阅读理解Changes in regional climate brought about by large-scale deforestation in the eastern lowlands of Central America are affecting weather downwind in the mountains, imperiling ecosystems there.
The so-called cloud forests of Monteverde lie along the crest of Costa Rica''s Cordillera de Tilaran mountains. These habitats rely on the almost perpetual fog that forms as moisture-laden Caribbean winds rise up the eastern slopes of the mountains and pass through altitudes at which clouds condense, says Robert O. Lawton, an ecologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The humidity in those breezes is enhanced by moisture expelled from the leaves of lowland forests.
By the early 1990s, more than a century of deforestation had left only 18% of the Costa Rican lowland forests east of the peaks untouched. The pastures that replaced forests don''t humidify the winds as well as forests do and are better at warming the atmosphere. As a result, the winds off these pastures must rise further up the Cordillera de Tilaran slopes before clouds condense.
Satellite photos of the lowlands in the dry season show that clouds are absent or sparse over deforested areas but are thicker over the forests of neighboring Nicaragua. Computer simulations of day-time cloud formation in the area support these observations, Lawton notes, and they also suggest that the altitude of the cloud base would rise about 200m above today''s height if the lowlands were completely deforested. Lawton and his colleagues report their result in Science magazine.
The gradual shifting of bird ranges upslope and a recent population crash among frogs and toads in the Monteverde cloud forest suggest that the veil of clouds may be lifting. Scientists had already blamed the rise of the cloud base for the longer periods of mistfree conditions observed at the downwind edge of the forest. Lawton warns that in the future, the clouds may disappear from the Monteverde slopes for days at a time during the dry season — a development that could lead to collapse of the ecosystems there.
阅读理解In the last ten years, the Internet has opened up incredible amounts of information to ordinary citizens. But using the Internet can be like walking into a library where the books are all lying on the floor in piles. While tools like Google allow some structured search, much of the data from such searches is outdated or of questionable value. Some web enthusiasts have taken up the task of organizing information through a democratic means that only the Internet allows: an encyclopedia of the people, by the people, and completely free to copy and distribute.
This people''s encyclopedia'' of the Web ( a free site called Wikipedia) has provided a unique solution by inviting individuals to participate in the process of rationalizing and updating web content. At the heart of this movement are wikis, web sites that allow users to directly edit any web page with one click of the mouse.
Wikipedia (the largest example of these collaborative efforts) is a functioning, user-contributed online encyclopedia that has become a popular and highly regarded reference in just three years of existence. The goal of Wikipedia was to create an encyclopedia that could be shared and copied freely while encouraging people to change and improve the content. Each and every article has an " Edit this page" button, allowing anyone, even anonymous passersby, to add or delete any content on the page. It seems like a recipe for disaster and chaos, but it has produced surprisingly credible content that has been evaluated and revised by the thousands of international visitors to the site.
The Wikipedia project was started by Jimmy Wales, head of Internet startup bomis. com, after his original project for a volunteer, but strictly controlled, free encyclopedia ran out of money and resources after two years. Editors with PhD degrees were at the helm of the project then, but it produced only a few hundred articles. Not wanting the content to languish, Wales placed the pages on a wiki website in January 2001 and invited any Internet visitors to edit or add to the collection.
The site became a runaway success in the first year and gained a loyal following, generating over 20,000 articles and spawning over a dozen language translations. After two years, it had 100, 000 articles. Over 2,000 new articles are added each day across all the various languages. And according to website rankings at alexa. com, it has become more popular than traditional online encyclopedias such as britannica. com and is one of the top 200 most heavily visited websites on the internet.
阅读理解Proper arrangement of classroom space is important to encouraging interaction. Most of us have noticed how important physical setting is to efficiency and comfort when we work. Today''s corporations hire human engineering specialists and spend a great deal of time and money to make sure that the physical environments of buildings are fit to the activities of their inhabitants.
Similarly, college classroom space should be designed to encourage the activity of critical thinking. We will move into the twenty-first century, but step into almost any college classroom and you will step back in time at least a hundred years. Desks are normally in straight rows, so students can clearly see the teacher but not all their classmates. The assumption behind such an arrangement is obvious: Everything important comes from the teacher.
