Nearly 40 percent of Americans over the age of 65 take five or more different drugs, and doctors often simply have to monitor patients to see if any of those drugs combine to createnegative side effects. When a doctor prescribes(给……开药)a patient more than one drug atthe same time, they currently have no way to predict whether that combination of these drugswill have a negative side effect. A new system from a team of computer scientists at Stanford University presents a novel solution—an AI-driven computer system that can predict theconsequences of combining two drugs.
Drug combinations are a remarkably unstudied area, but as Marinka Zitnik explains, “It’spractically impossible to test a new drug in combination with all other drugs, because just forone drug that would be five thousand new experiments.” Besides, to maintain accuracy alsoneeds strict research procedures.
So Zitnik and her Stanford colleagues set out to find a solution to the problem. They created a massive deep learning system trained on data encompassing(包含)over l9,00 oproteins and how different drugs interact with those proteins. The system is called Decagon, and it can effectively predict the consequences of combining any two different drugs.
To test out Decagon’s predictive abilities the team examined 10 of the systems predicted drug pair interactions that didn’t have clearly known unfavourable interactions. The researchers found new supporting case study evidence backing up 8 of those 10 predictions. For example, one prediction from Decagon suggested muscle inflammation(炎症) would be caused by combining a certain cholesterol(胆固醇) drug with a blood pressure medication. This negative side effect of combining those two drugs was only recently confirmed by a casestudy published in 2017.
The next stage in the project is to try to turn Decagon into a more user-friendly tool thatdoctors can easily navigate(导航) for information when prescribing combinations of drugs, benefiting more people. At this stage, the system only evaluates(评估) drug pairs but there searchers hope to expand that into more complex combinations of drugs in the future.
1. What problem faces doctors when prescribing several drugs together?| A．They can’t prevent side effects of drugs. |
| B．They don’t know the bad influences of the combination. |
| C．They have to monitor whether patients will take drugs. |
| D．They must predict the effects of drugs with an Al system. |
| A．They require numerous experiments. |
| B．They are not that important to people. |
| C．It’s rather expensive to do the research. |
| D．It’s impossible to keep results accurate. |
| A．It can predict influences of combining three drugs. |
| B．It wouldn’t contribute to people’s deep learning. |
| C．It can tell the results of combining two drugs. |
| D．It analyses how proteins interact with each other. |
| A．Making the system availa ble to more people. |
| B．Improving some critical functions of the system. |
| C．Enhancing people’s recognition on its accuracy. |
| D．Adopting a more friendly attitude toward patients. |
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【推荐1】The British National Health Service (NHS) was set up in 1948 and was designed to provide equal basic health care, free of charge, for everybody in the countryside. Before this time health care bad to be paid for by individuals.
Nowadays central government is directly responsible for the NHS although it is administered by local health authorities. About 83 percent of the cost of the health service is paid for by general taxation and the rest is met from the National Insurance contributions paid by those in work. There are charges for prescription and dental care but many people, such as children, pregnant women, pensioners, and those on Income Support, are exempt from payment.
Most people are registered with a local doctor (a GP, or General Practitioner) who is increasingly likely to be part of a health centre which serves the community.
As the population of Britain gets older, the hospital service now treats more patients than before, although patients spend less time in hospital. NHS hospitals—many of which were built in the nineteenth century—provide nearly half a million beds and have over 480, 000 medical staff. The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe although Britain actually spends less per person on health care than most of her European neighbours.
During the 1980s there was considerable restructuring of the Health Service with an increased emphasis on managerial efficiency and the privatization of some services (for example, cleaning). At the end of the 1980s the government introduced proposals for further reform of the NHS, including allowing some hospitals to be self-governing, and encouraging GPs to compete for patients. Patients would be able to choose and change their family doctor more easily and GPs would have more financial responsibility. The political questions continue of how much money should be provided to support the NHS and where it should come from.
1. We can know from the first paragraph that ________.| A．patients were charged for receiving health care before 1948 |
| B．the NHS was an organization which gave free advice to villagers |
| C．people didn’t have to pay for health care since the NHS was set up |
| D．the original aim of the NHS was to provide equal basic health care for everybody |
| A．It’s managed by the central government. |
| B．It hires more people than any other unit in Europe. |
| C．Its cost is mainly paid for by the National Insurance contributions. |
| D．Fewer patients go to its hospitals than before because they spend less on health care. |
| A．suffering | B．different | C．prevented | D．free |
| A．many hospitals are too old to be used |
| B．some services are in the charge of individuals |
| C．there is not enough money for further reform |
| D．more and more patients go to GPs for treatment |
【推荐2】Vitamin C for a cold? A good dose of Vitamin D on a sunny day? We all know that vitamins are critical for our health, but how did they get their names and when were they discovered in the first place?
