Whether he comes or not doesn 't make any difference.

Plato asked "What is man?" and St Augustine asked "Who am I?" A new breed of criminals has a novel answer: "I am you!" Although impostors have existed for ages, the growing frequency and cost of identity theft is worrisome. Around 10m Americans are victims annually, and it is the leading consumer-fraud complaint over the past five years. The cost to businesses was almost $50 billion, and to consumers $5 billion, in 2002, the most recent year that America"s Federal Trade Commission collected figures. After two recent, big privacy disasters, people and politicians are calling for action. In February, ChoicePoint, a large data-collection agency, began sending out letters warning 145,000 Americans that it had wrongly provided fraudsters with their personal details, including Social Security numbers. Around 750 people have already spotted fraudulent activity. And on February 25th, Bank of America revealed that it lost data tapes that contain personal information on over lm government employees, including some Senators. Although accident and not illegality is suspected, all must take precautions against identity theft. Faced with such incidents, state and national lawmakers are calling for new regulations, including over companies that collect and sell personal information. As an industry, the firms—such as ChoicePoint, Acxiom, LexisNexis and Westlaw—are largely unregulated. They have also grown enormous. For example, ChoicePoint was founded in 1997 and has acquired nearly 60 firms to amass databases with 19 billion records on people. It is used by insurance firms, landlords and even police agencies. California is the only state, with a law requiring companies to notify individuals when their personal information has been compromised—which made ChoicePoint reveal the fraud (albeit five months after it was noticed, and after its top two bosses exercised stock options). Legislation to make the requirement a federal law is under consideration. Moreover, lawmakers say they will propose that rules governing credit bureaus and medical companies are extended to data-collection firms. And alongside legislation, there is always litigation. Already, ChoicePoint has been sued for failing to safeguard individuals" data. Yet the legal remedies would still be far looser than in Europe, where identity theft is also a menace, though less frequent and costly. The European Data Protection Directive, implemented in 1998, gives people the right to access their information, change inaccuracies, and deny permission for it to be shared. Moreover, it places the cost of mistakes on the companies that collect the data, not on individuals. When the law was put in force, American policymakers groaned that it was bad for business. But now they seem to be reconsidering it.

On Luxury Consumption A. Title: On Luxury Consumption B. Word limit: 160-200 words (not including the given opening sentence) C. Your composition should be based on the OUTLINE below and should start with the given opening sentence: "Nowadays, many people tend to spend more money on luxury commodities." OUTLINE: 1. The prevalence of luxury commodities in China 2. People"s different opinions on luxury commodities 3. My opinion

Optimists outlive pessimists, a new study shows. Of nearly 100,000 women【C1】______in the Women"s Health Initiative, those who gave【C2】______answers on a personality test were 9% less likely to【C3】______heart disease within eight years—and 14% less likely to【C4】______—than women who got low optimism【C5】______on the test. TIME"s Alice Park wrote about an earlier【C6】______of this study in the spring. She writes: 【C7】______studies have indeed documented the life-extending benefits of optimism,【C8】______most of that research has involved only men and has been【C9】______in small numbers. What"s more, not all studies have done a good job of【C10】______out potentially confusing factors such as health【C11】______and lifestyle. That"s【C12】______makes the new study different "Taking into【C13】______income, education, health behaviors like blood pressure and whether or not you are【C14】______active, whether or not you drink or smoke, we still see optimists with a decreased risk of death compared to pessimists," says Dr. Hilary Tindle, lead author of the study. "I was surprised that the relationship was【C15】______of all of these factors." The study also found an interesting and【C16】______disturbing difference in the way that attitude is related to【C17】______for black women vs. white women. Pessimistic black women in the study were 33% more likely to have died after eight years than optimistic black women, while white pessimists were only 13% more likely to have died than their optimistic【C18】______The numbers in the study weren"t large enough to support any【C19】______explanations for this racial gap, but "there is definitely a suggestion that whites and blacks may be【C20】______in how optimism affects longevity," says Tindle.

