Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a health care system in which patients
According to the World Health Organization, nearly 80 percent of the world's population depends for its primary health care needs
Increasingly, however, modern medicines also contain substances from animals and plants. Given growing populations, increasing wealth, and the spreading
2 . Research into social robots has shown that machines that are at the cutting edge of interaction can respond to feelings and emotionally care for the weak, the elderly and children.
Robin was designed as a companion robot to provide emotional support for children receiving medical treatment. Robin explains medical procedures to them, plays games and tells stories, and during treatment distracts them to reduce their sense of pain. The robot uses AI to understand other people’s feelings, remembering facial expressions and conversations to build dialogue for follow-up sessions. In trials at the Wigmore Medical (UK) Pediatric Clinic in Yerevan, Armenia, the team found that Robin led to a 34% decrease in stress and an increase in happiness of 26% in the 120 children who interacted with him at least once.
Healthcare robots could all benefit from displaying emotional intelligence, both recognizing and responding to human emotions, and to some extent, managing them. The problem with this is the fear that human jobs may be lost as robots become better at handling social situations.
Population trends suggest that the demand for robots to work alongside people in care situations will grow over time. By 2050, the number of people aged 65 and over globally will be 1.6 billion (17%), roughly twice the proportion of what it is today. An extra 3.5 million care workers will be needed and that will include emotionally intelligent robots.
Today’s simple systems are being trained to meet that demand. This includes a little wheeled robot that can guess how you are feeling from the way you walk, and the robot from the University of Lincoln in the UK —who helps elderly people to stay physically and mentally active.
The impact of social robots on our lives to date has been tiny. But new models are being introduced that could make the breakthrough. Human emotions are difficult to define, but as trust in robots increases, breaking down the psychological barrier becomes easier to imagine.
1. What are social robots uniquely capable of?A.Lifting heavy packages upstairs for weak people. |
B.Teaching mentally ill teens emotional expressions. |
C.Cooking delicious dishes for the disabled at home. |
D.Playing songs for blind people on their request. |
A.Robin’s function to reduce pain. |
B.Robin’s popularity in hospitals. |
C.Robin’s practical application. |
D.Robin’s success in passing tests. |
A.By concluding viewpoints. |
B.By analyzing causes. |
C.By making comparison. |
D.By giving definition. |
A.It is already happening throughout UK. |
B.Humans need to work hard to secure jobs. |
C.Robots can only meet basic human needs. |
D.It’s an unstoppable and beneficial trend. |
3 . An internship (实习) is a great way to gain valuable experience in your chosen future career. Here, we offer some fantastic worldwide internships with opportunities to help you gain some really unique and diverse experience.
Dental Internship in South Africa
Join our dental elective to boost your dental work experience. You'll work with a professional dentist and assist in day-to-day tasks at check-up camps. Compare the dental care between your home country and South Africa.
Requirement: Interns should be studying dentistry(牙科)
Journalism Internship in Ghana
See all aspects of Ghanaian life by reporting on day-to-day life and taking part in a varied journalism internship in Accra. Work for a newspaper, radio or TV station and get hands-on experience in the media industry.
Requirement: Good English speakers and general level of fitness
Medical Internship in Palampur
If you are considering a career in medicine or nursing, this is the medical internship for you. Based in northern India, in the foothills of the Himalayas, you will shadow local doctors and nurses and learn lots about the Indian medical system.
Requirement: Interns should have an interest in, or already be studying, a medical related course
Medical Internship in Romania
Take part in a highly rated medical internship on a mobile medical unit and within a children's hospital. Work in a variety of medical settings and with a mixture of cases, shadowing doctors and nurses and actively contributing to the care of the patients.
Requirement: Minimum requirement of a first aid certificate
1. Where is this text probably taken from?A.A school magazine. |
B.An academic paper. |
C.A public speech. |
D.A travel log. |
A.Dental Internship in South Africa. |
B.Journalism Internship in Ghana. |
C.Medical Internship in Palampur. |
D.Medical Internship in Romania. |
A.They are located in northern India. |
B.They need childcare interns. |
C.They require a first aid certificate. |
D.They encourage learning from old hands. |
4 . On January 7, David Bennett went into the operating room at the University of Maryland Medical Center for a surgical procedure never performed before on a human. The 57-year-old Maryland resident had been hospitalized for months due to a life threatening disease. His heart was failing him and he needed a new one.
Bennett’s condition left him unresponsive to treatment and ineligible (不合格) for the transplant list or an artificial heart pump. The physician-scientists at the center, however, had another-also risky- option: transplant (移植) a heart from a genetically-modified pig.
