[1010G]Economist阅读帖--决战2010 by annke

annkeUID: 2605122

Coal ash, fertiliser and even seawater may provide nuclear fuel
Apr 8th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
ONE of the factoids[线索，事实] trotted out[让某人听或看（尤指信息、解说性的事物等, 常指提供过的。和后面time to time 照应] from time to time by proponents of nuclear power is that conventional coal-burning power stations release more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear stations do. The reason is that the ash left over when coal is burned contains radioactive elements, notably uranium and thorium.
[这句可用作aw开头，以此逻辑作为开头，照此说来](Turn that logic on its head) and it suggests that such ash is worth investigating as a source of nuclear fuel. And that is exactly what Sparton Resources, a firm based in Toronto, is doing. It has signed a deal with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), the authority that runs the country’s nuclear-power stations, to recover uranium from coal ash at a site in Lincang, in Yunnan province
Uranium is usually extracted from ore that contains 1,000 or more parts per million (ppm) of the element. The Lincang coal ash holds much less, about 300ppm. That said, it does not need to be mined—which brings costs down. Sparton says it can extract a kilogram of uranium for $77 or less. Uranium’s spot price is now near $90 a kilo. That is not a huge margin, but it is a profit nonetheless[尽管如此，但是].
To extract the uranium, Sparton adds sulphuric and hydrochloric acids to the ash, along with water, to make a slurry. With [some sorts of][有些，某种] ash, nitric acid is also used. The acids dissolve the uranium, and various other things, leaching them from the ash. The trick is to get the dissolved uranium out of the resulting solution.
Sparton’s process uses a charcoal filter made from burned coconut husks to trap floating particles and eliminate organic compounds. The filtered solution is then passed through small beads of an ion-exchange resin[树脂]. These selectively[有选择性的] remove uranium ions while leaving the others behind—extracting about two-thirds of the uranium in the ash, according to the company. The uranium is then dissolved from the beads using a solution of ammonium carbonate and precipitated as “yellow cake”, a mixture of uranium oxides.
China is developing ash-mining for reasons of energy security more than economics[中国开发灰烬采矿与其说是出于经济原因不如说是出于能源安全], according to Wang Hongfang, a marketing manager at CNNC. The country wants to get uranium from “every possible channel”, Mr Wang says. These include stripping[剥落] it out of the tailings[尾渣] from gold and copper mines, and also from phophoric acid produced during the manufacture of fertiliser. Nor is CNNC alone in this aspiration[不单单是cnnc有这样的打算]. NUKEM, a German-American company that enriches and sells nuclear fuel, hopes soon to begin “mining” fertiliser in Florida.
Some people are even turning to seawater as a source of uranium, in an eerie[（不可言状的因迷信）可怕的；阴森恐怖的＝weird；神秘怪异的【记】写这个单词的时候我的头皮都起鸡皮疙瘩了！把其中的3个eee看成黑森林里的三只眼睛。"] recapitulation[重演] of Fritz Haber’s attempt to pay off Germany’s first-world-war debts by extracting gold from the ocean. Though seawater contains only three parts per billion of uranium, mostly in the form of uranyl tricarbonate, the element can be sucked out of it by ion exchange. [例子，用于科学是把双刃剑，名人等。Fritz Haber 发明合成氨，在一战中不分善恶帮助德国研制化学武器，对他争论很大，很多人认为他没有资格获得诺贝尔化学奖][in an eerie recapitulation of 是（不好的）XX的故技重施。]
Several organisations, including Japan’s Atomic Energy Agency and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in India, are attempting to do so. Their methods include the use of strips of ion-exchanging plastic, braided with polystyrene to toughen them up. These are placed in wire cages and anchored in a current of seawater. After a month or two, the plastic is removed and soaked in acid to dissolve the uranyl tricarbonate. The solution is then treated to precipitate uranium oxide.
At the moment, this process costs more than ten times as much as conventional mining, but some countries might regard that as a small price to pay for security of supply. Perish the thought[但愿如此] that the supply is for anything other than[除了…之外的任何] providing fuel for civilian nuclear-power stations.[最后这句表现了作者的怀疑和无奈。开发核能真的只是作为民用发电站吗？但愿如此。]
[结构：现象解释型。
1越来越多的国家开始用新方法开发核能。Like ,ash-coal, fertiliser, even seawater
2 分别介绍方式的可行性，以及主要采取的国家
3 作者有自己的态度 ]

annkeUID: 2605122

Turkey's president
A family quarrel
Is Abdullah Gul ready to challenge Recep Tayyip Erdogan?
Apr 15th 2010 | ANKARA | From The Economist print edition
A Turk in his palace
THE elegant office of President Abdullah Gul says something about Turkey. Its bay window looks out over Ankara. On a wall hang landscapes by an Armenian Ottoman court artist, Ivan Aivasovsky. Under Mr Gul’s predecessor[在前任总统的领导之下], Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the window was walled in and the Aivasovskys rotted in the cellar. A dour[严厉的] former judge, Mr Sezer rarely travelled. Mr Gul completed his 61st foreign visit as president (to Oman) this week. Overtly pious(表面虔诚), yet pro-Western and a free-marketeer, Mr Gul symbolises(实际有野心，站在西方立场上描述的) the new global ambitions of his country.
[烘托渲染房间表现人物性格特征，“优雅的房间讲述了些许土耳其的东西”窗户外开、本土画家的风景画。与前任总统的作风对比，突出Gul。Gul本人的外在表现和实际作风对比。]
To most of the world Mr Gul is a moderate, who in five years as foreign minister balanced the excesses of his mercurial prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Erdogan publicly sparred with（公开辩论） Israel, but Mr Gul quietly lobbied（暗地游说） Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. Mr Erdogan stands for charisma（领袖魅力）, Mr Gul for common sense（常识）. But now an undeclared battle is brewing（不宣而战）: Mr Erdogan is believed to covet（觊觎） the presidency, but Mr Gul wants to keep it.
[在Gul的性格作风烘托之后，对比Erd的作风，二者的反差充满了张力，突出了二者的竞争态势。]
One problem is that nobody, not even Mr Gul, seems to know when his term expires. “Do I have seven years or five years? I don’t know,” Mr Gul says. The trouble is that when parliament (dominated by Mr Erdogan’s mildly Islamist Justice and Development, or AK, party) elected Mr Gul to the job in 2007, it introduced changes[做出改变] to have the next president directly elected by voters for a renewable five-year term. The question is whether Mr Gul can benefit from this and run again; or whether he, like previous presidents, can serve only a single seven-year term and step down in 2014.[任期不确定问题]
Legal opinion is divided, but politics will surely prevail. 法律意见分歧，但政治肯定会占上风The Gul camp argues that the president is entitled to another term. Mr Erdogan’s allies disagree. “Mr Erdogan supported Mr Gul’s presidency. It’s his turn to make sacrifices for Mr Erdogan,” says a source close to the prime minister. A general election is due next year. Should AK win a third term, Mr Erdogan may be tempted to use the mandate to elevate himself into the presidency. Some believe that the AK’s latest attempts to reform the constitution, including measures to enhance the president’s powers, are tailored for Mr Erdogan to take the job.[支持前一句，use the mandate to elevate,] But what if Mr Gul decides to stand against him? That could split the party and even bring down the government.
The party faithful ridicule this idea[表示否认意见，faithful ridicule]. In Islamic tradition, they argue, the ambitions of any individual are set aside for the common good of the umma, or community. They may be right. Mr Gul and Mr Erdogan began their careers in Turkey’s Islamist movement and have been close for years. They co-founded AK and secured its first election victory, in 2002. Mr Gul was prime minister to start with, as Mr Erdogan could not take his parliamentary seat until March 2003, when he made Mr Gul foreign minister.
Differences between the two did not surface until 2007[二者的分歧直到2007年才显现], when Mr Gul announced his bid for the presidency, apparently against Mr Erdogan’s wishes. The chief of staff[参谋长], Yasar Buyukanit, promptly threatened a coup[立即威胁要发动政变], on the grounds that[由于，以…为依据] Mr Gul’s wife, Hayrunissa, wears the Islamic headscarf (banned in state institutions), making her husband unfit to be president. Mr Erdogan then called a snap election, giving Mr Gul a platform to campaign for his presidency. When AK won again, with an even bigger share of the vote than in 2002, Mr Gul duly[当之无愧地] got the job.
This was a huge blow to the generals[这是对将军们的巨大打击]. Had Mr Gul not stuck to his guns, their views might have prevailed. Mr Gul’s mild demeanour(温和的行为) disguises the steely will(钢铁意志) that first led him to rebel against Necmettin Erbakan, founder of Turkey’s political Islamists, who was ousted as prime minister in a “soft coup”(温和政变) in 1997. Although he does not have Mr Erdogan’s popular support, he retains influence inside AK. But will he keep it when Mr Erdogan draws up(起草) candidates’ lists for the next election?
Much may depend on the election result. Should AK do relatively badly, Mr Erdogan’s presidential ambitions will be squashed and Mr Gul might count himself lucky to have his seven years. What is clear is that, so long as Turkey’s opposition parties are ineffectual, the only serious challenges to AK come from within.[目前明朗的是，由于对手没有影响力，竞争只能是来自内部]
[讲政治竞选的，文章主要围绕对比的构建，表现竞选对手之间的情况]

