【推荐1】Keeping The Taps Running in Thirsty Cities

Water covers 71% of Earth’s surface yet only 2% of it is accessible as a source of fresh water. ______ on this limited resources is rising, a trend likely to continue.

It is important to recognize that it is not just city residents who ______ water. Agriculture, industry and tourism often require more water than the municipal water supply. Globally, 70% of fresh water is ______ for agriculture, but locally in heavily irrigated(灌溉)areas this can increate to 90%. A healthy environment also requires fresh water, and the quality of available water is as important as its ______.

Water stress is not always caused by physical shortages in dry areas. ______ for water resources between different users within river catchments or basins can also be a cause.

Every thirsty city operates within its own context, _____ to the challenge of providing adequate water supplies. Cape Town, ______, has faced three years of drought during which winter rains failed to materialize. At the end of the 2017 rainy season the city faced the ______ of its dams running dry during 2018. The dams were only 37% full—in the same week four years before they were full to the top. In January 2018, it was ______ that Cape Town would reach Day Zero, when it would be forced to turn off the taps, in April. This was despite the city reducing its water use by more than half, from 1.2 billion litres a day in 2015 to fewer than 600 million litres, and working ______ with industry and agriculture to reduce demand.

On February 1, the authorities put in place a strict limit of 50 litres of water per person per day. ______, in Britain this is considered enough for a five-minute shower of half a washing machine cycle on full load.

In addition, a ban was placed on using ______ water for gardens, water management devices were installed at household with a high water use and the water pressure was reduced to cut demand and leaks. At the same, the city launched a media ______ to change habits and introduced higher duties. This is not without its costs; agriculture and tourism, both significant areas of employment, have ______. It is a classic example of the problem of water economics-the cost of water is low but the cost of a lack of water is very high.

Crises such as the Cape Town drought are in danger of becoming the new norm. The ______ of Day Zero must serve as a wake-up call for cities across the world to develop cost-effective water management strategies to cope with an uncertain future.

【推荐2】Who cares if people think wrongly that the Internet has had more important influences than the washing machine? Why does it matter that people are more impressed by the most _______ changes? It would not matter if these misjudgments were just a matter of people’s opinions. However, they have real impacts, as they result in _______ use of scarce resources.

The eager embrace of the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) revolution, represented by the Internet, has made some rich countries wrongly conclude that making things is so “yesterday” that they should try to live on _______.This belief in “post-industrial society” has led those countries to _______ their manufacturing sector(制造业)with negative consequences for their economies.

Even more worryingly, the _______ with the Internet by people in rich countries has moved the international community to worry about the “digital _______” between the rich countries and the poor countries. This has led companies and individuals to donate money to developing countries to buy computer equipment and Internet facilities. The question,_______,is whether this is what the developing countries need the most.Perhaps giving money for those less _______ things such as digging wells,extending electricity networks and making more affordable washing machines would have improved people’s lives more than giving every child a laptop computer or setting up Internet centers in rural villages. I am not saying that those things are necessarily more important, but these generous donators don’t seem to give priority to people’s _______ needs. Rather, they have rushed into fancy programs without carefully assessing the relative long-term costs and benefits of ________ uses of their money.

In yet another example,an obsession with the new has led people to believe that the latest changes in the technologies of communications and transportation are so revolutionary that now we live in a “borderless world”. ________,in the last twenty years or so,many people have come to believe that whatever change is happening today is the result of great technological progress,going against which will be like trying to turn the clock back.Believing in such a world,many governments have ________ some of the very necessary regulations on cross-border flows of capital,labor and goods,with poor results.

Understanding technological trends is very important for ________ designing economic policies, both at the national and the international levels, and for making the right career choices at the ________ level. However, our blind faith in the latest, and our ________ of what has already become common, can, and has, led us in all sorts of wrong directions.

【推荐3】Technological life is and will be a series of upgrades and the rate of advancement is increasing. If we are honest, we must admit that one aspect of the ______ upgrades and eternal becoming of the technium (技术元素) is to make holes in our heart. One day not too long ago we（all of us）decided that we could not live another day ______ we had a smart phone; a dozen years earlier this need would have ______ us. Now we get angry if the network is slow, but before, when we were ______ , we had no thoughts of the network at all. We keep inventing new things that make new ______ , new holes that must be filled.

Some people are furious that our hearts are pierced (刺穿) ______ by the things we make. They see this ever-neediness as a devaluing of human nobility, the source of our ______ discontent. I agree that technology is the source. The momentum of technologies pushes us to chase the ______ , which are always disappearing beneath the arrival of the next newer thing, so satisfaction continues to retreat from our ______ .

But I celebrate the never-ending discontent that technology brings. We are different from our animal ancestors in that we are not ______ to merely survive, but have been incredibly busy ______ new itches that we have to scratch, new desires we've never had before. This is the trigger for our ingenuity and growth.

We cannot expand our self, and our collective self, ______ making holes in our heart. We are ______ our boundaries and widening the small container that holds our identity. It can be painful. Of course, there will be rips and tears. Late-night infomercials (信息广告) and endless web pages of about-to-be-out-of-date gizmos(新玩意儿)are hardly uplifting techniques, and the path to our ______ is very boring, and everyday. When we imagine a better future, we should factor in this constant ______ .

【推荐3】At just 18 years old, Canberra student Lochie Ferrier has already conducted research in a frontier field -aerospace(宇航工业) engineering. Aerospace engineering is the primary _________ of engineering concerned with the science and technology of aircraft and spacecraft.

In 2014, he was one of 80 high school students worldwide who _________ a six-week science and engineering program at MIT. During the program, he was _______ by the institute’s scientists, and developed a method to identify inactive satellites. This method, called OASIS, is designed _________ a way to help manage space debris (碎片), which _________ operating satellites. “One solution to this problem is a _________ robot that can gather pieces of space debris and store them in orbit,” he says. “These pieces could be _________ to new satellites later thus _________ the costs and launch weights of new satellites.” However, _________ satellite identification technology would be needed for this solution, and that’s what Lochie is working on. “I hope this method would be put into   ____________in the near future, saying the next 10 years,” he says.

Lochie has made the ____________ of the Young Innovators category(类别) of the Australian Innovation(创新) Challenge Awards with his OASIS. This category is open to students aged 21 years or ____________ and carries a $ 5,000 prize. If he won, he would use the money to help fund ____________ research into OASIS. “My plan for using the money would be to try to use materials which could stand up to the ____________ environment of space,” he says.

He is also considering how to ____________the technology to organizations such as NASA and satellite manufacturers.

Lochie’s____________ in aerospace engineering was aroused by the big dish antenna(碟形天线) at NASA’s tracking station near Canberra, which he visited in his early teens. He said his software design and development teacher at Canberra Grammar School ____________ him, too. “He taught me valuable project management and skills which I applied to OASIS.”

Lochie has been ____________ Canberra Grammar School and will soon sit exams for admission to universities. He ____________ his time among schoolwork, his personal ____________ projects such as OASIS and the development of apps, rock climbing, and playing classical violin. The teenager is well on his way to realizing his sky-high ambition.