It is no longer unusual for a spouse or relative to donate a kidney to a loved one, but the number of Americans who have given a kidney to a friend, a co-worker or even a complete stranger has risen sharply from 68 in 1994 to 176 in 1998.
There are many reasons. First, it\'s possible to live a normal life with only one kidney. (The remaining kidney enlarges to make up most of the difference.) In addition a kidney from a live donor lasts longer than a kidney taken from someone who has died suddenly. But the biggest change in the past few years is that transplant surgeons have started using laparoscopic techniques to remove the donor kidney through a much smaller incision, and this can cut recovery time for the donor from six weeks to four weeks.
Just because you do something, however, it doesn\'t mean you should. Donating a kidney means undergoing an operation that carries some risk. You could argue that you may be helping to save a life, but you certainly can\'t pretend that you\'re better off with one kidney instead of two.
So, what are the risks? "As with any major operation, there is a chance of dying, of reoperation due to bleeding, of infection, of vein clots in the legs or a hernia at the incision," says Dr. Arthur Matas, director of the renal-transplant program at the university of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis. Even laparoscopy, a relatively new technique for kidney donation, is not risk-free. Doctors estimate that chances of dying from the procedure are about 3 in 10,000.
There\'s no money to be made; selling an organ is illegal. But the recipient\'s insurance normally covers your operation and immediate aftercare. Your costs can include hotel bills, lost pay during recovery or possible future disability.
Although transplant centers must evaluate any potential donor\'s suitability, it never hurts to have an independent opinion. The most common contraindications are heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.
Never let anyone, not even a close relative, pressure you into giving up an organ -- no matter if you\'re healthy. "There\'s often the feeling that you\'re not a good friend, father, mother if you don\'t do this," says Arthus Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania\'s center for Bioethics. Some transplant centers will invent a "medical problem" on behalf of those who are reluctant to donate but feel they can\'t say no.
1. From 1994 to 1998 the number of Americans who had donated a kidney reached 244.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
2. One of the reasons why the number of kidney donors has risen is that one is better off with one kidney instead of two.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
3.Yo don\'t have to be dead to donate a kidney, but you had better know the risks before you give it up.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
4. None of the Americans who donates a kidney during the period lasting from 1994 to 1998 died from the procedure.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
5. No one sells organs in the U.S. since it is illegal.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
6. People with heart disease, diabetes and high pressure are not suitable for kidney donation.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
7. Some transplant centers invent "medical problems" to cheat potential kidney donors.
Museums have changed. They are no longer places for the privileged few or for bored vacationers to visit on rainy days. Action and democracy are words used in descriptions of museums now.
At a science museum in Ontario, Canada, you can feel your hair stand on end as harmless electricity passes through your body. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, you can look at 17th century instruments while listening to their music. At the ModernMuseum in Sweden, you can put on costumes provided by the Stockholm Opera. As these examples show, museums are reaching out to new audiences, particularly the young, the poor, and the less educated members of the population. As a result, attendance is increasing.
More and more, museums directors are realizing that people learn best when they can somehow become part of what they are seeing. In many science museums, for example, there are no guided tours. The visitor is encouraged to touch, listen, operate, and experiment so as to discover scientific principles for himself. He can have the experience of operating a spaceship or a computer. He can experiment with glass blowing and papermaking. The purpose is not only to provide fun but also to help people feel at home in the world of science. The theory is that people who do not understand science will probably fear it, and those who fear science will not use it to the best advantage. Many museums now provide educational services and children\'s departments. In addition to the usual displays, they also offer film showings and dance programs. Instead of being places that one should visit, they are places to enjoy.
One cause of all these changes is the increase in wealth and leisure time. Another cause is the rising percentage of young population. Many of these young people are college students or college graduates, they are better educated than their parents. They see things in a new and different way. They are not content to stand and look at works of art; they want art they can participate in. The same is true of science and history. In the US., certain groups who formerly were too poor to care about anything beyond the basic needs of daily life are now becoming curious about the world around them. The young people in these groups, like young people in general, have benefited from a better education than their parents received. All these groups, and the rest of the population as well, have been influenced by television, which has taught them about places and other times.