annkeUID: 2605122

Who speaks for Britain?
With a month to go, voters seem to think Labour deserves to lose the election but the Conservatives don’t deserve to win it. An unexpectedly close race could hand an important role to a third party for the first time in almost four decades
Apr 7th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
THIS time next month, a government may have fallen, and New Labour gone to its rest alongside Thatcherism[比喻，在撒切尔主义旁边睡觉]. But the mood in 2010 is very different from the buzzing eagerness of 1997, when the Labour Party swept the Conservatives from power. This time the polls are close; party positions are far less [远不及]distinct than party rhetoric; many voters are undecided; and a big chunk of[很大一部分] them are more apprehensive about the future than elated by it.
Five years ago Labour won an unprecedented third consecutive victory. Five months ago it looked as if that would have to be the limit of its ambition. Labour seemed tired and divided, its leader, Gordon Brown, ham-fisted[愚笨的] and hated. The Tories[托利党], redeemed from political Siberia by a fresh-faced[生面孔] centrist[中间派议员], David Cameron, were streets ahead in polling, and had only to hold on to[坚持] win.
But things moved on. The prime minister, bloodied but unbudgeable[血腥但是毫不动摇], urged voters to “take a second look at Labour” and “a long, hard look” at the Conservatives. They did. And decided they either didn’t know what the Tories stood for or didn’t like it. By the end of March a hung parliament, in which no party enjoys an overall majority, seemed a plausible outcome[可能的结果].
The background to all this is one of wrenching change and uncertainty, on several fronts. For a decade and a half Britain enjoyed solid growth. The City of London was the world’s biggest international financial centre. Jobs grew on trees. Heavy spending on public services pulled up their quality a fair bit. Most Britons grew more tolerant of diversity (or maybe more indifferent to it). And there was a certain swagger[大摇大摆] on the world stage. Mr Brown, chancellor of the exchequer for ten years, preached the virtues of Anglo-Saxon capitalism to benighted[愚昧的] folk in other lands[渲染英国大摇大摆的姿态]. As prime minister, Tony Blair intervened militarily hither and yon.
So the shock was considerable when, in 2008, Britain slid into its worst recession since the 1930s, taking longer than other big countries to crawl out. Banks needed handouts[施舍]. Factories closed. Now prospects for growth are wan and the budget deficit eye-wateringly[让人想哭的] large. Spending will be cut back and taxes are already rising. People are frightened about their economic future, and their children’s.
That increases unease in another area: social cohesion and behaviour. Britain has just undergone its biggest wave of immigration in history. Race relations were already mixed when Islamist attacks in London in July 2005 threw them into the headlines. Other questions were raised by the influx of workers from central and eastern Europe, such as what Britain’s own working class was for. And while new people were arriving, old problems were disappearing only slowly, including binge-drinking[纵酒的], crude[粗俗的], rude young people and dysfunctional[涣散的] families. As opportunities evaporate, anxiety about identity and entitlement[权利，津贴] seems to be sharpening.
The third big shock has to do with foreign policy and defence. As it limps away from[缓慢离开=crawl out] the war in Iraq and struggles with the cost, in money and lives, of another in Afghanistan, Britain is re-evaluating its place in the world. Not for the first time, it faces the prospect of relegation from the Premier League of nations with worldwide influence[比喻：英国面临着在超级大国世界影响力联赛中被驱逐的命运]. This time a long, strong fiscal squeeze[财政紧缩] will make it hard to spend as much on diplomacy, defence and foreign aid as keeping a top spot requires.
So this election matters more than many[意义更为重大]. The central choice is, as usual, between the two main parties, Labour and Conservative. But with the polls close, the Liberal Democrats are in the spotlight too. And in a very tight election any of the parties in the devolved bits of the United Kingdom—the Scottish National Party, the Welsh Plaid Cymru and four Northern Ireland parties—could also hold the balance of power.
The issues most on voters’ minds as they head to the polls are the economy, health and education, immigration, and law and order, according to Ipsos MORI[益普索斯国际市场研究公司], a polling firm that tracks these things. Policy differences are not always clear-cut[清晰的] (though party manifestos[宣言] due out soon will seek to make them so). Austerity is on the way whoever wins, though both the Tories and the Lib Dems would cut the deficit faster than Labour. No main party has made immigration the strident issue the Tories did (disastrously) in 2005, though it is cropping up[突然出现] more as the election nears. Foreign wars, too, are less divisive this time than last. The [自由民主党]biggest foreign-policy gaps are over Europe, with the Lib Dems its loudest cheerleaders and the Tories the most sceptical.
If the debate over economic and fiscal policy is mainly about judgment (when to cut, how much and where), big differences of principle emerge in the argument over education. Recognising that the failure of the school system to equip a great many children for life or work is Britain’s Achilles heel[软肋，致命要害], the Conservatives (and indeed the Lib Dems) want to shake it up[赶快摆脱] with the kind of supply-side[供应改革] reforms that New Labour has given up on.
But this election is in fact less about ideology than it is about values and personalities. The Tories talk of reducing the role of the state and strengthening families; Labour, drifting to the left, laments the persistence of privilege[哀号着特权存在] and promises “fairness” in distributing pain or gain. In the end, it may come down to how well the party leaders project[放映出] competence and empathy, or even whether a televised preference for pancakes or bacon butties echoes[反映，折射] the voters’ own. Britain’s parliamentary elections are becoming ever more presidential.