Relativity theory has had a profound influence on our picture of matter by forcing us to modify our concept of a particle in an essential way.【F1】 In classical physics, the mass of an object had always been associated with an indestructible material substance, with some "stuff" of which all things were thought to be made. Relativity theory showed that mass has nothing to do with any substance, but is a form energy. Energy, however, is a dynamic quantity associated with activity, or with processes.【F2】 The fact that the mass of a particle is equivalent to a certain of energy means that the particle can no longer be seen as a static object, but has to be conceived as a dynamic pattern. This new view of particles was initiated by Dirac when he formulated a relativistic equation describing the behavior of electrons.【F3】 Dirac's theory was not only extremely successful in accounting for the fine details of atomic structure, but also revealed a fundamental symmetry between matter and anti-matter. It predicted the existence of an anti-matter with the same mass as the electron but with an opposite charge. This positively charged particle, now called the positron, was indeed discovered two years after Dirac had predicted it. The symmetry between matter and anti-matter implies that for every particle there exists an antiparticles with equal mass and opposite charge. Pairs of particles and antiparticles can be created if enough energy is available and can be made to turn into pure energy in the reverse process of destruction.【F4】 These processes of particle creation and destruction had been predicted from Dirac's theory before they were actually discovered in nature, and since then they have been observed millions of times. The creation of material particles from pure energy is certainly the most spectacular effect of relativity theory, and it can only be understood in terms of the view of particles outlined above.【F5】 Before relativistic particle physics, the constituents of matter had always been considered as being either elementary units which were indestructible and unchangeable, or as composite objects which could be broken up into their constituent parts. The basic question was whether one could divide matter again and again, or whether one would finally arrive at some smallest indivisible units.

Wal-Mart is now mounting a bold expansion that could double its sales within just five years, to $480 billion. Some of that growth will come in new markets outside the U.S., where 1,200 stores in nine countries already account for about 16% of the chain"s total sales. But even more growth will be won as the chain insinuates itself into more U.S. neighborhoods and invades more product categories. If you think Wal-Mart already sells just about everything, think again. Think PCs, ceiling fans, more fashionable clothing, gasoline and even cars. "Their goal is to have a 30% share of every major business they are in," says Linda Kristiansen, a retail analyst for UBS Warburg Equity Research. If there"s no Wal-Mart store near you, just wait. If you shop at Wal-Mart, expect your store to get bigger or a new store to open even closer. The chain plans to expand from 3,400 U.S. locations to day-half of them in the South—to a nationwide network approaching 5,000 stores in five years. Wal-Mart has 1,300 Supercenters, many of them converted from standard discount stores, offering everything from hardware to groceries and drugs. In some areas, it is placing these 17, O00-sq-m monsters as close as 8 km apart. And in the spaces between, it"s tormenting local groceries and convenience stores with Neighborhood Markets (call"em Small-Marts). Wal-Mart is building its first urban Supercenter, in downtown Dallas. And without fanfare it is testing used-car sales alongside one of its Houston stores. "It"s surprising how much room we have for growth," says Robson Walton, 58, Sam"s son and the company"s nonexecutive chairman. "I"m not trying to be flippant," adds Lee Scott, 52, Wal-Mart"s CEO. "But simply put, our long-term strategy is to be where we"re not." Yet for Wal-Mart to get where it is now is going to be a lot harder than it was to get where it is. Even with sales expected to grow to about $240 billion for the fiscal year that ends Jan. 31, price wars in its grocery business narrowed Wal-Mart"s profit margin to its lowest level in four years. The company plans to fatten profits by becoming more of a producer and even designer of its goods, especially clothing. It"s making blouses in China and towers in India that it intends to sell everywhere from Berlin to Beijing and Boston. But fashion is a notoriously fickle business. And by diving deeper into the manufacturing of more of its products, Wal-Mart is braving a path that has brought grief to some of history"s biggest retailers, such as A&P and Sears.

