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Bonfires can cause localized air pollution and annoy neighbours. Follow the bonfire guidelines to reduce nuisance to others. There are no specific laws governing the use of bonfires although under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) 1990, a statutory nuisance includes "smoke, fumes or gases emitted from premises so as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance". If bothered by smoke, approach your neighbour and explain the problem. You might feel awkward, but they may not be aware of the distress they are causing and it will hopefully make them more considerate in the future. If this fails, contact your local council’s environmental health department. The National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection (NSCA) factsheet "Pollution, Nuisance and the Law" explains the situation in more detail. If the fire is only occasional it is unlikely to be considered a nuisance in law. Under the Highways Act 1980, anyone lighting a fire and allowing smoke to drift across a road faces a fine if it endangers traffic. Contact the police in this case. What’s wrong with bonfires Burning garden waste produces smoke, especially if it is damp and smouldering. Burning plastic, rubber or painted materials not only creates an unpleasant smell but also produces a range of poisonous compounds. Your bonfire will also add to the general background level of air pollution. Bonfire smoke may cause problems for asthmatics, bronchitis sufferers, people with heart conditions and children. The smoke, smuts, and smell from bonfires are the subject of many complaints to local councils. Smoke prevents your neighbours from enjoying their gardens, opening windows or hanging washing out, and reduces visibility in the neighbourhood and on roads, Allotments near homes can cause particular problems if plot holders persistently burn waste. Fire can spread to fences or buildings and cans are a hazard when rubbish is burned. Piles of garden waste are often used as a refuge by animals, so look out for hibernating wildlife and sleeping pets. If a bonfire is the best practicable option for disposing of garden waste, follow these guidelines from the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection (NCSA) to avoid serious nuisance: 1) only burn dry material; 2) never burn household rubbish, rubber tyres, or anything containing plastic, foam or paint; 3) never use old engine oil, meths or petrol to light the fire or encourage it; 4) avoid lighting a fire in unsuitable weather conditions—smoke hangs in the air on damp, still days and in the evening; 5) if it is windy, smoke may be blown into neighbours, gardens and across roads; 6) avoid burning when air pollution in your area is high or very high—check the weather forecast, or the air quality website. Which of the following topics is NOT discussed in the passage
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Ruth Handler invented something in 1959 which became so quintessentially American as to be included in the official " America’s Time Capsule" buried at the celebration of the Bicentennial in 1976: the Barbie doll. In the early 1950s, Handler saw that her young daughter, Barbara, and her girlfriends enjoyed playing with adult female dolls as much or more than with baby dolls. Handler sensed that it was just as important for girls to imagine what they themselves might grow up to become as it was for them to focus on what caring for children might be like. Inspired by her daughter’s fascination with adult paper dolls, Ruth Handier suggested making a three-dimensional doll through which little girls could act out their dreams. In 1959, Mattel introduced the Barbie doll (named after the Handlers’ daughter), a pint-sized model of the "girl next door. " Soon enough Barbie sprouted a coterie of friends and family. Ken (named for the Handlers’ son) , Barbie’s boyfriend, appeared in 1961. Meanwhile, the longtime Southern California resident defied prevailing trends in the toy industry of the late 1950s when she proposed an alternative to the flat-chest baby dolls then marketed to girls. "I believed it was important to a little girl’s self-esteem," Handler has said, "to play with a doll that has breasts. " Barbie, a teenage doll with a tiny waist, slender hips and impressive bust, became not only a best-selling toy with more than 1 billion sold in 150 countries, but a cultural icon analyzed by scholars, attacked by feminists and showcased in the Smithsonian Institution. "My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be," Handler wrote in her 1994 autobiography. "Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices. " Ruth Handier undeniably invented an American icon that functions as both a steady cynosure for girls’ dreams and an ever-changing reflection of American society. By 1966, Handler was 50 and Mattel ruled the highly competitive toy world: It controlled 12% of the $2-billion toy market in the United States. By 1970, however, her world began to unravel. Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. New corporate managers began to diversify Mattel away from toys, and their machinations ultimately resulted in the Handlers’ ouster from the company they had founded. Although best known for her pivotal role as Barbie’s inventor, Handler devoted her later years to a second, trailblazing career: manufacturing and marketing artificial breasts for women who had undergone mastectomies. Herself a breast cancer survivor, she personally sold and fitted the prosthesis and crisscrossed the country as a spokeswoman for early detection of the disease in the 1970s, when it was still a taboo subject. The Nearly Me prosthetic breast was made of liquid silicone enclosed in polyurethane and had a rigid foam backing. Her goal was to make an artificial breast so real that "a woman could wear a regular brassiere (=bra) and blouse, stick her chest out and be proud." she said of" the prosthetics business. "It sure rebuilt my self-esteem, and I think I rebuilt the self-esteem of others." By 1980, sales of the Nearly Me artificial breast had surpassed $1 million. In 1991, Handler sold the company to a division of Kimberly-Clark. She died on April 27th, 2002. The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Stop Cancer Organization. Why is Barbie doll so attractive to girls
