英语时文选读
Passage One. The Age of Obama (被时间追杀的奥巴马)
1.Time roughs up presidents.Photos of Barack Obama on
Election Night 2008 look like they were taken much longer a go. Now his face has deeper creases and crow?s feet, while his hair has turned white. “You look at the picture when they?re inaugurated and four years later, they?re visibly older,” said Connie Mariano, White House physician from 1992 to 2001. “It?s like t hey went in a time machine and fast-forwarded eight years in the span of four years.”
Why presidents age quickly
2.Presidents face unabated, unfathomable stress. “You see it over a term,” said Ronan Factora, a
physician specializing in geriatric medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. “It?s a good study of chronic stress on a person?s overall health.”
3.Changes in skin or hair are gradual, he said. “If you do have a stressful event, nothing is going to
happen right away.” Nothing visible anyway. Inside the body, the pituitary gland jolts the adrenal gland, just above the kidneys. Hormones start coursing. Adrenaline cranks up heart rates and blood pressure. Cortisol, another hormone from the same gland, causes inflammation and preps the body for converting sugars into energy.
4.“It?s not intended that people would be chronically exposed to these levels,” said Sherita Golden, a
physician at the Johns Hopkins Medical Bloomberg School of Public Health. Cortisol strains the circulatory system, battering artery walls. The hormone also thins the skin, makes muscles waste and bones lose mass. The immune system weakens, and viruses that cause colds and cold sores take hold. Sleep turns fitful.
5.“Your cognition slows, you may feel more depressed, your ability to concentrate goes down,”
Factora said. “And it just builds on itself —a real cascade.”
The only known cure
6.There is one known treatment: exercise. “It is the best benefit a physician can recommend,”
Factora said. “There is no drug that can present as many benefits as exercise can.”
7.Obama is a fiend for exercise. In hour-long workouts, he has been known to hit treadmills hard,
weight train with arms and legs, build quickness through “plyos” or plyometrics — exercises that involve explosive movements. He also throws footballs, shoots basketballsand thwacks at golf balls.
8.His predecessors exercised, too, some of them fiercely. George W. Bush ran till his aging knees
made cycling a better option. Presidents Carter and Bill Clinton jogged, while Ronald Reagan rode horses and split logs with such vigor, he once cut his thigh. President Gerald Ford performed a daily exercise regimen while still in his robe and PJs.
9.Good exercise leads to better thinking, brain-mapping has shown. “Exercise actually brings more
blood flow,” explained Linda Fried, an epidemiologist and geriatrician at Columbia University.
“Parts of the brain are activated and they?re associated with complex thinking and
problem-solving.” Workouts also force a president to — truly, finally, deeply — rest. Only then can the relaxed brain start to make creative associations.
Infirmity and vice
10.The job has compounded certain human frailties. Most famous perhaps is the lethal case of
pneumonia that 68-year-old William Henry Harrison caught at his inauguration. Woodrow Wilson?s stroke certainly limited his leadership of the country, and Franklin D. Roosevelt worked around the problems related to his polio more ably than might have been expected.
11.But daily habits also affect presidential well-being in lesser-known ways. Dwight D. Eisenhower
was so dedicated to his form of exercise that he played 800 rounds of 18 holes over eight years as president, according to Evan Thomas, the author of“Ike?s Bluff: President Eisenhower?s Secret Battle to Save the World.” Then, in 1955, Eisenhower had a heart attack, and two years later, a stroke. Intestinal surgery came in between, all as he was staving off nuclear war and realigning Southeast Asia.
12.“Toward the end,” Thomas said, “he was taking an extra sleeping pill at night” —the powerful,
old-school kind, with barbiturates. And that was on top of a nightly scotch, never more than five ounces, except when it was, Thomas said. “A couple of times he says to his doctor, …Let?s get drunk.? ”
13.To the best of the public?s knowledge, recent presidents have not exacerbated their stress through
bad behaviors such as drinking. Obama, however, confirmed that he had to kick a cigarette habit of unknown intensity at some midpoint in his first term.
14.The side effects of smoking might show up as those lines in his face, the doctors said. While sun
exposure can also make a face look withered, Obama?s darker skin has melanin to alleviate UV ray damage. That same coloring, however, can make his white hair look more pronounced.
A special lot
15.Obama had a fitness test on Jan. 12, and the White House said the results would be released by
February. His previous physical was in October 2011; it showed that he had added one pound since his February 2010 physical (his 2011 weight: 181, very good for a man who was then 50 and 6-foot-1).