annkeUID: 2605122

Flash in the pan
As Apple flexes its mobile muscles, it is changing the appearance of video on the web
Apr 16th 2010 | From The Economist online
GIVE Steve Jobs his due. Apple’s charismatic boss is, without question, the most strategic thinker in the business. He appreciates better than anyone that computing is in transition. As it evolves from being predominantly a stationary activity to becoming increasingly (exclusively?) a mobile one, the roles of the industry’s leading participants are changing fast.
When Microsoft ruled the realm of personal computers, Apple was little more than a niche player. But in mobile phones, Microsoft is the one left scrambling for a piece of the action分一杯羹. And although Google may own 65% of the search business on the desktop, the 85m wireless devices Apple has sold (iPhones, iPods and now iPads) account for 64% of America’s mobile browsing, Mr Jobs said this month.
The success of Apple’s mobile devices gives the firm an opportunity to capture a goodly chunk of the emerging mobile-advertising market. Indeed, that is the reason why Apple recently acquired Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising agency. Becoming an advertising powerhouse广告巨头 is certainly attractive. But Mr Jobs has far bigger fish to fry更大的野心抱负. The biggest of them all is turning Apple into the Microsoft of mobility. But first there is a little matter of locking as many software developers as possible into the Apple ecosystem. If the applications are there, so the argument goes, users will follow in droves成群成群的.
introduce the success of Apple & Jobs, and suggest the new action of Jobs
It has been done before. What gave Microsoft the keys to the kingdom开启微软帝国大门的钥匙 was partly the way it embraced an open platform开放 based on the Intel processor plus slots插座 for other manufacturers’ components to plug into插入. Even more important, though, was the vast number of applications written by independent programmers that worked exclusively with唯一能运行 Microsoft’s operating systems.
Mr Jobs has no intention of ever opening Apple’s hardware for others to mess with打扰、胡乱摆弄. But software that meets a minimum standard is a different matter. At the last count最近一次统计, the App Store (Apple’s online outlet for iPhone software) listed 185,000 applications for users to choose from. So far, some 4 billion software utilities, games, maps and music tracks have been downloaded by owners of iPhones, iPods and lately iPads—all of which share the same operating system and can therefore use many of the same applications. The App Store offers Mr Jobs his best chance yet of creating a global franchise on a par with Microsoft’s Windows已经为Jobs提供了和微软一样的全球特许经营权. From Apple’s perspective, the last thing it should therefore do is allow that考虑到allow for unique source of customer satisfaction to be threatened in any way.
No surprise, then, that Mr Jobs has banned programmers from writing iPhone apps using cross-platform交互式跨平台性programming tools like Adobe’s Flash and Microsoft’s .NET, which make it easy to write an app for many different devices and operating systems at once. Flash plug-ins插件, running inside web browsers, can be found in Macintosh computers, but in none of Apple’s mobile toys.
Were Flash ever to find its way in through the back door to the iPhone operating system, Apple’s armlock on its customers would be severely weakened. If most apps are built to run on Android and BlackBerry phones, as well as iPhones, then Apple would lose the advantage of being able to offer the widest choice of apps. With all smart phones able to do similar tricks these days, there would be less compulsion to buy an iPhone in the first place.
Apple bans the Flash in applications provided for ipods,iphones and ipads
But there is a big problem with banning Flash: without it, people cannot play most of the videos, animation and games encoded on websites using the industry’s most popular tool. Adobe’s Flash software powers the vast majority of multimedia clips seen on the web—from YouTube videos to the simplest animated chart or advertisement. Apple’s devices include software that can play YouTube videos when needed. But apart from that they are incompatible with content built in Flash. (Bad luck, Farmville fans.)
Still, Mr Jobs remains adamant固执的. In his view, Flash is a rat’s nest of buggy software that hogs增加 processor cycles, drains耗干 battery life and causes needless crashes. That is why he has just blocked an end-run Adobe was planning around his ban on mobile Flash. Henceforth从今以后, developers creating applications for the iPhone and its ilk家族 will have to sign a revised agreement that forbids them from using any programming tools other than Apple’s approved set.
The move was prompted by the arrival of Adobe’s latest programming aid, Flash Pro CS 5. This threatened to turn Flash applications of the kind seen on the web into stand-alone iPhone apps capable of slipping onto the App Store undetected. Adobe even boasted—rather rashly, as it turned out—that over 100 such programs had already done just that.
the disadvantages of banning Flash, and resolutions
Does Apple’s latest clamp down on钳制、施压、制裁 Flash mean that people who have bought iPhones, iPods and iPads are now stuck with被迫接受 a crippled version残缺版本 of the web? For the time being就目前来说, yes—though there are partial workarounds权宜之计 that might yet help. Eventually, though, a technology known as HTML5, which has been in the works for the past six years, promises to render Flash largely irrelevant. Among other things, the attraction of HTML5 is that it is designed to handle audio and video internally, without the need for browser plug-ins such as Adobe’s Flash (or others like Microsoft’s Silverlight and Oracle’s JavaFX).
Unfortunately, HTML5 remains a work in progress. Where, today, Flash can seamlessly handle无缝处理 a variety of “codecs” for compressing and decompressing the video’s data stream between the web server and the viewer, HTML5 is experimenting with two distinctly different codecs for video playback: one, called H.264, is used in Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s forthcoming IE9 browsers, while the other, known as Ogg Theora, has been adopted by the Firefox and Opera browsers; Google’s Chrome has embraced包含了 both.
Experts agree that the H.264 algorithm运算法则 produces a superior picture, but it is a proprietary technology专利—though free to license, at least for the time being. For internet purists, Ogg Theora’s attraction is that it is open source. A religious war has broken out between the two camps over which codec to standardise on.
The good news is that a solution may yet be in sight在望. By all accounts, Google is poised to信誓旦旦地 open-source its highly regarded VP8 video codec. The search giant has hinted as much ever since acquiring the codec’s maker, On2 Technologies, earlier this year. Insiders reckon内行/知情人预计 VP8 uses only half the bandwidth of H.264 while delivering an even better picture. Mozilla, the open-source organisation behind Firefox, would welcome VP8 into the fold.
the future possible solution for internal devices substituting the plug-ins nowadays
But would Apple, after having backed H.264 so enthusiastically? If it promised a quick and certain death for Flash, Mr Jobs would doubtless be delighted to go along. For deprived缺乏的/可怜的 iPhone users, the crippled web might then be a thing of the past.

annkeUID: 2605122

Signs of life
Is it time for a new approach to finding extraterrestrials?外星人
Apr 15th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

