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Every year billions of pounds are spent on hair loss treatment. If we succeed in curing hair loss with 3D printed hair follicles (毛囊), it will be a huge revolution.
L’Oreal ( 欧莱雅）, the cosmetics firm is partnering with a French bio-printing company called Poietis, which has developed a form of laser printing for cell-based objects. Poietis’ technique begins with the creation of a digital map that determines where living cells and other tissue components should be placed to create the desired biological structure. This involves how the cells are expected to grow over time. The file based on the digital map is then turned into instructions for the printing equipment, so that it can lay down tiny droplets （小滴）made out of the cell-based "bio ink" one layer at a time. The printing process involves bouncing （使反弹）a pulsing laser（脉冲激光器） off a mirror and through a lens, so that when it hits a ribbon (色带) containing the bio ink, a droplet of the matter falls into place. About 10,000 of these micro-droplets are created every second.
It typically takes about 10 minutes to print a piece of skin 1cm wide by 0.5mm thick. However, since hair follicles are complex and consist of 15 different cells in a structure, they may take longer.
Poietis is not the only company working on bio-printing, but most others use another way, which involves pushing a bio-ink through a nozzle (喷嘴), rather than lasers to build their tissue. Poietis suggests its technique puts less stress on the biological matter, meaning there is less risk of causing it damage.
Alopecia UK—a charity that provides support and advice about hair loss—has mixed feelings about the development. “It is encouraging to know that companies such as L’Oreal are investing in technology that may help those with hair loss in the future,” said spokeswoman Amy Johnson.
“However, we would suggest it’s still very early to be getting excited about what this potentially could mean for those with medical hair loss. At this point it is unclear as to whether this technology could benefit those with all types of hair loss.”
“Also, if this new technology does lead to a treatment option, given the high costs of existing hair transplant procedures, how many people will be able to realistically afford any new technological advances that may become available? As with any other research and development into processes that may be able to help those with hair loss, we watch with great interest.”
1.What does Paragraph 2 mainly tell us?
A. How the printing process is carried out.
B. Where the living cells should be placed.
C. How long the cells are expected to grow.
D. What the printing equipment is made up of.
2.What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
A. hair follicle B. biological matter
C. nozzle D. bio-ink
3.The passage implies that the new technology may ______.
A. meet some practical challenges
B. help people with hair loss at present
C. offer solutions to all problems of hair loss
D. cost a large sum of money to transplant hair
4.What is Amy Johnson’s attitude towards the new technology?
A. Disapproving. B. Optimistic.
C. Cautious. D. Negative.
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Every year billions of pounds are spent on hair loss treatment. If we succeed in curing hair loss with 3D printed hair follicles(毛囊), it will be a huge revolution.
L’Oreal, the cosmetics firm is partnering with a French bio-printing company called Poietis, which has developed a form of laser(激光) printing for cell-based objects. Poietis’ technique begins with the creation of a digital map that determines where living cells and other tissue components should be placed to create the desired biological structure. This involves how the cells are expected to grow over time. The file based on the digital map is then turned into instructions for the printing equipment, so that it can lay down tiny droplets made out of the cell-based "bio ink" one layer at a time. The printing process involves bouncing a pulsing laser off a mirror and through a lens, so that when it hits a ribbon(色带) containing the bio ink, a droplet of the matter falls into place. About 10,000 of these micro-droplets are created every second.
It typically takes about 10 minutes to print a piece of skin 1cm wide by 0.5mm thick. However, since hair follicles are complex and consist of 15 different cells in a structure, they may take longer.
Poietis is not the only company working on bio-printing, but most others use another way, which involves pushing a bio-ink through a nozzle(喷嘴), rather than lasers to build their tissue. Poietis suggests its technique puts less stress on the biological matter, meaning there is less risk of causing it damage.
Alopecia UK—a charity that provides support and advice about hair loss—has mixed feelings about the development. “It is encouraging to know that companies such as L’Oreal are investing in technology that may help those with hair loss in the future,” said spokeswoman Amy Johnson.
“However, we would suggest it’s still very early to be getting excited about what this potentially could mean for those with medical hair loss. At this point it is unclear as to whether this technology could benefit those with all types of hair loss.”
