6.Interpreting skills training

1. Rubbish idea that could make driving cheaper

A British company may have the answer to soaring petrol prices after it claimed yesterday to have become the first to have found a way to make fuel from rubbish.

Ineos, the chemicals company, said that it had patented a method of producing fuel from municipal solid waste, agricultural waste and organic commercial waste.

The company claims that it can produce about 400 litres (90 gallons) of ethanol from one tonne of dry waste. The new process works by heating the waste to produce gases, then feeding the gases to bacteria, which produce ethanol that can be purified into a fuel.

Peter Williams, the chief executive of Ineos Bio, said: “This should mean that, unlike with other biofuels, we won’t have to make the choice between food and fuel.” The bioethanol that Ineos produces will have to be combined with a fossil fuel, however, because very few cars in Britain can run solely on bioethanol. Cars that run on bioethanol have been made in Brazil, where a comprehensive biofuels industry is based on sugar cane. Biofuels have been backed by governments as one of the key ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The EU aims to get 10 per cent of its road transport fuel from renewable sources such as biofuels by 2020. Present methods of producing biofuels from crops have been criticised for causing high food prices by taking up land that would have been used to grow food.

2. Bang the drum for rock’n’ roll heroes

They have been the butt of jokes, and even the most agile of their number have seldom been regarded as paragons of physical virtue.

For all John Bonham’s thunderous half-hour solos behind Led Zeppelin, and Keith Moon’s frenzied skin-bashing with The Who, neither man - nor the generations of drummers who followed them - was ever recognised as a finely tuned athlete.

But all that is about to change. After an eight-year study of Clem Burke, the veteran Blondie drummer, sports scientists have concluded that drummers are comparable in their physical prowess to world-class sportsmen.

Marcus Smith, of the University of Chichester, told The Times: “For me, as a sports scientist, he is no different to the Olympic athletes I have worked with.”

Dr Smith and Steve Draper, of the University of Gloucestershire, monitored Burke’s oxygen uptake, blood lactate and heart rate in rehearsals and live performances. “He loses up to two litres of fluid in a performance, which is similar to a runner going out and doing 10,000 metres,” Dr Smith said.

Burke burnt 400-600 calories per hour. His heart rate averaged 140 to 150 beats a minute, though it could rise as high as 190 beats - equalling that of Cristiano Ronaldo in a Premier League football match. Burke needs to stay in peak physical condition and can sometimes suffer from joint pain. “Jacuzzis, saunas, massages, all that is incorporated into the life of the modern drummer,” he said.

3. World Heritage sites may soon be off tourism map

LONDON (Reuters) - World Heritage sites such as Australia's Great Barrier Reef or Kathmandu in Nepal could be taken off the tourism map by 2020 due to the effects of climate change and too many visitors, a think tank said on Friday

In a report prepared for UK insurance company Churchill, the Center for Future Studies (CFS) listed 10 popular destinations that could be either permanently closed or have a visitor cap within 15 years.

"I'm reasonably confident we're going to see an increasing climate degradation that is going to impact on various places in the world with increasing severity," CFS director Frank Shaw told Reuters.

"Floods, storms, droughts, increasing and erratic temperatures will combine to bring about changes in destination choice for tourists."

Florida's Everglades in the United States, Athens in Greece, Croatia's Dalmatian coastline, Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast in Italy as well as the Maldives are some of the other destinations at risk highlighted by the report.The study drew on evidence provided by scientists, governments, as well as tourism and environmental organizations from around the world.

Tourism activity on the Great Barrier Reef, situated off Queensland state in Australia's northeast, injects an estimated two billion pounds into the local economy each year. "There is a conflict between environmental concerns and commercial interests," added Shaw. "For some countries tourism represents a significant part of their gross domestic product."But there is evidence Australia and many other governments are considering what can be done to protect national assets."

4.Дом моет сам себя с мылом

"Работа по дому — неблагодарная, бесконечная работа, скучная и изматывающая нервы. Кому это нравится? Никому!" — вскричала в 1940-х одна американка и нашла, по её словам, "лучший путь".

Франсис Гейб (род. 1915) изобрела дом, который убирает сам себя — самоочищающийся (Self-Cleaning House). Точнее даже не изобрела, а за пару десятков лет перестроила собственный построенный из шлакоблоков дом. Стены, потолки и полы дома Гейб покрыла водонепроницаемой смолой. Вся мебель в жилище также была заменена на сделанную из водонепроницаемых материалов. В каждой из комнат на потолке точно в центре были приделаны диковинные устройства, совмещающие в себе функции очистки, сушки, нагревания и охлаждения. Такое устройство включается одним нажатием кнопки, после чего срабатывает что-то вроде душа: из вращающихся под потолком носиков по всей комнате разбрызгивается мыльная вода. Нажатие другой кнопки — и начинает литься чистая вода, смывающая мыло. Третья кнопка активирует гигантский вентилятор, который осушает теперь уже очищенное помещение. Книжные полки сами с себя убирают пыль, а камин оборудован так, что сам избавляется от пепла. Одёжный шкаф — это комбинация стиральной машины с функцией сушки: вы просто вешаете в него брюки и достаёте потом чистую вещь, чистка происходит прямо на вешалках. Кухонный шкаф является посудомоечной машиной: вы ставите грязную посуду в буфет, закрываете дверь, нажимаете кнопку. Дом в Орегоне обветшал, однако, говорят, все еще привлекает внимание туристов.