When did you last write a letter by hand? In a digital world, where sending a text or email is more convenient than using snail mail, is traditional pen and paper dying out? Some people claim that writing has many benefits. So maybe it’s not time to put away your pen yet.
These days, when people request things in writing, a typed, electronic document will be accepted.
There are everyday benefits to using pen and paper too. Scribbling notes, shopping lists or messages on the back of an envelope can still be useful, quick and portable.
| A．Some experts believe your brain benefits from using pen and paper |
| B．Doing this on a computer means it could be edited, saved and sent |
| C．However, a hand-written document can reflect your devotion and sincerity |
| D．So, while digital skills remain important, don’t quit your pens and pencils yet |
| E．Handwriting has became a fashion for a small group of people in recent years |
| F．Others agree that handwriting may improve fine motor skills in your hands and fingers |
| G．And putting pen to paper in a letter to a friend or loved one can probably have the most impact |
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【推荐1】In the old days, when you had to drive to a movie theater or to a video store to get some entertainment, it was easy to see how your actions could have an impact on the environment. You were hopping into your car, driving across town, and using gas all the way.
But now that we’re used to staying at home and streaming movies, we might feel better about ourselves. After all, we’re just picking up our phones or maybe turning on the TV. You’re welcome, Mother Nature.
“Not so fast,” says a recent report from the French-based Shift Project. Watching a half-hour show would lead to 3.5 pounds of CO₂ emissions. That’s like driving 3.9 miles. According to “Climate Crisis: The Unsustainable Use of Online Video,” digital technologies are responsible for 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, and that energy use is increasing by 9% a year. Stored in data centers, videos are transferred to our terminals such as computers, smart phones, etc. via networks: all these processes require electricity whose production consumes resources and usually involves CO₂ emissions.
In the European Union, the Eureca project lead scientist, Rabih Bashroush, calculated that 5 billion downloads and streams of the song “Despacito” consumed as much electricity as the countries of Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic used in a single year.
Streaming is only expected to increase as we become more attached to our devices. Online video use is expected to account for 80% of all internet traffic in five years according to CISCO. By then, about 60% of the world’s population will be online.
You’re probubly not going to give up your streaming services, but there are things you can do to help lessen the impact of your online use.
Here are some tips:
Disable autoplay for video on social media.
Stream over Wi-Fi, not mobile networks.
Watch on the smallest screen you can.
Don’t use high-definition (高清) video on devices.
1. It can be inferred from Paragraph 2 that people think ______.| A．they should welcome Mother Nature |
| B．streaming at home avoids possible emissions |
| C．it is inconvenient to drive to a movie theater |
| D．watching movies at home is more fun |
| A．60% of the world’s population watch videos online |
| B．digital technologies account for 4% of electricity use |
| C．online video use makes up 80% of all internet traffic |
| D．30 minutes of streaming video may produce 3.5 pounds of CO₂ |
| A．To praise their energy-efficient practice. |
| B．To prove the poverty of the five countries |
| C．To stress the popularity of the song “Despacito” |
| D．To show the high energy use of downloads and streams |
| A．Use high-definition videos. | B．Turn off video autoplay |
| C．Stream over mobile networks. | D．Watch movies on bigger screens. |
【推荐2】From people’s brains, a song was just picked by scientists. In a new experiment, electrodes (电极) measured their brain activity as they listened to a song. From those measurements, a computer could then produce noises that sounded like the song the people had heard.
The 29 participants were in the hospital and had electrodes fixed in their brains. These electrodes were meant to track the source of their epilepsy (癫痫), a disorder of the nervous system. For part of that time, they listened to a song-Pink Floyd’s 1979 hit Another Brick in the Wall. But in this experiment, the researchers found an additional use for the electrodes. They used them to catch the electrical signals moving between brain cells, or neurons (神经元).
Neurons responded to the song-especially in parts of the brain involved in processing sound. Electrodes detected neural signals associated with hearing rhythm, harmony and other aspects of music. With that information, the team built a computer model to create sounds based on brain activity. And it was able to produce noises that sounded like the original song.
