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After a shaky start, the Martian flotilla that has arrived over the past few weeks is getting down to business. Two of the five craft in it seem to be working perfectly. Two are lost. And a fifth is sick, but undergoing treatment. The most spectacular pictures so far have been provided by Mars Express, the European Space Agency"s contribution to the fleet. On January 28th this reached its final working orbit (which takes it over both poles, and thus allows it to see the whole of Mars over the course of a few days as the planet revolves beneath it). It has, however, been sending back data since shortly after it arrived, and a few days ago its controllers released a series of beautiful photographs, including a stereo image of Valles Marineris, a huge canyon that may have been formed by flowing water. The most scientifically significant result, though, has come from Opportunity, America"s second Mars rover. One of Opportunity"s cameras has photographed evidence of stratification in nearby rocks. Such stratification indicates that the rocks concerned are sedimentary. The layers could be repeated wind-blown deposits, or consist of ash from successive volcanic eruptions. But the terrestrial rocks they most resemble are ones that have formed under water. The reason everyone is getting so excited is because there is a widespread assumption that any form of life which might dwell on Mars would need liquid water to live—or, even if it could now subsist by extracting moisture from ice, would have needed liquid water to evolve to that stage. Mars has seen more probes launched towards it than all of the other planets put together precisely because of this hope that it might harbour life. So there is a lot riding on the answer—not least the funding of future missions. Besides its scientific significance, the success of Opportunity has also helped to distract attention from the sudden refusal of Spirit, the first American rover to arrive on Mars, to talk to its controllers. This craft had tentatively, but successfully, nosed its way off its landing platform, and was about to drill its way into a nearby rock prior to doing a spot of chemical analysis, when it went silent. However, the engineers at NASA, America"s space agency, are nothing if not resourceful, and they have a good record of carrying out running repairs on spacecraft that are millions of kilometres away. In the case of Spirit, they think that one of the craft"s memory chips has got cluttered up with files created on the journey to Mars. That caused another chip, which manages the first, to throw a wobbly and to keep rebooting the computer. They are currently testing this idea by loading a diagnostic program on to the computer. In addition, as a precaution, they have deleted excess files from the equivalent memory chip on Opportunity. Spirit"s spirits may thus revive. As to the failures, the Japanese abandoned their fly-by craft Nozomi in December, and the British team in charge of Beagle 2, which is presumed to have landed on December 25th but from which no signal has been received, also seems to have called it quits. Still, a 40460% success rate (depending on whether Spirit is brought back into commission) is not bad by the historical standards of missions to Mars. Now, the real science begins. We can learn from the passage that people"s enthusiasm for Mars______.
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Plastic is the panacea of the ages. Nearly every man-made object (1)_____ (2)_____ of, or at least (3)_____ its very structure, to this wonder compound. Rain slickers, computer terminals, automobile engine parts, coffee cups (and the sugar stirrers too), breast implants, toy soldiers—they are all made up of plastic, or one of its many (4)_____ Since the (5)_____ of civilization, humankind bas been experimenting (6)_____ a multifunctional material—one that had to be equally strong and lightweight—to carry, contain and protect valuables. (7)_____ it could carry, contain and protect humans too, even better. Generations of tinkerers and scientists set off (8)_____ the challenge, striking gold some 170 years ago. By mixing natural rubber with sulphur they created the world"s most utilized material ever. In developing a (9)_____, malleable and durable substance, the most important inventions of the industrial age were to follow shortly thereafter. The automobile and airplane industries, to (10)_____ just two, owe their very existence to plastic. And, (11)_____ celluloid plastic strips, the Lumiere Brothers would never have brought moving pictures to the big screen. The development of plastic is a story of human (12)_____, ingenuity and luck. (13)_____ the legend now goes, in 1839, the American inventor Charles Goodyear (the famous tyre company would later use his name) was experimenting with the sulphur treatment of natural rubber when he dropped a piece of sulphur-treated rubber on a stove. The heat seemed to give rubber (14)_____ properties. It was stronger, more (15)_____ to abrasions more elastic, much less (16)_____ to temperature, (17)_____ to gases, and highly resistant to chemicals and electric (18)_____ Eyeing this as a cheaply and easily reproduced construction material, a whirlwind of work (19)_____ and the birth of (20)_____ plastic and plastic-derivatives were born from camphor to celluloid to rayon; cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (or PVC); styrofoam and nylon were soon to follow.