“It was either die or do this transplant,” Bennett had told surgeons a day before the operation. “I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s also my last choice.”
It took the medical team eight hours to finish the operation, making Bennett the first human to successfully receive a pig’s heart. “It’s working and it looks normal. We are thrilled, but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us. This has never been done before,” Barkley Griffith, who led the transplant team, told the New York Times.
While it’s only been five days since the operation, the surgeons say that Bennett’s new pig heart was, so far, functioning as expected and his body wasn’t rejecting (排斥) the organ. They are still monitoring his condition closely.
“I think it’s extremely exciting,” says Robert Montgomery, transplant surgeon and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, who was not involved in Bennett’s operation. The result of the procedure was also personally meaningful for Montgomery, who received a heart transplant in 2018 due to a genetic disease that may also affect members of his family in the future. “It’s still in the early days, but still the heart seems to be functioning. And that in and of itself is an extraordinary thing. Up to now most experimental heart transplant procedures have been done between pigs and other animals. This is the first time that surgeons have taken it into a living human.”
1. What do the words “a shot in the dark” underlined in Paragraph 3 mean?A.Something that costs a fortune. |
B.Something impossible to succeed. |
C.Something drawing public attention. |
D.Something with an uncertain outcome. |
A.Negative. |
B.Cautious. |
C.Optimistic. |
D.Uncaring. |
A.The heated debate over the pig heart transplant. |
B.David Bennett’s contribution to medical research. |
C.The first experimental pig heart transplant in the world. |
D.The first successful pig heart transplant into a living human. |
A.Political Affairs. |
B.Global Entertainment. |
C.Sci-Tech Front. |
D.Financial Window. |
To write his own medical text, Li Shizhen referenced over 800 medical texts, countless books on history and geography, and works of literature. He even studied the complete works of many ancient poets, from
After over a decade of field research, Li
Since its first publication in 1596, the book
Today, there are a
Incense (香) boasts a long history,
Since the Tang and Song dynasties, burning incense, hanging paintings, making tea, and enjoying music have been known as the “four arts for literati (文人)”.
Moreover, medical incense is an essential part of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which considers preventative healthcare as
7 . Until the 1940s, blood transfusions (输血) often went wrong because some main blood-group systems had yet to be discovered. This phenomenon is now a thing of the past, but finding a well-matched donor can still be difficult, especially for patients with rare blood types. Recently, a team of British researchers announced a step towards solving this problem by successfully transfusing into two healthy volunteers red blood cells grown from appropriate stem cells donated by others.
By now, such manufactured red cells have been given only to those whose own stem cells had been the source. The stem cells used for this experiment, however, were extracted from blood donated in the normal way. Then, the harvested stem cells were grown and multiplied in a nutrient solution for about 20 days, which served to turn them into young versions of red blood cells called reticulocytes, which, once transfused, quickly develop into the real McCoy. The lab-made red blood cells would be expected to last longer in a receiver’s body than those from a normal transfusion, since transfused blood unavoidably contains some cells that are on their last legs. The next step is to measure how long the manufactured cells actually do last.
If they do indeed survive traditionally transfused cells, then receivers will not need frequent transfusions. That will help a lot. At the moment, patients with blood disorders such as sickle-cell disease and thalassemia may require a transfusion as often as every four to six weeks. As a consequence, some develop iron overload, which causes severe complications (并发症). Others end up forming antibodies against many blood types, which makes finding a matching donor harder.
If all goes well, the trial will be extended to more volunteers. But larger tests, including tests on actual patients, will be needed before this approach can be put into practice. Even then, the technique will probably be reserved for a favored few-those possessing rare blood types being at the head of the queue. Unless some unforeseen breakthrough occurs, making the cells in quantity will be challenging.
1. What does the underlined part “the real McCoy” in paragraph 2 refer to?A.Red blood cells. |
B.Stem cells. |
C.Reticulocytes. |
D.Nutrient solutions. |
A.The lab-made red blood cells last longer than those from a normal transfusion. |
B.Those with rare blood types may enjoy priority in the transfusion of lab-made red blood cells. |
C.Most patients with blood disorders may suffer severe complications and form antibodies. |
D.Blood transfusions often go wrong because of people’s ignorance of the main blood systems. |
A.Indifferent. |
B.Optimistic. |
C.Hopeless. |
D.Cautious. |
A.Development of technology in blood transfusions |
B.Transfusion of lab-made red blood cells into humans |
C.Red blood cells coming from stem cells of receivers |
D.Development and promotion of lab-made blood cells |
8 . Metin Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, and his colleagues have developed tiny robots called “microrollers” that can carry cancer drugs and selectively target human breast cancer cells. The team drew inspiration for the design of the robots from white blood cells in the human body, which can move along the walls of blood vessels (血管) against the direction of blood flow.
