100 PTE Writing Questions

Summarize Written Text

Read each passage and summarize it using one sentence. You have 10 minutes to finish each task. In the exam, your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the passage.

Text #1

The great advantage of early rising is the good start it gives us in our day’s work. The early riser has done a large amount of hard work before other men have got out of bed. In the early morning the mind is fresh, and there are few sounds or other distractions, so that work done at that time is generally well done.

In many cases the early riser also finds time to take some exercise in the fresh morning air, and this exercise supplies him a fund of energy that will lost until the evening. By beginning so early, he knows that he has plenty of time to do thoroughly all the work he can be expected to do, and is not tempted to hurry over any part of it. All his work being finished in good time, he has a long interval of rest in the evening before the timely hour when he goes to bed. He gets to sleep several hours before midnight, at the time when sleep is most refreshing and after a sound night’s rest, rises early next morning in good health and spirits for the labours of a new day.

It is very plain that such a life as this is far more conducive to health than that of the man who shortenes his waking hours by rising late, and so can afford in the course of the day little leisure for necessary rest. Any one who lies in bed late, must, if he wishes to do a full day’s work, go on working to a correspondingly late hour, and deny himself the hour or two of evening exercise that he ought to take for the benefit of his health. But in spite of all his efforts, he will probably produce as good results as the early riser, because he misses the best working hours of the day.

It may be objected to this that some find the perfect quiet of midnight by far the best time for working. This is no doubt true in certain cases. Several great thinkers have found by experience that their intellect is clearest, and they can write best, when they burn the midnight oil. But even in such cases the practice of working late at night cannot be commended. Few men, if any, can exert the full power of their intellect at the time when nature prescribes sleep, without ruining their health thereby; and of course the injury done to the health must in the long run have a bad effect on the quantity of the work done.

Text #2

The painter Roy Lichtenstein helped to define pop art—the movement that incorporated commonplace objects and commercial-art techniques into paintings—by paraphrasing the style of comic books in his work. His merger of a popular genre with the forms and intentions of fine art generated a complex result: while poking fun at the pretensions of the art world, Lichtenstein’s work also managed to convey a seriousness of theme that enabled it to transcend mere parody.

That Lichtenstein’s images were fine art was at first difficult to see, because, with their word balloons and highly stylized figures, they looked like nothing more than the comic book panels from which they were copied. Standard art history holds that pop art emerged as an impersonal alternative to the histrionics of abstract expressionism, a movement in which painters conveyed their private attitudes and emotions using nonrepresentational techniques. The truth is that by the time pop art first appeared in the early 1960s, abstract expressionism had already lost much of its force. Pop art painters weren’t quarreling with the powerful early abstract expressionist work of the late 1940s but with a second generation of abstract expressionists whose work seemed airy, high-minded, and overly lyrical. Pop art paintings were full of simple black lines and large areas of primary color. Lichtenstein’s work was part of a general rebellion against the fading emotional power of abstract expressionism, rather than an aloof attempt to ignore it.

But if rebellion against previous art by means of the careful imitation of a popular genre were all that characterized Lichtenstein’s work, it would possess only the reflective power that parodies have in relation to their subjects. Beneath its cartoonish methods, his work displayed an impulse toward realism, an urge to say that what was missing from contemporary painting was the depiction of contemporary life. The stilted romances and war stories portrayed in the comic books on which he based his canvases, the stylized automobiles, hot dogs, and table lamps that appeared in his pictures, were reflections of the culture Lichtenstein inhabited. But, in contrast to some pop art, Lichtenstein’s work exuded not a jaded cynicism about consumer culture, but a kind of deliberate naiveté, intended as a response to the excess of sophistication he observed not only in the later abstract expressionists but in some other pop artists.

Text #3

The struggle to obtain legal recognition of aboriginal rights is a difficult one, and even if a right is written into the law there is no guarantee that the future will not bring changes to the law that undermines the right. For this reason, the federal government of Canada in 1982 extended constitutional protection to those aboriginal rights already recognized under the law. This protection was extended to the Indian, Inuit, and Métis peoples, the three groups generally thought to comprise the aboriginal population in Canada. But this decision has placed on provincial courts the enormous burden of interpreting and translating the necessarily general constitutional language into specific rulings. The result has been inconsistent recognition and establishment of aboriginal rights, despite the continued efforts of aboriginal peoples to raise issues concerning their rights.

Aboriginal rights in Canada are defined by the constitution as aboriginal peoples’ rights to ownership of land and its resources, the inherent right of aboriginal societies to self-government, and the right to legal recognition of indigenous customs. But difficulties arise in applying these broadly conceived rights. For example, while it might appear straightforward to affirm legal recognition of indigenous customs, the exact legal meaning of “indigenous” is extremely difficult to interpret. The intent of the constitutional protection is to recognize only long-standing traditional customs, not those of recent origin; provincial courts therefore require aboriginal peoples to provide legal documentation that any customs they seek to protect were practiced sufficiently long ago—a criterion defined in practice to mean prior to the establishment of British sovereignty over the specific territory. However, this requirement makes it difficult for aboriginal societies, which often relied on oral tradition rather than written records, to support their claims.

Text #4

In economics, the term “speculative bubble” refers to a large upward move in an asset’s price driven not by the asset’s fundamentals—that is, by the earnings derivable from the asset—but rather by mere speculation that someone else will be willing to pay a higher price for it. The price increase is then followed by a dramatic decline in price, due to a loss in confidence that the price will continue to rise, and the “bubble” is said to have burst. According to Charles Mackay’s classic nineteenth-century account, the seventeenth-century Dutch tulip market provides an example of a speculative bubble. But the economist Peter Garber challenges Mackay’s view, arguing that there is no evidence that the Dutch tulip market really involved a speculative bubble.

By the seventeenth century, the Netherlands had become a center of cultivation and development of new tulip varieties, and a market had developed in which rare varieties of bulbs sold at high prices. For example, a Semper Augustus bulb sold in 1625 for an amount of gold worth about U.S. $11,000 in 1999. Common bulb varieties, on the other hand, sold for very low prices. According to Mackay, by 1636 rapid price rises attracted speculators, and prices of many varieties surged upward from November 1636 through January 1637. Mackay further states that in February 1637 prices suddenly collapsed; bulbs could not be sold at 10 percent of their peak values. By 1739, the prices of all the most prized kinds of bulbs had fallen to no more than one two-hundredth of 1 percent of Semper Augustus’s peak price.

Garber acknowledges that bulb prices increased dramatically from 1636 to 1637 and eventually reached very low levels. But he argues that this episode should not be described as a speculative bubble, for the increase and eventual decline in bulb prices can be explained in terms of the fundamentals. Garber argues that a standard pricing pattern occurs for new varieties of flowers. When a particularly prized variety is developed, its original bulb sells for a high price. Thus, the dramatic rise in the price of some original tulip bulbs could have resulted as tulips in general, and certain varieties in particular, became fashionable.

Text #5

In January 1995 a vast section of ice broke off the Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica. While this occurrence, the direct result of a regional warming trend that began in the 1940s, may be the most spectacular manifestation yet of serious climate changes occurring on the planet as a consequence of atmospheric heating, other symptoms—more intense storms, prolonged droughts, extended heat waves, and record flooding—have been emerging around the world for several years.

According to scientific estimates, furthermore, sea-level rise resulting from global warming will reach 3 feet (1 meter) within the next century. Such a rise could submerge vast coastal areas, with potentially irreversible consequences.

Late in 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that it had detected the “fingerprint” of human activity as a contributor to the warming of the earth’s atmosphere. Furthermore, panel scientists attributed such warming directly to the increasing quantities of carbon dioxide released by our burning of fossil fuels. The IPCC report thus clearly identifies a pattern of climatic response to human activities in the climatological record, thereby establishing without doubt that global warming can no longer be attributed solely to natural climate variability.

Text #6

Over the past two decades, an extreme view of global warming has developed. While it contains some facts, this view also contains exaggerations and misstatements, and has sometimes resulted in unreasonable environmental policies.

According to this view, global warming will cause the polar ice to melt, raising global sea levels, flooding entire regions, destroying crops, and displacing millions of people. However, there is still a great deal of uncertainty regarding a potential rise in sea levels. Certainly, if the earth warms, sea levels will rise as the water heats up and expands. If the polar ice caps melt, more water will be added to the oceans, raising sea levels even further. There is some evidence that melting has occurred; however, there is also evidence that the Antarctic ice sheets are growing. In fact, it is possible that a warmer sea surface temperature will cause more water to evaporate, and when wind carries the moisture-laden air over the land, it will precipitate out as snow, causing the ice sheets to grow. Certainly, we need to have better knowledge about the hydrological cycle before predicting dire consequences as a result of recent increases in global temperatures.

This view also exaggerates the impact that human activity has on the planet. While human activity may be a factor in global warming, natural events appear to be far more important. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, for example, caused a decrease in the average global temperature, while El Niño, a periodic perturbation in the ocean’s temperature and circulation, causes extreme global climatic events, including droughts and major flooding. Of even greater importance to the earth’s climate are variations in the sun’s radiation and in the earth’s orbit. Climate variability has always existed and will continue to do so, regardless of human intervention.

Text #7

In the near future, space debris will become a critical challenge for the global community, endangering access to space and the benefits this access brings. In recent years, the $360 billion global space economy has experienced a transformation. Declining costs, satellite and launcher size evolutions and the proliferation of related technology has led to a surge in satellite launches, many of which are conducted by new space enterprises and nations. Over the coming years, thousands of payloads are expected to be launched by the commercial sector alone, adding to the over 2,000 already active satellites in orbit. This transformation and rapid growth are anticipated to increase the space sector’s vital role in telecommunications, remote sensing, space science and national security, making it a vital node of the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s infrastructure.

However, the rush in space activity is already adding to a crowded orbit. With over 20,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimetres tracked in orbit and many more untracked, the rise in space activity will lead to even more debris, increasing collision risk. The orbital environment is a globally shared resource where existing international guidelines steer space actors in their activities, however, these are not enforceable and derived standards are not always followed. Neither are guidelines expected to sufficiently curtail the creation of new debris in the coming years caused by fundamental shifts in traffic. Therefore, an opportunity exists to develop a solution based on a multi stakeholder approach built on public-private collaboration.

