Both common sense and research say memory declines over time. The accuracy of recall and recognition are at their best immediately after encoding the information, declining at first rapidly, then gradually. (46) The longer the delay, the more likely it is that information obtained after the event will interfere with the original memory, which reduces accuracy. Admittedly, subsequent interviews or media reports can create such distortions. (47) "People are particularly susceptible to having their memories modified when the passage of time allows the original memory to fade. and will be most susceptible if they repeat the misinformation as fact." Leading questions can lead to mistakes. If witnesses are asked whether the offender had a beard, they may incorporate an imaginary beard into their memories. Subsequent questioning can reinforce the error through repetition. It is generally agreed that the memories of adults and children are fallible. Nevertheless, even preschoolers can form reliable memories. Young children depend on context to promote memory, and naturally report less. Children may recall more information with adequate support, but the type of support and questioning is critical. Methods of drawing out information have to be carefully monitored. Although research shows the accuracy of both adults and children can be affected by leading or suggestive questions, the ability to resist the influence of external suggestion increases with age. (48) Children may change their account of an event, not because their memory has altered but because they wish to comply with the suggestion of an adult in authority, or because they interpret repeated questioning as an indication that their first response is judged wrong. An area of research still relatively unexplored is whether young children have difficulties distinguishing between real and imagined events. We conclude that while children are often seen as unreliable witnesses, research does not bear that out. (49) The code provides alternative ways for children to give evidence to increase accuracy, and gives judges guidance on what to tell a jury to help assess the evidence of very young children. It is generally agreed some adults who experience sexual abuse may recall memories of the abuse after forgetting it. There is no research to indicate the recalled memories are more or less accurate than memories available all along. We believe it is impossible to distinguish a true from a false memory and it is dangerous to use confidence, vividness and detail as indicating truth. (50) False memories can be induced under hypnosis, and experiments have indicated it is possible, although difficult to implant false memories of entire events by suggestion. Hopefully, further research is required into interview techniques and conditions under which false memories and reports of abuse are most likely to arise. It seems that deciding whether any memory is to be finally assessed as reliable or the treacherous ally of invention will largely remain a challenge for judges and juries.

The year 1609 was noteworthy for two astronomical milestones. That was when Galileo built his first telescopes and began his meticulous study of the skies. Within months he discovered the four major satellites of Jupiter, saw that Venus (like our moon) has illuminated phases and confirmed earlier observations of sunspots — all evidence that undermined the Aristotelian model of an unchanging, Earth-centered cosmos. During that same year, Johannes Kepler published Astronomia Nova, which contained his detailed calculation of the orbit of Mars. It also established the first two laws of planetary motion: that planets follow elliptical orbits, with the sun at one focus, and that planets sweep through equal areas of their orbits in a given interval. Small wonder, then, that when the United Nations General Assembly declared an International Year of Astronomy to promote the wider appreciation of the science, it selected 2009, the quadricentennial of those standout accomplishments (among many) by Galileo and Kepler that informally founded modern astronomy. Currently astronomers can look beyond the familiar planets and moons to entirely new systems of worlds around other stars. As I write this, the tally stands at 344 known extrasolar planets. Only a handful of these bodies were found by telescopic means that Galileo or Kepler would have recognized, but each one owes its discovery to their work. A recent and surprising trend is the apparent abundance of planets turning up close to very small stars — suns that may not be much larger than the planets circling them. Astronomers Michael W. Werner and Michael A. Jura have written on why the existence of these unlikely planetary systems might imply that the universe is chock-full of planets. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the famous "Two Cultures" lecture by C. P. Snow, the English physicist and novelist. Snow"s speech, and his later books that elaborated on it, argued that communication and respect between the sciences and humanities had broken down. Literary intellectuals, he said, were often confused at their own ignorance of basic science and yet would be shocked at a scientist unfamiliar with Shakespeare; conversely, scientists were more likely to have some schooling in the arts. This asymmetrical hostility hurt society, Snow maintained, because it hindered the embrace of what science and technology could do to eliminate poverty and inequality. Even today critics disagree about whether Snow"s thesis is better seen as controversial or clichéd. If the "two cultures" is a problem, however, some leaders — not just in science but also industry, government and nongovernmental organizations — are overcoming it spectacularly. They are doing what they can to ensure that the fruits of scientific knowledge are constructively applied to improve well-being and prosperity. This month, with our Scientific American 10 honor roll, we are proud to recognize a few of them.

