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由于明早一早就要做office的东西肯定不能准时发帖,所以我先把明天要读的内容帖一下,这样就不会耽误了。<br /><br /><font size="4"><strong>[速度2-16]</strong></font><br /><br /><strong><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">TheWorld's Deadliest Distinction</font></font></strong><br /><strong><font size="6"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?</font></font></strong><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">By Will OremusPosted Tuesday, July19, 2011, at 6:56 AM ET</font></font><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"></font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2299256/" target="_blank">http://www.slate.com/id/2299256/</a></font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> </font></font><br /><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="宋体">计时</font></font></span><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">1 (265 words)</font></font></span><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Last month, a 114-year-old formerschoolteacher from Georgia named Besse Cooper became the world's oldest livingperson. Her predecessor, Brazil's Maria Gomes Valentim, was 114 when she died.So was the oldest living person before her, and the one before her. In fact,eight of the last nine "world's oldest" titleholders were 114 whenthey achieved the distinction. <img src="file:///C:/Users/Yvonne/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image002.gif" width="19" height="13" alt="" />Here's the morbid part: All but two were still114 when they passed it on. Those two? They died at 115.</font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">The celebration surrounding Cooperwhen she assumed the title, then, might as well have been accompanied by condolences.If historical trends hold, she will likely be dead within a year. </font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">It's no surprise that it's hard tostay the "world's oldest" for very long. These people are, after all,really old. What's surprising is just how consistent the numbers have been.Just seven people whose ages could be fully verified by the </font></font><a href="http://www.grg.org/" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">GerontologyResearch Group</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> have ever made it past 115. Onlytwo of those seven lived to see the 21<sup>st</sup> century. The longest-livingperson ever, a French woman named Jeanne Calment, died at age 122 in August1997; no one since 2000 has come within five years of matching her longevity. </font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">The inventor Ray Kurzweil, famousfor bold </font></font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">predictions</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> that </font></font><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2009/05/16/i-robot.html" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">occasionally</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">come </font></font><a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-i-expert-ray-kurzweil-picks-computer-in-jeopardy-match" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">true</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, estimated in 2005 that, within 20 years, advances inmedical technology would enable humans to extend their lifespans indefinitely.With six years gone and 14 to go, his prophecy doesn't seem that much closer tocoming true. What happened to modern medicine giving us longer lives? Whyaren't we getting any older?</font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> </font></font><br /><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="宋体">计时</font></font></span><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">2 (262 words)</font></font></span><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">We are living longer—at least, someof us are. Life expectancies in most countries not ravaged by AIDS have beenrising gradually for decades, and the average American today </font></font><a href="http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">can expect to live 79 years</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">—four years longer than the average in 1990. In manydeveloped countries, the superold are among the fastest-growing demographics.(There is evidence that this progress may be grinding to a halt among </font></font><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/15/nation/la-na-womens-health-20110615" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">some demographics</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, however.) But raising the upper bounds of the humanlifespan is turning out to be trickier than increasing the average person'slife expectancy. This may be a case where, as with </font></font><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/weekinreview/12vinciguerra.html" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">flying cars</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, a popular vision of technological progress runs afoul ofreality's constraints. </font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">In the past few years, the globalcount of </font></font><a href="http://www.grg.org/calment.html" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">supercentenarians</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">—people110 and older—has leveled off at about 80. And the maximum age hasn't budged.Robert Young, senior gerontology consultant for the Guinness Book of WorldRecords, says, "The more people are turning 110, the more people are dyingat 110."</font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Young calls this the"rectangularization of the mortality curve." To illustrate it, hepoints to Japan, which in 1990 had 3,000 people aged 100 and over, with theoldest being 114. Twenty years later, Japan has an estimated 44,000 people overthe age of 100—and the oldest is still 114. For reasons that aren't entirely clear,Young says, the odds of a person dying in any given year between the ages of110 and 113 appear to be about one in two. But by age 114, the chances jump tomore like two in three. </font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> </font></font><br /><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="宋体">计时</font></font></span><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">3(298 words)</font></font></span><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">It's still possible that the barrierwill eventually go the way of the </font></font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">four-minute mile</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">.Steve Austad, a </font></font><a href="http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8768919.html" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">former lion tamer</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> who is now a professor at the University of Texas HealthScience Center, argues the apparent spike in mortality at age 114 is merely astatistical artifact. Today's oldest humans, he's reminds us, grew up withoutthe benefit of 20<sup>th</sup>-century advances in nutrition and medicine. In2000, he bet fellow gerontologist S. Jay Olshansky $500 million that someoneborn that year, somewhere in the world, would live to be 150. Olshansky, anIllinois at Chicago professor who wrote about the paradox of longevity for <strong><em>Slate</em></strong><em></em></font></font><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2274468/" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">lastfall</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, doesn't expect to be around in2150 to collect his winnings. Even a cure for cancer or heart disease would dolittle to extend the maximum length of human life, he argues, because there aresimply too many risk factors that pile up by the time a person is 115 yearsold. He believes supercentenarians owe their longevity more to freakish genesthan perfect health; the 122-year-old Calment smoked cigarettes for 96 years.Olshansky and Austad agree on one point: A technological breakthrough, perhapsin the realm of genetics, that slows the aging process could send life spanssurging upward. </font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Is such a discovery imminent? Atthis point, the question is little more than a Rorschach. Young, the GuinnessWorld Records consultant, compares the quest for superlongevity to the effortsof alchemists in the Middle Ages to turn lead into gold. They were right tothink it was possible, but wrong to imagine they had any idea where to begin:Scientists finally succeeded in transmuting elements in the 20<sup>th</sup>century only after first unlocking nuclear physics. By that time, alchemy waslargely irrelevant; the real trick was </font></font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">splitting uranium atoms</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">.