Controlling Robots with the MindBelle, our tiny monkey, was seated in her special chair inside a chamber at our Duke University lab. Her right hand grasped a joystick(操纵杆) as she watched a horizontal series of lights on a display panel. She knew that if a light suddenly shone and she moved the joystick left or right to correspond to its position, she would be sent a drop of fruit juice into her mouth.Belle wore a cap glued to her head. Under it were four plastic connectors, which fed arrays of microwires-each wire finer than the finest sewing thread-into different regions of Belle"s motor cortex(脑皮层), tile brain tissue that plans movements and sends instructions. Each of the 100 microwires lay beside a single motor neuron(神经元). When a neuron produced an electrical discharge, the adjacent microwire would capture the current and send it up through a small wiring bundle that ran from Belle"s cap to a box of electronics on a table next to the booth. The box, in turn, was linked to two computers, one next door and the other half a country away.After months of hard work, we were about to test the idea that we could reliably translate the raw electrical activity in a living being"s brain-Belle"s mere thoughts-into signals that could direct the actions of a robot. We had assembled a multi-jointed robot arm in this room, away from Belle"s view, which she would control for the first time. As soon as Belle"s brain sensed a lit spot on the panel, electronics in the box running two real-time mathematical models would rapidly analyze the tiny action potentials produced by her brain cells. Our lab computer would convert the electrical patterns into instructions that would direct the robot arm. Six hundred miles north, in Cambridge, Mass, a different computer would produce the same actions in another robot arm built by Mandayam A. Srinivasan. If we had done everything correctly, the two robot arms would behave as Belle"s arm did, at exactly the same time. Finally the moment came. We randomly switched on lights in front of Belle, and she immediately moved her joystick back and forth to correspond to them. Our robot arm moved similarly to Belle"s real arm. So did Srinivasan"s. Belle and the robots moved in synchrony (同步), like dancers choreographed(设计舞蹈动作) by the electrical impulses sparking in Belle"s mind.In the two years since that day, our labs and several others have advanced neuroscience, computer science and microelectronics to create ways for rats, monkeys and eventually humans to control mechanical and electronic machines purely by "thinking through," or imagining, the motions. Our immediate goal is to help a person who has been unable to move by a neurological(神经的) disorder or spinal cord(脊髓) injury, but whose motor codex is spared, to operate a wheelchair or a robotic limb. Which of the following is NOT true of the robot built by Srinivasan
A. It was directed by signals converted from the electrical activity in Belle"s brain.
B. It converted the electrical patterns into instructions for the other robot.
C. It was six hundred miles away from where Belle was.
D. It could perform the same function as Belle did.
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More than one-third of the Chinese in the United States live in California, predominantly in San Francisco.
A. previously
B. mostly
C. practically
D. permanently
Bill Gates: Unleashing Your CreativityI"ve always been an optimist and I suppose that is rooted in my belief that the power of creativity and intelligence can make the world a better place.For as long as I can remember, I"ve loved learning new things and solving problems. So when I sat down at a computer for the first time in seventh grade, I was hooked. It was a chunky old teletype machine and it could barely do anything compared to the computers we have today. But it changed my life.When my friend Paul Allen and I started Microsoft 30 years ago, we had a vision of "a computer on every desk and in every home," which probably sounded a little too optimistic at a time when most computers were the size of refrigerators. But we believed that personal computers would change the world. And they have.And after 30 years, I"m still as inspired by computers as I was back in seventh grade.I believe that computers are the most incredible tool we can use to feed our curiosity and inventiveness to help us solve problems that even the smartest people couldn"t solve on their own.Computers have transformed how we learn, giving kids everywhere a window into all of the world"s knowledge. They"re helping us build communities around the things we care about and to stay close to the people who are important to us, no matter where they are.Like my friend Warren Buffett, I feel particularly lucky to do something every day that I love to do. He calls it "tap-dancing to work". My job at Microsoft is as challenging as ever, but what makes me "tap-dance to work" is when we show people something new, like a computer that can recognize your handwriting or your speech, or one that can store a lifetime"s worth of photos, and they say, "I didn"t know you could do that with a PC!"But for all the cool things that a person can do with a PC, there are lots of other ways we can put our creativity and intelligence to work to improve our world. There are still far too many people in the world whose most basic needs go unmet. Every year, for example, millions of people die from diseases that are easy to prevent or treat in the developed world.I believe that my own good fortune brings with it a responsibility to give back to the world. My wife, Melinda, and I have committed to improving health and education in a way that can help as many people as possible.As a father, I believe that the death of a child in Africa is no less poignant or tragic than the death of a child anywhere else and that it doesn"t take much to make an immense difference in these children"s lives.I"m still very much an optimist, and I believe that progress on even the world"s toughest problems is possible—and it"s happening every day. We"re seeing new drugs for deadly diseases, new diagnostic tools, and new attention paid to the health problems in the developing world.I"m excited by the possibilities I see for medicine, for education and, of course, for technology. And I believe that through our natural inventiveness, creativity and willingness to solve tough problems, we"re going to make some amazing achievements in all these areas in my lifetime. Bill Gates compares his hard work on a PC to "tap-dancing to work".