16.Like all presidents since 1992, Obama has been under constant medical watch: a military physician
is on hand wherever a president goes. Burton Lee,whom the first President Bush brought to the White House to monitor his health, agreed with Mariano that presidents are a special lot. They push their bodies and minds, and thus they develop a greater capacity to fight off infection. They shake enough hands to fell a lesser creature, he said.
17.But the mental intrusions —the sense that someone needs something from the president every
moment of every day — are as insidious as the germs. “It?s just a phenomenally demanding job,” he said. “You never get one minute off.”
18.Despite the extraordinary stress levels, many recent presidents have lived well beyond normal life
expectancy. Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford died at 93; Jimmy Carter and the George H.W. Bush
are 88. Doctors are coming to understand that stress may have an upside. “Human beings need some degree of stress to keep their systems tuned,” Fried said. “Some people enjoy the stimulation of it and the excitemen t and couldn?t live without it.”
19.Plus, human minds literally seek reasons to live. “Many people, as they get older, deeply care about
future generations and the world?s survival,” Fried said. “If they have a chance to make a difference, that keeps people healthy.” (1039 words)
---By Ned Martel, May-Ying Lam, Grace Koerber and Kat Downs, The Washington Post, Jan. 17, 2013
Passage Two. The Magician — Steve Jobs(魔术师乔布斯)
1.NOBODY else in the computer industry, or any other industry for
that matter, could put on a show like Steve Jobs. His product
launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and
conjure up a “magical” or “incredible” new electronic gadget in
front of an awed crowd, were the performances of a master
showman. All computers do is fetch and shuffle numbers, he once
explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be
magic”. He spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy to use products.
2.He had been among the first, back in the 1970s, to see the potential that lay in the idea of selling
computers to ordinary people. In those days of green-on-black displays, when floppy discs were still floppy, the notion that computers might soon become ubiquitous seemed fanciful. But Mr Jobs was one of a handful of pioneers who saw what was coming. Crucially, he also had an unusual knack for looking at computers from the outside, as a user, not just from the inside, as an engineer—something he attributed to the experiences of his wayward youth.
3.Mr Jobs caught the computing bug while growing up in Silicon Valley. As a teenager in the late
1960s he cold-called his idol, Bill Hewlett, and talked his way into a summer job at Hewlett-Packard. But it was only after dropping out of college, travelling to India, becoming a Buddhist and experimenting with psychedelic drugs that Mr Jobs returned to California to co-found Apple, in his parents? garage, on April Fools? Day 1976. “A lot of people in our industry haven?t had very diverse experiences,” he once said. “So they don?t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions.” Bill Gates, he suggested, would be “a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger”.
4.Dropping out of his college course and attending calligraphy classes instead had, for example, given
Mr Jobs an apparently useless love of typography. But support for a variety of fonts was to prove a key feature of the Macintosh, the pioneering mouse-driven, graphical computer that Apple launched in 1984. W ith its windows, icons and menus, it was sold as “the computer for the rest of us”. Having made a fortune from Apple?s initial success, Mr Jobs expected to sell “zillions” of his new machines. But the Mac was not the mass-market success Mr Jobs had hoped for, and he was ousted from Apple by its board.
5.Yet this apparently disastrous turn of events turned out to be a blessing: “the best thing that could
have ever happened to me”, Mr Jobs later called it. He co-founded a new firm, Pixar, which specialised in computer graphics, and NeXT, another computer-maker. His remarkable second act began in 1996 when Apple, having lost its way, acquired NeXT, and Mr Jobs returned to put its technology at the heart of a new range of Apple products. And the rest is history: Apple launched the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and (briefly) became the world?s most valuable listed company. “I?m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn?t been fired from Apple,” Mr Jobs said in 2005. When his failing health f orced him to step down as Apple?s boss in August, he was hailed as the greatest chief executive in history. Oh, and Pixar, his side project, produced a string of hugely successful animated movies.
6.In retrospect, Mr Jobs was a man ahead of his time during his first stint at Apple. Computing?s
early years were dominated by technical types. But his emphasis on design and ease of use gave him the edge later on. Elegance, simplicity and an understanding of other fields came to matter in a world in which computers are fashion items, carried by everyone, that can do almost anything.
“Technology alone is not enough,” said Mr Jobs at the end of his speech introducing the iPad 2, in March 2011. “It?s technology married with liberal arts, married with humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing.” It was an unusual statement for the head of a technology firm, but it was vintage Steve Jobs.
7.His interdisciplinary approach was backed up by an obsessive attention to detail. A carpenter
making a fine chest of drawers will not use plywood on the back, even though nobody will see it, he said, and he applied the same approach to his products. “For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” He insisted that t he first Macintosh should have no internal cooling fan, so that it would be silent—putting user needs above engineering convenience. He called an Apple engineer one weekend with an urgent request: the colour of one letter of an on-screen logo on the iPhone was not quite the right shade of yellow. He often wrote or rewrote the text of Apple?s advertisements himself.
