New Product Will Save Lives Drinking water that looks clean may still contain bugs (虫子), which can cause illness. A small company called Genera Technologies has produced a testing method in three stages, which shows whether water is safe. The new test shows if water needs chemicals added to it, to destroy anything harmful. It was invented by scientist Dr. Adrian Patton, who started Genera five years ago. He and his employees have developed the test together with a British water company. Andy Headland, Genera’s marketing director, recently presented the test at a conference in the USA and forecast good American sales for it. Genera has already sold 11 of its tests at $42,500 a time in the U.K. and has a further four on order. It expects to sell another 25 tests before the end of March. The company says it is the only test in the U.K. to be approved by the government. Genera was formed five years ago and until October last year had only five employees; it now employs 14. Mr. Headland believes that the company should make around $19 million by the end of the year in the U.K. alone. The British government is helping Dr. Parton to sell the tests abroad.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
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What should be done if one wants to gain or lose weight The process of gaining or losing weight can be explained by comparing your body to your car. Both run 1 fuel, food for your body and gasoline for your car. Both 2 that fuel, first into heat, then energy, some of 3 is used to do work, and some emitted as waste. And 4 your car uses more energy when the engine is racing than when it is idling, 5 does your body use more energy when you are working hard than 6 you are resting. For the purpose of this comparison, 7 , there is one significant difference between them. Your car cannot store fuel by turning it into 8 else; all gasoline not 9 remains as gasoline. But your body stores 10 energy as fat. When the gas tank is 11 empty, the car won’t run; but your body can burn fat to provide more energy. Therefore, if you want to gain weight, you must do 12 of two things: eat more calories (units of heat, therefore energy), or use less through 13 . If you want to lose weight, you do the 14 , decrease your intake of calories or increase the amount of energy you spend. There is 15 way. Gaining or losing weight is always a relation between intake and output of potential energy.
A. inactivity
B. inattention
C. cycling
D. jogging
Continue to Protect or Destroy Ecosystem Biosphere Ⅱ was a spectacular failure. The gleaming glass-and-concrete habitat sprawling across the desert in Oracle, Arizona, was supposed to support eight human "biospherians" for two years. But the seal has to he broken before the experiment ended in 1993. Oxygen had fallen to levels normally seen at an elevation of 17,500 feet. Nitrous oxide had risen to the point where it threatened to cause brain damage. The fresh water supply became contaminated, and vines smothered (厚厚地覆盖) food plants. Insect pollinators (传授花粉的生物) and many other species became extinct. By the end, Biosphere Ⅱ was overrun with swarms of ants and cockroaches. Scientists who gathered recently to review the Biosphere Ⅱ experiment reached a disturbing conclusion: "No one yet knows how to engineer systems that provide humans with the life-supporting services that natural ecosystems produce for free." The problem is that these ecosystems are undergoing wrenching changes. Water and air quality, while improving in some regions, are deteriorating in many others. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere arc climbing. The world’s population could reach 10 billion by 2050. And famed Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson says the current rate of species losses puts us "in the midst of one of the great extinction spasms (突然进发) of geological history." All of which makes many ecologists wonder whether humans too will soon become extinct. It’s an incredibly important but incredibly difficult question. If we continue on this course, we’re heading for a world in which we will have to engineer services we’ve always received for free from nature. That’s why the failure of Biosphere Ⅱ was so disturbing: it proves that we don’t yet know how to do that. The Biosphere Ⅱ experience demonstrated that maintaining human life is a tricky proposition-especially if we can no longer rely on the services provided by natural ecosystems. If we are currently living through a mass extinction, as Wilson believes, we should consider the past. In the great Permian extinction 245 million years ago, 96 percent of species perished. Eventually, the Earth was repopulated with a rich collection of new species, but it took 100 million years. "That should give pause to anyone who believes that what Homo sapiens (现代人) destroys, nature will redeem," Wilson says. "Maybe so, but not within any length of time that has meaning for contemporary humanity." It is implied that many ecologists ______.
