1 . Every year, young, talented, and ambitious nature conservationists from all over the world participate in the presentation of the Future For Nature (FFN) Award, an honorable international award.
The Future For Nature aims to:
• Reward and fund individuals for their outstanding efforts in the protection of species of wildlife.
• Encourage winners to sustain their dedicated work.
·• Help winners to raise their profiles, extend their professional network and strengthen their funding basis.
Benefits
• The winners each receive 50,000 euros and may make their own decision to spend the money in the service of nature conservation.
• FFN offers the winners a platform and brings their stories to the attention of conservationists, financiers and a wide audience, allowing them to increase their impact and gain more access to funds.
• FFN is building a growing family of winners, dedicated people who form a community of people with the same interest. FFN offers them the opportunity to meet each other and continue to learn with each other in order to continue their fight for nature as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Qualifications
The candidate (候选人):
• Must be born on or after the 31st May 1988 and before the 28th of August 2005.
• Is able to explain his/her conservation work in fluent English (written and spoken)
• Has achieved substantial and long-term benefits to the conservation status of one or more animal or plant species.
• Must be determined to continue his/her conservation work, as the Award aims to stimulate the winner’s future work. It is not an “end of career” prize.
Additional Remarks
For the 2024 Future For Future Awards, we are again searching for natural leaders, who have proven that they can make a difference in species’ survival.
From all applications, 6 to 10 nominees (被提名者) will be selected. These applicants will be asked to provide additional information, which will be used to select the final Awardees. Ultimately, three inspiring wildlife heroes are selected as the winners.
Application Process: Apply online through the Apply Now link.
Application Deadline: 28th August, 2023
1. Which is one of the aims of the Future For Nature?| A．To aid more green groups | B．To fund academic education. |
| C．To inspire conservation efforts. | D．To raise environmental awareness. |
| A．consult top specialists | B．meet those who are of the same ambition |
| C．benefit the local community | D．promote self-created platforms |
| A．meet the age requirement | B．apply via mail by the deadline |
| C．turn in the application in English | D．provide additional personal information |
2 . Is It Worth Buying Organic Food?
Organic food, grown without artificial chemicals, is increasingly popular nowadays. Consumers have been willing to pay up to twice as much for goods with organic labels (标签). However, if you think paying a little more for organic food gets you a more nutritious (有营养的) and safer product, you might want to save your money. A study led by researchers at Stanford University says that organic products aren’t necessarily more nutritious, and they’re no less likely to suffer from disease-causing bacteria, either.
The latest results, published in the Annuals of Internal Medicine, suggest that buyers may be wasting their money. “We did not find strong evidence that organic food is more nutritious or healthier,” says Dr. Crystal Smith-Spangler from Stanford. “So consumers shouldn’t assume that one type of food has a lower risk or is safer.”
For their new study, Smith-Spangler and her colleagues conducted a review of two categories of research, including 17 studies that compared health outcomes between consumers of organic against traditional food products, and 223 studies that analyzed the nutritional content of the foods, including key vitamins, minerals and fats.
While the researchers found little difference in nutritional content, they did find that organic fruit and vegetables were 20% less likely to have chemicals remaining on the surfaces. Neither organic nor traditional foods showed levels of chemicals high enough to go beyond food safety standards. And both organic and traditional meats, such as chicken and pork, were equally likely to be harmed by bacteria at very low rates. The researchers did find that organic milk and chicken contained higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, a healthy fat also found in fish that can reduce the risk of heart disease. However, these nutritional differences were too small, and the researchers were unwilling to make much of them until further studies confirm the trends.
Organic food is produced with fewer chemicals and more natural-growing practices, but that doesn’t always translate into a more nutritious or healthier product. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) states that “Whether you buy organic or not, finding the freshest foods available may have the biggest effect on taste.” Fresh food is at least as good as anything marketed as organic.
1. The new research questions whether organic food ________.| A．should replace traditional food |
| B．has been overpriced by farmers |
| C．is grown with less harmful chemicals |
| D．is really more nutritious and healthier |
| A．organic food could reduce the risk of heart disease |
| B．traditional food was grown with more natural methods |
| C．both organic and traditional food they examined were safe |
| D．there was not a presence of any forms of bacteria in organic food |
| A．Organic chicken and pork. |
| B．Organic milk and chicken. |
| C．Traditional chicken and pork. |
| D．Traditional fruit and vegetables. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. | C．Unconcerned. | D．Approving. |
Today, we have to use
Speaking of medicine, through new technology, people who have brain
5 . Three months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Rebecca Sell, then 24, a photojournalist for Fredericksburg photographed a New Orleans couple worriedly examining water-spotted photo albums. As she took the photo, something within her clicked. “I told them I could take the ruined pictures, copy them and give them digitally restored photos,” she recalls. Although a bit sceptical, the couple agreed. Rebecca took their photos home, restored them and took them to the couple at their temporary home. “It felt so good to be able to do that for them,” says Rebecca.