As the challenge of orbital debris or “space junk” is set to grow, current and future missions face an increasing risk of possible collisions. The Space Sustainability Rating (SSR) will provide a new, innovative way of addressing the orbital challenge by encouraging responsible behaviour in space through increasing the transparency of organizations’ debris mitigation efforts. The SSR will provide a score representing a mission’s sustainability as it relates to debris mitigation and alignment with international guidelines. Organizations will provide mission data through a questionnaire, which will be evaluated in combination with other external data through a mathematical model that establishes a rating for the mission.

Text #8

The color of animals is by no means a matter of chance; it depends on many considerations, but in the majority of cases tends to protect the animal from danger by rendering it less conspicuous. Perhaps it may be said that if coloring is mainly protective, there ought to be but few brightly colored animals. There are, however, not a few cases in which vivid colors are themselves protective. The kingfisher itself, though so brightly colored, is by no means easy to see. The blue harmonizes with the water, and the bird as it darts along the stream looks almost like a flash of sunlight.

Desert animals are generally the color of the desert. Thus, for instance, the lion, the antelope, and the wild donkey are all sand-colored. “Indeed,” says Canon Tristram, “in the desert, where neither trees, brushwood, nor even undulation of the surface afford the slightest protection to its foes, a modification of color assimilated to that of the surrounding country is absolutely necessary. Hence, without exception, the upper plumage of every bird, and also the fur of all the smaller mammals and the skin of all the snakes and lizards, is of one uniform sand color.”

The next point is the color of the mature caterpillars, some of which are brown. This probably makes the caterpillar even more conspicuous among the green leaves than would otherwise be the case. Let us see, then, whether the habits of the insect will throw any light upon the riddle. What would you do if you were a big caterpillar? Why, like most other defenseless creatures, you would feed by night, and lie concealed by day. So do these caterpillars. When the morning light comes, they creep down the stem of the food plant, and lie concealed among the thick herbage and dry sticks and leaves, near the ground, and it is obvious that under such circumstances the brown color really becomes a protection. It might indeed be argued that the caterpillars, having become brown, concealed themselves on the ground, and that we were reversing the state of things. But this is not so, because, while we may say as a general rule that large caterpillars feed by night and lie concealed by day, it is by no means always the case that they are brown; some of them still retaining the green color. We may then conclude that the habit of concealing themselves by day came first, and that the brown color is a later adaptation.

Text #9

Brendan’s best friend is Tip. Tip and Brendan are inseparable. They teach each other things and they look after each other. Tip has helped Brendan become more responsible, more caring, and a better friend. Brendan is a nine-year-old boy, and Tip is a ten-year-old dog. Brendan and Tip are an example of how owning a dog can have a positive effect on a child’s development. Having a dog develops a child’s sense of responsibility, broadens his capacity for empathy, and teaches the nature of friendship.

Having a dog helps a child learn how to act responsibly. As a dog owner, the child must take care of the animal’s daily needs. The dog must be fed and exercised every day. A dog is completely dependent on its owner for all its needs, including the need for good health and a safe environment. Therefore, being responsible for a dog also means taking care of the dog so that it stays healthy. Furthermore, the owner must take responsibility for the safety of the dog and the safety of the people it comes into contact with. If the child forgets any of these duties and responsibilities, or ignores any of the dog’s needs, the dog will suffer. This teaches the child that his responsibility to the dog is more important than his desire to play with his toys, talk on the phone, or watch TV. This is true not only for the care of a dog, but also for the care of oneself, another person, or one’s job. Learning how to take responsibility for the health and welfare of a dog leads to learning how to take responsibility for oneself.

Another lesson that a child can learn from having a dog is how to be empathetic. Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another person’s, or in this case another creature’s, situation and imagine that person’s or creature’s feelings or problems. A dog cannot express itself with speech, so its owner must learn how to interpret its behaviour. The child must learn to understand what the dog’s behaviour means. Is the dog frightened, aggressive, or sick? The child needs to understand what is going on in the dog’s mind. Understanding a situation from the dog’s perspective helps the child understand why the dog is behaving in a certain way and what the dog needs. The result of learning to read a dog’s behaviour is that the child develops empathy. By learning how to empathize with a dog, the child also learns how to empathize with other people. This leads to the child becoming a more considerate and caring person.

Text #10

Does the language you speak influence the way you think? Does it help define your world view? Anyone who has tried to master a foreign tongue has at least thought about the possibility.

At first glance the idea seems perfectly plausible. Conveying even simple messages requires that you make completely different observations depending on your language. Imagine being asked to count some pens on a table. As an English speaker, you only have to count them and give the number. But a Russian may need to consider the gender and a Japanese speaker has to take into account their shape (long and cylindrical) as well, and use the number word designated for items of that shape.

On the other hand, surely pens are just pens, no matter what your language compels you to specify about them? Little linguistic peculiarities, though amusing, don’t change the objective world we are describing. So how can they alter the way we think?

Scientists and philosophers have been grappling with this thorny question for centuries. There have always been those who argue that our picture of the Universe depends on our native tongue. Since the 1960s, however, with the ascent of thinkers like Noam Chomsky, and a host of cognitive scientists, the consensus has been that linguistic differences don’t really matter, that language is a universal human trait, and that our ability to talk to one another owes more to our shared genetics than to our varying cultures. But now the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way as psychologists re-examine the question.

A new generation of scientists is not convinced that language is innate and hard-wired into our brain and they say that small, even apparently insignificant differences between languages do affect the way speakers perceive the world. ‘The brain is shaped by experience,’ says Dan Slobin of the University of California at Berkeley. ‘Some people argue that language just changes what you attend to,’ says Lera Boroditsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ‘But what you attend to changes what you encode and remember.’ In short, it changes how you think.

Text #11

Popular interest in Mars, the ‘Red Planet’, is long-established, but has enjoyed two dramatic flowerings, one in the 1890s and the other a century later.

Any speculation about life on Mars, then or now, is part of a long discussion on ‘the plurality of worlds’. Pluralists believe that there are other worlds apart from ours which contain life — an idea that had its origins in classical Greece. In the 19th century, the new science of astrophysics suggested that large numbers of stars in the sky were similar to the sun in their composition — perhaps they too were circled by planetary systems. Nearer to home Mars, our neighbour in the solar system, seemed to offer the evidence the pluralists had lacked until then.

The characteristics of Mars’ orbit are such that its distance from Earth varies considerably — from 34.5 to 234.5 million miles. From an astronomer’s standpoint it was particularly well-placed for observation in 1877, 1892 and 1909. Observations in each of these years intensified discussion about possible life on Mars.

If life, intelligent or otherwise, were to be found on Mars then life on Earth would not be unique. The scientific, theological and cultural outcomes of such a discovery could be stupendous. In 1859, Fr. Angelo Secchi, director of the Vatican observatory and a confirmed pluralist, observed markings on the surface of Mars which he described as canali, ‘channels’. The fateful word had been launched on its career, although there was little immediate development from Secchi’s work.

In 1877 another Italian, Giovanni Schiaparelli, one of Europe’s most distinguished astronomers, also observed the canali, but he added the refinement that they appeared to be constituents of a system. Other astronomers observed features that might he continents or seas; Schiaparelli confirmed these findings and gave them finely sonorous classical names such as Hellas, Mare Etythraeum, Promethei Sinus.

Text #12

The story of how games designer Paul Wickens achieved success with his bestselling game Ntropy is an object lesson to those who want to strike out on their own. Firstly, there’s no need to rush. ‘I had the idea for what ended up as Ntropy – which, by the way, is a play on the word entropy, meaning chaos or disorganisation – about 20 years ago‘, says Mr Wickens. ‘I was building structures with matchsticks while waiting for some friends in a bar. Later I made a scaled-up version of a box of matches, which we used to play with at college for hours on end’.

After leaving college, Mr Wickens, though interested in starting his own company and having designed another couple of games by then, took the safety-first route. ‘I got a job in IT as a programmer’, he recalls. ‘Later I moved into sales support in specific applications, mostly centred round e-commerce. For the most part I forgot about my games’. So what reawakened his interest? ‘It was about two years ago’, says Mr Wickens, ‘and there was a downturn in the IT industry. Several of my friends and even colleagues lost their jobs and a couple of them started their own companies. And yes, I suppose I did re-evaluate in the way you do when you think: “What would I do if I were made redundant?”’

What most people don’t do is try to crack the £2 billion-a-year UK toy and games market. ‘I chose Ntropy’, he explains, ‘because it involves all the family. I wrote to several of the big games companies with a brief outline of my game and received the polite “Thanks, but no thanks” reply’. It is at this point, says Mr Wickens, that he began to think seriously about going it alone as an independent. ‘OK, I knew nothing about the UK toy market but I had a lot more general business experience than I did when I left college’.

The next step was to make a full replica of the game, mostly in his workshop – a converted garage at home. ‘Then I had to test it. My father helped here because he works at an outdoor centre. He gave it to people who had no idea who I was. I figured I had to get third parties to assess it and listen to what they had to say’. The result was a return to the workshop for ‘a fairly drastic redesign and some rule changes’.

Text #13

Crime-fighting technology is getting more sophisticated and rightly so. The police need to be equipped for the 21st century. In Britain we’ve already got the world’s biggest DNA database. By next year the state will have access to the genetic data of 4.25m people: one British-based person in 14. Hundreds of thousands of those on the database will never have been charged with a crime.

Britain is also reported to have more than £4 million CCTV (closed circuit television) cameras. There is a continuing debate about the effectiveness of CCTV. Some evidence suggests that it is helpful in reducing shoplifting and car crime. It has also been used to successfully identify terrorists and murderers. However, many claim that better lighting is just as effective to prevent crime and that cameras could displace crime. An internal police report said that only one crime was solved for every 1,000 cameras in London in 2007. In short, there is conflicting evidence about the effectiveness of cameras, so it is likely that the debate will continue.

Professor Mike Press, who has spent the past decade studying how design can contribute to crime reduction, said that, in order for CCTV to have any effect, it must be used in a targeted way. For example, a scheme in Manchester records every licence plate at the entrance of a shopping complex and alerts police when one is found to belong to an untaxed or stolen car. This is an effective example of monitoring, he said. Most schemes that simply record city centres continually – often not being watched – do not produce results. CCTV can also have the opposite effect of that intended, by giving citizens a false sense of security and encouraging them to be careless with property and personal safety. Professor Press said: ‘All the evidence suggests that CCTV alone makes no positive impact on crime reduction and prevention at all. The weight of evidence would suggest the investment is more or less a waste of money unless you have lots of other things in place.’ He believes that much of the increase is driven by the marketing efforts of security companies who promote the crime-reducing benefits of their products. He described it as a ‘lazy approach to crime prevention’ and said that authorities should instead be focusing on how to alter the environment to reduce crime.