BPart B/B

The cellphone, a device we have lived with for more than a decade, offers a good example of a popular technology"s unforeseen side effects. More than one billion are (1)_____ around the world, and when asked, their (2)_____ say they love their phones for the safety and convenience (3)_____ provide. People also report that they are (4)_____ in their use of their phones. One opinion survey (5)_____ that "98 percent of Americans say they move away from (6)_____ when talking on a wireless phone in public" (7)_____ "86 percent say they "never" or "rarely" speak (8)_____ wireless phones" when conducting (9)_____ with clerks or bank tellers. Clearly, there exists a (10)_____ between our reported cell phone behavior and our actual behavior. Cellphone users—that is to say, most of us—are (11)_____ instigators and victims of this form of conversational panhandling, and it (12)_____ a cumulatively negative effect on social space. As the sociologist Erving Gateman observed in another (13)_____, there is something deeply disturbing about people who are" (14)_____ contact" in social situations because they are blatantly refusing to (15)_____ to the norms of their immediate environment. Placing a cellphone call in public instantly transforms the strangers around you (16)_____ unwilling listeners who must cede to your use of the public (17)_____, a decidedly undemocratic effect for so democratic a technology. Listeners don"t always passively (18)_____ this situation: in recent years, people have been pepper-sprayed in movie theaters, (19)_____ from concert hails and deliberately rammed with cars as a result of (20)_____ behavior on their cellphones.

The benefits of some environmentally friendly policies will not be apparent until decades after they have been enacted. (46) That is one of the messages of a report from the United Nations Environment Programme, which, even by the standards of global environment assessments, is sobering reading. (47) Global Environmental Outlook 3(GE03), a study of the links between environmental, social and development issues, contains a range of dreadful but familiar predictions about the impact of factors such as climate change and industrial development. But the report, released last week in the run-up to August"s World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, was unusually pessimistic about the prospects for reversing the damage. The new predictions are contained in one of four possible futures outlined in the report. The authors considered situations in which global politics were dominated by concerns over markets, environmental and social policies, security, or sustainability. These were based on attempts to calculate the effect of the different approaches on population levels, economics, technology and governance. Some of the situations produced a familiar picture. (48) In a world dominated by a market mentality, for example, land and forest ruin becomes a critical issue, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. But the sustainability situation"s predictions shocked some of the authors. "The delays between changing human behavior and environmental recovery came as the biggest surprise to the regional experts", says Jan Bakkes of the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, one of the report"s authors. (49) The report found that even if environmentally friendly approaches were adopted now, carbon dioxide concentrations would continue to rise until 2050. Water shortages would continue and coastal pollution would increase slightly. Bakkes blames difficulty in changing energy and transport infrastructures. Originally used during the 1950s to simulate future conflicts, situations were revived in an improved form by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the early 1990s. "By adding situations to assessments you come up with a credible story about how the world might develop and can translate that into quantifiable formation". says Bert Metz, also at the Bilthoven institute and co-chair of the IPCC working group on strategies for tackling climate change. More than 1,000 scientists contributed to GEOs, which divides the world into no less than 17 different regions. (50) By contrast, the IPCC has used just four regions in previous assessments, although the panel"s new chair, energy economist Rajendra Pachauri, has pledged to improve regional detail in future studies.

