单选题John Snow's remarks are mentioned in the text to show______.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. In recent years a new farming revolution has begun, one that involves the{{U}} (1) {{/U}}of life at a fundamental level-the gene. The study of genetics has{{U}} (2) {{/U}}a new industry called biotechnology. As the name suggests, it{{U}} (3) {{/U}}biology and modern technology through such techniques as genetic engineering. Some of the new biotech companies specialize in agriculture and are working feverishly to{{U}} (4) {{/U}}seeds that give a high yield, that{{U}} (5) {{/U}}disease, drought and frost, and that reduce the need for{{U}} (6) {{/U}}chemicals. If such goals could be achieved, it would be most{{U}} (7) {{/U}}. But some have raised concerns about genetically engineered crops. In nature, genetic diversity is created within certain{{U}} (8) {{/U}}. A rose can be crossed with a different kind of rose, but a rose will never cross with a potato. Genetic engineering{{U}} (9) {{/U}}usually involves taking genes from one species and inserting them into another{{U}} (10) {{/U}}to transfer a desired characteristic. This could mean, for example, selecting a gene which leads to the production of a chemical with anti-freeze{{U}} (11) {{/U}}from an arctic fish, and inserting it into a potato or strawberry to make it frost-resistant.{{U}} (12) {{/U}}, then, biotechnology allows humans to{{U}} (13) {{/U}}the genetic walls that separate species.Like the green revolution,{{U}} (14) {{/U}}some call the gene revolution contributes to the problem of genetic uniformity-some say even more{{U}} (15) {{/U}}geneticists can employ techniques such as cloning and{{U}} (16) {{/U}}culture, processes that produce perfectly{{U}} (17) {{/U}}copies. Concerns about the erosion of biodiversity, therefore, remain. Genetically altered plants, however, raise new{{U}} (18) {{/U}}, such as the effect they may have on us and environment. ".We are flying blindly into a new{{U}} (19) {{/U}}of agricultural biotechnology with high hopes, few constraints and little idea of the potential{{U}} (20) {{/U}}," said science writer Jemery Rifkin.

单选题What would happen to the U. S. economy if all its commercial banks suddenly closed their doors? Throughout most of American history, the answer would have been a disaster of epic proportions, akin to the Depression wrought by the chain-reaction bank failures in the early 1930s. But in 1993 the startling answer is that a shutdown by banks might be far from cataclysmic. Consider this: though the economic recovery is now 27 months old, not a single net new dollar has been lent to business by banks in all that time. Last week the Federal Reserve reported that the amount of loans the nation's largest banks have made to businesses fell an additional ＄2. 4 billion in the week ending June 9, to ＄274.8 billion. Fearful that the scarcity of bank credit might sabotage the fragile economy, the White House and federal agencies are working feverishly to encourage banks to open their lending windows. In the past two weeks, government regulators have introduced steps to make it easier for banks to lend. Is the government's concern fully justified? Who really needs banks these days? Hardly anyone, it turns out. While banks once dominated business lending, today nearly 80% of all such loans come from nonbank lenders like life insurers, brokerage firms and finance companies. Banks used to be the only source of money in town. Now businesses and individuals can write checks on their insurance companies, get a loan from a pension fund, and deposit paychecks in a money-market account with a brokerage firm. "It is possible for banks to die and still have a vibrant economy," says Edward Furash, a Washington bank consultant. The irony is that the accelerating slide into irrelevance comes just as the banks racked up record profits of ＄43 billion over the past 15 months, creating the illusion that the industry is staging a comeback. But that income was not the result of smart lending decisions. Instead of earning money by financing America's recovery, the banks mainly invested their funds--on which they were paying a bargain-basement 2% or so--in risk-free Treasury bonds that yielded 7%. That left bank officers with little to do except put their feet on their desks and watch the interest roll in. Those profits may have come at a price. Not only did bankers lose many loyal customers by withholding credit, they also inadvertently opened the door to a herd of nonbank competitors, who stampeded into the lending market. "The banking industry didn't see this threat," says Furash. "They are being fat, dumb and happy. They didn't realize that banking is essential to a modern economy, but banks are not./

