In a world where nearly 6 million fingerprint records of government employees are stolen in one computer hack, and where millions of people are victims of identity theft every year, the next step in cyber security may well be mapping your brain.
Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York are working on a biometric （生物特征 识别的）system that records how your brain reacts to certain images. With a little more polishing, the scientists' brainchild could become the way you get into a safe deposit box, your office or past scanners at the airport. It could replace the password for your online banking, your email or your social media accounts.
They started their project by measuring the brain waves of 30 subjects. The subjects were fitted with a cap that had 30 electrodes （电极）attached to it, and then shown various images and symbols — celebrity faces, words, pictures of food --- on a computer screen in 200-millisecond bursts. The brain\ reaction was recorded.
The idea is that every time a person needs to use a “password", he or she goes through the same procedure, and the results are matched with their first-time reaction. If the "brainprint" is compromised --- like what happened with the fingerprint records --- then the system is merely reset by running another set of images and collecting a different set of brain waves。. "Even if that was stolen, you could just cancel it and record one to something else", says professor Laszlo.
Laszlo and her team have shown that their system can be 100 percent accurate. So one of the more difficult parts of making the system practical already has been overcome. Now, they're spending much time recording accurate brainprints with as few as three electrodes, which could make recording in the future as easy as wearing a pair of special glasses. They're also working with cheaper materials and different methods to see if they can bring the cost down.
1. What does the underlined word "brainchild" in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．The brain function. | B．The fingerprint record. |
| C．The online password. | D．The biometric system. |
| A．To check the brain's reaction. |
| B．To create their brainprints. |
| C．To match brainprints with pictures. |
| D．To connect brain waves to electrodes. |
| A．A new one will be set |
| B．A spare one will be made ready beforehand. |
| C．The users' identity will be stolen. |
| D．The fingerprint record will replace it. |
| A．Improving its accuracy. |
| B．Recording more brainprints. |
| C．Making it user-friendly. |
| D．Increasing the number of electrodes. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】On a February afternoon in a Brooklyn classroom, 16-year-old Taylor came face to face with a cow — but it was all in her head. A virtual (虚拟的) reality headset had transported her and eight classmates to a New York farm 250 miles away and for students, the technology means field trips are no longer limited by the length of a bus ride. “I was not expecting it to be right in my face!” Taylor said after peeling off the purple headset and finding herself back in her classroom.
On any given day, students nationwide are deep-sea diving, observing medical operations, even swimming through the human circulatory system using gadgets (小装置) that are becoming increasingly accessible in both cost and content. At least it’s another way to engage the iPhone generation of students and at best, it can enhance their understanding and improve their grades.
“It instantly grabs the students,” said Colin Jones, who teaches science in the Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District. He has used a system called zSpace to dissect (解剖) cells and has walked goggled students through the boreal forest with a Google app called Expeditions. “It’s something that can be done in a period or two,” he said, “it could take even a week sometimes when you’re doing in a lab.”
In Brooklyn, Taylor and classmates virtually walked through barns and fields in Watkins Glen, stretching arms toward videotaped pigs and cows. “It’s different from watching video because you can have more than one perspective; you can actually move,” Taylor said.
Students can not only move, but also feel. In the lab, the physical effects of virtual reality become clear as subjects standing on solid ground teeter (摇晃) on storeys-high virtual scaffolding or experience motion sickness without moving.
“Some of the research we’re doing has actually shown that what you experience in virtual reality has very similar, if not the same, physiological responses that you would get if you were doing the actual activity, like your heart rate, cognition, breathing and even everything,” said Richard Lamb, who studies how the brain processes information at the University at Buffalo Neurocognition Science Lab. “The effect on learning is to improve interest, understanding and recall.”
It’s unknown how many classrooms have or will adopt the technology, but experts say it’s still relatively rare largely due to the fact that, while individual headsets that require a user’s phone can cost as little as $20 or $30, systems and software for classes run into thousands of dollars. Early complaints about a lack of good software are fading as more companies enter the market, but the rules for use haven’t necessarily caught up to the technology. In New York, for example, simulated lab experiments don’t count toward the state’s hands-on lab time requirements. Even so, the science is the area where virtual reality, especially enhanced to let users manipulate their surroundings, holds particular promise for classrooms.
