Good Genes Mean Long Life
Scientists have discovered that living to the age of 100 may have nothing to do with the lifestyle you lead and everything to do with the type of genes you have.
For the lucky carriers of “Methuselah” genes, worries over smoking, eating unhealthily and not getting enough exercise may not be as necessary as to those of us without the special gene pattern (组合).
The “Methuselah” genes could give extra protection against the diseases of old age such as cancer and heart disease. They could also protect people against the effects of the unhealthy lifestyles that we believe will lead us to an early death, scientists say. However, the genes are very rare.
The genes include ADIPOQ, which is found in about 10 percent of young people but in nearly 30 percent of people living past 100. They also include the CETP and the ApoC3 genes, which are found in 10 percent of young people, but in about 20 percent of people over 100 years old.
Some of those genes were discovered by a research group at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, led by Professor Nir Barzilai. The team studied the genes of over 500 people over 100 years old, and their children.
The studies show that tiny mutations (变异) in the make-up of some genes can greatly increase a person’s lifespan (寿命). Barzilai told a Royal Society conference that the discovery of such genes gave scientists clear targets for developing drugs that could prevent age-related diseases, allow people to live longer and stay healthy.
David Gems, a researcher at University College London, believes that drugs to slow ageing will become widespread.
“If we know which genes control longevity (长寿) then we can … target them with drugs. That makes it possible to slow down ageing,” he told The Times.
“Much of the pain and suffering in the world are caused by ageing. If we can find a way to reduce that, then we are obliged (义不容辞的) to take it.”According to the article, which of the following is the most important if a person is to live to the age of 100?
| A．Eating healthy food every day. | B．Having the right types of genes. |
| C．Having a healthy lifestyle. | D．Taking drugs that prevent ageing. |
According to the article, the ApoC3 gene is found in ________ of people over 100 years old.
| A．10% | B．20% | C．30% | D．50% |
Which of the following statements is TRUE of the research led by Professor Nir Barzilai?
| A．The team studied the genes of over 100 people over 100 years of age. |
| B．The researchers found that mutations in certain genes lead to longer life. |
| C．The researchers found ways to develop drugs that could cure age-related diseases. |
| D．The study suggested that most people have genes that could lengthen their lives. |
According to David Gems, ________.
| A．drugs to slow ageing will be very expensive |
| B．modern science will be able to find more longevity genes |
| C．it is the duty of medical scientists to fight the problems of ageing |
| D．scientists can make new genes that will allow longer life |
We know more about the surface of the planet Mars than we know about what is at the bottom of Earth’s oceans.
Until recently, scientists had mapped only about 20 percent of the sea floor. But our knowledge of the deep seas is changing because of information from satellites. Scientists have produced a new map that provides a detailed picture of the oceans. The map is expected to help oceanographers, industry and governments.
The new map is twice as detailed as the map made 20 years ago. David Sandwell is a geophysics professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California. He and other scientists worked on the mapping project. He says they turned to space to look deeper into the ocean. He spoke to VOA on SKYPE.
“The way we’re doing that is to use a satellite altimeter(高度计), a radar to map the topography(地貌) of the ocean surface. Now that seems sort of strange that you’d map the topography of the ocean surface when you really want to get at the sea floor. But, the ocean surface topography has these bumps and dips due to gravitational effects that mimic what’s on the sea floor.”
The scientists collected and studied information from two satellites. Some of the data came from the European Space Agency’s Cryo-2 satellite. It was placed in Earth’s orbit to watch sea ice. The other satellite is the American space agency’s Jason-1. It is studying the surface of the oceans. Scientists combined the satellite data with images gathered by sonar equipment on ships. Sonar works by sending sound waves through the water. When the sound waves hit an object, its presence is confirmed.
“That enables us to look at smaller-scale features and also features that are buried by sediments in the ocean basins.”
The new map shows the sea floor as it has never been seen before. It shows thousands of underwater mountains and places where continents pulled apart. It shows where earthquakes were active many years ago. They all are buried deep underneath the ocean floor.
In one place, three mountain ridges join at the same area. Huge tectonic (构造的) plates can be seen clearly there.The passage is likely to ______________________.
| A．be an advertisement | B．appear on VOA |
| C．make a comment on radar | D．appear on SKYPE |
What will be mentioned in the following paragraph, according to the last paragraph?
| A．The detailed information about the place. |
| B．The more important thing in the ocean. |
| C．The things buried in the ocean. |
| D．Scientists told SKYPE they will explore at the same area. |
Scientists collected and studied information by ____________.
| A．the European Space Agency’s Cryo-2 satellite |
| B．the American space agency’s Jason-1 |
| C．sonar equipment on ships |
| D．the Cryo-2 and the Jason-1 |
What’s the best title of the passage?
| A．Scientists Create New Maps of Ocean Floor |
| B．Scientists Knows More Oceans Than Mars |
| C．Oceans Will Provide Us With Maps |
| D．People Knows Easily About Mars |
David Nabarro, the UN special envoy (特使), told the reporter the number of Ebola cases was currently increasing rapidly, but greater community awareness would help contain the virus.
