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每日阅读汇总贴http://forum.chasedream.com/GMAT_RC/thread-562296-1-1.html
逻辑姊妹篇：http://forum.chasedream.com/GMAT_CR/thread-580862-1-1.html
【速度4-2】
TwoWheels vs. Four
How far do I have to ride my bike to pay back itscarbon footprint?
By Brian PalmerPosted Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011, at 10:13 AM ET
计时 1 （259 words）
I'm thinking about switching my daily commute from four wheels to two. ButI'm concerned about all the energy it takes to manufacture and ship a newbicycle. How many miles would I need to substitute a bike for my car beforeI've gone "carbon neutral"?
It's tough to say exactly how much greenhouse gas making a bicycle requires,since none of the major manufacturers has released data on their energyconsumption. Independent analysts have used a couple of different measures.Shreya Dave, a graduate student at MIT, recently estimated that manufacturingan average bicycle results in the emission of approximately 530 pounds of greenhouse gases (PDF). UmbraFisk, a research associate at Grist, came up with a totalcarbon footprint of one ton of carbon dioxide-equivalents for every $1,000 ofmanufacturing cost. These two estimates intersect at a bike that costs $265 tobuild—well within the range of manufacturing costs for the wide variety ofbicycles on the market.
So that's the goal: To trim about 530 pounds of CO2 emissions from yourcommute. There's been a lot of hemming and hawing about how biking or walking might not beso eco-friendly because your body burns more calories during those activitiesthan while driving. But, frankly, that's bunk: As the Pacific Institute has shown, you'd have to be eating an all-beefdiet to offset the environmental benefits of walking or bicycling. Given a"typical U.S. diet," you would have to ride your bike instead ofdriving for around 400 miles to cover the bike's initial carbon footprint.
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Calculating the total environmental impact of a mode of transit, however,involves more than just the easy-to-measure metrics like mileage per gallon. Toget a full sense of the comparative eco-friendliness of bicycles andautomobiles, you have to consider additional factors like their toll on theroadways, useful lifetime, and maintenance costs.
Shreya Dave's research went on to measure the full carbon footprint ofcommuting by bike using life-cycle assessment, the analytical tool thatenvironmental consultants employ to compare products that are often verydifferent. She concluded that an ordinary sedan's carbon footprint is more than10 times greater than a conventional bicycle on a mile-for-mile basis, assumingeach survives 15 years and you ride the bike 2,000 miles per year (or slightlyunder eight miles per weekday).
A huge portion of that difference came from fuel combustion, but bicyclesalso require less infrastructure than cars. Even if you assume that allbicycles travel in dedicated bike lanes rather than free-ride on car-laneconstruction—would that we were all so lucky as to have bike lanes between ourhomes and work—Dave calculated building, paving, and maintaining roads for carsemits almost four times the greenhouse gases as doing the same for bike lanes.
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Bikes also damage roads far less than cars do. A heavy bicycle weighs around30 pounds, just under 1 percent of the weight of a ToyotaPrius and less than 0.4 percent of the weight of a Hummer H2.Simply put, your bike isn't exactly tearing up the asphalt.
Bicycles aren't maintenance-free, but the occasional brake-pad replacementand cable adjustment are responsible for one-sixteenth as much carbon emissionsas all oil changing, tire rotation, and alignment work cars require.
What about other ways to get to work? According to Dave's life-cycleanalysis, the only vehicle that comes close is the peak-hour bus—and it's notreally that close. A fully loaded bus is responsible for 2.6-times the carbonemissions total of a bicycle per passenger mile. But the night and weekendservice ruins the bus's overall environmental credentials. Off-peak busesaccount for more than 20 times as many greenhouse gases as a bicycle. (Eachadditional passenger contributes very little to a bus's carbon footprint untilall the new riders require adding another bus to the route. As a matter ofconvention, environmental analysts divide the overall carbon footprint by thenumber of passengers, rather than attributing the entire carbon output of a busto the single passenger who forced the tipping point.) The mostly empty steelbehemoths are even worse, in terms of climate change, than private sedans,SUVs, and pickup trucks.
计时 4（258 words）
Those of you thinking that taking the subway is just as goodas riding your bike should think again. Subways and light rail systems trailbehind peak-hour buses, and way behind bicycles, in life-cycle assessment.They're relatively comparable to a packed bus on fuel use, but they need theirown dedicated infrastructure. Even if you prefer to ignore the energy needed tobuild and maintain a subway line—it is, after all, going to be there whetheryou take it or not—the fuel alone on Boston's Green Line accounts for almostfour times the bicycle's overall carbon footprint per passenger mile.
HowDo They Run Clinical Trials for Birth Control?
Aren't the subjects afraid of getting pregnant?
By Maura KellyPosted Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011, at 2:56 PM ET
A clinical trial of a male contraceptive has been canceled, researchersannounced Monday, after the drug was shown to induce serious side effects in 10 percent of the men whoused it. Wait, how are subjects chosen for clinical trials of contraceptives?Aren't they worried about getting pregnant?