单选题{{B}}Part B{{/B}}{{B}}Directions: {{/B}}{{I}}In the following articles, some sentence have been removed. For Questions 41 -45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWTR SHEET 1.{{/I}} A significant portion of industry and transportation burns fossil fuels, such as gasoline. When these fuels burn, chemicals and particulate matter are released into the atmosphere. Although a vast number of substances contribute to air pollution, the most common air pollutants contain carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen. 41 __________. Acid rain forms when sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide transform into sulfuric acid and nitric acid in the atmosphere and come back to Earth in precipitation. Acid rain has made numerous lakes so acidic that they no longer support fish populations. 42 __________. Estimates suggest that nearly 1.5 billion people worldwide lack safe drinking water and that at least 5 million deaths per year can be attributed to waterborne diseases. Water pollution may come from point sources or nonpoint sources. Point sources discharge pollutants from specific locations, such as factories, sewage treatment plants, and oil tankers. The technology exists to monitor and regulate point sources of pollution, although in some areas this occurs only sporadically. Pollution from nonpoint sources occurs when rainfall or snowmelt moves over and through the ground. 43 __________. With almost 80 percent of the planet covered by oceans, people have long acted as if those bodies of water could serve as a limitless dumping ground for wastes. However, raw sewage, garbage, and oil spills have begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of tile oceans, and most coastal waters are now polluted, threatening marine wildlife. 44 __________. Water that collects beneath the ground is called groundwater. Worldwide, groundwater is 40 times more abundant than fresh water in streams and lakes. In the United States, approximately half the drinking water comes from groundwater. Although groundwater is a renewable resource, reserves replenish relatively slowly. Presently, groundwater in the United States is withdrawn approximately 4 times faster than it is naturally replaced. 45 __________. A. Beaches around the world close regularly, often because the surrounding waters contain high levels of bacteria from sewage disposal. B. These chemicals interact with one another and with ultraviolet radiation in sunlight in dangerous ways. Smog, usually found in urban areas with large numbers of automobiles, forms when nitrogen oxides react with hydrocarbons in the air to produce aldehydes and ketones. Smog can cause serious health problems. C. Acid rain is also responsible for the decline of many forest ecosystems worldwide, including Germany's Black Forest and forests throughout the eastern United States. D. In addition to groundwater depletion, scientists worry about groundwater contamination, which arises from leaking underground storage tanks, poorly designed industrial waste ponds, and seepage from the deep-well injection of hazardous wastes into underground geologic formations. E. The Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground reservoir stretching under eight states of the Great Plains, is drawn down at rates exceeding 100 times the replacement rate. Agricultural practices depending on this source of water need to change within a generation in order to save this groundwater source. F. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away pollutants, such as pesticides and fertilizers, depositing the pollutants into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and even underground sources of drinking water. Pollution arising from nonpoint sources accounts for a majority of the contaminants in streams and lakes. G. By some estimates, on average, 25 percent of usable groundwater is contaminated, and in some areas as much as 75 percent is contaminated.

单选题 Some time between digesting Christmas dinner and putting your head back down to work, spare a thought or two for the cranberry. It is, of course, a{{U}} (1) {{/U}}of Christmas: merry bright red, bittersweetly delicious with turkey and the very devil to get out of the tablecloth{{U}} (2) {{/U}}spilled. But the cranberry is also a symbol of the modern food industry-and in the tale of its{{U}} (3) {{/U}}from colonial curiosity to business-school case study{{U}} (4) {{/U}}a deeper understanding of the opportunities and{{U}} (5) {{/U}}of modern eating. The fastest growing part of today's cranberry market is for cranberries that do not taste like cranberries. Ocean Spray's "flavoured fruit pieces" (FFPS, to the trade) taste like orange, cherry, raspberry or any {{U}}(6) {{/U}}of other fruits. They are in fact cranberries. Why make a cranberry taste like an orange? Mostly because it is a{{U}} (7) {{/U}}little fruit: FFPS have a shelf-life of two years. Better{{U}} (8) {{/U}}, they keep a chewy texture{{U}} (9) {{/U}}baked, unlike the fruits whose flavours they mimic, which turn to{{U}} (10) {{/U}}. The dynamic that has brought the cranberry to this point is{{U}} (11) {{/U}}to the dynamic behind most mass-produced goods. Growing{{U}} (12) {{/U}}provided the{{U}} (13) {{/U}}to create cheaper and more reliable supply. Cheaper and more reliable supply,{{U}} (14) {{/U}}, created incentives to find new markets, which increased demand. Thus was the{{U}} (15) {{/U}}kept churning. The cranberry is one of only three fruits native{{U}} (16) {{/U}}North America, growing wild from Maine to North Carolina. (The others are the Concord grape and the blueberry). The American Indians had several names for cranberries, many{{U}} (17) {{/U}}the words for "bitter" or, more{{U}} (18) {{/U}}, "noisy". They ate the berries mostly{{U}} (19) {{/U}}pemmican, but also used them for dye and medicine. And they introduced them to the white settlers--at the first Thanksgiving dinner in 1621, it is said. The settlers promptly renamed this delicacy the "crane berry",{{U}} (20) {{/U}}the pointy pink blossoms of tile cranberry look a bit like the head of the Sandhill crane.