“Also, if this new technology does lead to a treatment option, given the high costs of existing hair transplant procedures, how many people will be able to realistically afford any new technological advances that may become available? As with any other research and development into processes that may be able to help those with hair loss, we watch with great interest.”
1.What does Paragraph 2 mainly tell us?
A. How the printing process is carried out.
B. Where the living cells should be placed.
C. How long the cells are expected to grow.
D. What the printing equipment is made up of.
2.What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
A. hair follicle B. biological matter
C. nozzle D. bio-ink
3.The passage implies that the new technology may ______.
A. meet some practical challenges
B. help people with hair loss at present
C. offer solutions to all problems of hair loss
D. cost a large sum of money to transplant hair
4.What is Amy Johnson’s attitude towards the new technology?
A. Disapproving. B. Optimistic.
C. Cautious. D. Negative.
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Every year, billions of kilograms of fresh produce are wasted in the United States. Meanwhile, millions of poor Americans go hungry, without access to healthy and affordable meals.
Evan Lutz is enthusiastic about correcting that social injustice. And he combines that goal with enthusiasm for business, Lutz is CEO and founder of Hungry Harvest, a business which collects and sells “ugly” produce. These are fruits and vegetables that most food companies would throw away. More than six billion pounds are wasted each year due to surface imperfections.
“So I’ll give you an example.” Lutz says, “If you go to a grocery store you will see all the produce lineup shiny, perfect, of the same size and color. But on a farm, everything doesn’t grow the same way. So all that stuff that doesn’t grow the same way often gets thrown out. And what we do is take all that normally gets thrown out because of its odd size or shape, box it up and deliver it to our customers once a week.”
For Evan Lutz, giving back to others came from his upbringing.
“When I was growing up my parents taught me the values of giving back, and giving is a lot more powerful than receiving. We sell produce with a purpose and that doesn’t just mean we reduce food from going to waste. We hire people that were formerly in prison or were formerly injured or sick living in homeless shelters. They really wanted to get back on their feet for a second chance in life.”
Evan Lutz is really happy to be realizing great mission that he thinks can really revolutionize the food industry in America.
1.The social injustice in Paragraph 2 refers to the fact that ________.
A. vegetables and fruits that don’t taste good get wasted
B. much produce gets wasted while many Americans starve
C. grocery stores only sell produce of the same size
D. poor Americans cannot afford healthy food
2.What business does Hungry Harvest mainly do?
A. Deliver food for free.
B. Raise money for the poor.
C. Collect “ugly” produce and sell it.
D. Buy “ugly” produce and process it.
3.Why does Evan Lutz hire those people mentioned in Paragraph 5?
A. To lower labor costs. B. To increase productivity.
C. To offer them a job. D. To enjoy a better reputation.
4.What can be a suitable title for the passage?
A. Creating More Jobs for the Less Fortunate
B. Putting Healthy Food on Dinner Table
C. Making Profits from Shiny Produce
D. Giving Unused Produce a Purpose
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Every year, billions of kilograms of fresh produce are wasted in the United States. Meanwhile, millions of poor Americans go hungry, without access to healthy and affordable meals.
Evan Lutz, CEO and founder of Hungry Harvest, was inspired to act after seeing extreme
poverty in areas of Baltimore, Maryland. He wants to reduce the so-called food desert in that area. His work is to make sure no food goes to waste and no person is ever hungry in America. And he
combines that goal with a love for business.
Hungry Harvest is a business which collects and sells "ugly produce". These are fruits and
vegetables that most food companies will throw away. More than six billion pounds are wasted each year due to "ugly" surface. Everything doesn't grow the same way on a farm. But all that is too big or too small gets thrown out. That is why everything in a grocery store looks similar, shiny and perfect. Hungry Harvest will box those imperfect ones and deliver them to customers once a week.
For Evan Lutz, giving back to others came from his upbringing.
When I was growing up my parents taught me the values of giving back, and giving is a lot
more powerful than receiving. We sell produce with a purpose and that doesn't just mean we reduce food from going to waste. We hire people that were formerly in prison and were formerly injured or sick living in homeless shelters. They really wanted to get back on their feet for a second chance in life."
In January 2016, Lutz appeared on the American business competition television show "Shark Tank" and got even more than he expected: $100,000. Lutz is using the money to realize his great mission that can really revolutionize the food industry in America.
1.The underlined part "food desert" in the second paragraph means .