8.His on-stage persona as a Zen-like mystic notwithstanding, Mr Jobs was an autocratic manager
with a fierce temper. But his egomania was largely justified. He eschewed market researchers and focus groups, preferring to trust his own instincts when evaluating potential new products. “A lot of times, people don?t know what they want until you show it to them,” he said. His judgment proved uncannily accurate: by the end of his career the hits far outweighed the misses. Mr Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion field”, such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he changed reality, channelling the magic of computing into products that reshaped music, telecoms and media. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to “put a ding in the universe” did just that. （982 words）
—T.S. Economist, Oct 8, 2011
Passage Three. What Gets in the Way of Immigration Reform
（是什么阻止了移民改革的进程）
1.There's been lots of talk about legislation, but reform
could face significant roadblocks in Congress.
2.The Gang of Eight is drafting principles. The White House says immigration reform could be in the
State of the Union. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is planning Judiciary hearings. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO have joined hands to push for action. There's no shortage of political will to get immigration reform done in this Congress, but attempts at an overhaul of the system have failed before, and lawmakers still have several major hurdles to overcome this time.
3.Here are a few:
4. A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP VERSUS LEGAL STATUS:
This is the single most divisive issue that lawmakers will have to overcome. Democrats, in general, will demand that any legislation include a path to citizenship (this is also a priority for the AFL-CIO).
Many Republicans, on the other hand, remain staunchly opposed to anything resembling amnesty.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told a Nevada news outlet that a bipartisan group of senators “have agreed tentatively on a path to citizenship, which is the big stumbling block.” But it remains to be seen whether that agreement would be acceptable to the entire Congress.
https://www.wendangku.net/doc/a54980752.html,PREHENSIVE VERSUS PIECEMEAL REFORM:
Proponents say a comprehensive package is the only way to fix the system. It?s also a top priority of the president and the aim of the Gang of Eight—Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and newly elected Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. But a comprehensive bill also gives everyone something to hate. Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, say it will be easier to tackle different reforms in smaller bills because different coalitions will support each piece.
6.INCLUSION OF A GUEST-WORKER PROGRAM:
Disagreement over granting foreign workers temporary visas to work in the United States has historically separated business and labor groups, but the two are trying to find common ground this time. Jeff Hauser, spokesman for the AFL-CIO—which has opposed such programs in the past—said his group is talking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about ways to create a depoliticized body to manage the future flow of workers.
7.THE HASTERT RULE:
While a number of high-profile Republicans such as McCain have worked on immigration reform for years, it?s still likely that legislation will have more Democratic than Republican support. But House Speaker John Boehner has generally run the House in the style of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, always ensuring that a majority of the majority party supports legislation before bringing it to the floor. The rule was violated to get the fiscal-cliff legislation passed. Redistricting after the 2010 election put more and more lawmakers into safe districts, meaning they have less incentive to compromise. So it may not be possible for Boehner to get a majority of the majority to back immigration reform.
8. A CROWDED AGENDA:
The temporary nature of the deal produced to avert the fiscal cliff means that within the first few months of the year, Congress will have to negotiate a deal to raise the debt ceiling, deal with the sequester, and fund the government. President Obama is also pushing gun control as a top priority.
With limited time before legislators start focusing on their 2014 midterm races, there might not be enough oxygen for immigration reform to happen this year as well.
9.PLAIN OLD POLITICS:
There?s a reason that immigration reform has failed so many times: It?s a tough political nut to crack, and can bring out ugliness and name-calling on both sides of the aisle. At a Politico Pro event Tuesday, Labrador suggested that Obama wanted a political victory instead of a policy victory—which may be easier if nothing gets done and Republicans get the blame. That?s not the way Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a longtime immigration-reform advocate, sees it. “I have had Republicans say they don't want Obama to do a bill because they want flexibility, but if he doesn't do
a bill, he's criticized,” she said at the event. She says she?s just waiting for Boehner to get the ball
rolling. “It's not that tough, it's just the decision to do it,” she said. (716 words)
—Rebecca Kaplan, National Journal, Jan. 16, 2013
Lesson Four. Dubai?s renaissance：Edifice complex
（迪拜的复兴：大厦情节）
1.The Gulf emirate is as flashy as ever, but it still has structural problems to solve
2.DUBAI doesn?t do discreet. The emirate welcomed in the new year wi th a huge
fireworks display that engulfed the Burj Khalifa, the world?s tallest building, in time to a live performance by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. In a video that runs in the Burj Khalifa?s visitors? centre, an executive at Emaar, the developer behind the skyscraper, explains why it had to go that high: “You have to do something impossible, otherwise you?ll be like any other company, or person. We have to grow higher and higher—grow like Dubai.”
