8号六级阅读原题，看看大家做得怎么样

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1 电子垃圾
http://temp.sfgov.org/sfenvironm ... /article/081602.htm

S.F., S.J. officials vow to act on e-waste
They say initiatives would be proposed if state fails to ok plan


Frustrated with delays in Sacramento, Bay Area officials said Thursday they
planned to take
matters into their own hands to regulate the region's growing pile of
electronic trash.
A San Jose councilwoman and a San Francisco supervisor said they would
propose local initiatives
aimed at controlling electronic waste if the California Legislature fails to
act on two bills
stalled in the Assembly. They are among a growing number of California
cities and counties that
have expressed the same intent.

Environmentalists and local governments are increasingly concerned about the
toxic hazard posed
by old electronic devices and the cost of safely recycling those products.
An estimated 6
million televisions and computers are stockpiled in California homes, and an
additional 6,000
to 7,000 computers become obsolete every day. The machines contain high
levels of lead and
other hazardous substances and are already banned from California landfills.

"The computer industry is still refusing to take responsibility for its
toxic products and is
lobbying strongly against these bills," said Supervisor Sophie Maxwell of
San Francisco. Without

action by the Legislature, "municipal governments must take the lead."

Maxwell, San Jose Councilwoman Linda LeZotte, and environmental activists
held a news
conference in San Francisco on Thursday, a day after one of the pending
state bills was
debated in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. Both measures are being
held in Assembly
suspension files while legislators try to resolve the state budget.

Legislation by Sen. Byron Sher, D-San Jose, would require consumers to pay a
recycling
fee of up to $30 on every new machine containing a cathode ray tube. Used
in almost
all video monitors and televisions, those devices contain four to eight
pounds of
lead each. The fees would go toward setting up recycling programs, providing
grants
to non-profit agencies that reuse the tubes and rewarding manufacturers that
encourage recycling.

A separate bill by Los Angeles-area Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Rosemead, would
require
high-tech manufacturers to develop programs to recycle so-called e-waste.

If passed, the measures would put California at the forefront of national
efforts
to manage the refuse of the electronic age.

Consumers would pay

But high-tech groups, including the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and
the
American Electronics Association, oppose the measures, arguing that fees of
up to
$30 will drive consumers to online, out-of-state retailers.

"What really needs to occur is consumer education. Most consumers are
unaware they're not
supposed to throw computers in the trash," said Roxanne Gould, vice
president of government
relations for the electronics association.

Computer recycling should be a local effort and part of residential waste
collection
programs, she added.

Recycling electronic waste is a dangerous and specialized matter, and
environmentalists
maintain the state must support recycling efforts and ensure that the job
isn't contracted
to unscrupulous junk dealers who send the toxic parts overseas.

Ending up in China

"The graveyard of the high-tech revolution is ending up in rural China,"
said Ted Smith,
director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. His group is pushing for
an amendment
to Sher's bill that would prevent the export of e-waste.

Maxwell and District 1 San Jose City Councilwoman Linda LeZotte, said they
would wait to
see what happens in the Legislature before introducing local measures.
LeZotte said she is
considering a local ordinance that would require the city to purchase its
computer equipment
from manufacturers that are deemed responsible in their recycling efforts.

"What the city of San Jose can say is, 'We can buy from the least toxic
company,' " she said.

Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties are among the local
governments that
have passed resolutions saying they will adopt local ordinances if the
Legislature doesn't act this year.

"In the long run, the high-tech industry has done a tremendous job of
innovating and
coming up with wonderful products that make our lives better," said Mark
Murray, director
of Californians Against Waste. "Those products have an environmental impact.
This sends
a message that they have to take responsibility for that environmental
impact. There
will be a reward for those manufacturers that design for recycling and
reduce hazardous waste."





