Whatever happened to the fight of carbon capture?
Debates have been going on around the subject of carbon capture. Scientists, especially engineers and geologists, have strongly criticized green groups who claimed that carbon capture and storage (CCS) schemes are costly mistakes.
The scientists insisted that such schemes are vital weapons in the battle against global heating. They also wan that failure to set up ways to trap and store carbon would make it impossible to meet the emissions target by 2050.“CCS is going to be the only effective way in the short term to prevent our steel industry, cement manufacture and many other processes from continuing to pour emissions into the atmosphere,” said Professor Stuart Haszeldine, of Edinburgh University. “If we are to have any hope of keeping global temperature increases down below 2 degrees Celsius, we desperately need to develop ways to capture and store carbon dioxide.”
Green groups claimed CCS would not make “a meaningful contribution to 2050 climate targets”. They say CCS was not a reliable way to decarbonize the energy system and that CCS has a “history of over-promising and under-delivering”. Instead, they urged the construction of more renewable energy plants to be given priority.
But the claims were dismissed by engineers and geologists, “These claims are quite unfair” said Michael Stephenson, director at the British Geological Survey. “The technology behind carbon capture and storage is fully mature. It offers us a genuine solution to some of the problems we face in trying to deal with global warming.”
A government spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said, “We are committed to meeting our climate change targets in a way that is affordable and provides secure energy to families and businesses. We are considering the role that CCS could play in decarbonization of the UK. But we also need to take government spending into account. CCS had better come down in cost.”
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Wearable technology can reportedly tell you a lot more than just the number of calories you’re burning or how many steps you’ve walked… That clever smartwatch can actually tell that you’re about to get a cold, days before you start feeling poorly. As New Scientist reports, researchers at Stanford University in California have discovered that wearable tech can now detect when you’re about to fall prey to (感染) a frightening winter bug, simply by tracking your vital statistics.
After monitoring 40 smartwatch users for up to two years, the team has demonstrated that the devices can be used to detect the first signs of coming illness. The participants’ pulse and skin temperature were continuously monitored throughout the period, with the scientists noting that their smartwatches recorded unusually higher heart rates and skin temperatures up to three days before the volunteers began displaying symptoms of cold or flu.
Study leader Michael Snynder said: “Once these wearables collect enough data to know what your normal baseline readings are, they can get very good at sensing when something goes wrong. We think that if your heart rate and skin temperature are elevated for about two hours, there’s a strong chance you’re getting sick.” “Continuous tracking of your vital signs is more informative than having a doctor measure them once a year and comparing them with population averages,” he added.
The team now hopes to create an algorithm (算法) that will let smartwatches notify you when you’re about to get sick. Well, at least that might give us the chance to stock up on vitamins and wrap up warm before the germ attacks!
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请根据下面的图片，结合你个人的经历，谈谈你的想法。
Should Our Societies Go Cashless?
The rise of contactless payment and digital wallets is making cash useless in a lot of cities. In fact, those who are still used to paying with “real” cash would feel like aliens in Sweden. While the Nordic country is still singled out as a rarity for taking the cashless route, it won't be long before more countries join it by venturing down the same path.
One of the biggest benefits of getting rid of cash is the elimination of its anonymity (匿名性). Cash plays a major role in the crime world, which makes going cashless a more transparent (透明的) alternative. Since all digital transactions leave a record behind, anyone with an interest in learning about the cash flow of a business or individual could easily trace where the money came from.
There is another benefit to cashless societies: there no longer needs to be an intermediary to pay extra fees. Today, banks and financial institutions are necessary for supporting the whole wealth system. For those services, intermediaries charge predefined fees that are always paid by the customers.
However, we should not rush into things. A completely digital system would leave a lot of people on the outside looking in not just the homeless, but also the elderly who would not know how to deal with cashless systems.
Going cashless also has the issue of trace-ability. In a time where there are major concerns surrounding security and privacy, we have a good reason to worry about how the government is going to be able to protect our money. What's more, the users themselves will have to avoid falling victim to identity theft and online fraud.
