Scientists think it will be possible to record people's dreams and then interpret them, according to a new report.
They claim to have developed a system which allows them to record higher level brain activity.
Dr Moran Cerf told the journal Nature: "We would like to read people's dreams."
Previously the only way to access people's dreams is for psychologists to ask about them after the event and try to interpret them.
Dr Cerf hopes to eventually compare people's memories of their dreams with an electronic visualization(影像) of their brain activity.
He told the BBC: "There's no clear answer as to why humans dream. And one of the questions we would like to answer is when do we actually create this dream?"
The scientist believes his latest research shows that certain neurons(神经元) or individual brain cells are linked with specific objects or concepts.
He found that a particular neuron lit up when a volunteer thought about Marilyn Monroe.
If a database was built up identifying various neurons with concepts, objects and people it would allow them to "read the subject's minds", according to Dr Cerf.
However, Dr Roderick Oner, a clinical psychologist and dream expert, said that this kind of visualisation would be of limited help when it came to interpreting the "complex dream narrative".
In addition to get a detailed picture of individual neurons subjects had to have electrodes implanted(植入电极) deep in the brain using surgery.
The Nature researchers used data from patients who had electrodes implanted to monitor and treat them for brain seizures(癫痫).
However, Dr Cerf said he hoped that it would be possible at a later stage to monitor people without invasive surgery. He said it would be "wonderful" to be able to read the minds of coma patients who are unable to communicate.According to the passage, psychologists try to interpret people’s dreams______.
| A．by recording higher level brain activity |
| B．by comparing people’s memories of their dreams with an electronic visualization |
| C．by asking about people after their dreams |
| D．by linking certain neurons with specific objects or concept |
What’s the best title for this passage?
| A．Scientists plan to record people’s dreams |
| B．Psychologists try to ask people about their dreams |
| C．Dream experts want to interpret the complex dream narrative |
| D．The Nature researchers intend to treat patients for brain seizures |
According to Dr Cerf’s research, when a patient thinks about a famous film star, ______.
| A．various neurons will identify the star as famous |
| B．a particular neuron will become bright with excitement |
| C．the star will appear in his brain |
| D．the star’s face will light up |
The underlined word “coma” in the last paragraph most probably means______.
| A．the lost of the ability to hear |
| B．being unable to control one’s movements |
| C．the state of being unconscious (无意识的) |
| D．being unable to move |
Alone in the darkness under layers of rubble (碎石) , Dan Woolley felt blood streaming from his head and leg.
Woolley, an aid worker, husband, and father of two boys, followed instructions on his cell phone to survive the January 12 earthquake in Haiti.
“I had an app that had pre-downloaded all this information about treating wounds. So I looked up excessive bleeding and I looked up compound fracture(断裂),” Woolley told CNN.
The application on his iPhone is filled with information about first aid and CPR from the American Heart Association. “So I knew I wasn’t making mistakes, ” Woolley said. “That gave me confidence to treat my wounds properly.”
Trapped in the ruins of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince
, he used his shirt to bandage his leg, and tied his belt around the wound. To stop the bleeding on his head, he firmly pressed a sock to it. Concerned he might have been experiencing shock, Woolley used the app to look up what to do. It warned him not to sleep. So he set his phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes.
Once the battery got down to less than 20 percent of its power, Woolley turned it off. By then, he says, he had trained his body not to sleep for long periods, drifting off only to wake up within minutes.
With his injuries tended to, he wrote a note to his family in his journal: “I was in a big accident, an earthquake. Don’t be upset at God. He always provides for his children even in hard times. I’m still praying that God will get me out, but he may not. But even so he will always take care of you.”
After more than 60 hours, Woolley was pulled from the rubble.
“Those guys are rescue heroes,” he said to the crew that pulled him out. Which of the following best summarizes the passage?
A．How to deal with the wo und. |
| B．Try to get in touch with outside. |
| C．How to stay awake under the ground. |
| D．An unforgettable experience in the earthquake. |
Woolley set his phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes because_____.
| A．he tried his best to communicate with rescuers |
| B．he was forced to stay awake to check his wounds |
| C．he was afraid that sleep might do harm to him |
| D．he needed to use the app to look up what to do |
The underlined sentence suggests that_________.
| A．he turned off his iPhone to save power | B．the battery of his IPhone lasted long |
| C．he didn’t want his iPhone to disturb him | D．his iPhone went off because of lack of power |
What Woolley wrote his journal showed _______.
| A．he expected his family to lend a hand | B．he didn’t lose heart in hard times |
| C．he cared more for his family than his life | D．his children made him upset |
It is the season for long lines and frayed(紧张的) nerves. Here are some ways to survive a holiday flight.
