California Gives Green Light to Space Solar Power Energy beamed down from space is one step closer to reality, now that California has given the green light to an agreement that would see the Pacific Gas and Electric Company buy 200 megawatt(兆瓦)of power beamed down from solar-power satellites beginning in 2016. But some major challenges will have to be overcome if the technology is to be used widely. A start-up company called Solaren is designing the satellites, which it says will use radio waves to beam energy down to a receiving station on Earth. The attraction of collecting solar power in space is the almost uninterrupted sunshine available in eosynchronous(与地球同步的)orbit. Earth-based solar cells, by contrast, can only collect sun light during daytime and when skies are clear. But space-based solar power must grapple(努力克服)with the high cost per kilogram of launching things into space, says Richard Schwartz of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. "If you're talking about it being economically viable or power of the Earth, it's a tough go. " he says. Cal Boerman, Solaren's director of energy services, says the company designed its satellites with a view to keeping launch costs down. "We knew we had to come up with a different, revolutionary design," he says. A patent the company has won describes ways to reduce the systems weight, including using inflatable minors to focus sunlight on solar cells, so a smaller number can collect the same amount of energy. But using minors introduces other challenges, including keeping the solar cells from overheating, says Schwartz. "You have to take care of heat dissipation(散发)because you're now concentrating a lot of energy in one place," he says. According to the company's patent, Solaren's solar cells will be connected to radiators to help keep them cool. Though Boerman says the company believes it can make space-based solar power work, it is not expecting to crowd out other forms of renewable energy. Laws in California and other states require increasing use of renewable energy in coming years, he points out. "To meet those needs, we're going to need all types of renewable energy sources," he says.(2010年)

Why Would They Falsely Confess? Why on earth would an innocent person falsely confess to committing a crime? To most people, it just doesn't seem logical. But it is logical, say experts. If you understand what can happen in a police interrogation(审讯)room. Under the right conditions, people's minds are susceptible(易受影响的)to influence, and the pressure put on suspects during police questioning is enormous. 【B1】______"The pressure is important to understand, because otherwise it's impossible to understand why someone would say he did something he didn't do. The answer is: to put all end to an uncomfortable situation that will continue until he does confess. " Developmental psychologist Mary Redlich recently conducted a laboratory study to determine how likely people are to confess to things they didn't do. 【B2】______The researchers then intentionally crashed the computers and accused the participants of hitting "alt" key to see if they would sign a statement falsely taking responsibility. Redlich's findings clearly demonstrate how easy it can be to get people to falsely confess; 59 percent of the young adults in the experiment immediately confessed. 【B3】______Of the 15-to 16-year-olds, 72 percent signed confessions, as 13-year-olds. "There's no question that young people are more at risk," says Saul Kassin, a psychology professor at Williams College, who has done similar studies with similar studies. 【B4】______ Both Kassin and Redlich note that the entire "interrogation" in their experiments consisted of a simple accusation—not hours of aggressive questioning—and still, most participants falsely confessed. 【B5】______"In some ways," says Kassin, "false confession becomes a rational decision. "A. In her experiment, participants were seated at computers and told not to hit the alt key, because doing so would crash the systems.B. Because of the stress of a police interrogation, they conclude, suspects can become convinced that falsely confessing is the easiest way out of a bad situation.C. "It's a little like somebody's working on them with a dental(牙齿)drill," .says Franklin Zimring, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley.D. "But the baseline is that adults are highly vulnerable too. "E. The court found him innocent and he was released.F. Redlich also found that the younger the participant, the more likely a false confession.

阅读理解The Asian Flu Virus In 1957, a doctor in Singapore noticed that hospitals were treating an unusual number of influenza-like cases. Influenza is sometimes called "flu" or as "bad cold". He took specimens from the throats of patients in his hospital and was able to find the virus of this influenza. There are three main types of the influenza virus. The most important of these are types A and B, each of them having several sub-groups. With the instruments at the hospital the doctor recognized that the outbreak was due to a virus group A, but he did not know the sub-group. He reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization in Geneva. W. H. 0. published the important news alongside reports of a similar outbreak in Hong Kong, where about 15%-20% of the population had become ill. As soon as the London doctors received the package of throat samples, they began the standard tests. They found that by reproducing itself at a very high speed, the virus had multiplied more than a million times within two days. Continuing their careful tests, the doctors checked the effect of drugs used against all the known sub-groups of type A virus on this virus. None of them gave any protection. This then, was something new: a new influenza virus against which the people of the world had no ready help whatsoever. Having isolated the virus they were working with, the two doctors now conducted tests on some specially selected animals, which contract influenza in the same way as human beings do. In a short time the usual signs of the disease appeared. These experiments revealed that the new virus spread easily, but that it was not a killer. Scientists, like general public, called it simply "Asian" flu.