American nutrition scientist Elmer McCullum conducted a variety of feed experiments with different animal populations and discovered that an “accessory” substance contained in some fats was essential to growth. That fat-soluble (脂溶的) substance became known as Vitamin “A” for “accessory.”
McCollum and others also conducted further experiments with rice-bran-derived nutrient, naming it Vitamin “B” after beriberi, which can cause heart failure and a loss of sensation in the legs and feet. Eventually, it turned out that the substance known as Vitamin B was a complex of eight water-soluble vitamins, which were each given individual names and numbered in order of discovery.
The custom of naming vitamins alphabetically in order of discovery continued. Today, four fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) and nine water-soluble vitamins (Vitamin C and the eight B vitamins) are considered essential to human growth and health. Only one vitamin bucked the oh-so-logical naming system: Vitamin K, discovered by Danish researcher Carl Peter Henrik Dam in 1929. The substance should have been in line to be called Vitamin F given its discovery date. But Dam’s research revealed that the vitamin is essential for blood coagulation (凝固) — known as Koagulation in the German journal that published his research — and his abbreviation for the vitamin somehow stuck.
It’s been decades since the last essential vitamin — Vitamin B12 — was discovered in 1948. It now appears unlikely that scientists will ever discover a new essential vitamin. But even if there’s no Vitamin F or G in our future, that doesn’t mean nutritional discovery has stopped completely. If the golden age of vitamin discovery was an appetizer (开胃菜) of sorts, scientists are devoted to the main course — a rapidly evolving understanding of the ways food shapes our lives, one microscopic substance at a time.
1. What can we learn from paragraph 2 and paragraph 3?| A．Vitamin A is a water-soluble substance. |
| B．Vitamin B was named after a kind of disease. |
| C．The eight B vitamins got names from their functions. |
| D．The subjects of McCullum’s experiments are home. |
| A．Created. | B．Destroyed. | C．Broke. | D．Followed. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Unclear. | C．Doubtful. | D．Confident. |
| A．How Do Vitamins Influence Our Health? |
| B．Who Discovered Various Vitamins for Us? |
| C．Why Is There a Vitamin K but No Vitamin F? |
| D．How Many Vitamins Are Still Left to Be Discovered? |
【推荐3】A seriously sick Maryland man named David Bennett Sr. who received a pig’s heart in a pioneering transplant surgery successfully on January 17th, 2022. However, this man who regained his life has a criminal record because of a violent attack 34 years ago in which he repeatedly stabbed a young man, Edward Shumaker, causing him paralyzed.
The Washington Post first reported the transplant patient s criminal record and the attack that led to it. The revelations have prompted debate about how patients are selected for high-tech medical care.
“The transplant gave him life,” Edward’s sister voiced her displeasure with the transplant for Bennett. “But my brother never got a second chance at life.”
But Bennett’s doctors said that such unsetting historical records do not disqualify patients from getting cutting-edge medical procedures.
Officials at the University of Maryland Medical Center, where the transplant operation was performed, said in a statement that health care providers were committed to treating all patients, regardless of their backgrounds or life circumstances.
“It is the solemn obligation of any hospital or health care organization to provide lifesaving care to every patient who comes through their doors based on their medical needs,” the officials said.
“There’s a long-existing standard in medical ethics that physicians or surgeons don’t pick and choose who they treat,” said Karen J. Maschke, a research scholar at the Hastings Center and editor of Ethics & Human Research.
The question has arisen in the context of imprisoned people and enemies in war, and more recently people with COVID who chose not to get vaccinated, she noted.
“Where would you draw the line if you picked and chose?” Maschke asked.
