Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an ancient health care system in which patients     1     (treat) with natural plant, animal, and mineral remedies (药物). It is believed, for a person to be healthy,     2     yin and yang forces should be in balance. Imbalance causes illness or injury. TCM is about restoring the balance between yin and yang forces in     3     (patient). It has been a major part of traditional Chinese culture and continues to play     4     vital role in medical treatment in China today.

According to the World Health     5     (organize), nearly 80 percent of the world’s population depends for     6     (it) primary health care needs on medicines from plants and animals. This is especially true in countries where traditional Chinese medicines are     7     (wide) used.

Increasingly, however, modern medicines also contain substances     8     animals and plants. Given the growing populations, increasing wealth, and the spreading popularity of natural remedies throughout the world, the demand for these useful medicines and remedies     9     (rise) now. The rising demand,     10     (combine) with reduced habitat, has put a number of plant and animal species used for medicinal purposes at risk for many years.

For instance, TCM uses about 1,000 plant and 36 animal species, including the tiger, rhinoceros (犀牛), and sea horse, which are all in danger.

3 . Using needles to deliver drugs has been common for more than a century. The past hundred years have seen all manner of medical advances, from life-saving medicine and X-rays to mRNA vaccines and special cancer treatments. Yet the needle has stayed mostly unchanged. Although now available in a variety of different sizes, it remains a hollow (having a hole or empty space inside), pointy tube.

With luck, that may soon change. As Yichi Ma, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues outline in a review paper, researchers around the world are looking for ways to ease the pain when needles go into the skin. Many have been inspired by nature.

The team got their idea from mosquitoes, which manage to get their blood meals without causing great pain to people. One reason is that the insects use painkilling chemicals when they first puncture(刺穿) the skin. But there is another reason. The point of a mosquito’s saw-like proboscis(锯齿状的喙) is softer at its tip. The insect makes the skin of its target tight before biting, and shakes its proboscis as it pushes the proboscis in. All of this helps reduce the force needed to puncture the skin.

One paper, published in 2020 by a group of researchers in America and China, found that a mosquito-inspired needle required 27% less puncturing force than an ordinary one. And less force means less pain. Mosquito-inspired needles might also be useful for delicate procedures such as biopsies (the examination of tissue taken from a living body). A paper from the University of Michigan, also published in 2020, found that scientists could improve biopsies of tissue in some body organs. The lower force led to less movement of the organ itself, ensuring that the needles were guided accurately to the area that needed sampling.

For now, such devices remain limited to labs. But there is a big market for better needles. According to WHO, around 16 billion injections were given in 2018. With one person in four saying they suffer from a fear of needles, the savings on stickers and sweets for the brave souls who roll up their sleeves would be considerable.

We people are easy targets     1     flu in every season. It makes us wonder     2     we can’t find a way to totally get rid of it? The answer     3     that there’re actually hundreds of kinds of viruses around us.

We can’t see and touch     4    , and we never know which one we will get infected     5    , so it’s impossible to find a cure for each one. When a virus attacks our body, it’s hard     6     (detach) ourselves from it. We will feel awful because we can’t breathe well. The virus raises temperature of our bodies, and     7     (make) us get flu. But the heat of our body is killing the virus at the same time. Besides, we may also have a sore throat or a runny nose to prevent the virus from invading our cells. Different people have different symptoms. In China, some people     8     eat nutritious food to improve their health and fitness, some people only take hot baths and drink warm water, and some people take medicines.

However, there’s one interesting thing to notice. Some experts say     9     (take) medicines when we have flu is harmful to our health. The reason why the virus stays in our body longer is that our body can’t develop a way to fight     10     and kill it.

7 . Sunstroke is a condition that can quickly go from dangerous to deadly, especially if proper care isn’t given immediately.

Sunstroke, sometimes called heatstroke, is a result of the body temperature rising above the safe limit. This causes the body’s necessary functions to stop working.

It’s usually pretty easy to avoid sunstroke, as long as proper action is taken. In that case, you need to act as quickly as possible to return that person’s body to a safe temperature. Here are a few tips to help treat sunstroke.

Call for help

Call to get an ambulance as quickly as possible. This should be the first thing you do, especially if the sunstroke person has fainted (昏倒)。Also, call for help from anyone nearby if you’re in a public place. If there’s no one around, call someone nearby if they can get there sooner than an ambulance. Ask everyone to bring you as much water as possible, if there isn’t much nearby.

Get the person to a cooler area

If there’s a building nearby, aim for that. Anywhere with plenty of air conditioners and water is perfect. If a building isn’t available, bring the person to a well-shaded area.

Get the water flowing

If the person is still conscious, get him or her to drink water. If there’s a bathtub available, fill it with cool water and put the person in it.

If your water supply is limited, you have to save it. Dampen a towel or shirt and put it on the person’s body. Focus on the face, neck, and chest.

Fan the person

Getting moving air over the person cools him or her down. Use anything, a towel or sheet, a shirt, your hands, or a piece of board. This is where having many people around really helps, as they can combine to fan the entire body.

There is strong evidence     1     vaccination (接种疫苗) is the best defence against deadly and weakening infections, such as measles.

Vaccines protect billions of people around the world. They have completely got rid of one disease-smallpox and are bringing the world close to removing others, such as polio.     2     some other diseases, such as measles, are making a resurgence (死灰复燃) and experts say people’s avoiding vaccines, fueled by fear and misinformation, is one of the main     3    (cause). Vaccine hesitancy(犹豫), or mistrust of vaccines, has the potential, at least, in some places,     4    (block) the very real progress the world     5    (make) in controlling vaccine-preventable diseases. What makes people skeptical? There are likely to be many factors involved. Some of it may be complacency(侥幸)     6     a disease has become less common, then the need to get immunized (免疫) may feel less pressing when     7    (weigh) the benefits against any possible risk. Besides, the Internet means beliefs and concerns about vaccines can be shared in an instant, spreading information that experts say isn’t     8    (necessary) based on fact.

One of the most important ways to remove doubt about vaccines is     9    (have) health workers really well trained and able to recommend vaccinations based on     10    (science) truth.