阅读理解Upon learning that he would leave her, she was

阅读理解Male and Female pilots cause accidents differently Male pilots flying general aviation(private)aircraft in the United States are more likely to crash due to inattention or flawed decision, making, while female pilots are more likely to crash from mishandling the aircraft. These are the results of a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study identifies the differences between male and female pilots in terms of circumstances of the crash and the type of pilots error involved. "Crashes of general aviation aircraft account for 85 percent of all aviation deaths in the United States. The crash rate for male pilots, as for motor vehicle drivers, exceeds that of crashes of female pilots," explains Susan P. Baker, MPH, professor of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Because pilot youth and inexperience are established, contributors to aviation crashes, we focused on only mature pilots, to determine the gender differences in the reasons for the crash." The researchers extracted data for this study from a large research project on pilot aging and flight safety. The data were gathered from general aviation crashes of airplanes and helicopters between 1983 and 1997, involving 144 female pilots and 267 male pilots aged 40-63. Female pilots were matched with male pilots in a 1:2 ratio, by age, classes of medical and pilot certificates, state or area of crash, and year of crash. Then the circumstances of the crashes and the pilot error involved were categorized and coded without knowledge of pilot gender. The researchers found that loss of control on landing or takeoff was the most common circumstance for both sexes, leading to 59 percent of female pilots’ crashes and 36 percent of males''. Experiencing mechanical failure, running out of fuel, and landing the plane with the landing gear up were among the factors more likely with males, while stalling was more likely with females. The majority of the crashes — 95 percent for females and 88 percent for males — involved at least one type of pilot error. Mishandling aircraft kinetics was the most common error for both sexes, but was more common among females(accounting for 81 percent of the crashes) than males (accounting for 48 percent). Males, however, appeared more likely to be guilty of poor decision-making, risk-taking, and inattentiveness, examples of which include misjudging weather and visibility or flying an aircraft with a known defect. Females, though more likely to mishandle or lose control of the aircraft, were generally more careful than their male counterparts. inattention /n.疏忽 aviation /n. 航空 flawed /adj.有缺陷的 mishandle /v. 瞎弄，乱处理 MPH ( Master of Public Health) 公共卫生硕士 gender /n.性，性别 run out 耗尽，用完 stall v. (飞机)失速, (发动机)熄火 kinetics /n. 动力学

阅读理解The Central Dogma Though it comes as no surprise that the composition of DNA between different organisms is different, it is not immediately obvious why the muscle cells, blood cells, and brain cells of any one particular vertebrate(脊椎动物) are so different in their structure and composition when the DNA of every one of their cells is identical. This is the key to one of the most exciting areas of modern cell biology. In different cell types, different sets of the total number of genes (genome) (基因组) are expressed. In other words, different regions of the DNA are "active" in the muscle cells, blood cells, and brain cells. To understand how this difference in DNA activity can lead to differences in cell structure and composition, it is necessary to consider what is often known as the central dogma(法则) of molecular biology: "DNA makes RNA make protein. " In molecular terms, a gene is that portion of DNA that encodes for a single protein. The dictum" one gene makes one protein" has required some modification(改变) with the discovery that some proteins are composed of several different polypeptide(多肽) chains, but the "one gene makes one polypeptide" rule does hold. DNA Contains the Blueprint for All Cell Proteins. Messenger RNA is a precise copy (transcript) of the coded sequence of nucleic acid bases in DNA, and this message is translated into a unique protein molecule on specialist organelles (ribo-somes) present in the cytoplasm(细胞质) of all cells. Proteins(蛋白质), which are largely made up of carbon(C) ,hydrogen(H), oxygen(O) ,and nitrogen(N) ,are constructed from 20 different, common amino acids. The versatility of proteins, the workhorse molecules of the cell, stems from the immense variety of molecular shapes that can be created, by linking amino acids together in different sequences. The smaller proteins consist of only a few dozen amino acids, whereas the larger ones may contain in excess of 200 amino acids, all linked together in a linear(线状的) chain by peptide bonds. As the proteins are released from the ribosome(核糖体) ,they fold into unique shapes, under the influence of chemical forces that depend on the particular sequence of amino acids. So the protein primary sequence , encoded in the gene and faithfully transcribed and translated into an amino acid chain, determines the three-dimensional structure of the emerging molecule. The human body possesses some 30 000 different kinds of proteins and several million copies of many of these. Each plays a specific role——for example, hemoglobin carries oxygen in the blood, actin(肌动蛋白) and myosin(肌球蛋白) interact to generate muscle movement, and acetylcholine (乙酸胆碱) receptor molecules mediate chemical transmission between nerve and muscle cells. Enzymes—Protein Biocatalysts An essential group of proteins—the enzymes (酵素)—act as biological catalysts (催化剂) and regulate all aspects of cell metabolism (新陈代谢). They enable breakdown of high-energy food molecules (carbohydrates) to provide energy for biological reactions, and they control the synthetic pathways that result in the generation of lipids(e.g., fats, cholesterol(胆固醇), and other vital membrane(膜) components), carbohydrates (碳水化合物) (sugars, starch (淀粉) , and cellulose (纤维素) , the key components of plant cell walls) ,and many vital small biomolecules essential for cell function.

