More Rural Research is Needed Agricultural research funding is vital if the world is to feed itself better than it does now. Dr. Tony Fischer, crop scientist, said demand was growing at 2.5% per year but with modem technologies and the development of new ones, the world should be able to stay ahead. “The global decline in investment in international agricultural research must be reversed if significant progress is to be made towards reducing malnutrition(营养不良)and poverty. “ he said. Research is needed to solve food production, land degradation(贫瘠化)and environmental problems. Secure local food supplies led to economic growth which in turn, slowed population growth. Dr. Fischer painted a picture of the world’s ability to feed itself in the first 25 years, when the world’s population is expected to rise from 5.8 to 8 billion people. He said that things will probably hold or improve but there’ll still be a lot of hungry people. The biggest concentration of poor and hungry people would be in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia in 2020, similar to the current pattern. If there is any change, a slight improvement will be seen in southern Asia, but not in sub-Saharan Africa. The major improvement will be in East Asia, South America and South-East Asia. The developing world was investing about 0. 5% , or $8 billion a year, of its agricultural gross domestic product(GDP)on research and developed world was spending 2. 5% of its GDP. Dr. Fischer said more was needed from all countries. He said crop research could produce technologies that spread across many countries, such as wheat production research having spin-offs(有用的副产品)for Mexico, China or India. “Technologies still need to be refined for the local conditions but a lot of the strategic research can have global application, so that money can be used very efficiendy. “ Dr. Fischer said. Yields of rice, wheat ad maize(玉米)have grown impressively in the past 30 years, especially in developing countries. For example, maize production rose from 2 to 8 tones per hectare between 1950 and 1995. But technologies driving this growth such as high-yield varieties, fertilizers , and irrigation, were becoming exhausted. “ If you want to save the land for non-agricultural activities, for forests and wildlife, you’re going to have to increase yield. “ Dr. Fischer said.

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The political situation in the region has deteriorated rapidly. improved changed worsened developed

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She’s extremely competent and industrious. hardworking honest objective independent

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A using photos B description of the HTML page C current popular search engines D document search E information in images F machine vision systems

Dangers Await Babies with Altitude Women who live in the world’s highest communities tend to give birth to under-weight babies , a new study suggests. These babies may grow into adults with a high risk of heart disease and strokes. Research has hinted that newborns in mountain communities are lighter than average. But it wasn’t clear whether this is due to reduced oxygen levels at high altitude or because their mothers are under-nourished — many people who live at high altitudes are relatively poor compared with those living lower down. To find out more, Dino Giussani and his team at Cambridge University studied the records of 400 births in Bolivia during 1976 and 1998. The babies were born in both rich and poor areas of two cities: La Paz and Santa Cruz. La Paz is the highest city in the world, at 3.65 kilometers a-bove sea level, while Santa Cruz is much lower, at 0.44 kilometers. Sure enough, Giussani found that the average birthweight of babies in La Paz was significantly lower than in Santa Cruz. This was true in both high and low-income families. Even babies born to poor families in Santa Cruz were heavier on average than babies born to wealthy families in lofty La Paz. “We were very surprised by this result, “ says Giussani. The results suggest that babies born at high altitude are deprived of oxygen before birth. “This may trigger the release or suppression of hormones that regulate growth of the unborn child, “ says Giussani. His team also found that high-altitude babies tended to have relatively larger heads compared with their bodies. This is probably because a fetus starved of oxygen will send oxygenated blood to the brain in preference to rest of the body. Giussani wants to find out if such babies have a higher risk of disease in later life. People born in La Paz might be prone to heart trouble in adulthood, for example. Low birth weight is a risk factor for coronary(冠状的)heart disease. And newborns with a high ratio of head size to body weight are often predisposed to high blood pressure and strokes in later life.

More Rural Research is Needed Agricultural research funding is vital if the world is to feed itself better than it does now. Dr. Tony Fischer, crop scientist, said demand was growing at 2.5% per year but with modem technologies and the development of new ones, the world should be able to stay ahead. “The global decline in investment in international agricultural research must be reversed if significant progress is to be made towards reducing malnutrition(营养不良)and poverty. “ he said. Research is needed to solve food production, land degradation(贫瘠化)and environmental problems. Secure local food supplies led to economic growth which in turn, slowed population growth. Dr. Fischer painted a picture of the world’s ability to feed itself in the first 25 years, when the world’s population is expected to rise from 5.8 to 8 billion people. He said that things will probably hold or improve but there’ll still be a lot of hungry people. The biggest concentration of poor and hungry people would be in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia in 2020, similar to the current pattern. If there is any change, a slight improvement will be seen in southern Asia, but not in sub-Saharan Africa. The major improvement will be in East Asia, South America and South-East Asia. The developing world was investing about 0. 5% , or $8 billion a year, of its agricultural gross domestic product(GDP)on research and developed world was spending 2. 5% of its GDP. Dr. Fischer said more was needed from all countries. He said crop research could produce technologies that spread across many countries, such as wheat production research having spin-offs(有用的副产品)for Mexico, China or India. “Technologies still need to be refined for the local conditions but a lot of the strategic research can have global application, so that money can be used very efficiendy. “ Dr. Fischer said. Yields of rice, wheat ad maize(玉米)have grown impressively in the past 30 years, especially in developing countries. For example, maize production rose from 2 to 8 tones per hectare between 1950 and 1995. But technologies driving this growth such as high-yield varieties, fertilizers , and irrigation, were becoming exhausted. “ If you want to save the land for non-agricultural activities, for forests and wildlife, you’re going to have to increase yield. “ Dr. Fischer said.