The effect of all this has been to change existing museums and to encourage the building of new ones. In the US. and Canada alone, there are now more than 6,000 museums, almost twice as many as there were 25 years ago. About half of them are devoted to history, and the rest are evenly divided between the arts and sciences. The number of visitors, according to the American Association of museums, has risen to more than 700 million a year.
In fact, the crowds of visitors at some museums are creating a major problem, admission to museums has always been either free or very inexpensive, but now some museums are charging entrance fees for the first time or raising their prices. Even when raised, however, entrance fees are generally too low to support a museum, with its usually large building and its highly trained staff.
1. paragraph 2 _________.
2. paragraph 3 _________.
3. paragraph 4 _________.
4. paragraph 5 _________.
A. causes of changes
B. increasing number of museums and visitors
C. museums getting closer to more spectators
D. movies shown in museums
E. new notions about the management of museums
F. places to visit
5. Now museums are no longer restricted to the privileged few, but_______.
6. With the development of society, people, especially the young people, _____.
7. To meet the needs of society, more museums _____.
8. Two major problems for museums are that they have too many visitors and they ____.
A. have higher demands of museums
B. are open to more people with different social background
Major companies are already in pursuit of commercial applications of the new biology. They dream of placing enzymes in the automobile to monitor exhaust and send data on pollution to a microprocessor that will then adjust the engine. They speak of what the New York Times calls " metal-hungry microbes that might be used to mine valuable trace metals from ocean water ". They have already demanded and won the right to patent new lifeforms.
Nervous critics, including many scientists, worry that there is corporate, national, international, and inter-scientific rivalry in the entire biotechnological field.They create images not of oil spills, but of " microbe spills " that could spread disease and destroy entire populations. The creation and accidental release of extremely poisonous microbes, however, is only one cause for alarm. Completely rational and respectable scientists are talking about possibilities that stagger the imagination.
Should we breed people with cow-like stomachs so they can digest grass and hay, thereby relieving the food problem by modifying us to eat lower down on the food chain? Should we biologically alter workers to fit the job requirement, for example, creating pilots with faster reaction times or assembly-line workers designed to do our monotonous work for us? Should we attempt to eliminate " inferior " people and breed a " super -race "? (Hitler tried this, but without the genetic weaponry that may soon issue from our laboratories.) Should we produce soldiers to do our fighting? Should we use genetic forecasting to pre-eliminate " unfit " babies? Should we grow reserve organs for ourselves, each of us having, as it were, a " savings bank " full of spare kidney, livers or hands?
Wild as these notions may sound, every one has its advocates (and opposers) in the scientific community as well as its striking commercial application. As two critics of genetic engineering, Jeremy Rifkin and Ted Howard, state in their book Who Should Play God? " Broad Scale genetic engineering will probably be introduced to America much the same way as assembly lines, automobiles, vaccines, computers and all the other technologies. As each new genetic advance becomes commercially practical, a new consumer need will be exploited and a market for the new technology will be created."
1. According to the passage, the exhaust from a car engine could probably be checked by
A) using metal-hungry microbes .
B) making use of enzymes.
C) adjusting the engine.
D) patenting new life forms.
2. According to the passage, which of the following would worry the critics the most?
A) The unanticipated explosion of population
B) The creation of biological solar cells.
C) The accidental spill of oil.
D) The unexpected release of destructive microbes.
3. Which of the following notions is NOT mentioned?
A) Developing a " savings bank " of one\'s organs.
B) Breeding soldiers for a war.
C) Producing people with cow-like stomachs.
D) Using genetic forecasting to cure diseases.
4. According to the passage, Hitler attempted to
A) changed the pilots biologically to win the war.
B) develop genetic farming for food supply.
C) kill the people he thought of as inferior.
D) encourage the development of genetic weapons for the war.