单选题Will fatherhood make me happy? That is a question many men have found themselves asking, and the scientific evidence is equivocal. A lot of studies have linked parenthood—particularly fatherhood—with lower levels of marital satisfaction and higher rates of depression than are found among non-parents. To investigate the matter further, psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky decided both to study the existing literature, and to conduct some experiments of her own. The results suggest parenthood in general, and fatherhood in particular, really are blessings, even though the parent in question might sometimes feel they are in disguise. Dr. Lyubomirsky"s first port of call was the World Values Survey. This is a project which gathers huge amounts of data about the lives of people all around the planet. For the purposes of her research, Dr. Lyubomirsky looked at the answers 6,906 Americans had given, in four different years, to four particular questions. These were: how many children the responder had; how satisfied he (or she) was with life; how happy he was; and how often he thought about the meaning and purpose of life. She found that parents had higher happiness, satisfaction and meaning-of-life scores than non-parents. The differences were not huge, but they were statistically significant. Moreover, a closer look showed that the differences in happiness and satisfaction were the result of men"s scores alone going up with parenthood. Those of women did not change. Armed with this result, Dr. Lyubomirsky conducted her own experiment. The problem with projects like the World Values Survey is that, because participants are asked to recall their feelings rather than stating what they are experiencing in the here and now, this might lead them into thinking more fondly in hindsight about their parenting duties. Dr. Lyubomirsky therefore gave pagers to 329 North American volunteers aged between 18 and 94, having first recorded, among other things, their sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, marital status and number of children. She told them they would be paged at random, five times a day. When they were so paged, they were asked to complete a brief response sheet about how they felt, then and there. She did not, however, tell them why she was asking these questions. The upshot was the same as her findings from the World Values Survey. Parents claimed more positive emotions and more meaning in their lives than non-parents, and a closer look revealed that it was lathers who most enjoyed these benefits. It looks, then, as if evolution has bolted into men a psychological mechanism to keep them in the family. At first sight, it is strange that women do not share this mechanism, but perhaps they do not need to. They know, after all, that the children are theirs, and that a man"s potential to father an indefinite number of offspring if he can find willing volunteers, might encourage him to stray from the bosom of his family. Enjoying fatherhood, by contrast, will help keep him in the porch.

单选题The underlined word "patronized" in the last paragraph means

单选题It has been justly said that while" we speak with our vocal organs we (1) with our whole bodies." All of us communicate with one another (2) , as well as with words. Sometimes we know what we're doing, as with the use of gestures such as the thumbs-up sign to indicate that, we (3) . But most of the time we're not aware that we're doing it. We gesture with eyebrows or a hand, meet someone else's eyes and (4) . These actions we (5) are random and incidental. But researchers (6) that there is a system of them almost as consistent and comprehensible as language, and they conclude that there is a whole (7) of body language, (8) the way we move, the gestures we employ, the posture we adopt, the facial expression we (9) , the extent to which we touch and the distance we stand (10) each other. The body language serves a variety of purposes. Firstly it can replace verbal communication, (11) with the use of gesture. Secondly it can modify verbal communication, loudness and (12) of voice is an example here. Thirdly it regulates social interaction: turn taking is largely governed by non-verbal (13) . Finally it conveys our emotions and attitudes. This is (14) important for successful cross-culture communication. Every culture has its own" body language", and children absorb its nuances (15) with spoken language. The way an Englishmen crosses his legs is (16) like the way a mate American does it. When we communicate with people from other, cultures, the body language sometimes help make the communication easy and (17) , such as shaking hand is such a (18) gesture that people all over the world know that it is a signal for greeting. But sometimes--the body language can cause certain misunderstanding (19) people of different cultures often have different forms behavior for sending the same message or have different (20) towards the same body signals.

