1、 www.TopwayE 120 篇题源阅读 Passage 1 手机到底有多安全？ 来源：TIME 时代周刊 It takes a little extra work to get in touch with Andrea Boland. The Maine state representative answers e-mails and lists her business and home phone numbers on the Web. But unlike many politicians attached to their BlackBerrys, she keeps her c
2、ell switched off unless shes expecting a call. And if she has her way, everyone in Maineand perhaps, eventually, the rest of the U.S.will similarly think twice before talking on their mobiles. In March, Maines legislature ( 立法机 构) will begin debating a bill she submitted that would require manufactu
3、rers to put a warning label on every cell phone sold in the state declaring, “This device emits electromagnetic ( 电磁的) radiation, exposure to which may cause brain cancer.” Her warning would continue, “Users, especially children and pregnant women, should keep this device away from the head and body
4、.” For those of you now eyeing your cell phones suspiciously, its worth noting that both the National Cancer Institute and the World Health Organization say there isnt evidence to support the assertion that cell phones are a public-health threat. But a number of scientists are worried that there has
5、 been a dangerous rush to declare cell phones safe, using studies they feel are inadequate and too often weighted toward the wireless industrys interests. An analysis published by University of Washington neurologist ( 神经 学家) Henry Lai determined that far more independent studies than industry-funde
6、d studies have found at least some type of biological effect from cell-phone exposure. Several countriesincluding Finland, Israel and Francehave issued guidelines for cell-phone use. And San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who began researching the issue when his wife was expecting their first child,
7、is hoping his city will adopt legislation that would have manufacturers print radiation information on cell-phone packaging and manuals and require retailers to display the data on the sales floor. With 270 million Americans and 4 billion people around the world using cell phonesand more signing up
8、every daya strong link between mobiles and cancer could have major public-health implications. As cell phones make and take calls, they emit low-level radio-frequency (RF) radiation. Stronger than FM radio signals, these RF waves are still a billionth the intensity of known carcinogenic ( 致癌 的) radi
9、ation like X-rays. But the good news is that there are easy ways www.TopwayE 2 for those concerned about RF radiation to cut down on exposure. Using your cell phones speaker or connecting a wired headsetwhile keeping the handset away from your bodydrastically reduces RF exposure. (Bluetooth headsets
10、 help too, but they still emit some radiation.) And given the potentially more serious risks for children, who have thinner skulls than adults, parents might want to wait before handing teens their first phoneor at least ensure they use it mostly for texting. Passage 2 塞林格：不许碰我的遗产！ 来源：TIME 时代周刊 J.D.
11、 Salinger may have hated visitors, but he sure loved lawyers. The famously solitary author turned down all attempts by others to adapt his writings, particularly his masterwork, Catcher in the Rye. He even said “no” to Steven Spielberg regarding a film version of his classic novel. But now that Sali
12、nger is gone, what will happen to his iron-fisted control over his writings? Precious little, say legal experts. If Salinger had the foresight to invite a good estate planner to Cornish, New Hampshire, its likely that he will rule his literary empire from the grave. “Legally, his death should have n
13、o significance at all, “says Richard Dannay, an intellectual property lawyer in New York City. “His works are in copyright, and remain in copyright.” Those copyrights pass to his estate, say lawyers, and Salinger may have left detailed directions about how to proceed. If his extraordinarily private
14、style held true in his will-making, would-be adapters of the Salinger oeuvre ( 全 部作 品) are out of luck. “If he says that he doesnt want a revised work, or a secondary work or a derivative work, or he doesnt want anything related to Catcher in the Rye licensed, then whoever is managing his estate wou
15、ld be bound by that, “says Jon Tandler, a publishing lawyer in Denver. “He can say, Thou shall not create a sequel ( 续篇).” Thats just what a Swedish author calling himself J.D. California (real name: Fredrik Colting) tried to do, in a book named 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. But just befor
16、e his death, the ever-alert Salinger sent his lawyers after California and his tiny publisher, Windupbird Publishing, suing them in June in federal court in Manhattan. The judge, Deborah Batts, sided with Salinger, indefinitely banning the publication of the book in this country. (It had been publis
