5. Medical science

Surely nothing has done more for the comfort and happiness of mankind [1] than the advance [2] of medical knowledge! How many millions of people have benefited [3] from the humble [4] aspirin? How many lives has penicillin saved? Average life expectancy in Europe has risen dramatically [5] over the last hundred years, from about 50 years in 1906 to about 75 years today.

Nowadays medicine is developed due to [6] new revolutionary technologies, one of the products of which became so-called shape memory materials. These materials were introduced in the 1980s. Shape memory materials are called “smart” [7] because they can change their shape when they are exposed to the environment [8]. Plastic polymers are used in medicine to make plastic threads. Medical implants are made from metal alloys which are easily compressed. So they can be put inside the patient’s body through a small cut.

New technologies and inventions help to cure lots of serious diseases [9].

6. The television

In its early stages of development, television was based on combination [10] of optical, mechanical and electronic technologies to transmit [11] and display a visual image. A Scotsman, John Logie Baird, transmitted the first television picture on 25 October, 1925. The first person on television was a boy who worked in the office next to Baird’s workroom in London. In 1927 Baird sent pictures from London to Glasgow. In 1928 he sent pictures to New York and also produced the first colour TV pictures. In 1926, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Tihanyi invented [12] the entirely electronic camera tube and the entirely electronic display and the transmitting and receiving system. By 1927, Russian inventor Léon Theremin developed [13] a mirror television system which used interlacing to achieve [14] an image resolution of 100 lines. In 1936, Kálmán Tihanyi described the principle of Plasma Television, the first flat panel. All modern television systems are fully [15] electronic, but they have developed from mechanical-dependent systems.

7. The mobile phone

A mobile phone (also called cellphone) is a long-range electronic device [16] used for data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites. Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher [17] and executive, is the inventor of the first practical mobile phone for handheld use in a non-vehicle setting. Cooper issued [18] his patent in 1973 with the US Patent Office. In 1984 Bell Labs developed modern commercial cellular technology, which employed multiple, centrally controlled base stations (cell sites), each providing service to a small area (a cell). Until the early 1990s most mobile phones were too large to be carried in a jacket pocket, so they were typically installed in vehicles [19] as car phones. With the miniaturization of digital components and the development of more sophisticated [20] batteries, mobile phones have become smaller and lighter. And of course they acquired much more new functions. In addition to the standard voice function of a mobile phone current [21] mobile phones may support [22] many additional services, such as SMS for text messaging, email, gaming, Bluetooth, camera with video recorder and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video, MP3 player, radio and GPS.

Answer the questions:

1. How has the advance in medical science changed our life?

2. How do the new technologies contribute to the development of medical science?

3. What applications do shape memory materials find in medical science?

4. In what way do modern television differ from the early models?

5. Who contributed much in the development of the television?

6. What sort of device is the mobile phone?

7. How has the mobile phone changed since 1980s?

8. What functions do modern mobile phones fulfill?