职称英语 (12)
最新试题
The two girls look alike（）
02-21
The curious looks from the strangers around her made her feel uneasy（）
02-21
The dentist has decided to extracther bad tooth（）
02-21
She read a poem which depictsthe splendor of the sunset（）
02-21
Mary has blendedthe ingredients（）
02-21
He is renownedfor his skill（）
02-21
They agreed to modifytheir policy（）
02-21
We aim to increase the speed of delivery.
05-09
These animals migrate south annually in search of food.
05-09
The curriculum was too narrow and too rigid．
05-09
热门试题
He was tempted by the high salary offered by the com pany.
The worst agonies of the war were now beginning.
They are trying to identify what is wrong with the present system.
Forests for Cities
You are standing in a beautiful forest in Japan. The air is clean and smells like plants and flowers. There are 175 different kinds of trees, and 60 kinds of birds live here._(46) You are downtown in the city of Nara, Japan, in Kasugayama Forest,the oldest urban forest in the world. It was started more than a thousand years ago, and today itfs very popular with tourists and artists.
Cities around the world are working to protect their urban forests. Some urban forests are parks, and some are just streets with a lot of trees. But all urban forests have many good effects on the environment. _(47) They also stop the noise from heavy
traffic. They even make the weather better because they make the air 3 一5 degrees cooler， and they stop strong winds.
Urban forests also have many good effects on people. They make the city more beautiful. In a crowded area, they give people a place to relax and spend time in nature. _(48)In some countries, people are starting new urban forests. In England, there are now 1. 3 million trees in an urban forest called Thames Chase, east of London. It was started in 1990，and it has grown very fast. Walking and bicycle clubs use the forest, and there are programs for children and artists.___(49)
Some older cities don，t have space for a big urban forest, but planting trees on the streets makes the city better. Scientists found that commuters (通勤人员)feel more relaxed when they can see trees. Trees are even good for business. _(50) In the
future, urban forests will become even more important as our cities grow bigger. In the megacities (超大城市）of tomorrow, people will need more green space to live a comfortable life. Planting trees today will make our lives better in the future.
Almost Human?
Scientists are racing to build the worlds first thinking robot. This is not science fiction：some say they will have made it by the year 2020. Carol Packer reports.
Machines that walk, speak and feel are no longer science fiction. Kismet is the name of an android (机器人)which scientists have built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Kismet is different from the traditional robot because it can show human emotions. Its eyes, ears and lips move to show when it feels happy, sad or bored. Kismet is one of the first of a new generation of androids — robots that look like human beings — which can imitate human feelings. Cog，another android invented by the MIT， imitates the action of a mother. However, scientists admit that so far Cog has the mental ability of a two-year-old.
The optimists (乐观主义者)say that by the year 2020 we will have created humanoids (机器人)with brains similar to those of an adult human being. These robots will be designed to look like people to make them more attractive and easier to sell to the public. What kind of jobs will they do? In the future, robots like Robonaut, a humanoid invented by NASA, will be doing dangerous jobs, like repairing space stations. They will also be doing more and more of the household work for us. In Japan, scientists are designing androids that will entertain us by dancing and playing the piano.
Some people worry about what the future holds： will robots become monsters (怪物)？ Will people themselves become increasingly like robots? Experts predict that more and more people will be wearing micro-computers, connected to the Internet, in the future. People
will have micro-chips in various parts of their body, which will connect them to a wide variety of gadgets (小装置).Perhaps we should not exaggerate (夸大)the importance of technology, but one wonders whether, in years to come, we will still be falling in love, and whether we will still feel pain. Who knows?
What makes Cog special?
She will be very pleased to meet you.
Jean has made up her mind not to go to the meeting.
These are their motives for doing it.
The Smog (烟雾)
For over a month, Indonesia was in crisis. Forest fires raged out of control as the country suffered its worst drought for 50 years. Smoke from the fires mixed with sunlight and hot dry air to form a cloud of smog. This pollution quickly spread and within days it was hanging over neighbouring countries including Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
When the smoke combined with pollution from factories and cars, it soon became poisonous (有毒的).Dangerous amounts of CO became trapped under the smog and pollution levels rose. People wheezed (喘息)and coughed as they left the house and their eyes watered immediately.
The smog made it impossible to see across streets and whole cities disappeared as grey soot (烟灰)covered everything. In some areas, water was hosed (用胶管浇)from high-rise city buildings to try and break up the smog.
Finally, heavy rains, which came in November, put out the fires and cleared the air. But the environmental costs and health problems will remain. Many people from South- Eastern Asian cities already suffer from breathing huge amounts of car exhaust fumes (排放的废气)and factory pollution. Breathing problems could well increase and many nonsufferers may have difficulties for the first time. Wildlife has suffered too. In lowland forests, elephants, deer, and tigers have been driven out of their homes by smog.
But smog is not just an Asian problem. In fact, the word was first used in London in 1905 to describe the mixture of smoke and thick fog. Fog often hung over the capital. Sometimes the smog was so thick and poisonous that people were killed by breathing problems or in accidents. About 4,000 Londoners died within five days as a result of thick smog in 1952.
Indonesia was in crisis because of the drought.
The herb medicine eventually cured her disease.
