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) If the 20th century has been the American century, then there are plenty of people saying watch this space: the twenty first century will be different. The distinguishing characteristic of the post-cold-war world is that there is only one super power. (41)______. The military muscle-flexing we have seen from China over the last few years could be an indication of how things are likely to go, although it has to be said that to many people"s surprise the Chinese have been quite constructive over East Timor. But I think we must assume that the main struggle in the 21st century will be with China, already the world"s largest nation. Happily, the Chinese seem to have no global pretensions. One can"t see them interfering in some far-distant conflict, and in both military and economic terms they are still light years behind America. (42)______. Europe is already the largest trading block in the world, (43)______. It"s worth remembering that while Europe spends 60 percent of what the USA does in defence, it has only 10 percent of the Americans" firepower. In the Middle East, in a relatively short space of time, bubbling conflicts have moved closer to resolution. The Arab Israeli dispute has been reduced to its core essentials, while agreement between Syria and Israel remains the strategic prize for peace. Iran is undergoing a slow transformation but the outstanding political issue here is Iraq and Saddam Hussein"s extraordinary survival. The international community remains bitterly divided about what to do. Africa, I fear, is going to remain a disaster area, simply because it does not figure on people"s mental maps. Currently there is war raging in six countries around the Congo, yet there"s very little sense the international community will do anything about it. There is, though, some good news. If you look back a year ago to Algeria, it was drowning in its own blood. Now it seems to be back on the right track. (44)______. For many years the non-proliferation regime actually worked surprisingly well, but India and Pakistan going nuclear has been a great blow to the status quo. And now there are new biological and chemical weapons—undreamed-of horrors—not to mention the whole legacy of the cold war which hasn"t been cleaned up, such as Russian nuclear waste in the Arctic. The fundamental problem is that there are countries that are simply being left behind by the onward march of globalization. Global issues such as the environment and drugs—and perhaps even human rights—are going to come much more to the fore. (45)______.A. It is called to be an economic giant, especially when the euro has been issued.B. but while the euro could help it become an economic giant, and even challenge the dollar, it looks likely to re main a political and military pygmy.C. And there"s only one candidate on the horizon to challenge the US—China.D. As the world shrinks, so we shall have an increasing sense of the need for an international humanitarian order. Globalization may be a good thing, but it has a dark underbelly.E. Russia is a powerful country which owns military superiorityF. We must also assume the continued decline of Russia. It shows how far things have gone (and how quickly) when what was once the second most powerful country in the world is being battered by Islamic rebels from the Caucasus. Now we have a Russian state which simply cannot cope.G. I do think arms control will be a big item on the agenda in future.

The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop's Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than stealing from, human beings. Aesop' s fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. The fable' s lesson, that we often play down that which we can' t achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. The mythology of other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop' s fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environment in which those culture existed.

Taking a multivitamin around the time of conception may help women lower their risk of delivering low-birth-weight babies, a new research shows. The study, one of the first to look at multivitamin use immediately before and after conception, strengthens the notion that nutritional deficiencies may increase the risk of birth complications. Still, the researchers cautioned that it was too soon to recommend multivitamins for women who are contemplating pregnancy or already expecting. While some studies have suggested benefits, others have found that women who eat a healthy diet have no need for multivitamins, and that vitamins may even do some harm, especially when their use is continued late into a pregnancy. The study, published in the September issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, analyzed data on nearly 36,000 Danish women enrolled in a national birth registry. The scientists who carried out the research found that a large share of the women—about 60 percent had been taking multivitamins in the four weeks before and eight weeks after the last menstrual period. After adjusting for a number of risk factors, like smoking, weight and the age of the mother, the study found that women who took a daily multivitamin and were of normal weight had a nearly 20 percent lower chance of delivering a preterm baby, compared with those who did not take a daily multivitamin. Women who were overweight did not see the same benefit, though it was unclear why. In 2004, a study by scientists at Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that taking daily multivitamins was a widespread practice among expectant mothers in the United States. Up to 78 percent of pregnant women reported taking multivitamins, the study found, compared with only 47 percent of women who were not pregnant. Doctors have long encouraged pregnant women and those contemplating pregnancy to take folic acid—a B vitamin—daily to help prevent neural tube defects. Folic acid is the synthetic form of folate, a member of the family of B vitamins that is involved with DNA synthesis and DNA methylation. Because of these crucial functions, folate plays important roles in fetal development and nerve tissue health. And since the late 1990s, the government has also required food makers to add the vitamin to many grain products, including flour and breads. The authors of the latest study suggested that there could be other nutrients in multivitamins besides folic acid that help reduce the risk of birth complications. But they also said that more, research was needed, and that they were not recommending that women trying to conceive should start a daily multivitamin regimen.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

