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Text 1 On the heels of its recent decision to criminalize consumers who rip songs from albums they have purchased to their computers (or iPods), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has now gone one step further and declared that "remembering songs" using your brain is criminal copyright infringement. "The brain is a recording device," explained RIAA president Cary Sherman. "The act of listening is an unauthorized act of copying music to that recording device, and the act of recalling or remembering a song is unauthorized playback." The RIAA also said it would begin sending letters to tens of millions of consumers thought to be illegally remembering songs, threatening them with lawsuits if they do not settle with the RIAA by paying monetary damages. In order to avoid engaging in unauthorized copyright infringement, consumers will now be required to immediately forget everything they have just heard—a skill already mastered by the former US President George Bush. To aid in these memory wiping efforts, the RIAA is teaming up with Big Pharma to include free psychotropic prescription drugs with the purchase of new music albums. Consumers are advised to swallow the pills before listening to the music. The pills block normal cognitive function, allowing consumers to enjoy the music in a more detached state without the risk of accidentally remembering any songs (and thereby violating copyright law). Consumers caught humming their favorite songs will be charged with a more serious crime: The public performance of a copyrighted song, for which the fines can reach over $250,000 per incident. "Humming, singing and whistling songs will not be tolerated," said Sherman. Consumers attempting to circumvent the RIAA’s new memory-wiping technology by actually remembering songs will be charged with felony crimes under provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Act, passed in 1998, makes it a felony crime to circumvent copyright protection technologies. The RIAA’s position is that consumers who actually use their brains while listening to music are violating the DMCA. With this decision, the RIAA now considers approximately 72% of the adult U.S. population to be criminals. Putting them all in prison for copyright infringement would cost US taxpayers an estimated $683 billion per year—an amount that would have to be shouldered by the remaining 28% who are not imprisoned. The RIAA believes it could cover the $683 billion tab through royalties on music sales. The problem with that—the 28% remaining adults not in prison do not buy music albums. That means album sales would plummet to nearly zero, and the US government (which is already deep in debt) would have to borrow money to pay for all the prisons. When asked whether he really wants 72% of the US population to be imprisoned for ripping music CDs to their own brains, Sherman shot back, "You don’t support criminal behavior, do you Every person who illegally remembers a song is a criminal. We can’t have criminals running free on the streets of America. It’s an issue of national security." What category does this essay fall into（）
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Text 2 The threat of diseases such as influenza or tuberculosis re-emerging in virulent form has been a common theme in recent years. That threat is not limited to human diseases. Our food plants get sick too, and just as human diseases evolve to evade antibiotics, so the diseases that strike our crops evolve to sidestep the resistance genes we have bred into them. For the vast majority of the calories the world eats, the key crop is grain. A ruinous wheat disease we have not had to worry about since the 1950s is making a comeback, and unless we are very lucky, we will not have sufficient defences to protect crops everywhere in the world against it in time. That stem rust would evolve and return to plague us was inevitable, but our lack of preparation to ward it off was not. Research into stem rust was bound to tail off once the disease seemed beaten, but the world let down its guard too far, for ideological reasons. In the 1980s governments of industrialized countries, especially the UK and US, started to lose patience with the "multilateral" agencies that engineered much of the global progress in agriculture after the Second World War. Each government wanted the agencies to dance only to its tune. This included the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, the global network of labs that created the "Green Revolution". The CGIAR remains the leading, sometimes only source of agricultural research devoted to global good rather than private profit. "Multilateral" funding meant these labs received income from rich donors with no strings attached. Researchers at the labs were able to spend the money the way they thought best—including the unglamorous task of making sure that crops’ disease resistance kept pace with the diseases. However, for more than two decades, donors have been cutting this funding in favour of only financing projects allied to their own interests. As wheat stem rust re-emerged in 1999, the main CGIAR wheat lab was entering a major funding crisis, and ended up sacking a quarter of its scientists. It has taken until now to beg enough money to fight the disease. There are now signs that donors may be moving back to more open-ended funding, which is to be encouraged. They should also increase their derisory funding for this vital research: stem rust is poised to teach us the dangers of complacency. The world population is predicted to rise by another 3 billion by 2050, yet increases in food production have stagnated, technological fixes are spent, and global warming—and the return of diseases like stem rust—look likely to take back many of the gains we have made. Food security affects political security, and one of the first regions to suffer from stem rust will be the volatile Middle East, including Iraq. Agricultural research for the public good is the only way to provide that security. It is certainly cheaper than building armies. Multilateral research institutions have not functioned properly since the 1980s（）
