A new generation of mind-enhancing drugs that act as "cosmetics" for the brain could become as common as a cup of coffee, according to an official investigation by leading scientists. Powerful stimulants that improve memory, intellectual agility or other aspects of mental performance will almost certainly be developed over the next 20 years. They will have few side-effects, little or no addictive properties and could be used for non-medical purposes such as boosting exam performance, making better business decisions or even eliminating bad memories, the scientists said. The first of these " cognition enhancers" is already being developed from research into existing drugs designed to treat medical problems. "In a world that is increasingly non-stop and competitive, the individual’s use of such substances may move from the fringe to the norm, with cognition enhancers used as coffee is today," says the Foresight report of the government’s Office of Science and Technology. "Cognition enhancers are likely to be developed to treat people who need to improve attention, memory or wakefulness and to help people to forget, sleep more efficiently and be less impulsive," the report says. Drugs that help people to forget disturbing experiences raise the prospect of a future portrayed in films such as Total Recall or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where characters are able to forget painful relationships, the scientists said. But the possibility raises disturbing practical, ethical and social issues. "It is possible that such an advance could usher in a new era of drug use without addiction," says the report. Professor Trevor Robbins of Cambridge University, one of the lead authors of the Foresight report, said yesterday that two drugs available on prescription were known to have mind-enhancing properties when taken by healthy people. Ritalin, which is given to children with attention-deficit disorder, is being used by a small number of students in an attempt to improve exam results and by businessmen to boost boardroom performance. Modafinil, a drug designed to treat narcolepsy, is also used to improve the concentration of healthy people so they can make more accurate decisions, Professor Robbins said. "What tends to happen is that the drug makes you less impulsive, it makes you more reflective about the problem so you take a bit longer, but you get it right," Professor Robbins said. Research into the chemistry of the brain has already identified about 60 natural compounds that affect the mind. Further work is almost certain to produce new drugs that could enhance mental performance, the Foresight report says. "If we ever find ourselves in a society that embraced cognition enhancers, ’mental cosmetics’ could become accepted and create new expectations about the performance and behaviour of individuals and groups," the report says. Cognitive enhancers could also be developed to help people come off addictive drugs or overcome post-traumatic stress disorder. The term "usher in" in Paragraph 4 can be replaced by ______.
A. found
B. create
C. lead
D. introduce
An Australian research group may ease humanity’s collective conscience over a spate of prehistoric extinctions on the southern continent. The die-off, they say, was not the rapacious work of newly arrived humans, but was due rather to changing climate. Australia’s large prehistoric animals, called megafauna, were as bizarre as anything that lives there today. King of them all was the marsupial lion, a 130-kilogram meat-eater who lived alongside giant kangaroos, huge lizards called goannas, and Diprotodon, which resembled a three-tonne wombat. After the arrival of humans on the continent, at least 45,000 years ago, these weird and wonderful creatures began to die out. Experts blamed the colonizers, arguing that they launched a hunting ’ blitzkrieg’ that wiped out the megafauna (巨型动物) within a few generations. But the animals may have survived for a lot longer than people thought, argues Judith Field of the University of Sydney, who has analyzed fossil remains. Her excavations seem to show that man and beast lived side by side for as long as 15,000 years. She suspects that as Australia approached the most recent ice age, the growing cold and aridity turned much of the continent into a place where these large animals simply could not survive. Although man probably did hunt the large animals, the fact that they survived for so long argues against the blitzkrieg (闪电战) model, she adds. Field and her colleagues collected animal bones from a ten-metre-deep section of earth at Cuddle Springs, New South Wales. They focused on bones from four layers: two with evidence of human settlement, such as stone tools, and two deeper ones with no evidence of tools. They dated the bones by measuring the amounts of radioactive elements, such as uranium and thorium, that remained in the bones. They found that the various animal carcasses in each level would indeed have lived cheek by jowl with humans as recently as 30,000 years ago. The team report their research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Proponents of the blitzkrieg model had previously argued that the dating of the Cuddle Springs material was not certain, but Field says their research clears up the matter. Well-preserved bones at other sites have been very hard to find, probably because they are too dry, whereas Cuddle Springs is the site of an old lake bed. A second group, reporting in the journal Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, has also unveiled evidence that climate change may have killed off many of Australia’s animals. By looking at smaller animal bones from the Darling Downs in Queensland, they show that their disappearance seems to have coincided with increasing dryness. But the matter is not settled yet, particularly as the timing of humans’ first foray into Australia has still not been agreed. Fossil evidence from Lake Mungo in New South Wales suggests that they may have arrived 60,000 years ago. And it is possible that they hastened the megafauna’s demise by burning habitats to make way for primitive agriculture. Field remains convinced, however, that it was climate that drove the animals to their death. "The arid zone grew to encompass 70% of the continent by 30,000 years ago," she says. "There would have been very few opportunities once it got dryer.\ Which of the following is INCORRECT according to the passage
A. The animal bones show that their disappearance seems to have coincided with increasing dryness.
B. Everybody is convinced that it is the climate change that leads to the extinction of some animals.
C. Field is convinced that it was climate that drove the animals to their death.
D. Both groups unveiled evidence that climate change may have killed off many of Australia’s animals.