With a little imagination and effort, unless desks are fixed to the floor, the teacher can correct this situation and create space that encourages interchanges among students. In small or standard-size classes, chairs, desks and tables can be arranged in different ways: circles, U-shapes, or semicircles. The primary goal should be for everyone to be able to see everyone else. Larger classes, particularly those held in lecture halls, unfortunately, allow much less flexibility.
Arrangement of the classroom should also make it easy to divide students into small groups for discussion or problem-solving exercises. Small classes with moveable desks and tables present no problem. Even in large lecture halls, it is possible for students to turn around and form groups of four to six. Breaking a class into small groups provides more opportunities for students to interact with each other, think out hard, and see how other students'' thinking processes operate ― all these are the most important elements in developing new modes of critical thinking.
In course that regularly use a small group format, students might be asked to stay in the same small groups throughout the course. A colleague of mine allows students to move around during the first two weeks, until they find a group they are comfortable with. He then asks them to stay in the same seat, with the same group, from then on. This not only creates a comfortable setting for interaction but helps him learn students'' names and faces.
阅读理解Between the eighth and eleventh centuries A. D. , the Byzantine Empire staged an almost unparalleled economic and cultural revival, a recovery that is all the more striking because it followed a long period of severe internal decline. By the early eighth century, the empire had lost roughly two-thirds of the territory it had possessed in the year 600, and its remaining area was being raided by Arabs and Bulgarians, who at times threatened to take Constantinople and extinguish the empire altogether. The wealth of the state and its subjects was greatly diminished and artistic and literary production had virtually ceased. By the early eleventh century, however, the empire had regained almost half of its lost possessions, its new frontiers were secure, and its influence extended far beyond its borders. The economy had recovered, the treasury was full, and art and scholarship had advanced.
To consider the Byzantine military, cultural, and economic advances as differentiated aspects of a single phenomenon is reasonable. After all, these three forms of progress have gone together in a number of states and civilizations. Rome under Augustus and fifth-century Athens provide the most obvious examples in antiquity.
Moreover, an examination of the apparent sequential connections among military, economic, and cultural forms of progress might help explain the dynamics of historical change. The common explanation of these apparent connections in the case of Byzantium would run like this: when the empire had turned back enemy raids on its own territory and had begun to raid and conquer enemy territory, Byzantine resources naturally expanded and more money became available to patronize art and literature. Therefore, Byzantine military achievements led to economic advances, which in turn led to cultural revival.
No doubt this hypothetical pattern did apply at times during the course of the recovery. Yet it is not clear that military advances invariably came first. Economic advances second and intellectual advances third. In the 860''s the Byzantine Empire began to recover from Arab incursions so that by 872 the military balance with the Abbasid Caliphate had been permanently altered in the empire''s favor. The beginning of the empire''s economic revival, however, can be placed between 810 and 830. Finally, the Byzantine revival of learning appears to have begun even earlier. A number of notable scholars and writers appeared by 788 and, by the last decade of the eighth century, a cultural revival was in full bloom, a revival that lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Thus the commonly expected order of military revival followed by economic and then by cultural recovery was reversed in Byzantium. In fact, the revival of Byzantine learning may itself have influenced the subsequent economic and military expansion.
阅读理解It is because of his plays that Shakespeare is now considered the greatest English writer in history. The era in which he lived, Elizabethan England, was a time in which broad interests and creativity could flourish. Elizabeth, the queen, was beloved by her subjects and proved to be a powerful and able ruler. Under the reign of Elizabeth, England changed from an island kingdom to an expanding empire. England grew rich through trade. 16th-century Englishmen traveled to the New World and to Africa. Music, dance, poetry, painting, and architecture flourished; but the art form in which Elizabethan England distinguished the rest of Europe was the theater.
The theater, which had practically disappeared from Europe, was, at this time, received as a part of the church service. Later, no longer as a part of the service, the "mystery plays" responded to popular taste by adding more and more comic elements. In England, they were sponsored by various trade guilds and presented on stage wagons that went from place to place. When the mystery plays began to lose their appeal, they were replaced by "morality" plays which always taught a moral.
In Renaissance England, writers were particularly interested in classical texts such as Latin and Greek plays. Schools and universities began to produce comedies and tragedies by Platus, Terence, and Seneca. Shakespeare was well acquainted with classical humanities and classical tragedies and comedies often served as models in his own drama. A Renaissance man, Shakespeare''s interest went beyond book learning to practical knowledge of military strategy, seafaring, business affairs, and the new geographical discoveries, all evident in his plays.
