Your phone shuts down randomly. You have to charge it constantly. And you can barely see the screen through a spiderweb of cracks. Time for a new phone. But what should you do with the old one? The number one rule: never throw it in a garbage can or recycle bin. It might start a fire or even explode.
Smartphones contain lithium-ion batteries. So do tablets, laptop computers, electric cars, and many other devices, including some cameras, headphones, power tools, and more. These batteries offer the most energy for their size compared to other batteries. But if a lithium-ion battery gets damaged, it may overheat, leading to flames, fire, or even an explosion.
In 2017, cleaners in New York City threw an innocent-looking cardboard box into their garbage truck. When the truck’s compactor (垃圾捣碎机) squeezed the box and a battery hidden inside—BOOM! The battery exploded. The workers managed to take out the box and throw it in a puddle (水坑), putting out the flames. But explosions and fires are on the rise at recycling centers around the world, and lithium-ion batteries are usually to blame.
To safely get rid of a device that contains these batteries, take it to an electronics recycler. You can search for a drop-off location at call2recycle.org.
Even professionals have trouble handling some devices. Isauro Flores-Hernandez takes apart electronics at Cascade Asset Management in Madison, Wisconsin. Safely removing the battery from one iPad took him 40 minutes.
Many tech companies are more concerned about selling new devices than repairing or recycling old ones. They make more money that way. So they tend not to make it easy to break down their products. It may cost more to take the item apart than the materials inside are worth. That’s a deal-breaker for recycling centers. If an item is too tough to break down, it will go into a landfill. Do you think tech companies should do more to support safe and easy recycling?
1. What should we do with a broken cell phone?| A．Replace it with a new one. | B．Throw it into a garbage can. |
| C．Turn to an electronics recycler. | D．Recycle the inside battery by ourselves. |
| A．They become overheated easily. | B．They are likely to be damaged. |
| C．They have advantages in power storage. | D．They are only used in smartphones. |
| A．To prove cleaners are not professional. |
| B．To note lithium-ion batteries cause fires easily. |
| C．To show lithium-ion batteries are pretty dangerous. |
| D．To reveal the importance of dealing with batteries properly. |
| A．They hold back recycling electronic products. |
| B．They are worried about selling new products. |
| C．They make more money by recycling products. |
| D．They plan to cooperate with recycling centers. |
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【推荐1】Three Things to Do Before You Are 18
Are you bored with your daily life? Here are some things you should try before you are 18.
Learn to swim
Seriously，this is so important that it can save your life.If you can't swim well，you won't be able to do water sports like waterskiing，surfing and diving.Even taking a boat trip will be dangerous for you.Make sure you do it.
Try at least one kind of team sports
Being a good team player is an important skill in life.You can't just think of yourself，but have to work well with other people.Other advantages of team sports like basketball，football and baseball are that they keep you fit and healthy，and they are also great fun.Teams usually have a good social life too－you'll go to lots of parties and make many friends.
Collect something
One of the best hobbies for under18s is collecting things.You could collect kinds of stamps，or you could collect things that make you remember what you have done，like cinema tickets for films you have seen or emails from friends.The best way to collect is to have a special album to put your collection in and to write what each thing means to you.That way you won't forget.
1. The most important reason for learning to swim is that ________．| A．you might feel well |
| B．it can make you healthy |
| C．you might easily do lots of things |
| D．it can save your life |
| A．you'll study in groups |
| B．you'll go to parties and make many friends |
| C．you'll take part in many matches |
| D．you'll work in the society |
| A．Stamps. | B．Cinema tickets. |
| C．Snowballs. | D．Emails. |
| A．collect something |
| B．do some water sports |
| C．send emails to your friends |
| D．play basketball with your friends |
| A．good habits to keep | B．skills to have |
| C．things to do | D．sports to play |
【推荐2】I wanted to be a journalist. But my parents reminded me that math makes money, so off to an engineering school I went. In my post-university young-adult life, I’ve managed to become “traditionally successful”. As a female engineer, I worked for a big oil company and owned home. My life was laid out in front of me, but I didn’t like what I saw.