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
Controlling Robots with the MindBelle, our tiny monkey, was seated in her special chair inside a chamber at our Duke University lab. Her right hand grasped a joystick(操纵杆) as she watched a horizontal series of lights on a display panel. She knew that if a light suddenly shone and she moved the joystick left or right to correspond to its position, she would be sent a drop of fruit juice into her mouth.Belle wore a cap glued to her head. Under it were four plastic connectors, which fed arrays of microwires-each wire finer than the finest sewing thread-into different regions of Belle"s motor cortex(脑皮层), tile brain tissue that plans movements and sends instructions. Each of the 100 microwires lay beside a single motor neuron(神经元). When a neuron produced an electrical discharge, the adjacent microwire would capture the current and send it up through a small wiring bundle that ran from Belle"s cap to a box of electronics on a table next to the booth. The box, in turn, was linked to two computers, one next door and the other half a country away.After months of hard work, we were about to test the idea that we could reliably translate the raw electrical activity in a living being"s brain-Belle"s mere thoughts-into signals that could direct the actions of a robot. We had assembled a multi-jointed robot arm in this room, away from Belle"s view, which she would control for the first time. As soon as Belle"s brain sensed a lit spot on the panel, electronics in the box running two real-time mathematical models would rapidly analyze the tiny action potentials produced by her brain cells. Our lab computer would convert the electrical patterns into instructions that would direct the robot arm. Six hundred miles north, in Cambridge, Mass, a different computer would produce the same actions in another robot arm built by Mandayam A. Srinivasan. If we had done everything correctly, the two robot arms would behave as Belle"s arm did, at exactly the same time. Finally the moment came. We randomly switched on lights in front of Belle, and she immediately moved her joystick back and forth to correspond to them. Our robot arm moved similarly to Belle"s real arm. So did Srinivasan"s. Belle and the robots moved in synchrony (同步), like dancers choreographed(设计舞蹈动作) by the electrical impulses sparking in Belle"s mind.In the two years since that day, our labs and several others have advanced neuroscience, computer science and microelectronics to create ways for rats, monkeys and eventually humans to control mechanical and electronic machines purely by "thinking through," or imagining, the motions. Our immediate goal is to help a person who has been unable to move by a neurological(神经的) disorder or spinal cord(脊髓) injury, but whose motor codex is spared, to operate a wheelchair or a robotic limb. Belle would be fed some fruit juice if she ______.
A. grasped the joystick
B. moved the joystick to the side of the light
C. sat quietly in a special chair
D. watched lights on a display panel
Controlling Robots with the MindBelle, our tiny monkey, was seated in her special chair inside a chamber at our Duke University lab. Her right hand grasped a joystick(操纵杆) as she watched a horizontal series of lights on a display panel. She knew that if a light suddenly shone and she moved the joystick left or right to correspond to its position, she would be sent a drop of fruit juice into her mouth.Belle wore a cap glued to her head. Under it were four plastic connectors, which fed arrays of microwires-each wire finer than the finest sewing thread-into different regions of Belle"s motor cortex(脑皮层), tile brain tissue that plans movements and sends instructions. Each of the 100 microwires lay beside a single motor neuron(神经元). When a neuron produced an electrical discharge, the adjacent microwire would capture the current and send it up through a small wiring bundle that ran from Belle"s cap to a box of electronics on a table next to the booth. The box, in turn, was linked to two computers, one next door and the other half a country away.After months of hard work, we were about to test the idea that we could reliably translate the raw electrical activity in a living being"s brain-Belle"s mere thoughts-into signals that could direct the actions of a robot. We had assembled a multi-jointed robot arm in this room, away from Belle"s view, which she would control for the first time. As soon as Belle"s brain sensed a lit spot on the panel, electronics in the box running two real-time mathematical models would rapidly analyze the tiny action potentials produced by her brain cells. Our lab computer would convert the electrical patterns into instructions that would direct the robot arm. Six hundred miles north, in Cambridge, Mass, a different computer would produce the same actions in another robot arm built by Mandayam A. Srinivasan. If we had done everything correctly, the two robot arms would behave as Belle"s arm did, at exactly the same time. Finally the moment came. We randomly switched on lights in front of Belle, and she immediately moved her joystick back and forth to correspond to them. Our robot arm moved similarly to Belle"s real arm. So did Srinivasan"s. Belle and the robots moved in synchrony (同步), like dancers choreographed(设计舞蹈动作) by the electrical impulses sparking in Belle"s mind.In the two years since that day, our labs and several others have advanced neuroscience, computer science and microelectronics to create ways for rats, monkeys and eventually humans to control mechanical and electronic machines purely by "thinking through," or imagining, the motions. Our immediate goal is to help a person who has been unable to move by a neurological(神经的) disorder or spinal cord(脊髓) injury, but whose motor codex is spared, to operate a wheelchair or a robotic limb. The short-term goal of the research is to help a person ______.
A. whose motor cortex is seriously damaged
B. who can operate a wheelchair but not a robotic limb
C. who has spinal cord injury but is able to move a wheelchair
D. who is unable to move but whose motor cortex is not damaged