1. What criminal record did David Bennett Sr. have?| A．He repeatedly stabbed a young man, Edward Shumaker, to death. |
| B．He repeatedly stabbed a young man, Edward Shumaker, to being paralyzed. |
| C．That David Bennett Sr. received a pig’s heart disobeyed the conventional medical procedure. |
| D．That David Bennett Sr. received a pig’s heart disobeyed a long-existing standard in medical ethics. |
| A．Skeptical | B．Disapproving. | C．Impartial. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Patients with criminal records are disqualified from getting cutting edge medical procedures. |
| B．Imprisoned people can’t receive high-tech medical procedures. |
| C．Physicians shouldn’t provide lifesaving care to those who have unsettling histories. |
| D．People with COVID who chose not to get vaccinated could also receive pioneering medical treatment. |
| A．David Bennett Sr. received a pig’s heart transplant successfully. |
| B．David Bennett Sr. has no right to get high-tech medical procedures. |
| C．A patient with a violent criminal record got a breakthrough heart transplant. |
| D．Health care providers shouldn’t treat patients who have criminal records. |
【推荐1】Mobile technology impacts all areas of our lives today. The early mobile phones, often referred to as 0G mobile phones, led to the phones used now which rely on 4G or 5G mobile technology. The mobile revolution has enabled global communities to form, but there are concerns too, the impact of which we look at here.
The mobile revolution has seen all of us spend more time online than ever before. Whether catching up with family, shopping, doing research, watching movies or gaming, all of these are now all possible at any time, wherever we are.
Nowadays, almost all businesses offer mobile-accessible sites for smartphones and tablets. Whether you are placing an order for a new pair of jeans, researching the best financial advisor or wanting to play a casino game on the move like blackjack mobile, it is really easy to do all of these.
Since the launch of social media in 1997 with Six Degrees, which allowed users to upload a profile and make friends with other users, there are now many other social media platforms like Facebook (2004).
Mobile technology means that we have access to information at our fingertips, wherever we are. “Google is your friend” is now listed in urban dictionaries, showing how many of us search for instant answers without doing more than pull out our phones or ask Alexa.
The mobile revolution has also seen a rise in fitness devices worn on the wrist. Not only recording lap times, fitness devices can also monitor pulse rates, blood pressure and sleeping patterns.
| A．The impact is not all positive. |
| B．They have a number of functions. |
| C．What’s more, it is very popular with young people. |
| D．Besides, app technology makes the searching simple. |
| E．You can begin a game at home and continue it on the bus or train. |
| F．They can even offer instant health feedback and recommendations. |
| G．They give us real-time access into the lives of friends, family, celebrities and businesses. |
【推荐2】A new kind of solar panel, developed at the University of Michigan, has achieved high efficiency in transforming water into hydrogen and oxygen — imitating a crucial step in natural photosynthesis(光合作用). The outdoor version of the experiment, with less reliable sunlight and temperature, achieved 6.1% efficiency at turning the energy from the sun into hydrogen fuel. However, indoors, the system achieved 9% efficiency.
But the biggest benefit is driving down the cost of sustainable hydrogen. This is enabled by reducing the size of the semiconductor(半导体), typically the most expensive part of the device. The team’s self-healing semiconductor withstands concentrated light equivalent to 160 suns.
“We believe that artificial photosynthesis devices will be much more efficient than natural photosynthesis, which will provide a path toward carbon neutrality,” said Zetian Mi, U-M professor of electrical and computer engineering who led the study reported in Nature.
One major advance of the new technology is the ability to concentrate the sunlight without destroying the semiconductor that traps the light. “We reduced the size of the semiconductor by more than 100 times compared to some semiconductors only working at low light intensity,” said Peng Zhou, U-M research fellow in electrical and computer engineering and first author of the study. “Hydrogen produced by our technology could be very cheap.”
The next challenges the team intends to tackle are to further improve the efficiency and to achieve superhigh purity hydrogen that can be directly fed into fuel cells.
1. What leads to the lower cost of sustainable hydrogen?| A．Solar energy. | B．Smaller semiconductors. |
| C．Natural photosynthesis. | D．More concentrated light. |
| A．To introduce a greener lifestyle. | B．To promote its commercial value. |
| C．To state its technical breakthrough. | D．To advertise the potential application. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Negative | C．Objective | D．Suspicious |
| A．A New Trend in Water Usage | B．The Future of Sustainable Hydrogen |
| C．Solar Energy: More Efficient, Greener | D．A New Device for Cheaper Hydrogen |
【推荐3】Would you consider having a chip implanted (植入) in your brain? You may not have a clear answer yet. But US tech businessman Elon Musk, is one step closer to bringing this to reality.