单选题The American economy is growing, according to the most recent statistics, at the sizzling rate of 7%, and is in the middle of the largest peacetime expansion in American history. We read in the newspapers that practically everyone who wants a job can get one. Microsoft is running advertisements in the New York Times practically begging Congress to issue more visas for foreign computer and information technology workers. In this environment, it is shocking that one group of Americans, people with disabilities, have such a high level of unemployment: 30% are not employed the same percentage as when the Americans with Disabilities Act became law. Not only did their employment and labor earnings fall during the recession of the early 1990s, but employment and earnings continued to fall during the long economic expansion that followed. Many of these people are skilled professionals who are highly marketable in today's economy. Part of the problem is discrimination, and part recent court rulings favoring employers in ADA lawsuits. Discrimination against people with disabilities is, unfortunately, alive and well, despite the legal prohibitions against discrimination in hiring people with disabilities. 79% of disabled people who are unemployed cite discrimination in the workplace and lack of transportation as major factors that prevent them from working. Studies have also shown that people with disabilities who find jobs earn less than their co-workers, and are less likely to be promoted. Unfavorable court rulings have not been helpful, either. Research by law professor Ruth Colker of Ohio State University has shown that in the eight years after the ADA went into effect, employer-defendants prevailed in more than 93% of the eases decided by trial. Of the cases appealed, employers prevailed 84% of the time. Robert Burgdorf, Ir., who helped draft the ADA, has written, "legal analysis has proceeded quite a way down the wrong road." Disability activists and other legal scholars point out that Congress intended the ADA as a national mandate for the ending of discrimination against people-with disabilities. Instead, what has occurred, in the words of one writer, is that the courts "have narrowed the scope of the law, redefined 'disability,' raised the price of access to justice and generally deemed disability discrimination as not worthy of serious remedy." But perhaps the greatest single problem is the federal government itself, where laws and regulations designed to help disabled people actually provide an economic disincentive to work. As Sen. Edward Kennedy wrote, "the high unemployment rate among people receiving federal disability benefits is not because their federal benefits programs have 'front doors that are too big', but because they have 'back doors that are too small'./