These are challenges that won’t be easy to solve. It feels like our best bet is leaving space for the shift to happen naturally. It is the only way to ensure no one is left out as we figure out if people are ready to live in a world with no physical wallets.
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请仔细阅读以下三幅图片《三代农夫》（Three Generations of Farmers）并完成写作。
在写作中，你必须：
1）简要描述三幅图片中的内容；
2）分析其背后所反映的现象及原因；
3) 对你的启示。
Pedestrians only
The concept of traffic-free shopping areas goes back a long time. During the Middle Ages, traffic-free shopping areas were built to allow people to shop in comfort and, more importantly, safety. The modern, traffic-free shopping street was born in Europe in the 1960s, when both city populations and car ownership increased rapidly. Dirty exhaust fumes from cars and the risks involved in crossing the road were beginning to make shopping an unpleasant and dangerous experience. Many believed the time was right for experimenting with car-free streets, and shopping areas seemed the best place to start.
At first, there was resistance from shopkeepers. They believed that such a move would be bad for business. They argued that people would avoid streets if they were unable to get to them in their cars. When the first streets in Europe were closed to traffic, there were even noisy demonstrations, as many shopkeepers predicted they would lose customers.
However, research carried out afterwards in several European cities revealed some unexpected statistics. In Munich, Cologne and Hamburg, visitors to shopping areas increased by 50 percent. On Copenhagen’s main shopping street, shopkeepers reported sales increases of 25-40 percent. Shopkeepers in Minneapolis, USA, were so impressed when they learnt this that they even offered to pay for the construction and maintenance costs of their own traffic-free streets.
With the arrival of the traffic-free shopping street, many shops, especially those selling things like clothes, food and smaller luxury items, prospered. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good news for everyone, as shops selling furniture and larger electrical appliances actually saw their sales drop. Many of these were forced to move elsewhere, away from the city centre. Today they are a common feature on the outskirts of towns and cities, often situated in out-of-town retail zones with their own car parks and other local facilities.
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Tai Chi Can Reduce Falls in Old People
Old people who took part in a structured programme of Tai Chi found that their balance and physical strength improved, reducing the risk of falls, according to a paper in the latest Journal of Advanced Nursing.
Researchers studied a group of fall-prone (易摔跤的) adults, with an average age of 78, living in residential care. 29 people undertook a 12-week Tai Chi programme and the other 30 formed the non-exercise control group. The exercise programme consisted of 10 minutes of warming-up exercises, 20 minutes of Sun-style Tai Chi movement and 5 minutes of cooling down exercises. During the exercise, traditional instrumental music was used. It helped the group maintain slow and continuous movements and provide a comforting effect.
Both groups underwent a series of tests before and after the 12-week exercise programme. They measured their muscle strength, balance and confidence in avoiding falls. Researchers analyzed the data and compared them with those of the non-exercise control group. They found that the physical fitness of the exercise group showed significant improvement, with stronger knee and ankle muscles, improved flexibility and better balance.
Tai Chi, an ancient Chinese martial art (武术), consists of a series of slow, gentle, continuous movements. It is particularly suitable for old people as it helps them to develop stronger muscles and better balance and concentration. “Our study shows that low-intensity exercise such as Tai Chi has great potential for health promotion. It can help old people to avoid falls by developing their balance, muscle strength and confidence,” says Professor Song. “We believe that regular exercise should be a fundamental part of caring for old people living both in the community and in residential care.”
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Virtual Fitness
Exercise plays a very important role in a healthy lifestyle. But you may not have time or money to go to a gym on a regular basis. The good news is that today's technology lets you access fitness classes from the comfort of your home. A quick Internet search will turn up thousands of online fitness classes. You can watch videos on your phone, computer or tablet and do the exercises right where you are. All you need is an Internet connection and a space large enough to move around in.
