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According to some observers, television has acquired a disquieting monopoly over people’s leisure time. recent business noisy troubling
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Professor Smith continued his research work and disregarded his colleague’s advice. ignored deplored explored implored
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Before the development of movable metal type in the mid-fifteenth century, news was disseminated by word of mouth, by letter, or by public notice. organized requested distributed limited
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Corn, domesticated by the American Indians, was brought to Europe by Columbus. trained cultivated implanted reared
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Of all the wild dogs, none is more closely related to the domesticated dog than the wolf. ordinary tame faithful hunting
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The dominant theme in the music is of tranquility and peacefulness. major final copious sluggish
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During their winter hibernation period, bears doze. sleep lightly lose fur go hungry have babies
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The municipal home-rule system used in many United States cities gives a city the right to draft its own charter. enforce make revisions in draw up have
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The Little Foxes, a drama by Lillian Hellman, was first produced in New York in 1939. play novel musical dance
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The new wing of the National Art Gallery in Washington, D. C., drew twenty-two thousand visitors on its opening day. captivated attracted entertained fascinated
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Many pure metals have little use because they are too soft, rust too easily, or have some other drawback. property additive disadvantage disparity
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A long journey in cold weather is dreadfully tiring. unfortunately terribly noticeably predictably
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The manchineel tree has smooth, pale brown bark and long, drooping branches. spindly prickly sagging blossoming
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A drop in the overall price of goods and services may signal a period of deflation. A freeze A pattern A fall An interest
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The drought destroyed the crops in the Southwest of the United States. dry period precipitation locusts temperature extreme
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Learning Disorder—Dyslexia
As many as 20% of all children in the United States suffer from some form of the learning disorder called dyslexia.
Experts on dyslexia say that the problem is not a disease. They say that persons with dyslexia use information in a different way. One of the world’s great thinkers and scientists Albert Einstein was dyslexic. Einstein said that he never thought in words the way that most people do. He said that he thought in pictures instead. The American inventor Thomas Edison was also dyslexic. Dyslexia first was recognized in Europe and the United States more than 80 years ago. Many years passed before doctors discovered that persons with the disorder were not mentally slow or disabled. The doctors found that the brains of persons with dyslexia arc different. In most people, the left side of the brain—the part that controls language—is larger than the right side. In persons with dyslexia, the right side of the brain is bigger. Doctors are not sure what causes this difference. However, research has shown that dyslexia is more common in males than in females, and it is found more often in persons who are left-handed. No one knows the cause of dyslexia, but some scientists believe that it may result from chemical changes in a baby’s body long before it is born. They are trying to find ways to teach persons with dyslexia Dyslexic persons think differently and need special kinds of teaching help. After they have solved their problems with language, they often show themselves to be especially intelligent or creative.
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Earth Angels
1．Joying Brescia was 8 years old when she noticed that cigarette butts (烟头) were littering her hometown beach in Isle of Palms, South Carolina. When she learned that it takes five years for the remains of a cigarette to disintegrate, she decided to take action. Joying launched a “No Butts on the Beach“ campaign. She raised money and awareness about the need to keep the beaches clean. With the help of others, Joying also bought or received donations of gallon- size plastic ice-cream buckets. The buckets were filled with sand, and placed at all public-access areas of the beach. The buckets allowed people to dispose of their cigarettes before hit- ting the beach. Two years later, Joying says the buckets are full and the beach in nearly free of cigarette debris (残片).
2．People who live in or visit Steamboat Springs, Colorado, have Carter Dunham to thank for a new state wildlife refuge that preserves 20 acres of marshland and many species of wildlife. Carter and other students wrote a management plan for the area around the Yampa River. The plan was part of a class project when Carter was a freshman at Steamboat Springs High School. Working with the Colorado Division of Wildlife, Carter and his classmates mapped the area and species of animals living there. They also made decisions about, among other things, where fences and parking areas should be built.
3．Barbara Brown and her friends collect oil. It started as a project for their 4H Club after one of the girls noticed her father using motor oil to kill weeds on their farm in Victoria, Texas. They did some research and discovered that oil can contaminate ground water—a real danger in rural areas, where people live off the water on their land. The girls researched ways to recycle oil and worked with a local oil-recycling company on the issue. Now, the “Don’t Be Crude“ program runs oil-collection sites—tanks that hold up to 460 gallons—where people in the community can dispose of their oil.