A. food that grows in the desert B. the poor areas in Baltimore
C. a lack of fresh and healthy food D. the desert where food can grow
2.The food delivered by Hungry Harvest is .
A. popular with local fruit farmers B. easy to be found in grocery stores
C. fresh but hard to keep for food companies D. healthy and available to hungry people
3.Which of the following words can be used to describe Evan Lutz?
A. Strong-willed and smart. B. Kind-hearted and creative.
C. Warm-hearted and strict. D. Open-minded and humorous.
4.What can be a suitable title for this passage?
A. Giving Unused Produce a Purpose B. Making Profits from Shiny Produce
C. Creating Jobs for the Less Fortunate D. Helping the People in Hungry World
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Every year, billions of kilograms of fresh produce are wasted in the United States. Meanwhile, millions of poor Americans go hungry, without access to healthy and affordable meals.
Evan Lutz is enthusiastic about correcting that social injustice. And he combines that goal with enthusiasm for business. Lutz is CEO and founder of Hungry Harvest, a business which collects and sells “ugly” produce. These are fruits and vegetables that most food companies would throw away. More than six billion pounds are wasted each year due to surface imperfections.
“So I’ll give you an example.” Lutz says, “If you go to a grocery store you will see all the produce lineup shiny, perfect, of the same size and color. But on a farm, everything doesn’t grow the same way. So all that stuff that doesn’t grow the same way often gets thrown out. And what we do is take all that normally gets thrown out because of its odd size or shape, box it up and deliver it to our customers once a week.”
For Evan Lutz, giving back to others came form his upbringing. “When I was growing up, my parents taught me the values of giving back, and giving is a lot more powerful than receiving. We sell produce with a purpose and that doesn’t just mean we reduce food from going to waste. We hire people that were formerly in prison or were formerly injured or sick living in homeless shelters. They really wanted to get back on their feet for a second chance in life.”
Evan Lutz is really happy to be realizing great mission that he thinks can really revolutionize the food industry in America.
1.The social injustice in Paragraph 2 refers to the fact that _________.
A.vegetables and fruits that don’t taste good are thrown away
B.grocery stores only sell produce of the same size
C.poor Americans can not afford healthy food
D.much produce gets wasted while many Americans starve
2.What business does Hungry Harvest mainly do?
A.Deliver food for free. B.Collect “ugly” produce and sell it.
C.Raise money for the poor. D.Buy “ugly” produce and process it.
3.Why does Evan Lutz employ those people mentioned in Paragraph 4?
A.To provide them with a job. B.To reduce labor costs.
C.To increase productivity. D.To earn a better reputation.
4.What can be the best title for the passage?
A.Creating More Jobs for the Less Fortunate.
B.Putting Healthy Food on Dinner Table.
C.Giving Unused Produce a Purpose.
D.Making Profits from Shiny Produce.
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Over the past 30 years, China has spent hundreds of billions of yuan to pull its rural population out of poverty. Now China's antipoverty efforts pay________.
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Every year，nearly 270 million pounds of grapes arrive in California，most of them _______ from Chile to the Port of Los Angeles.
A. are shipped B. is shipped C. shipping D. shipped
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We are the products of evolution, and not just evolution that occurred billions of years ago. As scientists look deeper into our genes (基因), they are finding examples of human evolution in just the past few thousand years. People in Ethiopian highlands have adapted to living at high altitudes. Cattle -raising people in East Africa and northern Europe have gained a mutation (突变) that helps them digest milk as adults.
On Thursday in an article published in Cell, a team of researchers reported a new kind of adaptation - not to air or to food, but to the ocean. A group of sea-dwelling people in Southeast Asia have evolved into better divers. The Bajau, as these people are known, number in the hundreds of thousands in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. They have traditionally lived on houseboats; in recent times, they’ve also built houses on stilts (支柱) in coastal waters. “They are simply a stranger to the land,” said Redney C. Jubilado, a University of Hawaii researcher who studies the Bajau.
Dr. Jubilado first met the Bajau while growing up on Samal Island in the Philippines. They made a living as divers, spearfishing or harvesting shellfish. “We were so amazed that they could stay underwater much longer than us local islanders,” Dr. Jubilado said. “I could see them actually walking under the sea.”