Online fitness classes take a wide variety of forms. Some focus on stretches and slow movements. Other classes involve fast aerobic activity, while others build muscle strength. Some require equipment such as weights, but others use only your body. This means that you can choose a class that does what you like. And you can try a different one whenever you like.
Anyone can post a fitness video on the Internet. Not everyone knows what they are doing. So it is important to think about who is teaching the class. Try to find teachers who are certified by an organization with a good reputation. I tried some virtual fitness classes several years ago.The reason was simple: convenience. I could do a fitness class at any time of day. I didn't need to travel to a gym and back, which saved me a lot of time. But being able to work out any time meant I kept putting it off. I'd do everything else first and then the day would be over. I’d never actually get around to exercising.
Having to exercise at a definite time means I have to put it on my schedule. So for me, scheduled classes such as those at a gym are helpful.
Anyhow,if the gym isn't for you, you may want to give an online fitness class a try.
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The British psychoanalyst John Bowlby maintains that separation from the parents during the sensitive "attachment" period from birth to three may scar a child's personality and cause emotional problems in later life. Some people have drawn the conclusion from Bowlby's work that children should not receive day care before the age of three because of the parental separation it results in, and many people do believe this. But there are also arguments against such a strong conclusion.
Firstly, authropologists（人类学家）point out that the isQulated love affair between children and parents found in modern societies does not usually exist in traditional societies. For example, we saw earlier that among the Ngoni（恩戈尼人）the father and mother of a child did not raise their infant alone - far from it.
Secondly, common sense tells us that day care would not be so widespread today if parents, caretakers found children had problems with it. Statistical studies of this kind have not yet been carried out, and even if they were, the results would be certain to be complicated and controversial.
Thirdly, in the last decade, there have been a number of careful American studies of children in day care, and they have reported that day care had a slightly positive effect on children's development. But tests that have had to be used to measure this development are not widely enough accepted to settle the issue.
But Bowlby's analysis raises the possibility that early day care has delayed effects. The possibility that such care might lead to, say, more mental illness or crime 15 or 20 years later can only be explored by the use of statistics. Whatever the long-term effects, parents sometimes find the immediate effects difficult to deal with. Children under three are likely to protest at leaving their parents and show unhappiness. At the age of three or three and half almost all children find the transition to nursery easy, and this is undoubtedly why more and more parents make use of child care at this time. The matter, then, is far from clear-cut, though experience and available evidence indicate that early is reasonable for infants.
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The benefits of having a higher education are manifold (多样的) and range from financial to cultural and from common benefits to some unexpected surprises, below you will find a number of reasons which will help to serve as justification for a higher education.
For many high school students, it is hard to imagine what the long-term benefits of a college education might be. College is demanding; the work seems challenging, and meeting all new people seems overwhelming. However, what most young people do not realize is that there is a high likelihood at college that you will find new friends with similar interests and values. You may find yourself developing new interests by getting along with those who have completely different life experiences. An opportunity to get to know your professors can also be counted one of the benefits of having a college education. These intellectuals can be counted on to welcome questions and discussion from students. Therefore, one of the key benefits of a college education is the social bonds created and developed during this unique time in a person’s life.
Besides, the fact that you’ll be building a career for the rest of your life is reason enough to make time for a college education. Indeed, a clear benefit of a college education is that not only will it give you time to better know your likes and dislikes before entering the labor force, it will also enhance the likelihood of a more successful career for you. Many young people are uncertain about a career path at the start of college. This is a time of exploration, and taking the time to explore a variety of college majors is time well spent.
One more justification for higher education could be that it is the best way to enhance yourself in an all-round way. Getting a good education may be the most important price you can pay for your personal advancement, because perhaps more than anything else, what you do with that huge gray material between your ears will determine your future. You never know where your talent could reach. So higher education can provide you with the chance to realize your personal value.
Therefore, never undervalue the benefits of entering a higher education, which surely will bring you something beyond expectation.
