【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障15系列】【15-06】科技

starlitcream

[time 1]



The US wind energy industry breathed a sigh of relief earlier this month when Congress voted to renew a tax credit that could be worth up to $12 billion over the next decade.



The tax credit comes as a major boost -- but the headlines don’t tell the full story about a struggling industry. Jobs that were cut last year have yet to be replaced. And wind energy faces growing competition from the cheap natural gas that’s abundantly available across the United States. Our correspondent Mary MacCarthy reports from Colorado.



In some ways, 2012 was a remarkable year for WIND. It was the first time that wind energy was the number-one source of new power added to the electricity grid in the United States.



Fort Felker, director of National Wind Technology Center, said, "Forty-two percent of all new power that was added to the grid in 2012 was from wind energy -- ahead of natural gas, ahead of all the other fossil fuels."



Fort Felker runs a team of government wind energy researchers in Colorado who work in close partnership with industry leaders across the nation. Their goal: to develop techniques and technology to make wind energy cheaper. But the dropping prices of other energy sources has made it hard to keep up.(213)







[time 2]



Fort Felker said, "The bad news is that, for many years, our target in the wind industry was to beat coal. To be cheaper than coal. And therefore lead to wind being the most desirable source economically. Well, we’ve done that. Wind is cheaper than coal power. But now of course natural gas has come in much less expensive than coal. So the target has been pushed lower."



For now, the U.S. wind industry is highly dependent on subsidies -- in the form of a U.S. federal tax credit.



The tax credit was renewed at the end of last year -- but fears that it could expire led to major jitters, with companies halting new orders and production firms cutting hundreds of jobs. Here in Colorado, the company perhaps worst hit by the uncertainty was wind-turbine manufacturer VESTAS.



Hundreds of employees were laid off and others went on a reduced work-week subsidized by state funds.



Susan Innis, senior manager of VESTAS Public Affairs, said, "We do have some of our employees on what’s called a workshare program, so they’re working reduced hours. And that’s a state of Colorado program that allows us to keep our employees on board. We spend a lot of time training employees how to build wind turbines, so we want to retain those skills. So when we see the market start to pick back up, we can hopefully bring them back to full-time."



For now, both state and federal subsidies are keeping companies like Vestas afloat in the U.S. market…But the American Wind Energy Association is optimistic, forecasting that wind WILL be able to compete with coal and natural gas without government help by 2018.(294)







[time 3]这篇特别简单大家放松放松
A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Monday that the Chinese government is worried about recent negative developments in cyber security.

Spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the remarks at a regular press briefing in response to a question regarding an alleged Chinese cyber attack directed at Germany.

Hua said some countries have treated cyberspace as a new battlefield, justifying their efforts to build up their own cyber arsenals by making their own rules for how cyberspace should be treated.

Hua said these activities have increased the risk for a potential conflict.

She said the cyber espionage conducted by some countries represents an attempt to divert attention from real problems and will not help to create a cooperative international atmosphere.

"China has cooperated in the areas of cyber security and law enforcement with 30 countries, including Britain, Germany and Russia. It has developed an overall mechanism for fighting cyber crime and hacker attacks," she said, adding that China hopes relevant parties will stop lodging accusations and work together to safeguard cyberspace security.（163）







[time 4]

“FOUNDATION”, a novel by Isaac Asimov from the golden age of science fiction, imagines a science called psychohistory which enables its practitioners to predict precisely the behaviour of large groups of people. The inventor of psychohistory, Hari Seldon, uses his discovery to save humanity from an historical dark age.

A fantasy, of course. But the rise of mobile phones and social networks means budding psychohistorians do now have an enormous amount of data that they can search for information which might yield more modest patterns of predictability. And, as several of them told the AAAS meeting, they are doing just that.

Song Chaoming, for instance, is a researcher at Northeastern University in Boston. He is a physicist, but he moonlights as a social scientist. With that hat on he has devised an algorithm which can look at someone’s mobile-phone records and predict with an average of 93% accuracy where that person is at any moment of any day. Given most people’s regular habits (sleep, commute, work, commute, sleep), this might not seem too hard. What is impressive is that his accuracy was never lower than 80% for any of the 50,000 people he looked at.

Alessandro Vespignani, one of Dr Song’s colleagues at Northeastern, discussed what might be done with such knowledge. Dr Vespignani, another moonlighting physicist, studies epidemiology. He and his team have created a program called GLEAM (Global Epidemic and Mobility Model) that divides the world into hundreds of thousands of squares. It models travel patterns between these squares (busy roads, flight paths and so on) using equations based on data as various as international air links and school holidays.