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list (A、B、C、D、E、F、G……) to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are several extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. (10 points) Screaming headlines about stars arrested for everything from spousal abuse to firearms violations make it painfully clear that athletic talent isn"t enough to deal with the rigors of being a pro. (41)______. A team that finds itself in serious behavioral straits will often hire a famous person to help defuse the situation and help polish a tarnished franchise images—witness the Dallas Cowboys naming extremely-clean former All-Pro running back Calvin Hill, a Yale Divinity School graduate, as a special consultant. There is an accompanying commandment, handed down from on high by the czars of pro sports: If you"re an elite athlete, the role of role model is mandatory, not optional. (42)______. "We"re running a business where players are our products. It"s a business with very visible and prominent young men in the forefront," says Pat Williams, senior executive vice president of the NBA"s Orlando Magic, a franchise that has hired "Doctor J", Julius Erving, as a broad-ranging am bassador to the community, and the locker room. "Sure, we"re protecting the business, but We"re also protecting the sport, too. And having a bunch of lawbreakers playing your sport doesn"t make it attractive—to fans or to sponsors. It"s also the right thing to do for these young men." (43)______. Hill, who has held executive positions with the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Orioles since ending his playing days, says the pressure and scrutiny faced by his son, Detriot Pistons star Grant Hill, are far more intense than what he endured during his days in the 1960s and i970s with the Cow boys, Redskins and Browns. (44)______. "What scares me about free agency is the same thing that scares me about society—there is no longer stability or a sense of community," says Hill. "and that"s helped break down a sense of team culture and tradition." (45)______. Not only are today"s new pros younger than ever, they have a healthy disrespect for their athletic elders and the traditions of the leagues they are entering, according to Gary Sailes, a sports sociologist at Indiana University.A. But ask yourself: Does Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, hire Hill because he is genuinely concerned about the psychological effects of fame on Michael Irvin, a married man, who was found in a hotel room full of cocaine and exotic dancers? Or does Jones, want to expropriate Hill"s upright image as whitewash for the damage done to his cash flow and corporate relations by Irvin and other members of "America"s Team"?B. The value system are different," says Sailes, "The boundaries of their mainstream don"t intersect with the boundaries of mainstream America. And if you"re not finding some way to bridge the gap between mainstream America and where these kids come from, you"re wasting your time."C. At the heart of all this counseling and concern is the day-to-day pressure on a proathlete. "There is a lot of money and fame involved when you sign a NBA contract", says Lamont Winston, who handles player programmes for the Kansas City Chiefs. "Yet there, is nowhere in that contract that says you will feel tremendous stress, you will feel tremendous anxiety and pressure."D. In basketball, Williams sees a more devastating version of the maturity problem affecting pro sports, cause by the influx of younger and younger players who have decided to abandon the final two years of college, or ditch college altogether.E. And this touches on a key problem that a generic mentoring programme may not address: there are crucial cultural differences between the athletes and the world they are about to enter.F. He also points to a destructive consequence of free agency—the end of a natural clubhouse system of veteran players who served as mentors to young rookies, passing on the traditions and expectations of a particular club, be it the Detriot Tigers or the Washington Redskins.G. Coaches, owners and managers acknowledge the increasing need to teach their talents how to act, what and whom to avoid and what burdens accompany the money and the fame. The players need to be taught about everything from finances and career choices outside the game to emotional counseling and substance abuse.