3.The emirate?s latest wheeze is to create a city wit hin the city, a development bigger than anything
that has gone before. Mohammed bin Rashid (MBR) City will feature more than 100 hotels, the Middle East?s largest entertainment centre, a park bigger than London?s Hyde Park and the world?s biggest shopping mall, appropriately named “Mall of the World”.
4.Plans for the supersized project, named after Dubai?s ruler, were unveiled in November and are
meant to signal that Dubai is back in business only three years after a near-death experience. In late 2009 Dubai World, a big government-controlled investment firm, announced it could no longer repay its debts, threatening to bring down the entire economy. The emirate was bailed out by Abu Dhabi, an oil-rich fellow-member of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the UA E?s central bank.
5.Dubai has come a long way since then. The IMF estimates that GDP was up by 4.1% in the first half
of 2012 compared with the same period of 2011. Trade, transport and tourism are buoyant. Imports of food and vehicles rose by 20% in the first half of 2012; in the year to August the number of passengers at Dubai International Airport was up by nearly 14%; and occupancy rates of Dubai?s hotels reach 80%, among the world?s highest. The property market is showing signs of renewed exuberance. In September Emaar put a 63-storey tower with 542 flats on the market and sold them all on the first day.
6.But Dubai is more than a story of skyscrapers built on sand with borrowed cash. Because the
emirate?s oil reserves were limited, its rulers decided decad es ago to diversify. Emirates Airline is the best-known result of this strategy: it started in 1985 and now ranks among the world?s leading carriers. The Jebel Ali Free Zone is one of the world?s biggest transit ports and the Dubai International Financial Centre the Middle East?s financial hub.
7.This role as a regional hub—and a policy of being open to almost any kind of business—explains why
Dubai has been, at least economically, the main beneficiary of the Arab spring. Instability in the rest
of the region has diverted capital, commerce and people to the
emirate. When neighbouring Saudi Arabia upped its social spending
to pre-empt protests, for instance, much of the cash ended up in
Dubai?s shopping malls. More important, the emirate has clearly
establishe d itself as the region?s safe haven. “Dubai has created an
environment where companies and expatriates want to be based,”
says Monica Malik of EFG Hermes, an investment bank.
8.Yet the renaissance masks continuing problems. During the property frenzy, developers piled up
debt as if there were no tomorrow. This was particularly true of those controlled by the three government-related holding companies known collectively as Dubai Inc: Dubai World, Investment Corporation of Dubai and Dubai Holding. Even now it is not clear how much debt was amassed. The
IMF estimates that the government and related entities still owe $130 billion, about as much as Dubai?s GDP.
9.To deal with the debt pile Dubai has pursued what Ahmad Alanani of Exotix, an investment bank
that speci alises in distressed debt, dubs its “four Bs strategy”. The government bailed out bondholders, who were paid back fully and on time; as a result, the emirate has preserved its access to the capital markets and credit-default spreads have come down steadily (see chart). And Dubai burned the banks, which had financed much of the emirate?s property boom. More than two-thirds of $34 billion in troubled bank loans to Dubai Inc has now been restructured on tough terms: on average, maturities were stretched out by five years and interest rates cut to 2%.
10.The decision to target the banks reflects the fact that they were less likely to walk away than
bondholders. International banks are wary of risking their relationships not just in Dubai, but in the entire region. Only four foreign banks have taken legal action. Any ruling could probably be enforced only against assets abroad: a Dubai court has to confirm the decision and is likely to declare any assets in the emirate off-limits. Local banks have even less freedom of manoeuvre. The government has big stakes in most lenders (56% in the case of Emirates NDB, Dubai?s largest). (815 words)
—Cherie Blair, Economists, Jan 5, 2013
Lesson Five How the Frankenstorm Came to Life（“科学怪风“的诞生）1.She was born, like all hurricanes, as a faintly inauspicious stirring of winds. But she didn?t come from off the
coast of Africa, as many tropical Atlantic storms do. She was a child of the Caribbean.
2.On the evening of October 19, a trough of low air pressure drifted slowly in the Caribbean Sea, east
of Costa Rica and south of Haiti. The U.S. National Hurricane Center gave this tropical wave only a
20 percent chance of strengthening into a named storm.
3.But the surrounding atmosphere was full of water vapor, possibly thanks to the recently departed
Hurricane Rafael. Weak winds on either side of the trough began slowly to pull it into a counterclockwise rotation.