BPart B/B

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) This year the combined advertising revenues of Google and Yahoo! will rival the combined prime-time ad revenues of America"s three big television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, predicts Advertising Age. (41)______. And this week online advertising made another leap forward. The latest innovation comes from Google, which has begun testing a new auction-based service for display advertising. It already provides a service called AdSense. It works rather like an advertising agency, automatically placing sponsored links and other ads on third-party websites. Google then splits the revenue with the owners of those websites, who can range from multinationals to individuals publishing blogs, as online journals are known. Google"s new services extend AdSense in three ways. (42)______. This provides both more flexibility and control, says Patrick Keane, Google"s head of sales strategy. Companies trying to raise awareness of a brand often want a high level of control over where their ads appear. The second change involves pricing. (43)______. Click-through marketing tends to be aimed at people who already know they want to buy something and are searching for product and price information, whereas display advertising is more often used to persuade people to buy things in the first instance. The third change is that Google will now offer animated ads—but nothing too flashy or annoying, insists Mr. Keane. Google has long been extremely conservative about the use of advertising; it still plans to use only small, text-based ads on its own search sites. (44)______. This could fuel online ad-growth even further. Worldwide ad revenue on the internet grew by 21% in 2004, and it is expected to continue at that pace for the next few years, says Zenith Optimedia, a research firm. As Google and Yahoo! are two of the most widely visited sites, this greatly benefits them. (45)______. Terry Semel, Yahoo!"s chief executive, believes there is a lot more growth to come as companies become more familiar with online advertising. Other innovations in online marketing are said to be in the pipeline. Local search and its associated advertising opportunities are one huge growth area. This week, Yahoo! appointed another top executive to its media group, fuelling industry speculation that the website may start to produce its own entertainment content. Television stations would then have a lot more to worry about than just losing ad revenue to the internet.A. Instead of Google"s software analyzing third-party websites to determine from their content what relevant ads to place on them, advertisers will instead be able to select the specific sites where they want their ads to appear.B. Google recently announced a net profit of $369m in its first quarter from revenue that soared to $1.3 billion, up 93% compared with the same period a year earlier. Yahoo!"s first-quarter net profits more than doubled to $205m on revenue of $1.2 billion, up 55% from a year earlier.C. Many big firms still allocate only 2-4% of their marketing budgets to the internet, although it represents about 15% of consumers" media consumption—a share that is growing. Many young people already spend more time online than they do watching TV.D. It will, says the trade magazine, represent a "watershed moment" in the evolution of the internet as an advertising medium. A 30-second prime-time TV ad was once considered the most effective—and the most expensive—form of advertising. But that was before the internet got going.E. But many of its AdSense partners might well be tempted by the prospect of earning a share of revenue from display and animated ads too, especially as such ads are likely to be more appealing to some of the big-brand advertisers.F. Sites such as eBay, the leading online auctioneer, and Craigslist, which hosts local sites, are soaking up large amounts of spending that might otherwise have gone on classified advertising-and for everything from used cars to job vacancies. Yahoo! is expanding heavily into entertainment, with film and video clips providing another avenue for advertisers.G. Potential internet advertisers must bid for their ad to appear on a "cost-per-thousand" (known as CPM) basis. CPM bids will have to compete against rival bids for the same ad space from those wanting to pay on a "cost-per-click" basis, the way search terms are presently sold.