“The biggest barrier, I think, is going to be the quality of that experience, how closely it mimics the physical world,” said David Evans, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association. “However, the ability to do dangerous things and to run many, many more common cases in a simulation (模拟) space as opposed to the real physical space represents a huge learning opportunity.”
Lamb, who taught chemistry, agreed. “Too often in schools, when we do things with labs, it’s... you mix this together, mix that together and get this outcome. And if you don’t get that outcome, you did something wrong, but we don’t have enough resources for you to redo it,” he said. In virtual reality, “all I do is hitting reset on the computer. I don’t have to actually use chemicals.”
Both Lamb and Evans stressed using the technology to have similar experience to their real world, where any number of subtle factors can affect an outcome. “ We have to remain anchored in the actual world,” Evans cautioned, “because that’s the one that we really need to explain.”
1. What’s Colin Jones’ attitude towards the application of virtual reality to teaching?| A．Positive. | B．Critical. |
| C．Objective. | D．Disapproving. |
| A．Students can hardly experience everything in real life. |
| B．It’s beneficial for students to experience virtual reality. |
| C．Much exposure to virtual reality makes students focused. |
| D．Actual experiences are more important than virtual reality. |
| A．students show little interest in it |
| B．rules for it haven’t been made so far |
| C．users will spend much money applying it |
| D．it isn’t good enough to be operated by students |
| A．It imitates the real world perfectly. |
| B．It features many unpractical life skills. |
| C．It shouldn’t refer to dangerous things. |
| D．It offers guidance for users on real life. |
| A．Saving lots of time. |
| B．Reducing resource waste. |
| C．Minimizing experimental errors. |
| D．Improving experimental success rate. |
| A．Virtual reality shouldn’t be divorced from reality. |
| B．There’re still many unsolved mysteries in real life. |
| C．People gain much inspiration from the actual world. |
| D．Everyone should have a chance to try virtual reality. |
【推荐2】Back in the early 2000s, lots of people couldn’t have imagined life without alarm clocks, CD players, calendars, cameras, or lots of other devices. But along came the iPhone and other smartphones, and they took over the functions of dozens of things we used to think were essential.
The smartphone story could even be a model for fighting climate change; not because smartphone use a small part of the energy of all the things they replace — although they do — but because they represent a different approach to design in general. And that approach is to focus on function rather than form. That requires focusing on understanding the underlying problem, and then engineering a wide range of potential solutions. This approach could revolutionize how we think about energy efficiency.
Traditionally, improvements in energy efficiency have mostly focused on individual devices, which can be quite fruitful. But focusing on individual devices is like if Apple had spent effort inventing a better alarm clock, a better CD player, a better calendar, and a better camera. Now with an iPhone, we don’t need the standalone devices at all, because it can function as all of them.
So when it comes to using energy efficiently, rather than just installing a more efficient heater, some people have focused instead on the desired function: staying warm. They designed and coated their house so well that they could get rid of their heater altogether, letting them heat their house with 99 % less energy.
In the same way, rather than just making cars more efficient, what if we focus on the desired function — getting where we want when we want — and create an efficient transportation system where we can drive less or get rid of our personal cars entirely? The most energy efficient car or heater is no car, or no heater, while still being able to get around and stay warm. In other words, it’s not thinking efficient, it’s thinking different.
1. What makes the iPhone a good example of environmental protection?| A．Perfecting individual devices. |
| B．Combining possible functions. |
| C．Adopting a simplest design. |
| D．Reducing the energy consumption. |
| A．Conventional. | B．Out-of-date. | C．Adequate. | D．Perfect. |
| A．Think out of the box. | B．Differences make it unique. |
| C．Be economical with energy. | D．Step out of the comfort zone. |
【推荐3】Computers are getting better at writing their own code but software engineers may not need to worry about losing their jobs just yet.
DeepMind, a U.K. artificial intelligence lab acquired by Google in 2014, announced Wednesday that it has created a piece of software called AlphaCode that can code just as well as an average human programmer. The London-headquartered firm tested AlphaCode’s abilities in a coding competition on Codeforces — a platform that allows human coders to compete against one another. “AlphaCode placed at about the level of the median competitor, marking the first time an AI code generation system has reached a competitive level of performance in programming competitions,” the DeepMind team behind the tool said in a blogpost.
