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Unit 2 science and progress. Module 4 modern technologies. Famous inventors and their inventions. Part 1 Practice your reading and critical thinking skills
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UNIT 2 SCIENCE AND PROGRESS
MODULE 4 MODERN TECHNOLOGIES. FAMOUS INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS
PART 1 PRACTICE YOUR READING AND CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS
Text 1
Exercise 1. Read the article.
MOBILE MANIA SPREADS AS PHONES BECOME THE MUST-HAVE GADGET
More than 24 million Britons now own a mobile phone, according to statistics released yesterday. The growth is expected to accelerate in the next few years as the mobile phone overtakes the personal computer as the most used method of accessing the Internet. No longer a tool only of well-heeled travelling executives and plumbers, the mobile phone is now as likely to be found in school satchels and shopping bags as in briefcases.
According to Vodafone, the market leader, of the 24 million cellphones in use, 11. 9 million are prepaid, many of which are now used by teenagers. Schools have even taken to banning the use of mobile phones in classrooms and playgrounds.
The pre-pay services, using phone cards, have proved the most popular with phone users keen to keep their bills under control. The advent of ‘pay-as-you-go’ schemes has brought the mobile phone to millions who could not previously afford one or failed the necessary credit ratings. The average pre-pay customer spends £ 198 a year whereas the typical business customer receives a bill of £ 556 a year.
Around 40 percent of Britons now have a mobile, but by the end of next year, analysts expect the figure to increase by at least half. Even then, we will lag behind Finland, where 71 percent of people own a cellphone.
Already, analysts are predicting that within a few years more people will actually watch the six o’clock news or Match of the Day on their mobile phone than on television. The phone networks say more people are already using their mobiles at six o’clock each evening than the BBC claims are watching its evening news bulletin.
In recent years, a new technology called WAP, which enables the Internet to be viewed on a cellphone screen, was introduced. Now, almost all mobiles will be WAP phones. Mike Caldwell, of Vodafone, said: ‘The average person will not ealize it is the Internet that is coming to them on their mobile phone. They’ll just use it to watch what they think is television. ’
Exercise 2. Choose the best answer, (a, b, c or d), according to the text.
1. Why is the number of users of mobile phones expected to go up so much?
a) They are going to become cheaper.
b) They will be more popular amongst teenagers.
c) Phones will be used to connect with the Internet
d) They are so convenient.
2. Who used to be main users of mobile phones?
a) Internet users.
b) Self-employed and business people.
c) People with very big incomes.
d) People who travelled a lot.
3. Why have pre-pay phone cards increased the number of users?
a) The phone calls are cheaper.
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b) They are more convenient.
c) Bills tend to be lower.
d) Users have to pay before making calls.
4. What link is there between mobile phones and television?
b) Third generation mobiles will show live TV programmes from the Internet.
a) People often use their phones during the six o’clock news.
c) The new generation of phones will be much smaller than earlier ones.
d) Mobiles are good for watching the news and sports programmes.
5. ‘well-heeled’ in line 4 means
a) technologically competent.
b) fashionable.
c) tired of travel.
d) quite wealthy.
Exercise 3. Answer the questions to the text.
1. How many people use mobile phones in Britain nowadays?
2. Do people in our country use mobile phones actively?
3. What changes are expected in some years?
4. Why have schools even taken to banning the use of mobile phones in classrooms and playgrounds?
5. Why have the mobile phones become so popular? Give some reasons?
6. What does WAP mean?
7. What will become the winner in the competition between a mobile and television in your opinion? Why?
TEXT 2
Exercise 1. Read the text:
Hunger Is the Mother of Invention
by Jessica Eise
Agriculture has been a crucible of innovation since it arose millennia ago. Can a booming human population invent its way out of starvation once again?
Some 220 years ago, the somberfaced cleric and scholar Thomas Malthus made a dire prediction: food production could not possibly keep up with population growth in Great Britain. If measures were not taken to limit family size, chaos, starvation, and misery would ensue. And yet, such measures were not taken. The population exploded, but as it turned out, Malthus’s dystopian vision never came to pass. Agricultural production rose to the challenge. Malthus’s warnings have a familiar ring today. Once more humanity is staring down the threat of a burgeoning population and concerns that there eventually won’t be enough food to go around.
By 2050, we will have almost 10 billion mouths to feed in a world profoundly altered by environmental change. Will history repeat itself, and again refute Malthusian doom saying? Or will we and our food production capacity succumb to the pressures of unsustainable population growth?
In How to Feed the World, a diverse group of experts breaks down these crucial questions by tackling issues surrounding food security. One critical factor that Malthus left out of calculations of population growth and sustainability was the effect of agricultural revolutions. Humans have experienced three such revolutions, each fueled by technological advances, throughout history: the first, about 12, 000 years ago, as our ancestors transitioned from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture; the second as 18th- and 19thcentury British farmers drastically increased production, proving Malthus wrong; and the third as commercial-scale agriculture bloomed in the 20th century. None of humanity’s past successes, however, indicate that our modern concerns aren’t warranted. Environmental pollution, unsustainable water use, and large-scale land use changes raise doubts about our current food production systems. Ironically, many of the same technological innovations that have prevented starvation also wreak havoc on the environment. But just because elements of past technologies harm the environment, we need not cast aside the concept of innovating our way out of a food crisis. On the contrary, moving forward to the technological innovation will help us find modern solutions.
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As Purdue University agricultural economist Uris Baldos explains in his chapter on technology, although genetically engineered (GE) crops are extremely controversial in public dialog, all indications are that they are here to stay. Since the technology’s development in 1973, several GE crops have been created and commercialized.
For example, crops containing a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis were developed to prevent crop damage from insects, and farmers have adopted them worldwide. There are ongoing efforts to roll out GE versions of fruits, oilseeds, and root crops. Aside from pest and herbicide resistance, plant breeders are also looking to incorporate other useful agronomic traits, such as drought and cold tolerance, virus resistance, and enhanced nutrient content. Some plant breeding programs aim for even-more-ambitious goals. There is an effort to supercharge the photosynthetic process of rice to overcome its current yield limit, for example.
The technology of genetic engineering is expanding at an extraordinary rate, and we are able to do things today that we hadn’t imagined possible mere years ago, such as precision genome editing. With the advent of more-efficient and more-precise genetic editing techniques, it is likely that any successful plans to feed the world will involve the use of GE crops. Accomplishing that goal entails a range of challenges, as illustrated in How to Feed the World. Technological innovation can, once more, provide us with the means to overcome many of these seemingly insurmountable odds. But the technologies that saved us before definitely won’t save us again. Therefore, we face one central challenge. Before it is too late, can we innovate, invest in, and accept the technologies we will need to feed the world sustainably? Jessica Eise is an author and Ross Fellow in the Purdue University Brian Lamb School of Communication doctoral program.
(02. 2018, THE SCIENTIST, p 63)
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