Sea horses have unusual parents. The female sea horses lay the eggs, but unlike other creatures. It"s the males that give birth to the young. Male sea horses have a fold of skin on their bellies that forms a pocket, called a brood pouch. During the breeding season, the sea horse"s pouch swells to receive eggs. A female sea horse lays up to 200 eggs at a time in the pouch. Then she swims off, leaving her male partner to care for the developing eggs and give birth to young sea horses. The female will return every day to check on her mate and the eggs, but she doesn"t stay long, nor does she take part in the birth. It takes from five to six weeks for the eggs in the male"s pouch to develop. During this time the male avoids open water and hides in sea grass. His big pouch makes it difficult from him to swim, so the male often uses his tall to grasp a piece of sea grass. Firmly, gripping the grass, he will stay perfectly still for hours or even days. The male sea horse will change Iris color to blend with his surroundings and avoid being seen by predators who will try to eat him or poke holes in his pouch to get the eggs. The eggs hatch inside the male"s pouch. When the babies begin moving around, the mate sea horse knows it"s time for them to be born. He grabs a sea grass stem with his tail and begins rocking, bending his body back and forth, this causes the opening to enlarge until wide enough for the first baby sea horse to shoot out. the father sea horse continues rocking, bending, and stretching his body so that the rest of the babies can be born. Sometimes he has to press his pouch against a rock or some stiff seaweed to force the young out. Sea horse babies are born in groups of five or more. Sometimes it takes two days for the father sea horse to give birth to all his young. He is very tiered when it"s over. Soon after giving birth to one brood, the male will approach his mat and show her his empty pouch. This tells her he is ready to receive eggs again.

Man: ______ Woman: No. But it"s a non-smoking section, I"m afraid.

It might be supposed that greater efficiency could be achieved if several people worked together to solve a problem than if only one individual works on it. Although groups often may increase the motivation of their members to deal with problems, there are conflicts arising among members of a group. Problem solving needs the presence of an effective leader who not only provides direction, but also permits the orderly, constructive expression of different opinions; much of the leader"s effort may be devoted to resolving differences. Success in problem solving also depends on the distribution of ability within a group. Although groups may reach a greater number of correct solutions, or may require less time to discover an answer, their efficiency is typically lower than that achieved by skilled individuals working alone. In brainstorming, a problem is presented to a group of people who then proceed to offer whatever they can think of. Theoretically these unrestricted suggestions increase the probability that at least some better solutions will appear. Nevertheless, studies show that when individuals work alone under similar conditions, performance tends to proceed more efficiently than it does in groups. Under special circumstances, however, a group may solve problems more effectively than a competent individual does. Group members may contribute different resources to a solutionthat no individual can achieve alone. Sometimes social demands may require group agreement on a single issue, as in making national economic or military policies under the governments. When only one among several solutions is correct, even if a group requires more time, it has a higher probability of identifying the right one than does an individual alone.

A: Oh…um…do you mind if I smoke? B: _____. A: Oh, I didn"t notice. B: Mmm. There"s a sign on the door.

A group of 11 delegates from the Chinese university returned home last week. They came in second place with 13 other university teams. The conference is the world"s largest university-level U.N. simulation. It is held each April, for a week, in New York, to give students a chance to debate international affairs. It is meant to mirror the real-life business of the U.N. Teams from more than 23 countries gathered this year to discuss and debate serious issues such as the AIDS epidemic and water shortages. Some U.N. senior staff members, U.S. professors, and former student participants formed the judge panel. The Chinese team applied to take part in the event and was assigned to represent Japan this year, working on various committees and arguing Japan"s position on resolutions to problems like international migration. According to Li Xiaocong, the Chinese team leader, their efforts in finding approaches to resolutions made them stand out. Li attributes their success to "solid training".

Long after the 1998 World Cup was won, disappointed fans were still cursing the disputed refereeing(裁判) decisions that denied victory to their team. A researcher was appointed to study the performance of some top referees. The researcher organized an experimental tournament(锦标赛) involving four youth teams. Each match lasted an hour, divided into three periods of 20 minutes during which different referees were in charge. Observers noted down the referees" errors, of which there were 61 over the tournament. Converted to a standard match of 90 minutes, each referee made almost 23 mistakes, a remarkably high number. The researcher then studied the videotapes to analyse the matches in detail. Surprisingly, he found that errors were more likely when the referees were close to the incident. When the officials got it right, they were, on average, 17 meters away from the action. The average distance in the case of errors was 12 meters. The research shows the optimum(最佳的)distance is about 20 meters. There also seemed to be an optimum speed. Correct decisions came when the referees were moving at a speed of about 2 meters per second. The average speed for errors was 4 meters per second. If FIFA, football"s international ruling body, wants to improve the standard of refereeing at the next World Cup, it should encourage referees to keep their eyes on the action from a distance, rather than rushing to keep up with the ball, the researcher argues. He also says that FIFA"s insistence that referees should retire at age 35 may be misguided. If keeping up with the action is not so important, their physical condition is less critical.