IN THE Cascade小瀑布 mountains of California, north of Lassen Peak, astronomers are looking for aliens. The Allen Telescope Array (mostly paid for by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft) consists of 42 dish antennas尤指射电望远镜中巨大的）抛物面状天线, each six metres across, scattered across the countryside. When the array is complete, it will have 350 dishes that, by acting in concert通过一致行动, will have the power of a single instrument 700 metres across.
The Allen telescope is looking for aliens the traditional way: by searching for radio signals that have either been sent out deliberately, or leaked into space accidentally, as human radio signals are. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence地外文明/外星智慧, or SETI, is a 50-year-old idea. Much progress has been made in locating Earthlike planets (see article) but about 1,000 star systems have also been subject to serious radio scrutiny也遭受了无线电检测. The Allen array will increase the number to 1m within a decade.
That is an impressive number but some think this is the wrong approach. Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University, points out that widespread radio communications may prove a short-lived historical phenomenon on Earth. Humans are, after all, increasingly using fibre optics光纤 to talk to each other. Moreover, many modern radio devices (such as mobile phones) rely on a technique called “spread spectrum” encoding扩频解码. It uses signals that look like background noise, except to a receiver equipped with the right unscrambling code. Humans figured this out within a century of inventing radio technology, so aliens might have done the same. Radio signals that are clearly artificial in origin may, then, be only a transient sign of civilisation. So it might make sense to widen the search by looking for other telltales.
The truth is out there
Dick Carrigan, a retired particle physicist, has enumerated several suggestions列举措施建议 for such signs in a paper posted recently on arXiv, an online repository仓库 of scientific papers. His first idea is to look for pollution in the atmospheres of promising planets. This is an extension of the idea点子的延伸 of looking for signs of life in atmospheres. It would be obvious to anyone who turned a spectroscope on Earth, for example, that something odd was going on. Air that is 21% oxygen, one of the most reactive elements in the periodic table元素周期表, suggests the gas is being freshly minted—as it is, by photosynthesis.
e.g. This Russian chemist is famous for his formulation of the periodic law and the publishment of the first periodic table, a classification of the elements in1869.
In February this year Mark Swain of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and his colleagues reported that they had developed a new technique for calibrating data arriving at ordinary ground-based telescopes发明了新方法去校准到达地面望远的镜数据, allowing them to identify the components of an extrasolar太阳系外 atmosphere. They used it to detect methane in the atmosphere of a planet nearly 63 light-years away. In the past only space-based telescopes could manage this trick—and they are ludicrously很贵 expensive.
Dr Carrigan says that besides looking for oxygen, astronomers should seek molecules such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which would be unequivocal明确的 signs of technology, since no natural process on Earth creates them. (Although if CFCs were as damaging as they are on Earth, they too might be transient technologies.)
Instead of looking for the earliest signs of industrialisation, then, perhaps the thing to do is to let the imagination run riot and ask what technology might do to a solar system if it had tens or hundreds of thousands of years to work its magic. This is the realm of…的领域 science fiction, of course. But the best sci-fi is grounded in reality基于现实/rooted it reality/based on reality.
One famous work of science fiction is “Ringworld”, by Larry Niven. This book, which describes the descendants of a civilisation that has converted the material in its planets into a giant ringlike structure around its sun, was inspired by Freeman Dyson’s idea that a truly technologically advanced species would endeavour努力<>in vain to capture as much light as possible by building a spherical shell圆形贝壳 around its central star. Such so-called Dyson spheres would, if they exist, reradiate captured energy (after some of it had been put to good use) as heat—infra-red radiation.
This radiation can be detected although Dyson spheres remain difficult to distinguish from natural astronomical objects that give off similar signatures. The birth and death phases of stars, for example, are associated with heavy dust clouds that give off an infra-red signal which might resemble the swarm和群相似 of artificial satellites constituting a Dyson sphere.
So far, few astronomers have conducted searches for Dyson spheres—and none has been successful. But Dr Carrigan still thinks it is worth trying. He has been cataloguing possible candidates编组候选人 from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, a collaboration between America, Britain and the Netherlands that conducted the first space-based survey of the entire sky at infra-red wavelengths and located hundreds of thousands of sources. On his website he offers tips for amateur cosmic archaeologists who wish to hunt for Dyson spheres. An investigation of SETI signals from the 13 “least implausible并非难以置信的 Dyson sphere candidates” is planned for the Allen telescope.
Any civilisation that has built a Dyson sphere will have to have been around for a long time, of course—and in the very long run its star will start to change in unpleasant ways, ballooning to form膨胀而形成 a red giant. Another signature of advanced technology would be an attempt to slow this process down. Red giants are created when a star exhausts its supply of hydrogen at its core, with the result that the inner layer contracts and the outer layers expand, forming a redder and much larger star. If the star’s outer layers could be mixed into the core, that would slow the process of inflation down. And, presumably大概可能, a sufficiently advanced civilisation would try to do that if it could.
Such a star would look odd, though. It would be bluer than it should be and would be of a type known to astronomers as a “blue straggler游击队员”. Although, again, there are perfectly natural reasons these might form. The universe, though, is an ancient place, so many civilisations could be very old indeed. Perhaps, then, it will be a sign like this—of a technological civilisation millions of years old—that is seen, rather than some upstart that has not even got its radio waves under control.
围绕探索地外生命的新方法来展开，首先，以前的方法有缺陷，如radio is transcended; suggesting infra-red to examine, citing a scientific fiction to prove the possibilities of energy accumulating.第一遍没有读懂，没有跟上逻辑，首段的中心很重要

annkeUID: 2605122

Background reading
Biodiesel[生物柴油]
Oil in your coffee
Feb 4th 2009
From Economist.com
A new source of fuel production
RUNNING a diesel engine on a plant-based fuel is hardly a new idea. Indeed, one of the early demonstrations shown by [Rudolph Diesel], the German engineer who invented the engines at the end of the 1800s, operated on pure peanut oil. Diesel fuel made from crude oil eventually [won the day] because it was easier to use and cheaper to produce. Now new forms of biodiesel are starting to change the picture again. And one of the latest sources comes from the remains of a drink enjoyed the world over: coffee.
Biodiesels are becoming increasingly popular. In America, Minnesota has [decreed颁布命令] that all diesel sold in the state has to contain 2% biodiesel (much of it from the crops grown by the state’s soya farmers). Biodiesel can also be found blended into the fuel used by public and commercial vehicles and by trains in a number of countries. Aircraft-engine makers are also testing biofuel blends. Because biodiesels can be made from materials derived from plants, which use carbon dioxide to grow, they potentially have a much lower [carbon footprint碳排放量] than petroleum-based fuels.
Coffee is also a plant product, but once the beans are ground[压迫研磨] and used they end up being thrown away or put on gardens as compost[堆肥混合肥]. Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta Mohapatra and Manoranjan Misra of the University of Nevada at Reno have found that coffee grounds can yield by weight 10-15% of biodiesel relatively easily. Moreover, when run in an engine the fuel does not have an offensive smell—just [a whiff of] coffee. Some biodiesels made from used cooking-oil leave a car exhaust smelling like a fast-food joint. And after the diesel has been extracted, the coffee grounds can still be used for compost.
The researchers’ work began two years ago when Dr Misra, a heavy coffee drinker, left a cup unfinished and the next day noticed that the coffee was covered by [a film of] oil. Since he was investigating biofuels, Dr Misra [enlisted赢得支持] his colleagues to look at coffee’s potential. The nearby Starbucks was happy to oblige[赐] by supplying grounds.
They found that coffee biodiesel [is comparable to比得上] the best biodiesels on the market. But unlike soya and other plant-based biodiesels, it does not use up plants or land that might otherwise be planted with food crops.
Unmodified[未改变的] oils from plants, like the peanut oil used by Diesel, have a high viscosity[粘度] and require engine alterations[改变]. Diesel fuel is less thick and usually can be burned in an engine with little or no tinkering[焊补，修补]. The diesel-extraction for coffee grounds is similar to that used for other vegetable oils. It [employs a process] called transesterification[酯基转移], which reacts the grounds with an alcohol in the presence of a catalyst.
The researchers start off by drying their coffee grounds overnight and then pour in some common chemical solvents[溶剂], such as hexane[乙烷], ether[乙醚] and dichloromethane, to dissolve the oils. The grounds are then [filtered out过滤掉] and the solvents separated (to be reused with the next batch of coffee grounds). The remaining oil is treated with an alkali碱 to remove free fatty acids 游离脂肪酸(which form a soap). Then transesterification takes place by heating the crude biodiesel to about 100 degrees Celsius to remove any water, and treating it with methanol甲醇 and a catalyst. On cooling to room temperature and left to stand, the biodiesel floats up, leaving a layer of glycerine at the bottom. These layers are separated and the remaining biodiesel cleaned to remove any residues.
Although some people try to brew[酿造] their own diesel at home from leftovers[遗留物] and recycled cooking oils, coffee-based diesel seems better suited to larger-scale processes. Dr Misra says that 1 litre of biodiesel requires 5-7 kg of coffee grounds, depending on the oil content of the coffee used. In their laboratory his team has set up a one-gallon-a-day production facility, which uses between 19-26kg of coffee grounds. The biofuel should cost about $1 per gallon to make in a medium-sized installation[中等大小体格], the researchers estimate.
Commercial production might be suitable for an operation that collects coffee grounds from big coffee chains and cafeterias. There is plenty available: a report by the United States Department of Agriculture says that annual world coffee demand consumes more than 7m tonnes of coffee, which the researchers estimate could produce some 340m gallons of biodiesel. [Time, perhaps, for another cup before refilling the car.形象地说还得有段时间]
About this debate
The petrol-powered engine's life is drawing noisily towards its close[在使命将终结时，又开始讨论]. But what will replace it? One possibility is just to replace the petrol. Biofuels burn just as well and don't contribute to global warming. Or do they? Land needs to be cleared to grow them, and making them needs energy. Electric cars have better acceleration and really are zero emission. Or are they? Not if the electricity is made by burning coal.
Opening statements

