(A)

   Like an only child dreaming of lost siblings, we dream of finding other Earths, other creatures and civilizations out in space, or even other universes. We all want to find out that we are cosmic Anastasias and that there is a secret that connects us, that lays bare the essential unity of physical phenomena. And so we try, sometimes against great odds. The year that is now ending began with some areas of science in ruins. One section of the Large Hadron Collider looked like a train wreck with several-ton magnets lying about smashed after an electrical connection between them vaporized only nine days off a showy inauguration. The Hubble Space Telescope was limping about in orbit with only one of its cameras working. But here is the scorecard at the end of the year: in December, the newly refurbished collider produced a million proton collisions, including 50,000 at the record energy of 1.2 trillion electron volls per proton, before going silent for the holidays. CERN is on track to run it next year at three times that energy. The Hubble telescope after onelast astronaut servicing visit, reached to within spitting distance of the Big Bang andrecorded images of the most distant galaxies yet observed, which existed some 600 million or 700 million years after the putative beginning of time. Not to mention the rapidly expanding universe of extrasolar planets. In my view from the cosmic bleachers, the pot is bubbling for discovery. We all got a hint of just how crazy that might be in the new age of the Internet on Dec. 17, when physicists around the world found themselves glued to a Webcast of the results from an experiment called the Cryogenic Dark Maner Search. Rumors had swept the blogs and other outposts of scientific commentary that the experimenters were going to announce that they had finally delected the ethereal and mysterious dark matter particles, which, astronomers say, make up a quarter of the universe. In the end, the result was frustratingly vague and inconclusive. “We want it to be true—we so want to have a clue about dark matter,” Maria Spiropulu, a Caltech physicist working at CERN wrote to me the night of the Webcast. “And it is not easy,” Dr. Spiropulu said. “The experiments are not easy and the analysis is not easy. This is a tough, tough ride over all.” Although we might well solve part of the dark maner conundrum in the coming years, the larger mystery winds out in front of us like a train snaking into the fog.

What is the passage primarily about?

    All the latest footwear engineering in your running sneakers might not mean a thing when it comes to preventing injuries. The latest barefoot running study in the journal Nature deployed 3-D infrared tracking to gauge the difference in foot strike between shod and shoeless runners. Scientific American reports.

   Runners who wore sneakers ended up landing heel-first 75 to 80 percent of the time. By contrast, barefoot runners usually land toward the middle or front of the foot—a dramatic difference that recalls the more natural foot strike of early Homo sapiens. Needless to say, early humans certainly were not bom to run wearing Nike or Reebok.

   “Most people today think barefoot running is dangerous and hurts.” said Daniel Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and lead author on the study. “But actually you can run barefoot on the world’s hardest surfaces without the slightest discomfort and pain.”

    More bad news for sneakers came last December, when the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation found that running shoes can increase joint torques at the hip, knee and ankle. Their study suggested that even going for a run in high heels was better for preventing joint injuries than tennis shoes.

My View on Low-carbon Economy

accessible

perceive

beyond one’ comprehension

elucidate

take...for granted

41、经济危机之后，人们认为他们的房价不会再继续升高。

42、虽然他是我们大学的校长，但他对学生总是平易近人。

43、我不懂，你得解释一下。

44、我认为他肯定认识我。

45、我不明白她怎么能在一天内做那么多事情。

The urban poor gained from the lower prices and greater supplies of food but the rural poor, especially the landless, have sometimes been disadvantaged. However, new agricultural technology should not be expected to stand proxy for social reform, and Lipton concludes that the technology per se (本身)was not to blame for the inequalities of impact; it met the criteria he would have specified for a technology to help the rural poor. As Frankel commented: ‘It is precisely the social blindness of modem technology that is encouraging the most disadvantaged scciion of the agricultural community’.

television   because    first    movies   keep   owned    hardly   middle  program    American

    Television has certainly changed American life, but not the way the first critics predicted. The (31) televisions were enormously expensive, so most families (32) only one. By 1975, however, 60% of (33) families owned two televisions or more; some (34)class families had as many as five (35) sets under one roof. Such multi-set families may (36) family members in the same house, but that (37) brings them “together.” In fact, family outings—hiking, going to the (38), going out to dinner—are often limited by TV (39) one or more family members don’t want to go: “I’ll miss my (40),” is the common complaint.

Tonight’s TV program________health care reform.

Her husband________her wishes that he stop drinking.

The congress opened with a minute’s silence________those who died in the earthquake.

The future of the island is_______the fortunes of the local government.

________problems may delay the opening of the conference.