Text #14

Many people who spend a lot of time playing video games insist that they have helped them in areas like confidence-building, presentation skills and debating. Yet this way of thinking about video games can be found almost nowhere within the mainstream media, which still tend to treat games as an odd mix of the slightly menacing and the alien. This lack of awareness has become increasingly inappropriate, as video games and the culture that surrounds them have become very big business indeed.

Recently, the British government released the Byron report into the effects of electronic media on children. Its conclusions set out a clear, rational basis for exploring the regulation of video games. The ensuing debate, however, has descended into the same old squabbling between partisan factions: the preachers of mental and moral decline, and the innovative game designers. In between are the gamers, busily buying and playing while nonsense is talked over their heads.

Susan Greenfield, renowned neuroscientist, outlines her concerns in a new book. Every individual’s mind is the product of a brain that has been personalized by the sum total of their experiences; with an increasing quantity of our experiences from very early childhood taking place ‘on screen’ rather than in the world, there is potentially a profound shift in the way children’s minds work. She suggests that the fast-paced, second-hand experiences created by video games and the Internet may inculcate a worldview that is less empathetic, more risk-taking and less contemplative than what we tend to think of as healthy.

Text #15

Obesity is a huge problem in many Western countries and one which now attracts considerable medical interest as researchers take up the challenge to find a ‘cure’ for the common condition of being seriously overweight. However, rather than take responsibility for their weight, obese people have often sought solace in the excuse that they have a slow metabolism, a genetic hiccup which sentences more than half the Australian population (63% of men and 47% of women) to a life of battling with their weight. The argument goes like this: it doesn’t matter how little they eat, they gain weight because their bodies break down food and turn it into energy more slowly than those with a so-called normal metabolic rate.

‘This is nonsense,’ says Dr Susan Jebb from the Dunn Nutrition Unit at Cambridge in England. Despite the persistence of this metabolism myth, science has known for several years that the exact opposite is in fact true. Fat people have faster metabolisms than thin people. ‘What is very clear,’ says Dr Jebb, ‘is that overweight people actually burn off more energy. They have more cells, bigger hearts, bigger lungs and they all need more energy just to keep going.’

It took only one night, spent in a sealed room at the Dunn Unit to disabuse one of their patients of the beliefs of a lifetime: her metabolism was fast, not slow. By sealing the room and measuring the exact amount of oxygen she used, researchers were able to show her that her metabolism was not the culprit. It wasn’t the answer she expected and probably not the one she wanted but she took the news philosophically.

Although the metabolism myth has been completely disproved, science has far from discounted our genes as responsible for making us whatever weight we are, fat or thin. One of the world’s leading obesity researchers, geneticist Professor Stephen O’Rahilly, goes so far as to say we are on the threshold of a complete change in the way we view not only morbid obesity, but also everyday overweight. Prof. O’Rahilly’s groundbreaking work in Cambridge has proven that obesity can be caused by our genes. ‘These people are not weak- willed, slothful or lazy,’ says Prof. O’Rahilly, ‘They have a medical condition due to a genetic defect and that causes them to be obese.’

Text #16

Can robots advance so far that they become the ultimate threat to our existence? Some scientists say no, and dismiss the very idea of Artificial Intelligence. The human brain, they argue, is the most complicated system ever created, and any machine designed to reproduce human thought is bound to fail. Physicist Roger Penrose of Oxford University and others believe that machines are physically incapable of human thought. Colin McGinn of Rutgers University backs this up when he says that Artificial Intelligence ‘is like sheep trying to do complicated psychoanalysis. They just don’t have the conceptual equipment they need in their limited brains.’

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is different from most technologies in that scientists still understand very little about how intelligence works. Physicists have a good understanding of Newtonian mechanics and the quantum theory of atoms and molecules, whereas the basic laws of intelligence remain a mystery. But a sizeable number of mathematicians and computer scientists, who are specialists in the area, are optimistic about the possibilities. To them it is only a matter of time before a thinking machine walks out of the laboratory. Over the years, various problems have impeded all efforts to create robots. To attack these difficulties, researchers tried to use the ‘top-down approach’, using a computer in an attempt to program all the essential rules onto a single disc. By inserting this into a machine, it would then become self-aware and attain a human-like intelligence.

In the 1950s and 1960s great progress was made, but the shortcomings of these prototype robots soon became clear. They were huge and took hours to navigate across a room. Meanwhile, a fruit fly, with a brain containing only a fraction of the computing power, can effortlessly navigate in three dimensions. Our brains, like the fruit fly’s, unconsciously recognise what we see by performing countless calculations. This unconscious awareness of patterns is exactly what computers are missing. The second problem is robots’ lack of common sense. Humans know that water is wet and that mothers are older than their daughters. But there is no mathematics that can express these truths. Children learn the intuitive laws of biology and physics by interacting with the real world. Robots know only what has been programmed into them.

Text #17

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the Earth’s population will live in urban centres. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about three billion people by then. An estimated 10 hectares of new land (about 20% larger than Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming methods continue as they are practised today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use. Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to ensure enough food for the world’s population to live on?

The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another three billion people. Many believe an entirely new approach to indoor farming is required, employing cutting-edge technologies. One such proposal is for the ‘Vertical Farm’. The concept is of multi-storey buildings in which food crops are grown in environmentally controlled conditions. Situated in the heart of urban centres, they would drastically reduce the amount of transportation required to bring food to consumers. Vertical farms would need to be efficient, cheap to construct and safe to operate. If successfully implemented, proponents claim, vertical farms offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (through year-round production of all crops), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

It took humans 10,000 years to learn how to grow most of the crops we now take for granted. Along the way, we despoiled most of the land we worked, often turning verdant, natural ecozones into semi-arid deserts. Within that same time frame, we evolved into an urban species, in which 60% of the human population now lives vertically in cities. This means that, for the majority, we humans have shelter from the elements, yet we subject our food-bearing plants to the rigours of the great outdoors and can do no more than hope for a good weather year. However, more often than not now, due to a rapidly changing climate, that is not what happens. Massive floods, long droughts, hurricanes and severe monsoons take their toll each year, destroying millions of tons of valuable crops.

Text #18

The first steam-powered machine was built in 1698 by the English military engineer Thomas Savery (c. 1650-1715). His invention, designed to pump water out of coal mines, was known as the Miner’s Friend. The machine, which had no moving parts, consisted of a simple boiler – a steam chamber whose valves were located on the surface – and a pipe leading to the water in the mine below. Water was heated in the boiler chamber until its steam filled the chamber, forcing out any remaining water or air. The valves were then closed and cold water was sprayed over the chamber. This chilled and condensed the steam inside to form a vacuum. When the valves were reopened, the vacuum sucked up the water from the mine, and the process could then be repeated.

A few years later, an English engineer named Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729) improved the steam pump. He increased efficiency by setting a moving piston inside a cylinder, a technique still in use today. A cylinder – a long, thin, closed chamber separate from the boiler – replaced the large, open boiler chamber. A piston – a sliding piece that fits in the cylinder – was used to create motion instead of a vacuum. Steam filled the cylinder from an open valve. When filled, the cylinder was sprayed with water, causing the steam inside to condense into water and create a partial vacuum. The pressure of the outside air then forced the piston down, producing a power stroke. The piston was connected to a beam, which was connected to a water pump at the bottom of the mine by a pump-rod. Through these connections, the movement of the piston caused the water pump to suck up the water.

The most important improvement in steam engine design was brought about by the Scottish engineer James Watt (1736-1819). He set out to improve the performance of Newcomen’s engine and by 1769 had arrived at the conclusion: if the steam were condensed separately from the cylinder, the cylinder could always be kept hot. That year he introduced the design of a steam engine that had a separate condenser and sealed cylinders. Since this kept the heating and cooling processes separate, his machine could work constantly, without any long pause at each cycle to reheat the cylinder. Watt’s refined steam engine design used one-third less fuel than a comparable Newcomen engine.

Text #19

During the first year of a child’s life, parents and carers are concerned with its physical development; during the second year, they watch the baby’s language development very carefully. It is interesting just how easily children learn language. Children who are just three or four years old, who cannot yet tie their shoelaces, are able to speak in full sentences without any specific language training.

The current view of child language development is that it is an instinct – something as natural as eating or sleeping. According to experts in this area, this language instinct is innate – something each of us is born with. But this prevailing view has not always enjoyed widespread acceptance.

In the middle of last century, experts of the time, including a renowned professor at Harvard University in the United States, regarded child language development as the process of learning through mere repetition. Language “habits” developed as young children were rewarded for repeating language correctly and ignored or punished when they used incorrect forms of language. Over time, a child, according to this theory, would learn language much like a dog might learn to behave properly through training.

Yet even though the modern view holds that language is instinctive, experts like Assistant Professor Lise Eliot are convinced that the interaction a child has with its parents and caregivers is crucial to its developments. The language of the parents and caregivers act as models for the developing child. In fact, a baby’s day-to-day experience is so important that the child will learn to speak in a manner very similar to the model speakers it hears.

Given that the models parents provide are so important, it is interesting to consider the role of “baby talk” in the child’s language development. Baby talk is the language produced by an adult speaker who is trying to exaggerate certain aspects of the language to capture the attention of a young baby.

Text #20

In the last decade a revolution has occurred in the way that scientists think about the brain. We now know that the decisions humans make can be traced to the firing patterns of neurons in specific parts of the brain. These discoveries have led to the field known as neuroeconomics, which studies the brain’s secrets to success in an economic environment that demands innovation and being able to do things differently from competitors. A brain that can do this is an iconoclastic one. Briefly, an iconoclast is a person who does something that others say can’t be done.

This definition implies that iconoclasts are different from other people, but more precisely, it is their brains that are different in three distinct ways: perception, fear response, and social intelligence. Each of these three functions utilizes a different circuit in the brain. Naysayers might suggest that the brain is irrelevant, that thinking in an original, even revolutionary, way is more a matter of personality than brain function. But the field of neuroeconomics was born out of the realization that the physical workings of the brain place limitations on the way we make decisions. By understanding these constraints, we begin to understand why some people march to a different drumbeat.