4.Over the next few days, thunderstorms sucked up heat energy from the warm Caribbean waters and
became better organized. Surface air pressures began to drop. The storm coalesced. On October 22, Tropical Depression Eighteen was officially born.
5.Soon the storm gathered enough strength to become Tropical Storm and then Hurricane Sandy. It
shuffled north through Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas. Its heavy rains left at least 69 dead across the Caribbean — mostly in Haiti, which it did not even hit directly.
6.Then arrived a combination of meteorological factors popularly known as the perfect storm, a set of
conditions guaranteed to deliver devastation to the U.S. Northeast. Down from the north and west came a low-pressure system that dug in its heels farther south across the continent than such systems normally do. Out to the east, over the Atlantic, a ridge of high pressure nestled down.
Between them, these two systems blocked the usual west-to-east flow of the jet stream.
7.Up from the south came Sandy. The jet stream could not push her out harmlessly to the east as it
normally would. Instead, the ridge system merged with tropical Sandy to create a rare hybrid storm.
8.“One gave you the circulation, and the other gave you a lot more warm ocean water,” says Shuyi
Chen, a hurricane modeler at the University of Miami. “To me the interesting thing is all the multiple players that are involved and the odds that are required for them all to be in the same place at the same time.”
9.That, in a nutshell, is the lesson of Sandy: She showed how rare meteorological conditions can
combine just so to generate a once-in-a-lifetime superstorm. To better predict any future Sandys, scientists are working to understand exactly how she was born, grew and died.
10.Tropical storms often develop in the Caribbean in October, Chen says, but most fizzle out long
before making landfall. To probe why Sandy took a different path, researchers have run sophisticated computer simulations and even taken to the skies themselves.
11.Some computer models fared better than others. The European Center for Medium-Range Weather
Forecasts predicted Sandy?s sharp westward turn days before the U.S. eq uivalent did. The European model uses higher-resolution data, farther in advance, than the leading American model does.
12.To help improve such models, “hurricane hunter” teams flew planes into the developing storm. A
group from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration uses turboprops to collect
Doppler radar data on a storm?s structure. “It?s kind of like a CT scan of the inside of the storm,”
says Robert Rogers, a meteorologist with NOAA?s hurricane research division in Miami.
13.Seven turboprop flights into Sandy showed how the storm weakened at first as it ran into wind
shear — differing wind speeds at different altitudes — as well as dry air flowing off the continent and from behind the blocking ridge. But then Sandy passed over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream and got another boost as she interacted with the blocking ridge, which seems to have forced her rotating winds back into vertical alignment, Rogers says.
14.Once Sandy moved a bit farther north, NOAA sent out a Gulfstream-IV jet to explore the merger
with the blocking ridge. Instead of drawing energy from warm sea surface temperatures as hurricanes do, Sandy took on characteristics of what?s called an extratropical cyclone — powered by temperature contrasts in the atmosphere. Scientists on the Gulfstream flights measured a jet of strong winds on Sandy?s south side that is often seen in these cyclones as they get stronger, Rogers says.
15.Overhead, satellites were gathering their own views of the storm?s astounding power. NASA?s
Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission spotted Sandy dumping more than 2 inches of rain an hour into the waters off Florida. Satellite images also showed how the storm?s eyewall —the bands of clouds immediately surrounding its eye — recovered after partially breaking apart north of Cuba.
16.“Sandy just didn?t have the energy to support a very strong storm in its inner core,” Chen says.
Because of that, Sandy never got above Category 2, the second-lowest hurricane classification possible based on the storm?s wind speed.
17.Even so, the records she set are astonishing. When Sandy lurched ashore near Atlantic City, N.J., on
the evening of October 29, the barometric pressure was 946 millibars, tying the 1938 Long Island hurricane for lowest recorded landfall pressure north of Cape Hatteras, N.C. The storm engulfed nearly the entire eastern third of the United States, some 1.8 million square miles. (Though neither is a global record: 1979?s Super Typhoon Tip recorded pressures of 870 millibars as it spun in the Pacific Ocean. Tip could have covered nearly the entire western half of the United States.)
18.Whether Sandy is a harbinger of future storms remains to be seen. Climate scientists have
calculated that globally rising temperatures could bring more intense Atlantic hurricanes in the future, and one recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences uses storm-surge records along the Atlantic coast to argue that large surges have become more common since 1923. Other work has suggested that losing Arctic sea ice, which has been declining in recent decades, could lead to the presence of more blocking ridges in the Atlantic like the one that steered Sandy into New Jersey. But the link between climate change and hurricanes remains murky, and the link between climate change and any individual storm is impossible to draw.
