【推荐1】Racket, din, clamor, noise, whatever you want to call it, unwanted sound is America's most wide spread nuisance. But noise is more that just a nuisance. It constitutes a real and present danger to people's health. Day and night, at home, at work, and at play, noise can produce serious physical and psychological _________. No one is immune to this stress. Though we seem to adjust to noise by _________ it, the car, in fact, never closes and the body still responds- sometimes with extreme _________, as to strange sound in the night.

The _________ we feel when faced with noise is the most common outward _________ of the stress building up inside us. Indeed, because irritability is so apparent, legislators (立法者) have made public annoyance the _________ of many noise reduction programs. The more subtle and more serious health hazards associated with stress caused by noise _________ have been given much less attention._________, when we are annoyed or made irritable by noise, we should consider these symptoms fair warning that other things may be happening to us, some of which may be damaging to our health.

Of many health hazards of noise, hearing loss is the most clearly observable and _________ by health professionals. The other hazards are harder to pin down. For many of us, there may be a risk that __________ to the stress of noise increases vulnerability to disease and infection. The more vulnerable among us may experience noise as a complicating factor in heart problems and other diseases. Noise that cause annoyance and irritability in healthy persons may have serious consequences for these already ill in mind or body.

Noise affects us throughout our lives. For example, there are __________ of effects on the unborn child when mothers are __________ to industrial and environmental noise. During infancy and childhood, youngsters affected by high noise levels may have trouble falling asleep and obtaining necessary amounts of rest.

Why, then, is there not greater __________ about these dangers? Perhaps it is because the link between noise and many disabilities or disease has not yet been __________ demonstrated. Perhaps it is because we tend to __________ annoyance as a price to pay for living in the modern world. It may also be because we still think of hearing loss as only an occupational hazard.

【推荐2】This summer we said goodbye to unnecessary plastic waste. Starbucks committed to ________ plastic straws in all locations by 2020, IKEA banned all single-use plastics from its stores, and entire cities banned the use of plastic bags and straws. And now we have one more thing to add to our consciousness-raising list: People are starting to understand the ________ of contact lenses（隐形眼镜）.

According to a new research out of the American Chemical Society, 20 percent of people who wear contact lenses throw them away in the toilet or sink. But as medical ________, contact lenses are specifically designed to be resistant in touch environments, and ________ they don’t biodegrade easily. Throwing contact lenses into toilet is particularly concerning because their size and ________ allow them to slip through filters（过滤器）meant to keep non-biological waste out of wastewater treatment plants.

The study found that the chemical and mechanical processing at these treatment facilities were unable to ________ break down contact lenses, leaving them as part of the treated water. Post-treatment wastewater is typically spread on fields, where contact lenses can make their way into surface water and cause environmental damage.

It may seem like a small thing, but with over 45 million contact ________ in the United States, all that plastic adds up. We are talking about 22 tons of contact lenses being improperly thrown away every year here, unnecessarily adding to the hundreds of thousands of tons of microplastics ________ in our oceans.

So what is the right way to throw away contact lenses?

It turns out that properly dealing with contact lenses is pretty ________. One option is to throw them in the garbage. While this will keep them out of our water ________, it sends them to landfill—which is not really any better. Unfortunately, you can’t just throw your contacts in the recycling bin and call it a day, either. Due to their size and packaging materials, recycling facilities typically cannot ________ contact lens processing, so they go to landfills. In order to actually be recycled, contact lenses need to be ________ at a specialty recycling facility.

This doesn’t mean that all eco-conscious contact-wearers must stick to glasses, though. Fortunately, in an effort to ________ the waste produced by contact lenses and facilitate the recycling process, some eye care companies have started their own recycling ________. Through these programs, individuals can ship their used contacts to TerraCycle (a company that ________ in recycling the hard-to-recycle) for free.

【推荐1】It's once again been declared the world's most popular museum. ______ . it may not be a______ thing for the Louvre (卢浮宫) in Paris.

The museum broke its own______in 2018, welcoming 10.2 million_____and claiming the top spot in an index of the world's most-visited museums.

But the Louvre's uptick (小幅上升) in visitors is_____ too much for many of its workers, _____ by reception and security staff over the number of tourists______ through its doors have hit opening hours throughout the week.

"The Louvre is suffocating (令人窒的)," the workers union said in a statement. "The public has increased by more than 20% since 2009, but the palace has not grown,"it_____.