When her editor, Dave Ellis, saw the photo of the couple, he suggested they go back and restore damaged photos for even more people. So in January 2006, with paid time off from the newspaper, the two set up a shop in Pass Christian. After posting a notice in the community newsletter, Rebecca and Dave received 500 photos in four days. For each, the pair took a new digital picture, then used high-tech software to erase water spots and restore colors. It just so happened that a popular website linked to Dave’s blog about the experience, and soon Operation Photo Rescue, as it came to be known, had emails from hundreds of volunteers, including photographers and restoration experts, eager to help.
Though the digital restoration is a painstaking process, mending irreplaceable family pictures means the world to victims like Emily Lancaster, 71, who took out piles of ruined photo albums after Katrina, never thinking the mess could be saved. But she just couldn’t bear to part with a few treasured pictures, including a portrait of her father, who had passed away, and a photo of her husband as a boy. Then she heard about Operation Photo Rescue. “I didn’t have a whole lot of hope they could fix them, but they did,” Emily says. “Almost every day I think about all the pictures I’ve lost. I’m so happy to have these two.”
In the five years since Katrina, Operation Photo Rescue has collected thousands of pictures ruined by floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. Volunteers make “copy runs” to disaster areas across the country to gather damaged photos from survivors; operating costs are covered by donations. “It’s great to be able to give people some of their history back,” says Rebecca. “One person told me that thanks to us, her grandmother got to see her photos again before she passed away. Moments like that remind me why I do this.”
1. From Paragraph 2, we know that Dave and Rebecca ________.| A．quit their jobs in 2006 |
| B．inspired volunteers to join them |
| C．spent four days mending the photos |
| D．made their work known in their newspaper |
| A．Excited. | B．Hopeless. | C．Satisfied. | D．Sceptical. |
| A．Surviving Hurricanes | B．An Act of Generosity |
| C．Saving Memories | D．A Lucky Couple |
It’s evident that not everybody has a sense of humor. Learning about theories of humor doesn’t guarantee that one’s ability to tell a joke will improve in any measurable degree. It would be distressing to learn about humor’s many benefits only
7 . Delivering life-saving drugs directly to the brain in a safe and effective way is a challenge for medical providers. One key reason: the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from tissue-specific drug delivery. Methods such as an injection or a pill aren’t as precise or immediate as doctors might prefer, and ensuring delivery right to the brain often requires invasive, risky techniques.
A team of engineers from Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new nano-particle generation-delivery method that could someday vastly improve drug delivery to the brain, making it as simple as a sniff.
“This would be a nano-particle nasal spray, and the delivery system could allow medicine to reach the brain within 30 minutes to one hour,” said Ramesh Raliya, research scientist at the School of Engineering & Applied Science.
“The blood-brain barrier protects the brain from foreign substances in the blood that may injure the brain,” Raliya said. “ But when we need to deliver something there, getting through that barrier is difficult and invasive. Our non-invasive technique can deliver drugs via nano-particles, so there’s less risk and better response times.”
The novel approach is based on aerosol science and engineering principles that allow the generation of mono-disperse nano-particles, which can deposit on upper regions of the nasal cavity via spread. The nano-particles were tagged with markers, allowing the researchers to track their movement.
Next, researchers exposed locusts’ antenna to the aerosol, and observed the nano-particles travel from the antennas up through the olfactory nerve, which is used to sense the smell. Due to their tiny size, the nano-particles passed through the brain-blood barrier, reaching the brain and spreading all over it in a matter of minutes.
The team tested the concept in locusts because the blood-brain barriers in the insects and humans have similarities. “The shortest and possibly the easiest path to the brain is through your nose,” said Barani Raman, associate professor of biomedical engineering. “Your nose, the olfactory bulb and then olfactory cortex: two steps and you’ve reached the cortex.”
To determine whether or not the foreign nano-particles disrupted normal brain function, Saha examined the physiology response of olfactory neurons in the locusts before and after the nano-particle delivery and found no noticeable change in the electro-physiological responses was detected.
This is only a beginning of a set of studies that can be performed to make nano-particle-based drug delivery approaches more principled, Raman said. The next phase of research involves fusing the gold nano-particles with various medicines, and using ultrasound to target a more precise dose to specific areas of the brain, which would be especially beneficial in brain-tumor cases.