</font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> </font></font><br /><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="宋体">计时</font></font></span><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">4 (317 words)</font></font></span><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">The samemay be true of enabling humans to live to 150. Age, it's worth remembering, ismore than just a number. Young, who has spent time with dozens ofsupercentenarians, says even the hardiest humans turn frail by 110. As forBesse </font></font><a href="http://www.worldrecordsacademy.org/human/img/112099_oldest_person_Besse_Cooper.jpg" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Cooper</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, the new world titleholder, Young reports that she canstill talk, though her eyesight is failing. "As a quality-of-life issue, Ithink she could handle another year. I've seen some that, bless their hearts,probably shouldn't be here anymore."</font></font><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"></font></font><br /><strong><font size="5"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">WouldYour Dog Eat Your Dead Body?</font></font></strong><br /><strong><font size="5"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Absolutely.</font></font></strong><br /><font face="Times New Roman,serif">By Brian PalmerPosted Wednesday,July 13, 2011, at 5:25 PM ET</font><font face="Times New Roman,serif"></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">After a Canadian couple died intheir rural Saskatchewan home, their seven dogs </font></font><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2011/07/11/sk-dogs-owners-eaten.html" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">subsisted for more than a week byeating their remains</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">. So, is the folk wisdom that a catwill gladly eat its dead owner, but a </font></font><a href="http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4473/will-cats-eat-their-deceased-owner-but-dogs-will-starve-to-death-instead" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">dog would sooner starve</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, just bunk?</font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Yes. Dogs are perfectly willing toeat human corpses, and there's no evidence that they treat their mastersdifferently than any other dead body. Many cultures consider dogs uncleanprecisely because of their tendency to scavenge our remains. In </font></font><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140275363/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0140275363" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">The Iliad</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, Homer makes nine references to dogs eating dead bodies.Dogs consumed the body of </font></font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezebel" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Jezebel</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, a princess in the Old Testament, after her defenestration.There is evidence that ancient Romans considered the low-hanging cross acrueler form of crucifixion than the high version, because it enabled dogs torip the body apart. There are even a few secular historians who believe thatJesus' body was </font></font><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Revolutionary-John-Dominic-Crossan/dp/006180035X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310573497&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">eaten by dogs</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, and that his acolytes fabricated the story of a </font></font><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19%253A38-42&version=NIV" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">reverential entombment</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> as a sort of coping mechanism. Some Muslim communities inEast Africa revile dogs because they believe that canines ate the body of theProphet Muhammad. Modern dogs exhibit the same behavior, and many have eatentheir fallen masters. There have been several news stories of dogs </font></font><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/6040984.stm" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">scavenging family members</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">, and other cases go unreported in the press. (Don't getsmug, cat lovers. Your feline friends are </font></font><a href="http://articles.mcall.com/2010-07-07/news/mc-odd-news-cats-eat-owner-20100707_1_trash-filled-home-coroner-dead-dog" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">no better</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">.)</font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> </font></font><br /><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="宋体">计时</font></font></span><span style="color:red;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">5(196words)</font></font></span><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Dogs that eat their master's corpsesare just fulfilling their evolutionary duty. Proto-dogs scavenged around theoutskirts of human settlements about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, removing foodscraps, feces, and other human waste. Humans, the story goes, realized this wasrather useful, and let the least aggressive pups hang around. It's likely thatthese canine garbage-compactors treated corpses like any other waste product.Their descendants are no different.</font></font><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"></font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Some dogs don't even wait untiltheir masters die to dig in. There are many reports of </font></font><a href="http://www.dailytribune.com/articles/2011/03/07/news/doc4d75049a8f371987091571.txt" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">dogs eating the wounded toes</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> of family members. The victims are often afflicted withdiabetes, which causes numbness in the feet, and they can't feel the doggnawing at them. Epidemiology studies also undermine the desire to believe thatFido would never turn on us. More than </font></font><a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/279/1/51.long" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">900 people</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">visit U.S. emergency rooms for dog bites every day, and more than half of thoseattacks occur at home.</font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">Finally, it's noteworthy that therewere seven man-eating dogs in the Saskatchewan home, rather than a single pet.Behaviorists point out that dogs are </font></font><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1424390/pdf/pubhealthrep00113-0059.pdf" target="_blank"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif">more aggressive in packs</font></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> (PDF), with more timid individuals joining in after theirpeers launch attacks on humans. </font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> </font></font><br /><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman,serif"> </font></font> |
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