Mysterious Nazca Drawings One of the most mysterious archaeological spectacles in the world is the immense complex of geo-metrical symbols, giant ground-drawings of birds and animals, and hundreds of long, ruler-straight lines , some right across mountains, which stretch over 1, 200 square miles of the Peruvian tablelands, at Nazca. Nazca was first revealed to modern eyes in 1926 when three explorers looked down on the desert from a hillside at dusk and briefly saw a Nazca line highlighted by the rays of the sun. But it was not until the Peruvian airforce took aerial photographs in the 1940s that the full magnificence of the panorama was apparent. Hundreds of what looked like landing strips for aircraft were revealed. There were eighteen bird-like drawings, up to 400 feet long)four-sided figures with two lines parallel; and long needle-like triangles which ran for miles. Among the many abstract patterns were a giant spider, a monkey, a shark, all drawn on the ground on a huge scale. The scale is monumental, but from the ground almost invisible and totally incomprehensible. The amazing fact about Nazca, created more than 1, 500 years ago, is that it can only be appreciated if seen from the air. Many, therefore, regarded it as a prehistoric landing ground for visitors from outer space, but Jim Woodman, an American explorer, who was long fascinated by the mystery of Nazca, had a different opinion. He believed that Nazca only made sense if the people who had designed and made these vast drawings on the ground could actually see them, and that led him to the theory that the ancient Peruvians had somehow learned to fly, as only from above could they really see the extent of their handiwork. With this theory in mind, he researched into ancient Peruvian legends about flight and came to the conclusion that the only feasible answer was a hot-air balloon. To prove his theory, Woodman would have to make such a thing using the same fabrics and fibers that would have been available to the men of Nazca at the time. He started by gathering information from ancient paintings, legends, books and archaeological sites. After many attempts, Woodman built a balloon-type airship. It took him into the air, letting him have the sensation he had never had from viewing the same ground that he had seen many times. His flight was a modern demonstration of an ancient possibility.

I seldom watch TV. rarely frequently normally occasionally

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I was astonished at the news of his escape. amused amounted amazed approached

This is not typical of English, but is a feature of the Chinese language. particular characteristic remarkable idiomatic

Computer Virus The computer virus is an outcome of the computer overgrowth in the 1980s. The cause of the term “computer virus“ is the likeness between the biological virus and the evil program infected with computers. The origin of this term came from an American science fiction“The Adolescence of P—l“writ-ten by Thomas J . Ryan, published in 1977. Human viruses invade a living cell and turn it into a factory for manufacturing viruses. However, computer viruses are small programs. They replicate by attaching a copy of themselves to another program. Once attached to host Program, the viruses then look for other programs to “infect“. In this way, the virus can spread quickly throughout a hard disk or an entire organization when it infects a LAN or a multi—user system. At some point, determined by how the virus was programmed the virus attacks. The timing of the attack can be linked to a number of situations, including a certain time or date, the presence of a particular file, the security privilege level of the user, and the number of times a file is used. Likewise, the mode of attack varies. So —called “benign“ viruses might simply display a message, like the one that infected IBM’s main computer system last Christmas with a season’s greeting. Malignant viruses are designed to damage the system. The attack is to wipe out data, to delete flies or to format the hard disk. What Kind of Viruses Are There? There are four main types of viruses: shell, intrusive, operating system and source ode. Shell viruses wrap themselves around a host program and don’t modify the original program. Shell programs are easy to write, which is why about half of viruses are of this type. Intrusive viruses Invade an existing program and actually insert a portion of themselves into the host program. Intrusive viruses are hard to write and very difficult to remove without damaging the host file.

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Relief workers were shocked by what they saw. moved touched surprised worried

The weather is a constant subject of conversation in Britain. question problem title topic

English and English Community 1. There is no doubt that English is a useful language. The people who speak English today make up the largest speech community in the world with the exception of speakers of Chinese. 2. A speech community is similar to other kinds of communities. The people who make up the community share a common language. Often they live side by side, as they do in a neighborhood(街坊), a village, or a city. More often they form a whole country. National boundaries, however, are not always the same as the boundaries of a speech community. A speech community is any group of people who speak the same language no matter where they happen to live. 3. We may say that anyone who speaks English belongs to the English speech community. For convenience(方便), we may divide the speakers into two groups;one in which the speakers use English as their native language, the other in which the speakers learn English as a second language for the purpose of education, commerce, and so on. 4. Learning a second language extends one’s vision and expands the mind. The history and literature of a second language record the real and fictional(虚构的)lives of people and their culture; a knowledge of them adds to our ability to understand and to feel as they feel. Learning English as a second language provides another means of communication through which the window of the entire English speech community becomes a part of our heritage. A. Threat Posed by English B. Definition of a Speech Community C. Benefits of Learning a Second Language D. Advantages of Learning Chinese E. Two Groups of the English Speech Community F. A Widely Used Language