But computer scientist Dzmitry Bahdanau wrote on Twitter that human-level coding is “still light years away.” “The system ranks behind 54.3% participants,” he said, adding that many of the participants are high school or college students who are just learning their problem-solving skills. Bahdanau said most people reading his tweet could “easily train to outperform AlphaCode.”
Researchers have been trying to teach computers to write code for decades but the concept has yet to go mainstream, partly because the AI tools that are meant to write new code have not been versatile enough.
An AI research scientist, who preferred to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to talk publicly on the subject, told CNBC that AlphaCode is an impressive technical achievement, but a careful analysis is required of the sort of coding tasks it does well on, versus the ones it doesn’t.The scientist said they believe AI coding tools like AlphaCode will likely change the nature of software engineering roles somewhat as they mature, but the complexity of human roles means machines won’t be able to do the jobs in their entirety for some time.“You should think of it as something that could be an assistant to a programmer in the way that a calculator might once have helped an accountant,” Gary Marcus, an AI professor at New York University, told CNBC. “It’s not one-stop shopping that would replace an actual human programmer. We are decades away from that.”
DeepMind is far from the only tech company developing AI tools that can write their own code.
Last June, Microsoft announced an AI system that can recommend code for software developers to use as they work. The system, called GitHub Copilot, draws on source code uploaded to code-sharing service GitHub, which Microsoft acquired in 2018, as well as other websites. Microsoft and GitHub developed it with help from OpenAI, an AI research start-up that Microsoft backed in 2019. The GitHub Copilot relies on a large volume of code in many programming languages and vast Azure cloud computing power.
Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub, describes GitHub Copilot as a virtual version of what software creators call a pair programmer — that’s when two developers work side-by-side collaboratively on the same project. The tool looks at existing code and comments in the current file, and it offers up one or more lines to add. As programmers accept or reject suggestions, the model learns and becomes more sophisticated over time. The software makes coding faster, Friedman told CNBC. Hundreds of developers at GitHub have been using the Copilot feature all day while coding, and the majority of them are accepting suggestions and not turning the feature off, Friedman said.In a separate research paper published on Friday, DeepMind said it had tested its software against OpenAI’s technology and it had performed similarly. Samim Winiger, an AI researcher in Berlin, told CNBC that every good computer programmer knows that it is essentially impossible to create “perfect code.”“All programs are flawed and will eventually fail in unforeseeable ways, due to hacks, bugs or complexity,” he said.“Hence, computer programming in most critical contexts is fundamentally about building ‘fail safe’ systems that are ‘accountable’.”
In 1979, IBM said “computers can never be held accountable” and “therefore a computer must never make a management decision.”Winiger said the question of the accountability of code has been largely ignored despite the hype around AI coders outperforming humans.
“Do we really want hyper-complex, intransparent, non-introspectable, autonomous systems that are essentially incomprehensible to most and uncountable to all to run our critical infrastructure?” he asked, pointing to the finance system, food supply chain, nuclear power plants and weapons systems.
1. What do we learn about AlphaCode?| A．a U.K. artificial intelligence lab acquired by GitHub created it. |
| B．AlphaCode will likely change the nature of software engineering roles somewhat now. |
| C．It’s a one-stop shopping that would replace an actual human programmer. |
| D．It’s a piece of software that can code just as well as a plain human programmer. |
| A．The question of the accountability of code should be largely ignored. |
| B．A computer must never make a management decision because they can never be held accountable. |
| C．We would let systems that are essentially incomprehensible to most to run our critical infrastructure. |
| D．All programs are flawed and will eventually fail in unforeseeable ways. |
| A．accept or reject suggestions | B．look at existing code in the current file |
| C．offer up one or more lines to add | D．make coding faster |
| A．Engineers may need to worry about losing their jobs. |
| B．Machines are getting better at writing their own code but human-level is ‘light years away’. |
| C．AlphaCode is an impressive technical achievement. |
| D．Microsoft announced an AI system that can recommend code for software developers. |
【推荐1】Solving the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster would be considered as a good deed, right? On that basis, a webcam has been set up overlooking the lake. Anyone can tune in at any time. If you see something suspicious(可疑的), you simply click the “snapshot” buttons to submit a picture for further analysis. It is free, easy, and you can do it for as little or as long as you like, with no login or signup required. What you are doing is micro–volunteering, which offers volunteers a series of easy tasks that can be done anytime, anywhere, on their own terms.