The microrollers are round and made from glass microparticles. One half of the robot was coated with a thin magnetic nanofilm (磁性纳米膜) made from nickel and gold. The other half was coated with the cancer drug doxorubicin as well as molecules that recognize cancer cells.
The team tested the robots using mouse blood and artificial channels lined with human endothelial cells—the kind of cells that line the inner walls of our blood vessels. The robots were exposed to a mixture of cancerous and healthy tissue. The microrollers selectively attached to the cancer cells and were activated using UV light to release the doxorubicin.
By applying magnetic fields, the team was able to control the movement of the microrollers, both with and against the flow of blood. The microrollers can reach a speed of up to 600 micrometers per second. “If you come to a spot where you need to take the right path and if you miss it, then you could go back and go to the right one,” says Setti.
In future, the researchers want to use other methods to start the drug release, such as heat or near-infrared light. They also plan to try making microrollers out of materials that would break down in the body over a few weeks or months.
The team hopes to test the microrollers in animals soon. “The rollers need to carry enough cancer drugs, which is why we need to have them in large numbers,” says Setti. “But since we can locally take drugs to the right target, we don’t need huge dosages (剂量).”
1. What can the microrollers be used for?A.Repairing blood cells. | B.Delivering drugs. | C.Improving blood flow. | D.Performing operations. |
A.Their shape. | B.Their advantage. | C.Their design. | D.Their application. |
A.Their direction can be adjusted. | B.They might miss the target cells. |
C.They might get stuck in the blood. | D.Their speed can change automatically. |
A.Put the microrollers to clinical use. | B.Sell the microrollers in large quantities. |
C.Tear the microrollers down in the body. | D.Experiment with the microrollers further. |
9 . Horseback riding might not seem like a typical New York City activity, but one program has several horse farms throughout the city’s busy districts. GallopNYC provides lessons to veterans(老兵) and people with disabilities — horseback riding is their therapy(疗法).
Olivia Diver visits the GallopNYC location in the Howard Beach neighborhood in Queens. Diver has only been riding horses for a few months, but says she’s already felt the benefits. “It helped me come out of my comfort zone and be less shy and less in my shell,” she said. Trying something new shows her she can accomplish other things as well.
James Wilson,executive director at GallopNYC, says there are many ways horses can be therapeutic. “The horse sees the world in the way somebody with post-traumatic stress disor-der (PTSD) might see the world, in a really guarded, sort of anxious way,” he explained. “So,somebody with PTSD and a horse can sort of partner together and see the world in the same way and kind of take care of each other.” Horses can also help with physical disabilities. After two years of therapeutic riding, a teenager, who had so little core strength that his mother had to be in the bathtub with him, had enough core strength that he could be in the shower by himself. Wilson said, “The movement of the horse will loosen up muscles that might be really tight. And the movement helps stimulate other body parts and other muscles that you might not use. ”
“CallopNYC has about 1,000 people on is waitlist for lessons, but prioritizes people with disabilities and veterans. We believe that everybody benefits from the time on a horse, so if you want to ride a horse, come on, let’s go,” Wilson said. Lessons are $55, but the non-profit fundraises to help cover or lower the cost for customers who may need support.
1. Why does GallopNYC offer the lessons?A.To make horse riding typical in NYC. |
B.To provide part-time jobs for veterans. |
C.To promote disabled people’s incomes. |
D.To offer a cure to special groups. |
A.She has learned new life skills. |
B.She has found her comfort zone. |
C.She has gained much confidence. |
D.She has changed her attitude to horses. |
A.GallopNYC’s leader. | B.The effect of the therapy. |
C.Profit James Wilson has got. | D.Ways of guarding people’s anxiety. |
A.It is well received. | B.It is highly profitable. |
C.It needs to be more creative. | D.It takes ages to see the results. |
Berhanu Kedir, 34, is one of the many patients who have been receiving the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for treatment at the Tirunesh Beijing Hospital in Ethiopia. Kedir suffered a car accident seven months ago. He
“The Chinese doctors use acupuncture(针灸), cupping and other techniques
According to Liu, the two highly
Kedir, who was in a coma(昏迷) and could not speak for months due to the damage on his head during