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．A novel method of drug delivery. | B．A challenge facing medical staff. |
| C．A new medicine treating brain disease. | D．A technique to improve doctor’s ability. |
| A．Doctors prefer using methods like an injection to treat diseases. |
| B．Locusts were tagged with markers to track their movement. |
| C．The blood-brain barrier lowers the effectiveness of a pill. |
| D．The medicine could reach the brain within half an hour. |
| A．human and locusts have similar structures that protect brain from foreign substances |
| B．the delivery process consists of the olfactory bulb and the olfactory cortex |
| C．locusts have changeable electrophysiological responses to nanoparticles |
| D．the shortest and possibly the safest path to the brain is through human’s noses |
Cash is king, or so they say. In one form or another, human beings have been carrying around money for hundreds of years. Metal was first coined into cash between 700 and 600 BC by the Lydians, and banknotes have been in circulation since
For years, psychologists have known how to measure the intelligence of individuals, but only recently have they begun to investigate the issue of group intelligence. This notion stems from the observation that some groups seem to work fantastically across tasks, even tasks that are not very similar. Early investigations suggest that group intelligence is not the sum of the intelligence of the individuals in it. So what is the secret to their success?
Researchers at Google have tackled this question. They collected thousands of data points on hundreds of groups and combed through them trying to find patterns. Are the members of effective groups friends outside of work? Do groups whose members have similar personalities or backgrounds work together best? They put forward many theories but found no patters to support them.
In fact, who was in the group apparently did not seem to make a difference; instead, the difference between more and less effective groups seemed to lie in the interaction among the members. In effective groups, members spoke for a roughly equal amount of time—not at every meeting or interaction, but across the course of a project. Additionally, in effective groups, members face one another directly when they speak, using energetic and enthusiastic gestures. Moreover, side conversations between individual members during meetings, far from being a distraction, actually increased the group’s productivity. The positive behaviors uncovered in the study occur exclusively in face-to-face interaction.
One might argue that most of these findings are extremely obvious, and needless to say, good managers have probably always understood the principles. However, understanding group intelligence can help business and other organizations make the fundamental changes necessary to improve group performance. The reason is that our social and professional lives are not always structured in ways that facilitate the kind of interaction that apparently underlines effective group performance.
1. What is the finding of previous studies on group intelligence?2. Why is it important for people to understand group intelligence?
3. Decide which part of the following statement is wrong. Underline it and explain why.
▶Although side conversations distract members during meetings, they can help to boost the group’s efficiency.
4. Apart from what is mentioned in the passage, what other way(s) can we use to improve group intelligence?(In about 40 words)
10 . The student arrived early, sat front and center, and stood out in my classroom in more ways than one. I’d say that he was about 40 years older than his classmates in my undergraduate communications class. He eagerly jumped into class discussions, with his humor and wisdom of experience. And he was always respectful of the other students’ perspectives, as if each of them were a teacher. Jerry Valencia walked in with a smile—and he left with one too.
“These students gave me the confidence that I didn’t need to feel bad about my age,” Valencia says.
One day, I spotted Valencia on campus. He said he would have to stop taking classes that semester and reapply for next year. By then, he hoped to have earned enough money and have his student-loan papers in order. He asked seriously whether he could still sit in on my communications class.
Sure, I said. But he wouldn’t get any credit.
No problem, he said.
Soon there he was again, back at his old desk, jumping into our discussions on how to find and tell stories in Los Angeles—a 63-year-old man with as much energy and curiosity as any of the youngsters in class.
A lot of Valencia’s classmates apparently knew he couldn’t afford that semester’s tuition but was still doing the homework. “Here he is, willingly taking a class for the delight of it and benefit of learning,”says Jessica Espinosa, a 25-year-old junior. Afterward, I overheard Valencia wanted to stay in school until he earned a master’s degree, but it had taken him 12 years to finish community college, so he had a long way to go.
There is something splendidly unreasonable about Valencia’s determination to get a four-year degree and then a master’s. At his current pace, he’ll be 90 when he finally hangs all that paper on the wall. But that doesn’t seem especially relevant. He’s found all the youthful energy and academic opportunity stimulating. Valencia’s grade in my class this semester will not show up on his transcripts(成绩单). But I’m giving him an A—and in the most important ways, it counts.
1. What made Valencia different from his classmates?| A．He was respectful to the teacher. |
| B．He activated the class atmosphere. |
| C．He was eager to learn despite his age. |
| D．He often put forward different opinions. |
| A．He treasured the chance of learning. |
| B．He wished to show his determination. |
| C．He needed the credits to further his study. |
| D．He desired to have an A on his transcripts. |
| A．Modest and independent. | B．Energetic and generous. |
| C．Enthusiastic and motivated. | D．Considerate and intelligent. |
| A．No pains, no gains. | B．It is never too old to learn. |
| C．Strike the iron while it is hot. | D．Where there is life, there is hope. |
