1 . You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Laughter is the best medicine.” Comedy on Referral has taken that idea and run with it, using stand-up comedy to help treat people struggling with trauma (精神创伤) and anxiety in partnership with the National Health Service (NHS).

The idea came from comedian Angie Belcher’s experiences teaching comedy at the University of Bristol. She found that students often told her how much stronger and more resilient (有适应力的) they were thanks to stand-up comedy.

Inspired, she teamed up with the NHS in Bristol to create a six-week comedy course for patients struggling with trauma in January 2022. Following the success of this initial course, Comedy on Referral won NHS funding to help men with trauma in London.

Belcher said, “Past traumas are perfect for comedy. Comedy doesn’t come from the happy, perfect moments of your life, but from our everyday struggles and major life events. People who’ve been through big life experiences such as losing a loved one and ill health often can’t wait to tell me their stories, mostly because there’s always something especially funny about the situation.”

Research has shown that laughter has positive psychological effects, such as decreasing levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) and increasing endorphins (the hormone that reduces the feeling of pain). It can even have physiological benefits, although less research has been done in this area. Current research has linked laughter and humour with increased levels of pain tolerance as well as short-term cardiovascular (心血管的) benefits. More research is needed to prove these findings

Nonetheless, the mental health benefits of regular laughter are widely accepted, and using comedy to treat mental health struggles could be a real breakthrough in the treatment of mental health.

3 . What will people die of 100 years from now? If you think that is not a simple question, you have not been paying attention to the revolution that is taking place in biotechnology(生物技术). With the help of new medicine, the human body will last a very long time. Death will come mainly from accidents, murder and war. Today's leading killers, such as heart disease, cancer, and aging itself, will become distant memories.

In discussion of technological changes, the Internet gets most of the attention these days. But the change in medicine can be the real technological event of our times. How long can humans live?Human brains were known to decide the final death. Cells are the basic units of all living things, and until recently, scientists were sure that the life of cells could not go much beyond 120 years because the basic materials of cells, such as those of brain cells, would not last forever. But the upper limits will be broken by new medicine. Sometime between 2050 and 2100, medicine will have advanced to the point at which every 10 years or so, people will be able to take medicine to repair their organs. The medicine, made up of the basic building materials of life, will build new brain cells, heart cells, and so on－in much the same way our bodies make new skin cells to take the place of old ones.

It is exciting to imaging that the advance in technology may be changing the most basic condition of human existence, but many technical problems still must be cleared up on the way to this wonderful future.

“A heavy ion (离子) cancer treatment system developed by Chinese researchers will soon be put into     1     (operate) in northwest China’s Gansu Province,” researchers said.

The system will be used in a hospital in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu,     2     is mainly devoted to treating cancer patients with the technology of heavy-ion accelerators.

Cancer radiation treatments     3     (employ) heavy-ion accelerators can attack     4     target with high-energy electrons (电子) to kill cancer cells.

Compared to traditional therapy (治疗) such as radiation, heavy ion treatment     5     (consider) to have more balanced properties with     6     (little) radiation on healthy cells. The treatment period is shorter,     7     the therapy could more     8     (effect) control cancer cells, according to Wang Xiaohu, deputy director of the Gansu Provincial Cancer Hospital.

Researchers with the Institute of Modern Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences started basic research     9     the technology in 1993 and developed the accelerators in 2015.

A report published by the National Cancer Center in 2017 showed that China has nearly 25 percent of the world’s new cancer cases, with 10,000 cancer patients     10     (add) per day. Every year, there are two million cancer-induced deaths. Lung, breast and stomach cancers are the most common types.