The never-ceasing pace of scientific accomplishment often surpasses the progress of moral thought, leaving people struggling to make sense, initially at least, of whether heart transplants are ethical or test-tube babies desirable. Over the past three decades scientists have begun to investigate a branch of medicine that offers astonishing promise—the ability to repair the human body and even grow new organs—but which destroys early-stage embryos to do so. In "The Stem Cell Hope" Alice Park, a science writer at Time magazine, chronicles the scientific, political, ethical and personal struggles of those involved in the work. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent (多能性的): they have the ability to change into any one of the 200- odd types of cell that compose the human body; but they can do so only at a very early stage. Once the bundle has reached more than about 150 cells, they start to specialize. Research into repairing severed spinal cords or growing new hearts has thus needed a supply of stem cells that come from entities that, given a more favorable environment, could instead grow into a baby. Immediately after the announcement of the birth of Dolly the sheep—the clone of an adult ewe whose mammary (乳腺的) cells Ian Wilmut had tricked into behaving like a developing embryo—American scientists were hauled before the nation’s politicians who were uneasy at the implication that people might also be cloned. Concern at the speed of scientific progress had previously stalled publicly funded research into controversial topics, for example, into in vitro fertilization. But it did not stop the work from taking place: instead the IVF industry blossomed in the private sector, funded by couples desperate for a baby and investors who had spotted a profitable new market. That is also what happened with human stem cells. After a prolonged struggle over whether to ban research outright—which pitted Nancy Reagan, whose husband suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, against a father who asked George Bush’s advisers, "Which one of my children would you kill"—Mr. Bush blocked the use of government money to fund research on any new human embryonic stem-cell cultures. But research did not halt completely: Geron, a biopharmaceutical (生物制的) company based in Menlo Park, California, had started "to mop up this orphaned innovation", as Ms Park puts it, by recruiting researchers whose work brought them into conflict with the funding restrictions. Meanwhile, in South Korea a scientist claimed not only to have cloned human embryos but also to have created patient-specific cultures that could, in theory, be used to patch up brain damage or grow a kidney. Alas, he was wrong. But a Japanese scientist did manage to persuade adult skin cells to act like stem cells. If it proves possible to scale up his techniques, that would remove the source of the controversy over stem-cell research. Three months after he took office, Barack Obama lifted restrictions on federal funding for research on new stem-cell cultures, saying that he thought sound science and moral values were consistent with one another. But progress has been slow: the first human trials in America, involving two people with spinal-cord injuries who have been injected with stem cells developed by Geron, are only just under way. The sick children who first inspired scientists to conduct research into stem cells in order to develop treatments that might help them are now young adults. As Ms Park notes, the fight over stem-cell research is not over, and those who might benefit from stem-cell medicine remain in need. As a result of the birth of Dolly and an adult ewe, ______.
The word "day" has two meanings. When we talk about the number of days in a year, we are using "day" to mean 24 hours. But when we talk about day and night, we are using "day" to mean the time between sunrise (日出 and sunset (日落).Since the earth looks like a ball, the sun can shine on only half of it at a time. Always one half of the earth is having day and the other half night. A place is moved from day into night and from night into day over and over by the spinning (旋转) of the earth. At the equator (赤道) day and night are sometimes the same length (长度). They are each twelve hours long. The sun rises at 6 o’clock in the morning and sets at 6 o’clock in the evening. For six months the North Pole is tilted (倾斜) toward the sun. In those months the Northern Hemisphere (半球)gets more hours of sunlight than the Southern Hemisphere. Days are longer than nights. South of the equator nights are longer than days. For the other six months the North Pole is tilted away from the sun. Then the Southern Hemisphere gets more sunlight. Days are longer than nights. North of the equator nights are longer than days. Winter is the season of long nights. Summer is the season of long days. ______ day is as long as night at the equator.
The word "open" is really used a lot. You’ve probably heard" open up" in many ways over the years. Probably most people would like to be more open than they are right now. We know it feels good to share with others. If feels good to talk to somebody about things we’re concerned about. It’s good to be able to trust somebody. What do we really mean by becoming open Well, trying to talk about yourself in such a way that something of the inner person, that is you, is communicated to others might be one way of being open or at least thinking about being open. That inner person is a complex person who has a variety of thoughts and also feelings. So, wanting to share with other people these inner feelings and these inner thoughts is one way of becoming open. Being open is a kind of invitation to others. What you share about yourself should encourage others to come in, so to speak and make contact with you. To involve themselves with you. Being open is difficult. It makes us feel vulnerable, psychologically naked and usually anxious. But it also is important in terms of really letting others get to understand how we think, how we feel and what we believe. We often hide our inner thoughts and feelings because we’re concerned how well excepted they’ll be by other people. But we also shut out other people from knowing and accepting us by not being open. We’re denying ourselves that chance to speak out, to declare our inner thoughts and feelings. It’s up to you to decide just how you’re going to talk about yourself and what you’re going to say. Telling somebody that school or work is awful. However, it might be more meaningful to share why you’re saying that about school or work. That’s at a little deeper level. There are probably more risks attached to sharing that. Probably most important is an immediate here and now honesty that goes along with being open. For instance, telling someone that you’re bored is risky, but it takes courage to say, "I’m bored, why don’t we do such and such", or "Let’s change topics. "For me, declaring your boredom or resentments also means I’m responsible for suggesting alternatives to change my mood. You have the power to change things by being open and sharing things. Keep in mind also that being completely open with everyone in every situation may be very inappropriate. You may want to be more open with your spouse or close friends, but not with your boss or people you don’t know as well. You may choose not to be open with people you don’t fully trust, because to be open is to share vulnerable information about yourself. And if you don’t fully trust how someone else will use that information about you, you may choose not to share it. Also, some people may be very uncomfortable with too much openness and you may not want to be as open with them. A caution about being open is that sometimes we can be too open. In the name of being open we say everything we feel or think to others. But fail to be sensitive to others feelings about our openness. We may make them feel very uncomfortable or say something that hurts them. Being open also carries a responsibility with it and that is to be aware of others’ reactions to us and to respect their reactions. Which of the following is NOT the reason why the author says "being open is difficult"
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