So, I did what any respectable 24-year-old would do and left my life behind. I said goodbye to my boyfriend and pulled out my suitcase. I threw myself alone into the world with the beauty of a baby deer taking its first steps with skateboards under its feet. I bloodied(血染) my knees riding a mountain bike through the red rocks of Utah. I went to a thermal spring(温泉) in Budapest. I spent four days trudging through Yellowstone with 50 pounds on my back. Two Peruvian women along my Andean hike helped me practice Spanish. It wasn’t Vienna’s cultural museums; it was the sunny grasses beside the Danube River with someone from my hotel who quickly became a friend. It wasn’t Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Geyser(老忠实间歇泉) splashing(飞溅) into the air; it was enjoying Montana’s ordinary landscape while playing music so loud that the car windows shook. The truth is that I didn’t actually need to be abroad to have almost any of my favorite experiences. They were just small everyday moments that happened to happen abroad, leading me to realize that the true value of my flight tickets was not the landmarks but rather taking an active part in my own life.
I now spend less time shopping online and more time lying alone on the floor listening to music, light or rock. I ask my friends how they’re doing; sometimes, I surprise them with flowers to see them smile. I tell everyone to have a good day.
Maybe I’ll continue to be selfish for the next five years and visit more countries. Maybe I’ll stay grounded in my home city, but the idea no longer troubles me. Armed with new wisdom earned in a year of travel, I know with complete confidence that there’re wonderful adventures hiding in any aspect of my life as long as I’m awake enough to look for them.
1. What does the underlined word “trudging” in the second paragraph mean?| A．Walking slowly or with heavy steps. |
| B．Running slowly for a long time. |
| C．Moving forward on hands and knees. |
| D．Traveling with great speed. |
| A．To introduce the landmarks she loved. |
| B．To show the importance of travel. |
| C．To express her joy of being with new fiends. |
| D．To show what these journeys taught her. |
| A．She has become more independent. |
| B．She begins to value her family’s opinion. |
| C．She begins to enjoy her daily life more. |
| D．She has become more interested in foreign cultures. |
| A．We shouldn’t pay attention to what others say. |
| B．We shouldn’t think life is better elsewhere. |
| C．It’s necessary to get out of your comfort zone. |
| D．Interest is the best teacher in choosing jobs. |
【推荐3】How can you develop more patience? In this article you will learn some tips to practice more patience in your life.
Count from 1 to 10. When you sense that feeling of impatience, you just slowly count from 1 to 10. What this does to you differs from person to person and from time to time.
Do things more slowly to train your patience.
Have a goal. Having a goal is good for so many things!
Realize that some things require time. It takes time for a tree to grow out of the seed you have planted. Don’t get disappointed if you can’t immediately obtain the benefits of something.
| A．In the end you will run out of patience. |
| B．Without a goal, nothing is possible. |
| C．You will then know what you are doing it for. |
| D．Accept and tolerate things you cannot control. |
| E．So next time it happens, just try the counting out again. |
| F．When you practice something, it becomes easier and easier! |
| G．Some things become worthwhile when they take a certain amount of time. |
【推荐1】Many animals move from one place to another at certain times of the year.
Every autumn, millions of these beautiful insects begin a long and difficult journey. Somehow they manage to travel around 4,000 kilometres south and find their way to California or Mexico.
A team of scientists has now found the answer. They have found out that the monarch is able to tell the time of day.
The solution to the mystery of the monarch’s amazing ability comes at a time when it is in serious trouble.
| A．They begin to return north in the spring. |
| B．This annual movement is called migration. |
| C．It uses its eyes to measure the position of the sun. |
| D．However, until recently no one knew how they did this. |
| E．The most common type of migration is seasonal migration. |
| F．Its population has crashed by as much as 90 per cent in the last few years. |
| G．The research on the monarch’s behavior has however led to a greater awareness of this creature. |
【推荐2】Scientists have learned more about the inner workings of the Earth by studying the way waves from earthquakes travel through the planet’s center. The results suggest that the Earth’s inner core may be starting to spin more slowly than the Earth.
The Earth’s core has two parts: the outer core and the inner core. Both of these are made mainly of the metals iron and nickel. The outer core is liquid. But the inner core is a solid ball held in this liquid almost like the yolk(蛋黄) in an egg.
Scientists suspected for a long time that the inner core might be spinning slightly differently from the way the Earth spins.
In the 1990s, two scientists, Paul Richards and Xiaodong Song, studied the inner core by looking at the waves from earthquakes that travel through the center of the Earth. They focused on groups and pairs of waves from earthquakes that naturally repeat. If the inner core was spinning exactly with the Earth, each wave of the pair should have taken the same time to pass through the Earth. Instead, some moved faster than others. This was because they were hitting different parts of the inner core as it spun. Their studies revealed that the inner core was spinning in the same direction as the Earth, but slightly faster.