In most people"s mind, growth is associated with prosperity. We judge how well the economy is doing by the size of the Gross National Product (GNP), a measure, supposedly, of growth. Equally axiomatic, however, is the notion that increased pressure on declining natural resources must inevitably lead to a decline in prosperity, especially when accompanied by a growth in population. So, which is correct? What growth advocates mean, primarily, when they say growth is necessary for prosperity is that growth is necessary for the smooth functioning of the economic system. In one field the argument in favor of growth is particularly compelling and that is with regard to the Third World. To argue against growth in light of Third World poverty and degradation seems unsympathetic. But is it? Could it be that growth, especially the growth of the wealthier countries, has contributed to the impoverishment, not the advancement, of Third World countries? If not, how do we account for the desperate straits these countries find themselves in today after a century of dedication to growth? To see how this might be the case we must look at the impact of growth on Third World countries—the reality, not the abstract stages-of-economic-growth theory advocated through rose colored glasses by academicians of the developed world. What good is growth to the people of the Third World if it means the conversion of peasant farms into mechanized agri-businesses producing commodities not for local consumption but for export, if it means the stripping of their land of its mineral and other natural treasures to the benefit of foreign investors and a handful of their local collaborators, if it means the assumption of a crushing foreign indebtedness? Admittedly, this is an oversimplification. But the point, I believe, remains valid: that growth in underdeveloped countries cannot simply be judged in the abstract; it must be judged based on the true nature of growth in these societies, on who benefits and who is harmed, on where growth is leading these people and where it has left them. When considered in this way, it just might be that in the present context growth is more detrimental to the well-being of the wretched of the earth than beneficial. So, do we need growth for prosperity? Only the adoption of zero growth can provide the answer. But that is a test not easily undertaken. Modern economies are incredibly complex phenomena, a tribute to man"s ability to organize and a challenge to his ability to understand. Anything that affects their functioning, such as a policy of zero growth, should not be proposed without a wary carefulness and self-doubting humility. But if the prospect of leaping into the economic unknown is fear-inspiring, equally so is the prospect of letting that fear prevent us from acting when the failure to act could mean untold misery for future generations and perhaps environmental disaster which threaten our very existence.

For 22 years America has banned HIV-positive people from entering the country without a hard-to-get waiver for fear of the virus spreading. It has not hosted a big international AIDS conference in more than a decade either, because many HIV-positive activists would not be allowed to attend. Only a dozen other countries, including China and Russia, have similar restrictions, and there is no evidence that these bans halt the spread of AIDS. Instead, many say, it makes things worse by stigmatizing carriers of the virus. On October 30th Barack Obama announced that he will do away with this cruel rule. From 2010, HIV-positive people will be able to travel to America and will also be able to apply for citizenship there. Reversing the ban will bring families together who were separated because of HIV. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you," wrote Andrew Sullivan, a British journalist who is HIV-positive after Mr. Obama"s announcement. He has been nervous when visiting his family in Britain for fear that he would not be allowed to re-enter America, where he and his husband live. Reversing the travel ban may help Mr. Obama combat HIV/AIDS domestically by emphasizing that it is a national disease, not one brought in by foreigners. Around 1.1m Americans are HIV-positive, and more needs to be done to address the spread of the virus. There were more than 56,000 new infections in America in 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Metropolitan areas have particularly high AIDS rates. The incidence of HIV/AIDS in Washington, DC, is so high(around 3%)that it has inspired an AIDS organization to put up posters calling AIDS "DCs Katrina". This is Mr. Obama"s first policy change when it comes to fighting AIDS at home, and it is something that human-rights advocates and gay-rights groups have been demanding for years. Mr. Obama has also appointed an AIDS "tsar" and says he is working to develop a national AIDS strategy. But as he gets his ducks in order, the situation is getting worse. State budget cuts have left some people without access to treatment, and in some states waiting-lists for cheap antiretroviral drugs are long. Mr. Obama also reauthorized the Ryan White CARE Act, which provides funding for AIDS treatment. Many worry, though, that when the money comes through it will not be enough to compensate for the cuts to AIDS programs that states have already made. By reversing the ban, Mr. Obama has made good on one of his promises to his gay supporters, who have felt overlooked so far during his presidency. But the good news was followed, on November 3rd, by the overturning in a referendum of a law permitting gay marriage in Maine.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