17、hed in Britain.) The judge rejected the argument that the book was a parody ( 滑稽 模仿), which would have been legally permissible. The judges ruling has been appealed to the Second Circuit, where the case is still up in the air. But J.D. Salinger isnt above the law. In the future, Catcher in the Rye a
18、nd his handful of short stories will have to go into the public domain, where theyre open game. But dont hold your breath. That will be in 2080. www.TopwayE 3 Passage 3 人们为什么不喜欢视频聊天？ 来源：TIME 时代周刊 Even though Skype is the only one of all the cool gadgets ( 小器具) that cartoons promised us would exist b
19、y 2010, people dont seem nearly as excited as they should be. Only 34% of Skype calls even use video. And when Skype announced on Jan. 5 at the Consumer Electronics Show that well soon have videophones on our televisions, everyone went right back to talking about which booths gave out the best key-c
20、hain lights. Ive used Skype twice: to be a guest expert on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and to let my mother see her grandson. Both involved a lot of help from tech people. Yes, I find the hostess of that TV program that attractive. But I havent used it since. Thats because Skype breaks the centur
21、y-old social contract of the phone: we pay close attention while were talking and zone out while you are. As soon as you begin to talk, I feel trapped and desperately scan the room for tasks I can do to justify the enormous waste of time that is your talking. I wash dishes, I file receipts, I read n
22、ews sites, I make little fake suicide faces to my wife about how much I want to hang up that cause her to yell “Joel, I need you now”. But Skype requires me to look at you while youre talking, which is totally ridiculous. The only sci-fi show that understood this was Star Trek. Bones and Jim would u
23、se their flip phones to talk quickly about beaming or health issues. The only time theyd fire up the videophone was when a Klingon was sitting in a spaceship 20 yards away with guns pointed at them. Even then I think Sulu was checking out some gossip websites. Interested in talking more about my the
24、ory, I used my landline ( 固定电 话) to call Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor of the social studies of science and technology. She told me people are not only uninterested in Skype, were also not interested in talking on the regular phone. We want to TiVo our lives, avoiding real time by texting or e-mai
25、ling people when we feel like it. “Skype, which was the fantasy of our childhood, gets you back to sitting there and being available in that old-fashioned way. Our model of what it was to be present to each other, we thought we liked that,” she said. “But it turns out that time shifting is our most
26、valued product. This new technology is about control. Emotional control and time control.” Youd be shocked by how many times two people talking on the phone about people not wanting to talk on the phone have to tell each other theyre enjoying their conversation. Passage 4 科学家接近老化之谜 来源：TIME 时代周刊 Time
27、 waits for no man, the old saying goes, but in recent years scientists have shown that it www.TopwayE 4 does seem to move more slowly for some. Biologists have observed that peoples cells often age at different rates, leading them to make a distinction between chronological ( 按时 间顺序 的) and biologica
28、l age. But the reason for the difference remains only vaguely understood. Environmental factors such as smoking, stress and regular exercise all seem to influence the rate at which our cells age. Now, for the first time, researchers have found a genetic link to cellular ( 细胞的) aginga finding that su
29、ggests new treatments for a variety of age-related diseases and cancers. The field of biological aging has in recent years focused on the long molecules of DNA contained in human cells called chromosomes ( 染 色体). All chromosomes have protective caps at either end called telomeres ( 端粒). Each time a
30、cell reproduces itself (as it does before it dies), the telomeres shorten, like plastic tips fraying on the end of shoelaces. Shortened telomeres have been linked to a host of age-related illnesses such as heart disease and certain cancers. Many scientists now believe that telomeres are the closest
31、we may come to identifying a biological clockand our best bet for learning how to stop or turn back that clock. Samani, an expert at the University of Leicester says that understanding the components that determine telomere length may one day help researchers devise new treatments for age-related di
32、seases, particularly heart disease. “I see in my practice 80-year-olds with healthy heart and 40-year-olds with heart disease. We may be on our way to explaining the genetic component in the explanation for why this is so, and so expanding our knowledge of the disease and how to treat it,” Samani sa
33、ys. But Samani also says the telomere research offered no quick fixes and those telomere-based treatments were still a long way off. The reason for this is that telomereswhile potentially lowering the risk of heart diseaseplay a role in the development of cancer cells. “We all probably develop cance