2 克隆
"I've never met a human worth cloning," says cloning expert Mark Westhusin
from the cramped
confines of his lab at Texas A&M University. "It's a stupid endeavor."
That's an interesting
choice of adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars
trying to clone a
13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded,
though they have
cloned two calves and expect to clone a cat soon. They just might succeed
in cloning Missy
later this year---or perhaps not for another five years. It seems the
reproductive system
of man's best friend is one of the mysteries of modern science.
Westhusin's experience with cloning animals leaves him vexed by all
this talk of
human cloning. In three years of work on the Missyplicity project, using
hundreds upon
hundreds of canine eggs, the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so
embryos carrying
Missy's DNA. None have survived the transfer to a surrogate mother. The
wastage of eggs
and the many spontaneously aborted fetuses may be acceptable when you're
dealing with
cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. "Cloning is incredibly
inefficient, and
also dangerous," he says.
Even so, dog cloning is a commercial opportunity, with a nice
research payoff.
Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned in, 1997, Westhusin's phone at A&M
College of
Veterinary Medicine
has been ringing busily. Cost is no obstacle for customers like Missy's
mysterious owner,
who wishes m remain unknown to protect his privacy. He's plopped down $3.7
million so far
to fund
the research because he wants a twin to carry on Missy;s fine qualities
after she dies.
But he knows her clone may not have her temperament. In a statement of
purpose,
Missy's owners and the A&M team say they are "both looking forward to
studying the ways
that her clone differ from Missy."
The fate of the dog samples will depend on Westhusin's work. He knows
that
even if he gets a dog viably pregnant, the offspring, should they survive,
will face
the problems shown at
birth by other cloned animals: abnormalities like immature lungs and heart
and weight
problems. "Why would you ever want to clone humans," Westhusin asks, "when
we're not
even close to getting it worked out in animals yet?"





美国数学教育
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arch/10_19_96/fob2.htm
Precollege science and math 'lack focus'
by Janet Raloff

Throughout the nation's more than 15,000 school districts, widely differing
approaches to teaching science and math have emerged. Though there can be
strength in diversity, a new international analysis suggests that this
variability
has instead contributed tolackluster achievement scores by U.S. children
relative
to their peers in other developed countries.

Indeed, concludes William H. Schmidt of Michigan State University in East
Lansing, who led the new analysis, "no single intellectually coherent vision
dominates U.S. educational practice in math or science." The reason, he told
Science News, "is because the system is deeply and fundamentally flawed."

The new analysis, released this week by the National Science Foundation
in Arlington, Va., is based on data collected from about 50 nations as part
of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study.

Not only do approaches to teaching science and math vary among individual
U.S. communities, the report finds, but there appears to be little strategic
focus within a school district's curricula, its textbooks, or its teachers'
activities. This contrasts sharply with the coordinated national programs of
most other countries.

On average, U.S. students study more topics within science and math than
their international counterparts do. This creates an educational environment
that "is a mile wide and an inch deep," Schmidt notes.

For instance, eighth graders in the United States cover about 33 topics in
math versus just 19 in Japan. Among science courses, the international gap
is
even wider. U.S. curricula for this age level resemble those of a small
group of countries including Australia, Thailand, China, Iceland, and
Bulgaria.
Schmidt asks whether the United States wants to be classed with these
nations,
whose educational systems "share our pattern of splintered visions" but
which
are not economic leaders.

The new report "couldn't come at a better time," says Gerald Wheeler,
executive director of the National Science Teachers Association in
Arlington.
"The new National Science Education Standards provide that [focused]
vision,"
including the call "to do less, but in greater depth" (SN: 2/3/96, p. 72).

Implementing the new science standards and their math counterparts will
be the challenge, he and Schmidt agree, because the decentralized
responsibility
for education in the United States requires that any reforms be tailored and
instituted one community at a time.

In fact, Schmidt argues, reforms such as these proposed national standards
"face an almost impossible task, because even though they are intellectually
coherent, each becomes only one more voice in the babble."




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要我也贴也没有啊 ;)