The result is impressive. In 2009, for example, there was an outbreak of a strain of influenza called H1N1. GLEAM mimicked what actually happened with great fidelity. In most countries it calculated to within a week when the number of new infections peaked. In no case was the calculation out by more than a fortnight.(330)

[time 5]

Politics, too, is falling to the new psychohistorians. Boleslaw Szymanski of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York state studies how societies change their collective minds. By studying simulated networks of people he can predict the point at which a committed minority can convert almost everyone else to its way of thinking. For an idealised model, the size of this catalytic minority is just under 10%. Tweaking the model with data from real networks such as Twitter and Facebook, he hopes, will allow these insights to be applied to the real world.

The boldest idea of the session, though, came from Dirk Helbing of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Dr Helbing is one of the leaders of the FuturICT project, the aim of which is to create a general computer model of society.

As Dr Helbing puts it: “We understand the universe much better than we understand our own societies.” But physicists do not understand the universe by tracking every atom within it. They do so by devising and combining laws (gravity, thermodynamics and so on) that each describe part of the system. Similarly, a model of society would not aim to simulate in detail every human being on the planet. Rather, by combining smaller, more specific models, of the sort outlined by Drs Song, Vespignani and Szymanski, Dr Helbing hopes he or his successors will eventually be able to describe whole societies.

The Terminus man

That is a wildly ambitious project, but there could be some useful staging posts on the way: predicting when people are likely to riot, for example, or modelling the breakdown of trust between banks and customers that causes financial crises. This really is Seldon country, although Dr Helbing is quick to point out that a crystal ball is impossible. That is because the maths underlying complicated systems like societies are exquisitely sensitive to a model’s starting conditions. Small errors can quickly snowball to produce wildly different outcomes. But, decades hence, a kind of social weather forecasting that would make reasonably specific predictions, with a reasonable amount of confidence, over short periods may not be out of the question.(355)

越障

The first of four reports from the AAAS’s annual meeting looks at how brains are wired up

BIOLOGISTS used to suffer from physics envy. It was the physicists, not them, who got the big bucks for big science. That changed with the Human Genome Project, which spent about $3 billion over a decade reading (though not always understanding) the complete sequence of the genetic “letters” of the DNA that describes how to make and run a human being. The genome project, however, came to an end ten years ago. Ever since then, ambitious biologists have been looking for the Next Big Thing. And rumour has it that the NBT is about to be announced. In March the American government is expected to launch an attempt to solve biology’s most mysterious problem: how the brain works.

The Brain Activity Map, as this project seems likely to be called, will study how the brain is wired up at all levels, from the connections between individual nerve cells to the neuronal superhighways between its various lobes and ganglia. In so doing it will institutionalise the emerging science of connectomics—which was one of the centrepieces of this year’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Boston from February 14th-18th.

The connectomists, if they may be so called, are attempting to complete a project begun in 1543 when Andreas Vesalius published a book called “De humani corporis fabrica” (“On the fabric of the human body”), which was the first modern treatise on anatomy. The science of anatomy, with its mantra that form follows function, has illuminated understanding of every organ but the brain. Now, the connectomists hope, this last bastion will fall, and a comprehensive atlas of neuroanatomy will lead to a real knowledge of mental processes and mental disease.

Life in thin slices

Jeff Lichtman, of Harvard University, works at the lowest anatomical level of all, that of the links between individual nerve cells. He is using an industrial approach to build exquisite three-dimensional maps of how such cells connect to each other in the brains of mice. To do so, he and his colleagues embed brains in plastic and put them in a machine that cuts them into microscopically thin slices. The slices are automatically processed and stored on circular plates in a library. Tiny areas of these brains can then be photographed by an electron microscope, and clever software follows each cell from one slice to the next, to reconstruct, as the picture above shows, how those cells connect to each other.

The picture is of a piece of tissue only 100 microns across. Yet it required 2,000 slices to produce and about a terabyte of data to store, and it contains parts of thousands of nerve cells (only a few dozen of which are shown, in order to avoid confusion). A brain contains hundreds of billions. And that, in a nutshell, is the measure of the problem of brain anatomy. Yet you have to start somewhere, and Dr Lichtman’s hope is that when he has looked at enough small blocks of nerve cells, patterns will emerge that will cause someone to say “aha!”, and produce a testable theory of what is going on.