34、r cells that dont get past a few reproductions because of the effect of normal telomere shortening. If you make cells immortal by allowing them to repair their telomeres, you may raise the risk of many nasty cancers considerably.” The bottom line, Samani says, is that scientists remain a long way fr
35、om developing an elixir ( 长生不 老药) of youth, however tempting that goal may be. Reporting on his research, Britains Daily Mail announced that Samani had found the “Peter Pan gene”a headline that Samani greeted with a weary smile. “Aging and death will remain central to our biology at least for as lon
36、g as I can foresee,” he says. Passage 5 美国联邦调查局利用户外电子广告牌公示通缉令 来源：USA Today 今日美国 Crime fighting doesnt get much simpler than this: When Virginia drug suspect Edward www.TopwayE 5 Myricks eyed his photo on a giant digital billboard, he knew his run from the authorities was over. “We posted his photo o
37、n billboards in Newark (after learning the suspect had traveled there), and when he saw the billboards he turned himself in on March 11,” Chris Allen, an FBI spokesman, says. The FBIs use of digital billboards to help capture elusive criminals has expanded from a one-city test in 2007 to a growing n
38、etwork that now covers more than 40 states this year. Allen says the billboards can be directly tied to solving 35 cases in the past two years. “It is a real force multiplier (乘数),” Allen says, “We can put 10 agents on a case. But when we put information on a billboard, all of a sudden we have 500,0
39、00 sets of eyes looking for what we are looking for.” The FBI also credits the billboard project with leading to the arrest of serial bank robber Chad Schaffner, who was captured in September after he was featured on billboards in several Southeastern states. Last month, he admitted guilty to a robb
40、ery in Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana and Illinois. The number of cases solved with the help of digital billboards is probably higher than 35 because tipsters ( 线人) dont always mention where they saw information about a suspect, Allen says. “That is a remarkable number
41、of cases solved,” he says. “It outpaces the Internet and rivals (the TV show) Americas Most Wanted in the ability to help us make arrests.” Outdoor advertising companies, including Clear Channel Outdoor, Adams Outdoor Advertising and Lamar Advertising Co., donate billboard space to the FBI, Allen sa
42、ys. The digital billboards make it possible to get information out quickly, says Jeff Golimowski, spokesman for the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. There are about 1,800 digital billboards across the USA, Golimowski says. Although that represents fewer than 1% of about 450,000 billboards
43、 in America, he says many of those signs are in highly populated areas. Passage 6 剑桥大学欲上肥皂剧 来源：USA Today 今日美国 Trying to shed its elitist image, Cambridge has approached the producers of Britains three leading TV soaps about including it in their story lines. Spokesman Greg Hayman said the idea was p
44、art of a bid to correct the perception that Cambridge was “not for young people from ordinary backgrounds.” “Were very keen to attract the brightest and best students regardless of their background,” Hayman said Tuesday. “One of the better ways of communicating directly with potential students is to
45、 talk to them through the soaps and other programs they watch.” Like almost all British universities, Cambridge and its rival Oxford are government-funded, and under pressure to become more inclusive. The government wants half of all young people to attend college by 2015, which means universities n
46、eed to target all economic backgrounds. www.TopwayE 6 In some ways Oxford and Cambridgeelegant, affluent universities known collectively as “Oxbridge”resemble U.S. Ivy League schools, which have long tried to attract minority and less well-off students through scholarships and outreach programs. Sev
47、eral elite U.S. colleges, including Harvard and Yale, have set family income thresholds below which students pay no tuition$45,000 at Yale and $60,000 at Harvard for students entering this fall. “Yale is eager to have as much diversity as possible, and that includes socio-economic diversity,” said s
48、pokeswoman Gila Reinstein. More than 40 percent of Yales students now get financial aid and the number is steadily risingevidence of more students from less well-off backgrounds. But Harvard and Yale dont occupy quite the same central social status as Oxbridge, whose graduates account for 78 percent
49、 of Britains High Court judges, 42 percent of its top politicians and 56 percent of its senior journalists. And while 90 percent of British students attend state high schools, Oxford and a Cambridge draw only about half their student body from there. Many in Britains poorer neighborhoods still view attending Oxford or Cambridge as an impossible dream. Passage 7 由不同文化造就不同的大脑 来源：Newsweek 新闻周刊 By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another