The museum was_ ___on Monday and opened later than advertised on Wednesday, due to a ____with the dissatisfied workers. visitors have ______outside the building throughout the week, and those without bookings have been________.

Although tensions with its workers_______ , the museum's bottom line is looking _______.The Louvre broke its 2012 _______record last year, marking a dramatic _______ from a sharp downturn in visits in 2017 that was due to a sudden decrease in_______in Paris.

The social media that are_______about Beyoncé and Jay Z's music_______filmed at the museum may have played into that increase.

But while visitor numbers rose at the Louvre, overall attendance was relatively_______among the top 20 museums in the world last year. Attendance grew among the top 20 by just 0.1% from 2017 to 2018.

【推荐2】It was late, about 10:15 p.m., when Janice Esposito arrived at the Bellport train station; she jumped into her Honda Odyssey and began the 20-minute drive home to her husband and seven-year-old son. She'd just returned from visiting her mother and had traveled the route many times before. She practically________on autopilot: a left onto Station Road, then a left on Montauk Highway, and then- wham! Out of nowhere a car T-boned Esposito's minivan (小型货车)，________her to move backward some 100 feet onto the railroad tracks. She________in the minivan, bruised (撞伤) but mostly just knocked out by the________and the airbags.

As it happened, Pete DiPinto was getting ready for________. He'd just closed his book and was getting under the covers when he heard the sound of metal on metal and breaking glass coming from not far outside his bedroom window. A volunteer________ and retired teacher, DiPinto, 64, never________to think. He grabbed a flashlight and, still dressed in his pajamas, ran out the door.“Any firefighter would have done what I did," he told Newsday,“We re always on________”

The first car he came upon, 2,000 feet from his front yard, was the one that had________ Esposito. Once DiPinto concluded the driver was OK, he looked around and________Esposito's minivan positioned on the railroad tracks. And then he heard a terrible sound; the bells signaling an oncoming________.

"The gates were starting to come down," he told Newsday.“I see the headlight of the train." DiPinto ran quickly to Esposito's minivan and knocked on the driver's side window. She________looked at him, her eyes unfocused.“I don't know where I am," she said. She seemed unhurt. "Honey, you're on the railroad________,”DiPinto shouted.“We have to get you off right now!" He pulled hard on the________, but the door was crashed in and________.The heavy diesel train, traveling at 65 miles per hour, was moving fast toward them. DiPinto ran to the passenger side and threw open the________，“Please, don't let her be________,”he thought. He pushed aside the deflating (瘪了的) airbags, grabbed Esposito's arms, and________her toward him across the passenger seat until he could help her out and quickly get her to________behind a signal box a few feet away. Within six seconds, he estimated, the train crashed into the minivan.“It was like a Hollywood movie," DiPinto told reporters the next day.

But this one bad a twist. "Last night," South Gountry Ambulance chief Greg Miglino told CBS New York,“the________arrived in pajamas, not in a fire truck."

【推荐3】On Thursday morning, two teenage boys were rescued by a drone (无人机) in Australia while lifeguards were still training to use the machine.

The ________, aged 15-17, got into difficulties about 700 feet off the coast of Lennox Head, New South Wales (NSW). A passer-by saw them ________ in dangerous waves. Lifesavers ________ sent the drone to drop a lifeboat, and the pair made their way safely to the ________.

The drone, known as “Little Riper”, was actually not ________ to be saving anyone just yet—lifeguards were being trained to ________ the machine. When a call came through about the swimmers in ________ the drone happened to be nearby.

Jai Sheridan was the lifeguard who ________ the drone. He described the experience as ________. “The Little Ripper ________ proved itself today. It is a highly efficient piece of lifesaving equipment. I was ________ the drone when the alarm was raised. I directed it towards the swimmers and dropped the ________. With its support they made their way to safety. They were ________, but not hurt. The teens were saved in just 70 seconds with the drone—while a lifeguard would have taken up to six minutes to ________ the rescue.”

John Barilaro, an official of the state,________ the rescue as historic. “It was the world's ________ rescue by the unmanned airplane,” he said. “Never before has a drone been used to ________ swimmers like this.”

Last December, the NSW state government ________ some “Little Ripper” drones for 247, 000 pounds.________ some are designed to spot sharks, others are ________ with lifeboats, alarms and loudspeakers. “It was money well spent,” said John Barilaro.