Lighten up
Do yourself a favor and ship your presents. Nearly every US airline charges a fee to check a bag, so shipping gifts is now cheaper and more convenient than carrying them in your luggage.
Weigh your options
Not knowing what you’re going to pay for your luggage is annoying. So calcul
ate your overweight-luggage fees at home. You can find the fees out in advance by visiting new site Luggage Limits, which provides the latest information on more than 90 airlines.
Leave amateurs in the dust
Trust us and get to the airport an extra half-hour early. The check-in and security lines are filled with inexperienced files, and it’s a hard walking. Plus, if you decide to cut it close you may not get onto the flight at all. To reduce costs, airlines have reduced on flights and routes. The remaining flights are more likely to be oversold, especially on busy travel days. Fliers who check in early are the least likely to get bumped from oversold flights.
Take it public
The rates for renting a car at the airport have more than doubled over the past year because rental lot inventories have decreased dramatically(现住地). True, renting at the airport is convenient, but it’s just not worth it anymore. Unless you really need a car, take public transportation, hop a cab, or beg a friend to pick you up at the airport instead.
Say no to bumper cars
Tell the people picking you up to avoid parking their car. They can hang out in their car for free while waiting to get a call from you when you land. Many airports, including JFK and LAX now feature this sensible choice.How does the author think of shipping gifts?
| A．Unnecessary. | B．Expensive. | C．Inconvenient. | D．Wonderful. |
Airlines have reduced flights to _________.
| A．deal with crisis | B．reduce the time for leave |
| C．lower the cost | D．provide more job chances |
It can be learned from the passage that ______.
| A．renting a car at the airport is expensive | B．taxis stay at the airport free of charge |
| C．cars can park at the airport for free | D．JFK encourages people to take a taxi |
What’s the best title for the passage?
| A．Five ways to survive a holiday flight. | B．Good seasons for flight. |
| C．Cars at the airport. | D．How to board a flight |
My friend Dr. Dong had a wonderful chance to go to Seattle to present a paper at a professional meeting. When he got back to Beijing, he told me his experience.
Dr. Dong enjoyed his first days very much. At the medical conference, he felt quite confident in his area of research and was able to perform well in his presentation. But after a few days, he began to feel uncomfortable. His medical English was fine, but the social communication skills were different.
He got more and more worri
ed that he was misunderstanding simple English greetings and table talk conventions(习俗). When someone greeted him with, “Hi, how’s it going?” he thought they had asked him “Where are you going?” and answered with the name of the conference hall, only to get a surprised stare from them. At a western style dinner, a colleague asked, “So how’re you enjoyin’ the States?” he thought he heard, “how are you enjoying your steak?” and answered that he was eating chicken, not beef. That time, they smiled, and patiently repeated the question, then both laughed at the error.
By the end of the meetings, Dr. Dong felt a deep sense of “cultural stress” and was worn out from having to pay attention to so many new expressions and ways of dealing with things. He felt his handshake was not as firm as Americans’, found that people reacted unusually when he modestly insisted his English was not good after they complimented(称赞) him, didn’t know how to accept dinner invitations properly and therefore missed out on going to several lunches, and so on. Eventually, he was so confused that he felt the full impact of “culture shock”.Why did Dr. Dong travel to Seattle?
| A．To improve his spoken English. | B．To experience culture shock. |
C．To give lectures on his researc h. |
D．To attend a medical conference. |
Which of the following best describes Dr. Dong’s experience in Seattle?
| A．Comfortable—very uncomfortable—uncomfortable. |
| B．comfortable—very uncomfortable—comfortable. |
| C．Comfortable—uncomfortable – very uncomfortable. |
| D．Comfortable—uncomfortable – very comfortable. |
Dr. Dong felt a deep sense of “cultural stress” mainly because_______.
| A．he was too modest | B．he didn’t understand cultural differences |
| C．he lacked confidence | D．he was not good at English listening |
Sustainable development is applied to just about everything from energy to clean water and economic growth, and as a result it has become difficult to question either the basic assumptions behind it or the way the concept is put to use. This is especially true in agriculture, where sustainable development is often taken as the only measure of progress without a proper appreciation of historical and cultural perspectives.
