8. According to the text, are these statements true or false?

1. A Virtual Human is the same as a human being in all aspects.

2. Researchers can see inside the Virtual Human’s organs.

3. A rudimentary version of the Virtual Human was created in 1996.

4. Different models of the Virtual Human's organs were developed only in the academic laboratory.

1	2	3	4

9. What do the underlined words in the text refer to?

1. it (paragraph 1)

2. its (paragraph 2)

3. They (paragraph 3)

4. them (paragraph 4)

5. they (paragraph 5)

Virtually human

1. G lenn Allgood, a computational обчислювальний engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee is involved залучений in creating the most complex computer model ever attempted спробували: a virtual human being. It could take decades десятиліття and billions of dollars to build it , but the dream of a Virtual Human is now becoming reality. "I’d like to subject піддавати it to carcinogenic канцерогенний materials," he muses задумливість. "I think you should be able to give it a suntan засмага or a bliste пухир r. I’m serious. I mean, you should be able to cut it."

2. The Virtual Human will have a living, breathing дихання body whose cells will replicate and die. True, the Virtual Human will be alive only inside a computer but the simulated gsh глибока рана will provoke провокувати the same cascade of physiological reactions a real person experiences . Immune cells and clotting згортання factors will rush to the wound рана, and biochemical stress reactions will reverberate відбиватися throughout the body. The Virtual Human’s accurate simulation of human biochemistry will also mean it could test new drugs for us, and its realistic physical responses відповіді will allow the military to test the effects of the latest weaponry. In short, it will be given the worst найгірше job in the world: pharmaceutical guinea pig, crash test dummy манекен and biologists’ action toy, all combined in one unlucky cyber-human.

3. Not only will the model work like a human, it will also be fully повністю explorable досліджуваної inside and out. Virtual reality software програмне забезпечення being developed will allow researchers to see inside the Virtual Human’s organs, or watch its blood vessels dilate in response судини розширюються у відповідь to drugs. They will even be able to set out on a journey inside the body using interactive “total immersion занурення ” software that will let them stand in the air-flow entering the lungs or listen to the flapping плескають of faulty несправний heart valves.

4. The idea of building, using and abusing зловживання this virtual re-creation створення заново of humanity was born in 1996 when Clay Easterly, a health physicist at Oak Ridge, was approached підійшов by representatives of the US Marine Corps. They were looking for a way to test experimental non-lethal weapons without having to shoot them at real people. Could the weapons’ effects be simulated in a computer, they wondered. No chance, said Easterly. “We don’t have that much knowledge about the overall загальний human,” he told them. “We have knowledge in bits and pieces, but we don’t have integrated knowledge.”

5. The enquiry запит got Easterly thinking about the diversity of modern biological research. Many of the tens of thousands of journal articles published each year must impinge on each other, he realized, but they are often considered in isolation. There’s no sure way for the implications of one study to be applied to another. Computer models of human cells, organs and systems – ranging from the most basic representations to relatively sophisticated simulations of real biochemistry and function – were also out there, scattered among various academic and commercial laboratories.

6. However, the scientists hope to establish standard data formats and programming languages and create a more complete and realistic model. In future the Virtual Human promises to be a revolutionary tool.