阅读理解Health Education 1. Health education is the part of health care that is concerned with promoting healthy behavior. A person''s behavior may be the main cause of a health problem, but it can also be the main solution. This is true for the teenager who smokes, the mother with the poorly nourished (营养) child, and the butcher (屠夫,卖肉的人) who gets a cut on his finger. By changing their behavior these individuals can solve and prevent many of their own problems. 2. Health education does not replace other health services, but it is needed to promote the proper use of these services. One example of this is immunization (免疫) : scientists have made many vaccines (疫苗) to prevent diseases, but this achievement is of no value unless people go to receive the immunization. 3. Health education encourages behavior that promotes health, prevents illness, cures disease, and contributes to recovery. The needs and interests of individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities are at the heart of health education programs. Thus there, are many opportunities for practicing health education. 4. Health education is not the same thing as health information. Correct information is certainly a basic part of health education, but health education must also address the other factors that affect health behavior such as availability (可获性) of resources, effectiveness of community leadership, social support from family members, and levels of self-help skills. Health education therefore uses a variety of methods to help people understand their own situations and choose actions that will improve their health. Health education is incomplete unless it encourages involvement and choice by the people themselves. 5. Also, in health education we do not blame people if they do not behave in a healthy way. Often unhealthy behavior is not the fault of the individual. In health education we must work with families, communities, and even regional and national authorities to make sure that resources and support are available to enable each individual to lead a healthy life. A. Importance of Immunization B. Relationship with Other Health Services C. Creation of Necessary Conditions for Healthy Behavior D. Encouraging Unhealthy Behavior E. Encouragement of Behavior Good for Your Health F. Addressing a Variety of Behavior-affecting Factors

阅读理解The WOrd“prototype”(paragraph 5)means．

阅读理解Competition The question of whether war is inevitable is one which has concerned many of the worlds great writers. Before considering this question, it will be useful to introduce some related concepts. Conflict, defined as opposition among social entities directed against one another, is distinguished from competition, defined as opposition among social entities independently striving for something which is in inadequate supply. Competitors may not be aware of one another, while the parties to a conflict are. Conflict and competition are both categories of opposition, which has been defined as a process by which social entities function in the disservice of one another. Opposition is thus contrasted with cooperation, the process by which social entities function in the service of one another. These definitions are necessary because it is important to emphasize that competition between individuals or groups is inevitable in a world of limited resources, but conflict is not. Conflict, nevertheless, is very likely to occur, and is probably an essential and desirable element of human societies. Many authors have argued for the inevitability of war from the premise that in the struggle for existence among animal species, only the fittest survive. In general, however, this struggle in nature is competition, not conflict. Social animals, such as monkeys and cattle, fight to win or maintain leadership of the group. The struggle for existence occurs not in such fights, but in the competition for limited feeding areas and for the occupancy(占有)of areas free from meat-eating animals. Those who fail in this competition starve to death or become victims to other species. This struggle for existence does not resemble human war, but rather the competition of individuals for jobs, markets, and materials. The essence of the struggle is the competition for the necessities of life that are insufficient to satisfy all. Among nations there is competition in developing resources, trades, skills, and a satisfactory way of life. The successful nations grow and proper (繁荣); the unsuccessful decline. While it is true that this competition may induce efforts to expand territory at the expense of others, and thus lead to conflict, it cannot be said that warlike conflict among nations is inevitable, although competition is.

阅读理解Paragraph 6 __________.