We maintain that in general a focus on positive information benefits well-being. However, there are probably conditions when a chronic tendency to focus on positive material is maladaptive. One such context, we presumed, is decision-making, especially when options include both positive and negative features. When making decisions, negative features of options often have higher diagnostic value. If a person who is deciding whether to renew a health care plan remembers that she likes her physician but forgets that the plan does not pay for the hip surgery she needs, a suboptimal decision could be made. Corinna and I designed another study with two primary aims: to see whether in a decision context older people would review positive features of options more than negative features; and if this was the case, to see if we could eliminate the effect by modifying goals with instructions. Using computer-based decision scenarios, 60 older and 60 younger adults were presented with positive, negative, and neutral information about ostensible health care options. Some scenarios presented characteristics of physicians. Others presented features of health care plans. The information was hidden behind colored squares, and participants had to click on the square to see the information. They were told that positive information was behind white squares and negative information was behind black squares. We then observed how often participants examined the positive information versus the negative information. Later we tested their memory for the information. As we predicted, older adults reviewed and recalled a greater proportion of positive information than did younger adults. Most important, participants in one group were repeatedly reminded to "focus on the facts" and in this group the preference for positive information disappeared. Human need is the basis for virtually all of science. If we rise to the challenge of an aging population by systematically applying science and technology to questions that improve quality of life in adulthood and old age, longer-lived populations will inspire breakthroughs in the social, physical, and biological sciences that will improve the quality of life at all ages. Longevity science will reveal ways to improve learning from birth to advanced ages and to deter age-related slowing in cognitive processing. Longevity science will draw enormously on insights about individuals " genomic predispositions and the environmental conditions that trigger the onset of disease. Longevity science will help us understand how stress slowly but surely affects health. Most of the challenges of longer-lived populations will require interdisciplinary collaborations. Psychological science must be a part of this process.

The book seems to be more a dictionary than a grammar book.

A professor from Australia will deliver a lecture on Australian society and culture, and you are asked to write a notice on behalf of the Students" Union. Your notice should include: 1. brief introduction of the lecturer; 2. outline of the lecture; 3. time and place.

It may be just as well for Oxford University"s reputation that this week"s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing body, was held in secret, for the air of civilized rationality that is generally supposed to pervade donnish conversation has lately turned fractious. That"s because the vice-chancellor, the nearest thing the place has to a chief executive, has proposed the most fundamental reforms to the university since the establishment of the college system in 1249; and a lot of the dons and colleges don"t like it. The trouble with Oxford is that it is unmanageable. Its problems—the difficulty of recruiting good dons and of getting rid of bad ones, concerns about academic standards, severe money worries at some colleges—all spring from that. John Hood, who was recruited as vice-chancellor from the University of Auckland and is now probably the most-hated antipodean in British academic life, reckons he knows how to solve this, and has proposed to reduce the power of dons and colleges and increase that of university administrators. Mr. Hood is right that the university"s management structure needs an overhaul. But radical though his proposals seem to those involved in the current row, they do not go far enough. The difficulty of managing Oxford stems only partly from the nuttiness of its system of governance; the more fundamental problem lies in its relationship with the government. That"s why Mr. Hood should adopt an idea that was once regarded as teetering on the lunatic fringe of radicalism, but these days is discussed even in polite circles. The idea is independence. Oxford gets around ￡5, 000 ($9, 500) per undergraduate per year from the government. In return, it accepts that it can charge students only ￡l,150 (rising to￡3,000 next year) on top of that. Since it probably costs at least ￡ 10, 000 a year to teach an undergraduate, that leaves Oxford with a deficit of ￡4,000 or so per student to cover from its own funds. If Oxford declared independence, it would lose the ￡52m undergraduate subsidy at least. Could it fill the hole? Certainly. America"s top universities charge around ￡20,000 per student per year. The difficult issue would not be money alone: it would be balancing numbers of not-so-brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising. America" s top universities manage it: high fees mean better teaching, which keeps competition hot and academic standards high, while luring enough donations to provide bursaries for the poor. It should be easier to extract money from alumni if Oxford were no longer state-funded.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshouldfirstdescribethedrawing,theninterpretitssymbolicmeaning,andgiveyourcommentonit.

Naturalism is the view that the "natural" universe, the universe of matter and energy, is all that there really is. By ruling out a spiritual part of the human person which might survive death and a (god who might resurrect the body, naturalism also rules out survival after death. In addition, naturalism denies human freedom on the grounds that every event must be explainable by deterministic natural laws. It denies any absolute values because it can find no grounds for such values in a world made up only of matter and energy. And finally, naturalism denies that the universe has any meaning or purpose because there is no God to give it a meaning or purpose, and nothing else which can give it a meaning or purpose. Anyone who accepts the first three denials, of God, spiritual beings, and immortality, might be called a naturalist in the broad sense, and anyone who adds to these the denial of freedom, values, and purpose might be labeled a naturalist in the strict sense, or a strict naturalist; Some opponents of naturalism would argue that naturalists in the broad sense are at least somewhat inconsistent and that naturalism in the broad sense leads logically to strict naturalism. Many Strict naturalists would agree with this. Those who reject naturalism in both the strict and broad sense do so for a variety of reasons. They may have positive arguments for the existence of some of what naturalists deny, or they may have what seem to be decisive refutations of some or all of the arguments for naturalism. But, in addition to particular arguments against naturalist tenets or their grounds of belief, some opponents of naturalism believe that there is a general argument which holds against any form of naturalism. These opponents hold that naturalism has a "fatal flaw" or, to put it more strongly, that naturalism is self-destroying. If naturalism is true, then human reason must be the result of natural forces. These natural forces are not, on the naturalistic view, rational themselves, nor can they be the result of a rational cause. So human reason would be the result of nonrational causes. This, it can be argued, gives us a strong reason to distrust human reason, especially in its less practical and more theoretical exercises. But the theory of naturalism is itself such an exercise of theoretical reason. If natural ism is true, we would have strong reasons to distrust theoretical reasoning. If we distrust theoretical reasoning, we distrust particular applications of it, such as the theory of naturalism. Thus, if natural ism is true, we have strong reasons to distrust naturalism.