Defending the motion
Alan Shaw Ph.D.   
President & Chief Executive Officer, Codexis
Cars of the future may be more like the cars of today than some think. It is the fuel that will be different.

Against the motion
Sidney Goodman   
Vice President, Automotive Alliances
When Great Britain entered the first world war, its First Lord of the Admiralty was concerned about his fleet.

The moderator's opening remarks[仲裁观点]
May 22nd 2009 | Mr Geoff Carr   
Though the price of oil has fallen from the dizzy[让人头晕的，昏厥的] heights of last summer, the stuff is still expensive by historical standards, and [the palest of green shoots of recovery have been enough to cause an uptick最苍白无力的回复（绿芽）又开始上扬了]. Oil is getting scarcer. It is concentrated in parts of the world not [noted for以…著名] their political stability. And burning it is a huge source of man-made carbon dioxide, with all its [attendant伴随的] risk of climate change. One way or another, then, the age of oil is drawing towards its close. The question is, what will replace it as the source of power for motive power.
Several contenders have been tried and [found wanting被发现不合格]. In particular, hydrogen, either burned directly in internal combustion engines or used to make electricity in fuel cells, has been [touted被吹捧] around for decades. The so-called hydrogen economy has, though, failed to materialise. The gas is explosive and hard to handle. It is also hard to store in a form dense enough to be a plausible[合理的 on-board] fuel. Its boiling point is only 20 degrees above absolute zero, so carrying it liquid in tanks is tricky[棘手的]. And attempts to absorb it in large quantities into special reservoirs made of things such as carbon nanotubes[纳米碳管] have proved equally futile as a practical technology. Hydrogen cars, then, are going nowhere.
Instead, and surprisingly rapidly, two ideas from the dawn of motoring have been revived. Before the dominance of petrol and its cousin diesel, there were serious attempts to make battery-powered electric cars and also cars powered by ethanol. These two approaches were driven off the road as more and more oil was found and [an oil-based infrastructure achieved economies of scale基础设施获得了规模经济效应]. Now, however, with better technology, both are back. Cars powered by batteries and by biofuels, such as ethanol, are [making headway有进展] in the marketplace. But the two use very different technological approaches and, in the long run, it is doubtful whether there is room for both. We are therefore delighted to have two of the leaders of the rival approaches to debate the merits of each cause.
Proposing[defend辩护，提议] the motion is Alan Shaw, the boss of Codexis. His firm uses techniques that mimic sexual reproduction and natural selection to create artificial enzymes that perform tasks no natural enzyme can manage. Among these is the synthesis of chemicals that can be used as motor fuels. These chemicals, such as octanol, a heavier relative of the ethanol used as biofuel today, make good substitutes for petrol, and can also be mixed with it. Codexis is already dealing with Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world's largest oil companies, to commercialise this approach.
Opposing the motion we have Sidney Goodman. Mr Goodman is vice-president of automotive alliances at Better Place, an electric-car company that is building the infrastructure needed to support such vehicles in Israel, and plans to do the same in Denmark and Hawaii. His firm, too, relies on a fairly new technology: large-sized versions of the lithium-ion batteries now used to power laptop computers and mobile phones. Better Place's vehicles can be recharged in the normal way, by plugging them into the [electricity grid电力电网], but their [battery packs电池组] can also be replaced in a matter of minutes at special roadside filling stations.
Both approaches have their virtues and vices[善恶得失]. The biggest virtue of biofuels from the consumer's point of view is continuity. Next-generation biofuels of the sort Dr Shaw is developing will burn in existing engines without those engines having to be modified. The production lines in Nagoya, Wolfsburg and (assuming it gets past its current difficulties) Detroit, will not have to be retooled[重新装备], nor will car-owners have to learn new habits.
The consumer virtue of electric cars, paradoxically, is the opposite. Because they are a new, disruptive technology, they provide an opportunity for a complete redesign. Most of those now on the drawing-board will look familiar, but already engineers are starting to play, as the three-wheeled Aptera, which will be available later this year, demonstrates. Also, electric cars have high acceleration and no need for a [gear box齿轮箱]. It is surely no coincidence that one of the first on the market, the Tesla, is a top-of-the-range sports car.
Environmentally, both technologies are green, but not necessarily as green as they might appear at first sight. Being made from plants (which draw their carbon from the air), biofuels make no net contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. That is good. But plants have to be grown, and that takes land, some of which may previously have been virgin forest, which is bad. Batteries produce no carbon dioxide at all, of course. But they have to be recharged using electricity which comes from power stations. If that means burning more coal rather than, say, building more wind turbines, then that is bad, too.
Which of these technologies will dominate the future, then, is truly moot[未决的]. At the moment, they look evenly balanced[同样平衡的], but both are changing rapidly. Which [makes the greater strides更大迈步] towards cheapness and efficiency will obviously have an effect on the outcome, as will external factors such as how quickly electricity grids can be upgraded to [cope with应付] the extra demand that a widespread adoption of electric cars would require (biofuels need no such change in the infrastructure) and whether political will gathers behind one or the other.
All these areas, and others I have no doubt missed, will be explored by Dr Shaw and Mr Goodman over the coming days. As both a neutral observer and an interested party, I, for one, am looking forward to it [immensely极度地，无限地期待].

