More Than 8 Hours Sleep Too Much of a Good Thing Although the dangers of too little sleep are widely known, new research suggests that people who sleep too much may also suffer the consequences. Investigators at the University of California in San Diego found that people who clock up 9 or 10 hours each weeknight appear to have more trouble falling and staying asleep, as well as a number of other sleep problems, than people who sleep 8 hours a night. People who slept only 7 hours each night also said they had more trouble falling asleep and feeling refreshed after a night’s sleep than 8-hour sleepers. These findings, which DL Daniel Kripke reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, demonstrate that people who want to get a good night’s rest may not need to set aside more than 8 hours a night. He added that "it might be a good idea" for people who sleep more than 8 hours each night to consider reducing the amount of time they spend in bed, but cautioned that more research is needed to confirm this. Previous studies have shown the potential dangers of chronic shortages of sleep — for instance, one report demonstrated that people who habitually sleep less than 7 hours each night have a higher risk of dying within a fixed period than people who sleep more. For the current report, Kripke reviewed the responses of 1,004 adults to sleep questionnaires, in which participants indicated how much they slept during the week and whether they experienced any sleep problems. Sleep problems included waking in the middle of the night, arising early in the morning and being unable to fall back to sleep, and having fatigue interfere with day-to-day functioning. Kripke found that people who slept between 9 and 10 hours each night were more likely to report experiencing each sleep problem than people who slept 8 hours. In an interview, Kripke noted that long sleepers may struggle to get rest at night simply because they spend too much time in bed. As evidence, he added that one way to help insomnia is to spend less time in bed. "It stands to reason that if a person spends too long a time in bed, then they’ll spend a higher percentage of time awake." he said. Paragraph 4 ______
Pushbike Peril Low speed bicycle crashes can badly injure —or even kill —children if they fall onto the ends of the handlebars so a team of engineers is redesigning the humble handlebar in a bid to make it safer. Kristy Arbogast, a bioengineer at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, began the project with her colleagues after a study of serious abdominal injuries in children in the past 30 years showed that more than a third were caused by bicycle accidents. "The task was to identify how the injuries occurred and came up with some countermeasures," she says. By interviewing the children and their parents, Arbogast and her team were able to reconstruct many of the accidents and identified a common mechanism responsible for serious injures. They discovered that most occur when children hit an obstacle at a slow speed, causing them to topple over. To maintain their balance they turn the handlebars through 90 degrees — but their momentum forces them into the end of the handlebars. The bike then falls over and the other end of the handlebars hits the ground, ramming it into their abdomen. The solution the group came up with is a handgrip fitted with a spring and damping system. The spring absorbs up to 50 per cent of the forces transmitted through the handlebars in an impact. The group hopes to commercialize the device, which should add only a few dollars to the cost of a bike. "But our task has been one of education because up until now, bicycle manufacturer were unaware of the problem," says Arbogast. The team has also approached the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to try to persuade manufacturers to adopt the new design. A decision is expected later this year. handlebar n (常用复数) (自行车等的) 车把 abdominal adj. 腹部的 redesign v. 重新设计 bioengineer n. 生物工程师 reconstruct vt. 重建;重构 countermeasure n. 对策 abdomen n. 膜,腹部 momentum n.冲力 handgrip n. 握柄 damping adj. 制动的,减速的,缓冲的 commercialize vt. 使商品化 The passage implies that ______.
A. it is not easy to persuade manufacturers to adopt the new design
B. the team of engineers has not found any countermeasures
C. children like to ride bicycles at a very low speed
D. a lot of children were killed in bicycle accidents in the past 30 years
Technology Transfer in Germany When it comes to translating basic research into industrial success, few nations can match Germany. Since the 1940s, the nation’s vast industrial base has been fed with a constant stream of new ideas and expertise from science. And though German prosperity (繁荣) has faltered (衰退) over the past decade because of the huge cost of unifying east and west as well as the global economic decline, it still has an enviable (令人羡慕) record for mining ideas into profit. Much of the reason for that success is the Fraunhofer Society, a network of research institutes that exists solely to solve industrial problems and create sought-after technologies. But today the Fraunhofer institutes have competition. Universities are taking an ever larger role in technology transfer, and technology parks are springing up all over. These efforts are being complemented by the federal programs for pumping money into start-up companies. Such a strategy may sound like a recipe for economic success, but it is not without its critics. These people worry that favoring applied research will mean neglecting basic science, eventually starving industry of flesh ideas. If every scientist starts thinking like an entrepreneur (企业家), the argument goes, then the traditional principles of university research being curiosity-driven: free and widely available will suffer. Others claim that many of the programs to promote technology transfer are a waste of money because half the small businesses that are promoted are bound to go bankrupt within a few years. While this debate continues, new ideas flow at a steady rate from Germany’s research networks, which bear famous names such as Helmholtz, Max Planck and Leibniz. Yet it is the fourth network, the Fraunhofer Society, that plays the greatest role in technology transfer. Founded in 1949, the Fraunhofer Society is now Europe’s largest organization for applied technology, and has 59 institutes employing 12,000 people. It continues to grow. Last year it swallowed up the Heinrich Hertz Institute for Communication Technology in Bedim Today, there are even Fraunhofers in the US and Asia. Which of the following is NOT true of traditional university research
A. It is free.
B. It is profit — driven.
C. It is widely available.
D. It is curiosity — driven.
Pushbike Peril Low speed bicycle crashes can badly injure —or even kill —children if they fall onto the ends of the handlebars so a team of engineers is redesigning the humble handlebar in a bid to make it safer. Kristy Arbogast, a bioengineer at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, began the project with her colleagues after a study of serious abdominal injuries in children in the past 30 years showed that more than a third were caused by bicycle accidents. "The task was to identify how the injuries occurred and came up with some countermeasures," she says. By interviewing the children and their parents, Arbogast and her team were able to reconstruct many of the accidents and identified a common mechanism responsible for serious injures. They discovered that most occur when children hit an obstacle at a slow speed, causing them to topple over. To maintain their balance they turn the handlebars through 90 degrees — but their momentum forces them into the end of the handlebars. The bike then falls over and the other end of the handlebars hits the ground, ramming it into their abdomen. The solution the group came up with is a handgrip fitted with a spring and damping system. The spring absorbs up to 50 per cent of the forces transmitted through the handlebars in an impact. The group hopes to commercialize the device, which should add only a few dollars to the cost of a bike. "But our task has been one of education because up until now, bicycle manufacturer were unaware of the problem," says Arbogast. The team has also approached the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to try to persuade manufacturers to adopt the new design. A decision is expected later this year. handlebar n (常用复数) (自行车等的) 车把 abdominal adj. 腹部的 redesign v. 重新设计 bioengineer n. 生物工程师 reconstruct vt. 重建;重构 countermeasure n. 对策 abdomen n. 膜,腹部 momentum n.冲力 handgrip n. 握柄 damping adj. 制动的,减速的,缓冲的 commercialize vt. 使商品化 According to the passage, some engineers are trying to improve the handlebars because ______.
A. they are not noble enough
B. they may kill children
C. they are likely to crash
D. they make the bike move at a low speed