They're willing to take their chances. Scientists look for healthy, fertile,sexually active subjects who don't want to get pregnant or impregnate anyone,but understand there's a risk of conceiving. Most modern contraceptive trialsinvolve several phases: In the early going, researchers try to evaluate thebasic safety of their drugs, and the extent to which they can lower a man'ssperm count or inhibit a woman's ovulation; later on, they measure the drug'sreal-world efficacy at preventing unwanted pregnancies.
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In the early phases of testing, volunteers take the experimental drug whileusing other forms of contraception, like condoms or diaphragms. For latertests, participants are asked to forgo these backup methods, and are instructedto consider the attendant risks. (In the case of male contraceptives,researchers look for men in committed relationships who can discuss the riskswith their partners.) In any case, researchers are pretty confident, at thispoint, that the new drug works about as well as other products in common use;they're just trying to compute its precise rate of efficacy, along with itsease of use and the extent of its side effects.
Still, why would anyone take their chances with an experimentalcontraceptive? Some may be motivated by a desire to help develop new drugs.That's often the case in trials of male pills and injections, as many subjectsbelieve that men should bear some of the burden for birth control. Malesubjects may also be dating women who can't use other forms of contraception.As for women, the motivations are free health care and free birth control. Andthere's always the allure of cold, hard cash: Participants in these trials canearn a decent amount of money—maybe $1,000 or more, depending on the exactdetails of the experiment.
At least no one has to worry about getting a placebo. As a general rule,contraceptive trials test a new treatment only against itself. There's no needfor a control group, since researchers know how individuals would fare withstandard methods, or without any "treatment" at all. (About 85percent of couples using no form of contraception get pregnant within a year.)
【越障4-2】
August 10, 2011
Brand New
A little less than a year ago, Gap got caught with its pants down. After 20years, the company had decided it was time to roll out a new logo. So, withnext to no fanfare, it replaced on its website the familiarwhite letters on navy blue background with a fresh look. A Gap execdescribed the new logo as “current and contemporary.”
Sadly, a lot of people didn’t agree. In fact, it was as if Gap had announcedthat anyone who had worn Gap jeans—ever–would be audited. The offended gatheredtheir modern-day version of torches and pitchforks—tweets and statusupdates—and expressed digital outrage.
Gap backpedaled furiously. First, it asked people to send their own designideas. But a few days later it dropped the crowd-sourcing notion,derided, particularly by professional designers, as cheesy and cheap. Today,Gap has the same logo it did 20…uh, 21 years ago.
I bring up this story because it gets to the heart of the dilemma facingevery company with a marketing budget. We’ve vaulted into a world where simplypitching products is bad form; now it’s all about building relationships with a“community.’ It almost doesn’t matter how Gap’s new logo looked. Its bigger sinwas that it had surprised its fans. It had agreed to a date, then showed upwith a shaved head.
At the same time, there’s the trend of logos becoming the bludgeon of choicefor groups wanting to hammer those they see as corporate evildoers. Greenpeace,for instance, has become a master of this kind of beatdown by Photoshop.Witness someof the 2,000 versions of BP’s logo that sprouted from Greenpeace’s call toaction after the oil well explosion in the Gulf last year.
So what does this have to do with innovation? Actually, plenty. Forward-thinkingcompanies are starting to figure out ways to convert their logos from iconicsymbols to tools of engagement. Why be satisfied with having people look atyour logo when you can get them to use it? (You may have noticed that wechanged this blog’s logo after people pointed out that the gears in theoriginal version wouldn’t have turned. It wasn’t meant to be interactive, butthe new one should be able to function in some virtual machine.)
Look at what Google’s doing. (I know, this is a second time I’ve mentioned theGoogle gang in the short life of this blog, but they get the innovationthing.) They started by playingwith their logo, allowing it to be as fluid as the world in which it lived.Like some typographic shapeshifter, Google’s Doodles began morphing tocelebrate holidays, famous birthdays, notable anniversaries. Then it turnedinteractive, enticing us to play PacMan or steer Jules Verne’ssubmarine or strumLes Paul’s guitar when all we wanted to do was look up a restaurantaddress. People used that guitar doodle to record their own versions of Lady Gaga songs,Beatles songs, Beethoven songs. All on a logo.
Not that we should expect the Walmart logo to turn into an accordion anytime soon. What we’re more likely to see from major brands is the sort of thingToyota is rolling out with some of its 2012 models. It’s a special logo calleda ToyoTagand it works like this: You take a picture of the logo with your mobilephone and send it to a short code. Or if you have an iPhone or Android model,you can use a reader app. Either way you’re sent info about the new models,sales promotions, videos or anything else that will help you feel the ToyoTagis more a friend than half the ones you have on Facebook.
And when it comes to logos on business cards, no one can top the MIT MediaLab. It’s created an algorithmic logo that can generate 40,000 different shapesin 12 different color combinations. Which means that for the next 25 yearsevery Media Labber will have his or her own version of thatvery liquid logo.
What if you could make logos totally honest? To see how that might play out,look at this slide showfrom Swedish design artist Viktor Hertz.
Posted By: Randy Rieland — Communication,Digital Media,News Media,Personal Technology,Social Media,Uncategorized | Link | Comments (2)
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