Micro-volunteering could involve anything from retweeting a message to joining a flash mob(快闪). Volunteers do not need to go through an application or training process, or to make any ongoing commitment. The vast majority of micro-volunteering takes place online, but it doesn’t have to. Weeding a garden in a local community center counts just as much.
The key benefit of micro-volunteering is its flexibility. People frequently cite their lack of time as the biggest barrier to volunteering. For many, micro-volunteering removes the need to worry about making long-term commitments once they start volunteering. It enables people who might be excluded from traditional ways of volunteering to participate.
To some extent, micro-volunteering is an approach that aims to help lots of people come together to make a difference. It could take a while to see its impacts. Studies, however, have shown that 65 percent of those who have micro volunteered were still actively doing so one year later. Even though micro-volunteering cannot replace long-term commitments, it serves as a complement(补充)to the more traditional methods of contributing to good causes.
1. Why is the Loch Ness Monster mentioned in paragraph 1?| A．To illustrate micro–volunteering. | B．To get more volunteers involved. |
| C．To offer a solution to the mystery. | D．To post a micro-volunteering task. |
| A．It’s free of commitment. | B．It’s flexible, time-wise. |
| C．It’s only available online. | D．It needs systematical training. |
| A．Be used to. | B．Be distracted by. |
| C．Be discouraged from. | D．Be interested in. |
| A．Quick-impact. | B．Widely-recognized. |
| C．Irreplaceable. | D．Sustainable. |
【推荐2】What are pillows really stuffed with? Not physically, but symbolically? The question occurred to me with the photos in the news and social media from the 50 cities around the world that staged public celebrations for International Pillow Fight Day. Armed with nothing more than bring-our-own sacrificial cushions, strangers struck heavily each other in playful feather from Amsterdam to Atlanta, Warsaw to Washington DC. But why? Is there anything more to this delightful celebration?
As a cultural sign, the pillow is deceptively soft. Since at least the 16th Century, the humble pillow has been given unexpected meanings. The Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu tells a famous story about a wise man who meets a depressed young scholar at an inn and offers him a magic pillow filled with the most vivid dreams of a seemingly more fulfilling life. When the young man awakens to discover that his happy 50-year dream has in fact come and gone in the short space of an afternoon’s nap, our impression of the pillow’s power shifts from wonder to terror.
Subsequent writers have likewise seized upon the pillow. When the 19th-Century English novelist Charlotte Bronte poetically observed “a ruffled (不平的) mind makes a restless pillow”, she didn’t just change the expected order of the adjectives and nouns, but instead she made unclear the boundaries between mind and matter — the thing resting and the thing rested upon.
It’s a trick perhaps Bronte learned from the Renaissance philosopher Montaigne, who once insisted that “ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head”. On Montaigne’s thinking, intelligence and happiness confront each other forever in a pillow fight that only one can win.
With the words of Tang. Bronte, and Montaigne, we can perhaps more easily measure the attraction of the global pillow fight. Like a ritual of release, the annual international pillow fight amounts to a kind of cleansing, a brushing off of daily worries: an emptying of the world’s collective mind. Rather than a launch-pad for weightless rest, the pillow is a symbol of heavy thought: an anchor that drags the world’s soul down — one that must be lightened.
1. The example of Tang Xianzu is used to illustrate that ________.| A．pillows give people satisfactory dreams |
| B．dreams are always wonderful while the real world is cruel |
| C．people’s impression of pillows changes from wonder to terror |
| D．pillows symbolically convey the meaning in contrast to their soft appearance |
| A．wrote poems about pillows |
| B．regarded pillows as reflections of our minds |
| C．shared the same viewpoint as Tang Xianzu on pillows |
| D．was likely to have been influenced by the thoughts of the Renaissance |
| A．pillows give us comfort |
| B．pillows make people more intelligent |
| C．people with too many thoughts have less inner peace |
| D．people can easily fall asleep when they know nothing |
| A．Because it is a ritual release. |
| B．Because it makes life delightful. |
| C．Because it comforts restless minds. |
| D．Because it contains a profound meaning of life. |
【推荐3】In a former gold mine a mile underground, inside a titanium tank(钛储罐)filled with a rare liquified gas, scientists have begun the search for what so far has been unfindable: dark matter.