单选题 Foreign financiers complaining about the legal wars they will launch to recover bad debts in Russia rarely mean much. The expense of a lawsuit{{U}} (1) {{/U}}the satisfaction; the chances of getting any money are{{U}} (2) {{/U}}. Yet Noga, a company owned by Nessim Gaon, a 78-year-old businessman{{U}} (3) {{/U}}in Geneva, has been suing the Russian government since 1993, attempting to{{U}} (4) {{/U}}Russian assets abroad. At Mr. Gaon's request, bailiffs last week very nearly{{U}} (5) {{/U}}two of Russia's most advanced warplanes at the Paris air{{U}} (6) {{/U}}. The organisers{{U}} (7) {{/U}}off the Russian authorities, and the planes flew home, just{{U}} (8) {{/U}}time.{{U}} (9) {{/U}}near-misses include a sail-training ship, the Sedov, nuclear-waste shipments, and the president's plane. Mr. Gaon. whose previous business partners include regimes in Nigeria and Sudan, put an{{U}} (10) {{/U}}clause in his original export deals: Russia must abandon its sovereign immunity. An arbitration court in Stockholm has found in his{{U}} (11) {{/U}}, so far, to the{{U}} (12) {{/U}}of $110 million, out of a total{{U}} (13) {{/U}}of $420 million. Other courts{{U}} (14) {{/U}}the world have let him have a{{U}} (15) {{/U}}at any Russian assets{{U}} (16) {{/U}}reach. The odd thing is{{U}} (17) {{/U}}Russia. now awash with cash, does not simply pay up. Mr. Gaon says he was told at one point that a 10%{{U}} (18) {{/U}}on the debt to someone high up in the finance ministry would solve things.{{U}} (19) {{/U}}off Mr. Gaon costs much in legal fees. Not accepting international judgments sits ill with the current Kremlin line{{U}} (20) {{/U}}the rule of law. Mr. Gaon says his next move will be to seize Russia's embassy in Paris.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Attacks on Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, have intensified before the European election held between June 4th and 7th, and ahead of a European Union summit when national leaders will discuss his reappointment to a second five- year term. On the left, the Party of European Socialists (PES) calls Mr. Barroso a conservative who "puts markets before people". Should the PES emerge as the largest group in the European Parliament, it will try to block him. But prominent federalists are also unimpressed. Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, speaks for many in Brussels when he denounces Mr. Barroso for a lack of ambition for Europe. Mr. Verhofstadt invokes the memory of Jacques Delors, the pugnacious Frenchman who ran the commission from 1985 to 1995．Mr. Delors proposed many ambitious plans, he says, and got 30% of them: that 30% then became the European internal market. Mr. Verhofstadt thinks that last autumn Mr. Barroso should have proposed such things as a single EU financial regulator, a single European bad bank, or a multi-trillion issue of "Eurobonds". That would have triggered a " big fight" with national governments, he concedes. But "maybe the outcome would have been 10%, 20% or 30% of his plan. " The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has endorsed a second tenn for Mr. Barroso, a former centre-right prime minister of Portugal. Yet he seems keen to make him sweat. French officials have briefed that the decision on Mr. Barroso's future taken at the June 18th-19th summit should be only political, leaving a legally binding nomination for later. Yet the attacks on Mr. Barroso are unlikely to block him. No opinion poll shows the PES overtaking the centre-right European People's Party in the European Parliament. The centre- right leaders who hold power in most of Europe have endorsed Mr. Barroso, as have the (nominally) centre-left leaders of Britain, Spain and Portugal. This helps to explain why the PES, for all its bluster, has not fielded a candidate against Mr. Barroso. It is equally wrong to pretend that Europe was ready for a federalist big bang last autumn. Officials say Mr. Barroso spent the first weeks of the economic crisis bridging differences between Britain and France on such issues as accounting standards and the regulation of rating agencies. Later, he kept the peace between Mr. Sarkozy and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, after the French president pushed for summits of EU leaders from euro-area countries (Ms Merkel thought that sounded like a two-speed Europe). In any case France has no veto over Mr. Barroso's reappointment: the decision is now taken by majority vote. Some diplomats suggest that France's stalling tactics are meant to extract such concessions as a plum portfolio for its commissioner. Those calling for "European" action often talk as if they are describing an elegant mechanism, needed to make the union work properly. They argue that only a single financial regulator can police Europe's single market, or complain that 27 national bail-out plans lack "coherence". In fact, these apparently structural calls for "more Europe" are pitches for specific ideological programmes. Thus, in a joint statement on May 30th Mr. Sarkozy and Ms Merkel announced that "Liberalism without rules has failed. " They called for a European economic model in which capital serves "entrepreneurs and workers" rather than "speculators", and hedge funds and bankers' pay are tightly regulated. They added that competition policies should be used to favour the "emergence of world-class European companies", and gave warning against a "bureaucratic Europe" that blindly applies "pernickety rules". If all this sounds like Europe as a giant Rhineland economy, that is no accident. Mr. Verhofstadt, a continental liberal, means something different by "Europe" He agrees that the crisis "represents the crash of the Anglo-American model". But he is not keen on heavy regulation. When he calls for economic policies to reflect Europe's " way of thinking", he means things like raising savings. Above all, he considers the nation-state to be incapable of managing today's "globalised" economy, so Europe must take over. This is fighting talk. Britain, notably, does not accept that everything about the Anglo-Saxon model has failed, nor is it about to cede more power to Brussels. And it has allies, notably in eastern Europe.

单选题 For 10 years I have been teaching animal behavior and conservation biology at the Boulder County Jail in Colorado. The course-part of the Jane Goodall Institute's Roots & Shoots program-is one of the most popular in the jail. Prisoners have to earn the right to enroll and they work hard to get in. One reason the course is so popular is that many prisoners find it easier to connect with animals than with people, because animals don't judge them. Many of the prisoners had lived with dogs, cats and other companion animals who were their best friends. They trust and empathize with animals in ways they don't with humans. Nonetheless, they retain a distorted view of how animals treat one another. The prisoners have often had enough of "nature red in tooth and claw": many lament that their own "animal behavior" is what got them into trouble in the first place. I teach that though there is competition and aggression in the animal kingdom, there is also a lot of cooperation, empathy, compassion and reciprocity. I explain that these behaviors are examples of "wild justice", and this idea makes them rethink what it means to be an animal. Many of the students yearn to build healthy relationships, and they find that the class helps them. I use examples of the social behavior of group-living animals such as wolves as a model for developing and mainraining friendships among individuals who must work together for their own good and also for the good of the group. It's clear that science inspires the students: our exchanges rival those that I've had in university classes. It also gives them hope. I know some students have gone back into education after their release while others have gone to work for humane societies or contributed time and money to conservation organizations. One went on to receive a master's degree in literature. Science and humane education help the prisoners connect with values that they otherwise would not have done. It opens the door to understanding, trust, cooperation, community and hope. There's a large untapped population of individuals to whom science could mean a lot, if only they could get exposure to it. The class helps me, too. I get as much out of it as the students and it has made me a better teacher on the outside.