5. What dose Jeremy Rifkin and Ted Howard\'s statement imply?
A) The commercial applications of genetic engineering are inevitable.
B) American will depend on other countries for biological progress.
C) Americans are proud of their countries for biological progress.
D) The potential application of each new genetic advance should be controlled.
第2篇
Male and Female pilots cause accidents differently
Male pilots flying general aviation。(private)aircraft in the United States are more likely to crash due to inattention or flawed decision．making．while female pilots are more likely to crash from mishandling the aircraft．These are the results of a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health．
The study identifies the differences between male and female pilots in terms of circumstances of the crash and the type of pilots error involved．“Crashes of general aviation aircraft account for85 percent of all aviation deaths’in the United States．The crash rate for male pilots．as for motor vehicle drivers，exceeds that of crashes of female pilots，”explains Susan P.Baker, MPH, professor of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health．“Because pilot youth and inexperience are established。contributors to aviation crashes, we focused on only mature pilots，to determine the gender differences in the reasons for the crash．’’
The researchers extracted data for this study from a large research project on pilot aging and flight safety．The data were gathered from general aviation crashes of airplanes and helicopters between 1983 and 1997，involving 144 female pilots and 267 male pilots aged 40--63．Female pilots were matched with male pilots in a l：2 ratio，by age，classes of medical and pilot certificates, state or area of crash，and year of crash．Then the circumstances of the crashes and the pilot error involved were categorized and coded without knowledge of pilot gender．
The researchers found that loss of control on landing or takeoff was the most common
circumstance for both sexes，leading to 59 percent of female pilots’crashes and 36 percent of males’．Experiencing mechanical failure，running out of fuel，and landing the plane with the landing gear up were among the factors more likely with males，while stalling was more likely with females．
The majority of the crashes——95 percent for females and 88 percent for males——involved atleast one type of pilot error．Mishandling aircraft kinetics was the most common error for both sexes, but was more common among females(accounting for 81 percent of the crashes)than males (accounting for 48 percent)．Males，however，appeared more likely to be guilty of poor decision-making，risk-taking，and inattentiveness, examples of which include misjudging weather and visibility or flying an aircraft with a known defect．Females，though more likely to mishandle or lose control of the aircraft，were generally more careful than their male counterparts.
It is no longer unusual for a spouse or relative to donate a kidney to a loved one, but the number of Americans who have given a kidney to a friend, a co-worker or even a complete stranger has risen sharply from 68 in 1994 to 176 in 1998.
There are many reasons. First, it\'s possible to live a normal life with only one kidney. (The remaining kidney enlarges to make up most of the difference.) In addition a kidney from a live donor lasts longer than a kidney taken from someone who has died suddenly. But the biggest change in the past few years is that transplant surgeons have started using laparoscopic techniques to remove the donor kidney through a much smaller incision, and this can cut recovery time for the donor from six weeks to four weeks.
Just because you do something, however, it doesn\'t mean you should. Donating a kidney means undergoing an operation that carries some risk. You could argue that you may be helping to save a life, but you certainly can\'t pretend that you\'re better off with one kidney instead of two.
So, what are the risks? "As with any major operation, there is a chance of dying, of reoperation due to bleeding, of infection, of vein clots in the legs or a hernia at the incision," says Dr. Arthur Matas, director of the renal-transplant program at the university of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis. Even laparoscopy, a relatively new technique for kidney donation, is not risk-free. Doctors estimate that chances of dying from the procedure are about 3 in 10,000.
There\'s no money to be made; selling an organ is illegal. But the recipient\'s insurance normally covers your operation and immediate aftercare. Your costs can include hotel bills, lost pay during recovery or possible future disability.
Although transplant centers must evaluate any potential donor\'s suitability, it never hurts to have an independent opinion. The most common contraindications are heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.
Never let anyone, not even a close relative, pressure you into giving up an organ -- no matter if you\'re healthy. "There\'s often the feeling that you\'re not a good friend, father, mother if you don\'t do this," says Arthus Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania\'s center for Bioethics. Some transplant centers will invent a "medical problem" on behalf of those who are reluctant to donate but feel they can\'t say no.