A. believe the world’s ecosystems are in an undesirable condition
B. agree that the environment of the world is not as bad as it is thought to be
C. appear somewhat unconcerned about the state of the world’s environment
D. have thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the world’s environment
Continue to Protect or Destroy Ecosystem Biosphere Ⅱ was a spectacular failure. The gleaming glass-and-concrete habitat sprawling across the desert in Oracle, Arizona, was supposed to support eight human "biospherians" for two years. But the seal has to he broken before the experiment ended in 1993. Oxygen had fallen to levels normally seen at an elevation of 17,500 feet. Nitrous oxide had risen to the point where it threatened to cause brain damage. The fresh water supply became contaminated, and vines smothered (厚厚地覆盖) food plants. Insect pollinators (传授花粉的生物) and many other species became extinct. By the end, Biosphere Ⅱ was overrun with swarms of ants and cockroaches. Scientists who gathered recently to review the Biosphere Ⅱ experiment reached a disturbing conclusion: "No one yet knows how to engineer systems that provide humans with the life-supporting services that natural ecosystems produce for free." The problem is that these ecosystems are undergoing wrenching changes. Water and air quality, while improving in some regions, are deteriorating in many others. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere arc climbing. The world’s population could reach 10 billion by 2050. And famed Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson says the current rate of species losses puts us "in the midst of one of the great extinction spasms (突然进发) of geological history." All of which makes many ecologists wonder whether humans too will soon become extinct. It’s an incredibly important but incredibly difficult question. If we continue on this course, we’re heading for a world in which we will have to engineer services we’ve always received for free from nature. That’s why the failure of Biosphere Ⅱ was so disturbing: it proves that we don’t yet know how to do that. The Biosphere Ⅱ experience demonstrated that maintaining human life is a tricky proposition-especially if we can no longer rely on the services provided by natural ecosystems. If we are currently living through a mass extinction, as Wilson believes, we should consider the past. In the great Permian extinction 245 million years ago, 96 percent of species perished. Eventually, the Earth was repopulated with a rich collection of new species, but it took 100 million years. "That should give pause to anyone who believes that what Homo sapiens (现代人) destroys, nature will redeem," Wilson says. "Maybe so, but not within any length of time that has meaning for contemporary humanity." What is the purpose of the experiment mentioned in this passage
A. To propose measures to hold back environmental deteriorating.
B. To predict environmental deteriorating that can cause vast destruction.
C. To limit the destruction that environmental deteriorating may cause.
D. To see if humans can engineer systems providing life-supporting services.
Cloning (克隆): Future Perfect 1. A clone is an exact copy of a plant or animal produced from any one cell. Since Scottish scientists reported that they had managed to clone a sheep named Dolly in 1997 research into cloning has grown rapidly. In May 1998, scientists in Massachusetts managed to create WTO identical calves (牛犊) using cloning technology. A mouse has also been cloned successfully, but the debate over cloning humans really started when Chicago physicist Richard Seed made a surprising announcement: "We will have managed to clone a human being within the next two years," he told the world. 2. Seed’s announcement provoked a lot of media attention, most of it negative. In Europe, nineteen nations have already signed an agreement banning human cloning and in the U.S. the President announced: "We will be introducing a law to ban any human cloning and many states in the U.S. will have passed anti--cloning laws by the end of the year." 3. Many researchers are not so negative about cloning. They are worried that laws banning human cloning will threaten important research. In March, The New England Journal of Medicine called any plan to ban research on cloning humans seriously mistaken. Many researchers also believe that in spite of attempts to ban it, human cloning will have become routine by 2010 because it is impossible to stop the progress of science. 4. Is there reason to fear that cloning will lead to a nightmare world The public has been bombarded (轰炸) with newspaper articles, television shows and films, as well as cartoons. Such information is often misleading, and makes people wonder what on earth the scientists will be doing next. 5. Within the next five to ten years scientists will probably have found a way of cloning humans. It could be that pretty soon we will be able to choose the person that we want our child to look like. But how would it feel to be a clone among hundreds, the anti-cloners ask. Pretty cool, answer the pro-cloners (赞成克隆的人). A. Strong Reactions B. Anxiety about the Future of Cloning C. The Right to Choose D. What is Cloning E. Arguments in Favor of Cloning F. A Common Sight Paragraph 2 ______.