Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered a new way of gaining the sun’s energy. A team from MIT has created a new technique of using a kind of special windows with chemical dyes (化学染料). The dyes help catch the light from the sun and send it to a special place in the window and then change the light into energy. The scientists say this discovery could change buildings into energy plants. It could even one day mean that the windows in our houses could provide power for our homes. The scientists say their dyes can produce ten times more power than the traditional solar (太阳的) board used around the world today. They also say that this clean and new energy technology could be available (可用的) within the next three years.
The idea was first developed in the 1970s but was given up. Scientists then found that too much of the collected sunlight failed to reach the places on the edges of (在……边上) the windows. Then the MIT engineers thought out the idea of using colored dyes to stop the light from escaping. At the same time, their method only requires cells (电池) around the edges of the windows. MIT’s Professor Baldo explained, “This special glass would let through about 10 percent of the sun to light up the room, and the left would be caught and used to create electricity for other fields. It would look like smoked glass because of the dyes.” He says the new technology could help fight environment change.
1. We can learn from the text that the dyes ______.| A．could also be used to get energy from plants |
| B．produce more energy than the traditional board |
| C．catch more light from the sun in the daytime |
| D．keep the light in the windows for longer time |
| A．It can be used to heat the room in winter. |
| B．It can be used to make the room colorful. |
| C．It saves people a large amount of money. |
| D．It is clean and good for the environment. |
| A．To show the importance of protecting the environment. |
| B．To encourage people to fix this special window. |
| C．To explain how to use this special window. |
| D．To introduce a new energy technique. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Have you ever lost something in a hard-to-reach space, like behind a sofa or under the bed? Wouldn’t it be nice to just squeeze (挤) in and out to get it? New robots will soon make this happen.
In a study, scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Carnegie Mellon University in the US have invented small robots that can quickly change into liquid (液体) states. They melted (熔化) into liquid and managed to get out of a locked cage (笼子) during the tests, shocking the whole scientific community.
According to the website Mashable, the scientists got the idea from sea cucumbers (海参), which can change the softness of their bodies and easily enter any place .The robots in the study were made from a soft metal, which has a low melting point of only 30°C.The scientists firstly place the robot in a magnetic field (磁场). Thanks to the magnetic field, the robot can then be heated into a liquid form, allowing it to enter some hard-to-reach places. After that, by controlling the strength or direction of the magnetic field, the robot can be moved around in a controlled manner.
Hopefully, these liquid robots can be widely used in different fields and will not disappoint us. They can help take out a foreign object from a model human stomach. Scientists can use them to repair a TV set by squeezing them into hard-to-reach areas inside the TV set. To prevent humans from being harmed, these robots can perform dangerous tasks in hard-to-reach environments, such as cleaning in nuclear power plants (核能发电).
“What we’re showing are just ideas that need to be developed further,“ said Carmel Majidi of Carnegie Mellon University. “The goal of our future research is to put these liquid robots to use in real-life situations more quickly. We are very confident about achieving this goal.”
1. The writer started the passage by .| A．asking questions | B．telling stories |
| C．giving examples | D．comparing facts |
a. It is heated into a liquid form.
b. It is put in a magnetic field.
c. The magnetic field is used to move robots.
d. It enters some hard-to-reach places.
| A．a-c-d-b | B．b-a-d-c | C．a-b-c-d | D．d-b-a-c |
| A．Why scientists invented liquid robots | B．How liquid robots work in a magnetic field |
| C．Where small liquid robots are invented | D．What liquid robots can do now and in the future |
| A．disappointed | B．humorous | C．angry | D．confident |
【推荐2】Beijing is hardly alone in its air pollution problems. The world Health Organization has said that roughly half of the world’s urban population is exposed to pollution at least 2.5 times higher than it recommends.
While it may take years to fix this global problem, innovative minds in the Asia region have come up with creative solutions for living with air pollution.
DIY Purifier
Thomas Talhelm started worrying about the air inside his Beijing home during “airpocalypse” in 2013 when Beijing’s air quality index skyrocketed to a terrifying 755.
The scholar couldn’t afford the luxury of an expensive air purifier. “Fillers are actually very simple— a high efficient filter is all you need to get over 96% of the PM2.5,” he said.
With three of his friends, Talhelm created Smart Air, an air purifier consisting of a basic household fan with a high efficient filter attached to it.
It works as efficiently as the big brands selling for thousands of dollars, removing more than 90 percent of PM 2.5 in your room, according to Talhelm’s research.
Invisible Mask
Infipure’s “nose mask” claims to cut 99% of PM2.5 without the trouble of a surgical face mask.
The filters, made from special materials, are inserted into your nose and aim to be undetectable.
