1. Where are most probably the speakers?
A.At Toby’s place. | B.In a hospital. | C.In a company. |
A.The woman’s sister. | B.Tommy. | C.The woman. |
2 . It all began with an experience one of us (Arinzeh) had more than two decades ago. In 1991, a summer research experience at the University of California at Berkeley demonstrated how engineering could improve the lives of patients. Instead of working in a more traditional area such as automobile design, Arinzeh spent the summer after her junior year of college working in a rehabilitation laboratory.
Engineers there were designing new prosthetic (修复的) devices for patients who had lost limbs, and new assistive devices to help paralyzed patients move. The engineers would then collaborate with clinicians at a rehabilitation center to test their developments. Before that summer she hadn’t connected traditional engineering principles with the opportunity to solve biomedical problems. But by the end of those short months, Arinzeh was hooked on the promise of using mechanical engineering to help people move better.
Tissue engineering, a budding field at that time, offered a chance to move beyond building prosthetics. Damage to musculoskeletal tissues, such as bone and cartilage, and nervous tissue, such as the spinal cord, can be debilitating and can severely limit a person’s quality of life. In addition, such tissues cannot fully regenerate after a severe injury or in response to disease. Tissue engineers aim to fully repair and regenerate that tissue so that it regains complete function, but at that time researchers still had a lot to learn about cells and their support structures to solve these problems.
The earliest successes were with skin, in which researchers used dermal cells to generate grafts, leading to the first commercial products in the late 1990s. Researchers imitate nature, using cells as building blocks and developing strategies to guide the cells to form the appropriate tissue. Because stem cells (干细胞) are precursor (前身) to almost all tissue types, such cells are a promising source of these critical building blocks. But cells don’t grow and differentiate on their own. The cell’s microenvironment can influence stem-cell function in critical ways. Engineered microenvironments, or scaffolds, can effectively promote stem cells and other cell types to form tissues. To construct such scaffolds, some important tools are what are called functional biomaterials. These materials respond to environmental changes such as PH, enzymatic activity, or mechanical load, and their composition can mimic or replicate components of native tissue.
One of us (Arinzeh) wanted to use functional biomaterials to create three-dimensional tissue-like structures where cells can grow, proliferate (增殖), and differentiate, ultimately forming and regenerating tissue. Our group’s work started with bone studies in the 1990s, eventually moving into cartilage and the spinal cord over the past decade. The overall goal is to produce structures that could someday help patients struggling with severe injuries and movement disorders to move freely. For bone repair, our group has studied composite scaffolds consisting of polymers and ceramics that provide both mechanical and chemical cues to repair bone. Piezoelectric materials, which respond to mechanical stimuli by generating electrical activity, are used to encourage the growth of nerve tissue as well as cartilage and bone. Glycosaminoglycans (GACs), a major component of native cartilage tissue, provide growth factors to promote tissue formation, and Arinzeh has designed biomimetic scaffolds that incorporate these molecules. After all these years, the promise that seemed so enticing in 1991 is becoming a practical reality, with huge implications for human health.
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE?A.Before working with patients, Arinzeh was an automobile designer. |
B.Since 1991, tissue engineering has been mainly applied to building prosthetics. |
C.It’s hard for musculoskeletal tissues to fully recover from disease or injury. |
D.In the late 1990s, the lack of knowledge about cells and their support structures prevented researchers from making any achievement in tissue engineering. |
A.change | B.divide | C.alternate | D.reproduce |
A.tissues from one part of a person’s body used to repair another damaged part |
B.stem cells and other cell types in an engineered microenvironment |
C.structural support for damaged tissue repair |
D.functional biomaterials to replace native tissues. |
A.It was inspired by the team members’ internship. |
B.So far, the study has covered multiple musculoskeletal tissues, including bone, cartilage and nervous tissues. |
C.The electrical activity caused by Piezoelectric materials will generate mechanical stimuli that encourage the growth of musculoskeletal tissues. |
D.The researchers of this study are the best designers of modern tissue engineering. |
3 . Last week when I was reading at home, my younger sister rushed in and told me an old man was lying on the ground in front of our house. I immediately took my first- aid kit and ran downstairs. He was suffering a slight heart attack. And I performed CPR on him. Luckily, an ambulance came soon and he was taken to the hospital. Later that day I was told by the hospital what I did helped rescue the old man’s life. I was happy to hear that.