People were becoming aware that isolating those infected was the best way to prevent transmission, he added. So far, there have been more than 8,300 confirmed and suspected cases of Ebola, and at least 4,033 deaths. Most deaths - 4,024 - have occurred in the west African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Cases have also been reported in Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and the US.
Mr Nabarro said that the number of new cases was “quite frightening”, as the spread of the disease was currently accelerating. At the beginning, many west African communities did not understand that the outbreak was an infectious disease, he said.
“I think we’ve got much better community involvement which leads me to believe that getting it under control within the next three months is a reasonable target,” he continued.
“By under control I mean... the numbers of new cases each week diminishes compared with the previous week to the point where there is no new transmission.”
The Ebola virus is spread by direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or animal.
Meanwhile, New York’s JFK airport began screening passengers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea for the Ebola virus on Saturday, in an attempt to stop the outbreak. Passengers from those countries will have their temperatures taken and have to answer a series of questions.
Checks at O’Hare in Chicago, Newark, Washington’s Dulles and Atlanta’s airport will begin in the coming days. The screening system is being introduced after the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US died in Texas on Wednesday.The number of the countries which have been reported on death cases of Ebola so far mainly is ______.
| A．3. | B．4. | C．7. | D．8. |
According to the UN special envoy, how long will it take to bring Ebola under control?
| A．a few days from now. | B．six weeks. |
| C．about three months. | D．the coming week. |
What does the underlined word “diminishes” mean in the fifth paragraph?
| A．increases | B．decreases |
| C．varies | D．disappears |
Which of the following statements is not true according to the passage?
| A．Ebola is spread by direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or animal. |
| B．Most death cases of Ebola have occurred in the west African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. |
| C．Checks at airports in Chicago, Washington, and Atlanta will begin in the coming days. |
| D．The screening system is being introduced by the first person to be diagnosed. |
Taylor Swift has been named Billboard’s Woman of the Year 2014, making her the first artist to receive the award twice.
The award goes to the female artist who “has shaped and inspired the music industry with her success, leadership and innovation” over the last year. Previous winners include Pink, Beyonce and Katy Perry.
Swift will receive the prize at the Billboard Women in Music award ceremony on 12 December in New York.
“As one of the most influential artists of her generation, Taylor Swift has seen incredible success on the Billboard charts,” said Janice Min, co-president and chief creative officer of Guggenheim Media’s Entertainment Group, which includes Billboard.
“Over the course of her career, she’s charted 60 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 - the most of any female artist since her debut in 2006. We are tremendously excited to be honouring her as the 2014 Billboard Woman of the Year for the second time.”
Taylor Swift is a seven-time Grammy winner and the best-selling digital music artist of all time. Earlier this week it was announced she would be performing on The X Factor results show this weekend.
On Thursday she appeared in the performed in the Radio 1 Live Lounge, where she sang her current hit Shake It Off and covered Vance Joy’s Riptide.
Swift has just featured on the cover of British Vogue and explained what it was like to do high profile interviews.
“I don’t really have anything to hide at this point,” she told Fearne Cotton. “It’s sort of understood that anything I do is going to be discussed and dissected and debated and I’m used to that dynamic now.” She added: “I’m very proud of the way my life is. I’m 24, I’m single, feeling very independent. A lot of fun things have happened in my life.”What can be inferred from the first two paragraphs?
| A．Taylor Swift is the first artist to receive the award twice. |
| B．Taylor Swift is one of the four winners. |
| C．Taylor Swift has shaped and inspired the music industry with her success, leadership and innovation |
| D．The award goes to the female artists. |
The Award Ceremony will be held on __________.
| A．on 12 November in New York |
| B．on 12 December in Washington |
| C．on 12 November in Washington |
| D．on 12 December in New York |
According to Janice Min, _____________________.
| A．Taylor Swift is a seven-time Grammy winner and the best-selling digital music artist of all time |
| B．Taylor Swift appeared in the performed in the Radio 1 Live Lounge |
| C．Taylor Swift is worthwhile to be given the award a second time |
| D．Taylor Swift would be performing on The X Factor results show this weekend. |
From the last paragraph, we can see Taylor Swift was ____________.
| A．sad | B．unhappy |
| C．delighted | D．indifferent |
I entered college in China in 1981. Many things seemed to remain the same. For many things are dominated by one thing: the national entrance examination to get into college. In my year, about 4% high school students went to college. Now the number is 22%, as compared to 40% in the US.
