Light the Cities of the Future
A previously unlit cycle path in the Netherlands has recently drawn our attention. It has been resurfaced with a material that consists of thousands of shining stones in order to create a well-lit route. The Van Gogh Path, so called after the artist who lived in the town of Nuenen in 1883, combines the traditional with the contemporary in a gesture that acknowledge ledges Van Gingh’ masterpiece The Starry Night, but also shows the way ahead for city lighting. The Van Gogh Path is not a single case; it is not difficult to foresee a time when natural materials could help light the cities of the future.
Why should we care about city lighting? What’s wrong with current electrical city lighting anyway? Well, the problem that it causes is two-fold. First, of course, electrical lighting in most cities comes from non-renewable resources. According to the International Energy Agency, almost 20% of global electricity is consumed for lighting, which is responsible for high levels of carbon emissions. But there’s also the belief that electrical light itself is a form of pollution by destroying our view of the night sky.
From the above reasons, then, it seems wise to investigate other approaches. The city of Glasgow is attempting to use intelligent street lighting to monitor how citizens interact with the urban landscape and minimize electrical consumption and thus emissions. This “Smart City approach” is seen by many as the way of the future, but some designers aren’t convinced. They are pioneering the altogether more original approach of using materials from the natural world in order to replace electrical light entirely. They believe that this new “technology” can one day completely replace microchips and digital systems as we find better ways of making use of the light-producing mechanisms (制) that already exist in the natural world.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2 . While some say school safety depends on guns, cameras or alarms in classrooms, Mark Gomer and Kristi Schiller think specially trained dogs should play an important role in preventing violence in schools.
Gomer’s for-profit company has sent a gun-and-drug detecting dog to patrol (巡查) the halls of an Ohio high school, while Schiller is launching a nonprofit program in Houston to give schools the trained dogs for free.
Gomer’s first full-time safety dog is a three-year-old Dutch shepherd named Atticus, who is reported to duty this school year at Oak Hills High School in Green Township in southwest Ohio. The dog was trained at the school before the summer break, said Gomer, co-owner of American Success Dog Training in Bridgetown, Ohio. Atticus has won over students, parents, teachers and district Superintendent Todd Yohey, who initially worried what people would think of him spending $10,000 on a dog. Gomer has talked to a lot of parents and faculty, and they are saying it was money well-spent, he said.
For her part Schiller is looking to provide safety dogs to schools free of charge. She hopes her new initiative, program “K9S4KIDS”, does for schools what her program “K9S4COPS” did for police departments. She has placed more than 60 dogs with agencies in three years. “These dogs are extremely social, yet highly qualified warriors that are accustomed to going straight to the source of a threat or shooter and disengaging the suspect armed with the weapon,” said Schiller.
As the programs get up and running, questions remain about possible health problems and distractions the dogs can cause.
A school safety expert said those are concerns parents and schools will have to work out. Ken Trump, president of the Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm, discussed the issue in general because he was not familiar with either program.
He said the dogs would have to be extremely social to deal with students’ initial excitement “Kids are going to like those dogs,” Trump said, “There are concerns to work around, but with the right dogs and right handler and the right policies and procedures, they should be very beneficial. The dog might be a distraction in the beginning, but they will become part of what students expect to see when they go to school.” “There is so much these dogs can do,” said Ted Dahlin, a deputy who serves on the K9S4COPS board of directors. “If I were going to pick a school to make trouble, it would be one that I knew didn’t have a dog.”
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE about Gomer’s program?| A．Atticus is only welcomed by students. |
| B．Atticus is provided to the schools free of charge. |
| C．The main job of Atticus is to patrol a school in Houston. |
| D．Parents and faculty think the money spent on Atticus is worthwhile. |
| A．dogs have a sharp sense of threat and danger |
| B．she is confident that the dogs are helpful in schools |
| C．dogs are a kind of helpful, loyal and qualified animal |
| D．even suspects armed with weapons are afraid of dogs |
| A．believes that dogs can be part of students’ school life |
| B．is a school safety expert supporting one of the programs |
| C．doesn’t approve of students’ attitudes about dogs in schools |
| D．agrees that the concerns outweigh the benefits of the program |
| A．he is not going to make trouble in schools |
| B．having a dog strengthens a school’s safety |
| C．he likes dogs and really wants to have one |
| D．more should be considered for planning a crime |
3 . Nature’s Gigantic Snow Plough
On January 10, 1962, an enormous piece of glacier broke away and collapsed down the side of a mountain in Peru. A mere seven minutes later, when cascading ice finally came to a stop ten miles down the mountain, it had taken the lives of 4,000 people. This disaster is one of the most “destructive” examples of a very common event: an avalanche (雪崩) of snow or ice. Because it is extremely cold at very high altitudes, snow rarely melts.
Even an avalanche of light power can be dangerous, but the Peruvian disaster was particularly terrible because it was caused by a heavy layer of ice.
