Article: Have you heard of snake robots? Scientists and doctors are already using tiny snakes that coil through the human body armed with sharp surgical tools to perform operations on hearts, prostate cancer, and other diseased organs. The snake robots that carry tiny cameras, scissors and forceps, and even more advanced sensors are being developed. The next generation of the robots will be wireless, and will explore inside your body on their own--- not attached to any cables. For now, they are powered by cables that humans control. Experts say the day is coming when some robots will roam around the body on their own. But the experts in robotics say the new creations work best when they are designed for very specific tasks. Howie Choset has been researching and building robots, particularly snake robots. He believes that his snake robot and others like it can help reduce medical costs by making complex surgery faster and easier. Choset says his new design is smaller and more flexible than earlier models. The size of surgical robots allows surgeons to operate with far less damage to the body, helping the patient heal faster. Choset has also built larger snake robots designed for search and rescue, or just exploration. They can climb poles and trees and then look around through a camera in the head and slither through places that humans cannot reach. " We sent our snake robots into these caves in the Red Sea to look for evidence of ancient Egyptian ships," he said. " To me, archeology is like search and rescue, but everyone has been dead for 5,000 years." The doctors are very excited about the potential for surgical robots to do things that humans can't do. The variety of sensors available for surgical robots keeps expanding. As they get smaller, maybe one day they will be able to test chemicals or blood in the body, or even the electrical connections in nerves. Question: The writers attitude towards the new technology is _ . Yes or no, is the answer "optimistic"?
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Article: There was a Bulgarian boy who was an exchange student in the USA. He lived with an American family. One day, he went to his room in the evening, and did his homework. His host-mom came to him and asked if he would like to go along to the movies. He wanted to go, so he shook his head from side to side, said "Yes". His host-mom did a couple of steps back, and looked puzzled. She thought that he didn't want to go out because he shook his head from side to side. However, he wanted to go out to the movies. Bulgarians shake their heads from side to side when they mean "yes". People in other countries shake their heads from side to side when they mean "no". Gestures can have different meanings according to different cultures. For example, in America, putting your index finger and your thumb in a circle is commonly used as an OK sign that means everything is all right. However, in France, that sign is used to express "nothing" or "zero", which can have a negative meaning. Generally speaking, gestures are a type of communication that uses a part of our body, and when speaking with people from other cultures, gestures can be important keys or clues to understand them. However, we need to understand that those gestures vary from culture to culture, and it is necessary for us to have an open mind in understanding the different gestures. Question: Putting the index finger and the thumb in a circle means OK for _ . Yes or no, is the answer "an American"?
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Article: From a college designed specifically for high school students to one that doesn't provide students with grades, here are some of the country's most unique institutions. *Berea College, Berea, Kentucky The first interracial, co-educational college in the South, Berea specializes in attracting students who may be otherwise unable to afford a college education. Berea students come from families with an average household income of $30,000, which is why the school's financial aid program is so important. *Deep Springs College, Deep Springs, California Deep Springs, formerly an all-male school, has one of the smallest student bodies in the country at 26. The college accepts only 10% of its applicants, and maintains its own cattle herd. Students enjoy the school's isolated location -- 45 miles away from the nearest established town. Electricity is produced mainly through solar power, and the college sometimes even sells electricity to Pacific Gas & Electric. *The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington At Evergreen, students don't receive traditional letter grades. Instead, professors issue narrative evaluations of students' work at the end of each term. The curriculum is structured around the "Coordinated Studies Program", which focuses on providing students with a well-rounded education across a number of different areas. The college sits on 1,000 breathtaking acres, a portion of it on Puget Sound. *Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts Considered an "experimenting" college because of its constantly changing curriculum, Hampshire College doesn't feature a traditional grading system. Instead, the school requires students to complete three different divisions, which feature different classes. Once the project is completed, it's not given a grade, but a written evaluation, as other projects students complete throughout their time at Hampshire are. Question: What can we learn about The Evergreen State College? Yes or no, is the answer "It attaches great value to students' different kinds of knowledge."?
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Article: Air travel makes some people very nervous. The crowds, the noise and flying itself can cause unease. But there are classes that people can take to help them defeat the fear of flying. And now we are going to talk about similar training for service dogs that suffer from the same problem. Service dogs almost never leave the side of the people they care for. You will see them working on buses, trains and other public transport systems. But the busy environment in an airport can trouble even the best trained working dog. People with disabilities depend on their dogs. They also need the dogs to remain calmly on duty on the airplane, even when the flight is not smooth. This takes special training. The Air Hollywood K9 Flight School is one place where such help can be found. The school has a piece of equipment that provides the sights, sounds and even the feel of an airplane in flight. It is called a flight simulator . The simulator was built for filming airplane scenes in movies. Sandy Alexander lives in Newport Beach, California. He has a disability that requires his two-year-old dog, Doc, to be always at his side. Mr. Alexander took the dog to the flight school to get him ready for plane trips. He says Doc did not like the bumpy part of the flight simulation. "When that started he was pretty _ and looked up at me and wasn't sure what was gong on." "Dogs need to be exposed gradually and repetitively to stimulation, to the environment, to loud noises, to sounds and other dogs so that when this experience happens to them on a daily basis, they are able to act in a way that they are used to acting and don't get excitable," days dog trainer, Mary Segall. Dog owners who have attended the training say they now feel much more at ease about future flights. Their dogs also seem ready for take-off. Question: The flight simulator _ . Yes or no, is the answer "was built for filming airplane scenes in movies"?
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