“People care about their health, but don’t want all the downsides that come with a traditional face mask.” Infipure co-founder Francis Law explained.
Plant Backpack
Taiwanese artist Chui Chih has designed a survival device for an apocalyptic world.
Named Voyage on the Planet, a potted plant is housed inside a clear backpack hooked up to two tubes to bring fresh to a face mask. It’s a bold, abstract idea from an oxygen tank.
Smog Vacuum
Daan Roosegaarde has been working on a smog vacuum that will suck pollutants from the sky to the ground like a vacuum, making way for clean air.
A byproduct of this smog vacuum, namely The Smog Free Tower, is the “smog ring”—a piece of jewelry made from smog particulates.
“The pollution we suck up, the small particulates, we don’t throw them away. We put them under pressure for a couple of weeks and they crystallize, creating something like a diamond,” Roosegaardc explains.
1. Thomas Talhelm invented Smart Air for all the following reasons except ________.| A．the high price of the big brands | B．the help from three of his friends |
| C．the poor quality of the indoor air | D．the simple principle behind the device |
| A．Smart Air. | B．Infipure’s nose mask. |
| C．Voyage on the Planet. | D．The Smog Free Tower. |
| A．DIY Purifier. | B．Invisible Mask. | C．Plant Backpack. | D．Smog Vacuum. |
【推荐3】Have you ever thrown together stuff you had on hand and were pleasantly surprised when it tasted good? You aren’t alone. Here’s a menu of some familiar foods that never would have happened if someone hadn’t created them by mistake.
ICE CREAM CONE(圆锥形)
Before the ice cream cone, people ate their ice cream out of dishes or paper containers. This changed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. A seller ran out of dishes to serve his ice cream. Luckily, Ernest A. Hamwi, a quick-thinking seller nearby, rolled his waffle-like pastries (糕点) into a cone shape. The ice cream seller filled it with ice cream for his customers. He was able to continue selling ice cream, and customers got a second treat when they realized they could eat the cone.
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
In 1930, Ruth Graves Wakefield was running the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts. One day, Ruth mistook baker’s chocolate for semi-sweet chocolate and added the pieces to the dough(面团). Unexpectedly, the chocolate pieces stay the same inside the cookie instead of melting. Then the chocolate chip cookie was born.
POTATO CHIPS
In 1853, a man was eating dinner at Moon’s Lake House, New York. He ordered fried potatoes. But when they came out, he wasn’t satisfied. He sent them back to the kitchen, where Chef George Crum was so angry about it that he sliced the potatoes really thin, put much salt on them, and fried them. Not only did the diner love them, but they soon became popular.
TOFU
Tofu, or bean curd, is made by curdling fresh soya milk, pressing it into a block, and then cooling it. Tofu was accidentally invented in China 2,000 years ago, when a cook added seaweed to soy milk. This is the same process that is used for making cheese. Like cheese, tofu is a great example of creating something unexpectedly good.
1. What do these foods have in common?| A．They are made of unusual material. |
| B．They were created by accident. |
| C．They have their origins in the same region. |
| D．They require complex cooking steps. |
| A．Ice cream cone. | B．Chocolate chip cookies. |
| C．Potato chips. | D．Tofu. |
| A．Customers got another ice cream free of charge if they ate the cone. |
| B．Hamwi turned his pastries into a cone shape to draw customers’ attention. |
| C．George served potato chips to the picky customer hoping he would love it. |
| D．Seaweed needs to be added in order to make cheese. |
【推荐1】Whether you call them feral pigs, boar, swine, hogs, or even razorbacks, wild pigs are one of the most damaging invasive species on Earth, and they’re infamous for damaging agriculture and native wildlife.
A big reason they’re so harmful is that they uproot soil at vast scales, like tractors ploughing a field. Our new research, published recently, is the first to calculate the global extent of this and its effects on carbon emissions.
Our findings were horrible. We discovered the total area of soil uprooted by wild pigs is likely the same area as Switzerland. This releases 4.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year the same as one million cars. The majority of these emissions occur in Oceania. A huge portion of Earth’s carbon is stored in soil, so releasing even a small part of this into the atmosphere can have a huge impact on climate change.
It’s estimated that wild pigs destroy more than US$74 million worth of crops and grass each year in Australia, and more than US $270 million in just 12 states in the USA. Wild pigs have also been found to directly threaten 672 vertebrates (脊椎动物) and plant species across 54 different countries. This includes Australian ground frogs, tree frogs and multiple orchid species which are imperiled, as pigs destroy their habitats and hunt them for food.
Their geographic range is expected to expand in the coming decades, suggesting their threats to food security and biodiversity will likely worsen. But here, let’s focus on their contribution to global emissions.
