You Are What You Eat Genetic engineering is the scientific change of the genetic material in a living organism. It allows scientists to identify specific genes, to remove them from an organism's chromosomes , improve them, analyze them, and possibly clone them, and to then reinsert the changed gene into the original organism, or a completely different organism.Unlike traditional breeding , where a desired quality would be bred within the same species, genetic engineering can insert desired ones into organisms of different species.Wow...Did you catch that? Genetic engineering creates many positive contributions to agriculture. For example, by genetically engineered(GE) foods, anti-cancer agents, minerals and vitamins can be increased.Improved taste, shelf life, and better transport are all possible.Also, GE plants can increase pest and bacterial resistance, therefore, making the food safe for consumers. But some argue that the possible negative effects outweigh the positives, and critics are starting to voice their concerns. Unlike Europe, in the United States labeling is not required on genetically engineered foods or on foods that contain genetically engineered products. Most Americans do not realize that they are, in fact, eating GE foods. The public is also concerned about the unknown health risks.With limited understanding of genes, scientists cannot predict possible effects.Because most genes introduced into GE plants come from sources not introduced into the human body, it is impossible to know if they will cause reactions. Moreover, due to _ if allergies develop, it will be extremely difficult to find the origin of them. There is also a major moral question in many minds.For many, the conflict is not if it is safe or not, but it disturbs them because it is unnatural and unnecessary.We are currently producing one and a half times the amount of food needed to feed the world, yet one in seven people are starving.GE food is unnecessary, and fails to address the root of... What is the author's attitude towards genetic engineering? A) Welcoming. B) Disapproving. C) Unconcerned. D) Optimistic.
B
(Question)
A California man who was feeling sick almost died recently from a shocking cause. 26-year-old Luis Ortiz went to a hospital because of a headache and nausea(,). When doctors examined him, they were shocked to find a tapeworm larva in his brain. The story gets stranger. The larva was still alive. The creature had caused a cyst to form inside his head. The cyst was restricting the flow of liquids to different areas of his brain. The situation was so serious that doctors said they had to perform an emergency operation to remove the larva. A doctor who operated on Ortiz told him he had only 30 minutes to live. When the doctor pulled the worm out of his head, it was still moving. Luis Ortiz was a student at California State University in Sacramento. He began experiencing headaches in late August. But Ortiz said he did not think the headaches were serious. In September, he visited a friend and his parents in another city. That is when the pain got worse. His mother saw Ortiz throwing up and took him to a hospital emergency room. The doctors saved Ortiz's life. However, the surgery also affected him. Ortiz had to drop out of school and move back home. For now, he is not permitted to work or drive a vehicle. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the U.S. has about 1,000 reported cases of tapeworms each year. The CDC adds that tapeworms are more common in developing countries with poor public health systems. The best way to avoid a tapeworm infection is to wash fruits and vegetables. Also, make sure meat is cooked thoroughly. The CDC suggests cooking all meats to an internal temperature of at least 63 degrees Celsius. How should people avoid infecting tapeworms? A) By washing fruits and vegetable. B) By boiling plates and bowls before meals. C) By cooking meats to at least 63 degC outside, D) By improving the development of economy.
(Answer)
A
Ques: Suppose you are reading a book. Suppose, too, you suddenly close your eyes. Can you still see the book? "Of course not," you will say. But can you tell why? You would probably say, "When I close my eyes my eyesight cannot get out of my eyes to get to the book. " But this explanation is wrong. You cannot see any object unless light from that object gets into your eyes. Some of the things you see give off light of their own. The sun, the stars, a lighted lamp are examples of that can be seen by their own light. Such things are luminous. Most of the things you see are not giving off light of their own. They are simply reflecting light that falls on them from the sun or some other luminous body. The moon, for example, does not give off any light of its own. It is non-luminous. You see it because sunlight falls on it and some of it reflects in your direction. So moonlight is only second-hand sunlight. When you look at a book, it sends to your eyes some of the light which falls on it, and you see the book. If light could be kept out from where you are so that there would be no light for the book to reflect, then you could not see the book even with your eyes wide open. Light travels so fast that the time in which it travels from the book you are reading to your eyes is so short as if there were no time at all. Light reaches us from the moon, which is about 380,000 kilometres away, in only a little more than a second. Which one is true? A) All the things you can see give off light. B) Light from the book is much shorter than that from the moon. C) The moment you open your eyes the light from the book travels to your eyes. D) Light travels so fast that there is no time for your to read.
Ans: C
Question: A new study has found some secrets of people's understanding of large numbers. Researchers studied a group of people who were born deaf and never learned any spoken language or a formal sign language, but they have developed a gesture system to communicate with people around them. The gestures let them express approximate amounts, but not exact numbers. "Up to three, they're fine," says Elizabet Spaepen, a researcher at the University of Chicago and an author of the study. "But past three, they start to fall apart." In one test, Spaepen would knock her fist against a study participant's fist a certain number of times and then ask them to respond with the same number of knocks. "If I were to knock four times on their fist, they might knock on my fist five times," she says. The finding offers a clue to just how much language affects our understanding of numbers. That has been a big question since 2004, when other researchers published data on two tribes in the Amazon whose members also lack words for big numbers. "What they have are words that mean one and two," Spaepen says, "and then they have a word to mean many." Members of the Amazonian tribes also had trouble matching numbers larger than three or four. But some scholars felt that these earlier studies failed to prove that language was the reason. They pointed out that the tribes lived in groups that didn't use money and had no need for exact numbers. The new research appears to answer that criticism. "It proves that the kinds of problems in understanding numbers that we found in the Amazonian tribes are not due to just the cultural or environmental circumstances," says Peter Gordon of Columbia University, one of the researchers involved in the earlier studies. In which part of a newspaper would you most probably find this passage? A) Science B) Health C) Politics D) Lifestyle
Answer:
A