At present there is no way to predict or avoid such enormous avalanches, but luckily, they are very rare.
| A．It is estimated that the ice that broke off weighed three million tons. |
| B．It just keeps piling up higher and higher. |
| C．Scientists are constantly studying the smaller, more common avalanches, to try to understand what causes them. |
| D．An extremely rare snow and ice disaster hit the south area of China in January, 2008, seriously influencing people’s production and life. |
| E．But most avalanches occur long before this happens. |
| F．This year’s snow and ice disaster has caused great harm to power network. |
4 . The HISTORY Channel series Alone drops contestants into some of the planet’s most punishing environments, with a bare minimum of clothing, safety and survival gear. In their battle against the elements, contestants are forced to use their fitness, their courage and their creativity to become true survivalists.
Few people choose to be thrown into such extreme situations, but those who do have usually stumbled into some immense bad luck. Just check out one of the famous real-life survival stories:
Mauro Prosperi is an Italian police officer who gained worldwide fame after getting lost in the Sahara Desert in 1994. A keen athlete and long-distance runner, Mauro took part in the 1994 Marathon of the Sands in Morocco, a six-day-long endurance race in one of the driest and barren environments on the planet.
During the race, a sandstorm caused Prosperi, then 39 years old, married and father to three children, to become disoriented. One day after going off track, he found himself in an abandoned Muslim temple in Algeria. In order to survive, he killed and ate bats. For liquid, he was forced to drink his own waste, lick dew off of rocks and suck moisture out of his wet wipes.
Assuming he would never be found, he cut his wrists with a pen knife from his supplies. However, it was such a dry heat that the wounds thickened and concreted, and he was forced to go back into the desert and attempt to find help.
For nine days he walked through the desert and ate insects and cold-blooded animals. Finally, he found a small village. From there he was flown to a hospital, where doctors said his liver had almost completely failed.
Having traveled 180 miles in all, Prosperi lost 35 pounds in body weight during his severe suffering in the desert; it took several months before he could eat solid food again. But he has remained an enthusiastic runner and even returned and completed the race in 2012.
1. Prosperi have to discontinue the Marathon of the Sands because ______.| A．his supplies were running out |
| B．his children didn’t want to lose him |
| C．he lost his way for the bad weather |
| D．he couldn’t tolerate the extreme heat |
| A．His intention to heal the wound. | B．His failure to take away his own life. |
| C．His decreasing interest in food sources. | D．His discomfort with the temple environment. |
| A．He found an alternative source of water in a traditional way. |
| B．He demonstrated the determination to survive all the way through. |
| C．His story was a proof of the worsening relationship between man and nature. |
| D．His eventual return to the race signified his persistence. |
| A．To entertain readers with an awe-inspiring fictional adventure story. |
| B．To educate readers about the possible dangers of punishing environments. |
| C．To inspire readers with human’s ability to survive the extreme challenges. |
| D．To remind readers of the value of essential survival skills and preparedness. |
| A．Dogs respond to calls like humans. |
| B．Dogs and humans had a different ancestor |
| C．Dogs used to have a more complex brain system. |
| D．Dogs and humans make sounds in a similar way. |
| A．22 dogs in all were involved in the experiment. |
| B．The dogs were all awake while they were being scanned. |
| C．The dogs were as sensitive to human sounds as to dog sounds. |
| D．The dogs listened to as many human noises as dog noises. |
| A．It may not have anything to do with evolution. |
| B．It provides evidence for dogs’ attachment to humans. |
| C．It proves that dogs have a sharp sense of sound. |
| D．It may not be supported by other experiments. |
| A．They thinned their coffee crops. |
| B．They planted too much coffee crops. |
| C．They occupied Venezuela’s mountains. |
| D．They drove away red siskins from the forest. |
| A．They can get funds from the government. |
| B．They can sell the coffee beans at a higher price. |
| C．They can prevent coffee plants from disappearing. |
| D．They can attract more consumers with the quality beans. |
| A．Organic coffee beans developed to increase the production. |
| B．Coffee farmers who are devoted to bird protection. |
| C．A project intended to save an endangered bird. |
| D．A private zoo serving as a breeding center. |
7 . WHAT ARE RIP CURRENTS?
Rip currents are like the rivers of the sea, transporting water near the shore back out into the ocean depths. The presence of these currents can be hidden by the wild movements of the surrounding waves. This means that as well as carrying seaweed and pieces of materials quickly out to sea, they can rapidly sweep away even the strongest swimmers. Around 80 percent of all lifeguard rescues are caused by powerful rip currents pulling a swimmer into danger.