The proposer's opening remarks
May 22nd 2009 | Alan Shaw Ph.D.  
Cars of the future may be more like the cars of today than some think. It is the fuel that will be different. This fuel will come from sustainable sources. It will be produced closer to where it is used. It will be cleaner. In short, it will be advanced biofuel.
第一个论点，出于环境的考虑This is important to all of us concerned about the environment. Why? In reality, most cars of the future will be powered like the cars of today. Generations of automobiles, including today's models and most to come, rely on the internal combustion engine. Meanwhile, replacement of existing cars will not be instantaneous[立即，以后再也不用immediately了！！]. According to AAA (American Automobile Association), there are over 240m vehicles in the United States. Passenger cars had a median age of about nine years in 2006, and this median age has been steadily rising since 2001. Cars and trucks 11 years and older now account for more than a third—36%—of vehicles on the road. As the recession continues to affect new car purchases, these ages are likely to rise. [举例说明现在的车没有太多改变，以后会淘汰]
As cars are replaced, future cars that consumers will buy must be affordable and convenient to operate. Gasoline (petrol) and diesel are the most affordable and convenient fuels of the last century, and they remain so today. However, in recent years the sustainability of petroleum-derived gasoline and diesel has been questioned. What will future fuels be like? Future fuels must [be compatible with以后别用suitable了] existing car engines and the current fuel delivery infrastructure. And all of us as global citizens will demand that fuel be cleaner and sustainable. The biofuels of the future will meet those tests. They will be made from biomass, engineered by modern biotechnology to be renewable and clean and practical for customers to find and use, right down to the corner filling station.
Next generation biofuels offer [compelling advantages压倒性优势]. First, they perform much like gasoline and diesel today. In industry [parlance用语], these are called "fungible"可替代的, meaning they are interchangeable within the existing fuel supply. They will also be compatible with existing vehicles and fuel distribution systems, [bypassing绕过] the need for costly new delivery infrastructure systems. Use of advanced biofuels will also eliminate concern about a "blend wall", since they can be blended in any concentration with petrochemical fuels, increasing their penetration.
In the future, car owners will not need to change how they buy or use fuel. [A good analogy类比论证] from our home here in Silicon Valley is Web 2.0 software, where changes to online applications are immediately available to every user. No need to buy new hardware, wait for upgrades or hope it works when installed.
Biofuels will be the most sustainable and [environmentally compatible和环境兼容] transportation fuels. First-generation transportation biofuels, such as corn-based ethanol, have been useful in reducing dependence on fossil fuels. However, they have not been efficient enough in energy output, and complex issues concerning food prices and land use have been raised. In the future, [commercially viable商业上可行], fungible biofuels will be based on multiple[多种的] non-food feedstocks[原料], sourced locally near fuel production sites.
Today, significant public and private resources are being poured into making our cars more efficient. We expect continued technology advances, towards our common goal of protecting the environment. Electric-battery vehicles, for example, are based on important new technology which we believe will have a role in the future. However, significant near-term challenges remain.
Performance issues such as suboptimal battery life and storage capacity are well known[性能问题，比如最优的电池寿命、储存能力]. But the potential impact on the environment is, ironically, one of the main issues concerning electric vehicles[电动车]. First, electric-battery vehicles would be charged—predominantly主要的—on coal-produced power, which [is well documented as=well proved/justified as] a significant source of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Clearly, generating more coal-based power to charge electric cars would also generate additional pollution.
Second, battery-powered cars will likely depend on lithium, a raw material already in high demand from the computer industry. This raises concerns about potential environmental harm in the less-developed countries where lithium is found. In addition, the environmental impact of [expended battery disposal耗尽的电池处理] will need to be addressed. These obstacles may create challenges to the widespread availability and adoption of practical, affordable electric vehicles.
Another barrier to plug-in rechargeable, battery-driven cars is the reliance on our weak, antiquated[陈旧的] power transmission infrastructure. In the United States alone, [a report from the Electric Power Research Institute estimates报告引用形式！] that the country currently has enough extra electric capacity to charge 1m cars overnight. But there are more than 240 m vehicles now in use. An estimated 30m or more electric cars added to the transportation fleet in the next decade could severely tax an already strained system.
The current US power grid is [woefully inadequate=disappointedly insufficient] and in need of significant upgrades. Experts say the US system is not capable of reliably and safely meeting the energy challenges facing us now and in coming decades. Further, the areas of greatest wind and solar potential may not be close enough to the grid system, triggering siting and other debates that could fracture otherwise sound alliances.[触发了选址等讨论，这些讨论引起了分歧而不是坚实的联盟] Consider, for example,[ environmentalists] who are split between upholding the Endangered Species Act when debating the fate of the desert tortoise over siting solar panels and transmission infrastructure in the Mojave Desert on the grid, for broader distribution[这只是一个成分。。].
We expect vigorous debate to continue among scientists and others about the future of transportation fuel. This is healthy and ensures that all viewpoints are heard. In the end, we all agree transportation pollution must be reduced.[ For this goal to be met], the fuel of the future must be accessible and affordable for consumers, as well as cleaner. Otherwise, it will make no difference, because it will remain a laboratory curiosity or [niche marketing opportunity缝隙市场的机会]. Next-generation biofuels, derived from renewable natural sources, are a practical step in the right direction.