The first thing to realize is that the brain suffers from limited resources. It has a fixed energy budget, about the same as a 40 watt light bulb, so it has evolved to work as efficiently as possible. This is where most people are impeded from being an iconoclast. For example, when confronted with information streaming from the eyes, the brain will interpret this information in the quickest way possible. Thus it will draw on both past experience and any other source of information, such as what other people say, to make sense of what it is seeing. This happens all the time. The brain takes shortcuts that work so well we are hardly ever aware of them. We think our perceptions of the world are real, but they are only biological and electrical rumblings. Perception is not simply a product of what your eyes or ears transmit to your brain. More than the physical reality of photons or sound waves, perception is a product of the brain.

Text #21

Cinema is full of contradictions. It is high-tech and old-fashioned at the same time. Today’s films are full of digital sound and computer-generated special effects. Yet they are still stored on celluloid film, the basis of which is more than 100 years old. They are also displayed with projectors and screens that seem to belong to our great grandparents’ generation.

Now that we are in the second century of cinema, there are moves to bring the medium right up to date. This will involve revolutionising not just how films are made but also how they are distributed and presented. The aim is not only to produce and prepare films digitally, but to be able to send them to movie theatres by digital, electronic means. High-resolution digital projectors would then show the film. Supporters say this will make considerable savings at all stages of this chain, particularly for distribution.

With such a major technological revolution on the horizon, it seems strange that the industry is still not sure what to call itself This may appear a minor point, but the choices, ‘digital’ cinema and ‘electronic’ cinema (e-cinema), suggest different approaches to, and aspects of, the business. Digital cinema refers to the physical capture of images; e-cinema covers the whole chain, from production through post-production (editing, addition of special effects and construction of soundtrack) to distribution and projection.

And what about the effects of the new medium? The main selling point of digital cinema is the high resolution and sharpness of the final image. But those who support the old-fashioned approach to film point to the celluloid medium’s quality of warmth. A recurring criticism of video is that it may be too good: uncomfortably real, rather like looking through an open window. In 1989, the director of the first full-length American digital high-definition movie admitted that the picture had a ‘stark, strange reality to it’.

Text #22

In 2002, William Kamkwamba had to drop out of school, as his father, a maize and tobacco farmer, could no longer afford his school fees. But despite this setback, William was determined to get his education. He began visiting a local library that had just opened in his old primary school, where he discovered a tattered science book. With only a rudimentary grasp of English, he taught himself basic physics – mainly by studying photos and diagrams. Another book he found there featured windmills on the cover and inspired him to try and build his own.

He started by constructing a small model. Then, with the help of a cousin and friend, he spent many weeks searching scrap yards and found old tractor fans, shock absorbers, plastic pipe and bicycle parts, which he used to build the real thing.

For windmill blades, William cut some bath pipe in two lengthwise, then heated the pieces over hot coals to press the curled edges flat. To bore holes into the blades, he stuck a nail through half a corncob, heated the metal red and twisted it through the blades. It took three hours to repeatedly heat the nail and bore the holes. He attached the blades to a tractor fan using proper nuts and bolts and then to the back axle of a bicycle. Electricity was generated through the bicycle dynamo. When the wind blew the blades, the bike chain spun the bike wheel, which charged the dynamo and sent a current through wire to his house.

What he had built was a crude machine that produced 12 volts and powered four lights. When it was all done, the windmill’s wingspan measured more than eight feet and sat on top of a rickety tower 15 feet tall that swayed violently in strong gales. He eventually replaced the tower with a sturdier one that stands 39 feet, and built a second machine that watered a family garden.

Text #23

Every autumn, when recruitment of new graduates and school leavers begins, major cities in Japan are flooded with students hunting for a job. Wearing suits for the first time, they run from one interview to another. The season is crucial for many students, as their whole lives may be determined during this period.

In Japan, lifetime employment is commonly practised by large companies. While people working in small companies and those working for sub-contractors do not in general enjoy the advantages conferred by the large companies, there is a general expectation that employees will in fact remain more or less permanently in the same job.

Unlike in many Western countries where companies employ people whose skills can be effective immediately, Japanese companies select applicants with potential who can be trained to become suitable employees. For this reason, recruiting employees is an important exercise for companies, as they invest a lot of time and money in training new staff. This is basically true both for factory workers and for professionals. Professionals who have studied subjects which are of immediate use in the workplace, such as industrial engineers, are very often placed in factories and transferred from one section to another. By gaining experience in several different areas and by working in close contact with workers, the engineers are believed, in the long run, to become more effective members of the company. Workers too feel more involved by working with professionals and by being allowed to voice their opinions. Loyalty is believed to be cultivated in this type of egalitarian working environment.

Because of this system of training employees to be all-rounders, mobility between companies is low. Wages are set according to educational background or initial field of employment, ordinary graduates being employed in administration, engineers in engineering and design departments and so on. Both promotions and wage increases tend to be tied to seniority, though some differences may arise later on as a result of ability and business performance. Wages are paid monthly, and the net sum, after the deduction of tax, is usually paid directly into a bank account. As well as salary, a bonus is usually paid twice a year.

Text #24

Beautiful Kingsley House was built in the 18th century, and all the rooms are decorated and furnished in the style of the time. They include the dining room, study and dressing room, which contains a display of 18th-century ladies’ clothing. Our volunteer guides in each room bring the house to life with stories of the past.

The Africa Museum was founded 50 years ago, and to commemorate the event, we have chosen 50 treasures from the permanent collection and put them together to tell the fascinating story of that continent. This exhibition continues until the end of the year. The Folk Art Gallery opens to the public next month, exhibiting traditional paintings and other objects from all over Africa.

From the outside, 17 Mansfield Street may not look particularly exciting, but come inside, and you’ll find yourself in a historic building that started life as a theatre, before becoming a bank and then a restaurant, which is still in operation. On Sundays and Mondays, when the restaurant is closed, a guide is available to show you round the building and its fascinating architectural features.

The Industrial Heritage Centre tells the fascinating story of a local family firm. Mr John Carroll started his engineering business in this building exactly 150 years ago. The firm closed in 1969, but the factory has been re-created, with machines like those that Mr Carroll was familiar with. See what working life could be like in the 19th century, a life far removed from the elegance of the wealthy.

The Fashion Museum has only just opened. It is home to an outstanding collection of more than 30,000 objects worn by men, women and children, dating from the 17th century to the present day. You’ll see how people used to dress! As well as the permanent exhibits, you can currently see Dressing the Stars, which displays original costumes worn by the stars of many popular films.

Text #25

Today in Britain there are 124 state universities, but only one private university – the University of Buckingham. Before the 19th century there were only six universities: Oxford. Cambridge, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews. Universities were usually linked to the Church and were established between the 13th and 15th centuries. They often have good reputations, beautiful old buildings, traditions and usually offer a wide range of courses.

A number of universities were established in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a result of the industrial revolution and they began training highly skilled people for industry. These universities were generally established in major industrial centres such as Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and other big cities. Sometimes called modern or civic universities, these universities have the advantage of well-established libraries, academic specialities and accommodation that is close to campus. These universities are often able to provide accommodation for all first year students.

A number of new universities were established in the 1960s when children born after World War 2 entered the higher education system. The government decided to expand higher education to educate these students. The advantage of these universities is that they are well planned and most of the living and teaching facilities are on campus.

Before 1992, higher education in the UK was split into polytechnics and universities. The polytechnics provided skilled people for the industries situated in their region – they focused on vocational and professional subjects. For many years, polytechnics didn’t have the same influence as universities. However, by 1992, educational standards in polytechnics were as good as universities and many became universities. Many of these universities also offer diploma courses.

Text #26

Until recently, the thought that there might ever be a cure for ageing seemed preposterous. Growing older and more decrepit appeared to be an inevitable and necessary part of being human. Over the last decade, however, scientists have begun to see ageing differently. Some now believe that the average life-expectancy may soon be pushed up to 160 years; others think that it may be extended to 200 or 300 years. A handful even wonder whether we might one day live for a millennium or more.

Behind this new excitement is the theory that the primary cause of ageing lies in highly reactive molecules called free radicals, left behind by the oxygen we breathe. Free radicals react with the molecules in our bodies, damaging DNA, proteins and other cell tissues, and are known to be implicated in diseases as diverse as cataracts, cancer and Alzheimer’s. The body does its best to protect itself against free radicals by producing its own chemicals to prevent ageing, such as vitamins E and C, but it is always fighting a losing battle.

A year ago Gordon Lithgow of the University of Manchester discovered a way to help combat free radicals. Using one of these anti-ageing chemicals. he managed to increase the lifespan of one species of earthworm by 50 per cent. Despite cautionary words from the scientists, many welcomed this as the first step towards a drug which would extend life. Research involving the mutation of genes has also thrown up fascinating results: after identifying two of the genes that appear to control how long the earthworm lives, similar genes were found in organisms as various as fruit-flies, mice and human beings. When one considers the vast evolutionary distances that separate these species, it suggests that we may have discovered a key to how ageing is regulated throughout the entire animal kingdom.

Text #27

During the scientific revolution of the 17th century, scientists were largely men of private means who pursued their interest in natural philosophy for their own edification. Only in the past century or two has it become possible to make a living from investigating the workings of nature. Modern science was, in other words, built on the work of amateurs. Today, science is an increasingly specialized and compartmentalized subject, the domain of experts who know more and more about less and less. Perhaps surprisingly, however, amateurs – even those without private means – are still important.

A recent poll carried out at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science by astronomer Dr Richard Fienberg found that, in addition to his field of astronomy, amateurs are actively involved in such field as acoustics, horticulture, ornithology, meteorology, hydrology and palaeontology. Far from being crackpots, amateur scientists are often in close touch with professionals, some of whom rely heavily on their co-operation.

Admittedly, some fields are more open to amateurs than others. Anything that requires expensive equipment is clearly a no-go area. And some kinds of research can be dangerous; most amateur chemists, jokes Dr Fienberg, are either locked up or have blown themselves to bits. But amateurs can make valuable contributions in fields from rocketry to palaeontology and the rise of the internet has made it easier than before to collect data and distribute results.

Exactly which field of study has benefited most from the contributions of amateurs is a matter of some dispute. Dr Fienberg makes a strong case for astronomy. There is, he points out, a long tradition of collaboration between amateur and professional sky watchers. Numerous comets, asteroids and even the planet Uranus were discovered by amateurs.