If you find yourself being pulled out to sea by an unsuspected rip current, you should remain calm, focus on staying afloat and, if you can, swim parallel to the shore. Your instincts might tell you to swim towards land, as this is where you’re aiming to get to, but the current will be too strong to swim against. Instead, aim to move across the current and into slower flowing water next to it. A rip current may only pull you just past the breaking waves, but in some cases they can take you hundreds of metres offshore. The strength of currents can be hard to predict, so it’s safest to stay on lifeguarded beaches and not to swim if you see any indication of a rip current.
| A．prevent you from swimming into danger | B．transport water out into the ocean depths |
| C．clear away seaweed and pieces of materials | D．warn lifeguards against rescue in rip currents |
| A．difference between various currents | B．two types of zones off shore |
| C．an ideal route to surf in safety | D．how rip currents form |
| A．1000 metres off the shore beyond “HEAD”. | B．The channel through the gap in a sandbar. |
| C．The location where a red flag is erected. | D．Over the narrow stretch of a sandbar. |
8 . Mars is no stranger to life. Seven U. S. spacecraft have successfully landed there, and all of them took microbes to the planet’s surface(though the bugs probably did not survive for long). Yet the world’s space agencies continue to maintain strict spacecraft sterilization (消毒) procedures in the hope of minimizing the spread of Earth life beyond our planet. For decades this idea — known as planetary protection—is widespread. Now, some scientists say, these procedures are preventing the search for life beyond Earth by raising costs and preventing innovative missions-without meaningful benefits.
Of all missions to Mars to date, only the Vikings, the first trip to the Red Planet, were intended to test for life. Spacecraft that went later did not have that ability. But a future mission will, and the protectionist thinking goes, a spacecraft might not be able to distinguish between a life form native to Mars and one with origins on Earth. In July 2013 astrobiologists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Alberto Fairen argued against this in Nature Geoscience.
“If Earth life can thrive on Mars, they almost certainly already do,” the authors write. “If they cannot, the transfer of Earth life to Mars should be of no concern, as it would simply not survive.”
With clear evidence of a water y history and some signs of water present, Mars could be where we find life in our solar system. And with the development of Curiosity’s precise landing system, we can finally reach the mysterious parts of the planet. But it’s these areas that require a craft sterilization process.
In the 1970s Vikings 1 and 2 revealed what seemed like a dead planet, so planetary-protection requirements were relaxed. Now, with more knowledge of Mars’ environment, missions set to visit areas with evidence of flowing water below the surface have to meet the strict-and more costly- Vikings standards.
Finally, there’s the philosophical problem of what responsibility, if any, we have to other planets and any life we leave there. The truth is we’re never going to be able to fully protect Mars if we intend to explore it. And spreading is simply what life does.
“If we want to survive for a long time, we have to expand beyond Earth,” Schulze-Makuch says. “There’s no other way.”
1. Strict spacecraft sterilization procedures are meant to ______.| A．decrease the costs of space exploration |
| B．help the search for life forms beyond Earth |
| C．contribute to innovative missions in the universe |
| D．prevent Earth life being transferred to other planets |
| A．there was no preclse landing system |
| B．Mars was considered to be a lifeless planet |
| C．the mysterious parts of Mars remained unknown |
| D．flowing water was found below the surface of Mars |
| A．Mars is now on the edge of being destroyed |
| B．human beings are too ambitious to expand beyond Earth |
| C．there is no need to worry about bringing Earth life to Mars |
| D．we need to be responsible for keeping Mars what it is like now |
| A．optimistic | B．relaxed | C．debatable | D．negative |
| A. authorities B. conflicts C. increasingly D. infected E. invisibly F. oddly G. outbreaks H. present I. subjected J. suspected K. unexpected |
Deadly virus approaches tigers
India’s most important tiger conservation body is to investigate growing concern that Asia’s wild tigers are
The National Tiger Conservation Authority is to fun d a study of Canine Distemper Virus(CDV) in six of the most important areas for the species, which could confirm a problem that a few experts have
There have been
CDV may also exist in the tiger population in Sumatra, where animals have been reported to be behaving
Dr John Lewis of the British charity Wildlife Vets International is helping the Sumatran
Lewis also believes that the way CDV changes tigers’ behavior could be a factor where tiger- human
Perhaps we should not be surprised that tigers are
But as Miquelle told BBC Wildlife, “Very few people were aware of the potential threat, let alone looking for it, even if it is
1. According to the poster above, which groups of items will be the best for the Pearson family (father with chronic disease, mother, a 10-month-old infant, and a pet dog) to pack into their limited-size emergency supplies kit besides necessities such as food, water and clothes?
| A．passport, paper cups, whistle, rain gear, flashlights |
| B．formula, blanket, medication, diapers, pet food |
| C．pet food, cottont-shirt, plastic sheeting, books |
| D．medication, bank account records, diaper, can opener, formula |
| A．To provide more appropriate protection. |
| B．To create a sense of security and familiarity. |
| C．To make them feel more physically comfortable. |
| D．To simulate a seemingly school-like environment. |
| A．Families should adjust the contents of the emergency supplies kit every other year based on needs. |
| B．There are no specific items in the poster that address the needs in different natural disasters. |
| C．All of the supplies in the emergency kit should not be stored in waterproof and portable containers. |
| D．Children should not be allowed to include their favorites books and stuffed animals in the kit. |