Ms. Write wrote to you, claiming that there was something wrong with her heating system. As the building supervisor, write a note to Ms. White to 1) inform her of her heating system check-up, and 2) express apology for the inconvenience. Write your letter neatly with no less than 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Translate the following text imto Chinese. Your translation should be written on the ANSWER SHEET. Most of us are taught to pay attention to what is said—the words. Words do provide us with some information, but meanings are derived from so many other sources that it would hinder our effectiveness as a partner to a relationship to rely too heavily on words alone. Words are used to describe only a small part of the many ideas we associate with any given message. Sometimes we can gain insight into some of those associations if we listen for more than words. We don't always say what we mean or mean what we say. Sometimes our words don't mean anything except "I'm letting off some steam. I don't really want you to pay close attention to what I'm saying. Just pay attention to what I'm feeling. "Mostly we mean several things at once. A person wanting to purchase a house says to the current owner, "This step has to be fixed before I'll buy." The owner says, "It's been like that for years." Actually, the step hasn't been like that for years, but the unspoken message is: I don't want to fix it. We put up with it. Why can't you? The search for a more expansive view of meaning can be developed of examining a message in terms of who said it, when it occurred, the related conditions or situation, and how it was said.

The divorce rate in Britain has leveled off—to roughly one marriage in three—and shows no sign of reaching the much higher American rate, according to the demographers(人口统计学者) assembled in Bath last week for a conference on the family. There has been no increase in the rate in the last three years and although many expected it to rise a few more percentage points in the next decade, none believed it would reach the 50 percent that exists in America. One reason for the stabilizations of divorce is the reduction in the risk factors—fewer teenagers marrying, fewer early births in marriage, fewer pre-marital(婚前的) conceptions. Another reason which was aired at the annual conference of the British Society for Population Studies, was the increase in cohabitation. Some speakers argued that the increase in cohabitation has meant that marital couples are now much more familiar with each other before marriage and therefore less likely to separate. One out of four couples who marry today have lived together and in the older age groups the proportion is much higher. Some 34 percent of women aged over 25 who marry have cohabited, and over 50 percent of women who are marrying a divorced man or who have been divorced themselves, cohabit before marriage. Cohabitation in Britain, however, is still considerably lower than in many European states and was described by the demographers as "essentially a part of contemporary courtship". Only a small proportion of people who cohabited had children whereas in Sweden some 40 percent of births were now outside formal marriage. The British rate was 13 percent. Kath Kiernan of the Centre for Population Studies noted that the present statistics suggested that there was a marginally higher risk of separation for couples who had cohabited, but this could possibly be explained by the fact that the statistics covered a period when cohabiting had not become as socially acceptable as it was today. A third reason why the demographers thought the divorce rate could stabilize was the economic squeeze(利润等的缩减) and the recession(暴跌), which would mean there was less opportunity to separate because of the lack of housing and employment.

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B

Children attending schools located in high-traffic zones have a 45 percent increased risk of developing asthma, even though time spent at school only accounts for about one-third of a child"s waking hours, according to new research. Asthma is the most common chronic childhood illness in developed countries and has been linked to environmental factors such as traffic-related air pollution. "While residential traffic-related pollution has been associated with asthma, there has been little study of the effects of traffic exposure at school on new onset asthma," says Rob McConnell, professor of preventive medicine at USC"s Keck School of Medicine. "Exposure to pollution at locations other than home, especially where children spend a large portion of their day and may engage in physical activity, appears to influence asthma risk as well." The study appears online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The study drew upon data from the Children"s Health Study (CHS), a longitudinal study of children in Southern California communities that was designed to investigate the chronic effects of air pollution on respiratory health. Using a cohort of 2 497 kindergarten and first grade children who were asthma-free when they entered the study, researchers examined the relationship of local traffic around schools and homes to diagnosis new onset asthma that occurred during three years of follow-up. Traffic-related pollution exposure was assessed based on a model that took into account traffic volume, distance to major roadways from home and school and local weather conditions. Regional ambient ozone, nitrogen dioxide (二氧化氮) and particulate matter were measured continuously at one central site in each of the 13 study communities. The design allowed investigators to examine the joint effects of local traffic-related pollution exposure at school and at home and of regional pollution exposure affecting the entire community. Researchers found 120 cases of new asthma. The risk associated with traffic-related pollution exposure at schools was almost as high as for residential exposure, and combined exposure accounting for time spent at home and at school had a slightly larger effect. Although children spend less time at school than at home, physical education, and other activities that take place at school may increase ventilation rates and the dose of pollutants getting into the lungs, McConnell notes. Traffic-related pollutant levels may also be higher during the morning hours when children are arriving at school. Despite a state law that prohibits school districts from building campuses within 500 feet of a freeway, many Southern California schools are located near high-traffic areas, including busy surface streets. "It"s important to understand how these micro-environments where children spent a lot of their time outside of the home are impacting their health," McConnell says. "Policies that reduce exposure to high-traffic environments may help to prevent this disease. " The study was funded by grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and the Hastings Foundation.