Text #28

Professor Mike Press, who has spent the past decade studying how design can contribute to crime reduction, said that, in order for CCTV to have any effect, it must be used in a targeted way. For example, a scheme in Manchester records every licence plate at the entrance of a shopping complex and alerts police when one is found to belong to an untaxed or stolen car. This is an effective example of monitoring, he said. Most schemes that simply record city centres continually — often not being watched – do not produce results. CCTV can also have the opposite effect of that intended, by giving citizens a false sense of security and encouraging them to be careless with property and personal safety. Professor Press said: All the evidence suggests that CCTV alone makes no positive impact on crime reduction and prevention at all The weight of evidence would suggest the investment is more or less a waste of money unless you have lots of other things in place.’ He believes that much of the increase is driven by the marketing efforts of security companies who promote the crime-reducing benefits of their products. He described it as a lazy approach to crime prevention’ and said that authorities should instead be focusing on how to alter the environment to reduce crime.

Text #29

Every day, all over the world, unwanted waste is disposed of from both domestic and commercial sources, usually with insufficient attention paid to the resulting problems. The increase in excess refuse and how to dispense with it has become a major headache for the government and the environmental agencies.

This has certainly been the case in Britain where there has been a steady rise in the amount of rubbish generated in recent years. In industry, the mining, agriculture and construction sectors are the biggest culprits, being amongst the greatest producers of waste. Also, household waste has grown at a rate of 3% a year as a consequence of society becoming more affluent and thus consuming more goods, resulting in more rubbish to discard. As this waste is economically and environmentally costly to deal with, local authorities have been required to ensure that the arrangements made to dispose of the surplus detritus are efficient and practicable, considering social as well as economic implications.

For many years, the preferred option for refuse disposal in Britain has been the landfill. In fact, the UK, more than any other European country, makes use of landfills to get rid of its biodegradable waste. However, problems have arisen with this method and alternative solutions have had to be researched.

One of the biggest drawbacks to landfills is the cost. In the past this was not the case as land was plentiful and cheap with abandoned quarries and mines often being utilised. But by 2015, since space for approved and licensed landfills will have run out, viable alternatives to waste disposal have to be found. Another disadvantage is the environmental impact made by the acids and hazardous chemicals that are leaked from the landfills. Older sites depended on these substances being diluted naturally by rain but this often did not occur and surrounding agricultural land was affected and livestock poisoned. Nowadays, more modern landfills use liners within the pits to contain any dangerous material and the liquid is then collected, treated and discharged within the site itself. But perhaps the most apparent annoyance for the general public living in the immediate vicinity of the landfill is the nuisance that results from the traffic, the noise, the dust and the unpleasant odours emanating from the site.

Text #30

As a former British colony, Australia has close cultural and historical links with the United Kingdom, due to the British and Irish settlers who arrived in droves in the 19th and 20th centuries. One aspect of this contact is the role of Britain, and British archaeologists and collectors, in taking Aboriginal bones, relics and artefacts from Australia to museums and collections in the UK. Now leaders of the indigenous people of Australia, the Aborigines, are demanding that any Aboriginal remains in the UK are returned to Australia.

In 19th century Britain, there was a mania for collecting all kinds of objects from other countries. These were sent home, where they were kept in museums such as the British Museum and the Natural History Museum. Museums in the UK have a huge number of such objects – objects which, say protesters, were basically stolen during Britain’s long colonial history, with little or no regard for the feelings or rights of the people to whom the objects originally belonged.

Now the Australian Prime Minister is supporting Aboriginal calls for the objects and remains to be returned to their original home. A spokesman for the Aboriginal Council of New South Wales, Stevie McCoy, said: “The bones do not belong abroad. They belong here. This is about beliefs, and a traditional Aboriginal belief is that our ancestors can only find peace if their remains are buried in the homeland.“

There are certainly lots of Aboriginal remains in the UK, although their exact locations are not entirely clear. What is known is that, between them, the British Museum and the Natural History Museum have some 2,000 – 2,5000 artefacts composed of human remains, although the museums point out that only about 500 of these are of Aboriginal origin. Dr William Cowell Bell, for the London Museum Association, adds that “A lot of the objects are not human remains in their original form, but are made out of human remains.

Text #31

Modern art has had something of a bad press recently – or, to be more precise, it has always had a bad press in certain newspapers and amongst certain sectors of the public. In the public mind, it seems, art (that is, graphic art – pictures – and spatial art – sculpture) is divided into two broad categories. The first is ‘classic’ art, by which is meant representational painting, drawing and sculpture; the second is ‘modern’ art, also known as abstract or non-representational. British popular taste runs decidedly in favour of the former, if one believes a recent survey conducted by Charlie Moore, owner of the Loft Gallery and Workshops in Kent, and one of Britain’s most influential artistic commentators. He found that the man (or woman) in the street has a distrust of cubism, abstracts, sculptures made of bricks and all types of so-called ‘found’ art, He likes Turner and Constable, the great representatives of British watercolour and oil painting respectively, or the French Impressionists, and his taste for statues is limited to the realistic figures of the great and good that litter the British landscape – Robin Hood in Nottingham and Oliver Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament. This everyman does not believe in primary colours, abstraction and geometry in nature – the most common comment is that such-and-such a painting is “something a child could have done”.

Lewis Williams, director of the Beaconsfield Galleries in Hampshire, which specialises in modern painting, agrees. “Look around you at what art is available every day,” he says. “Our great museums and galleries specialise in work which is designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It may be representational, it may be ‘realistic’ in one sense, but a lot of it wouldn’t make it into the great European galleries. Britain has had maybe two or three major world painters in the last 1000 years, so we make up the space with a lot of second-rate material.”

Williams believes that our ignorance of what modern art is has been caused by this lack of exposure to truly great art. He compares the experience of the average British city-dweller with that of a citizen of Italy, France or Spain.

Text #32

The idea that scientific knowledge is dangerous is deeply embedded in our culture. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and in Milton’s Paradise Lost the serpent addresses the tree as the ‘Mother of Science’. Indeed the whole of western literature has not been kind to scientists and is filled with images of them meddling with nature with disastrous results. Just consider Shelley’s Frankenstein, Goethe’s Faust and Huxley’s Brave New World. One will search with very little success for a novel in which scientists come out well – the persistent image is that of scientists as a soulless group unconcerned with ethical issues. And where is there a film sympathetic to science?

Part of the problem is the conflation of science and technology. The distinction between science and technology, between knowledge and understanding on the one hand and the application of that knowledge to making something, or using it in some practical way, is fundamental.

Science produces ideas about how the world works, whereas the ideas in technology result in usable objects. Technology is much older than anything one could regard as science and unaided by any science. Technology gave rise to the crafts of early humans, like agriculture and metalworking. It is technology that carries with it ethical issues, from motorcar production to cloning a human.

By contrast, reliable scientific knowledge is value-free and has no moral or ethical value. Science merely tells us how the world is. That we are not at the centre of the universe is neither good nor bad, nor is the possibility that genes can influence our intelligence or our behaviour.

Text #33

Maize is Mexico’s lifeblood – the country’s history and identity are entwined with it. But this centuries-old relationship is now threatened by free trade. Laura Carlsen investigates the threat and profiles a growing activist movement.

On a mountain top in southern Mexico, Indian families gather. They chant and sprinkle cornmeal in consecration, praying for the success of their new crops, the unity of their communities and the health of their families. In this village in Oaxaca people eat corn tamales, sow maize plots and teach children to care for the plant. The cultural rhythms of this community, its labours, rituals and celebrations will be defined – as they have been for millennia – by the lifecycle of corn. Indeed, if it weren’t for the domestication of teocintle (the ancestor of modern maize) 9,000 years ago mesoamerican civilization could never have developed. In the Mayan sacred book, the Popol Vuh, the gods create people out of cornmeal. The ‘people of corn’ flourished and built one of the most remarkable cultures in human history.

But in Mexico and Central America today maize has come under attack. As a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Mexico has been flooded with imported corn from north of the border in the US. The contamination of native varieties with genetically modified imported maize could have major consequences for Mexican campesinos (farmers), for local biodiversity and for the world’s genetic reserves.

A decade ago Mexican bureaucrats and business people had it all figured out. NAFTA would drive ‘uncompetitive’ maize farmers from the countryside to work in booming assembly factories across the country. Their standard of living would rise as the cost of providing services like electricity and water to scattered rural communities would fall. Best of all, cheap imported maize from the US – the world’s most efficient and most heavily subsidized producer – would be a benefit to Mexican consumers.

Text #34

THE young in China are going to desperate lengths to add extra inches to their height in pursuit of celebrity and wealth. They are being urged on by a government shamed by the news that, for the first time in history, the Japanese now stand taller than the Chinese. There is constant pressure on Chinese adolescents to think tall. The government is encouraging them to drink milk as a way of promoting growth, while magazines and television are replete with the images of lanky supermodels and basketball stars.

One of the greatest influences has been the astonishing success of Huang Xinye, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from a fishing village in southern China. She was whisked away by talent scouts for a modelling contest late last year. Until then, her 6ft 1in frame had marked her out as a gawky also-ran in the school playground. Having won the contest, Huang was spotted by the international modelling agency Elite and flown to Europe. The news of her glamorous new life and the £12,000 that she won in the modelling contest has inspired thousands to attempt to follow in her footsteps – even if they don’t have her natural advantages.

Teenagers are inundating hospitals that claim to be able to enhance their height with requests for leg-lengthening operations. Xia Hetao, a doctor whose clinics perform the operation said: “I have received many letters from people saying that, because they were born short, they have suffered and are looking for some solace.”

If they are accepted on Xia’s waiting list, the aspiring patients are guaranteed only more pain in the short run. Xia slices the thigh bone in half and inserts a steel rod supported by a metal frame on the outside of the bone. The patient cranks the mechanism wider every day, forcing the leg to grow longer. Most can stand the pain only for the month that it takes to stretch an inch, but others persist. The record is held by a young man who gained 6.5 inches. Last year, The Telegraph highlighted the case of the British girl, Emma Richards, 16, from Wadebridge, Cornwall, who underwent a series of leg-lengthening operations to gain an extra five inches so that she could become an air stewardess.

Text #35

If you took off your skin and laid it flat, it would cover an area of about twenty-one square feet, making it by far the body’s largest organ. Draped in place over our bodies, skin forms the barrier between what’s inside us and what’s outside. It protects us from a multitude of external forces. It serves as an avenue to our most intimate physical and psychological selves.

