Section 4. Listening/Composition

Scientists have found evidence to suggest that certain forms of obesity could come from a virus and be contagious in the same way as the common cold. Researchers looking into this theory have revealed that simply washing your hands could be a preventative measure to avoid obesity. This rudimentary practice could improve the lives of millions around the world. This unlikely proposition was made by Dr. Leah Whigham of the University of Wisconsin. She determined that a human virus, called adenovirus AD-37, causes obesity in chickens and could be responsible for the similar condition in humans. The notion that viruses could lead to obesity has been a contentious one among scientists for many years. Dr. Whigham is convinced that factors other than poor diet or lack of exercise may play their part in making people unhealthily overweight. Testing is still in its preliminary stages and further research is needed to ascertain sufficient data to verify her claims.

Section 5. Sight Translation

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

1. Swimmers who want to move faster through the water should spread their fingers like a fork to give them more force, scientists have discovered. A study has found those who swim with their fingers splayed create an “invisible web” of water to help propel them, travelling with 53 per cent greater force.

The optimal spacing, they believe, is between 20 and 40 per cent of the finger’s diameter, which allows them to lift the body higher above the water line. The larger force means larger body mass lifted and greater speed, in accord with the constructal theory of all animal locomotion.

2. Viewers may soon be able to watch films on soap bubbles - after researchers developed a technology to project images on a screen made of soap film. An international team produced a display that uses ultrasonic sound waves to alter film's properties and create either a flat or a 3D image. The bubble mixture is more complex than the one sold in stores for children, but soap is still the main ingredient. The team says the display is the world's thinnest transparent screen. "It is common knowledge that the surface of soap bubble is a micro membrane. It allows light to pass through and displays the colour on its structure," the lead researcher, Yoichi Ochiai from the University of Tokyo, wrote in his blog.

3. While digging in a cave in China, scientists unearthed the most ancient pottery ever found — pieces of clay pots 19,000 to 20,000 years old. The cookware was used during an ice age, when giant sheets of ice covered much of Earth. During this period, fat, a rich source of energy, was relatively rare. So cooking would have been important, since heat releases more energy from meat and starchy plants like potatoes. What the cave dwellers cooked is unknown, although clams and snails would be a good guess. People might have also boiled animal bones to extract grease and marrow, both rich in fat. They might even have used the pots to brew alcohol.

4. Imagine putting a seed in a freezer, waiting 30,000 years, and then taking the seed out and planting it. Do you think a flower would grow? Amazingly, scientists have just managed to do something very similar. They found the fruit of an ancient plant that had been frozen underground in Siberia — a region covering central and eastern Russia — for about 31,800 years. Using pieces of the fruit, the scientists grew plants in a lab. The new blooms have delicate white petals. They are also the oldest flowering plants that researchers have ever revived from a deep freeze.“This is like regenerating a dinosaur from tissues of an ancient egg,” University of California, Los Angeles biologist Jane Shen-Miller told.

5.Just in time for Halloween, a team of scientists has introduced a new breed of kittens that glow in the dark. They’re cute, cuddly and bright, with fur that shines yellow-green when you turn off the light. But like the bag you carry around for trick-or-treating, it’s what’s inside these cats that counts. The researchers are testing a way to fight a disease that infects cats all over the world, and the kittens’ spooky glow shows that the test is working. The disease is called Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, or FIV. Many scientists study FIV because it’s similar to a virus called HIV, short for human immunodeficiency virus, which infects people. Since AIDS was discovered 30 years ago, 30 million people have died from the disease.

6. Yves Rossy is a Swiss pilot, inventor and aviation enthusiast. He is the first person to achieve sustained human flight using a jet-powered fixed wing strapped to his back. Rossy developed and built a system comprising a back pack with semi-rigid aeroplane-type carbon-fiber wings with a span of about 2.4 metres (7.9 ft), powered by four attached Jet-Cat P200 jet engines modified from large-model, kerosene fueled, aircraft engines. His first flight occurred in November 2006 in Bex, lasting nearly six minutes and nine seconds. On 5 November 2010, he flew a new version of his jet-powered flight system and successfully performed two aerial loops before landing via parachute.

7. Apple Inc. said Friday that it is putting its products back on an environmental ratings registry, saying it made a mistake in removing them from the list. The Cupertino, Calif., company said all of its eligible products are back on the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool registry, and says it looks forward to working with EPEAT, the nonprofit organization that runs the registry. The list is considered an industry standard and it helps customers buy electronics that are environmentally friendly. Some municipalities also use it to guide their decisions in buying electronics.

8. Reaching the relevant populations often means traveling to areas where electricity and refrigeration are spotty at best. Nearly half of the vaccine doses around the world are lost to the heat. Also, the cost of refrigeration contributes to about 80 percent of the cost of the vaccines. So silk experts at Tufts University have come up with a potential solution: encase the vaccines in silk protein. Silk proteins contain nanoscale pockets that can hold and protect biological compounds. Inside the silk protein wrap, the compounds stay biologically stable. The technology also worked with antibiotics. Stored at a month at temperatures reaching 140 degrees Fahrenheit, the antibiotics kept their potency. 

