The food people eat is often brought in from miles away and stored using traditional cooling systems before the products hit store shelves. Ice is the most common cooling method that is used. When ice melts, it’s not reusable. Luxin Wang, one of the project’s leaders, saw the massive amounts of unrecyclable ice being used to store the fish at a fishing processing plant and the cross-contamination (交叉污染) that meltwater could spread among products or down the drain (下水道). This inspired her to look for a sustainable solution. The team got to work and created what they refer to as “jelly ice cubes”.
The ice cube scan take on various shapes and sizes and withstand temperature and pressure changes. That means that the jelly ice cubes won’t melt in hotter temperatures but rather the technology will change colors to indicate that the ice cube needs to be re frozen. The cubes won’t lose their form either. The novelty cubes can be used for 13 hours of storage and can easily be rinsed with bleach (漂白剂), and frozen again for reuse.
The research team knows that using these has huge potential to reduce water waste and food waste across the food supply chain. Food contamination is one of the biggest factors in food waste and can happen at any stage. Once ice turns to water, it can pick up bacteria and subsequently spread it between neighboring produce. However, if the jelly ice cubes are used, they can offer a reusable solution to conserve water and have a big impact on reducing food waste. These solid cubes can prevent cross-contamination that comes from melted ice.
Already mitigating (减轻) two major threats facing food production, the team plans to take their research one step further and use agricultural waste and by products as the cooling agents in their future ice cube designs. And these new innovative jelly ice cubes appear to be real winners in helping create greener food industry.
1. What motivated Wang to create the jelly ice cubes?| A．Dealing with food waste at a fishing processing plant. |
| B．Transporting products with ice cube smelting halfway. |
| C．Seeing problems of storing the fish in a traditional way. |
| D．Receiving boxes with many unrecyclable ice cubes inside. |
| A．Resist. | B．Measure. | C．Reduce. | D．Sense. |
| A．The cause of food contamination. |
| B．The advantages of the jelly ice cubes. |
| C．The process of manufacturing new ice cubes. |
| D．The methods of keeping food clean and fresh. |
| A．The jelly ice cubes will reach food producers soon. |
| B．The new ice cubes could promote the marketing of green food. |
| C．Researchers have discovered effective ways to ensure food safety. |
| D．Researchers will make the production of ice cubes more eco-friendly. |
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【推荐1】A troop of a million walking robots could enable scientific exploration at a microscopic level.
Researchers have developed microscopic robots before, but they weren't able to move by themselves, says Marc Miskin at the University of Pennsylvania. That is partly because of a lack of micrometre-scale actuators（微米级致动器）---components required for movement, such as the bending of a robot's legs.
Miskin and his colleagues overcame this by developing a new type of actuator made of an extremely thin layer of platinum, a very valuable silvery-grey metal. Each robot uses four of these tiny actuators as legs, connected to solar cells on its back that can make the legs bend in response to laser light（激光）and push their square metallic bodies forwards.
“Each solar cell is connected to a specific leg and by shooting the solar cells with a laser, you make the legs move in the way you want,“ says Miskin. "It's really cool.”
Through a process similar to that used in creating circuit（电路）boards, Miskin and his team were able to mass-produce more than a million of the microrobots, each of which could only be seen under a microscope.
The robots are only able to walk around, but Miskin says they provide important evidence of concept, showing that it is possible to develop and mass-produce microrobots with on-board electronics. The next step will be to put additional functions together, he says. "We're developing things where we'll have sensing capabilities and well have programmability.”
He also wants to develop microrobot groups that work together. “There's all sorts of cool stuff that happens when you wind up with a lot of robots working together,“ he says.
In the future, these robots could let us explore the world at a microscopic scale. They could potentially be developed to wander inside the human body. "The hope is that these robots are really going to take us into the micro-world," says Miskin.
1. What is the problem with previous microscopic robots?| A．Their lack of adjustable metal legs. | B．Their wrong way of walking alone. |
| C．Their insensitivity to tiny actuators. | D．Their inability to move automatically. |
| A．Solar cells. | B．Circuit boards. |
| C．A normal metal. | D．Natural sunlight. |
| A．To train an army made of microscopic robots. |
| B．To replace human employees with microscopic robots. |
| C．To change present microscopic robots into smaller ones. |
| D．To mass produce walking microscopic robots with on-board electronics. |
| A．Robots Are Exploring the Micro-world |
| B．An Army of Tiny Robots Are in Concept |
| C．Walking Microscopic Robots Are Created |
| D．Robots Will Walk Inside the Human Body |
【推荐2】When you walk with a backpack, do you know how the things inside move from side to side? Now scientists have figured out how to tap into that movement to produce electricity.
Picture a pendulum (摆锤) fixed to a backpack frame and stabilized with springs on either side. The pack’s weight is attached to the pendulum, so the pendulum swings side to side as you walk. Then a machine is driven by that swinging movement, and produces electrical current to charge a battery.
