate environmental burdens by reducing the need for pesticides, fertilizers, and medications. Sustainability, as a strategic aim, involves optimizing the interactions between nature, society, and the economy, in accordance with ecological criteria. Political leaders and scientists alike face the challenge of recognizing interrelationships and interactions between ecological, economic and social factors and taking account of these factors when seeking solution strategies. To meet this challenge , decision-makers require interdisciplinary approaches and strategies that cut across political lines. Environmental discussions must become more objective, and this includes, especially, debates about the risks of new technologies, which are often ideologically charged. In light of the complex issues involved in sustainable development, we need clearer standards for orienting and assessing our environmental policies. Sustainable development can succeed only if all areas of the political sector, of society, and of science accept the concept and work together to implement it. A common basic understanding of environmental ethics is needed to ensure that protection of the natural foundation of life becomes a major consideration in all political and individual action. A dialogue among representatives of all sectors of society is needed if appropriate environmental policies are to be devised and implemented.

单选题What we don"t know about kids and television could fill a weeklong miniseries. Given worries about everything from childhood obesity to scholastic shortcomings, it"s high time to find out. But before Congress approves $20 million a year to research children and the media, it should get more specific assurances that the money will pay for comprehensive, high-quality studies instead of bits of teasing information. Up to now, a patchwork of research on kids and TV has yielded plenty of suspicion but little real knowledge. Yes, a study two years ago found that teenagers who watched a lot of TV tended to be more aggressive. But what does that mean? Maybe more-aggressive kids are drawn more to TV. Ditto for the April study about preschoolers who watch hours of TV tending to have attention-span problems later on. It"s possible that children with a propensity toward attention problems are drawn more to that jumpy on-screen world in the first place. For better or worse, U.S. kids spend a lot of time in front of a TV or computer screen, two hours daily for those 5 and younger. If the schools spent two hours a day on a single activity, there would be intense concern about its value. So there is worth in legislation by Sen. Joe Lieberman to provide $100 million over five years for research on child development and electronic media. A scientific panel would set up a list of the key issues to be studied and review grant applications from universities or nonprofit institutes. This centralized approach makes sense—especially considering the money involved. Good studies are costly, and there haven"t been enough of them on this subject. Merely showing a link between TV viewing and a certain behavior doesn"t prove anything. In addition to the possibility the behavior is causing the TV watching instead of the other way around, a third factor could be causing both. Only carefully controlled studies obtain worthwhile results. At their best, such studies might tell us whether educational computer games for toddlers interrupt the natural development of the brain instead of aiding it, or whether seeing Ronald McDonald cavort on a soccer field makes a child more active or just more likely to crave French fries. Parents could decide limits based on more than instinct. But before spending the money, Congress should insist on a quality of research that will give the public answers about TV instead of more arguments. This shouldn"t be a handout to think tanks for more mushy research on a complicated but vital issue.

单选题During the past 30 years or so, health care has increasingly become a form of business. In addition , the environment surrounding health care has been greatly altered by the advent of more sophisticated medical technologies and increased specialization. It is no longer true to say that doctors regard their profession as a sacred calling, and while the doctor-patient relationship still remains, it is not the relationship based solely on trust which it used to be. Of course there are many doctors who have endeavored to increase the transparency of their behavior as medical professionals, and patients can receive effective treatment when such doctors work closely together and share notes. An example of such cooperation can be found in the field of remote health care, which has been introduced on an experimental basis in several regions. Since most medical specialists live in cities, patients who live in the country have to travel a long distance to consult a specialist. This is especially hard on the elderly, both financially and physically. Through a computer network, patients who live in the country can consult a medical specialist in the city, tell him their symptoms, and receive advice without the need for a journey to the specialist' s office. Also, with several doctors being assigned to a single patient, the transparency of each doctor' s behavior is further ensured. On the other hand, however, it is also true that remote health consultation is not generally regarded as a form of medical treatment. For any sort of consultation to be regarded as medical treatment, most people feel that the patient must actually visit the doctor, and undergo an examination by the doctor in person. Remote health care is essentially a means for doctors to work as a team. In order for this to be practicable, it is important to establish a system whereby financial support can be extended to a doctor who, as a member of a medical team, provides only information. Establishment of such a system will further advance the cause of " free access to information" in the health care field.