In2015, Melissa Ilardo, then a graduate student in genetics at the University of Copenhagen, heard about the Bajau. She wondered if centuries of diving could have led to the evolution of physical characteristics that made the task easier for them. “it seemed like the perfect chance for natural selection to act on a population,” said Dr. Ilardo. She also said there were likely a number of other genes that help the Bajau dive.
1.What does the author want to tell us by the examples in paragraph 1?
A.Environmental adaptation of cattle raisers. B.New knowledge of human evolution.
C.Recent findings of human origin. D.Significance of food selection.
2.Where do the Bajau build their houses?
A.In valleys. B.Near rivers. C.On the beach. D.Off the coast.
3.Why was the young Jubilado astonished at the Bajau?
A.They could walk on stilts all day. B.They had a superb way of fishing.
C.They could stay long underwater. D.They lived on both land and water.
4.What can be a suitable title for the text?
A.Bodies Remodeled for a Life at Sea B.Highlanders’ Survival Skills
C.Basic Methods of Genetic Research D.The World’s Best Divers
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The world consumes hundreds of billions of single-use plastic bags each year. They are difficult to recycle, wasteful and damage the nature. Environmental activists want to ban plastic bags or---as many communities have done ---charge a fee for them. But the plastic bag industry defends their use, saying people reuse plastic bags, and industry officials argue recycling is a matter of personal responsibility and should not be forced.
City officials say New Yorkers use 5.2 billion plastic bags each year. They are offered free with nearly every supermarket, or convenience store purchase. Many people like them, even if they sometimes feel guilty about using them. But what happens to those bags after they’ve been used in a huge environmental problem. They are found on beaches. They are caught in trees. They are swallowed by marine life.
Plastic bags are made of petroleum products and natural gas, and do not biodegrade (分解). And they are difficult to recycle. So New York City spends nearly $ 10 million dollars a year to send 100---thousand tons of plastic bags to landfills out of state.
In Washington, D.C., a five percent charge on all single-use bags led to about a 60 percent reduction and in Los Angeles County in California , a 10 cent charge on single-use bags led to a 95 percent reduction. With a 10 cent charge on bags, customers are much more likely to stop and think about whether they need a bag or not. And that’s really all that these laws are doing.
1.Who object to the limit of using plastic bags?
A. Plastic bag makers. B. Government officials.
C. Stores and supermarkets. D. Most of the consumers.
2.Paragraph 2 mainly tells us _____.
A. the difficulty about dealing with plastic bags
B. the popularity of plastic bags in New York
C. the great convenience brought by using plastic bags
D. the usage and problems of plastic bags in New York
3.What measure does the writer introduce to reduce the use of plastic bags?
A. Reducing the production of plastic bags.
B. Charging for the use of plastic bags.
C. Offering paper bags instead of plastic bags.
D. Making people realize the harm of plastic bags.
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We produce 500 billion of plastic bags in a year worldwide and they are thrown away polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1000 years to decompose. Researchers have been unsuccessfully looking for a solution.
The 16-year old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, from Waterloo Collegiate Institute,
has discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade(分解) in as few as 3 months, a finding that won him first prize at the Canada－Wide Science Fair, a $10 000 prize, a $20 000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.
Burd's strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms (微生物). If those microorganisms could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.
With this goal in mind, he ground plastic bags into a powder and concocted(调制) a solution of household chemicals, yeast(酵母) and tap water to encourage microbes growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for 3 months. Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control. Sure enough, the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17% lighter than the control after six weeks.
The inputs are cheap: maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide.
“Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have piles of plastic bags falling on top of me. One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags. The answer: not much. So I decided to do something myself.” said Daniel Burd.
1.Daniel Burd won first prize at the Canada－Wide Science Fair because________.
A. he found a new kind of microorganism
B. he contributed much to environmental protection
C. he found a way to degrade plastics in shorter time
D. he could encourage microbes growth in an easier way
2.Daniel Burd exposed one plastic sample to dead bacteria to ________.
A. make the live bacteria work better
B. test how effective his method was
C. know which bacteria worked faster
D. control the temperature in the process
3.Maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because ________.
A. plastics can get hot easily
B. microbes can produce heat themselves
C. much carbon dioxide is produced
D. the temperature can be controlled
4.Daniel Burd got his idea from ________.
A. his school textbook B. the failure of researchers
C. his everyday work D. the practice of other people