9. A migrating robin can keep a straight course even when it flies through a cloudy night sky, devoid of obvious landmarks. That s because it can sense the Earth s magnetic field. Something in its body acts as a living compass, giving it a sense of direction and position. This ability known as magnetoreception isn’t unique to robins. It s been found in many other birds, sharks and rays, salmon and trout, turtles, bats, ants and bees, and possibly cows, deer and foxes.

10. Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has found strong evidence for an ocean of water beneath the frozen crust of Saturn's largest moon Titan, scientists said on Thursday. The evidence was put together during six passes over Titan by Cassini, which is orbiting Saturn. During the fly-bys, scientists measured minute changes in the pitch of radio signals passing between the spacecraft and Earth to figure how much Saturn's gravity deformed the moon. They then turned to computer models to match a 10-meter distortion with possible scenarios to explain what was going on. The more solid the moon's interior, the less it would be impacted by Saturn's gravity. "The measurement is pretty conclusive about the existence of an internal ocean," said lead researcher Luciano Iess, with Sapienza University in Rome, Italy.

Section 6. Interpreting Skills Training

Ex.1. Phonetic shadowing

What is the Higgs boson particle and why does it matter? Finding the Higgs is vital to the Standard Model, the theory that describes the web of particles, forces and interactions that make up the universe. Sometimes described as the "God particle" because it is such a mystery yet such a potent force of nature. Without the Higgs boson to give matter mass and weight, there could be no Standard Model universe. If it was proved not to exist, scientists would have to tear up the theory and go back to the drawing board. Professor Womersley said he was excited about what the discovery might mean for the future: “Finding (the Higgs boson) is really great because we've been looking for almost three decades, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern had this as one of its primary goals. But it is also the first step towards trying to understand what comes next.” Professor Peter Higgs dreamed up the concept of the Higgs mechanism to explain mass while walking in the Cairngorms in 1964. The unassuming Prof Higgs, who is known to shun the limelight, could now be on his way to winning a Nobel prize.

Ex.2. Read Text 1 to yourself and listen to the Text 2 delivered by your partner (or a teacher). Try to remember three facts from Text 2. Present the key information of Text 1.

Text 1. For all I know, Grisha Perelman may have been all that—a nutty Russian eccentric. But as I read more about him, he seemed more and more familiar. Actually, the more I read, the more I found myself feeling nostalgic for people like him, people I used to know in Russia in the 70’s—writers, poets, artists, musicians, physicists. They lived in the rarefied world of ideas, completely removed from cares for success defined by money and fame. They gathered in tiny kitchens around cramped tables to drink tea, smoke cigarettes, argue, recite poetry, sing underground songs, exchange latest news of travails with the Soviet bureaucracy, and talk about big ideas. Friends say that evidence of Dr Perelman's innate modesty came when - having finally solved the problem after more than 10 years' work - he simply posted his conclusion on the internet, rather than publishing his explanation in a recognized journal. "If anybody is interested in my way of solving the problem, it's all there - let them go and read about it," said Dr Perelman. "I have published all my calculations. This is what I can offer to the public." On 1 July 2010, he turned down a $1 million prize, explaining that he considers his contribution to proving the Poincaré conjecture to be no greater than that of Richard Hamilton, who introduced the theory of Ricci flow with the aim of attacking the geometrization conjecture.

Text 2. 1.Менделеев в 1851 году слыл одним из последних учеников на своем курсе. Обладал крайне слабым здоровьем, к 1853 году уже вовсе не покидал больничной койки. Как-то во время обхода  главный  лекарь бросил фразу: «Ну, этот-то  уже  не  встанет…..». А Менделееву вдруг стало обидно……за маму, которая одна поднимала 14 детей и страстно хотела дать всем образование. Менделеев вместо того, чтобы покориться судьбе, достал свои учебники……и увлекся. Экзамен был сдан блестяще! Диагноз оказался ошибочным, а в 1854 он уже считался самым одаренным студентом Главного педагогического университета. 2. Менделеев не любил заниматься чем-либо дольше нескольких лет. И когда ему предложили место в лаборатории по исследованию пороха с окладом в 30 тысяч годовых, Дмитрий Иванович отказался: “Буду работать, если станете платить две тысячи! Тридцать тысяч — это кабала, а две тысячи — тьфу! Захочу, и уйду!”. И ушел через четыре года! Но за этот срок изобрел бездымный порох. 3. Когда друзья Менделеева пытались выразить ему свое соболезнование по случаю вынужденного ухода великого ученого из Петербургского университета, которому он отдал тридцать три года жизни, Дмитрий Иванович только отмахивался: «Э, да что там, батенька. Вон Прометей не нам был чета, а как поступили с человеком!»