Suppose you are an eyewitness of a traffic accident. Write an account of it, and your composition should cover the following points: 1. when and where did the accident happen; 2. what was the accident spot like; 3. your analysis on the reason(s) of the accident. You should write about 100 words.

BPart ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information./B

You have just received a letter from the marketing department of Unilever China, informing you of your recruitment. Please write a reply letter to show your appreciation. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

When the Federal Communications Commission proposed giving low-power radio stations licenses on the FM dial, they knew they"d get flak from big broadcasting. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), after all, spends millions of dollars every year lobbying to keep everybody else off the radio spectrum—even locally managed, noncommercial stations that broadcast only within a four-mile radius. Sure enough, when the FCC proposed its new regulations, the NAB began screaming about all the terrible things those tiny radio transmitters could do to the big ones, whose signals are 500 times as strong and whose reach is nearly 20 times as far. It was a pretty thin argument. So thin, in fact, that for a while if appeared the proposed regulations might survive the lobbying onslaught. And then the FCC and its allies ran into a most unlikely opponent, one with the moral authority to do real damage to their cause: National Public Radio. One might easily assume that NPR would look out for the public interest. After all, NPR was born from the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which called for it to "encourage the development of programming that involves creative risks and that addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences" while creating "programs of high quality, diversity, creativity, excellence, and innovation which are obtained from diverse sources." The charter, in other words, describes exactly the kind of programming low-power radio might provide, particularly in rural or heavily immigrant communities where locally oriented programming could be more useful than nationally syndicated shows. But the well-meaning lefties at NPR didn"t see low-power radio as a potential ally or kindred spirit. They saw it just as the big broadcasters did—as a threat—and tried to squash it in much the same way. They may have succeeded. NPR"s lobbying supported a last-minute rider in December"s Senate appropriations bill (which eventually became law). This amendment severely handicaps the low-power radio initiative. Specifically, it limits the licensing of low-power radio to just nine test markets, enforcing restrictions that effectively keep it out of urban are as and other major markets. It also mandates testing to determine the economic impact on established broadcasters. And, though John McCain has vowed to continue the fight for low power, for now at least NPR has won the day. The primary motivation behind opening the airwaves to low-power radio was to undo the damage wrought by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That law was supposed to increase competition on the airwaves. Instead, it consolidated control of radio stations in the hands of a few large, national companies that syndicate programs (or even whole broadcasts) to their affiliates, thus squeezing out local programming. By allowing small, noncommercial stations, to break into the spectrum, the FCC hoped to reintroduce local material in places where it has all but vanished. In its application process, the FCC privileged local content and community involvement—for example, assigning spectrum space to stations in primarily Latino areas that broadcast family-planning information in Spanish. Part of the application asked aspiring broadcasters how their stations would serve their neighborhoods.

For the best part of twenty years, Alan Greenspan has been a symbol of stupidity of ageism. 【F1】 He became chairman of the US Federal Reserve at 61, when plenty of workers have already been tossed on the scrapheap and many others are preparing to wind down for retirement. His golden years in charge of the US economy were when he was pushing 70 and he' s still there aged 78. Greenspan is the doyen of central bankers, still talked about in almost reverential terms of his peers. The fact that the Fed chairman rarely gives interviews and makes public announcements that are to economics what Finnegans Wake is to literature only adds to the mystique. It is, then, with some trepidation that the question has to be asked: has Big Alan finally lost the plot? At the start of last week, Greenspan presided over a meeting of the Fed which kept interest rates on hold at 1% ,the level they have been pegged at for nearly a year.【F2】 A statement accompanying the decision said the risks to inflation were balanced, which means the Fed thinks there is as much a chance of the cost of living going up as going down. 【F3】 On Thursday, new joblessness claims in the US fell to their lowest level in getting on for four years, and the picture of a recovering labour market was underlined by Friday's non-farm payrolls which showed an increase of 288,000, above what had been expected. The economy is expanding at an annual rate of 4.5%, surveys of both manufacturing and the service sector are strong, the housing market is booming, inflation has started to pick up. 【F4】Hardly surprisingly, Greenspan's call on inflation is now coming under the microscope, even by those on Keynesian left who tend to favor expansionary macro-economic policies. "Show me something, other than computers, where the price is falling," says Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington. Baker is right.【F5】Clearly, risks to inflation are on the upside, and massively so. The economy has been injected with a cocktail of three growth-inducing drugs—negative real interest rates, a rising budget deficit and a falling currency. Oil prices have touched $ 40 a barrel and the labour market is tightening. It is hard to believe that Greenspan, a junkie for economic data no matter how seemingly trivial, has not spotted all this. Rates in the US are far below a neutral level, which would probably be around 5%, yet Greenspan is in no hurry to act.