Why Buy Shade-Grown Coffee? When people argue about whether coffee is good for health, they’re usually thinking of the health of the coffee drinker. Is it good for your heart? Does it increase blood pressure? Does it help you concentrate? However, coffee affects the health of the human population in other ways, too. Traditionally, coffee bushes were planted under the canopy(树冠)of taller indigenous(土生土长的)trees. However, more and more farmers in Latin America are deforesting the land to grow full-sun coffees. At first, this increases production because more coffee bushes can be planted if there aren’t any trees. With increased production come increased profits. Unfortunately, deforesting for coffee production immediately decreases local wildlife habitat. Native birds nest and hide from predators(捕食者)in the tall trees and migrating birds rest there. Furthermore, in the long term, the full-sun method also damages the ecosystem because more chemical fertilizers and pesticides are needed to grow the coffee. The fertilizers and pesticides kill insects that eat coffee plant, but then the birds eat the poisoned insects and also die. The chemicals kill or sicken other animals as well, and can even enter the water that people will eventually drink. Fortunately, farmers in Central and South America are beginning to grow more coffee bushes in the shade. We can support these farmers by buying coffee with such labels as “shade grown“ and “bird friendly. “ Sure, these varieties might cost a little more. But we’re paying for the health of the birds, the land, ourselves, and the planet. I think it’s worth it.

I’ll Be Bach Composer David Cope is the inventor of a computer program that writes original works of classical music. It took Cope 30 years to develop the software. Now most people can’t【C1】______ the difference between music by the famous German composer J. S. Bach(1685 - 1750)and the Bach-like compositions from Cope’s computer. It all started in 1980 in the United States, when Cope was trying to write an opera. He was having【C2】______thinking of new melodies, so he wrote a computer program to create the melodies. At first this music was not【C3】______to listen to. What did Cope do? He began to rethink how human beings compose music. He realized that composers, brains【C4】______like big databases. First, they take in all the music that they have ever heard. Then they take 【C5】______the music that they dislike. Finally, they make new music from what is【C6】______. According to Cope, only the great composers are able to create the database accurately, remember it, and form new musical patterns from it. Cope built a【C7】______database of existing music. He began with hundreds of works by Bach. The software analyzed the data: it【C8】______it down into smaller pieces and looked for patterns. It then combined the【C9】______into new patterns. Before long, the program could compose short Bach-like works. They weren’t good, but it was a start. Cope knew he had more work to do—he had a whole opera to write. He continued to improve the software. Soon it could【C10】______more complex music. He also added many other composers , including his own work to the database. A few years later, Cope’s computer program, called “Emmy“ , was ready to help him with his opera. The【C11】______required a lot of collaboration between the composer and Emmy. Cope listened to the computer’s musical ideas and used the【C12】______that he liked. With Emmy, the opera took only two weeks to finish. It was called Cradle Falling, and it was a great 【C13】______! Cope received some of the best reviews of his career, but no one knew exactly 【C14】______he had composed the work. Since that first opera, Emmy has written thousands of compositions. Cope still gives Emmy feedback on what he likes and doesn’t like of her music, 【C15】______she is doing most of the hard work of composing these days!

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Saving a City’s Public Art Avoiding traffic jams in Los Angeles may be impossible, but the city’s colorful freeway murals(壁画)can brighten even the most miserable commute. Paintings that depict(描述)famous people and historic scenes cover office buildings and freeway walls across the city. With a collection of more than 2, 000 murals, Los Angeles is the unofficial mural capital of the world. But the combination of graffiti(涂鸦), pollution, and hot sun has left many L. A. murals in terrible condition. 【B1】______In the past, experts say, little attention was given to caring for public art. Artists were even expected to maintain their own works, not an easy task with cars racing by along the freeway.【B2】______The work started in 2003. So far, 16 walls have been selected, and more may be added later. Until about 1960, public murals in Los Angeles were rare. But in the 1960s and 1970s, young L. A. artists began to study early 20th-century Mexican mural painting.【B3】______ The most famous mural in the city is Judith Baca’s “The Great Wall, “ a 13-foot-high(4-meter-high)painting that runs for half a mile(0. 8 kilometer)in North Hollywood. 【B4】______It took eight years to complete—400 underprivileged teenagers painted the designs—and is probably the longest mural in the world. One of the murals that will be restored now is Kent Twitchell’s “ Seventh Street Altarpiece. “ which he painted for the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.【B5】______Twitchell said, “It was meant as a kind of gateway through which the traveler to L. A. must drive. The open hands represent peace. “ Artists often call murals the people’s art. Along a busy freeway or hidden in a quiet neighborhood , murals can teach people who would never pay money to see fine art in a museum, “ Murals give a voice to the silent majority, “ said one artist. A The city, trying to stop the spread of graffiti, has painted over some of the murals completely. B This striking work depicts two people facing each other on opposite sides of the freeway near downtown Los Angeles. C Artists like murals because they like the work of Mexican artists. D Now the city is beginning a huge project to restore the city’s murals. E The mural represents the history of ethnic groups in California. F Soon, their murals became a symbol of the city’s cultural expressions and a showcase for L. A. ’s cultural diversity.

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It can be inferred from the last paragraph that______.

What does Dr. Fischer say about technologies?

What is the picture of Asia’s food supplies in the first 25 years?

Which of the following statements is true about the world’s agricultural research funding?

What is the main idea mainly about?