Scientists are trying to understand why the universe is not what it seems. One part of the mystery is dark matter, which has by far most of the mass in the universe. Astronomers know it’s there even though it’s nowhere to be seen, because when they measure the stars and other regular matter in galaxies, they find that there is not nearly enough gravity to hold them together. If nothing else was out there, galaxies would be quickly flying apart.
The race to solve this enormous mystery has brought one team to the depths under Lead, South Dakota.
The idea is that a mile of dirt and rock, a giant tank, a second tank and the purest titanium in the world will block nearly all the cosmic rays and particles (粒子) around us every day. But dark matter particles, scientists think, can avoid all those obstacles. They hope one will fly into the liquid xenon (疝气) in the inner tank and smash into a xenon nucleus (原子核), revealing its existence in a flash of light seen by a device called “the time projection chamber.”
Scientists announced Thursday that the five-year, $60 million search finally got underway two months ago after a delay caused by the pandemic. So far the device has found...nothing. At least no dark matter.
And if all their calculations and theories are right, they figure they’ll see only a couple signs of dark matter a year. By the time the experiment finishes, the chance of finding dark matter with this device is probably less than 50% but more than 10%.
While that’s far from a sure thing, “you need a little enthusiasm,” said Kevin Lesko, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley Naonal Laboratory. “You don’t go into rare search physics without some hope of finding something.”
These scientists tried to a similar, smaller experiment here years ago. After coming up empty, they figured they had to go much bigger. Another large-scale experiment is underway in Italy run by a rival team, but no results have been announced so far.
1. What do we know about dark matter?| A．It is a rare liquified gas. |
| B．It is invisible and hard to find. |
| C．It is unknown to scientists. |
| D．It is a form of gravity in the galaxies. |
| A．The result of the experiment. |
| B．The design of the experiment. |
| C．The reason for conducting the experiment. |
| D．The importance of the experiment. |
| A．Its success is guaranteed. |
| B．It is almost finished. |
| C．It has been fruitless so far. |
| D．It is the first attempt in the field. |
| A．Don’t count your chickens. |
| B．Two heads are better than one. |
| C．Strike while the iron is hot. |
| D．Every cloud has a silver lining. |
【推荐1】Success and Risk in Extreme Sports
What is it that drives some to take extreme risks, while the rest of us hurry for the safety of the sidelines?
Lester Keller, sports-psychology expert, says that not everyone has the mental makeup to do well in extreme sports. He notes that most of us hit a natural ceiling that limits our appetite for extreme risk in tricky conditions. But others have a much higher tolerance for risk. Keller points to a top ski racer. He told Keller that “the high element of risk makes you feel alive, tests what you are made of and how far you can take yourself”. He said he would get nervous on some of the courses, but that this would just make him fight more.
Psychologists note that some people seem to have a strong desire for adrenaline (肾上腺素) rushes as a behavior seeking excited feelings. Like many extreme athletes, Emily Cook’s appetite for risk appeared at a young age. “I was a gymnast,” she said. “I was one of those kids who enjoyed and did well at anything where you were upside down.” As she started doing harder tricks, she was drawn to the challenge. “There are moments when you’re up there doing a new trick and it seems like an impossible thing. But overcoming that is just the coolest feeling in the world.”
Shane Murphy, sports professor, has worked with groups climbing Everest. “To me, that just seems like the height of risk,” he said. “But to them it was the next step in an activity that they’ve prepared for years.” Murphy said the view of extreme athletes is different from our own. “We look at a risky situation and know that if we were in that situation we would be out of control. But from the athletes’ view, they have a lot of control, and there are many things that they do to minimize risk.”
Another aspect of risk perception (认知) may be something referred to as “the flow”, a state in which many athletes become absorbed in the acts that focus the mind completely on the present. “Something that makes you try doing a tougher climb than usual, perhaps, is that your adrenaline flows and you become very concentrated on what you’re doing,” Murphy says. “After it’s over, there’s great excitement.”
People of different skill levels experience the flow at different times. Some may always be driven to adventures that others consider extreme. “I can enjoy hitting a tennis ball around, because that’s my skill level,” Murphy says. “But others might need the challenge of Olympic competition.”