19.For now, as the East Coast mops up from this legendary superstorm, scientists are focusing on how
Sandy might help them improve future hurricane predictions. One big lesson may be that researchers need to look at the broader environments in which hurricanes form, Chen says. “If you can?t forecast the very broad area — the trough to the west, the high pressure to the east, and Sandy itself,” she says, “you can?t really get the whole picture right.”
Lesson Six. How To Save The Electrical Grid（如何拯救电网）
1.The explosion lit up the Manhattan skyline. A sudden boom, a one-two punch of
yellow light—then everything went black. After Hurricane Sandy shoved water into Con Edison?s 14th Street substation in October, causing electricity to arc between capacitors, about a quarter million customers were left in the dark. Video of the high-voltage spectacle quickly went viral: It became an early, brilli ant symbol of the massive storm system?s most pervasive and inescapable affront—a total and lingering loss of power. Across the U.S., as far west as Indiana and from Maine to North Carolina, Sandy caused hundreds of other mass outages. A tree blown down, wires ravaged by wind, a flooded power facility—each event had rippled out to affect homes far from the point of failure. The blackouts continued for weeks afterward, thwarting the region?s recovery.
2.While the duration of Sandy?s outages was unusual, their breadth—more than eight million homes in 21
states ultimately lost power—has become disturbingly common. In 2011, Hurricane Irene cut electricity to about 5.5 million homes. Tornadoes, ice storms, wildfires, and drought now routinely overwhelm the nation?s aging electrical infrastructure, inflicting sweeping blackouts. In the early 1990s, the U.S.
experienced about 20 mass outages a year; today it?s well over 100. A 2012 Congressional Research Service
report attributes much of the rise to an increase in extreme weather events. It also states that storm-related power failures cost the U.S. economy between $20 billion and $55 billion annually.
3. A century ago, when the foundation of today?s power distribution system was laid, electric appliances were
just beginn ing to enter homes. Over time, the nation?s power use has skyrocketed, and so has the population.
Demand is now rising at 1 percent a year, pushing more electricity through lines that were never intended to handle such high loads. “We sometimes joke that i f Alexander Graham Bell woke up tomorrow and saw my phone, he?d be astounded,” says David Manning, executive director of the New York State Smart Grid Consortium. “If Thomas Edison woke up tomorrow and saw the grid, he could not only recognize it, he could probably fix it.”
4. A modern grid, capable of creating and delivering efficient, reliable power even in the midst of disaster, is
long overdue. Such infrastructure would be more resilient to both storms and terrorist attacks, which the National Research Council warned in November could cripple entire regions of the country for months.
Many of the necessary upgrades already exist: They?ve been developed in labs and demonstrated in smart-grid projects across the country. Other steps just require common sense.
STOP CASCADING FAILURES
5.The existing U.S. electric grid has a linear structure. Large power plants, typically located far from the
customers they serve, produce most of the electricity. Transformers at the plants increase the voltage so it can be moved more efficiently to local substations, which reduce the voltage and send it out to neighborhoods and individual homes. When a fault current, or surge, occurs anywhere along the line, automatic cir cuit breakers open to halt it. That?s why a single felled tree can cut power to thousands of customers. And that?s how overgrown trees brushing high-voltage lines in Ohio could black out 50 million people along the East Coast in 2003.
6.One way to reduce the impact of any individual failure is to replace the linear structure with a looped one.
Imagine a power line studded with five smart switches that connects back to a substation on both ends. A tree hits the line. In the old, linear system, all the customers beyond the fault point would lose power; the utility would send out a work crew to search for the cause. In the new system, switches on both sides of the fault could isolate the problem and only customers between the two switches would go dark. Then, “th ose switches communicate and say, …It?s right here, come and fix me,??” says John Kelly, executive director of the nonprofit Perfect Power Institute.
https://www.wendangku.net/doc/a54980752.html,munities such as Naperville, Illinois, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, which are among the most advanced
in the U.S. when it comes to smart-grid adaptations, have already installed looped systems and demonstrated their advantages. “You?re looking at 50 to 80 percent improvements in reliability,” Kelly says. Also, “you?ve limited the problems. You know right where to go, so now you can get those few customers back up quicker.”
8.Another way to stop failures from cascading is to install a fault-current limiter, or what University of
Arkansas engineer Alan Mantooth calls a “shock absorber for the grid.” He?s developi ng the refrigerator-size device at the university?s National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission. “As bad things happen, circuit breakers just start opening and the lights go out,” Mantooth says. Rather than simply stopping the electrical surge altogether, his machine can absorb the excess current and send a regulated amount down the line.
9.Utilities have been slow to adopt looped systems, even though smart switches were developed in the 1990s.
Florida Power and Light, whose customers experienced multiple hurricanes in the early 2000s, was among the first to do so. “Most utilities are very averse to change,” Kelly says. “And part of it is the monopoly structure that impedes innovation and improvement.”