1. From 1994 to 1998 the number of Americans who had donated a kidney reached 244.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
2. One of the reasons why the number of kidney donors has risen is that one is better off with one kidney instead of two.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
3.Yo don\'t have to be dead to donate a kidney, but you had better know the risks before you give it up.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
4. None of the Americans who donates a kidney during the period lasting from 1994 to 1998 died from the procedure.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
5. No one sells organs in the U.S. since it is illegal.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
6. People with heart disease, diabetes and high pressure are not suitable for kidney donation.
A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned
7. Some transplant centers invent "medical problems" to cheat potential kidney donors.
Museums have changed. They are no longer places for the privileged few or for bored vacationers to visit on rainy days. Action and democracy are words used in descriptions of museums now.
At a science museum in Ontario, Canada, you can feel your hair stand on end as harmless electricity passes through your body. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, you can look at 17th century instruments while listening to their music. At the ModernMuseum in Sweden, you can put on costumes provided by the Stockholm Opera. As these examples show, museums are reaching out to new audiences, particularly the young, the poor, and the less educated members of the population. As a result, attendance is increasing.
More and more, museums directors are realizing that people learn best when they can somehow become part of what they are seeing. In many science museums, for example, there are no guided tours. The visitor is encouraged to touch, listen, operate, and experiment so as to discover scientific principles for himself. He can have the experience of operating a spaceship or a computer. He can experiment with glass blowing and papermaking. The purpose is not only to provide fun but also to help people feel at home in the world of science. The theory is that people who do not understand science will probably fear it, and those who fear science will not use it to the best advantage. Many museums now provide educational services and children\'s departments. In addition to the usual displays, they also offer film showings and dance programs. Instead of being places that one should visit, they are places to enjoy.
One cause of all these changes is the increase in wealth and leisure time. Another cause is the rising percentage of young population. Many of these young people are college students or college graduates, they are better educated than their parents. They see things in a new and different way. They are not content to stand and look at works of art; they want art they can participate in. The same is true of science and history. In the US., certain groups who formerly were too poor to care about anything beyond the basic needs of daily life are now becoming curious about the world around them. The young people in these groups, like young people in general, have benefited from a better education than their parents received. All these groups, and the rest of the population as well, have been influenced by television, which has taught them about places and other times.
The effect of all this has been to change existing museums and to encourage the building of new ones. In the US. and Canada alone, there are now more than 6,000 museums, almost twice as many as there were 25 years ago. About half of them are devoted to history, and the rest are evenly divided between the arts and sciences. The number of visitors, according to the American Association of museums, has risen to more than 700 million a year.
In fact, the crowds of visitors at some museums are creating a major problem, admission to museums has always been either free or very inexpensive, but now some museums are charging entrance fees for the first time or raising their prices. Even when raised, however, entrance fees are generally too low to support a museum, with its usually large building and its highly trained staff.
1. paragraph 2 _________.
2. paragraph 3 _________.
3. paragraph 4 _________.
4. paragraph 5 _________.
A. causes of changes
B. increasing number of museums and visitors
C. museums getting closer to more spectators
D. movies shown in museums
E. new notions about the management of museums
F. places to visit
5. Now museums are no longer restricted to the privileged few, but_______.
6. With the development of society, people, especially the young people, _____.
7. To meet the needs of society, more museums _____.
8. Two major problems for museums are that they have too many visitors and they ____.
A. have higher demands of museums
B. are open to more people with different social background
Major companies are already in pursuit of commercial applications of the new biology. They dream of placing enzymes in the automobile to monitor exhaust and send data on pollution to a microprocessor that will then adjust the engine. They speak of what the New York Times calls " metal-hungry microbes that might be used to mine valuable trace metals from ocean water ". They have already demanded and won the right to patent new lifeforms.
