A.Most people do not go to public schools.B.There is a lot of controversy over the pro
A. Most people do not go to public schools.
B. There is a lot of controversy over the pronunciation.
C. No two people can be said to pronounce words in exactly the same way.
Dialect speakers do not want to change their pronunciation.
Can Drugs Make Us Happier? Samrter?
It depends on what is meant by "happy" and "smart."
There are already drugs that brighten moods, like Prozac, and other antidepressants that control levels of a brain chemical called serotonin. While originally meant to treat depression, these drugs have been used for other psychological conditions like shyness and anxiety and even by otherwise healthy people to feel better about themselves.
But is putting people in a better mood really making them happy? People can also drown their sorrows in alcohol or get a euphoric feeling using narcotics, but few people who do so would be called truly happy.
The President's Council on Bioethics said in a recent report that while antidepressants might make some people happier, they can also substitute for what can truly bring happiness: a sense of satisfaction with one's identity, accomplishments and relationships.
"In tike pursuit of happiness human beings have always worried about falling for the appearance of happiness and missing its reality," the council wrote. It added, "Yet a fraudulent happiness is just what the pharmacological management of our mental lives threatens to confer upon us."
Now the race is on to develop pills to make people smarter, at least in one sense. These drugs, several of them already in clinical trials, aim at memory loss that occurs in people with Alzheimer's disease or a precursor called mild cognitive impairment.
But it is lost on no one that if a memory drug works and is safe, it may one day be used by healthy people to learn faster and remember longer.
Studies have already shown that animals can be made to do both whelk the activity of certain genes is increased or decreased. Dr. Tom 'Fully, a professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, created genetically engineered fruit flies that he said had "photographic memory." In one session, he said, they could learn something that took normal flies 10 sessions.
"It immediately convinced everyone that memory was going to be just another biological process," Dr. Tully said. "There's nothing special about it. That meant that it was going to be treatable and manip-ulable."
But experts say that improving memory will not necessarily make one smarter, in the sense of I.Q. , let alone in wisdom. "It would be a mistake to think that drugs that have an impact on memory necessarily will have an effect on intelligence," said Dr. Daniel L. Schachter, chairman of psychology at Harvard.
Dr. Tully, who is also acting chief scientific officer of Helicon Therapeutics, which is developing memory pills, agreed. "You don't think better than you did before,' he said. "You just get the facts in with less practice. ' Still, he said, that would be significant help to students at exam time.
Any pill used widely by healthy people to improve memory would have to be extremely safe, so that the risks would not outweigh the benefit. Psychological side effects also remain a possibility.
"Is it a good thing to remember everything?" Dr. Tully asked. Could a brain too crammed with information suffer some sort of overload?
Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, a professor of molecular biology at Princeton who genetically engineered smarter mice a few years ago, says he is skeptical that the results can be transferred to people.
"If you look at how people improve their brain power, it's through education," he said. "That has proven to have 100 percent efficiency with minimal side effects."
There are already antidepressants that control levels of a brain chemical called serotonin.
A. Y
B. N
C. NG
听力原文: Men sometimes say: "We are better and cleverer than women. Women never invent things. We do." It is true that men have invented a lot of useful things: The alphabet, machines, rockets, and guns, too. But scientists and archeologists now agree that women invented one very important thing. It has changed history. They went out every day. Sometimes they killed animals—sometimes animals killed them. Life was difficult and dangerous. Women had to go out every day, too. They collected roots, fruit and grasses. Then, one day, more than 10,000 years ago, a woman dropped some grass seeds. She dropped them near her home in the Middle East. They grew and the first wheat was born. The idea grew, too. Women planted roots and fruit trees. Then they could stay at home and look after the children—and the animals. Women like baby animals. Archeologists think that women kept the first domestic animals: dogs, cows, sheep and goats. That idea grew, too. Then their husbands did not have to go hunting for meat. They stayed at home. They built villages and cities. Civilization began. Men began civilization after women invented agriculture.
(30)
A. Men are cleverer than women.
B. It was the women's invention that changed history.
C. Life was difficult and dangerous in ancient times.
D. Women's work was at home.