阅读理解United Nations A major segment of the Untied Nations is the General Assembly, which consists of representatives from all governments that have ratified the UN Charter. As of 1995,185 states had membership in the general Assembly. Additionally, the Vatican, Switzerland, and the Palestine Liberation Organization have nonvoting observer status in the General Assembly. The General Assembly approves the UN''s budget, acts with the Security Council to select the Secretary-general and judges of the International Court of Justice, and passes resolutions on issues ranging from self-determination and colonialism to women''s rights and the global distribution of wealth. The General Assembly can meet and vote on any subject, unless the Security Council is dealing with it (or at least pretending to). However, its decisions only carry moral force—unlike the Council''s. They''re not binding in international laws. But the Assembly votes are an important opinion poll on how and what the majority of the world thinks about issues. " Important questions" need a two-thirds vote of the Assembly to pass. The question of what is an important question isn''t important. Its decided by the delegates themselves—by a simple majority. Although the General Assembly has not recognized authority to enforce its conclusions on anything other than internal UN matters, it makes its viewpoints on issues that are brought before it is known in one of the three ways. A General Assembly declaration is a broad statement of general principle such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed in 1948. Declarations are often put forward as an expression of an ideal, in practice they are regularly ignored. A General Assembly resolution is essentially a document that recommends that member states take a particular policy action. States claim sovereignty and make their own decisions as to whether they will follow a General Assembly resolution. In some cases, however, if many states implement a particular resolution, other states that may not wish to act on the resolution may feel themselves pressured to do so anyway. At the very least, a resolution has the effect of legitimizing the policies of those states that wish to comply with the resolution. Finally, a General Assembly convention, or treaty, has two meanings. The more comprehensive convention refers to multilateral treaties voted on by the General Assembly that, upon passage by the General Assembly, are carried back to the capitals of member states for ratification by whatever means each state uses domestically. In other cases, a General Assembly convention refers specifically to a treaty signed between the United Nations and the government of a nation-state, as when in 1956 Egypt agreed to allow United Nations peacekeeping forces to enter Egyptian territory.

阅读理解Stress Level Tied to Education Level People with less education suffer fewer stressful days, according to a report in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. However, the study also found that when less-educated people did suffer stress it was more severe and had a larger impact on their health. From this, researchers have concluded that the day-to-day factors that cause stress are not random. Where you are in society determines the kinds of problems that you have each day, and how well you will cope with them. The research team interviewed a national sample of 1,031 adults daily for eight days about their stress level and health. People without a high school diploma reported stress on 30 percent of the study days, people with a high school degree reported stress 38 percent of the time, and people with college degrees reported stress 44 percent of the time. "Less advantaged people are less healthy on a daily basis and are more likely to have downward turns in their health." lead researcher Dr. Joseph Grzywacz, of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, said in a prepared statement. "The downward turns in health were connected with daily stressors, and the effect of daily stressors on their health is much more devastating for the less advantaged." Grzywacz suggested follow-up research to determine why less-educated people report fewer days of stress when it is known their stress is more acute and chronic. "If something happens every day, maybe it''s not seen as a stressor" Grzywacz says. "Maybe it is just life. " stressful adj. 紧张的；压力重的 diploma n. 毕业文凭，毕业证书 stressor n. 紧张刺激物 devastating adj. 毁灭性的 follow-up n. (对病人的)随访

阅读理解Medicine 1. Medicine is the science and art of healing. It is a science because it is based on knowledge gained through careful study and experimentation. It is an art because it depends on how skillfully doctors and other medical workers apply this knowledge when dealing with patients. 2. The goals of medicine are to save lives, to relieve suffering, and to maintain the dignity of ill individuals. For this reason, medicine has long been one of the most respected professions. Thousands of men and women who work in the medical profession spend their lives caring for the sick. When disaster strikes, hospital workers rush emergency aid to the injured. When epidemics threaten, doctors and nurses work to prevent the spread of disease. Researchers in the medical profession continually search for better ways of fighting disease. 3. Human beings have suffered from illnesses since they first appeared on the earth. Throughout most of this time, they knew little about how the human body works or what causes disease. Treatment was based largely on superstition and guesswork. 4. However, medicine has made tremendous progress in the last several hundred years. Today, it is possible to cure, control, or prevent hundreds of diseases. People live longer than they did in the past as a result of new drugs, machines, and surgical operations. Medical progress in the control of infectious diseases, improvements in health care programs for mothers and children, and better nutrition, sanitation, and living conditions have given people a longer life expectancy. 5. As medicine has become more scientific, it has also become more complicated. In the past, doctors cared for patients almost single-handedly. Patients received treatment at home for most kinds of illnesses. Today , doctors no longer work by themselves. Instead. They head medical teams made up of nurses, laboratory workers, and many other skilled professionals. The care provided by such teams cannot generally be started at home. As a result, clinics and hospitals have become the chief centers for medical care in most countries. A. In ancient tribes, treatment was executed by witch doctors and based largely on superstition. B. Today, extensive knowledge and sophisticated medical techniques make possible the cure, control, and prevention of hundreds of disease C. The goals of medicine involve life rescuing, pain reducing, and dignity maintaining D. Control of infectious diseases is given as a reason for a longer a life E. School infirmaries appear as a result of increasing complicated medical work F. Medical care is now provided for patients in hospitals by a medical team consisting of doctors, nurses, and laboratory workers