Volunteers carried the pack while walking on a running machine and wore masks to measure the flow of O2 and CO2. When the volunteers were walking with the slightly swinging 20-pound load, the device did not significantly affect their metabolic (新陈代谢的) rate compared to when they carried the same weight fixed in place. In fact, the energy-harvesting pack reduced the forces of acceleration they’d feel in a regular pack, which might mean greater comfort for a long hike. And the device did produce a steady trickle (涓流) of electricity. If you up the load to 45 pounds, it could fully charge a smartphone only after 12 hours. The details are in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
The device produces electricity from human movement and has been identified as a workable solution to providing a renewable energy source for portable electronic devices. It is particularly useful to those who work in remote areas, as these people often carry a lot of weight in a backpack for their exploration.
But here’s a real conundrum: the energy-harvesting device currently weighs five pounds. The researchers say that’s about four pounds too many to be a smart alternative to batteries. So they hope that more research lets them lighten the load so that they can ensure the pack charges your phone up without weighing you down.
1. What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?| A．What the device looks like. | B．How the device works. |
| C．Who the device is designed for. | D．Why scientists designed the device. |
| A．It was useless for a long walk. |
| B．It failed to produce steady electricity. |
| C．Royal Society Open Science conducted the study of the device. |
| D．It harvested energy as the volunteers walked. |
| A．Problem. | B．Bond. |
| C．Decision. | D．Method. |
| A．Finding Smarter Alternatives to Batteries |
| B．The Development of Backpacks |
| C．Charging Batteries When Carrying Backpacks |
| D．Searching for New Ways to Charge Your Phone |
【推荐3】Scientists have invented ways to ”read“ words directly from brains. Brain implants(植入物)can translate internal speech into external signals, permitting communication from people with diseases that steal their ability to talk or type. New results from studies provide additional evidence of the extraordinary potential that brain implants have for restoring lost communication.
Some people who need help communicating can currently use devices that require small movements, such as eye gaze changes. Those tasks aren’t possible for everyone. So the new studies targeted internal speech, which requires a person to do nothing more than think. ”Our device predicts internal speech directly, allowing the patient to just focus on saying a word inside their head and transform it into text,“ says neuroscientist Sarah Wandelt. ”Internal speech could be simpler than requiring the patient to spell out words or mouth them.“
Neural(神经系统的)signals associated with words are detected by electrodes(电极)implanted in the brain. The signals can then be translated into text, which can be made audible(听得见的)by computer programs that generate speech. Electrodes picked up nerve cell signals in the posterior parietal cortex, a brain area involved in speech and hand movements. A brain implant there might eventually be used to control devices that can perform tasks usually done by a hand too, Wandelt says.
The system allowed Pancho, who hadn’t been able to speak for more than 15 years after a car accident, to produce around seven words per minute. That’s faster than the roughly five words per minute his current communication device can make, but much slower than normal speech, typically about 150 words a minute.
To be useful, the current techniques will need to get faster and more accurate. “ These are still early days for the technologies, ” Wandelt says. “Progress will be possible only with the help of people who volunteer for the studies. The field will continue to benefit from the incredible people who participate in clinical trials.”
1. What function is expected of the brain implants?| A．To control body movements. | B．To detect certain brain diseases. |
| C．To assist communication. | D．To translate foreign languages. |
| A．Its working principle. | B．Its technical limitation. |
| C．Its clinical significance. | D．Its potential application. |
| A．It has got as fast as normal speech. |
| B．It has not been put in clinical trials. |
| C．It is more accurate than current techniques. |
| D．It is not of much practical use at present. |
| A．To describe a trial. | B．To introduce a device. |
| C．To advertise a product. | D．To explain a concept. |
【推荐1】On a recent day, Katie Baldwin took a break from work to talk about moving from a wealthy neighborhood near New York City to an organic farm on Long Island. "Farming for where I grew up was a very unusual career choice, said the 32~year~old American, "but eve¬rybody belongs to the land in their own way. None of us should feel separate from it.”
Katie was raised in an upper middle class town outside New York, where most people never thought about working on a farm. Today, Katie grows potatoes, wheat and other crops at Quail Hill, a property in Amagansett, New York.
In the United States, organic farming is a growing industry. Women operate some of the best-known organic farms on Long Island. Women make up a little more than 37 percent of all organic farmers nationwide. That information comes from the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Experts predict women's share in farming is likely to continue to grow.
“The new young farmers choose organic farming with their desire to have an influence on society," Katie and several farmers said. She said, "They are choosing it to protect natural resources for future generation, to fight climate change, to feed their community good and healthy food.''
New York has about 1, 000 certified organic farms, making it the third largest in the country, and California and Wisconsin are the first and second, the USDA says. These farms make up nearly four percent of the state's farmland, compared with a national average of around 0. 6 percent.
Although organic farming is growing quickly, it comes with high labor costs and some- times smaller harvests than commercial farming. So it can be a difficult business for new farmers . "When I look now at the starting of the farm. it seems really audacious,” Katie Baldwin said. "But in that environments in 2008, everybody had lost their jobs and there weren't jobs. So, it didn't feel strange to start something,” she said.