You hove been given a position in a company. Write a letter to the Personnel Department declining the job offer, explaining why and expressing your gratitude and best wishes. Write your letter with no less than 100 words. Do not sign your name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

If you are what you eat, then you are also what you buy to eat. And mostly what people buy is scrawled onto a grocery list, those ethereal scraps of paper that record the shorthand of where we shop and how we feed ourselves. Most grocery lists end up in the garbage. But if you live in St. Louis, they might have a half-life you never imagined: as a cultural document, posted on the Internet. For the past decade, Bill Keaggy, 33, the features photo editor at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has been collecting grocery lists and since 1999 has been posting them online at www. Grocery lists, org. The collection, which now numbers more than 500 lists, is strangely addictive. The lists elicit two-fold curiosity—about the kind of meal the person was planning and the kind of person who would make such a meal. What was the shopper with vodka, lighters, milk and ice cream on his list planning to do with them? In what order would they be consumed? Was it a he or a she? Who had written "Tootie food, kitten chow, bird food stick, toaster scrambles, coffee drinks"? Some shoppers organize their lists by aisle; others start with dairy, go to cleaning supplies and then back to dairy before veering off to Home Depot. A few meticulous ones note the price of every item. One shopper had written in large letters on an envelope, simply, "Milk". The thin lines of ink and pencil jutting and looping across crinkled and torn pieces of paper have a purely graphic beauty. One of life"s most banal duties, viewed through the curatorial lens, can somehow seem pregnant with possibility. It can even appear poetic, as in the list that reads "meat, cigs, buns, treats". One thing Keaggy discovered is that Dan Quayle is not alone—few people can spell bananas and bagels, let alone potato. One list calls for "suchi" and "strimp". "Some people pass judgment on the things they buy," Keaggy says. At the end of one list, the shopper wrote "Bud Light" and then "good beer". Another scribbled "good loaf of white bread". Some pass judgment on themselves, like the shopper who wrote "read, stay home or go somewhere, I act like my mom, go to Kentucky, underwear, lemon". People send messages to one another, too. Buried in one list is this statement: "If you buy more rice, I"ll punch you." And plenty of shoppers, like the one with both ice cream and diet pills on the list, reveal their vices.

Nobody in our college knows Italian.