Have there always been cities? The trend is cities are increasingly becoming the dominant mode of man's social existence. 【F1】 It is virtually impossible to imagine that universities, hospitals, large businesses or even science and technology could have come into being without cities to support them, and cities have traditionally been the areas where there was a concentration of culture as well as of opportunity. 【F2】 In recent years, however, people have begun to become aware that cities are also areas where there is a concentration of problems. Actually, long before this century started, there had begun a trend toward the concentration of the poor of the American society into the cities. Each great wave of immigration from abroad and from the rural areas made the problem worse. Within the cities, sections may be sharply divided into high and low rent districts, the "right side of town" and the slums. Of course, everyone wants to do something about this unhappy situation. But there is no agree ment as to goals. Neither is there any systematic approach or integrated program. Opinions are as diverse as the people who give them. 【F3】 But one basic difference of opinion concerns the question of whether or not the city as such is to be preserved. 【F4】 And there is also the objection that the city has always been the core from which cultural advancement has radiated, but is this still the case today in the presence of easy transportation and communication? Does culture arise as a result of people living together communally, or is it too the result of decisions made at the level of government and the communications industry? Most people prefer to preserve the cities. Some think that the cities could be cleaned up or totally rebuilt. A great rebuilding project would give jobs to many of those people who need them. Living conditions could not help but improve, at least for a while. But would the problems return after the rebuilding was completed? Nevertheless, with the majority of the people living in urban areas, the problem of the cities must be solved. 【F5】 From agreement on this general goal, we have, unfortunately, in the past proceeded to disagreement on specific goals, and from there to total inaction. At the basis of much of this inaction is an old-fashioned concept—the idea human conditions will naturally tend to regulate themselves for the general goal.

BSection III Writing/B

The full influence of mechanization began shortly after 1850, when a variety of machines came rapidly into use. The introduction of these machines frequently created rebellions by workers who were fearful that the machines would rob them of their work. Patrick Bell, in Scotland, and Cyrus McCormick, in United States, produced threshing machines. Improve-meats were made in plows to compensate for different soil types. Stream power came into use in 1860s on large farms. Hay rakes, hay-loaders, and various special harvesting machines were produced, Milking machines appeared. The internal-combustion engine run by gasoline became the chief power source for the farm. In time, the number of certain farm machines that came into use skyrocketed and changed the nature of fanning. Between 1940 and 1960, for example, 12 million horses and mules gave way to 5 million tractors. Tractors offer many features that are attractive to farmers. There are, for example, numerous attachments: cultivators that can penetrate the soil to varying depths, rotary hoes that chop weeds; spray devices that can spray pesticides in bands 100 feet across, and many others. A piece of equipment has now been invented or adapted for virtually every laborious hand or animal operation. On the farm lathe United States, for example, cotton, tobacco, hay, and grain are planted, treated for pests and diseases, fertilized, cultivated and harvested by machine. Large devices shake fruit and nut from trees, gain and blend feed, and dry gain and hay. Equipment is now available to put just the right amount of fertilizer in just the right place, to spray an exact row width, and to count out, Space, and plant just the right number of seeds for a row. Mechanization is not used in agriculture in many parts of Latin America, Africa, Agriculture innovation is accepted fastest where agriculture is already profitable and progressive. Some mechanization has reached the level of plantation agriculture in parts of the tropics, but even today much of that land is laboriously worked by people leading draft animals pal-ling primitive plows. The problems of mechanization in some areas are not only cultural in nature. For examples, tropical soils and crops differ markedly from those in temperate areas that the machines are designed for, so adaptations have to be made. But the greatest obstacle to mechanization is the fear in underdeveloped countries that the workers who are displaced by machines would not find work elsewhere, Introducing mechanization into such areas requires careful planning.