1. By using the term “natural ceiling” in Paragraph 2, Lester Keller points out that ______.| A．extreme athletes must learn special skills |
| B．extreme athletes have chances to take risks |
| C．many people don’t want to do extreme sports |
| D．many people can’t limit desire for extreme sports |
| A．They put in lots of preparation for challenges. |
| B．They are more fortunate than other sportspeople. |
| C．They carry little risk when facing big challenges. |
| D．They have special reasons that others can’t easily understand. |
| A．Extreme athletes use techniques other people don’t use. |
| B．Non-athletes are probably wise not to try extreme sports. |
| C．Most people lack the focus required to take bigger risks. |
| D．A certain state of mind makes attempting an activity more likely. |
| A．risk-taking is something you either naturally do or avoid |
| B．those who take risks are more likely to be successful in life |
| C．extreme athletes are driven by a need to be better than others |
| D．taking part in extreme sports is not as difficult as people think |
【推荐2】Google’s new camera, called Clips, is a smart device. It comes with a case that has a clip (夹 子), but it’s not designed to be worn on your clothing. Most interestingly, it uses artificial intelligence to take photography out of your hands and captures moments entirely on its own!
What sets this roughly 2-inch by 2-inch camera, with a three-hour battery life and Gorilla Glass for toughness apart is that it is specially intended for candid moments, like when a child does something cute that may happen too quickly for you to pull out your smartphone.
The Clips device, it uses machine learning algorithms ( 计 算 程 序 ) to help capture scenes. Those algorithms include face recognition. “Once it learns that there’s a face you see frequently, it’ll try to get nice photos of those faces,” said Juston Payne, the device’s product manager. And they also want it to recognize facial expressions, which involved “training it to know what happiness looks like”. The Google team also trained it to recognize what not to shoot—like when a child’s hand is over the lens, or if it is tossed in a dark purse.
The only way to see the images is by connecting the camera with your phone, as it has no screen for viewing or editing.
Concerned it could seem strange? Yes, Payne admitted, but he said they addressed that by making it obvious what it is. A green light on the front signals that it is on. Besides, unlike a camera meant to monitor your home, it is not connected to the Internet.
“This product is only possible because of the way that silicon(硅) has advanced,” Payne said that now they could squeeze the technology down into a device this size. Going forward, we’re likely to get more assistance from the artificial intelligence packed into our apps and gadgets.
1. What is the most outstanding feature of Clips?| A．It enables easy Internet access. |
| B．It is equipped with tough glass. |
| C．It can be worn on your clothing. |
| D．It allows of hands-free photography. |
| A．Awkward. | B．Brief. |
| C．Touching. | D．Unforgettable. |
| A．The advance in technology. |
| B．The popularity of the Internet. |
| C．The screen for viewing and editing. |
| D．The rise of the smartphone industry. |
| A．New gadgets in the age of apps. |
| B．Artificial intelligence in daily Life. |
| C．A new digital camera from Google. |
| D．An alternative way to photograph. |
【推荐3】Described as the world’s most environmentally friendly protein, Solein is made by applying electricity to water to release bubbles of carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Living microbes(微生物) are then added to the liquid to feed on the carbon dioxide and hydrogen bubbles and produce the Solein, which is then dried to make the powder. It’s a natural fermentation(发酵) process similar to beer brewing. The dried Solein has a protein content of 50 percent and looks and tastes just like wheat flour.
“It is a completely new kind of food, a new kind of protein, different to all the food on the market todav in how it is produced as it does not need agriculture.” Dr Pasi Vinikka, the chief executive of Solar Foods told The Guardian. The process used to produce Solein — converting hydrogen and carbon dioxide to calories — is amazing, as the wonder food can be produced anywhere in the world. It’s also 10 times more energy-efficient per hectare than photosynthesis (光合作用), and 10 to 100 times more environment and climate-friendly in water use than animal or plant based food production.
“Solein also contains all the essential amino acids(氨基酸), but because it is produced using carbon dioxide and electricity, it does not require large amounts of land to produce,” the Solar Foods website explains. “Another unique characteristic of Solein is that it is able to take carbon directly from carbon dioxide without needing a source of sugar.”
While Solar Foods does not expect Solein to challenge conventional protein production methods in the next two decades, it does expect it to become a “new harvest” for humanity, which is significant considering so far we have only relied on plants and animals for sustenance. The Helsinki-based company plans to open its first Solein factory at the end of 2021 and scale up production to two billion meals per year by 2022.