Admittedly, minor accidents and slip ups continue to shake public confidence in nuclear power. Given the unquantifiable risks that nuclear power carries, it is only right that the industry be subjected to the test of public opinion and due political process. However, this argues for exceptional vigilance, regulatory scrutiny and accountability-and not for bans or shutdowns. Those nuclear operators with a good safety record deserve to have their licenses renewed, so that existing plants may run to the end of their useful lives. The Bush administrations enthusiastic support goes a lot further than this, however. It also wants to see new plants. Proponents of new nuclear power stations make three arguments in their favor. They will enhance energy security by lessening dependence on fossil fuels; Far from being environmentally harmful, they will be beneficial because they will reduce the output of greenhouse gases; And, most crucially, the economics of nuclear power has improved from the days when it was wholly dependent on bail out and subsidy. Yet these arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. The claim that governments should support nuclear power to reduce their vulnerability to the OPEC oil cartel is doubly absurd. Little oil is used in power generation: what nuclear power displaces is mostly natural gas and coal, which are not only more plentiful than oil but also geographically better distributed. Security is enhanced not by seeking energy self-sufficiency but through diversification of supplies. Creating lots of fissile material that might be pinched by terrorists is an odd way to look for security anyway. What about the argument that climate change might be the great savior of nuclear power? Global warming is indeed a risk that should be taken more seriously than the Bosh administration has so far done. Nuclear plants do not produce any carbon dioxide, which is the principal greenhouse gas. However, rushing in response to build dozens of new nuclear plants would be both needlessly expensive and environ mentally unsound. It would make far more sense to adopt a carbon tax, which would put clean energy sources such as solar and wind on an equal footing with nuclear, whose waste poses an undeniable (if remote) environmental threat of its own for aeons to come. Governments should also dismantle all subsidies on fossil fuels—especially for coal, the dirtiest of all. They should adopt reforms that send proper price signals to those who use power, and so reduce emissions. Global warming certainly provides one argument in favor of nuclear power. But it is not sufficient on its own to justify a nuclear renaissance.

In the run-up to his latest budget, nothing seemed to be going George Osborne's way. The economy was slowing down, biting into the chancellor's tax revenues. Growing worries about the June referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union prompted the Treasury to cancel a proposed overhaul of the pensions system. But when Mr Osborne stood up on March 16th, he gave the impression that nothing would knock him off his course to reform the British economy. It was a budget "for the next generation," he said repeatedly, as if to emphasise the scale of his ambition. With an extra ￡7.6 billion ( $ 10.9 billion) of spending cuts, Britain is still forecast to run a budget surplus of & 10 billion in 2019-2020, just before an election. Lessening the burden of government debt on future generations, he argued , is the right thing to do, as is implementing the structural reforms that will make the British economy more competitive. In that regard, at least, Mr Osborne's budget speech hit the right tone. But there was not enough to back it up. The biggest set of reforms, of company taxation, may indeed make the Britain of tomorrow a better place to do business. Following an agreement in November by the OECD, a club of mainly rich countries, Mr Osborne tweaked rules under which firms offset debt-interest payments against their corporation-tax bill. Small businesses, which complain most about tax-dodging by big firms with expensive lawyers, are particularly happy. Mr Osborne raised the threshold up to which small companies are eligible for relief on business rates, taxes charged on non-domestic property. About 250,000 firms will see lower rates, a welcome windfall for those worrying about a higher minimum wage to be introduced next month. Among big, rich economies Britain has one of the lowest rates of rapidly growing small firms, which holds back productivity, according to a recent report by Goldman Sachs. Further incentives to invest were put in place through a reduction in corporation tax, which will fall to 17% by 2020, one of the lowest rates in the rich world. Greater certainty over future tax policy is welcomed by businessfolk. The big downside for all firms is the ever-increasing complexity of the tax code: Mr Osborne smashed his own record by introducing an astonishing 86 tax measures in the budget. These plans may marginally improve competitiveness in the long term, but for now they are likely to favour oldies over youngsters. Lowering capital-gains tax benefits those with assets in the first place. Add in the increase in the personal tax-allowance and a rise in the threshold for paying a higher rate of income tax — from which richer (and older) types will benefit more than poor youngsters — and many policies seem skewed against the young.