Now Dr. Song and Yi Yang—another scientist who studies the Earth—say they’ve used the same method to learn that the Earth’s inner core may be starting to spin slower than the Earth. The researchers studied earthquake wave pairs from Alaska, going all the way back to 1964. They noticed that the inner core’s spin also seemed to change speed in the early 1970s. The scientists say that the inner core may have a pattern of speeding up and slowing down every 70 years or so.
Not everyone agrees. Many scientists who study the Earth say more information needed to figure out what is really going on.
1. Why is an egg mentioned in the second paragraph?| A．To explain how the Earth’s core moves. |
| B．To show the importance of the inner core. |
| C．To illustrate the composition of the outer core. |
| D．To help picture the structure of the Earth’s core. |
| A．It sent out earthquake waves. | B．It changed speed repeatedly. |
| C．It moved exactly with the Earth. | D．It moved a little faster than the Earth. |
| A．It is accurate and reliable. | B．It excites the scientists. |
| C．It needs further confirmation. | D．It has caused a heated discussion. |
| A．A science report. | B．A sci-fi story. | C．A diary entry. | D．A brochure. |
【推荐3】The common cuttlefish is just as smart as a human child when it comes to a certain cognitive test, according to a new research.
When given the sweet test, which tests a person’s ability to understand delayed satisfaction, cuttlefish passed with flying colors. In the classic psychological experiment, a child is given a sweet with the instructions that if they can resist eating the sweet treat for 15 minutes, they’ll be given another and allowed to eat both.
“Cuttlefish in the present study were all able to wait for the better reward and tolerated delays for up to 50-130 seconds, which is comparable to what we see in some clever animals such as monkeys, crows and parrots,” said lead author Alexandra Schnell.
The researchers found the cuttlefish that delayed satisfaction for longer had better learning performance.
Six common cuttlefish were placed in a tank with two clear boxes. One had a live grass shrimp — their favorite food and the other had a less appetizing shrimp. Researchers painted symbols on the doors. Triangle is for a delayed opening, and circle is for opening straight away. When presented with their favourite food behind the triangle door, all the cuttlefish chose to wait.
The study also tested the cuttlefish’s ability to learn, by switching the symbols on the doors and what they meant. The cuttlefish that learnt to adapt to the changes fastest also scored the longest delayed satisfaction scores. While researchers don’t know the exact reasons for their intelligence, they suspect it’s something to do with the way of gathering food.
“Cuttlefish spend most of their time hiding, sitting and waiting, having short dining time. They don’t hide when they dine, so they are exposed to their enemies. We assume that delayed satisfaction may have evolved as a byproduct of this, so the cuttlefish can benefit by waiting to choose better quality food.” said Schnell.
1. Why is the classic psychological experiment mentioned in Paragraph 2?| A．To show children’s ability to tolerate. | B．To attach importance to the researchers. |
| C．To state children prefer to have sweets. | D．To prove cuttlefish are highly intelligent. |
| A．Why the researchers design the test. | B．How the experiment is carried out. |
| C．How the cuttlefish recognize shapes. | D．What the cuttlefish’s favorite food is. |
| A．the walls having ears. | B．letting the cat out of the bag. |
| C．the survival of the fittest. | D．putting the cart before the horse. |
| A．A newspaper on science. | B．A website on table manners. |
| C．A brochure on education. | D．A magazine on fashion design. |
【推荐1】When a leafy plant is under attack, it doesn’t sit quietly. Back in 1983, two scientists, Jack Schultz and Ian Baldwin, reported that young maple trees getting bitten by insects send out a particular smell that neighboring plants can get. These chemicals come from the injured parts of the plant and seem to be an alarm. What the plants pump through the air is a mixture of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, VOCs for short.
Scientists have found that all kinds of plants give out VOCs when being attacked. It’s a plant’s way of crying out. But is anyone listening? Apparently. Because we can watch the neighbours react.
Some plants pump out smelly chemicals to keep insects away. But others do double duty. They pump out perfumes designed to attract different insects who are natural enemies to the attackers. Once they arrive, the tables are turned. The attacker who was lunching now becomes lunch.
In study after study, it appears that these chemical conversations help the neighbors .The damage is usually more serious on the first plant, but the neighbors, relatively speaking, stay safer because they heard the alarm and knew what to do.
Does this mean that plants talk to each other? Scientists don’t know. Maybe the first plant just made a cry of pain or was sending a message to its own branches, and so, in effect, was talking to itself. Perhaps the neighbors just happened to “overhear” the cry. So information was exchanged, but it wasn’t a true, intentional back and forth. Charles Darwin, over 150 years ago, imagined a world far busier, noisier and more intimate (亲密的) than the world we can see and hear. Our senses are weak. There’s a whole lot going on.