Companies of " strolling plays" which had specialized in morality plays responded to the change by staging new plays. Professional actors, who had been viewed by English society as little better than vagrants or criminals, gradually came under the protection of the nobility. Licensed theater companies were formed; Shakespeare belonged to one of those, where in addition to his writing, he acquired a wide experience in acting and theater management.
The theater grew in popularity and public theaters were built, not inside the city limits but just outside, along with other places of entertainment. Theaters in Elizabethan England were patronized by all social classes. The Globe Theater, built in 1599, where many of Shakespeare''s plays were performed, had a platform stage jutting out into a central courtyard. The audience stay around three sides of this platform — the lower-class who each paid a penny in the pit and the wealthier spectators in the galleries above. The orchestra was on stage, as music was usually a significant part of the production. Indeed, the costumes, scenery, singing, playing, and dancing, as well as acting was essential to the total show. There was no lighting, however, plays were performed in the afternoon. Shakespeare knew his audience: his theater is addressed not just to the educated but to all classes of society.
阅读理解Some people ought to defend the workaholic.
These people are unjustly accused, abused, and defamed ― often, termed sick or morbid or on the border of pathology. About 30% of American business and commerce is carried on the shoulders of workaholics. The ratio might exist in art and science too.
Workaholics are the achievers, the excelers. There is a national conspiracy against excellence and undue admiration of commonness and mediocrity. It is as if we are against those who make uncommon sacrifices because they enjoy doing something.
Some famous psychologists say that the workaholic has an inferiority complex which leads to over- compensation. This is certainly not the case. Inferiority, or low esteem, describes laziness more accurately than it describes dedication.
We do not seem to realize that very little excellence is achieved by living a well-balanced life. Edison, Ford, Einstein, Freud all had single-minded devotion to work whereby they sacrificed many things, including family and friendship. The accusation is made that workaholics bear guilt by not being good parents or spouses. But guilt can exist in the balanced life also. Think how many "normal" people and middle-ages who have never done anything well ― they are going to settle for less than what they could have become.
阅读理解The study of social science is more than the study of the individual social sciences. Although it is true that to be a good social scientist you must know each of those components, you must also know how they interrelate. By specializing too early, many social scientists can lose sight of the interrelationships that are so essential to understanding modem problems. That''s why it is necessary to have a course covering all the social sciences. In fact, it would not surprise me if one day a news story such as the one above should appear.
The preceding passage placed you in the future. To understand how and when social science broke up, you must go into the past. Imagine for a moment that you''re a student in 1062, in the Italian city of Bologna, site of one of the first major universities in the Western world. The university has no buildings. It consists merely of a few professors and students. There is no tuition fee. At the end of a professor''s lecture, if you like it, you pay. And if you don''t like it, the professor finds himself without students and without money. If we go back still earlier, say to Greece in the 6th century B. C. , we can see the philosopher Socrates walking around the streets of Athens, arguing with his companions. He asks them questions, and then other questions, leading these people to reason the way he wants them to reason (this became known as the Socratic method ).
Times have changed since then; universities sprang up throughout the world and created colleges within the universities. Oxford, one of the first universities, now has thirty colleges associated with it, and the development and formalization of educational institutions has changed the roles of both students and faculty. As knowledge accumulated, it became more and more difficult for one person to learn, let alone retain, it all. In the 16th century one could still aspire to know all there was to know, and the definition of the Renaissance Man ( people were even more sexist then than they are now) was of one who was expected to know about everything.
Unfortunately, at least for someone who wants to know everything, the amount of information continues to grow exponentially while the size of the brain has grown only slightly. The way to deal with the problem is not to try to know everything about everything. Today we must specialize. That is why social science separated from the natural sciences and why it, in turn, has been broken down into various subfields, such as anthropology and sociology.
阅读理解On screens big and small, young heroes like Harry Potter and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer are narked by their ability to transform themselves when faced with danger. Post-9-11 , in a world that seems increasingly out of control, such flexibility is more prized than ever. So perhaps it''s not surprising that the classical master of metamorphosis, Ovid, is having a comeback. The ancient Roman poet created a universe full of magical transformations; his best-known work ''Metamorphoses" depicts constant change as a creative and inevitable life force. Now a new generation of writers, artists and composers is rediscovering his powerful themes.