Yesterday you learnt in a newspaper advertisement that there is a job vacancy in a foreign-owned company. What is being recruited is a secretary for the manager. Write a letter to its personnel department: 1) showing your intention for the position 2) displaying your qualifications 3)and expressing your inquiry about an job interview Write your letter in no less than 100 words. Write it neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address. (10 points)

You are going to read a text about the goals related to NRC"s priorities, followed by a list of examples. Choose the best example from the list A-F for each numbered subheading (1-5). There is only one extra example which you do not need to use. The planets seemed like pretty small places. At the same time, Earth seemed a lot larger than it does now. No one had ever seen our planet as a planet: a blue marble on black velvet, coated with water and air. No one knew that the moon was born in an impact. No one fully appreciated that humanity was becoming a geologic force in its own right, capable of changing the environment on a global scale. Whatever else the Space Age has done, it has enriched our view of the natural world and given us a perspective. National Research Council (NRC) panels periodically ask whether the world"s planetary exploration programs are on track. The list of goals that follows synthesizes their priorities. 【C1】Monitor Earth"s Climate The venerable Landsat series, which has monitored the surface since 1972, has been on the fritz for years, and the U. S. has Department of Agriculture has already had to buy data from Indian satellites to monitor crop productivity. For some types of data, no other nation can fill in. 【C2】Prepare an Asteroid Defense Like climate monitoring, guarding the planet from asteroids always seems to fall between the cracks. Neither NASA nor the European Space Agency (ESA) has a mandate to stave off human extinction. It would take 15 years or longer to mount a defense against an incoming body, assuming that the technology were ready to go. 【C3】Seek Out New Life Before Spotnik, scientists thought the solar system might be a veritable Garden of Eden. Earth"s sister worlds proved to be hellish, even when the Mariner probes revealed a cratered moonscape and the Viking landers failed to find even a single organic molecule. But lately the plausible venues for life have multiplied. 【C4】Explain the Genesis of the Planets Studies of the origin of the planets overlap quite a bit with studies of the origins of life. Jakosky puts it thus: "Venus sits at the inner edge of the habitable zone. Mars sits at the outer edge. Earth sits in the middle. And understanding the differences between those planets is central to asking about life beyond our solar system." 【C5】Break Out of the Solar System A solar sail 200 meters across could carry a 500-kilogram spacecraft. After launch from Earth, it would first swoop toward the sun, going as it dared—just inside Mercury"s orbit—to get flung out by the intense sunlight. "Such a mission, be it ESA-or NASA-led, is the next logical step in our exploration of space," Wim mer-Schweingruber says. "After all, there is more to space than exploring our very, very local neighborhood." The estimated price tag is about $2 billion including three decades" operating expenses.[A] Like the origin of life, the origin of the planets was a complex, multistage process. Jupiter was the first-born. Did it build up slowly, like the other planets? Did it form farther from the sun and move inward?[B] Like a windsurfer, the spacecraft would steer by leaning to one side or the other. Just before passing Jupiter"s orbit, it would cast off the sail and glide outward. To get ready, engineers need to design a sufficiently lightweight sail and test it on first.[C] So NRC prepares to take some action plans. Extend asteroid search to smaller bodies, perhaps using a dedicated infrared space telescope. Deflect an asteroid in a controlled way as a trial run. Develop an official system for evaluating potential threats.[D] The NRC panel called for restoring the lost funding, which pay for 17 new missions over the coming decade, such as ones to keep tabs on ice sheets and carbon dioxide levels—essential for predicting climate change and its effects. People sometimes take the mundane yet urgent task of looking after our own planet for granted.[E] Mars is looking hopeful again. Outer-planet moons, notably Europa and Enceladus, appear to have vast underground seas and plenty of life"s raw materials. Even Venus might have been covered in oceans once. The research is not just about finding companionship in the cosmos. It is about divining our own origins.[F] This past spring ESA completed a set of feasibility studies—and promptly shelved them for lack of money. It would take a joint effort with NASA or the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), or both, to make the plan happen.