To Have a Better Life

A: Are 1) _____ new in town? B: Yes, I did just move in. A: How do you like it here so far? B: I think it 2) _____ great. A: Where did you move from? B: 3) _____ was living in El Salvador. A: Why did you decide to move? B: I figured I could have a better life here. A: Is life hard there? B: 4) _____ aren't many opportunities for people. A: Was it hard for you to move? B: It was hard, but I know my life will 5) _____ better here.

Listening

Here is the list of inventors’ names. Listen to “Inventors and inventions song and answer the questions.

Benz, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright, Edison, Baird

1. Who invented a plane?

2. Who invented photograph?

3. Who invented light bulb?

4. Who invented projector?

5. Who invented automobile?

6. Who invented TV?

Reading Read the sentences, then listen and tick the correct word.

1. Genetic engineering/engineer, also called genetic modification, is the direct manipulation of an organism's genome using biotechnology.

2. New DNA may be inserted in/included the host genome by first isolating and copying the genetic material of interest using molecular cloning methods to generate a DNA sequence, or by synthesizing the DNA, and then inserting this construct into the host organism. 

3. Genes may be removed/moved, or "knocked out", using a nuclease. Gene targeting is a different technique that uses homologous recombination to change an endogenous gene, and can be used to delete a gene, remove axons, add a gene, or introduce point mutations.

4. Genetic engineering techniques have been applied/devoted in numerous fields including research, agriculture, industrial biotechnology, and medicine.

5. Plants, animals or micro organisms that have changed through genetic engineering are termed/turned genetically modified organisms or GMOs. 

6. Bacteria were the first/second organisms to be genetically modified.

7. Plants/bushes have been modified for insect protection, herbicide resistance, virus resistance, enhanced nutrition, tolerance to environmental pressures and the production of edible vaccines. 

8. Humans/People have altered the genomes of species for thousands of years through artificial selection and more recentlymutagenesis.

9. In 1974/1975 Rudolf Jaenisch created the first GM animal.

10. In 1978/1976 Genentech, the first genetic engineering company, was founded by Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson and a year later the company produced a human protein (somatostatin) in E.coli.

11. Genentech announced the production of genetically engineered human insulin in 1978/87. 

12. In 1980/1918, the U.S. Supreme Court in theDiamond v. Chakrabarty case ruled that genetically altered life could be patented. 

13. The insulin produced by bacteria, branded humulin, was approved for release by the Food and Drug Administration in 1982/1992.

14. In the 1970s graduate student Steven Lindow of the University of Wisconsin–Madison with D.C. Arny and C. Upper found a bacterium he identified as P. syringae that played a role in ice nucleation and in 1977/1978, he discovered a mutant ice-minusstrain.

15. In 1983/1985, a biotech company, Advanced Genetic Sciences (AGS) applied for U.S. government authorization to perform field tests with the ice-minus strain of P. syringae to protect crops from frost, but environmental groups and protestors delayed the field tests for four years with legal challenges.

16.  In 19871997, the ice-minus strain of P. syringae became the first genetically modified organism (GMO) to be released into the environment when a strawberry field and a potato field in California were sprayed with it. Both test fields were attacked by activist groups the night before the tests occurred: "The world's first trial site attracted the world's first field trasher".

17. The first field trials of genetically engineered plants occurred in France/New York and the USA in 1986, tobacco plants were engineered to be resistant to herbicides. 

18. The People’s Republic of China was the first country to commercialize transgenic plants, introducing a virus-resistant tobacco in 1992/1993.

19. In 1994 Calgene attained approval to commercially release the Flavr Savr tomato, a tomato engineered to have a longer shelf life. In 1994, the European Union approved tobacco engineered to be resistant to the herbicide bromoxynil, making it the first genetically engineered crop commercialized in Europe. 

20. In 2010, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute, announced that they had created the first synthetic bacterial genome, and added it to a cell containing no DNA. The resulting bacterium, named Synthia, was the world's first synthetic life form.

Read the text; explain the words and phrases in bold as in the example. Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct manipulation of an organism's genome using biotechnology.