单选题If you are caught in a downpour, it is better to run for shelter than walk, researchers in the US advise. This may sound obvious, but an earlier study in Britain suggested that you would get just as wet running as walking. In 1995, Stephen Belcher of the University of Reading and his students calculated how much water falls on top of your head and how much you sweep up on your front as you move forward. Obviously, you would get wettest standing still, and less wet the faster you moved. But the Reading team found that the benefits of running faster than about 3 metres per second—which they described as a walking pace—were tiny. Thomas Peterson and Trevor Wallis, meteorologists at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, had a hunch that this was wrong. They realized that the Reading team had overestimated the average walking pace, so they reworked the calculations for a walking pace of 1.5 metres per second and a running speed of 4 meters per second. Peterson and Wallis conclude in the latest issue of Weather that a walker would get 16 per cent wetter than a runner over a distance of 100 meters in drizzle. In heavy rain, this would rise to 23 per cent. When the researchers allowed for the way that runners tend to lean forward, sheltering the front of their bodies but increasing the rainfall on their backs, they found that a walker would get 36 per cent wetter than a runner in heavy rain. Not content with theory alone, Peterson and Wallis decided to test their ideas. " If verification requires an $ 80 million satellite, one may have to forgo verification, " says Peterson. "But if it involves a simple experiment, that" s another matter. " Peterson and Wallis are roughly the same size. Wearing identical clothing, one ran 100 meters in heavy rain and the other walked. They weighed their clothes before and after the experiment. This showed that the walker bad absorbed 0.22 kilograms of water, while the runner had soaked up only 0. 13 kilograms. This is about 40 per cent less, is line with the model" s predictions. Belcher says that his team" s work was a bit of fun, and that apart from the confusion over what a typical walking speed is, their results were similar to those of Peterson and Wallis. "I"m delighted to see that their experiments gave results in qualitative agreement with the model," says Belcher. But why not just take an umbrella? For anyone thinking of taking the easy way out, Wallis has a warning: "Running with an umbrella has a negative impact on your aerodynamics. "

单选题The economic recession of the 1980s and its impact on the quality of life in Third World countries highlighted how important health is for development and how essential it is for concern about public health to feature at the very heart of development policies. The fact is that it is no longer possible to meet the soaring costs of health and the emergence of new risks — such as AIDS — unless health is built in among the priority economic objectives. Health and development are indissolubly linked, and the era when health tended to rate very low in the list of economic targets is past and gone. But a lot remains to be done: the health care services can no longer be left on their own to face up to those new situations, which must be taken into consideration whenever each country constantly reviews its economic objectives. It was long thought that technical progress would provide the solution to all health problems. That this is not the case is proved by the impact that environmental degradation has had on human health, by the pandemic of AIDS, by the way the much greater mobility of people has encouraged the rapid transmission of diseases, and by the health consequences of modern life-styles. Today we have to find radically new approaches if we are to avoid the present world situation turning into an uncontrollable health. It is essential for national policy-makers in the field of social welfare to give every citizen much greater decision-making power, especially by ensuring that vulnerable communities have direct access to decisions which concern them. Individuals and communities must be given the opportunity to assume far greater responsibility for their own health and quality of life, by creating a climate that is favourable to well-being and by offering the necessary incentives and support. Independent bodies such as nongovernmental organizations also have an important role to play in making widely available the information and awareness that people must have if they are to make the right choices and take the right social decisions. This is one of the greatest challenges as we approach the end of the twentieth century. If we show ourselves ready to meet that challenge, the citizens of the third millennium will have the knowledge and the means empowering them to build a society where health — a human right for every man and woman — will be within the reach of all.

单选题The idea of test-tube babies may make you either delighted at the wonders of modern medicine or irritated while considering the moral, or legal, or technological implications of starting life in a laboratory. But if you've ever been pregnant yourself, one thing is certain: You wonder what it's like to carry a test-tube baby. Are these pregnancies normal? Are the babies normal? The earliest answers come from Australia, where a group of medical experts at the Queen Victoria Medical Center in Melbourne have taken a look at the continent's first nine successful in vitro pregnancies. The Australians report that the pregnancies themselves seemed to proceed according to plan, but at birth some unusual trends did show up. Seven of the nine babies turned out to be girls. Six of the nine were delivered by Caesarean section. Undone baby, a twin, was born with a serious heart defect and a few days later developed life-threatening problems. What does it all mean? Even the doctors don't know for sure, because the numbers are so small. The proportion of girls to boys is high, but until there are many more test-tube babies none will know whether that's something that just happened to be like that or something special that happens when egg meets sperm in a test tube instead of a Fallopian tube. The same thing is true of the single heart defect; it usually shows up in only 15 out of 60, 000 births in that part of Australia, but the fact that it occurred in one out of nine test-tube babies does not necessarily mean that they are at special risk. One thing the doctors can explain is the high number of Caesareans. Most of the mothers were older, had long histories of fertility problems and in some cases had had surgery on the fallopian tubes, all of which made them likely candidates for Caesareans anyway. The Australian researchers report that they are quite encouraged. All the babies are now making normal progress even the twin with the birth defects.