Ovid''s historical impact had been vast. In her new book, Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds, Marina Warner explores on the likes of Chaucer, Dante and Shakespeare. His stories find avid expression in the works of artists like Raphael, Rembrandt, Chagall and Picasso. For ''Metamorphosing", a new exhibit at London''s Science Museum co-curated by Warner. Artist ''aula Rego created a new work called Metamorphosis, inspired by Kafka''s story about a bureaucrat who turns into a cockroach. The show, which runs through January, also includes drawings of nutant insects found near nuclear power plants.
The late British poet Ted Hughes sparked this latest Ovid revival with his 1997 Tales from Ovid, a loose and very dark translation of the original. Curious writers and artists began scouring dusty library shelves for Ovid''s 15 volumes of Latin verse, and soon fell under their sway. Jeffrey Eugenides''s Middlesex, in which a young girl is transformed into a man, refers to the myth of Tiresias, who in Ovid''s account underwent the opposite change. Another recent book, Ovid Metamorphosed, testifies to the poet''s cross-cultural appeal: it contains short stories based on his Latin myths by writers from the United States, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Canada, India and France.
September 11 made Ovid seem more relevant than ever. When Mary Zimmerman''s play Metamorphoses opened on Broadway less than a month after the World Trade Center attacks, audiences were deeply moved by its depiction of love, death and human resilience. The play became a hit, earning Zimmerman a Tony Award. Hughes suggested in his introduction to Tales from Ovid that the poet — who finished Metamorphoses in 7 A. D. , as the Roman Empire began to transform — was perfectly placed to comprehend " the psychological gulf that opens at the end of an era". Warner agrees that his tales of change are more likely to resonate during times of uncertainty. Ovid captured the innate pleasure of escaping from the boundaries of life and the laws of nature escapes that can seem more necessary than ever today.
阅读理解When we worry about who might be spying on our private lives, we usually think about the Federal agents. But the private sector outdoes the government every time. It''s Linda Tripp, not the FBI, who is facing charges under Maryland''s laws against secret telephone taping. It''s our banks, not the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) , that pass our private financial data to telemarketing firms.
Consumer activists are pressing Congress for better privacy laws without much result so far. The legislators lean toward letting business people track our financial habits virtually at will. As an example of what''s going on, consider U. S. Bancorp, which was recently sued for deceptive practices by the state of Minnesota. According to the lawsuit, the bank supplied a telemarketer called Member-Works with sensitive customer data such as names, phone numbers, bank-accounts and credit-card numbers, Social Security numbers, account balances and credit limits.
With these customer lists in hand, Member-Works started dialing for dollars—selling dental plans, videogames, computer software and other products and services. Customers who accepted a "free trial offer" had 50 days to cancel. If the deadline passed, they were charged automatically through their bank or credit-card accounts. U. S. Bancorp collected a share of the revenues. Customers were doubly deceived, the lawsuit claims. They didn''t know that the bank was giving account numbers to Member-Works. And if customers asked, they were led to think the answer was no.
The state sued Member-Works separately for deceptive selling. The company defends that it did anything wrong. For its part, U. S. Bancorp settled without admitting any mistakes. But it agreed to stop exposing its customers to nonfinancial products sold by outside firms. A few top banks decided to do the same. Many other banks will still do business with Member-Works and similar firms.
And banks will still be mining data from your account in order to sell you financial products, including things of little value, such as credit insurance and credit-card protection plans. You have almost no protection from businesses that use your personal accounts for profit. For example, no federal law shields "transaction and experience" information—mainly the details of your bank and credit-card accounts. Social Security numbers are for sale by private firms. They''ve generally agreed not to sell to the public. But to businesses, the numbers are an open book. Self-regulation doesn''t work. A firm might publish a privacy-protection policy, but who enforces it?
Take U. S. Bancorp again. Customers were told, in writing, that "all personal information you supply to us will be considered confidential. " Then it sold your data to Member-Works. The bank even claims that it doesn''t "sell" your data at all. It merely "shares" it and reaps a profit. Now you know.
阅读理解In reading science, a heading (标题)often gives a clue (线索)to a problem that is going to be discussed
阅读理解Cancer researchers are learning to read genes like a crystal ball to predict how patients will respond to cancer therapy, who will suffer the worst side effects and what treatments may be best for a particular patient. Foreseeing the outcome of treatment, and knowing with certainty which drugs are best for individual patients, have long been the goals of cancer researchers.