Until recently, the main villains of the piece had seemed to be the teachers" unions, who have opposed any sort of reform or accountability. Now they face competition from an unexpectedly destructive force: the court. Fifty years ago, it was the judges who forced the schools to desegregate through Brown V. Board of Education (1954). Now the courts have moved from broad principles to micromanagement, telling schools how much money to spend and where—right down to the correct computer or textbook, Twenty-four states are currently stuck in various court cases to do with financing school systems, and another 21 have only recently settled various suits. Most will start again soon. Only five states have avoided litigation entirely. Nothing exemplifies the power of the courts better than an Il-year-old case that is due to be settled (sort of) in New York City, the home of America"s biggest school system with 1.1m students and a budget nearing $13 billion. At the end of this month, three elderly members of the New York bar serving as judicial referees are due to rule in a case brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a leftish advocacy group, against the state of New York: they will decide how much more must be spent to provide every New York City pupil with a "sound basic" education. Rare is the politician willing to argue that more money for schools is a bad thing. But are the courts doing any good? Two suspicions arise. First, judges are making a lazy assumption that more money means better schools. As the international results show, the link between "inputs" and "outputs" is vague—something well documented by, among others, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. Second, the courts are muddling an already muddled system. Over time, they have generally made it harder to get rid of disruptive pupils and bad teachers. The current case could be even worse. The courts have already said that, in order to determine the necessary spending, they may consider everything from class size to the availability of computers, textbooks and even pencils. This degree of intervention is all the more scandalous because the courts have weirdly decided to ignore another set of "inputs"—the archaic work practices of school teachers and janitors. David Schoenbrod and Ross Sandler of New York Law School reckon the demands of the court will simply undermine reform and transform an expensive failure into a more expensive one. And of course, the litigation never ends. Kentucky, for example, is still in court 16 years after the first decision. A lawsuit first filed against New Jersey for its funding of schools in 1981 was "decided" four years later—but it has returned to the court nine times since, including early this year, with each decision pushing the court deeper into the management of the state"s schools. Bad judges are even harder to boot out of school than bad pupils.

"Worse than useless," fumed Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, on March 19th, when the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Terrible, and getting worse," added Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic colleague who has kept a watchful eye on the INS for ten years. Committee members lined up to take swings at James Ziglar, the head of the INS. He explained, somewhat pathetically, that "outdated procedures" had kept the visa-processing wheels grinding slowly through a backlog of applications. He also had some new rules in mind to tighten up visas. Speeding up the paperwork—and getting more of it on to computers—is vital, but the September attacks have exposed the tension between the agency"s two jobs: on the one hand enforcing the security of America"s borders, and on the other granting privileges such as work permits to foreigners. But other people want more radical changes. James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, wants to split the INS into two separate bodies, one dealing with border security and the other with handling benefits to immigrants. The other approach, favored in the White House, is to treat the two functions as complementary, and to give the INS even more responsibility for security. Under that plan, the INS would merge with the Customs Service, which monitors the 20m shipments of goods brought into America every year, as well as the bags carried in by some 500m visitors. The two agencies would form one large body within the Department of Justice, the current home of the INS. This would cut out some of the duplicated effort at borders, where customs officers and agents from the INS"s Border Patrol often rub shoulders but do not work together. Mr. Bush—who has said that the news of the visa approvals left him "plenty hot"—was expected to give his approval. The senate, however, may not be quite so keen. The Justice Department could have trouble handling such a merger, let alone taking on the considerable economic responsibilities of the Customs Service, which is currently part of the Treasury. The senate prefers yet another set of security recommendations, including links between the databases of different agencies that hold security and immigration information, and scanners at ports of entry to check biometric data recorded on immigration documents. These ideas are embodied in a bill sponsored by members of both parties, but are currently held up by Robert Byrd, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who worries that there has not been enough debate on the subject. Mr. Ziglar, poor chap, may feel there has been more than enough.