阅读理解The short-term goal of the research is to help a person

阅读理解Modern Drugs Doctors, sixty years ago, could do little to help victims of polio. Serious cases usually ended in death. In 1955, a vaccine was developed that prevented the disease. Today, polio is no longer a major health problem. Many of the most important drugs that doctors prescribe today have been developed in the last 30 years. Modern drugs are complex, specific and powerful. People need to know more about drugs in order to use them safely. Early people discovered by accident that some of the plants growing around them seemed useful to heal sores, relieve pain, or even cure diseases. These plants were the first drugs. Now plants are still the source of some drugs. Quinine, for example, is a bitter-tasting drug used to treat the chills and fever of malaria and to reduce attacks of the disease. It is made from the bark of the cinchona tree, which grows in the Andes Mountains. The Indians of that region were the first to use the bark as a medicine. The Spanish people probably brought it to Europe in the early 1600s. Chemists learned how to get the pure drug from the bark and in 1944; it was made artificially in the laboratory. Other important drugs, such as hormones and vaccines, are obtained from animals. But most of the modern drugs come from chemical combinations worked out by research scientists. Most people never see drugs in their simple form as chemicals. Instead, they are seen as tablets, capsules or liquids that contain the drug and other ingredients. People use drugs to get different results. Some drugs attack the organism that causes a disease. They cure by killing the organism. Other drugs relieve what we call the symptoms of the disease: the headache, pain, fever or chills, and make the patient more comfortable. These constitute most over-the-counter drugs. People can get them in drug stores.

阅读理解 A. There have been many attempts to redesign the periodic table since Dmitri Mendeleev drew it up in 1871． B. Railsback has still ordered the elements according to the number of protons they have． C. “I imagine this would be good for undergraduates．” D. Railsback has listed some elements more than once． E. And the size of element’s symbol reflects how much of it is found in the Earth’s crust． F. The traditional periodic table was well drawn．

阅读理解Memory Class Stan Field knows what age can do to a person''s memory, and he''s not taking any chances with his. He chooses his food carefully and gets plenty of exercise. He also avoids stress, coca cola and cigarette smoke. What''s more, at breakfast each morning, the 69-year-old chemical engineer swallows a plateful of pills in the hope of boosting his brain power. Michelle Amove is less than half Field''s age, but no less concerned about her memory. While working round the clock to finish a degree in film studies, the 33-year-old New Yorker had the alarming sensation that she had stopped retaining anything. "I couldn''t even remember names," she says. "I thought, Oh, no, I''m over 30. It''s all downhill from here. " Besides loading up on supplements, Amove signed up for a memory enhancing course at New York''s Mount Siani Medical Center. And when she got there, she found herself surrounded by people who were just as worried as she was. For millions of Americans, and especially for baby boomers (生育高峰出生的人) , the demands of the Information Age conflict with a sense of declining physical power. "When boomers were in their 30s and 40s, they launched the fitness boom," says Cynthia Green, the psychologist who teaches Mount Sinai''s memory class. "Now we have the mental-fitness boom Memory is the boomers'' new life-crisis issue." And of course a major marketing opportunity. The demand for books and seminars has never been greater, says Jack Lannom, a longtime memory trainer whose weekly TV show, " Mind Unlimited," goes out to 33 million homes on the Christian Network. Anxious consumers are rushing to buy do-it-yourself programs and supplement makers are trying to sell everything but sawdust (木屑) as a brain booster. But before you get out your checkbook, a few questions are in order. Does everyday forgetfulness signal declining brain function? Is "megamemory" (超级记忆) a realistic goal for normal people? And if you could have a perfect memory, would you really want it? Until recently, no one could address those issues with much authority, but our knowledge of memory is exploding. New techniques are revealing how different parts of the brain interact to preserve meaningful experiences. Biologists are trying to understand the underlying (潜在的) chemical processes and neuroscientists (神经系统科学家) are discovering how age, stress and other factors can disrupt them. No one is close to finding the secret to perfect recall, but as you''ll see, that may be just as well.

单选题He seems bizarre these days. A. unusual B. absent-minded C. crazy D. lunatic

单选题The traditional paintings are exhibited on the second floor. A. laid B. displayed C. kept D. stored