【推荐1】With an eye on urbanization, population growth and efficiency, tiny spaces were a big theme at this summer’s Dwell on Design conference in Los Angeles. Designers from around the world proudly presented housing and products for living small – from transformable furniture to 3D printed interior objects.     1    Urban housing supplies are already straining (紧张) worldwide with 54% of the global population of 7.2 billion living in cities, according to the United Nation’s World Urbanization Prospects 2014 report. By 2050, that number is expected to rise to 6.33 billion, or 66% of a forecasted world population of 9.6 billion.

In North America, about 82% of the total population – roughly 473.8 million people – lives in urban areas.    2    Many of the new units being built are getting smaller and smaller, challenging municipal(市政的) housing codes and zoning regulations.

Micro-apartments tricked out with scaled-down, adaptable furniture and decor could make urban living more compatible (兼容的) with the way people increasingly live now – and help cities as they attempt to absorb more people in the future. The challenges include how to do so affordably, comfortably and with enough privacy to make these spaces homes as well as housing.

Re-thinking the toilet

The greater Tokyo area is the world’s most densely populated metropolitan region with some 38 million residents packed into about 5,200 sq miles.    3    TOTO, the Japanese bathroom fixtures and plumbing company, showcased micro-toilet design for bathrooms as small as 9 sq feet (0.84 meters) at the Dwell on Design conference.

The design also carries the EPA WaterSense label, averaging a lean 1 gallon per flush. This “saves a family of four more than $90 annually on their water bill, and $2,000 over the lifetime of the toilet”, said TOTO USA’s Lenora Campos.

Convertible furniture re-imagined

To furnish a micro-apartment comfortably, Resource Furniture has re-imagined the old Murphy beds and folding tables with sophisticated book shelves, desks and sofas that can convert into beds. Drawers pull out from under stairs.    4    

A．A sleeping layer might include a platform bed with a desk or closet space underneath, for example.

B．There’s a very fixed idea of what an apartment needs to be and who you expect to live in the unit will affect the design.

C．Often their strategies sought to reduce the human footprint on the environment and save energy.

D．So small sinks and showers are nothing new in compact Japanese bathrooms.

E．Storage space is cleverly hidden within walls and pushed up to ceilings.

F．The number of single-person households is rising, although housing has not kept pace with demographic change.

【推荐3】While Huawei’s official website does not call Mate 60 Pro a 5G smartphone, the phone’s wideband capabilities are on par with other 5G smartphones, raising a related question: As a leader in 5G technology, has Huawei managed to develop a 5G smartphone on its own?

The answer is not simple. Huawei, as a pioneer in global 5G communication equipment, has played a leading role in the commercialization of 5G technology, with its strong system design and fields such as baseband chips (基带芯片), baseband processors and 5G modems.

However, basebands and modems are not the only aspects that define 5G wireless communication. The stability and high-quality signals of a 5G smartphone also depend on other critical components such as RF transceivers (射频收发器) and RF front ends and antennas (天线) . These components are largely dominated by four US high-tech giants—Qualcomm, Avago Technologies, Ansem and Qorvo—which account for a surprising global market share.

Huawei has faced significant challenges in getting critical components because of the sanctions imposed by the United States which are primarily responsible for the inability of the Chinese company to launch 5G smartphones in the past three years. However, Mate 60 Pro, despite not being labeled a 5G device, exhibits mobile network speeds comparable to Apple’s latest 5G-enabled devices, offering a stable communication experience. This suggests Huawei has, over the past three years, overcome the 5G development and production limits due to the US sanctions by cooperating with domestic partners, and establishing an independent and controllable stable supply chain.

Considering that Huawei has not explicitly marketed this device as a 5G smartphone, it is possible that it is yet to fully overcome some key core technological and componential shortcomings. For the time being, we can consider Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro as 4.99G. But when combined with the satellite communication capabilities of Mate 60 Pro, it is clear Huawei has been trying to find more advanced wireless communication solutions for smartphones and making significant progress in this attempt. This should be recognized as a remarkable endeavor, even a breakthrough.