Science is the never-ending struggle to find truth. You may dismiss this statement as the rambling of an amateur philosopher, but it holds some practical value. Truth is a temporary phenomenon. It is limited by human communication systems, technology, and skills. For example, during the Dark Ages in Europe, the world was perceived as flat. This flatness was acceptable as "truth" because travel and human knowledge of celestial phenomena were so limited that no other concept was needed. A family lived in a small area and confined its activity to a small region. This region appeared to be flat, so for all practical purposes, the earth was flat, too. When travel and exploration became widespread, and especially when ships were able to sail far out on the Atlantic, the vision of a flat earth had to change. Many observations of stars and planets and of ships" movements at sea led to new principles and to a new truth. Those who were in the position to do so could exploit the new truth about the earth"s shape and turn it into riches. The Spanish, knowing they would not fall off the edge of a flat earth, found the New World and brought gold and silver back to Spain. The situation has not changed much since the Dark Ages. Truth is still sought because it has value, and the scientific method remains the most systematic way of pursuing it. The method starts with a problem. Once the problem is well defined, information that might have an effect on it is gathered. The information is sorted and analyzed, and that which is useful is kept—to be used as a basis for general principles. In the social sciences, the principles are often used to help formulate policies. The policies ultimately are aimed at removing the problem and improving people"s lives. In economics (and in other social sciences), the pursuit of truth is slowed because human behavior cannot be subjected to the kinds of controlled experiments that are possible with white rats and guinea pigs. The economist must follow the steps in a search for new truths about economic behavior, but following them is frustrating and often leads up blind alleys. Nevertheless, problems, facts, principles, and policies must be considered in a systematic way.

Thirty-five years after computer scientists at UCLA linked two bulky computers using a 15-foot gray cable, testing a new way for exchanging data over networks, what would ultimately become the Internet remains a work in progress. University researchers are experimenting with ways to increase its capacity and speed. Programmers are trying to imbue Web pages with intelligence. And work is underway to re-engineer the net-work to reduce spam and security troubles. (46) All the while threats loom: critics ware that commercial, legal and political pressures could hinder the types of innovations that made the Internet what it is today. Stephen Crocker and Vinton Cerf were among the graduate students who joined UCLA professor Len Kleinrock in an engineering lab on Sept. 2, 1969, as bits of meaningless test data flowed silently between the two computers. By January, three other "nodes" joined the fledgling network. (47) Then came e-mail a few years later, a core communications agreement called TCP/IP in the late 70s, the domain name system in the 80s and the World Wide Web—now the second most popular application behind e-mail—in 1990. The Internet expanded beyond its initial military and educational domain into businesses and homes around the world. Today, Crocker continues work on the Internet, designing better tools for collaboration. (48) And as security chairman for the Internet"s key oversight body, he is trying to defend the core addressing system from outside threats. He acknowledges the Internet he helped build is far from finished, and changes are in store to meet growing demands for multimedia. (49) Network providers now make only "best efforts" at delivering data packets, and Crocker said better guarantees are needed to prevent the skips and unexpected pauses now common with video. Cerf, now at MCI Inc., said he wished he could have designed the Internet with security built-in. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and America Online Inc., among others, are currently trying to retrofit the network so e-mail senders can be authenticated—a way to cut clown on junk messages sent using spoofed addresses. (50) Many features being developed today wouldn"t have been possible at birth given the slower computing speeds and narrower Internet pipes, or bandwidth, Cerf said.