This impervious yet permeable barrier, less than a millimetre thick in places, is composed of three layers. The outermost layer is the bloodless epidermis. The dermis includes collagen, elastin, and nerve endings. The innermost layer, subcutaneous fat, contains tissue that acts as an energy source, cushion and insulator for the body.

From these familiar characteristics of skin emerge the profound mysteries of touch, arguably our most essential source of sensory stimulation. We can live without seeing or hearing – in fact, without any of our other senses. But babies born without effective nerve connections between skin and brain can fail to thrive and may even die.

Laboratory experiments decades ago, now considered unethical and inhumane, kept baby monkeys from being touched by their mothers. It made no difference that the babies could see, hear and smell their mothers; without touching, the babies became apathetic, and failed to progress.

For humans, insufficient touching in early years can have lifelong results. “In touching cultures, adult aggression is low, whereas in cultures where touch is limited, adult aggression is high,” writes Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institutes at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Studies of a variety of cultures show a correspondence between high rates of physical affection in childhood and low rates of adult physical violence.

Text #36

Most people suffer no ill-effects from using VDUs (Visual Display Units) as they don’t give out harmful levels of radiation and rarely cause any kind of skin complaint. If you do suffer ill-effects, it may be because of the way you’re using the computer and this can be avoided by well-designed workstations. When working at a VDU, make sure you keep a good posture and that your eyes are level with the screen.

Under health and safety regulations your employer should look at VDU workstations, and reduce any risks by supplying any equipment considered necessary (e.g. a wrist rest). They should also provide health and safety training. This also applies if you’re working at home as an employee and using a VDU for a long period of time. There is no legal limit to how long you should work at a VDU, but under health and safety regulations you have the right to breaks from work using a VDU. This doesn’t have to be a rest break, just a different type of work. Guidance from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) suggests it’s better to take frequent short breaks but if your job means spending long periods at a VDU, for example as in the case of data input, then longer breaks from your workstation should be introduced.

If you’re disabled, your employer’s duty to make reasonable adjustments for you may mean that they will provide you with special computer equipment. You can also get advice and maybe help with paying for equipment from the local job centre. Studies haven’t shown a link between VDU use and damage to eyesight, but if you feel that using a VDU screen is making your eyes tired, tell your employee safety representative. You have the right to a free eyesight test if you use a VDU a lot during work hours. If you’re prescribed glasses your company must pay for them, provided they’re required in your job.

If you have any health problems you think may be caused by your VDU, contact your line manager. He/she has a duty to consult you on health and safety issues that affect you, and should welcome early reporting of any issue.

Text #37

The term “TV addiction” is imprecise, but it captures the essence of a very real phenomenon. Psychologists formally define addiction as a disorder characterized by criteria that include spending a great deal of time using the thing; using it more often than one intends; thinking about reducing use or making repeated unsuccessful efforts to reduce use; giving up important activities to use it; and reporting withdrawal symptoms when one stops using it.

All these criteria can apply to people who watch a lot of television. That does not mean that watching television, in itself, is problematic. Television can teach and amuse; it can be highly artistic; it can provide much needed distraction and escape. The difficulty arises when people strongly sense that they ought not to watch as much as they do and yet find they are unable to reduce their viewing. Some knowledge of how television becomes so addictive may help heavy viewers gain better control over their lives.

The amount of time people spend watching television is astonishing. On average, individuals in the industrialized world devote three hours a day to the activity – fully half of their leisure time, and more than on any single activity except work and sleep. At this rate, someone who lives to 75 would spend nine years in front of the television. Possibly, this devotion means simply that people enjoy TV and make a conscious decision to watch it. But if that is the whole story, why do so many people worry about how much they view? In surveys in 1992 and 1999, two out of five adults and seven out of ten teenagers said they spent too much time watching TV. Other surveys have consistently shown that roughly ten per cent of adults call themselves TV addicts.

Text #38

After hours of driving south in the pitch-black darkness of the Nevada desert, a dome of hazy gold suddenly appears on the horizon. Soon, a road sign confirms the obvious: Las Vegas 30 miles. Looking skyward, you notice that the Big Dipper is harder to find than it was an hour ago.

Light pollution—the artificial light that illuminates more than its intended target area—has become a problem of increasing concern across the country over the past 15 years. In the suburbs, where over-lit shopping mall parking lots are the norm, only 200 of the Milky Way’s 2,500 stars are visible on a clear night. Even fewer can be seen from large cities. In almost every town, big and small, street lights beam just as much light up and out as they do down, illuminating much more than just the street. Almost 50 percent of the light emanating from street lamps misses its intended target, and billboards, shopping centres, private homes and skyscrapers are similarly over-illuminated.

America has become so bright that in a satellite image of the United States at night, the outline of the country is visible from its lights alone. The major cities are all there, in bright clusters: New York, Boston, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and, of course, Las Vegas. Mark Adams, superintendent of the McDonald Observatory in west Texas, says that the very fact that city lights are visible from on high is proof of their wastefulness. “When you’re up in an airplane, all that light you see on the ground from the city is wasted. It’s going up into the night sky. That’s why you can see it.”

But don’t we need all those lights to ensure our safety? The answer from light engineers, light pollution control advocates and astronomers is an emphatic “no.” Elizabeth Alvarez of the International Dark Sky Association (IDA), a non-profit organization in Tucson, Arizona, says that overly bright security lights can actually force neighbours to close the shutters, which means that if any criminal activity does occur on the street, no one will see it.

Text #39

Most people can readily conjure images inside their head – known as their mind’s eye. But this year scientists have described a condition, aphantasia, in which some people are unable to visualise mental images.

Niel Kenmuir, from Lancaster, has always had a blind mind’s eye. He knew he was different even in childhood. “My stepfather, when I couldn’t sleep, told me to count sheep, and he explained what he meant, I tried to do it and I couldn’t,” he says. “I couldn’t see any sheep jumping over fences, there was nothing to count.”

Our memories are often tied up in images, think back to a wedding or first day at school. As a result, Niel admits, some aspects of his memory are “terrible”, but he is very good at remembering facts. And, like others with aphantasia, he struggles to recognise faces. Yet he does not see aphantasia as a disability, but simply a different way of experiencing life.

Ironically, Niel now works in a bookshop, although he largely sticks to the non-fiction aisles. His condition begs the question what is going on inside his picture-less mind. I asked him what happens when he tries to picture his fiancee. “This is the hardest thing to describe, what happens in my head when I think about things,” he says. “When I think about my fiancee there is no image, but I am definitely thinking about her, I know today she has her hair up at the back, she’s brunette. But I’m not describing an image I am looking at, I’m remembering features about her, that’s the strangest thing and maybe that is a source of some regret.”

The response from his mates is a very sympathetic: “You’re weird.” But while Niel is very relaxed about his inability to picture things, it is often a cause of distress for others. One person who took part in a study into aphantasia said he had started to feel “isolated” and “alone” after discovering that other people could see images in their heads. Being unable to reminisce about his mother years after her death led to him being “extremely distraught”.

Text #40

A notorious Mexican drug baron’s audacious escape from prison in July doesn’t, at first, appear to have much to teach corporate boards. But some in the business world suggest otherwise. Beyond the morally reprehensible side of criminals’ work, some business gurus say organised crime syndicates, computer hackers, pirates and others operating outside the law could teach legitimate corporations a thing or two about how to hustle and respond to rapid change.

Far from encouraging illegality, these gurus argue that – in the same way big corporations sometimes emulate start-ups – business leaders could learn from the underworld about flexibility, innovation and the ability to pivot quickly. “There is a nimbleness to criminal organisations that legacy corporations [with large, complex layers of management] don’t have,” said Marc Goodman, head of the Future Crimes Institute and global cyber-crime advisor. While traditional businesses focus on rules they have to follow, criminals look to circumvent them. “For criminals, the sky is the limit and that creates the opportunity to think much, much bigger.”

Joaquin Guzman, the head of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel, for instance, slipped out of his prison cell through a tiny hole in his shower that led to a mile-long tunnel fitted with lights and ventilation. Making a break for it required creative thinking, long-term planning and perseverance – essential skills similar to those needed to achieve success in big business.

While Devin Liddell, who heads brand strategy for Seattle-based design consultancy, Teague, condemns the violence and other illegal activities he became curious as to how criminal groups endure. Some cartels stay in business despite multiple efforts by law enforcement on both sides of the US border and millions of dollars from international agencies to shut them down. Liddell genuinely believes there’s a lesson in longevity here. One strategy he underlined was how the bad guys respond to change. In order to bypass the border between Mexico and the US, for example, the Sinaloa cartel went to great lengths.

Text #41

Comedy writer Armando Iannucci has called for an industry-wide defence of the BBC and British programme-makers. “The Thick of It” creator made his remarks in the annual MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

“It’s more important than ever that we have more strong, popular channels… that act as beacons, drawing audiences to the best content,” he said. Speaking earlier, Culture Secretary John Whittingdale rejected suggestions that he wanted to dismantle the BBC.

Iannucci co-wrote “I’m Alan Partridge”, wrote the movie “In the Loop” and created and wrote the hit “HBO” and “Sky Atlantic show Veep”. He delivered the 40th annual MacTaggart Lecture, which has previously been given by Oscar winner Kevin Spacey, former BBC director general Greg Dyke, Jeremy Paxman and Rupert Murdoch. Iannucci said: “Faced with a global audience, British television needs its champion supporters.”

He continued his praise for British programming by saying the global success of American TV shows had come about because they were emulating British television. “The best US shows are modelling themselves on what used to make British TV so world-beating,” he said. “US prime-time schedules are now littered with those quirky formats from the UK – the “Who Do You Think You Are”‘s and the variants on “Strictly Come Dancing” – as well as the single-camera non-audience sitcom, which we brought into the mainstream first. We have changed international viewing for the better.”

With the renewal of the BBC’s royal charter approaching, Iannucci also praised the corporation. He said: “If public service broadcasting – one of the best things we’ve ever done creatively as a country – if it was a car industry, our ministers would be out championing it overseas, trying to win contracts, boasting of the British jobs that would bring.” In July, the government issued a green paper setting out issues that will be explored during negotiations over the future of the BBC, including the broadcaster’s size, its funding and governance.