Plastic is the panacea of the ages. Nearly every man-made object (1)_____ (2)_____ of, or at least (3)_____ its very structure, to this wonder compound. Rain slickers, computer terminals, automobile engine parts, coffee cups (and the sugar stirrers too), breast implants, toy soldiers—they are all made up of plastic, or one of its many (4)_____ Since the (5)_____ of civilization, humankind bas been experimenting (6)_____ a multifunctional material—one that had to be equally strong and lightweight—to carry, contain and protect valuables. (7)_____ it could carry, contain and protect humans too, even better. Generations of tinkerers and scientists set off (8)_____ the challenge, striking gold some 170 years ago. By mixing natural rubber with sulphur they created the world"s most utilized material ever. In developing a (9)_____, malleable and durable substance, the most important inventions of the industrial age were to follow shortly thereafter. The automobile and airplane industries, to (10)_____ just two, owe their very existence to plastic. And, (11)_____ celluloid plastic strips, the Lumiere Brothers would never have brought moving pictures to the big screen. The development of plastic is a story of human (12)_____, ingenuity and luck. (13)_____ the legend now goes, in 1839, the American inventor Charles Goodyear (the famous tyre company would later use his name) was experimenting with the sulphur treatment of natural rubber when he dropped a piece of sulphur-treated rubber on a stove. The heat seemed to give rubber (14)_____ properties. It was stronger, more (15)_____ to abrasions more elastic, much less (16)_____ to temperature, (17)_____ to gases, and highly resistant to chemicals and electric (18)_____ Eyeing this as a cheaply and easily reproduced construction material, a whirlwind of work (19)_____ and the birth of (20)_____ plastic and plastic-derivatives were born from camphor to celluloid to rayon; cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (or PVC); styrofoam and nylon were soon to follow.
Britain"s bosses would have you believe that business in Britain is groaning under red tape and punitive tax levels, inhibiting enterprise and putting British firms at a disadvantage compared with overseas competitors. As usual, reality paints a far different picture from the tawdry image scrawled by the CBI and Tory frontbenchers. Not only do British businesses pay lower levels of corporation tax than their counterparts abroad but they benefit from the most savage legal hamstringing of trade unionism. But boardroom fat cats in Britain have one further advantage over their competitors, which is their total inability to feel any sense of shame. The relatively poor performance since the 1990s of pension investment funds, overseen by the top companies themselves, has brought about a wide-ranging cull of occupational pension schemes. Final salary schemes have been axed in favour of money purchase or have been barred to new employees and, in many companies, staff have been told that they will have to increase pensions fund payments to ensure previously guaranteed benefits. At a time when the government has been deliberately running down the value of the state retirement pension and driving pensioners towards means-tested benefits, the increasingly shaky nature of occupational schemes has brought about higher levels of insecurity among working people. However, it"s not all doom and gloom. There is a silver lining. Unfortunately, that silver lining, doesn"t shine too brightly outside the corridors of corporate power, where directors are doing what they are best at—looking after number one. Bosses are not only slurping up huge salaries, each-way bonuses and golden parachutes. They have also, as TUC general secretary Brendan Barber says, got "their snouts in a pensions trough." If having contributions worth one-thirtieth of their salary each year paid into a pension scheme is good enough for directors, why do most workers only receive one-sixtieth And if companies only donate 6 percent of an employee"s salary for money purchase schemes, why do they give 20430 percent for directors" schemes The answer, which will be no secret to many trade unionists, is that we live in a class- divided society in which big business and the rich call the shots. The Child Poverty Action Group revelation that Britain also has the worst regional social inequality in the industrialised world—second only to Mexico—illustrates how fatuous are claims that this country enjoys social justice and opportunities for all. The stark facts of inequality, based on class, gender, age and race, that are outlined in the CPAG Poverty book ought to dictate a new government approach to tackling poverty. Inequality and poverty cannot be tackled by allowing big business and the rich to dodge their responsibilities to society and to use their positions of power to seize the lion"s share. What does the author imply by "There is a silver lining."(Para. 6)
Plastic is the panacea of the ages. Nearly every man-made object (1)_____ (2)_____ of, or at least (3)_____ its very structure, to this wonder compound. Rain slickers, computer terminals, automobile engine parts, coffee cups (and the sugar stirrers too), breast implants, toy soldiers—they are all made up of plastic, or one of its many (4)_____ Since the (5)_____ of civilization, humankind bas been experimenting (6)_____ a multifunctional material—one that had to be equally strong and lightweight—to carry, contain and protect valuables. (7)_____ it could carry, contain and protect humans too, even better. Generations of tinkerers and scientists set off (8)_____ the challenge, striking gold some 170 years ago. By mixing natural rubber with sulphur they created the world"s most utilized material ever. In developing a (9)_____, malleable and durable substance, the most important inventions of the industrial age were to follow shortly thereafter. The automobile and airplane industries, to (10)_____ just two, owe their very existence to plastic. And, (11)_____ celluloid plastic strips, the Lumiere Brothers would never have brought moving pictures to the big screen. The development of plastic is a story of human (12)_____, ingenuity and luck. (13)_____ the legend now goes, in 1839, the American inventor Charles Goodyear (the famous tyre company would later use his name) was experimenting with the sulphur treatment of natural rubber when he dropped a piece of sulphur-treated rubber on a stove. The heat seemed to give rubber (14)_____ properties. It was stronger, more (15)_____ to abrasions more elastic, much less (16)_____ to temperature, (17)_____ to gases, and highly resistant to chemicals and electric (18)_____ Eyeing this as a cheaply and easily reproduced construction material, a whirlwind of work (19)_____ and the birth of (20)_____ plastic and plastic-derivatives were born from camphor to celluloid to rayon; cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (or PVC); styrofoam and nylon were soon to follow.
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