In a demonstration, Musk showed a pig named Gertrude that had a coin-sized chip implanted in her brain two months ago. The chip was developed by Musk's company, Neuralink. Though tiny, the chip has over 3,000 electrodes (电极) tied to flexible threads, which can monitor about 1,000 neurons (神经元). It can collect neural signals from Gertrude's brain, and send those signals wirelessly to nearby computers. In this way, Gertrude's brain activity can be monitored in real time.
Though this technology is still in its early stage, it is encouraging for humans. If the device can be applied to humans, it could rebuild arm or leg function, solve problems with eyesight and hearing, and help with diseases like Parkinson's, the company says.
Maybe one day a microchip can “go into the skull (头盖骨) and would replace a piece of skull”, Musk said. He also noted that the process of implanting the chip will not require general anesthesia (麻醉) and he hopes that a robot will “do the operation" in an hour.
Though the device could solve many problems, there are a lot of technological challenges ahead. Now, the chip can transmit signals from about 500 neurons in the pig's brain. Compared to 80 billion neurons in a human brain, this number is tiny. And the electrodes need to be much smaller if the whole human brain should be covered. Also, there is a risk of the immune system attacking this foreign body.
1. What do we know about Musk's microchip according to the first three paragraphs?| A．It has no more than 1,000 electrodes. |
| B．It is able to collect wireless signals. |
| C．It allows Gertrude to control digital devices. |
| D．It is tiny in size but powerful in function. |
| A．It could serve as a cure for Parkinson's. |
| B．It could fix hearing and limb problems. |
| C．It could solve problems with the skull. |
| D．It could replace anesthesia in an operation. |
| A．Potential problems in applying the microchip to humans. |
| B．Key differences between pigs' brains and humans' brains. |
| C．How the immune system is a major problem to the implant. |
| D．The measures to prevent harmful uses of the microchip implant. |
【推荐1】Flash droughts (突发性干旱) develop fast, and when they hit at the wrong time, they can ruin a region’s agriculture. They are also becoming increasingly common as the planet warms. In a study published in the journal Communication Earth &Environment, we found that the risk of flash droughts, which can develop in a few weeks, is on pace to rise in every major agricultural region around the world in the coming decades.
In North America and Europe, cropland that had a 32% annual chance of a flash drought a few years ago could have a greater chance of a flash drought by the final decades of this century. That result would put food production, energy, and water supplies under increasing pressure. The cost of ravage will also rise. A flash drought in the Dakotas and Montana in 2017 caused $2.6 billion in agricultural damage in America alone.
All droughts begin when rainfall stops. What’s interesting about flash droughts is how fast they reinforce themselves, with some help from the warming climate. When the weather is hot and dry, soil loses water rapidly. Dry air extracts moisture from the land, and rising temperature can increase this evaporative demand. The lack of rain during a flash drought can further contribute to the feedback processes. Under these conditions, crops and vegetation begin to die much more quickly than they do during typical long-term droughts.
In our study, we used climate models and data from the past 170 years to assess the drought risks ahead under three conditions for how quickly the world takes action to slow the pace of global warming. If greenhouse gas emissions (排放物) from vehicles, power plants, and other human sources continue at a high rate, we found that cropland in much of North America and Europe would have a 53% annual chance of flash droughts, respectively, by the final decades of this century. Globally, the largest projected increases in flash droughts would be in Europe and the Amazon. Slowing emissions can reduce the risk significantly, but we found flash droughts would still increase by about 6% worldwide under low-emission conditions.
1. Why is the flash drought a concern?| A．It often develops and strikes unexpectedly. | B．It does go hand in hand with rainfall. |
| C．It can be destructive to regional agriculture. | D．Its chance has increased dramatically. |
| A．Control. | B．Assessment. | C．Production. | D．Damage. |
| A．The constant rainfall. | B．The increasing food demand. |
| C．The warming planet. | D．The fast pace of modern life. |
| A．To cut down on carbon footprint. | B．To evaluate the risks regularly. |
| C．To study climate models and data. | D．To monitor weather condition. |
【推荐2】When Americans think of the lunch menu at their childhood school cafeterias, they probably imagine a shapeless, tasteless pile of mystery meat – plus some brown much（糊状物）,to match. But for children in Japan, school lunches are a rich experience where culture, nutrition and sustainability collide.
“Japan’s standpoint is that school lunches are a part of education, not a break from it,” Masahiro Oji, a government director of school health education in Japan, told The Washington Post.