1. What does a plant do when it is under attack?| A．It makes noises. | B．It gets help from other plants. |
| C．It stands quietly | D．It sends out certain chemicals. |
| A．The attackers get attacked. |
| B．The insects gather under the table. |
| C．The plants get ready to fight back. |
| D．The perfumes attract natural enemies. |
| A．predict natural disasters |
| B．protect themselves against insects |
| C．talk to one another intentionally |
| D．help their neighbors when necessary |
| A．The world is changing faster than ever. |
| B．People have stronger senses than before |
| C．The world is more complex than it seems |
| D．People in Darwin’s time were imaginative. |
【推荐2】In America, when people say “man’s best friend”, they don’t mean another person. Instead, they are talking about a lovely animal — a dog! These words show the friendship between people and animals. Dogs and other pets can give joy to people’s lives. Some people think of their pets as their children. Some people even leave all their money to their pets when they die!
Animals can help people, too. Dogs can be taught to be the “eyes” for a blind person or “ears” for a deaf person. Scientists have found that pets help people live longer! They make people happier, too. Because of that, animals are brought into hospitals for “visit”.
Americans hold “Be Kind to Animals Week” in the first week of May.
Pet shows are held during the week. Even if you don’t live in America, you, too, can do this. How? First think about how animals make your life richer. If you have a pet, take more time this week to play with it. Remember to give it delicious food. Also, be sure to keep your pet from those unwarned babies.
If you don’t have a pet, be kind to animals around you. For example, if you see a street dog, just leave it alone, or make friends with it. If others around you do bad things to animals, try to stop them. As people, we must protect animals who can’t speak for themselves.
1. Why are dogs brought into hospitals?| A．Because they are ill and need to see doctors. |
| B．Because they can make the patients happier. |
| C．Because they can find out the problems of the patients. |
| D．Because doctors can do experiments on them. |
| A．Holding a pet show in the week. | B．Playing with pets the whole week. |
| C．Cooking delicious food for pets. | D．Making friends with other people’s pets. |
| A．A lot of people are interested in dogs. | B．Dogs can help people do many things. |
| C．Pets are lovely and need care and protections. | D．We have done a lot of things for pets. |
| A．the friendship between people | B．the friendship between people and animals |
| C．the friendship between animals | D．the friendship between men and women |
【推荐3】AI software can already identify people by their voices or handwriting. Now, an AI has shown it can label people based on their chess-playing behavior, an advance in the field of “stylometrics” that could help computers be better chess teachers or more humanlike in their game play. Alarmingly, the system could also be used to help identify and track people who think their online behavior is anonymous (匿名的).
Chess-playing software, such as Deep Blue and AlphaZero, has long been Superhuman. But Ashton Anderson, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto, says the chess engines play almost an “alien (外星人的) style” that isn’t very instructive for those seeking to learn or improve their skills. They’d do better to tailor their advice to individual players. But first they’d need to acquire a player’s unique form.
To design and train their AI, the researchers collected more than 50 million human games and fed them into a network. The researchers tested the system by seeing how well it distinguished one player from another. They gave the system 100 games from each of about 3,000 known players, and 100 fresh games from an unknown player. The system looked for the best match and identified the unknown player 86% of the time, the researchers reported last month at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurlPS). “We didn’t quite believe the results,” says Reid Mcllroy-Young, a student in Anderson’s lab and the paper’s primary author. A non-AI method was only 28% accurate.
“The work is really cool,” says Noam Brown, a research scientist at Meta. “Style-aware AI could transform other computer interactions.”
The researchers are aware of the privacy risks posed by the system, which could be used to expose anonymous chess players online. And in theory, they say, given the right data sets, such systems could identify people based on the habits of their driving or the timing and location of their cellphone use.
NeuriPS organizers found the study technically impressive but ethically (道德上) questionable, and accepted it on condition that the researchers detail the privacy risks. Anderson says they’ve decided, for now, not to release the software.
1. What advance in AI technology is described?| A．It can recognize different human chess players. |
| B．It can behave like humans when playing chess. |
| C．It can identify different people’s handwriting. |
| D．It can track people’s unacceptable online behavior. |
| A．They have remarkable but unhelpful ability. |
| B．They instruct players in an extremely unique style. |
| C．They have an advantage over individual players in skill learning. |
| D．They are outstanding in acquiring a player’s unique form. |
| A．Its significance to players. | B．Its development process. |
| C．Its wide application. | D．Its primary aim. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Disappointed. | C．Careful. | D．Uninterested. |