[A]Sowhatdoesthisteachus?WelearnthatintheUnitedStates,wealthychildrenattendingpublicschoolsthatservethewealthyarecompetitivewithanynationintheworld.Sincethatisthecase,whywouldanyonethinkourpublicschoolsarefailing?[B]Similarly,asthefamiliesservedbyaschoolincreaseinwealthfromthelowestquartileinfamilywealthtothehighestquartileinfamilywealth,themeanscoresofallthestudentsatthoseschoolsgoesupquitesubstantially.Thus,characteristicsofthecohortattendingaschoolstronglyinfluencethescoresobtainedbythestudentsatthatschool.[C]DavidC.Berlinerisaneducationalpsychologistwhoisoneoftheclearestthinkersintheeducationworldaboutteaching,teachereducation,educationalpolicyandtheeffectsofcorporateschoolreformonschools.BerlinerhasissuedanewpostaboutwhatisreallyhappeninginAmerica'spublicschoolstodayasopposedtowhatsomeschoolreformersandnewsorganizationssayishappening.[D]Wefindthecommoncorrelatesofpoverty:lowbirthweightintheneighborhood,higher-than-averageratesofteenandsingleparenthood,residentialmobility,absenteeism,crime,andstudentsinneedofspecialeducationorEnglishlanguageinstruction.Theseproblemsofpovertyinfluenceeducationandaremagnifiedbyhousingpoliciesthatfostersegregation.[E]Formanyyearshehasbeenwritingabouttheliestoldaboutthepoorperformanceofourstudentsandthefailureofourschoolsandteachers.Journalistsandpoliticiansareoftenournations'mostirritatingcommentatorsaboutthestateofAmericaneducationbecausetheyhaveaccesstothesamefactsthatIhave.[F]Forexample,onthemathematicsportionofthe2012ProgramforInternationalStudentAssessmentorPISA,poorstudents—thosefromthelowestquartileinfamilyincome—whoattendedschoolsthatservedthepoorestfamilies—aschoolinthehighestquartileofthosereceivingfreeandreducedlunch—attainedameanscoreof425.Butwealthystudents—thoseinthehighestquartileoffamilyincome—whoattendedschoolsthatservedthewealthiestfamilies—schoolsinthelowestquartileofstudentsreceivingfreeandreducedlunch—scoredameanof528.That'saone-hundredpointdifference![G]Theyallcaneasilylearnthattheinternationaltests(e.g.PISA,TIMSS,PIRLS),thenationaltests(e.g.NAEP),thecollegeentrancetests(e.g.SAT,ACT),andeachoftheindividualstatetestsfollowanidenticalpattern.Itisthis:Asincomeincreasesperfamilyfromourpoorestfamilies(underthe25thpercentileinwealth),toworkingclass(26th-50thpercentileinfamilywealth),tomiddleclass(51st-75thpercentileinfamilywealth),towealthy(thehighestquartileinfamilywealth),meanscoresgoupquitesubstantially.Order

Some people would say that the Englishman"s home is no longer his castle; that it has become his workshop. This is partly because the average Englishman is keen on working with his hands and partly because he feels, for one reason or another, that he must do for himself many household jobs for which, some years ago, he would have hired professional help. The main reason for this is a financial one: the high cost of labor has meant that builders" and decorators" costs have reached a level which makes them so high that house-proud English people of modest means hang back. So, if they wish to keep their houses looking bright and smart, they have to deal with some of the repairs and decorating themselves. As a result, there has grown up in the post-war years what is sometimes referred to as the "Do-It-Yourself Movement". The "Do-It-Yourself Movement" began with home decorating but has since spread into a much wider field. Nowadays there seem to be very few things that cannot be made by the "do-it-yourself" method. A number of magazines and handbooks exist to show hopeful handymen of all ages just how easy it is to build anything from a coffee table to a fifteen-foot(4.5 meters) sailing boat. All you need, it seems, is a hammer and a few nails. You follow the simple instructions step-by-step and, before you know where you are, the finished article stands before you, complete in every detail. Unfortunately, alas, it is not always quite as simple as it sounds! Many a "do-it-yourselfer" has found to his cost that one cannot learn a skilled craftsman"s job overnight. How quickly one realizes, when doing it oneself, that a job which takes the skilled man an hour or so to complete takes the amateur five or six at least. And then there is the question of tools. The first thing the amateur learns is that he must have the right tools for the job. Bui tools cost money. There is also the wear and tear on the nerves. It is not surprising then that many people have come to the conclusion that the expense of paying professionals to do the work is, in the long run, more economical than "doing it oneself".