The significant increase in the entrance rate doesn't seem to have relieved the anxiety. As a parent to a freshman college student, I can prove that junior and senior years in high school are not much fun even for students in the US. Once a country has vastly increased the rate of college entrance, students will still want to get into "better" colleges. The rat race is on if you are a rat, no matter where you are.
The NYT Magazine article also mentioned the Soviet-style（苏联模式的） over-specialized（过于专业化的） education in Chinese colleges. My class in college had maybe 60 students specialized in compressors, another 60 students specialized in refrigeration, and yet another 60 students specialized in welding（焊接）. I was among the 60 specialized in mechanics. I cannot recall the numbers exactly, but you get the picture.
It really wasn't as terrible as it sounds. In order to specialize in mechanics, we had to study math, physics and chemistry. We studied electrical circuits, alloy treatment, mechanical drawing, Fortran. We even had a continuous stream of humanity courses: history of communist party, political economics... I'm not sure I enjoyed all the courses, but I cannot claim that these courses damaged my brain, either. I remember some of the humanity courses required writing, which turned out to be a useful skill.
As a consequence of specialization, we did learn a lot of mechanics. By the end of college, we had courses on analytical mechanics, strength of materials.
I often feel sorry for American students in my undergraduate class, knowing that strength of materials will be their first and last course in the mechanics of materials. So many beautiful sights unseen! But they also seem to turn out to be OK. A liberal and superficial eduction doesn't damage their brains, either.
All this high level debate about education makes me dizzy, and turns me off. So far as I can tell, both systems of eduction work fine, and have their own limitations. The bottom line is that the quantity of knowledge is too large to be crammed into 4 years, and you'd have to make choices, making it either narrow or shallow or perhaps both. You'll just have to be prepared to engage yourself in life-long learning.why doesn’t the rising entrance rate seem to have relieved people’s anxiety?
| A．The rate of college entrance is still not high in China. |
| B．There not enough colleges for students. |
| C．Students are not contented with “common”college. |
| D．Students want to receive further education after college. |
What’s the meaning of the sentence “the rat race is on if you are a rat”?
| A．You cannot conquer your rivals forever. |
| B．There are too many people with the same ideas as yours. |
| C．You cannot avoid competition as long as you are in the society. |
| D．You should take yourself as a rat and run on for an established goal. |
What does the author intend to show by listing the specific majors his class specialized in?
| A．To show how specific the education was classified. |
| B．To show he had more major choices in his year. |
| C．To show what is Soviet-style education. |
| D．To show how terrible his college life was. |
What is the author’s attitude towards his courses?
| A．He doesn’t like them at all. |
| B．He doesn’t think that all of them are necessary. |
| C．He is sick of the humanity courses. |
| D．He likes humanity courses just for the future writing. |
A pioneer who made poor lands bloom is the winner of this year's World Food Prize. Daniel Hillel developed drip irrigation（滴灌） techniques that squeeze the most crop out of a drop of water, making farming possible in places where water is scarce（缺少）.
Farmers now rely on it in water-scarce regions from Spanish vineyards, to African onion fields, to America’s fruit and salad bowl. “We in California grow about 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables of the continental United States," says University of California at Davis hydrologist Jan Hopmans. "And the reason that is possible is because of, indeed, these drip and micro-irrigation techniques.”
Hillel got his start in dryland farming as a pioneer in Israel’s Negev Desert in the 1950s."The issue was efficient use of water," he says, "because land is available. It’s extensive. Water is limited.”These desert farmers did not have the luxury of running irrigation water through channels to their crops, the way farmers have since ancient times.So Hillel and others gave plants just what they needed, just where they needed it.
“The idea was to apply the water little by little, the way you spoon-feed a baby,” Hillel says.It worked so well that Hillel was soon traveling the world, showing others how to do it.Experts say drip irrigation is an innovation whose importance is growing, as climate change and rising population strain（使……紧张） water supplies in many parts of the world.
“This is where water use, water availability, water-use efficiency and climate change and crop production all converge," Hillel says. "And this has been really the essence of my career.”
A career whose legacy（遗产） can be measured drop by drop.What’s the main idea of Paragraph 2?
| A．Drip irrigation has made a difference to agriculture. |
| B．Daniel Hillel is becoming more popular worldwide. |
| C．Jan Hopmans takes pride in the American agriculture. |
| D．Drip irrigation plays an important role in American agriculture. |
Drip irrigation is popular because________.
| A．it can collect rainwater and show |
| B．it is more advanced than channel irrigation |
| C．it is water-saving and satisfactory |
| D．it can provide plants with what is need |
What makes drip irrigation seem increasingly important?
| A．Dryland farming. |
| B．Water shortages. |
| C．Food shortages. |
| D．Environmental pollution. |
The author considers Daniel Hillel’s career as _______.
| A．a bit undesirable | B．worthy of respect |
| C．very profitable | D．successful |