To start with, it is important to remember that the nature of agriculture has changed markedly throughout history, and will continue to do so. Medieval agriculture in northern Europe fed, clothed and sheltered a popularly rural society with a much lower population density than it is today. It had smallest effect on biodiversity, and any pollution it caused was typically localized. In terms of energy use and the nutrients captured in the product it was relatively inefficient.
Contrast this with farming since the start of the industrial revolution. Competition from overseas led farmers to specialize and increase yields. Throughout this period food became cheaper, safer and m
ore reliable. However, these changes have also led to habitat loss and to decreasing biodiversity.
What’s more, demand for animal products in developing countries is growing so fast that meeting it will require an extra 300 million tons of grain a year by 2050.yet the growth of cities and industry is reducing the amount of water available for agriculture in many regions.
All this means that agriculture in the 21st century will have to be very different from how it was in the 20th. This will require complete thinking. For example, we need to move away from the idea that traditional practices are unavoidably more sustainable than new ones. We also need to abandon the idea that agriculture can be “zero impact”. The key will be to abandon the rather simple and unchangeable measures of sustainability, which centre on the need to maintain production without increasing damage.
Instead we need a more dynamic explanation, one that looks at the pros and cons of all the various way land is used. There are many different ways to measure agricultural performance besides food yield: energy use, environmental costs,
water purity, carbon footprint and biodiversity. It is clear, for example, that the carbon of transporting tomatoes from Spain to the UK is less than that of producing them in the UK with additional heating and lighting. But we do not know whether lower carbon footprints will always be better for biodiversity.
What is critical is recognizing that sustainable agriculture is not just about sustainable food production.How do people often measure progress in agriculture?
| A．By its productivity. |
| B．By its impact on the environment. |
| C．By its sustainability. |
| D．By its contribution to economic growth. |
What does the author think of traditional farming practices?
| A．They have remained the same over the centuries. |
| B．They have not kept pace with population growth. |
| C．They are not necessarily sustainable. |
| D．They are environmentally friendly. |
What will agriculture be like in the 21st century?
| A．It will go through thorough changes. |
| B．It will supply more animal products. |
| C．It will abandon traditional farming practices. |
| D．It will cause zero damage to the environment. |
What is the author’s purpose in writing this passage?
| A．To remind people of the need of sustainable development. |
| B．To suggest ways of ensuring sustainable food production. |
| C．To advance new criteria for measuring farming progress. |
| D．To urge people to rethink what sustainable agriculture is. |
The market investigation is indispensable to sales promotion. They are as closely related as the lips and teeth, so to speak. What you produce is for sale on the market. It would be impossible to succeed in selling a product without first investigating the market.
In the international market, goods on sale coming from different countries and suppliers are always facing keen competition. Under such circumstances, they will try everything possible to familiarize themselves with the market conditions. In making investigations, we ought to get information about what similar items the competitors are offering on the market, what prices they are quoting（报价）, what features their products have, who are their regular customers, etc. Then, how can we obtain such information? There are many channels that we can make use of in doing this sort of work. The commercial counselor's offices of our embassies stationed abroad can help us in making market investigations. Nowadays, our import and export corporations send their trade groups abroad every now and then. One of their purposes is to make market surveys on the spot.
Certainly, face-to-face talks with foreign businessmen are also important channels to get market information. The Chinese Export Commodities Fairs and some other fairs of similar nature as well as visits of foreign businessmen provide us with such opportunities. Of course, there are some other ways of making market investigations.In making market investigations, one should ______.
| A．get enough information concerned | B．advertise his products |
| C．produce high quality goods | D．none of the above |
The word "indispensable" in the first line means ______.
| A．impossible | B．necessary |
| C．advisable | D．available |
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．The relationship between market investigation and sales promotion is just as that of the lips and teeth. |
| B．It is impossible to succeed in selling a product without market investigation. |
| C．There are various ways of making market investigation. |
| D．Production goes before market investigation. |
All the following are channels to get market information except ________.
| A．to have commercial counsellor' s office of our embassies stationed abroad |
| B．to promote the quality of our own products |
| C．to send trade groups abroad every now and then |
D．to have face-to-face talk s with foreign businessmen |