You can gain the knowledge, skills and confidence. You never know when you might need them—you could be at home, at work, at school or on holiday. If you have the skills, you can act whenever you’re needed.
You can stay safe at work.
It’s helpful in choosing your future career. The first-hand experience you gain through learning first aid and using your skills could help you decide if you want to pursue a career in the health profession.
A.I received a phone call from the hospital. |
B.However, at the same time I felt a bit sad. |
C.You can be a resource for your community. |
D.Illness and injury can happen any time at any place. |
E.You can take first-aid courses in your community for free. |
F.I think everyone should learn at least some basic first-aid techniques, which can be very helpful. |
G.It also shows your commitment to a career in the health profession when it comes to applying for jobs. |
4 . Thousands of lives have been saved by giving blood-thinning drugs to people with a heart condition that leaves them at risk of a stroke (中风), according to the head of the NHS.
Since January 2022, about 460,000 people in England who suffer from atrial fibrillation (AF)—a dangerously irregular heart rate—have begun taking one of four anticoagulant (抗凝血的) drugs that are proved to reduce stroke risk. Speedy introduction of the drugs has kept 4,000 people alive who would otherwise have died and prevented about 17,000 strokes, according to Amanda Pritchard. Strokes kill about 27,000 people a year in England and lead to about 120,000 being taken to hospital.
A drive to encourage take-up of the drugs means 90% of the 1.5 million people in England with AF are using them. That should result in fewer strokes, which are a leading cause of death and disability, given that AF causes about one in five strokes.
“The rapid introduction of these drugs is a big step forward in providing the best possible care for patients with heart disease”, Pritchard, the leader of NHS (National Health Service) England, will say in a speech today at the King’s Fund health experts’ yearly conference.
The drugs, called direct oral anticoagulants, help keep blood from coagulating, therefore reducing the risk of a clot (凝块) developing and causing a stroke. In 2021 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended that doctors use four anticoagulant drugs.
Dr Maeva May, the Stroke Association’s director, thought of the widespread use of the drugs as “fantastic news”, because AF accounts for one in five strokes and strokes in people with AF are more likely to result in death or serious disability.
NHS England has used its spending power to cut deals with the makers of the four drugs, which has made them much more widely available. The British Heart Foundation praised the NHS’s “great progress towards its goal of reducing stroke deaths”.
1. What is the purpose of listing numbers in paragraph 2?A.To attract the readers’ attention to strokes. |
B.To introduce the specific information about AF. |
C.To show the necessity to introduce anticoagulant drugs. |
D.To summarize the steps towards reducing deaths. |
A.By identifying signs of strokes. | B.By reducing blood pressure. |
C.By keeping heart beating. | D.By preventing blood clotting. |
A.NHS England plays a big role in popularizing anticoagulant drugs. |
B.NHS England made a healthy profit on the deal with drug makers. |
C.The British Heart Foundation managed to cut stroke deaths in England. |
D.The British Heart Foundation worked with NHS England to fight stroke. |
A.A breakthrough in stroke prevention. |
B.NHS England’s life-saving conference. |
C.How to identify signs of a heart attack. |
D.How to test the effects of anticoagulant drugs. |
CPR is an effective form of first aid
How to give CPR? There are
Learn CPR, for you never know when you might need it. And
1. Who is the speaker?
A.A nurse. | B.A doctor. | C.A student. |
A.Some of them save many lives. |
B.Not many have life-saving skills. |
C.They learn early how to save lives. |
A.Research on first aid. |
B.Where first aid is taught. |
C.Teaching first aid to children. |
First aid is
If your skin gets
Spencer’s parents taught him basic first aid when he was young. One day, Spencer saw a boy
A.Salesman and customer. | B.Professor and student. |
C.Nurse and patient. | D.Doctor and patient. |
A. accompanied B. allowed C. feasibly D. fueled E. intensity F. option G. prompting H. routine I. surgically J. underlying K. varied |
Brain Signals for Lasting Pain
Brain signals that reveal how much pain a person is in have been discovered by scientists who say the work is a step towards new treatments for people living with lasting pain.
It is the first time researchers have decoded the brain activity
Lasting pain affects nearly 28 million adults in the UK alone, and the causes are
For the latest study, Shirvalkar and his colleagues