Women"s fertility is determined in large part at birth. They are bom with their total number of reproductive cells, which normally influences the age at which menopause—the shutting down of female reproductive system—begins. But in the 1990s, researchers proposed that if a child"s energy is depleted by malnutrition, disease, or other factors, he or she would be less fertile as anadult. By using the natural experiment of migration, researchers demonstrated how differences during childhood do alter the course of reproduction in adult women. Biological anthropologist Gillian Bentley of Durham University in the UK and colleagues compared levels of reproductive hormones in 250 Bangladeshi women, including women who migrated from Sylhet, Bangladesh to London; women who stayed in Sylhet; and Bangladeshi women born in London. In the first stage of their study, they found that women who migrated from Bangladesh as children had higher levels of reproductive hormones in their saliva than women who lived in Sylhet, but less than women bom in London. This had a direct effect on fertility: Migrant women in London had an 11% higher rate of ovulation—discharging of mature ovum—during their lives than did women in Sylhet, the team reported in 2007. The team has now studied 900 women between the ages of 35 and 60 to see if the beginning of menopause varies between migrants and women in Sylhet. Bentley presented preliminary results from their measurement of hormones that regulate the maturation of reproductive cells and are indirect indices of how many ova they can still produce. Her team found that migrants enter menopause later than did women who stayed in Bangladesh but earlier than did those born in London. "The adult migrants seem to be sensitive to improved conditions," says Bentley. The group is trying to find out which environmental factors in Bangladesh lower growing girls" fertility. All the Bangladeshi women in the study came from middle-class, land-owning families, who grew up with adequate calories. However, girls growing up in Bangladesh were probably exposed to more infectious diseases during crucial developmental years. So, they may have had to make tradeoffs among using energy to grow, to maintain their bodies, or to maximize their reproductive potential as adults. Bentley plans to test that idea next year when her team returns to Bangladesh to see if girls there suffer from more diseases than do those in London. "In other words," says Bentley, "where you spend your childhood influences adult reproductive function."

Before you leave university you want to sell your computer. Write a note of about 100 words: 1) describing the condition of your computer; 2) how much you would like for it, and; 3) where you can be contacted. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the note. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Imagine being asked to spend twelve or so years of your life in a society which consisted only of members of your own sex. How would you (1)_____? Unless there was (2)_____ definitely wrong with you, you wouldn"t be too happy about it, to (3)_____ the least. It is all the (4)_____ surprising therefore that so many parents in the world choose to impose such (5)_____ conditions (6)_____ their children—conditions which they themselves wouldn"t put up with for one minute! Any discussion of this topic is (7)_____ to question the aims of education. Stuffing children"s heads full of knowledge is (8)_____ being foremost among them. One of the chief aims of education is to (9)_____ future citizens with all they require to (10)_____ their place in adult society. Now adult society is made up of men and women, so how can a segregated school (11)_____ offer the right kind of preparation for it? Anyone entering adult society after years of segregation can only be in for a (12)_____. A co-educational school offers children nothing (13)_____ a true (14)_____ of society in miniature. Boys and girls are given the (15)_____ to get to know each other, to learn to live together from their earliest years. They are put in a position where they can compare them selves with each other (16)_____ academic ability, athletic achievement and many of the extracurricular activities which are (17)_____ of school life. What a (18)_____ advantage it is (to give just an example) to be able to put on a school play in which the male parts will be taken by boys and the female parts by girls! What (19)_____ co-education makes of the argument that boys are cleverer than girls or vice-versa. When segregated, boys and girls are made to feel that they are a race apart. (20)_____ between the sexes is fostered. In a co-educational school, everything falls into its proper place.