单选题The word "gleaned" (Line 2, Paragraph 3) could be probably replaced by

单选题If good intentions and good ideas were all it took to save the deteriorating atmosphere, the planet's fragile layer of air would be as good as fixed. The two great dangers threatening the blanket of gases that nurtures and protects life on earth--global warming and the thinning ozone layer--have been identified. Better yet, scientists and policymakers have come up with effective though expensive countermeasures. But that doesn't mean these problems are anywhere close to being solved. The stratospheric ozone layer, for example, is still getting thinner, despite the 1987 international agreement known as the Montreal Protocol, which calls for a phaseout of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-depleting chemicals by the year 2006. CFCs--first fingered as dangerous in the 1970s by Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, two of this year's Nobel--prizewinning chemists--have been widely used for refrigeration and other purposes. If uncontrolled, the CFC assault on the ozone layer could increase the amount of hazardous solar ultraviolet light that reaches the earth's surface, which would, among other things, damage crops and cause cancer in humans. Thanks to a sense of urgency triggered by the 1085 detection of what has turned out to be an annual "hole" in the especially vulnerable ozone over Antarctica, the Montreal accords have spurred industry to replace CFCs with safer substances. Yet the CFCs already in the air are still doing their dirty work. The Antarctic ozone hole is more severe this year than ever before, and ozone levels over temperate regions are dipping as well. If the CFC phaseout proceeds on schedule, the atmosphere should start repairing itself by the year 2000, say scientists. Nonetheless, observes British Antarctic Survey meteorologist Jonathan Shanklin: "It will be the middle of the next century before things are back to where they were in the 1970s." Developing countries were given more time to comply with the Montreal Protocol and were promised that they would receive $ 250 million from richer nations to pay for the CFC phaseout. At the moment, though, only 60% 'of those funds has been forthcoming. Says Nelson Sabogal of the U.'N. Environment Program: "If developed countries don't come up with the money, the ozone layer will not recuperate. This is a crucial time." It is also a critical time for warding off potentially catastrophic climate change. Waste gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and the same CFCs that wreck the ozone layer all tend to trap sunlight and warm the earth. The predicted results: an eventual melting of polar ice caps, rises in sea levels and shifts in climate patterns.

单选题NASA launched the first space mission to Pluto yesterday as a powerful rocket hurled the New Horizons spacecraft on a nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to the edge of the solar system As it soared toward a 2007 meeting with Jupiter, whose powerful gravitational field will shoot it on its way to Pluto. mission managers said radio communications confirmed that the 1,054-pound craft was in good health. The $700 million mission began when a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket rose from a launching pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 2 p.m., almost an hour later than planned because of low clouds that obscured a clear view of the flight path by tracking cameras. Less than an hour later, all three stages of the booster rocket worked as planned, and the spacecraft separated from them and sprinted away toward deep space. The robot ship sped away at about 36,000 miles per hour, the fastest flight of any spacecraft sent from Earth. allowing it to pass the Moon in about nine hours. "This is a historic day," said Alan Stem of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo, the mission's principal scientist and team leader. Speaking at a news conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dr. Stern said the timing assured that the New Horizons would arrive for its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015—the 50th anniversary of the first flyby of Mars by the Mariner 4. the mission that began the exploration of the planets. The New Horizons is powered by a small plutonium-fired electric generator. Its instruments include three cameras, for visible-light, infrared and ultraviolet images, and three spectrometers to study the composition and temperatures of Pluto's thin atmosphere and surface features. It also carries a University of Colorado dust counter, the first experiment to fly on a planetary mission that is entirely designed and operated by students. This is the only experiment that will not hibernate during the mission. Yesterday's liftoff also paid regard to Pluto's discoverer, the astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh. who in 1930 became the only American to find a planet in the solar system.(He died at 90. in 1997.) His widow, Patricia Tombaugh. 93. and other family members were present at the cape, and some of his remains were among the commemorative items aboard the spacecraft. "Some of Clyde's ashes are on their way to Pluto today," Dr. Stem said. The New Horizons is to reach Jupiter's gravitational field in 13 months. The trip to Pluto will take eight more years, most of which the craft will spend in electronic "hibernation" to save power and wear on the equipment needed for its seven experiments. In addition to the two-hour delay, the launching was postponed twice in two days—on Tuesday by strong winds at the cape and on Wednesday by a storm that caused a power; failure at the spacecraft's control center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel. Md. Mission planners had until Feb. 14 to launch the mission this year, but only until the end of this month to use the gravity boost from Jupiter, which will shorten the trip to Pluto by five years.