1. What does Katie think of working at the organic farm?| A．It’s unacceptable. | B．It's worthwhile. |
| C．It's unforgettable. | D．It's challenging. |
| A．To find a suitable job. | B．To earn healthy food. |
| C．To stop climate change. | D．To help the society develop. |
| A．hopeful | B．dangerous | C．daring | D．reasonable |
| A．American women are good at organic farming |
| B．Organic fanning will become a good employment. |
| C．Many American communities lack abundant food. |
| D．Starting organic farming needs careful consideration. |
【推荐2】In the three decades since Darah Lady’s grandmother first arrived in this distant area of northern Brazil, clearing the forest by hand to build a house for her 14 children, the family has pushed deeper and deeper into the Amazon. It has been driven by a saying that good fortune comes when nature gives in to human control.
Yet their growing community there could ruin not only their children’s future but also that of the entire planet. More global pandemics are on the way, scientists say, and the next one is likely to crop up from a community like Darah Lady’s, where people are taking up more and more space of the natural world and erasing the buffer zone between themselves and habitats that existed long. As people cut down forest, they not only speed up the global warming but also greatly increase their risk of exposure to disease.
Scientists also say disease hot zones are expanding from Africa to South America, and that deforestation has already led to a rise in spreading disease. Zoologists have found that a third of all known disease outbreaks around the world were due to rapid land use change.
Darah Lady’s community of Maruaga is filled with risks for the spread of viruses. Their family has already battled zoonotic illnesses— the term used to describe diseases spread between animals and humans.
When 40% of a land area has been destroyed, according to Tom Gillespie, a university researcher, the region hits a sort of tipping point: Wild animals are pushed closer to humans for food, and viruses begin to spread.
Darah Lady seemed to notice the slight difference of deforestation. “I get kind of sad,” Darah Lady said, “Because the forest is something I’ve loved since I was little. And they are deforesting, right? It’s destroying nature.”
1. What do you know about Darah Lady?| A．She built a house for her 14 children. | B．She made a big fortune in Amazon. |
| C．Her family cut down trees for growing crops. | D．Her family lived in Amazon for decades. |
| A．The loss of the buffer zone. | B．The effect of global warming. |
| C．The lack of species variety. | D．The expansion of wildlife habitats. |
| A．A possible treatment for diseases. |
| B．A real example of the prevention of diseases. |
| C．A further ex planation of the spread of diseases. |
| D．A supporting evidence for the danger of diseases. |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Literature. | C．Health. | D．Environment. |
【推荐3】In China, in order to ease (缓解) the pressure on parents’ wallets, education is free until children reach the age of about 15. So why is it that more than half of a typical family’s spending goes on education? The answer is cramming classes (补习班): a financial burden so great that it is often said to discourage couples from having children at all. Now officials are doing their part. It appears to relieve the pressure on people’s wallets.
But parents are not sure whether it will work. As many of them see it, cramming is not optional (可选择的). Exams for entry to senior high schools are fiercely competitive. Then comes the dreaded (可怕的) Gaokao: the university-entrance exam on which a child’s future depends. No wonder the industry’s growth has been rapid. One firm, Zuoyebang (“help with homework”) says it offers live-streaming classes to more than 170m active users each month.
But officials are worried about its social impact. The birth rate is the lowest in decades and China is ageing fast. They also say that school children are overstressed. Urban pupils attend cramming classes for more than 10 hours a week, according to Deloitte, an accountancy firm.
While as the People’s Daily, an official newspaper, reported this month, the market for such services is in “endless chaos (混乱)”. It listed problems ranging from misleading advertising to high prices and the use of unqualified teachers.
Government’s new regulations of clamping down (取缔) on cram schools sent shivers through the industry. New Oriental, one of China’s biggest cramming companies, saw its share price on the New York Stock Exchange drop below $8, from a high of more than $19 in February. On June 9th the education ministry said a new government department would be set up to oversee (监督) such businesses, including both online courses and lessons in the classroom. There is also a widespread speculation, including in state media, that the new rules will impose (施加) limits on when firms can offer classes. They may, for example, prohibit (阻止) classes after a certain time in the evening, during the summer holidays or at weekends.
Some analysts think the government may have another motive. Many of the companies belong to China’s tech giants, including Alibaba and Tencent, which have already attracted government’s attention for dominating markets and expanding into finance and other areas. Targeting the cramming business could be another way of breaking their wings. Parents wonder whether they will benefit. Some are concerned that the new rules will leave them with no choice but to use private tutors, which could prove even more costly.
1. Why do cramming schools enjoy great popularity among Chinese students?| A．Government officials are worried about their performance. |
| B．The live-streaming classes offered are really appealing. |
| C．Entering senior high schools makes them less competitive. |
| D．The exams are so demanding that they have no choice. |
| A．High fees. | B．Improper advertising. |
| C．Experienced tutors. | D．Chaotic management. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Indifferent. | C．Supportive. | D．Critical. |
| A．China’s tech giants control the market. |
| B．New Oriental is the biggest cramming company. |
| C．Gaokao imposes too much burden to students. |
| D．China says no to the cramming business. |