Text #42

“This inhuman place makes human monsters,” wrote Stephen King in his novel The Shining. Many academics agree that monsters lurk in the deepest recesses, they prowl through our ancestral minds appearing in the half-light, under the bed – or at the bottom of the sea.

“They don’t really exist, but they play a huge role in our mindscapes, in our dreams, stories, nightmares, myths and so on,” says Matthias Classen, assistant professor of literature and media at Aarhus University in Denmark, who studies monsters in literature. “Monsters say something about human psychology, not the world.”

One Norse legend talks of the Kraken, a deep sea creature that was the curse of fishermen. If sailors found a place with many fish, most likely it was the monster that was driving them to the surface. If it saw the ship it would pluck the hapless sailors from the boat and drag them to a watery grave.

This terrifying legend occupied the mind and pen of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson too. In his short 1830 poem The Kraken he wrote: “Below the thunders of the upper deep, / Far far beneath in the abysmal sea, / His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep / The Kraken sleepeth.”

The deeper we travel into the ocean, the deeper we delve into our own psyche. And when we can go no further – there lurks the Kraken.

Most likely the Kraken is based on a real creature – the giant squid. The huge mollusc takes pride of place as the personification of the terrors of the deep sea. Sailors would have encountered it at the surface, dying, and probably thrashing about. It would have made a weird sight, “about the most alien thing you can imagine,” says Edith Widder, CEO at the Ocean Research and Conservation Association.

Text #43

Imagine you’re the greatest fantasy writer of your age. One day you dream up the idea of a bomb of infinite power. You call it the “atomic bomb”. HG Wells first imagined a uranium-based hand grenade that “would continue to explode indefinitely” in his 1914 novel The World Set Free. He even thought it would be dropped from planes. What he couldn’t predict was how a strange conjunction of his friends and acquaintances – notably Winston Churchill, who’d read all Wells’s novels twice, and the physicist Leo Szilard – would turn the idea from fantasy to reality, leaving them deeply tormented by the scale of destructive power that it unleashed.

The story of the atom bomb starts in the Edwardian age, when scientists such as Ernest Rutherford were grappling with a new way of conceiving the physical world. The idea was that solid elements might be made up of tiny particles in atoms. “When it became apparent that the Rutherford atom had a dense nucleus, there was a sense that it was like a coiled spring,” says Andrew Nahum, curator of the Science Museum’s Churchill’s Scientists exhibition. Wells was fascinated with the new discoveries. He had a track record of predicting technological innovations. Winston Churchill credited Wells for coming up with the idea of using aeroplanes and tanks in combat ahead of World War One.

The two men met and discussed ideas over the decades, especially as Churchill, a highly popular writer himself, spent the interwar years out of political power, contemplating the rising instability of Europe. Churchill grasped the danger of technology running ahead of human maturity, penning a 1924 article in the Pall Mall Gazette called “Shall we all commit suicide?”. In the article, Churchill wrote: “Might a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings – nay to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke?” This idea of the orange-sized bomb is credited by Graham Farmelo, author of Churchill’s Bomb, directly to the imagery of The World Set Free.

Text #44

Not long ago, if you were a young, brash technologist with a world-conquering start-up idea, there was a good chance you spent much of your waking life working toward a single business milestone: taking your company public.

Though luminaries of the tech industry have always expressed skepticism and even hostility toward the finance industry, tech’s dirty secret was that it looked to Wall Street and the ritual of a public offering for affirmation — not to mention wealth.

But something strange has happened in the last couple of years: The initial public offering of stock has become déclassé. For start-up entrepreneurs and their employees across Silicon Valley, an initial public offering is no longer a main goal. Instead, many founders talk about going public as a necessary evil to be postponed as long as possible because it comes with more problems than benefits.

“If you can get $200 million from private sources, then yeah, I don’t want my company under the scrutiny of the unwashed masses who don’t understand my business,” said Danielle Morrill, the chief executive of Mattermark, a start-up that organizes and sells information about the start-up market. “That’s actually terrifying to me.

Silicon Valley’s sudden distaste for the I.P.O. — rooted in part in Wall Street’s skepticism of new tech stocks — may be the single most important psychological shift underlying the current tech boom. Staying private affords start-up executives the luxury of not worrying what outsiders think and helps them avoid the quarterly earnings treadmill.

It also means Wall Street is doing what it failed to do in the last tech boom: using traditional metrics like growth and profitability to price companies. Investors have been tough on Twitter, for example, because its user growth has slowed. They have been tough on Box, the cloud-storage company that went public last year, because it remains unprofitable. And the e-commerce company Zulily, which went public last year, was likewise punished when it cut its guidance for future sales.

Text #45

The college and university accommodation crisis in Ireland has become ‘so chronic’ that students are being forced to sleep rough, share a bed with strangers – or give up on studying altogether.

The deputy president of the Union of Students in Ireland, Kevin Donoghue, said the problem has become particularly acute in Dublin. He told the Irish Mirror: “Students are so desperate, they’re not just paying through the nose to share rooms – they’re paying to share a bed with complete strangers. It reached crisis point last year and it’s only getting worse. “We’ve heard of students sleeping rough; on sofas, floors and in their cars and I have to stress there’s no student in the country that hasn’t been touched by this crisis. “Commutes – which would once have been considered ridiculous – are now normal, whether that’s by bus, train or car and those who drive often end up sleeping in their car if they’ve an early start the next morning.”

Worry is increasing over the problems facing Ireland’s 200,000 students as the number increases over the next 15 years. With 165,000 full-time students in Ireland – and that figure expected to increase to around 200,000 within the next 15 years –fears remain that there aren’t enough properties to accommodate current numbers.

Mr. Donoghue added: “The lack of places to live is actually forcing school-leavers out of college altogether. Either they don’t go in the first place or end up having to drop out because they can’t get a room and commuting is just too expensive, stressful and difficult.”

Claims have emerged from the country that some students have been forced to sleep in cars, or out on the streets, because of the enormous increases to rent in the capital. Those who have been lucky enough to find a place to live have had to do so ‘blind’ by paying for accommodation, months in advance, they haven’t even seen just so they will have a roof over their head over the coming year.

Text #46

We spend a third of our lives doing it. Napoleon, Florence Nightingale and Margaret Thatcher got by on four hours a night. Thomas Edison claimed it was waste of time.

So why do we sleep? This is a question that has baffled scientists for centuries and the answer is, no one is really sure. Some believe that sleep gives the body a chance to recuperate from the day’s activities but in reality, the amount of energy saved by sleeping for even eight hours is miniscule – about 50 kCal, the same amount of energy in a piece of toast.

With continued lack of sufficient sleep, the part of the brain that controls language, memory, planning and sense of time is severely affected, practically shutting down. In fact, 17 hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.05% (two glasses of wine). This is the legal drink driving limit in the UK.

Research also shows that sleep-deprived individuals often have difficulty in responding to rapidly changing situations and making rational judgements. In real life situations, the consequences are grave and lack of sleep is said to have been be a contributory factor to a number of international disasters such as Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the Challenger shuttle explosion.

Sleep deprivation not only has a major impact on cognitive functioning but also on emotional and physical health. Disorders such as sleep apnoea which result in excessive daytime sleepiness have been linked to stress and high blood pressure. Research has also suggested that sleep loss may increase the risk of obesity because chemicals and hormones that play a key role in controlling appetite and weight gain are released during sleep.

Text #47

Breath, bodily odours and urine are all amazingly revealing about general health. Even the humble cold can give off an odour, thanks to the thick bacteria-ridden mucus that ends up in the back of the throat. The signs are not apparent to everyone – but some super-smellers are very sensitive to the odours. Joy Milne, for example, noticed her husband’s smell had changed shortly before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Humans can detect nearly 10,000 different smells. Formed by chemicals in the air, they are absorbed by little hairs, made of extremely sensitive nerve fibres, hanging from the nose’s olfactory receptors. And the human sense of smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than the sense of taste. But dogs, as the old joke might have had it, smell even better.

Their ability to detect four times as many odours as humans makes them a potential early warning system for a range of diseases. Research suggesting dogs’ could sniff out cancers, for example, was first published about 10 years ago. And there have been many tales of dogs repeatedly sniffing an area of their owner’s body, only for it to turn out to be hiding a tumour.

What they are smelling are the “volatile molecules” given off by cells when they become cancerous. Some studies suggest dogs can be 93% accurate. Others suggest they can detect very small tumours before clinical tests can. And yet more studies have produced mixed results.

At Milton Keynes University Hospital, a small team has recently begun to collect human urine samples to test dogs’ ability to detect the smell of prostate cancer. The patients had symptoms such as difficulty urinating or a change in flow, which could turn out to be prostate, bladder or liver cancer.

Rowena Fletcher, head of research and development at the hospital, says the role of the dogs – which have been trained by Medical Detection Dogs – is to pick out samples that smell of cancer. Further down the line, a clinical test will show if the dogs’ diagnosis is correct.

Text #48

In the middle of Rome’s trendiest neighborhood, surrounded by sushi restaurants and nightclubs with names like Rodeo Steakhouse and Love Story, sits the ancient world’s biggest garbage dump—a 150-foot-tall mountain of discarded Roman amphoras, the shipping drums of the ancient world. It takes about 20 minutes to walk around Monte Testaccio, from the Latin testa and Italian cocci, both meaning “potsherd.” But despite its size—almost a mile in circumference—it’s easy to walk by and not really notice unless you are headed for some excellent pizza at Velavevodetto, a restaurant literally stuck into the mountain’s side. Most local residents don’t know what’s underneath the grass, dust, and scattering of trees. Monte Testaccio looks like a big hill, and in Rome people are accustomed to hills.

Although a garbage dump may lack the attraction of the Forum or Colosseum, I have come to Rome to meet the team excavating Monte Testaccio and to learn how scholars are using its evidence to understand the ancient Roman economy. As the modern global economy depends on light sweet crude, so too the ancient Romans depended on oil—olive oil. And for more than 250 years, from at least the first century A.D., an enormous number of amphoras filled with olive oil came by ship from the Roman provinces into the city itself, where they were unloaded, emptied, and then taken to Monte Testaccio and thrown away. In the absence of written records or literature on the subject, studying these amphoras is the best way to answer some of the most vexing questions concerning the Roman economy—How did it operate? How much control did the emperor exert over it? Which sectors were supported by the state and which operated in a free market environment or in the private sector?