Fare offered at schools in Japan is affordable, fresh, and made by the students themselves. And Japanese children don’t just eat the food they prepare; they learn about the nutritional and cultural elements of their meals, too. The food is grown locally and includes a balanced menu of rice, vegetable, fish and soups. As a bonus, each meal costs just $2.50.
“Parents hear their kids talking about what they had for lunch,” Tatsuji Shino, the principal at Umejima Elementary School in Tokyo, told The Washington Post, “and kids ask them to re-create the meals at home.”
Japanese students also learn cooperation and etiquette（礼仪）as they serve and clean up after each other. Mealtime is a scene of communal duty: In both elementary and middle schools, students in white coats and caps serve their classmates. Children eat in their classrooms. They get identical meals, and if they leave food untouched, they are out of luck: Their schools have no vending machines. Children in most districts are barred from bringing food to school, either, until they reach high school.
Considering the fact that Japan has one of the world’s lowest childhood obesity rates, the U.S. probably has a lot to learn from this country’s school lunches. A 2011 study found that American students who regularly ate the school lunch – where options include pizza, chicken tenders（炸鸡柳）and French fries – were 29 percent more likely to be obese than those who brought lunch from home.
1. According to the article, which word best describes what Americans think of their lunch at school?| A．Tasty. | B．Ordinary. |
| C．Disgusting. | D．Unique. |
| A．food | B．breakfast |
| C．drinks | D．price |
| A．To allow students to learn cooperation. |
| B．To teach students some basic life skills. |
| C．To let students learn about nutritional values of foods. |
| D．To inspire students to share their food with others. |
| A．Japan has the lowest rate of obesity in the world. |
| B．Japanese schools lay great emphasis on cooperation and etiquette. |
| C．American school children don’t bring homemade lunches. |
| D．Students in Japan are healthier in every way than those in America. |
【推荐3】You’ll boost your brainpower if you brave the unknown, says our memory expert, Jonathan Hancock.
There’s a lot to cope with when you go off to university, and the academic work is just the start. There are new friends to meet, new opportunities to choose between, new responsibilities to accept... and, for most students, a completely new city to explore.
We recently drove our daughter Evie 150 miles to start life as a fresher. It was a struggle to find the car park, let alone navigate the maze of corridors that led to her room. Before we left that evening, we’d taken her to the local supermarket, and we knew that she had flatmates and phone apps to get her orientated. But the scale of the challenge ahead was clear — to find her way in an unfamiliar world.
The good news for Evie — and learners everywhere is that exploring new habitats is hugely beneficial to memory. In a recent study, volunteers walked around a simulated forest environment. Then some of them took the same walk again, while others explored a different forest. And that second group performed significantly better in memory tests straight after. According to the researchers, that was because navigating the new environment stimulated their dopamine (多巴胺) systems-setting up their brains for learning.
So leaving home to study for a degree makes perfect sense. What’s more, young minds seem to gain most from being in strange surroundings. But we may all be able to gain some of the benefits, even if it’s just by stimulating our senses and challenging our thinking skills. Here are three things to try:
(1) Go somewhere new to tackle an upcoming learning task—like memorizing a speech in the library or revising for an exam on a park bench — and take an unfamiliar route to get there.
(2) Play video games that get you moving through new landscapes. Then see whether it improves your success with other learning tasks, like practising a dance or mastering phrases for a foreign trip.
(3) Get lost in your imagination! To warm yourself up for learning, picture a city you know well, but imagine you’re stranded in a part of it that you’ve never visited. Then try to fancy exactly how you’ll get out.
1. What happened when they sent their daughter to her school according to Paragraph 3?| A．They found a park for all their efforts. | B．They were new to the surroundings. |
| C．They got lost in the maze of corridors. | D．They had no phone apps to rely on. |
| A．Taking an unfamiliar route to go home. |
| B．Playing some video games that help you explore new surroundings. |
| C．Getting addicted to playing video games before revising for the exam. |
| D．Imagining yourself getting out of a new city before memorizing a speech. |
| A．Because their dopamine systems were activated. |
| B．Because they entered the same environment twice. |
| C．Because they had flatmates and phone apps to help them. |
| D．Because they walked around a simulated forest environment. |
| A．The need for finding parking spaces in unfamiliar cities. |
| B．The impact of exploring a new environment on our minds. |
| C．The benefits of playing video games for improving learning tasks. |
| D．The significance of picturing familiar cities for memory enhancement. |