For at least 40 years, oncologists have puzzled over why some patients respond so well to chemotherapy while others obtain modest benefits or none at all. The discovery decades ago that linked a chromosome abnormality to one form of leukemia paved the way for the development of the drug Gleevec by Druker and the ability to identify the patients most likely to benefit. More recently, with the wealth of knowledge from the Human Genome Project, researchers have been able to develop even more specific tools to create genetic profiles of tumors and match those profiles with the right drugs. The tools also help determine which patients are most likely to experience the worst side effects of specific types of chemotherapy and guide them to other treatments.
Researchers from the University of Chicago studied alterations of the UGT1A1 gene, associated with an increased chance of chemotherapy side effects. Mark Ratain and his team studied 61 colon cancer patients receiving irinotecan and learned that patients with alterations of the gene labeled as 7/7 were most likely to suffer severe losses of white blood cells. Patients with the 6/7 alteration type had intermediate side effects, and patients with the 6/6 type had none.
Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital examined genes that normally have the ability to repair damage to DNA in cells called XPD and XRCC1. The number of variations in these genes indicate how long a patient is likely to survive. Sarada Gurubhagavatula and her team studied variations of these genes in 103 patients diagnosed with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. Patients with a total of three variations in the genes survived a median of 6. 8 months; those with two variations survived 11 months; patients with one variation survived 16.6 months; and those with no variations survived 20.4 months. Gurubhagavatula says the variations could be identified and those with the worst predicted outcomes put on chemotherapy regimens that offer better odds of survival.
Scientists at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center and Genomic Health Inc. have developed a way to test lung tumors for genetic profiles associated with responses to the new lung cancer drug Iressa. The drug has been shown to shrink tumors in 10% to 12% of patients with advanced lung cancer. David Agus at Cedar-Sinai found a pattern of 185 genes that are turned off and on in a manner that correlates with response to Iressa or to a lack of response. When used commercially, the test will target patients most likely to benefit and will allow patients to make other choices if the negative profile is found.
阅读理解I''d like to propose that for sixty to ninety minutes every evening fight after the early evening news, all television broadcasting in America be prohibited by law.
Let us take a serious, reasonable look at what the results might be if such a proposal were accepted. Families might use the time for a real family hour. Without the distraction of TV, they might sit around together after dinner and actually communicate with one another. It is well known that many of our problems ― everything, in fact, from the generation gap to the high divorce rate to some forms of mental illness― are caused at least in part by failure to communicate. We do not tell each other what makes us feel disturbed. The result is emotional difficulty of one kind or another. By using the quiet family hour to discuss our problems, we might get to know each other better, and to like each other better.
On evenings when such talk is unnecessary, families could rediscover more active pastimes. Freed from TV, forced to find their own activities, they might take a ride together to watch the sunset, or they might take a walk together (remember feet) and see the neighborhood with fresh, new eyes.
With free time and no TV, children and adults might rediscover reading. There is more entertainment in a good book than in a month of typical TV programming. Educators report that the generation growing up with television can barely write an English sentence, even at the college level. Writing is often learned from reading. A more literate new generation could be a product of the quiet hour.
A different form of reading might also be done, as it was in the past: reading aloud. Few hobbies bring a family closer together than gathering around and listening to mother or father read a good story. The quiet hour could become the story hour. When the quiet hour ends, the TV networks form our newly discovered activities.
At first glance, the idea of an hour without TV seems radical. What will parents do without the electronic baby-sitter? How will we spend the time? But it is not radical at all. It has been only twenty-five years since television came to control American free time. The people who are thirty-five and older can remember childhood without television, spent partly with radio― which at least involved the listener''s imagination― but also with reading, learning, talking, playing games, inventing new activities. It wasn''t that difficult. Honest. The truth is that we had a ball.
听力题Tostartwith,youshouldselectthe______.
听力题Whycan''tthelibraryissuelibrarycardstoeveryonewhoapplies?
听力题Around the year 1000 A.D.
听力题WhyisWiltChamberlainconsideredafamousbasketballplayer?
听力题When you''re preparing for a holiday
听力题The man says they don''t have any proper conversation in his family because they spend too much time watching 1.
听力题Apartfromstealingsoftware,forwhatreasonwasKevinMitnickarrested?
听力题W: Hello, John, you must be pleased. After all