The opposition's opening remarks
May 22nd 2009 | Sidney Goodman   
When Great Britain entered the first world war, its [First Lord of the Admiralty英国海军大臣] was concerned about his fleet[舰队]. All the ships were powered in the same way—by burning coal—and the young Winston Churchill observed that the interests of security required a diversification of the fuel mix so that no nation was dependent on a single means of fuel or energy. And so he introduced into the fleet refined petroleum, which [set off a series of events引起了连锁反应] that, ironically enough, led nearly the entire transportation world to come to depend on that same fuel. Today, roughly 98% of the world's surface transportation is powered by refined crude oil. Ask people about what that mix will look like a generation from now, and you [are bound to一定要] hear the same solution that motivated Churchill-diversity, so that again, no nation or economy is completely reliant on an single means of fuel.
先从对立面说起，讲到对立面的难处，然后引致所要表达的观点[Diversity] in fuel sources is not an undesirable objective. However, it is often confused with something else: [delivery]. Future transportation can diversify its mix of molecules—can substitute refined crude for harvested produce like corn or sugarcane—or other feed stocks still being developed in the lab. But as we look beyond the world of transportation we rarely see molecules used as a driver. And there is a very good reason for that. Electrons are more efficient.
Consider why we have made such a massive investment to build mankind's single largest machine, the electricity grid. Because engineers recognised that allowing electrons to be produced and distributed by this means was far more efficient than hauling wood, coal or any liquid substance to the point at which power was required.
[从日常经验谈起，建立生物分子和物理电子的紧张态势]Today we live in a connected world; almost everyone has a connected device—cell phones or PDAs. They come in every imaginable shape and size, every colour and set of features. But every last one of them runs not on molecules but electrons; every one of them has a rechargeable battery that is, in most instances, also switchable.
The car is one of the last non-connected devices, but that can be easily changed. Unlike other alternative fuel solutions, the science and technology exist today to make mass-market electric cars a reality.
A study for the Department of Energy finds that "off-peak" electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 70% of the US light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet, if they were plug-in hybrid electrics.1  Not only does the capacity exist today on the existing grid, but electric cars can also accelerate the market for renewable energy. Renewable energy has been difficult to capture because it is intermittent[间歇的], but electric cars can [be plugged to堵塞] capture renewable sources of energy at peak times when traditional demand is typically low and that renewable energy is wasted.
What is needed is not a new technology or molecule that we must learn how to produce, distribute and deliver to our vehicles, but a new conduit[导管] to the car—a conduit for electrons rather than molecules.
So why haven't electrons come to[改变，让..接受] transportation so far?
There have been many challenges to the adoption of the electric car, but [the heart of the challenge has been in the cost and range of the battery]. Past generations of batteries were dirty, unreliable, short in range and high in price. Today's batteries continue to be heavy, expensive and range-limited, at least when compared with a similar volume-metric on oil. However, the surprising fact is that today's batteries, when combined with proper infrastructure and business model, can actually deliver a cleaner, more convenient and cost-effective experience than anything else available to drivers today.
To illustrate this, imagine for a moment a plug in every parking spot. The majority of drivers will return to their car to find it has been topped off to the full range of the battery, comfortably 100 miles in a [conventional sedan常规的汽车]. Since the vast majority of trips are within that 100-mile range, a [ubiquitous charge infrastructure无所不在的补给设施] would serve to take the inconvenience of pulling into a service station for a five-minute fill-up out of the driving experience. Add to that a network of battery-switch stations that replace depleted batteries with fully charged ones in less time than it takes to fill up with petrol and the consumer experience is even more compelling. Such a station was successfully demonstrated by Better Place in Yokohama, Japan on May 13th.
With a network of ubiquitous charge-ready parking spots and battery-switch stations, the consumer experience becomes more convenient, with zero stops for energy in the daily routine, and very quick stops at 100-mile intervals on extended trips.
With electricity to power electric cars, we have the opportunity to break our dependence on oil in a meaningful way today and to do it on a global scale. Every element of electrification described is based on customer-ready technology that has minimal barriers to scale.
Meanwhile, alternative liquid fuels [lack any available feedstock capable of scaling] to replace oil today, because of either competition with food crops or the limitations of available land, so that currently proven biofuels have a very [low ceiling of capacity产能的上限很低]. [And even if让步论证] science yielded a form of lab-produced cellulosic ethanol that could reasonably be produced [in volumes] to meaningfully [offset] oil use, there would still be a massive distribution infrastructure required that does not exist today. Finally, because the distribution of electrons is so much more efficient than that of molecules, virtually [any example cited] of success from alternative liquids could be seen as a greater success if those same liquids produced electricity that was then fed to the vehicle by means of the grid.
In a recent study from the University of California Merced, scientists found that biomass converted into electricity produced 81% more transportation miles and 108% more emissions offsets compared with ethanol.
And so, while the future of our transportation energy should be about diversity—particularly about a growing diversity of clean energy sources—this should not confuse the conduit by which this energy is delivered to the vehicle. That conduit should emphatically be for electrons that can be delivered to the car either through direct charge or battery switch. That is the [formula] to give the world the clean and secure energy future that it has so long sought, and it can be executed today.
[反驳观点太强大了！1定义讨论焦点——关键是在能源的输送环节。2电能已经有完善的电网输送设备，而生物能源并没有。3电能的可能性在于不仅可以直充，而且可以用电池；而且电能的效率高。4生物能其实优势并不明显：难以大规模生产，效能低于电能，废物排放高于电能。]

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Obituary
Sir James Black
Sir James Black, pharmacologist, died on March 22nd, aged 85
Apr 13th 2010 | From The Economist online

ANYONE who has tasted the stress of modern life—who has got up, bolted a coffee, run for the train, missed the connection, come late for the meeting, raced through the presentation, lunched on a lager[啤酒] and a greasy burger—[has reason to be grateful to] Sir James Black. For Sir James invented the little white or pink capsule of the beta-blocker propranolol which, taken every day before breakfast, slows down the racing heart, lowers the blood pressure, soothes [migraine headaches偏头痛] and calms stage-fright[怯场]. And he also invented the round white pill of cimetidine, marketed as Tagamet, which stops ulcers forming in the stomach and acid indigestion [burping up打饱嗝] the windpipe. Take both, and the result is serenity—of body, at least.
This “couple of successes” would [evoke a modest burst of laughter引起发笑] from Sir James. Although he won a Nobel prize for them in 1988, and though people called propranolol the most effective heart medicine since digitalis, he never thought them prizeworthy. Their [importance lay not] in the science, he said, [but] in the “accident” that they had made an awful lot of money—for ICI Pharmaceuticals[英国化学制药]Smith Kline, naturally, rather than for him. Propranolol, first marketed in 1965, became the best-selling drug in the world until Tagamet, launched in 1976, displaced it. [Both have their detractors反对者=opponents, but neither has been supplanted.][It is been said that contradiction will disappear if there is no fundamental divergence.]
Fame and attention made Sir James writhe with embarrassment, and wish aloud that he had some beta-blockers in his pocket. As the curious, genius son of a family of five generations of coalminers in rural Scotland, he had been schooled in self-effacement, and taught to [give credit to] others rather than himself. [He therefore pointed out that other people, chemists, doctors, biologists, had done the groundwork for him]. They had discovered that messenger molecules, or hormones, could recognise an affinity with cells and then “switch them on”, and that those two properties could be separated. He wondered, then, as he “walked round” the molecules, whether, if he cut here and trimmed there, he could change the messenger molecules’ behaviour: whether he could keep the affinity and get rid of, or suppress, the subsequent effects.
[例子，说明家庭环境的影响,谦虚的品质，团队协作精神。For example, Sir James Black, a famous pharmacologist, who won Nobel Prize in 1988 for inventing two kinds of pills to ease heartache and stomach ulcers, were always embarrassed with fame and attention, he gave credit to other cooperators. One of the reasons was as the son of a family of five generations of coalminers in rural Scotland, he had been schooled in self-effacement. His humility and moderation were made him admirable.]
In propranolol’s case, he began by wanting to stop the overexciting effects of adrenalin on the heart. He therefore developed a chemical similar to adrenalin, which would [bind with包扎起来] protein receptors for that hormone in tissues such as heart muscle. Thus bound, the receptors cannot react to adrenalin as well, so the hormone’s effects are reduced. In cimetidine’s case, his [self-appointed自封的] task was to stop histamine molecules stimulating the cells of the stomach to make acid. He supposed these researches might be beneficial, but he never set out to make superdrugs, and scorned—in his gentle but insistent way—profit-seeking institutions that set dozens of researchers to synthesise thousands of molecules in case one might be useful. He built drug molecules because he had an idea, and was passionate to test it.
[例子二，灵感的重要性，科学需要纯粹的追求。For example, Sir James Black, a famous pharmacologist, who won Nobel Prize in 1988 for inventing two kinds of pills to ease heartache and stomach ulcers, said he built drug molecules because he had an idea and was passionate to test it, which successfully achieved an advanced heartache pill. Profit-seeking institutions, however, set dozens of researchers to synthesize thousands of molecules in case one might be useful invented nothing at all.]
The drugs he invented acted as “blockers”, and 20% of the $825 billion [annual turnover年成交量] of the global pharmaceutical industry is earned by drugs developed on his principle. It took six years to develop propranolol, nine to make cimetidine, by a slow, dogged process of “bioassay” of his modified molecules on living tissue. He called his work “medicinal chemistry”, a cross between physiology, chemistry and the doctor’s career he had imagined he would follow when he first went, fizzing with nerves at 16, to take up his scholarship at St Andrews.
[例子三：交叉学科。复合人才的需要。In the advent of information ear, the edges of subjects become more and more vague. For example, “medicinal chemistry”, a crossing area between physiology, chemistry and the doctor’s career, is devoted in inventing medicine. According to Sir James Black, who won Nobel Prize in 1988 for inventing two drugs to treat heartache and stomach ulcers, this cross was crucial for a successful pharmacologist.]
Minds, not money
His career was spent half in academia, half in industry, and he had problems with both. ICI (1958-64) and Smith Kline (1964-73) gave him lab space and support, but tried to [rope him into绑住] team development and promotion of his inventions when Sir James, a natural loner and daydreamer, preferred to be wandering freely after the next idea. On the other hand, academia—St Andrews, the new physiology department at Glasgow, and University College, London—lacked the cutting-edge challenge of industry, distrusted his curricular ideas and, in latter years, seemed to borrow from the corporate world an obsession with making money out of science. Sir James was happier working independently in his own lab with a small team, an arrangement he found after 1984, with Wellcome Foundation funding, in King’s College, London. He was happiest of all in a room, or a pub, shooting the breeze with around two dozen young, fresh, inquiring minds.
[例子四，独立的重要性，坚持自我。Many crucial inventions in the world are out of independent thinking. For example, Sir James Black, a pharmacologist who won Nobel Prize in 1988, owed his success of new drugs to independent work. He said, on the one hand, supports from industry, like ICI and Smith Kline tried to rope him into team promotion; on the other hand, academia—St Andrews lacked the cutting-edge challenge of industry. So he chose to independently research in his own lab and wandered freely between ideas. ]
“A pharmaceutical toolmaker” was how he humbly described himself, as if he was still in his forefathers’ mining trade. But statistics showed he was a lifesaver. [In 1978, 255 in every 100,000 British men aged 35-74 died of coronary heart disease; by 2007, that figure had fallen to 65. 例五。科技的积极作用。在新的药发明之后，死亡人数减少]By the time Sir James died, propranolol was also being tried on patients with post-traumatic-stress disorder. It was found to inhibit not only heart activity and the production of adrenalin, but also the action of norepinephrine, which consolidates memories. Stress, hypertension, indigestion, had all been conquered by “the country boy from the coalfields of Fife”. He did not live to find out whether he had also conquered the demons of the past.