单选题Despite Denmark's manifest virtues, Danes never talk about how proud they are to be Danes. This would sound weird in Danish. When Danes talk to foreigners about Denmark, they always begin by commenting on its tininess, its unimportance, the difficulty of its language, the general small-mindedness and self-indulgence of their countrymen and the high taxes. No Dane would look you in the eye and say, "Denmark is a great country. " You're supposed to figure this out for yourself. It is the land of the silk safety net, where almost half the national budget goes toward smoothing out life's inequalities, and there is plenty of money for schools, day care, retraining programmers, job seminars—Danes love seminars: three days at a study centre hearing about waste management is almost as good as a ski trip. It is a culture bombarded by English, in advertising, pop music, the Internet, and despite all the English that Danish absorbs — there is no Danish Academy to defend against it — old dialects persist in Jutland that can barely be understood by Copenhageners. It is land where, as the saying goes, "Few have too much and fewer have too little, "and a foreigner is struck by the sweet egalitarianism that prevails, where the lowliest clerk gives you a level gaze, where Sir and Madame have disappeared from common usage, even Mr. and Mrs. It's a nation of recyclers—about 55% of Danish garbage gets made into something new—and no nuclear power plants. It's a nation of tireless planners. Trains run on time. Things operate well in general. Nonetheless, it is an orderly land. You drive through a Danish town, it comes to an end at a stone wall, and on the other side is a field of barley, a nice clean line, town here, country there. It is not a nation of jay-walkers. People stand on the curb and wait for the red light to change, even if it's 2 a. m. and there's not a car in sight. However, Danes don't think of themselves as a waiting-at-2. a. m. -for-the-green-light people—that's how they see Swedes and Germans. Danes see themselves as jazzy people, improvisers, more free spirited than Swedes, but the truth is (though one should not say it) that Danes are very much like Germans and Swedes. Orderliness is a main selling point. Denmark has few natural resources, limited manufacturing capability; its future in Europe will be as a broker, banker, and distributor of goods. You send your goods by container ship to Copenhagen, and these bright, young, English-speaking, utterly honest, highly disciplined people will get your goods around to Scandinavia, the Baltic Stares, and Russia. Airports, seaports, highways, and rail lines are ultramodern and well-maintained. The orderliness of the society doesn't mean that Danish lives are less messy or lonely than yours or mine, and no Dane would tell you so. You can hear plenty about bitter family feuds and the sorrows of alcoholism and about perfectly sensible people who went off one day and killed themselves. An orderly society cannot exempt its members from the hazards of life. But there is a sense of entitlement and security that Danes grow up with. Certain things are yours by virtue of citizenship, and you shouldn't feel bad for taking what you're entitled to, you're as good as anyone else. The rules of the welfare system are clear to everyone, the benefits you get if you lose your job, the steps you take to get a new one; and the orderliness of the system makes it possible for the country to weather high unemployment and social unrest without a sense of crisis.

单选题During the past 30 years or so, health care has increasingly become a form of business. In addition, the environment surrounding health care has been greatly altered by the advent of more sophisticated medical technologies and increased specialization. It is no longer true to say that doctors regard their profession as a sacred calling, and while the doctor-patient relationship still remains, it is not the relationship based solely on trust which it used to be. Of course there are many doctors who have endeavored to increase the transparency of their behavior as medical professionals, and patients can receive effective treatment when such doctors work closely together and share notes. An example of such cooperation can be found in the field of remote health care, which has been introduced on an experimental basis in several regions. Since most medical specialists live in cities, patients who live in the country have to travel a long distance to consult a specialist. This is especially hard on the elderly, both financially and physically. Through a computer network, patients who live in the country can consult a medical specialist in the city, tell him their symptoms, and receive advice without the need for a journey to the specialist's office. Also, with several doctors being assigned to a single patient, the transparency of each doctor's behavior is further ensured. On the other hand, however, it is also true that remote health consultation is not generally regarded as a form of medical treatment. For any sort of consultation to be regarded as medical treatment, most people feel that the patient must actually visit the doctor, and undergo an examination by the doctor in person. Remote health care is essentially a means for doctors to work as a team. In order for this to be practicable, it is important to establish a system whereby financial support can be extended to a doctor who as a member of a medical team provides only information. Establishment of such a system will further advance the cause of "free access to information" in the health care field.