Ireland is the best place in the world to live for 2005,【B1】a life quality ranking that appeared in Britain"s Economist magazine last week. The ambitious【B2】to compare happiness levels around the world is based on the principle that wealth is not the only【B3】of human satisfaction and well-being. The index of 111 countries uses【B4】on incomes, health, unemployment, climate, political stability, job security equality between men and women as well as what the magazine calls "freedom, family and community life". Despite the bad weather troubled health service, traffic problems, and the high cost of living, Ireland scored an impressive 8.33 points【B5】10. That put it well ahead of second-place Switzerland, which managed 8.07. Zimbabwe (津巴布韦), troubled by political insecurity and hunger, is rated the lowest,【B6】only 3.89 points. "Although rising incomes and increased individual choices in developed countries are【B7】valued", the report said, "some of the factors associated with【B8】such as the breakdown in traditional institutions and family values in part take away from a positive impact. "Ireland wins because it successfully combines the most desirable elements of the new—the fourth highest gross domestic product per head in the world in 2005, low unemployment, political【B9】—with the preservation of certain warm elements of the old, such as【B10】family and community life".

Passenger: Taxi! (A cab stops and he goes in). Cab driver: ______? Passenger: King"s Hotel on North Street.

The appeal of advertising to buying motives can have both negative and positive effects. Consumers may be convinced to buy a product of poor quality or high price because of an advertisement. For example, some advertisers have appealed to people"s desire for better fuel economy for their cars by advertising automotive products that improve gasoline mileage. Some of the products work. Others are worthless and a waste of consumers" money. Sometimes advertising is intentionally misleading. A few years ago a brand of bread was offered to turned out that the bread was not dietetic(适合于节食的), but just regular bread. There were fewer calories because it was sliced very thin, but there were the same number of calories in every loaf. On the positive side, emotional appeals may respond to a consumer"s real concerns. Consider fire insurance. Fire insurance maybe sold by appealing to fear of loss. But fear of loss is the real reason for fire insurance. The security of knowing that property is protected by insurance makes the purchase of fire insurance a worthwhile investment for most people. If consumers consider the quality of the insurance plans as well as the message in the ads, they will benefit from the advertising. Each consumer must evaluate her or his own situation. Are the benefits of the product important enough to justify buying it? Advertising is intended to appeal to consumers, but it does not force them to buy the product. Consumers still control the final buying decision.

Well-trained college graduates, especially those who have a good command of one or two foreign languages, are in great ______ in the labor market.

Host: Would you like to have more chicken? Guest:______. I have had enough.

Global energy demand is expected to triple by mid-century. The earth is unlikely to run out of fossil fuels by then, given its vast reserves of coal, but it seems unthinkable that we will continue to use them as we do now. It"s not just a question of supply and price, or even of the disease caused by filthy air. The terrorist assault on the World Trade Center raises other scary scenarios: how much easier would it be to crack open the Trans-Alaska pipeline and how much deadlier would it be to bomb a nuclear plant than to attack a wind arm? Skeptics may recall the burst of enthusiasm for conservation and renewable power when oil prices quadrupled in the 1970s. State-funded energy research and development surged, while tax incentives boosted solar, wind and other alternatives to petroleum and the atom. But when oil supplies loosened and prices dropped in the early 1990s, governments lost interest. In the state of California, subsidies evaporated, pushing wind companies into bankruptcy. Clean energy has long way to go. Only 2.2% of the world"s energy comes from "new" renewables such as small hydroelectric dams, wind, solar and geothermal. How to boost that share--and at what pace--is debated in industrialized nations--from Japan, which imports 99.7 % of its oil, to Germany, where the nearby Chernobyl accident turned the public against nuclear plants, to the U.S., where the Bush Administration has strong ties to the oil industry. But the momentum toward clean renewables is undeniable. How soon we reach an era of clean, inexhaustible energy depends on technology. Solar and wind energies are intermittent: When the sky is cloudy or the breeze dies down, fossil fuel or nuclear plants must kick into compensate. But scientists are working on better ways to store electricity from renewable sources. While developed nations debate how to fuel their power plants, however, some 1.6 billion people--a quarter of the globe"s population--have no access to electricity or gasoline. Many spend their days collecting firewood and cow dung, burning it in primitive stoves that belch smoke into their lungs. To emerge from poverty, they need modern energy. And renewables can help. From village-scale hydropower to household photovoltaic systems to bio-gas stoves that convert dung into fuel. Ultimately, the earth can meet its energy needs without fouling the environment. "But it won"t happen," asserts Thomas Johansson, an energy adviser to the United Nations Development Program, "without political will." To begin with, widespread government subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy must be dismantled to level the playing field for renewables. Moreover, government should pressure utility to meet targets for renewable sources of energy.

The suspect ______ that he had assaulted a woman.