Going to the ballpark, visiting friends and playing bingo are simple diversions for many of us. But for the elderly, these social pastimes may play a critical role in preserving their physical and mental health. (46) In fact, a new study suggests that the less time older people spend engaged in social activity, the faster their motor function tends to decline. "Everybody in their 60s, 70s and 80s is walking more slowly than they did when they were 25," says Dr. Aron Buchman, a neurologist at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and leading author of the study, which was published in the June 22nd issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. (47) "Our study shows the connection between social activity and motor function--and opens up a whole new universe of how we might intervene. " (48) An increasing body of evidence has suggested that participating in mentally stimulating activity, socializing frequently and exercising may help protect against age-related decline-at least cognitive decline. As early as 1995, neuroscientist Carl Cotman, who studies aging and dementia at the University of California at Irvine, published a paper in Nature showing that physical exercise produces a protein that helps keep neurons from dying and spurs the formation of new neural connections in the brain. (49) More recently, Cotman demonstrated in studies of elderly dogs and mice that enriching their social environment is associated with improvement in brain function. Researchers are also finding that social activity may be linked to the same protective effect in people. A recent study of 2 500 adults ages 70 to 79, published in the journal Neurology, found that those who were able to stay mentally sharp were also those who exercised once a week or more, had at least a ninth grade literacy level and were socially active. While further research needs to be done to establish the exact impact of social activity and exercise on specific age-related declines (50) it"s likely that a reduction in social activity may simply be a symptom of physical decline, since people may naturally withdraw from social engagement as they lose motor skills -most researchers would agree that it is not unreasonable to encourage seniors to get out there more. Only 10% of people over 65 get the recommended amount of exercise (at least 2. 5 to 5 hours a week), and given that seniors already tend to be more socially isolated than younger adults, it"s difficult to motivate them to become more active. "If you are alone, you are less likely to follow recommendations," notes Verghese. It might help, though, if you visit Grandma more often and let her know that a regular pastime may just help her stay fitter and sharper longer.

Forget about the days when banks lured customers with offers of "free" toaster. In the harsh new world of consumer banking, it"s the account holder who may get burned. Over the past few years, banks have systematically raised their old fees and invented new ones—as many as 100 different kinds. The size of these charges jumped more than 50 percent on checking and savings accounts since 1990, according to Bank Rate Monitor, an independent provider of financial data. Meanwhile, interest rates paid on passbook savings and negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) accounts failed to keep pace with inflation, let alone with other low-risk investments. And technologies like automated teller machines(ATMs) have truly turned into cash machines—for the bank. Checking Profits. According to a report by the Federal Reserve Board, fewer than eight percent of all commercial banks now offer tree checking. In some big cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, free checking is virtually extinct. What"s more, the minimum balance required for the average checking account has increased dramatically since the Federal Reserve last surveyed banks in 1994. Account holders looking for interest on their checking through a NOW account had to raise their balance nearly 50 percent to $1,500 on average and they earned just 1.5 percent annually for their trouble. NationsBank in Miami recently offered a "Deluxe Secure" checking account. Depositors got only an average 1.5 percent interest on their checking balance. And they were required to keep $5,000 tied up in a savings account or $21 maintenance fee. New York City"s chemical informed its checking customers that their "low minimum" accounts would be converted into new "relationship" accounts—with a higher minimum balance. The new minimum necessary to avoid extra fees jumped from $1,500 to $3,000. The dubious new benefits to customers? Banking executives say there"s a good reason why fees are higher. Since financial services were deregulated in the early 1980s, competitors have lured away high-margin business that once sustained bank profits. Americans are avoiding low-interest bank accounts in favor of high-yielding investments such as mutual funds. Creditcard holders can get more favorable terms from a national card issuer than from their local bank. Home-buyers can now tap a national market for the most competitive mortgage rates, and new-car buyers can shop for loans from auto-finance specialists like General Motors Acceptance Corp. Still, the banks have managed to regain their profits in part with high customer fees. In fact, the banking industry has reported record earnings over the past three years.