10.When large-scale change does come, it will likely arrive in high-demand areas first. “In urban centers like
New York City and Los Angeles, their fault currents are getting so high that they?re having to start replacing all of their circuit breakers,” Mantooth says. A fault-current limiter would be a practical solution. “We would insert this guy into the grid,” he says, “leave the existing circuit breaker, and limit the current so that the breaker is not overwhelmed.” The new equipment helps the old equipment remain in service for longer, a much more cost-effective approach than replacing all the breakers.
—Kalee Thompson, Popular Science, Jan. 28, 2013
Lesson Seven. Japan Seeks Slow Nuclear Phase-Out
（日本将逐渐淘汰核能）
1.TOKYO—The Japanese government unveiled a
long-term energy plan that seeks an end to nuclear power by 2040, responding to strong antinuclear sentiment but stopping short of a clear commitment to make the country nuclear-free.
2. A crane removes the lid of a Fukushima Daiichi reactor-pressure vessel on Thursday in northern
Japan.
3.The plan, which comes after considerable backstage wrangling, largely rejects warnings from
corporate Japan that moving away from nuclear power could hasten the hollowing out of the country's battered manufacturing base. "We will use all possible political resources to realize the goal of having no nuclear plants operating by the end of the 2030s," said the report released Friday by the government's energy and environmental committee.
4.The long-awaited decision comes in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis in March 2011 and
follows moves by Germany last year to phase out its nuclear plants.
5.But the plan is unlikely to appease opponents of nuclear
power in the earthquake-prone country since it assumes
that nuclear-energy production will actually rise from low
levels now as some idled plants are gradually brought back
on line.
6.In addition, the government said that renouncing nuclear
power will require more discussion.
7."Achieving zero-nuclear status is an ambition, not a commitment," said a government official after
a briefing.
8.Under the policy, which still requires final endorsement by the cabinet, a new nuclear regulatory
body will adopt toughened standards to ensure that plants are safe enough be restarted. But output isn't expected to return to the previous level of nearly 30% of electric output. That figure has fallen to 2.1% as only two reactors—both at a plant in western Japan—have been restarted in the past 18 months.
9.As plants reach their life span of 40 years, the policy calls for them to be taken out of service, with
all plants offline "within the 2030s." In addition, no new plants will be built.
10.The plan also said uranium enrichment and reprocessing would continue as discussions are held
with local authorities and the international community. The decision to continue with reprocessing—in which uranium and plutonium are extracted and recycled into new fuel bundles—puts to rest questions about the disposition of Japan's growing stockpile of plutonium and spent fuel rods.
11.Tokyo's decision to spare the fuel-cycle program and move toward restarting more idled reactors
is being viewed by some in the nuclear industry as a net positive, at least in the near term.
12."Japan is not following the same path as Germany in terms of seeking an immediate reduction" in
nuclear-power-generating capacity, said Armand Laferrère, president of the Japanese unit of France's Areva SA, which joined with Japan to build its reprocessing facilities.
13.The decision on reprocessing lowers the potential Japan will have to rely solely on France or other
nations to reprocess its spent fuel. It also could reduce a growing stockpile of plutonium that some say could be further processed and used in nuclear weapons.
14."This is very significant because it means the slightly frightful prospect of a Japan brimming with
fuel rods and not knowing what to do with them can be avoided," said Mr. Laferrère.
15.The future of the government's plan is in some doubt, however, given that Prime Minister
Yoshihiko Noda's hold on power is tenuous, with parliament deadlocked amid fierce attacks by the opposition. Mr. Noda is expected to call general elections in November or early next year.
16.Opinion polls show strong opposition to a renewed heavy reliance on nuclear power plants, over
concern about their resiliency to natural disasters. Of those responding to a government survey on the issue, some 87% said they wanted to abandon nuclear power altogether, although broader polls show a more mixed picture, with around 30% to 40% wanting Japan to be nuclear-free and another 30% to 40% saying nuclear power should be kept to no more than 15% of the total energy mix.
17."The government, the regulators, the operators all lost the confidence of the public," said U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner William Magwood at a recent Senate hearing in Washington.
18.The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party—which was closely allied with the nuclear industry
before losing power in 2009—hasn't said whether it would feel bound by an antinuclear pledge if it regains control.
19.Analysts also point out that much can change over the nearly 30 years it would take to achieve the
shutdown. Sweden agreed in a 1980 referendum to wind down nuclear energy over a 30-year period, only to reverse course in June 2010 as global warming became a more urgent concern.