A comprehensive theory of how brains work will, however, require an understanding of their higher levels of organisation, as well. And the top end of that scale, where anatomical structures are measured in centimetres rather than microns, is the province of the Human Connectome Project (HCP). This, as its name suggests, was set up as a stepchild of the Human Genome Project—and if the rumours are correct, its fairy godmother is about to arrive and the $35m that it has to spend over the course of five years will soon be multiplied, albeit under a different name.

At the moment, the HCP’s largesse is split between two groups, one led by Harvard and one by Washington University, in St Louis. Steven Petersen, who works on the St Louis side of things, explained to the meeting what they were all up to.

Unlike Dr Lichtman’s project, the HCP studies still-living creatures, so rather than chopping brains up it uses the most up-to-date forms of scanning technology, including a technique that can follow the passage of water molecules around the brain and another that observes correlations between the metabolic activity of different brain areas, to map otherwise invisible pathways between various nerve centres.

The brains Dr Petersen and his colleagues are scanning belong to 1,200 volunteers, including 300 pairs of twins (some identical, some not), who each come in for a two-day assault course of questionnaires, cognitive tests and sessions lying in the scanner. This way, the HCP researchers hope to establish which features of brain architecture are common to all, how much they vary from person to person, how they relate to someone’s skills and behaviour, and (via the twins studies) how genetic variation changes them.

Co-ordinated action

The metabolic-activity approach has been particularly fruitful. Marcus Raichle, one of Dr Petersen’s colleagues in St Louis, explained to the meeting how it has revealed many previously invisible networks in the brain. These are formed of places all over the organ where metabolic activity ebbs and flows synchronously, even when the person in the scanner has been told to lie still and not to think about any particular task. And the discovery of these networks is not merely of academic interest. As William Seeley of the University of California, San Francisco, explained, they may also be the key to understanding some nasty neurological diseases.

Connectomics, Vesalius style

Hitherto, doctors have found it convenient to distinguish between disorders of the mind, such as schizophrenia and clinical depression, which leave no obvious anatomical trace, and disorders of the brain, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, which do. But this is surely a false distinction; it is merely that the anatomical traces of psychiatric disorders have not yet been found—perhaps because they are actually caused by misconnections, known as “connectopathies” in the jargon, that current techniques are not clever enough to recognise. One of the aims of connectomics is to find these connectopathies. Conversely, it is not clear how Alzheimer’s and other dementias whose physical traces can easily be seen with existing techniques actually spread through the brain. But Dr Seeley thinks an important part of the answer has now been found, for in Alzheimer’s and four similar but rarer dementias the pattern of spread seems to match the networks of co-ordinated metabolism described by Dr Raichle. Somehow, the links that co-ordinate activity are also spreading the disease.

Exactly what is going on is unclear. But this discovery may be the clue needed to work out how to stop dementia in its tracks. If it is—given the burden that an ageing population threatens to impose on many countries over the next few decades—connectomics will have proved its worth even before the big bucks turn up.（1144）

美人夜带刀

1 31 WIND ENERGY  BECOME THE FIRST NEW majority energy in 2012 ,the company want to make it cheaper while the competitor ---natural gas and stuff ---also down the price .2013the wind energy will take a breath.

美人夜带刀

1‘41 the wind source target now is beat natural gas not coal because the natual gas price is now lower than coal. The wind source assoation think they can achieve this goal in 2018without government help
the renewed tex credit helped wind company have more work opportunity .

 第3篇特别简单的没看懂关键词！

spencerX

thx for sharing!

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0:07:34

blairwashere

1 01.15.4 U.S wind energy industry is voted to increase the tax worth to 12 billion for next decade. the wind industry in US always face a struggle situation because the coal and fossil energy is more useful then wind, and more people use gas, coal and fossil energy than people use wind. but at 2012 the wind become the mainstream of the energy consumption.

2 01.54.4 the primary goal for wind energy industry is beat the coal energy but this has been done by nature gas. anyway the wind companies usually depend on tax credit and the employees depend on subsidiaries. many employees laid off. at last they predict that the wind energy will make profit without government help in 2018.

3 01.16.8 china stupid cyber security law. the government  pursued some other counties that cyber spy activity. I assumed all this movement of china government is political strategy.

4 02.16.4  The inventor of psychohistory makes a experiment to test people.

5 01.59.7 A wildly idea from expertise that they want to create a computer society model for political and society activities.

obstacle
07.31.2

having6

1-1'33"
Renewing a tex credit is a news for the US wind energy industry. WIND get a fast development in 2012. For the prices of other energy sources are dropping, it's hard to make wind energy cheaper.