1. Which of the following statements best describe the features of Solein?| A．It is a new kind of food containing all the nutrition. |
| B．It is made from water and carbon dioxide by applying electricity. |
| C．It is produced without consuming much land and energy. |
| D．It is a kind of man-made wheat flour. |
| A．relating | B．changing |
| C．contributing | D．adapting |
| A．The company thinks Solein would have a rewarding future. |
| B．Solein is supposed to challenge traditional protein production. |
| C．There is still a long way for Solein to be put into production. |
| D．Humans can completely rely on Solein to survive. |
| A．To promote a new kind of technology. |
| B．To introduce a new kind of food. |
| C．To make an ad for a new kind of protein. |
| D．To call on people to protect the environment. |
【推荐1】Elephants on the coast of Thailand are acting strangely. They stamp their feet and signal toward the hills. The sea draws back from the beaches. Fish fall heavily in the mud. Suddenly, a huge wave appears. This is no ordinary wave. It is a tsunami (海啸)!
Tsunami waves are larger and faster than normal surface waves. A tsunami wave can travel as fast as a jet plane and can be as tall as a ten-story building. Imagine dropping a stone into a pond. The water on the surface ripples (起涟漪). A tsunami is like a very powerful ripple. Tsunamis begin when the ocean rises or falls very suddenly. Large amounts of seawater are displaced. This movement causes huge waves.
If a tsunami happens, there must be some kind of force that causes the ocean water to become displaced. Most tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes. However, volcanoes, landslides (塌方), large icebergs, and even meteorites (陨石) are able to cause one of these giant waves.
Tsunamis are extremely powerful. Ordinary waves lose power when they break. Tsunami waves can remain powerful for several days. Because tsunami waves are so strong, they can kill people, damage property, and completely ruin an ecosystem in just one hour.
Scientists have no way of predicting when a tsunami will hit. However, if a powerful enough earthquake happens, scientists can send out a warning or a watch. A warning means that a tsunami will very likely hit soon. A watch means that conditions are favorable for a tsunami. When people are informed of a watch or a warning, they have more time to prepare. It is best not to get caught unaware when a tsunami is on the way!
1. Why are elephants acting strangely before the Tsunamis?| A．They dislike the huge wave. |
| B．They are afraid of the big fish. |
| C．They can sense something out of the ordinary. |
| D．They see the ocean drawing back from the beaches. |
| A．Moved out of normal place. | B．Pushed by human force. |
| C．Pulled to great heights. | D．Hung down quickly. |
| A．They are not familiar to most people. |
| B．They are very powerful and long-lasting. |
| C．They break on the coast, unlike normal waves. |
| D．They are caused by underwater earthquakes. |
| A．How to guard against tsunamis. | B．Differences between wave types. |
| C．What to do with tsunami waves. | D．Causes and effects of tsunamis. |
【推荐2】The age of adulthood is by definition arbitrary. If everyone matured at the same, fixed rate, it wouldn’t be a human process. Indeed, maturation happens at varying speeds across different categories within the same individual, so I’d say I was easily old enough to vote at 16, but nobody should have given me a credit card until I was 32, and I’ve got the county court judgment to prove it.
However, we broadly agree that there’s a difference between a child and an adult, even if we might argue about the transition point. So the political theorist David Runciman’s view that six-year-olds should be allowed to vote goes against any standard argument about the age of civic responsibility. Nobody would say that a six-year-old could be held criminally responsible, could be sent to war, could be capable of consent, could be given responsibility for anything. So allowing them the vote—along with, unavoidably, seven-year-olds who are even sillier, if anything—is quite an amusing proposal.
Runciman’s argument is that this is the only way to rebalance political life, which is currently twisted in favor of the old, who don’t (he added) ever need to demonstrate mental capacity, even long after they’ve lost it.
The first part of his case is self-evident: pensions are protected while children’s centers are closed, concepts such as sovereignty (最高权威) are prioritized over the far more urgent business of the future: climate change. Nostalgia (怀念) for a past the young wouldn’t even recognize plays a central role, which is completely unfair.