The telecity is a city whose life, direction, and functioning are largely shaped by telecommunications. In the twenty first century, cities will be based more and more on an economy that is dependent on services and intellectual property. Telecommunications and information networks will define a city"s architecture, shape, and character. Proximity in the telecity will be defined by the speed and bandwidth of networks as much as by geographical propinquity. In the age of the telecity, New York and Singapore may be closer than, say, New York and Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Telecities will supersede megacities for several reasons, including the drive toward clean air, reducing pollution, energy conservation, more jobs based on services, and coping with the high cost of urban property. Now we must add the need to cope with terrorist threats in a high-technology world. Western mind-sets were clearly jolted in the wake of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and attacks in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and else where. But the risks posed by twentieth-century patterns of urbanization and architecture have ye to register fully with political figures and leaders of industry. The Pentagon, for example, has been rebuilt in situation rather than distributed to multiple locations and connected by secure landlines and broadband wireless systems. Likewise, the reconstruction of the World Trade Center complex still represents a massive concentration of humanity and infrastructure. This is a remarkably shortsighted and dangerous vision of the future. The security risks, economic expenses, and environmental hazards of over-centralization are everywhere, and they do not stop with skyscrapers and large governmental structures. There are risks also at seaports and airports, in food and water supplies, at nuclear power plants and hydroelectric turbines at major dams, in transportation systems, and in information and communications systems. This vulnerability applies not only to terrorist threats but also to human error, such as system-wide blackouts in North America in August 2003 and in Italy in September 2003, and natural disasters such as typhoons, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. Leaders and planners are only slowly becoming aware that overcentralized facilities are the most vulnerable to attack or catastrophic destruction. There is also growing awareness that new broadband electronic systems now allow governments and corporations to safeguard their key assets and people in new and innovative ways. So far, corporations have been quickest to adjust to these new realities, and some governments have begun to adjust as well.

"My own feelings went from disbelief to excitement to downright fear", says Carl Hergenrother, 23, an Arizona undergraduate who verified a large asteroid barreling toward Earth with a 230cm telescope atop nearby Kitt Peak. "It was scary, because there was the possibility that we were confirming the demise of some city somewhere, or some state or small country". Well, not quite. Early last week, his celestial interloper whizzed by Earth, missing the planet by 450620 km—a hairbreadth in astronomical terms. Perhaps half a kilometer across, it was the largest object ever observed to pass that close to Earth. Duncan Steel, an Australian astronomer, has calculated that if the asteroid had struck Earth, it would have hit at some 93450 km/h. The resulting explosion, scientists estimate, would have been in the 3000-to-12000-megaton range. That, says astronomer Eugene Shoemaker, a pioneer asteroid and comet hunter, "is like taking all of the U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons, putting them in one pile and blowing them all up". And what if one them is found to be on a collision course with Earth? Scientists at the national laboratories at Livermore, California, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, have devised a number of ingenious plans that, given enough warning time, could protect Earth from a threatening NEO. Their defensive weapons of choice include long-distance missiles with conventional or, more likely, nuclear warheads that could be used either to nudge an asteroid into a safe orbit or blast it to smithereens. Many people-including some astronomers—are understandably nervous about putting a standby squadron of nuclear tipped missiles in place. Hence the latest strategy, which in some cases would obviate the need for a nuclear defense: propelling a fusillade of cannonball-size steel spheres at an approaching asteroid. In a high-velocity encounter with a speeding NEO, explains Gregory Canavan, a senior scientist at Los Alamos, "the kinetic energy of the balls would change into heat energy and blow the thing apart". Some astronomers oppose any immediate defensive preparations, citing the high costs and low odds of a large object"s striking Earth in the coming decades. But at the very least, Shoemaker contends, NEO detection should be accelerated. "There"s this thing called the "giggle factor" in Congress", he says, "people in Congress and also at the top level in NASA still don"t take it seriously. But we should move ahead. It"s a matter of prudence". The world, however, still seems largely unconcerned with the danger posed by large bodies hurtling in from space, despite the spectacle two years ago of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 riddling the planet Jupiter with mammoth explosions. It remains to be seen whether last week"s record near-miss has changed any minds.