“It’s a real tour deforce,” says Robert Zatorre, a neuroscientist in Canada. “You’re recording the activity of neurons directly from the brain, so you get very direct information about exactly what the patterns of activity are.”
The new study also highlights which parts of the brain respond to different aspects of music. Take one known as the Superior Temporal Gyrus (STG), an area of the brain that is in charge of sound and language. It’s found in the lower middle of each side of the brain. Activity in one part of the STG got stronger at the onset of specific sounds. Say when a guitar note played. Another area of the STG became obviously more active when it heard singing.
1. The application of detecting signals by the electrodes is ________.| A．an improper practice | B．an unintentional move |
| C．an efficient tracking method | D．an effective approach to treating epilepsy |
| A．Detect neural signals. | B．Monitor brain activity. |
| C．Analyze different brain activities. | D．Interpret neural signals into music. |
| A．The brain is comprised of different areas. |
| B．The new study proves the complexity of the brain. |
| C．Different brain areas pick up various aspects of music. |
| D．Different styles of music cause different brain activities. |
| A．New Fields for Music Study | B．Reproduce Music from the Brain |
| C．A Real Blessing for Music Lovers | D．Create Computer Models for Brain Research |
【推荐3】Smile! It makes everyone in the room feel better because they, consciously or unconsciously, are smiling with you. Growing evidence shows that an instinct for facial mimicry(模仿) allows us to empathize with and even experience other people’s feelings. If we can’t mirror another person’s face, it limits our ability to read and properly react to their expressions. A review of this emotional mirroring appears on February 11 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
In their paper, Paula Niedenthal and Adrienne Wood, social psychologists at the University of Wisconsin, describe how people in social situations copy others’ facial expressions to create emotional responses in themselves. For example, if you’re with a friend who looks sad, you might “try on” that sad face yourself without realizing you’re doing so. In “trying on” your friend’s expression, it helps you to recognize what they’re feeling by associating it with times in the past when you made that expression. Humans get this emotional meaning from facial expressions in a matter of only a few hundred milliseconds.
“You reflect on your emotional feelings and then you generate some sort of recognition judgment, and the most important thing that results in is that you take the appropriate action—you approach the person or you avoid the person,” Niedenthal says. “Your own emotional reaction to the face changes your perception of how you see the face in such a way that provides you with more information about what it means.”
A person’s ability to recognize and “share” others’ emotions can be prevented when they can’t mimic faces. This is a common complaint for people with motor diseases, like facial paralysis(瘫痪) from a stroke, or even due to nerve damage from plastic surgery. Niedenthal notes that the same would not be true for people who suffer from paralysis from birth, because if you’ve never had the ability to mimic facial expressions, you will have developed compensatory ways of interpreting emotions.
People with social disorders associated with mimicry or emotion-recognition damage, like autism(自闭症), can experience similar challenges. “There are some symptoms in autism where lack of facial mimicry may in part be due to limitation of eye contact,” Niedenthal says.
Niedenthal next wants to explore what part in the brain is functioning to help with facial expression recognition. A better understanding of that part, she says, will give us a better idea of how to treat related disorders.1. According to the passage, facial mimicry helps ________.
| A．experience one’s own feelings clearly | B．change others’ emotions quickly |
| C．respond to others’ expressions properly | D．develop friendship with others easily |
| A．people with motor diseases may also suffer from autism |
| B．people born with facial paralysis may still recognize emotions |
| C．people with social disorders can’t have eye contact with others |
| D．people receiving plastic surgery have difficulty in mimicking faces |
| A．how we can treat brain disorders |
| B．what can be done to regain facial mimicry |
| C．how our brain helps us with emotional mirroring |
| D．what part of our brain helps recognize facial expression |
| A．discuss how people react positively to others’ smiles |
| B．draw people’s attention to those with social disorders |
| C．introduce a new trend in facial expression recognition |
| D．explain how emotional mirroring affects people’s empathy |