1. What do the underlined words “on par with” mean in Paragraph 1?

A．as poor as.

B．as good as.

C．worse than.

D．better than.

2. Why was it tough for Huawei to develop a 5G smartphone three years ago?

A．Its system design and fields needed to be updated.

B．It only focused on the commercialization of 5G technology.

C．It was unwilling to cooperate with high-tech giants in America.

D．It lacked critical components mainly controlled by US high-tech giants.

3. What does Paragraph 4 centre on?

A．The US sanctions.	B．Critical components.
C．Apple’s latest 5G-enabled devices.	D．Progress in Mate 60 Pro.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Huawei faced with significant challenges

B．Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro—a 5G smartphone

C．Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro—a remarkable breakthrough

D．Huawei leading in global 5G communication equipment

【推荐1】Scientists have built a bacterium that contains the minimal（最小的）genetic ingredients needed for free living. This bacterium's entire set of genetic blueprints, its genome（基因组）, consists of only 473 genes, including 149 whose precise biological function is unknown. The newly-created bacterium contains a minimalist version of the genome of Mycoplasma mycoides （丝状支原体）.Mycoplasmas have already had some of the smallest known genomes.

In 2010, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, Calif, created the entire genome of M. mycoides and popped it into a cell of a different species, Mycoplasma capricolum （山羊支原体）, creating what some people called the first synthetic（合成的）organism. The new work strips the M.mycoides genome down to its essential elements before transplanting it to the M. capricolum shell, producing a minimal bacterium called syn3.0. Researchers hope syn3.0's genome will teach them more about the basics of biology. Such minimal genome bacteria also may be helpful to build custom-made microbes（微生物）for producing drugs or chemicals.

J. Craig Venter, founder of the nonprofit institute, and a team of researchers there led by Clyde Hutchison III and Daniel Gibson initially set out to design an organism based on a core set of about 300 genes that researchers guessed a microbe would need to survive on its own. But when the researchers tried to bring their computer creations to life, "every one of our designs failed, "Venter said. About 32 percent of the genetic ingredients ultimately needed to cook up even a simple organism were left out of the initial recipe because the researchers didn't know what the genes did and didn't understand their importance. Once those genes were mixed back, the bacteria sprung to life.

"I think we're showing how complex life is in even the simplest of organisms, "Venter said. "These findings are very humbling "because they show that researchers still don't fully understand even the minimal requirements for life. Other researchers have attempted to make minimal genomes by stripping away one gene at a time. But the Venter group built their lean microbe from the ground up. Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist at Stanford University, is among several scientists applauding the approach. "Only when you try to build something do you find out what's truly required. Too often in biology we end up with only data or a just-so story ."Endy said in an e-mail.

At first, the genome didn't work. Some genes that appeared to be nonessential for life are really requirements, the researchers discovered. Those genes tended to have redundant functions with another gene. Researchers could remove one of those genes, but not both at the same time, just as knocking out one engine on a twin-engine jet will keep the plane airborne, but disabling both engines will lead to a crash, says                           Gibson.

1. According to the passage, syn3.0 ________.

A．is the basics of biology

B．was taken from the M. mycoides

C．has been used to produce drugs and chemicals

D．was the result of the first synthetic organism

2. According to Venter, the researchers failed in all their attempts to design an organism because ________.

A．there was something wrong with the computer program

B．they excluded many genes essential to the organism

C．they overestimated the function of each gene involved

D．there were changes in the DNA code during the experiment

3. What was Drew Endy's attitude towards Venter group's idea for making minimal genomes?

A．Supportive.

B．Uninterested.

C．Cautious.

D．Doubtful.

4. What does the underlined word "redundant" mean?

A．Controversial.

B．Unexpected.

C．Unnecessary.

D．Contradictory.