Most of the arguments against giving six-year-olds a vote are that children would end up voting for something damaging and chaotic, if someone made unrealistic promises to them, which could never be realized. Well, it’s not children’s fault.
Having said that, children do tend towards the progressive, having a natural sense of justice (which kicks in at the age of six months, psychologists have shown, by creating scenes of great unfairness to babies, and making them cry) and an underdeveloped sense of self-interest. My kid, when he was six, made quite a forceful case against private property, on the basis that, since everybody needed a house, they shouldn’t cost money, because nobody would want anyone else not to have one. Also, food should be free. It was a kind of pre-Marx communism, where you limit the coverage of the market to only those things that you wouldn’t mind someone else not having.
On that particular day, when we were registered as voters, my kid was quite far to the left of me, but in the normal run of things, we’re united, which brings us to the point of the problem: children obey you on almost nothing, but they do seem to believe in your politics until they’re adolescent. So giving kids the vote is really just a way of giving parents extra votes. And what can stop us having even more children, once there’s so much enfranchisement (选举权) in it for us?
Now, if parents could be trusted to use their influence wisely, and hammer into children the politics it will take to assure a better future, then I wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with that, apart from, obviously, that culture is already wildly twisted towards parents, and I can imagine a few non-parents boiling with fierce anger. But that’s not worth talking about anyway, because parents can’t be trusted, otherwise we’d all already vote Green(绿党).
In short: no, six-year-olds should not get the vote; but while we’re here, if any votes come up in the near future, which will have an impact on the next five decades of British political life, alongside EU migrants, 16-year-olds certainly should be enfranchised.
1. The author refers to his age of adulthood to prove that ________.| A．certain rights are granted at different stages of life |
| B．there’s a common standard for the age of adulthood |
| C．people mature at different rates in various aspects |
| D．a credit card is more difficult to get than the vote |
| A．they believe children are far from mature in many ways |
| B．they are uncertain whether children can assume responsibility |
| C．they know the age to get the vote is not to be questioned |
| D．they don’t think a child can grow into adulthood earlier |
| A．Public ignorance of children’s abilities. | B．Inequalities of opportunity. |
| C．A cultural preference for the old. | D．The imbalance in political life. |
| A．children are in favor of a just society and tend to be idealistic |
| B．children are innocent and don’t want to be involved in politics |
| C．children are simple-minded and can fall for an adult’s trick |
| D．children are good-natured and like to help people in need |
| A．twisted culture | B．parents’ objections | C．misuse of rights | D．unusual maturation |
| A．There is a difference between adults and children. |
| B．Allowing children the vote is not altogether absurd. |
| C．The definition of adulthood is quite controversial. |
| D．Parents should introduce politics to their children. |
【推荐3】It’s common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting seems to look back at viewers, following them with her eyes no matter where they are in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.
A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle of 15.4° off to the viewer’s right — well outside the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, “She’s not looking at you.”
This is ironic (讽刺), because the entire phenomenon of a person’s gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the “Mona Lisa effect”, which is absolutely real. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person’s gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.
Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars (虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the “Mona Lisa” and realized she wasn’t looking at him.
To make sure it wasn’t just him, the researchers gathered 24 people to view images of the “Mona Lisa” on a computer screen. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected (相交) Mona Lisa’s gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the “Mona Lisa” portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.
So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn’t sure. It’s possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term “Mona Lisa effect” just thought it was a cool name.
1. It is generally believed that the woman in the painting “Mona Lisa” ________.| A．attracts the viewers to look back |
| B．seems mysterious because of her eyes |
| C．fixes her eyes on the back of the viewers |
| D．looks at observers wherever they stand |
| A．The Mona Lisa effect does not really exist. |
| B．The mystery of the woman’s smile in the painting. |
| C．The angle of the gaze in Mona Lisa effect. |
| D．Mona Lisa effect does not occur with Mona Lisa. |
| A．confirm Horstmann’s belief |
| B．create artificial-intelligence avatars |
| C．calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze |
| D．show how the Mona Lisa effect can be applied |
| A．Horstmann thinks it cool to coin the term “Mona Lisa effect”. |
| B．The Mona Lisa effect contributes to the creation of artificial intelligence. |
| C．Feeling being gazed at by Mona Lisa may be caused by the desire for attention. |
| D．The position of the ruler in the experiment will influence the viewers’ judgement. |