I hear many parents complaining that their teenage children are rebelling. I wish it were so. At your age you ought to be growing away from your parents. You should be learning to stand on your own two feet. But take a good look at the present rebellion. It seems that teenagers are all taking the same way of showing that they disagree with their parents. Instead of striking out boldly on their own, most of them are clutching at one another"s hands for courage. They claim they want to dress as they please. But they all wear the same clothes. They set off in new directions in music. But somehow they all end up just by listening to the same record. Their reason for thinking or acting in this way is that the crowd is doing it. It has become harder and harder for a teenager to stand up against the popularity wave and to go his or her own way. Industry has firmly carved out a teenage market. These days every teenager can learn from the advertisements what a teenager should have and be. And many of today"s parents have come to award high marks for the popularity of their children. All this adds up to a greater barrier for the teenager who wants to find his or her own path. But the barrier is worth climbing over. The path is worth following. Find yourself. Be yourself. Popularity will come--with the people who respect you for whom you are. That"s the only kind of popularity that really counts.

A large number of cars ______ parked in front of my house.

I have made a(n) ______for you to see the doctor at 8 o"clock tomorrow.

The night is not what it was. Once, the Earth was cast half in shadow. Then came fire, candle, and light bulb, gradually drawing back the curtain of darkness. But a brighter world has its drawbacks. An estimated 30 percent of outdoor lighting—plus even some indoor lighting—is wasted. Inefficient lighting costs U. S. about ＄10. 4 billion a year, according to Bob Gent of the International Dark-Sky Association, a nonprofit that aims to control light pollution. Last year in Sydney, an estimated 2. 2 million Australians switched off their lights during “Earth Hour”, briefly reducing that city’s energy use by more than 10 percent. Motivated by such trends, more than two dozen cities worldwide went dim on March 29 this year in an hour-long demonstration. A number of groups are trying to measure light pollution and assess its effects on the environment in the hope that people will reduce their own contribution to the problem. Scientists are trying to report how many stars we can see. In dark rural areas, about 2, 000 stars are typically visible at night, compared with“maybe five”in a bright city square—and about 5, 000 in centuries past. People who are working while others are star-gazing may face the greatest risks. Nighttime exposure to white light can cause the growth of tumors (肿瘤) , experiments show. Two decades of research indicate that women who work night shifts have unusually high rates of breast cancer.

This video may be freely reproduced______commercial promotion or sale.

Thirty-two people watched kitty Genovese being killed right beneath their windows. She was their neighbor. Yet none of the 32 helped her. Not one even called the police. Was this in gunman cruelty? Was it lack of feeling about one"s fellow man? "Not so", say scientists John Barley and Bib Fatane. These men went beyond the headlines to probe the reasons why people didn"t act. They found that a person has to go through two steps before he can help. First he has to notice that is an emergency. Suppose you see a middle-aged man fall to the side-walk, is he having a heart attack? Is he in a coma from diabetes? Or is he about to sleep off a drank? Is the smoke coming into the room from a leak in the air conditioning? Is it "steam pipes", or is it really smoke from a fire? It"s not always easy to tell if you are faced with a real emergency. Second, and more important, the person faced with an emergency must feel personally responsible. He must feel that he must help, or the person won"t get the help he needs. The researchers found that a lot depends on how many people are around. They had college students in to be "tested". Some came alone. Some came with one or two others. And some came in large groups. The receptionist started them off on the "tests". Then she went into the next room. A curtain divided the "testing room" and the room into which she went. Soon the students heard a scream, the noise of file cabinets filling and cry for help. All of this had been pm-recorded on a tape-recorder. Eight out of ten of the students taking the test alone acted to help. Of the students in pairs, only two out of the ten helped. Of the students in group, none helped. In other words, in a group, Americans often fail to act. They feel that others will act. They, themselves, needn"t. They do not feel any direct responsibility. Are people bothered by situation where people are in trouble? Yes, scientists found that the people were emotional, they sweated, they had trembling hands. They felt that other person"s trouble. But they did not act. They were in a group. Their actions were shaped by the actions of those they were with.

At some time in your life you may have a strong desire to do something strange or terrible. However, chances are that you don"t act on your impulse, but let it pass instead. You know that to commit the action is wrong in some way and that other people will not accept your behavior. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the phenomenon of the behavior is how it can change over the years within the same society, how certain behavior and attitudes once considered taboo can become perfectly acceptable and natural at another point in time. Topics such as death, for example, were once considered so upsetting and unpleasant that it was a taboo to even talk about them. Now with the publication of important books such as On Death and Dying and Learning to Say Goodbye, people have become more aware of the importance of expressing feelings about death and, as a result, are more willing to talk about this taboo subject. One of the newest taboos in American society is the topic of fat. Unlike many other taboos, fat is a topic that Americans talk about constantly. It"s not taboo to talk about fat; it"s taboo to be fat. The "in" look is thin, not fat. In the work world, most companies prefer youthful-looking, trim executives to sell their image as well as their products to the public. The thin look is associated with youth, vigor and success. The fat person, on the other hand, is thought of as lazy and lacking in energy, self-respect. After all, people think, how can people who care about themselves, and therefore the way they look, permit themselves to become fat? In an image-conscious society like the U.S., thin is "in", fat is "out".