20.The government hopes to switch to greater use of renewable energy. Renewables, mostly
hydroelectric power, account for around 10% of energy supply at present. Experts say there is little chance for any large ramping up of the sector any time soon.
21.That leaves Japan increasingly dependent on imported fossil fuels, a risk that had been one of the
driving factors in the decadeslong push to increase nuclear energy.
22.Despite compromise language watering down the commitment to go nuclear-free, the plan
received a largely negative reaction from industry leaders. The chairman of the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, Kansai Electric Power Co. President Makoto Yagi, on Friday called the DPJ proposal "extremely alarming" and warned that costs for electricity could surge if
nuclear energy is phased out. "We hope the government cools down and makes realistic decisions." (861 words)
—Mochizuki, Takashi, Wall Street Journal, Sep 15, 2012
Lesson Eight. Diabetes is a Stubborn Adversary（糖尿病：困扰的顽疾）
1.One by one, the diabetic patients reluctantly stepped on
the scale in the basement of a South Los Angeles clinic.
Nearby, a nurse scribbled numbers on a chart.
2.Camara January, 31, her round face framed by a sparkly headband, held her breath. The number
stopped at 245 pounds. "That's not good," January said. Tracy Donald, 45, stepped up. Just under 240 pounds. "That is wrong," she said. Ramon Marquez, 62, tall and clean-shaven, methodically took off his watch, his cap and his shoes. 170 pounds. Ramon strips down to almost nothing, the others jokingly complain.
3.They are among those who come each month to the To Help Everyone (T.H.E.) Clinic, hoping to
finally gain the upper hand on their diabetes, a disease wreaking havoc on their bodies — and their community. Several have been hospitalized. Some have seen relatives die from complications. All have struggled to manage blood sugar levels that spike and plummet to ominous extremes.
4. A chronic illness that can lead to heart attacks, blindness and kidney failure, diabetes is exploding
across the United States and raising enormous obstacles to the Obama administration's drive to control costs and reform the healthcare system. In California alone, the disease costs taxpayers and businesses roughly $24 billion annually. One in seven California residents has diabetes — a 32% increase in the last decade.
5."This is a train going in the wrong direction," said Dean Schillinger, a UC San Francisco Medical
School professor and medical officer at the California Diabetes Program, run by the university and the state public health department.
https://www.wendangku.net/doc/a54980752.html,munity health centers like T.H.E. Clinic are a crucial front line in the federal government's war
against diabetes. They're charged with slowing the advance of the disease, which disproportionately affects poor patients whose care may be taxpayer-funded.
7.To do so, clinics must get millions of patients to change deeply ingrained eating habits, embrace
regular exercise regimens and better manage their health to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations. 8.Many low-income, urban patients struggle with the willpower challenges afflicting diabetes
sufferers everywhere. But their struggle is often complicated by limited understanding of the links between lifestyle and blood sugar levels, along with fewer safe, affordable and convenient options for healthy activities and fresh food.
9."The approach of telling people they need to lose weight and exercise is clearly not working," said
Martha Funnell, past chairwoman of the National Diabetes Education Program.
10.Like her mother and grandmother, 17-year-old Charnay Winbush has diabetes. She injects herself
with insulin five times a day and wears a bracelet identifying her illness. But Charnay often tells people she isn't diabetic.
11.Without her injections, she feels weak and tired. When her blood sugar levels climb, she gets
extremely thirsty and can't stop sweating. One incident sent her to the emergency room this summer. "I was scared," she said.
12.Doctors at T.H.E. Clinic tell Charnay she needs to lose weight, but she continues to gain. She keeps
small bags of candy in the refrigerator next to her insulin. Counting calories brings unwelcome memories of math class, she says. The only exercise she likes is playing virtual tennis or bowling. 13.The diabetes battle permeates almost every aspect of T.H.E Clinic's routine. Patients are greeted in
the waiting room by television programs about the disease. They are routinely tested for it,
counseled about how to prevent it and referred to nutritionists and diabetic education groups to manage it.
14.Research shows such efforts can produce results. Patients surrounded by support and education
programs do better at controlling their blood sugar, eat more healthfully and use their medication as recommended.
15.At the Saturday session, retired nurse Emily Moore handed out a soul food cookbook with healthy
recipes. Patients shared about their favorite types of exercise. One woman said she liked dancing to disco music, another announced she was going to Zumba classes.
16.The sessions began as a diabetes education class but soon morphed into a less formal support
group, said M.D. Donnell, education manager at T.H.E. Clinic. Patients say they come for the snacks, the nutrition advice and the camaraderie. James Hicks, whose leg was amputated after a diabetes-related infection, said he serves as a cautionary tale for others. "You never want to get this far," he said. （722 words）
— Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times，January 6, 2013,