Nervous critics, including many scientists, worry that there is corporate, national, international, and inter-scientific rivalry in the entire biotechnological field.They create images not of oil spills, but of " microbe spills " that could spread disease and destroy entire populations. The creation and accidental release of extremely poisonous microbes, however, is only one cause for alarm. Completely rational and respectable scientists are talking about possibilities that stagger the imagination.
Should we breed people with cow-like stomachs so they can digest grass and hay, thereby relieving the food problem by modifying us to eat lower down on the food chain? Should we biologically alter workers to fit the job requirement, for example, creating pilots with faster reaction times or assembly-line workers designed to do our monotonous work for us? Should we attempt to eliminate " inferior " people and breed a " super -race "? (Hitler tried this, but without the genetic weaponry that may soon issue from our laboratories.) Should we produce soldiers to do our fighting? Should we use genetic forecasting to pre-eliminate " unfit " babies? Should we grow reserve organs for ourselves, each of us having, as it were, a " savings bank " full of spare kidney, livers or hands?
Wild as these notions may sound, every one has its advocates (and opposers) in the scientific community as well as its striking commercial application. As two critics of genetic engineering, Jeremy Rifkin and Ted Howard, state in their book Who Should Play God? " Broad Scale genetic engineering will probably be introduced to America much the same way as assembly lines, automobiles, vaccines, computers and all the other technologies. As each new genetic advance becomes commercially practical, a new consumer need will be exploited and a market for the new technology will be created."
1. According to the passage, the exhaust from a car engine could probably be checked by
A) using metal-hungry microbes .
B) making use of enzymes.
C) adjusting the engine.
D) patenting new life forms.
2. According to the passage, which of the following would worry the critics the most?
A) The unanticipated explosion of population
B) The creation of biological solar cells.
C) The accidental spill of oil.
D) The unexpected release of destructive microbes.
3. Which of the following notions is NOT mentioned?
A) Developing a " savings bank " of one\'s organs.
B) Breeding soldiers for a war.
C) Producing people with cow-like stomachs.
D) Using genetic forecasting to cure diseases.
4. According to the passage, Hitler attempted to
A) changed the pilots biologically to win the war.
B) develop genetic farming for food supply.
C) kill the people he thought of as inferior.
D) encourage the development of genetic weapons for the war.
5. What dose Jeremy Rifkin and Ted Howard\'s statement imply?
A) The commercial applications of genetic engineering are inevitable.
B) American will depend on other countries for biological progress.
C) Americans are proud of their countries for biological progress.
D) The potential application of each new genetic advance should be controlled.
第2篇
Male and Female pilots cause accidents differently
Male pilots flying general aviation。(private)aircraft in the United States are more likely to crash due to inattention or flawed decision．making．while female pilots are more likely to crash from mishandling the aircraft．These are the results of a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health．
The study identifies the differences between male and female pilots in terms of circumstances of the crash and the type of pilots error involved．“Crashes of general aviation aircraft account for85 percent of all aviation deaths’in the United States．The crash rate for male pilots．as for motor vehicle drivers，exceeds that of crashes of female pilots，”explains Susan P.Baker, MPH, professor of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health．“Because pilot youth and inexperience are established。contributors to aviation crashes, we focused on only mature pilots，to determine the gender differences in the reasons for the crash．’’
The researchers extracted data for this study from a large research project on pilot aging and flight safety．The data were gathered from general aviation crashes of airplanes and helicopters between 1983 and 1997，involving 144 female pilots and 267 male pilots aged 40--63．Female pilots were matched with male pilots in a l：2 ratio，by age，classes of medical and pilot certificates, state or area of crash，and year of crash．Then the circumstances of the crashes and the pilot error involved were categorized and coded without knowledge of pilot gender．
The researchers found that loss of control on landing or takeoff was the most common
circumstance for both sexes，leading to 59 percent of female pilots’crashes and 36 percent of males’．Experiencing mechanical failure，running out of fuel，and landing the plane with the landing gear up were among the factors more likely with males，while stalling was more likely with females．
The majority of the crashes——95 percent for females and 88 percent for males——