4．Five years ago, 11-year-old Ryan Hreljac was a little boy with a big dream: for all the people in Africa to have clean drinking water. His dream began in the first grade when he learned that people were dying because they didn’t have clean water, and that as little as $ 70 could build a well. “We really take water for granted,“ says Ryan, of Kemptville, Ontario, in Canada. “In other countries, you have to plan for it.“Ryan earned the first $ 70 by doing extra chores (零工), but with the help of others, he has since raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. His efforts led to the start of the Ryan’s Well Foundation, which raises money for clean water and health-related services for people in African countries and developing countries.
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Colors Associated with Feeling and Attitudes
We all associate colors with feeling and attitudes. In politics dark blue often means“ tradition“, and red means “social change“. But blue can also mean sadness ( I’m feeling blue ), white is often for purity, although in China white is worn for funerals, and red is used to express the joy of a wedding, in Western Europe white is worn at weddings and black for funerals. Advertisers are aware of the importance of selection colors according to the way people react to them. Soap powders come in white and light blue packets (clean and cold, like ice ); cereals often come in brown packets ( like wheat fields ), but cosmetics never come in brown jars ( dirty !).
Where do these ideas come from? Max Luscher from the University of Geneva believes that in the beginning life was dictated by two factors beyond our control: night and day. Night brought passivity, and a general slowing down of metabolism (新陈代谢); day brought with it the possibility of action, and increase in the metabolic rate, thus providing us with energy and initiative. Dark blue, therefore, is the color of quiet and passivity, bright yellow the color of hope and activity.
In prehistoric times, activity as a rule took one of two forms: either we were hunting and attacking, or we were being hunted and defending ourselves against attack. Attack is universally represented by the color red; self-preservation by its complement green.
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Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of human beings as creatures of society. It fastens its attention upon those physical characteristics and industrial techniques, those conventions and values, which distinguish one community from all others that belong to a different tradition.
The distinguishing mark of anthropology among the social sciences is that it includes for serious study other societies than our own. For its purposes any social regulation of mating and reproduction is as significant as our own, though it may be that of the Sea Dyaks, and have no possible historical relation to that of our civilization. To the anthropologist, our customs and those of a New Guinea tribe are two possible social schemes for dealing with a common problem, and in so far as he remains an anthropologist he is bound to avoid any weighting of one in favor of the other. He is interested in human behavior, not as it is shaped by one tradition, our own, but as it has been shaped by any tradition whatsoever. He is interested in a wide range of custom that is found in various cultures, and his object is to understand the way in which these cultures change and differentiate, the different forms through which they express themselves and the manner in which the customs of any people function in the lives of the individuals.
Now customs has been commonly regarded as a subject of any great moment. The inner workings of our own brains we feel to be uniquely worthy of investigation, but custom, we have a way of thinking, is behavior at its most commonplace. As a matter of fact, it is the other way round. Traditional custom is a mass of detailed behavior more astonishing than what any one person can ever evolve in individual actions. Yet that is a rather trivial aspect of the matter. The fact of first-rate importance is the predominant role that custom plays inexperience and belief, and the very great varieties it may manifest.
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Sleep
For millions of years before the appearance of the electric light, shift work, all-night cable TV and the Internet, Earth’s creatures evolved on a planet with predictable and reassuring 24-hour rhythms. Our biological clocks are set for this daily cycle. Simply put, our bodies want to sleep at night and be awake during the day. Most women and men need between eight and eight and a halfhours of sleep a night to function properly throughout their lives. (Contrary to popular belief, humans don’t need less sleep as they age.)
But in average, Americans sleep only about seven and a half hours per night, a marked drop from the nine hours they averaged in 1910. What’s worse, nearly one third of all Americans get less than six hours of sleep on a typical work night. For most people, that’s not nearly enough.
Finding ways to get more and better sleep can be a challenge. Scientists have identified more than 80 different sleep disorders. Some sleeping disorders are genetic. But many problems are caused by staying up late and sleeping in, by traveling frequently between time zones or by working nights. Dr. James F. Jones at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver says that sleep disorders are often diagnosed as other discomforts. About one third of the patients referred to him with possible chronic fatigue syndrome actually have treatable sleep disorders. “Before we do anything else, we look at their sleep,“ Jones says.
Sleep experts say that most people would benefit from a good look at their sleep patterns. “My motto (座右铭) is ’Sleep defensively’ ,“ says Mary Carskadon of Brown University. She says people need to carve out sufficient time to sleep, even if it means giving up other things. Sleep routines—like going to bed and getting up at the same time every day—are important. Pre-bedtime activities also make a difference. As with Elaner, who used to suffer from sleeplessness, a few lifestyle changes—avoiding stimulants and late meals, exercising hours before bedtime, relaxing with a hot bath—yield better sleep.