Monte Testaccio stands near the Tiber River in what was ancient Rome’s commercial district. Many types of imported foodstuffs, including oil, were brought into the city and then stored for later distribution in the large warehouses that lined the river. So, professor, just how many amphoras are there?” I ask José Remesal of the University of Barcelona, co-director of the Monte Testaccio excavations. It’s the same question that must occur to everyone who visits the site when they realize that the crunching sounds their footfalls make are not from walking on fallen leaves, but on pieces of amphoras. (Don’t worry, even the small pieces are very sturdy.) Remesal replies in his deep baritone, “Something like 25 million complete ones.

Text #49

Dark matter particles may have interacted extensively with normal matter long ago, when the universe was very hot, a new study suggests. The nature of dark matter is currently one of the greatest mysteries in science. The invisible substance — which is detectable via its gravitational influence on “normal” matter – is thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe.

Astronomers began suspecting the existence of dark matter when they noticed the cosmos seemed to possess more mass than stars could account for. For example, stars circle the center of the Milky Way so fast that they should overcome the gravitational pull of the galaxy’s core and zoom into the intergalactic void. Most scientists think dark matter provides the gravity that helps hold these stars back. Astronomers know more about what dark matter is not than what it actually is.

Scientists have mostly ruled out all known ordinary materials as candidates for dark matter. The consensus so far is that this missing mass is made up of new species of particles that interact only very weakly with ordinary matter. One potential clue about the nature of dark matter has to do with the fact that it’s five times more abundant than normal matter, researchers said.

“This may seem a lot, and it is, but if dark and ordinary matter were generated in a completely independent way, then this number is puzzling,” said study co-author Pavlos Vranas, a particle physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. “Instead of five, it could have been a million or a billion. Why five?” The researchers suggest a possible solution to this puzzle: Dark matter particles once interacted often with normal matter, even though they barely do so now. “This may have happened in the early universe, when the temperature was very high — so high that both ordinary and dark matter were ‘melted’ in a plasma state made up of their ingredients”.

Text #50

After 36 days of battling sharks that kept biting their equipment, scientists have returned from the remote Pacific Ocean with a new way of looking at the world’s largest – and possibly most mysterious – volcano, Tamu Massif.

The team has begun making 3-D maps that offer the clearest look yet at the underwater mountain, which covers an area the size of New Mexico. In the coming months, the maps will be refined and the data analyzed, with the ultimate goal of figuring out how the mountain was formed.

It’s possible that the western edge of Tamu Massif is actually a separate mountain that formed at a different time, says William Sager, a geologist at the University of Houston who led the expedition. That would explain some differences between the western part of the mountain and the main body.

The team also found that the massif (as such a massive mountain is known) is highly pockmarked with craters and cliffs. Magnetic analysis provides some insight into the mountain’s genesis, suggesting that part of it formed through steady releases of lava along the intersection of three mid-ocean ridges, while part of it is harder to explain. A working theory is that a large plume of hot mantle rock may have contributed additional heat and material, a fairly novel idea.

Tamu Massif lies about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) east of Japan. It is a rounded dome, or shield volcano, measuring 280 by 400 miles (450 by 650 kilometers). Its top lies more than a mile (about 2,000 meters) below the ocean surface and is 50 times larger than the biggest active volcano on Earth, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa. Sager published a paper in 2013 that said the main rise of Tamu Massif is most likely a single volcano, instead of a complex of multiple volcanoes that smashed together. But he couldn’t explain how something so big formed.

Write Essay

You will have 20 minutes to plan, write and revise an essay about the topic. In the exam, your response will be judged on how well you develop a position, organize your ideas, present supporting details, and control the elements of standard written English. You should write 200-300 words.

Essay #1

Many students choose to take a gap year before starting university, to travel or gain work experience.

Do you think this is a good idea or a waste of time?

Essay #2

Very few schoolchildren learn about the value of money and how to look after it, yet this is a critical life skill that should be taught as part of the school curriculum.

Do you agree or disagree?

Essay #3

Most people do not care enough about environmental issues.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Essay #4

The most important consideration when choosing any career or job is having a high income.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Essay #5

Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better lime to be alive than now.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Essay #6

In the past, shopping was a routine domestic task. Many people nowadays regard it as a hobby.

To what extent do you think this is a positive trend?

Essay #7

Supermarkets should only sell food produced from within their own country rather than imports from overseas.

What are your opinions on this?

Essay #8

In the modern world, the image (photograph or film) is becoming a more powerful way of communicating than the written word.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Essay #9

Longer life spans and improvements in the health of older people suggest that people over the age of sixty-five can continue to live full and active lives.

In what ways can society benefit from the contribution that older people can make?

Essay #10

Car ownership has increased so rapidly over the past thirty years that many cities in the world are now ‘one big traffic jam’.

How true do you think this statement is? What measures can governments take to discourage people from using their cars?

Essay #11

Increasing numbers of students are choosing to study abroad.

To what extent does this trend benefit the students themselves and the countries involved?

What are the drawbacks?

Essay #12

Many people believe that the high levels of violence in films today are causing serious social problems.

What are these problems and how could they be reduced?

Essay #13

Women are better at childcare than men therefore they should focus more on raising children and less on their working life.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Essay #14

In some countries it is thought advisable that children begin formal education at four years old, while in others they do not have to start school until they are seven or eight.

How far do you agree with either of these views?

Essay #15

Governments around the world spend too much money on treating illnesses and diseases and not enough on health education and prevention.

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Essay #16

Many people believe that increasing levels of violence on television and in films is having a direct result on levels of violence in society. Others claim that violence in society is the result of more fundamental social problems such as unemployment.

How much do you think society is affected by violence in the media?

Essay #17

Compare the advantages and disadvantages of three of the following ways of learning a foreign language.

State which you consider to be the most effective.

studying on your own
taking lessons with a private tutor
taking lessons as part of a class
taking lessons online
going to live in a country where the language is spoken

Essay #18

Should the international community do more to tackle the threat of global warming?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Essay #19

Genetic engineering is a dangerous trend. It should be limited.

To what extent do you agree?

Essay #20

In the past, shopping was a routine domestic task. Many people nowadays regard it as a hobby.

To what extent do you think this is a positive trend?

Essay #21

A government’s role is only to provide defence capability and urban infrastructure (roads, water supplies, etc.). All other services (education, health, social security) should be provided by private groups or individuals in the community.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this?

Essay #22

Some people think that developed countries have a higher responsibility to combat climate change than developing countries. Others believe that all countries should have the same responsibilities towards protecting the environment.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this?

Essay #23

Social media is becoming increasingly popular amongst all age groups. However, sharing personal information on social media websites does have risks.

Do you think that the advantages of social media outweigh the disadvantages?

Essay #24

Nowadays many countries have very cosmopolitan cities with people from all over the world. How can the government ensure that all these people can live together harmoniously?

Essay #25

In many countries, very few young people read newspapers or follow the news on TV. What do you think are the causes of this?

What solutions can you suggest?

Essay #26

Many people believe that formal “pen and paper” examinations are not the best method of assessing educational achievement.

Discuss this view and give your own opinion.

Essay #27

Some people choose to eat no meat or fish. They believe that this is not only better for their own health but also benefits the world as a whole.

Discuss this view and give your own opinion.

Essay #28

Each year, the crime rate increases.

What are the causes of crime and what could be done to prevent this rise in criminal activity?

Essay #29

Modern communications mean that it’s no longer necessary to write letters.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Essay #30

Many childhood diseases can now be prevented through the use of vaccines.

Should parents be made by law to immunise their children against common diseases or should individuals have the right to choose not to immunise their children?

Essay #31

In some countries an increasing number of people are suffering from health problems as a result of eating too much fast food. It is therefore necessary for governments to impose a higher tax on this kind of food.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Essay #32

Film stars and music celebrities may earn a great deal of money and live in luxurious surroundings, but many of them lead unhappy lives. Do you agree?

To what extent is this the price they pay for being famous?

Essay #33

In today’s job market it is far more important to have practical skills than theoretical knowledge. In the future, job applicants may not need any formal qualifications.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Essay #34

Motorways help people travel quickly and cover long distances but they also cause problems. What are the problems of motorways and what solutions are there?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Essay #35

It is generally believed that the Internet is an excellent means of communication but some people suggest that it may not be the best place to find information.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Essay #36

Celebrities make a very good living out of media attention and have chosen to live in the public spotlight. They have no right to complain when they feel the media are intruding on their privacy.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Essay #37

Some parents buy their children a large number of toys to play with.

What are the advantages and disadvantages for the child of having a large number of toys?

Essay #38

In general, people do not have such a close relationship with their neighbours as they did in the past.

Why is this so, and what can be done to improve contact between neighbours?

Essay #39

Some people think that human history has been a journey from ignorance to knowledge. Others argue that this underestimates the achievements of ancient cultures, and overvalues our achievements.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Essay #40

Some people think that there are things individuals can do to help prevent global climate change. Others believe that action by individuals is useless and irrelevant and that it is only governments and large businesses which can make a difference.

Discuss both these views and give your opinion.

Essay #41

Many people believe that media coverage of celebrities is having a negative effect on children.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Essay #42

Many high-level positions in companies are filled by men even though the workforce in many developed countries is more than 50 per cent female. Companies should be required to allocate a certain percentage of these positions to women.

To what extent do you agree?

Essay #43

As the number of private cars has increased, so too has the level of pollution in many cities.

What can be done to tackle this increasingly common problem?

Essay #44

Some people think that professional athletes make good role models for young people, while others believe they don’t.

Discuss both these points of views and give your own opinion.

Essay #45

Is freedom of speech necessary in a free society?

Give reasons for your answer.

Essay #46

Some people think women should be allowed to join the army, the navy and the air force just like men.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Essay #47

Machine translation (MT) is slower and less accurate than human translation and there is no immediate or predictable likelihood of machines taking over this role from humans.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Essay #48

Many newspapers and magazines feature stories about the private lives of famous people. We know what they eat, where they buy their clothes and who they love. We also often see pictures of them in private situations.

Is it appropriate for a magazine or newspaper to give this kind of private information about people?

Essay #49

Some people feel that certain workers like nurses, doctors and teachers are undervalued and should be paid more, especially when other people like film actors or company bosses are paid huge sums of money that are out of proportion to the importance of the work that they do.

How far do you agree?
What criteria should be used to decide how much people are paid?

Essay #50

Some people consider computers to be more of a hindrance than a help. Others believe that they have greatly increased human potential.

How could computers be considered a hindrance?