Among the raft of books, articles, jokes, romantic comedies, self-help guides and other writings discussing marriage, some familiar ideas often crop up. Few appear more often than the (31) that many old couples look alike. You have probably seen it before—two elderly people walking hand-in-hand down the street or sitting at a cafe, (32) each other so strongly that they could be siblings. Do these couples actually look alike, and if (33) , what has caused them to develop this way A study published in the March 2006 issue of Personality and Individual Differences may have the (34) . Twenty-two people, divided equally (35) male and female, (36) in the study. They were asked to judge the looks, personalities and ages of, 160 married couples. The participants viewed photographs of men and women separately and were (37) told who was married to (38) . The subjects consistently judged people who were married (39) being similar (40) appearance and personality. The researchers also found that couples who had been together longer appeared (41) similar. This result (42) itself may not seem surprising, but the study also offered some answers on (42) couples may look alike. To start, consider that life experiences can end up (44) reflected physically. Someone (45) is happy and smiles more will develop the facial muscles and wrinkles related to smiling. The years of experience of an elderly couple’s marriage, happy (46) not, would then be reflected in their (47) . Genetic influences are (48) factor. A past study showed that genetically similar people have better marriages. Such families have (49) incidents of child abuse and a lower rate of miscarriages. People also appear to be more selfless (50) involved with genetically similar partners. 34（）
Text 2 The threat of diseases such as influenza or tuberculosis re-emerging in virulent form has been a common theme in recent years. That threat is not limited to human diseases. Our food plants get sick too, and just as human diseases evolve to evade antibiotics, so the diseases that strike our crops evolve to sidestep the resistance genes we have bred into them. For the vast majority of the calories the world eats, the key crop is grain. A ruinous wheat disease we have not had to worry about since the 1950s is making a comeback, and unless we are very lucky, we will not have sufficient defences to protect crops everywhere in the world against it in time. That stem rust would evolve and return to plague us was inevitable, but our lack of preparation to ward it off was not. Research into stem rust was bound to tail off once the disease seemed beaten, but the world let down its guard too far, for ideological reasons. In the 1980s governments of industrialized countries, especially the UK and US, started to lose patience with the "multilateral" agencies that engineered much of the global progress in agriculture after the Second World War. Each government wanted the agencies to dance only to its tune. This included the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, the global network of labs that created the "Green Revolution". The CGIAR remains the leading, sometimes only source of agricultural research devoted to global good rather than private profit. "Multilateral" funding meant these labs received income from rich donors with no strings attached. Researchers at the labs were able to spend the money the way they thought best—including the unglamorous task of making sure that crops’ disease resistance kept pace with the diseases. However, for more than two decades, donors have been cutting this funding in favour of only financing projects allied to their own interests. As wheat stem rust re-emerged in 1999, the main CGIAR wheat lab was entering a major funding crisis, and ended up sacking a quarter of its scientists. It has taken until now to beg enough money to fight the disease. There are now signs that donors may be moving back to more open-ended funding, which is to be encouraged. They should also increase their derisory funding for this vital research: stem rust is poised to teach us the dangers of complacency. The world population is predicted to rise by another 3 billion by 2050, yet increases in food production have stagnated, technological fixes are spent, and global warming—and the return of diseases like stem rust—look likely to take back many of the gains we have made. Food security affects political security, and one of the first regions to suffer from stem rust will be the volatile Middle East, including Iraq. Agricultural research for the public good is the only way to provide that security. It is certainly cheaper than building armies. In the battle against the re-emergence of stem rust, the author（）
When my mother learned she was pregnant with me, my parents sat down one Sunday morning to review their finances. Turning on the radio for a little light music, they penciled some calculations for the savings they would need to make to pay for my college education. The music paused for an announcement that Japanese airplanes were attacking Pearl Harbor. The notes went into the wastebasket. (66) Not so today for all the upheaval of the past half-century, this has been by far the most tranquil period ever. Unlike any of their forebears, a majority of the world’s young adults have good reason to develop plans for their old age. They know they will probably live to see the greenhouse-warmed planet of the late 21st century. (67) This is also unprecedented: never in history have people roused themselves against such a distant threat. Millions of people and whole governments are addressing the issue. Even in the US army, senior officers are studying the implications for their organization and looking for ways to reduce emissions. All this suggests that the pessimists who claim humanity is unable to rise to the challenge have got it wrong. Of course, it is no use having a long-term perspective without the means to do something about it. Fortunately, our social and political mechanisms are progressing swiftly. (68) The past century has brought social progress as dramatic as that in industry. Economic stability, for example, is no accident: it is engineered by an international network of central banks, steadily expanding their cooperation. Non-governmental organizations provide new services, from the certification of "fair trade" coffee to secret cash transfers. In 1948, the UN formally consulted with 41 NGOs; it now consults with more than 1,600. (69) Almost every week we see these powerful tools applied in novel ways. Consider what happened recently when Texas power company TXU revealed plans to build a dozen coal-fired plants that would emit vast amounts of carbon dioxide. An alliance of environmentalist NGOs spotlighted the development on the Internet. Meanwhile, an international financial consortium took an interest. After intense negotiations, the consortium won the environmentalists’ public blessing to buy TXU by promising to sharply reduce the planned emissions. The NGOs held no political office and wielded no investment billions; their power came from the skilful organization of a million mouse clicks. (70) These developments are nowhere near enough to guarantee we can meet the challenge of climate change. Time is short and the prospect of even partial success remains uncertain. Yet we can avoid catastrophe by mobilizing our ingenuity and community spirit. Addressing global warming will require less sacrifice than defeating Fascism, but more foresight—and that is exactly what we have been acquiring. If humanity’s track record with long-term problems shows mostly indifference and failure, that need not set precedent for our future. 68（）
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