2-2'13"
The US wind industry faces many challeges. Hundreds of jobs in the industry are cutted. But the American WEA is optimistic.

3-1'32"
China hopes that relevant parties will stop lodging accusations and work together to safeguard cyberspace security.

4-2'31"
With the rise of mobile phones and social networks, now, scients can do as the fantasy describes.

5-2'39"
The study is supported by politics.A kind of social weather forecasting that would make reasonably specific predictions over short periods may be possible.

yuezhang-10'01
A large amount of money may be put into the research of how brains are wired up. And the findings will be useful.

zxppx

1.1-13
There is a new tax that will influence the wind energy industry. The year 2012 is a time for wind, and 42 percents of energy used to produce electrity comes from the wind energy. However, even though some people tell that they will develop wind energy more thoroughly, the decreasing prices of other products make the plan much hard to succeed.
2.1-50
People hope that the wind energy can be cheaper than the coal, thus increasing the useage of wind energy. And people make it come true. However, the wind energy industry is based on the credit fund, but the credit was changed last year. The change may have an effect on the workers. Some people are laied off. One company in Colorado wants to retain its workers by reducing the work time. Other people think that the wind energy industry will develop well without the help of the government.
3.1-14
China has paied attention on the cyber security. Spokewoman Hua said that some contries made their own rules on the cyberspace, potentially increasing conflicts among countries. China has built cyber security with 30 countries.
4.2-19
People are invited a new way to predict future. Many people use mobile phone to search and they can also predict something. What's more, Song Mingchao can predict where a person is at any time, and the accuracy is always above 80%. Other people invites a model, which predicts the H1N1 in 2009.
5.2-33
Politics is an aspect that people want to predict. People find that the minority may be influenced totally, when the minority is below 10 percent. Some people think that we can know more about the universe than we do about our society. We can use some models to study the universe. On the other hand, people hope they can predict more things, such as when will the banks be closed and how people can prevent financial crisis. However, it is hard for people to make these thoughts come true, considering the complexity of mathmatics in some degree.
6.8-00
People are spending a lot of time and money to research the brain. The first atomony theory is invited in 1583, but it tells nothing about brain. Now a group of people in Harvod University are doing researches to know more about the brain. Researchers watch the splited nerveous cells move, and they hope that there is a theory can be found. However, only these work cannot people find the desirable result. Now there are two groups to study the brain, Harvod University and Waston University. The latter group find many volunteers to help do these researches, and it find something useful. Maybe these information can help explain something about diseases. However, people can make sure the accuracy and further researches are needed to be conducted.

hxfnp92

【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障15系列】【15-06】科技
1'18 213
1'43 294
1'19 163
2'11 330
3'10 355
8'20 1144 Biologists are researhing how the brain works.
A biologist in Harvard cut the mice's brain into slices to observe and take pictures show how the cells connect to brain.
HGP(Human Genemo Project) was found. It is split between Havard and Washington University. HCP studies still-living creatures.
It is false distinction that doctors have found it convenient to distinguish between disorders of the mind because the anatomical traces of disorders have not yet been found.

浅吟天

1  01:29 wind power has a relif because of the gov's tax credit. However, it still need to be cheaper to compete with other powers.
2  01:52 Although wind power is less costy than coal, it is not cheaper than natural gas. Thus less requirement causes 减产 and accordingly some people are laid-off or not full-time working.
3  01:25 some contries do their own rules in cyberspace. China keep cyber security.
4  02:41
5  02:21


09:36

cheungby

Time1——1'11''——177wpm——A brief news about the current condition of the wind energy in Corolado, US.
Time2——1'36''——181wpm——This part expresses the challenges for the wind energy right now in the competition with coal and natrual gas energy industry, but American wind energy assosiation is still optimistic.
Time3——1'03''——155wpm——It's some bullshit a Chinese spokeswomen said about Chinese government's attitude towards the cybersecurity and the measures to face the new change.
Time4——2'53''——114wpm——This paragraph explained the process of modern phycohistory--the technology to use the statistic from the mobile device to calculate and predict the behavior of people in the future.
Time5——2'18''——154wpm——This part explained the another application of phycohistory and also a scientist's hope for this technology's future--to describe the whole society, though right now still facing lots of problems.
Obstacle:7'08''——160wpm——main idea: The article is about some new discoveries on the brain science--mainly about two Amenrican scientific team's research content. The Harvard U team's Brain Map Project and The Wshington U team's Human Connectomics Project. Although now the results are still unknown, but maybe in the future they can provide hopeful clue for curing the mental diseases.