A. a second language B. the same language C. the same speech community D. any other language E. national boundaries F. a part of one’s heritage

Once Daily Pill Could Simplify HIV Treatment Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences have combined many HIV drugs into a single pill. Sometimes the best medicine is more than one kind of medicine. Malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS,【C1】______, are all treated with combinations of drugs. But that can mean a lot of pill to take. It would be【C2】______drug companies combined all the medicines into a single pill, taken just once a day. Now, two companies say they have done that for people just【C3】______treatment for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The companies are Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Science. They have 【C4】______single pill that combines three drugs currently on the market. Bristol-Myers Squibb sells one of them【C5】______the name of Sustiva. Gilead combined the【C6】______, Emtriva and Viread, into a single pill in two thousand four. Combining drugs involves more than【C7】______issues. It also involves issues of competition 【C8】______he drugs are made by different companies. The new once-daily pill is the result of 【C9】______is described as the first joint venture agreement of its kind in the treatment of HIV. In January the New England Journal of Medicine published a study of the new pill. Researcher compared its【C10】______o that of the widely used combination of Sustiva and Combivir. Combivir【C11】______two drugs, AZT and 3TC. The researchers say that after one year of treatment, the new pill suppressed HIV levels in more patients and with fewer【C12】______effects. Gilead paid for the study. Professor Joel Gallant at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, led the research. He is a paid adviser to Gilead and Bristol-Meyers Squibb as well as the maker of Combivir, Glaxo Smith Kline. Glaxo Smith Kline reacted【C13】______the findings by saying that a single study is of limited value. It says the effectiveness of Combivir has been shown in each of more than fifty studies. The price of the new once-daily pill has not been announced. But Gilead and Bristol-Myers Squibb say they will provide it at reduced cost to developing countries. They plan in the next few months to ask the United States Food and Drug Administration to approve the new pill. There are limits to who could take it【C14】______the different drugs it contains. For example, 【C15】______omen are told not to take Sustiva because of the risk of birth disorders. Experts say more than forty million people around the world are living with HIV.

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A Gay Biologist Molecular biologist Dean Hamer has blue eyes, light brown hair and a good sense of humor. He smokes cigarettes, spends long hours in an old laboratory at the US National Institute of Health, and in his free time climbs up cliffs and points his skis down steep slopes. He also happens to be openly, matter of factly gay. What is it that makes Hamer who he is? What, for that matter, accounts for the talents and traits that make up anyone’s personality? Hamer is not content merely to ask such questions; he is trying to answer them as well. A pioneer in the field of molecular psychology, Hamer is exploring the role genes play in governing the very core of our individuality. To a remarkable extent, his work on what might be called the gay, thrill-seeking and quit-smoking genes reflects how own genetic predispositions. That work, which has appeared mostly in scientific journals, has been gathered into an accessible and quite readable form in Hamer’s creative new book, Living with Our Genes. “You have about as much choice in some aspect of your personality. “ Hamer and co-author Peter Copeland write in the introductory chapter, “as you do in the shape of your nose or the size of your feet. “ Until recently, research into behavioral genetics was dominated by psychiatrists and psychologists, who based their most compelling conclusions about the importance of genes on studies of identical twins. For example, psychologist Michael Bailey of Northwestern University famously demonstrated that if one identical twin is gay, there is about a 50% likelihood that the other will be too. Seven years ago, Hamer picked up where the twin studies left off, homing in on specific strips of DNA that appear to influence everything from mood to sexual orientation. Hamer switched to behavioral genetics from basic research, after receiving his doctorate from Harvard, he spent more than a decade studying the biochemistry of a protein that cells use to metabolize heavy metals like copper and zinc. As he was about to turn 40, however, Hamer suddenly realized he had learned as much about the protein as he cared to. “Frankly, 1 was bored, “ he remembers, “and ready for something new. “ Homosexual behavior, in particular, seemed ripe for exploration because few scientists had dared tackle such an emotionally and politically charged subject. “I’m gay, “ Hamer says with a shrug, “but that was not a major motivation. It was more of a question of intellectual curiosity—and the fact that no one else was doing this sort of research. “

One of the “most mysterious archaeological spectacles in the world“ is______.

Nazca was discovered in 1926 when______.

The “landing strips for aircraft“(in Paragraph 2)were really______.

Jim Woodman felt sure that______.

Woodman’s flight proved______.