One such study was conducted for three years in hardwood forests of Switzerland. The researchers found wild pigs caused soil carbon emissions to increase by around 23% per year. Similarly, a study in the Jigong Mountains National Nature Reserve in China found soil emissions increased by more than 70% per year in places disturbed by wild pigs.
1. Why are wild pigs unpopular according to the text?| A．For their threat to humans. | B．For their damaging effects. |
| C．For their consuming too much food. | D．For their bad effects on tractors. |
| A．Leading to dry and acid soil. |
| B．Damaging the source of drinking water. |
| C．Increasing too much soil carbon emissions. |
| D．Reducing the area of agricultural land greatly. |
| A．In pain. | B．In alarm. | C．In chaos. | D．In danger. |
| A．The threat of wild pigs |
| B．Wild pigs on a global scale |
| C．A new problem faced by farmers |
| D．The impact of emissions on climate change |
【推荐2】Online secondhand store thredUP has shown its tenth yearly Resale Report, which shows that the secondhand clothing industry is growing rapidly in the United States, as well as around the world. The secondhand market in the US is expected to more than double by 2026.
When choosing what to buy, people are increasingly experienced in what can be resold. More than one-fifth of Generation Z shoppers say they’ll pay more for the clothes that they know they can resell, and more than half of them resold clothes last year.
This is a much healthier opinion than storing out-of-style or ill-fitting clothes in a closet (衣柜). As resale becomes easier thanks to mobile technology and online stores, increasing numbers of customers hope to turnover their closets. This helps the industry and keeps the market full of fresh finds, bringing people back for more.
Buying or selling things secondhand helps to reduce people’s worry about the environment. As thredUP reported in 2021, buying or selling things secondhand reduces a product’s carbon Footprint (碳排放量) by 82%. It requires far less water to produce. Besides, it’s a good way to save money.
Aja Barber said in her book: “Clothing is produced at a fast speed, so it is important that resale become a key part of people’s lifestyles. Accepting reuse is not always easy when we are faced with many choices — many of which encourage the buying of cheap, single-use clothes-but the rise of online resale is enabling people to make different choices and do so with pride and joy.”
It’s great to hear that resale is being accepted by more people, which can help us save money while protecting our planet.
1. What can we say about secondhand clothing according to the report?| A．It is a fast-growing industry. | B．It makes the market full of anxiety. |
| C．It is accepted by most people. | D．It is more comfortable than new clothing. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Worried. | C．Doubtful. | D．Supportive. |
| A．The dangers of carbon footprint. | B．The ways of reducing people’s worry. |
| C．The advantages of buying used clothes. | D．The causes of environmental problems. |
| A．The clothing industry causes a lot of waste. |
| B．Online resale is changing people’s shopping habits |
| C．People are confused when faced with many choices. |
| D．Dressing styles are closely connected with social life |
【推荐3】Recycling is a way to take rubbish and turn it into new products. It’s helpful to our environment. There are a number of different recycling steps that allow materials to be used more than once.
All kinds of materials can be recycled. Some of the most common things in use today include recycling plastic, glass, metals and paper. Things made of these materials include soda cans, plastic milk boxes, newspapers, computers and cardboard boxes.
There are a number of advantages for recycling. These include: Landfills—Recycling materials means less rubbish and saves space in landfills. Resources—When we use materials again, this means we can take fewer resources from the earth. Pollution—in general, recycling materials can produce less pollution, helping to keep our environment clean.
Be sure to recycle everything you can in your house and school. There is almost a “recycle” rubbish can around. Be sure to drop your used aluminum (铝) cans and plastic bottles there. At home, be sure to put paper things like the newspapers, paper boxes, and homework pages into the recycling box.
Plastics are usually marked with an identification code that shows a recycling symbol and a number from 1 to 7. This shows that the type of chemicals or materials is used in making the plastic. Used paper can be recycled around seven times.
It is high time we set up a recycling station in every street, across the city and the country, so the cleaners can transport the rubbish smoothly. This is the only way out for handling rubbish without causing danger to the environment and our health. For ourselves, our children and our children’s children, let’s take action NOW!
1. From the first paragraph, we know that ________.| A．we can make more money from recycling | B．recycling is helpful to our environment |
| C．recycling is common and popular | D．there is too much rubbish around us |
| A．less rubbish | B．more space | C．less pollution | D．much waste |
| A．Paper. | B．Plastics. | C．Glass. | D．Metal |
| A．处理 | B．生产 | C．收购 | D．变卖 |
| A．We should recycle everything in our daily life. | B．Many resources can be saved by recycling. |
| C．We should take action to recycle rubbish. | D．Recycling stations should be set up in the street. |