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参观一下，顺便发现最近很忙耶。。。。。。。。
我都给你算请假了，呵呵

还是来提醒一下
今天晚上BS
151、161之后的2个题目

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Through the eyes of witnesses
Jul 28th 2010, 11:37 by J.M. | BEIJING
YOUR correspondent was on leave on July 22nd, when Human Rights Watch released its report on the abuses that Chinese security forces [are alleged to宣称] have committed in Tibet since the massive eruption of anti-Chinese unrest there in 2008. The 73-page document describes itself as the first [comprehensive examination of the ongoing crackdown持续不断的镇压的综合训练]. Based largely on interviews with [200-odd两百余]Tibetans who left the region as refugees or on visits, it is a valuable contribution to an under-reported story.
China [is adept at老练/擅长] ensuring that little news of such repression gets out. In the far western province of Xinjiang, where the authorities have been cracking down since an outbreak of ethnic violence in July last year, the [tactic伎俩手段] has been to [sever communications links with the outside world by mobile telephone or the internet切断用手机和网络来作媒介与外界的联系] (though restrictions have been relaxed since May). On the Tibetan plateau, the authorities in some places [confiscated没收] mobile phones and computers from monks and made it all the more difficult for foreign journalists—who are [rarely welcome at the best of times即使在最好的时候也不见得受欢迎]—to visit. By chance I was the only foreign reporter on the spot when rioting erupted in Lhasa on March 14th 2008. I was not allowed back again until nearly two years later and then only for a [frustratingly令人沮丧的] brief tour.
Human Rights Watch documents killings, [torture折磨拷问], [show trials作秀审判], beatings and [arrests galore随意逮捕]. Much to its credit, it does not attempt to weave in reports that come via long-term Tibetan exiles, many of which are difficult to verify. The Tibetan government-in-exile[流亡政府] has reported more than 200 Tibetans killed by the security forces since March 2008, including at least 80 who died on March 14th that year. In support of this figure it has cited the alleged spotting of some 80 bodies piled near a Lhasa police station on the following day.
The report from Human Rights Watch appears to be more cautious. Many Tibetans may well have been killed by police gunfire across the Tibetan plateau, but the report [sticks mainly] to accounts that it says have been [corroborated by multiple sources多方证实]. In the case of Lhasa, it acknowledges “persistent rumours” that security forces systematically removed Tibetan [fatalities灾难命运] in order to conceal their use of lethal force on March 14th and 15th.  The report also quotes several witnesses who describe having seen civilians shot dead during the unrest in Lhasa. Some of them saw an incident in the southern part of the Tibetan quarter on March 14th in which several people were reported to have been killed.
These accounts shed useful light on what is still a murky picture of what happened in Lhasa on those two days. Though I had been able to move about the city with little restriction at the time I did not at any point see troops fire directly on anybody. I did not even did he hear the sound of gunfire until the 15th. But the area affected was so large that brief, scattered shootings could well have occurred around the city without my being aware. (Human Rights Watch notes that China has not yet addressed why its security forces abandoned Lhasa’s city centre to protesters and looters for several hours on March 14th.) Oddly perhaps—given that many residents have camera-enabled mobile phones, access to the internet was not specially restricted and a mood of anarchy prevailed in the Tibetan quarter—no photographs [hinting at] security forces' use of lethal force have emerged. [这段强调了政府的狡猾。中国政府在314那天对拉萨城市广场的抗议和暴乱置之不理主要阴谋在于营造一种中国政府军队没有采取暴力镇压的假象，因为当天手机相机网络出奇地被解禁了。]
But although the Lhasa rioting was huge [in scale] and in the extent of its political impact, it was only [one of dozens一点] of [flare-ups暴乱场景] across the Tibetan plateau. The Human Rights Watch report provides record of shootings and other [brutality残酷屠杀] by the security forces that happened in areas where correspondents have had even greater difficulty gaining access, especially in Tibetan areas of Sichuan Province. There is no doubt that the authorities have used [fear to cast a pall of silence over a vast territory用威慑给范围广阔的恐怖事件盖上沉默的幕布]. Many Tibetans were jailed in connection with the unrest; Human Rights Watch says that seven were sentenced in October and November 2008 for reporting information about the situation in Lhasa to the outside world. Their terms ranged from eight years to life. No wonder so little is known.
[全篇讲述了国外记者了解到的中国政府在西藏暴乱和新疆暴乱的镇压行为。中国政府通过采取没收通讯设备、制造假象、隔断媒体介入的伎俩使得很少的消息外露。然而，人权监察站即将出版厚厚的一本报告，据说这本报道客观的记录了中国政府的血腥镇压过程。]