Factory farming could soon enter a new era of mass production. Companies in the USare developing the technology needed to "clone" chickens on a massive scale¹. Once a chicken with desirable traits has been bred or genetically engineered², tens of thousands of eggs, which will hatch into identical copies³ , could roll off the production lines every hour. Billions of clones could be produced each year to supply chicken farms with birds that all grow at the same rate, have the same amount of meat and taste the same.

    This, at least, is the vision of theUS"s National Institute of Science and Technology, which has given Origen Therapeutics of Burlingame, California, and Embrex of North Carolina $4.7 million to help fund research4. The prospect has alarmed animal welfare groups, who fear it could increase the suffering of farm birds.

    That"s unlikely to put off5 the poultry industry, however, which wants disease-resistant birds that grow faster on less food. "Producers would like the same meat quantity but to use reduced inputs to get there," says Mike Fitzgerald of Origen. To meet this demand, Origen aims to "create an animal that is effectively a clone", he says. Normal cloning doesn"t work in birds because eggs can"t be removed and implanted. Instead, the company is trying to bulk-grow6, embryonic stem cells7 taken from fertilized eggs as soon as they"re laid. "The trick is to culture8 the cells without them starting to distinguish, so they remain pluripotent," says Fitzgerald.

    Using a long-established technique, these donor cells will then be injected into the embryo of a freshly laid, fertilized recipient egg9, forming a chick that is a "chimera". Strictly speaking a chimera isn"t a clone, because it contains cells from both donor and recipient. But Fitzgerald says it will be enough if, say, 95 percent of a chicken"s body develops from donor cells. "In the poultry world, it doesn"t matter if it"s not 100 percent," he says.

    Another challenge for Origen is to scale up10 production. To do this, it has teamed up with11 Embrex, which produces machines that can inject vaccines into up to 50,000 eggs12 an hour. Embrex is now trying to modify the machines to locate the embryo and inject the cells into precisely the right spot without killing it.

    In future, Origen imagines freezing stem cells from different strains of chicken13. If orders come in for a particular strain, millions of eggs could be produced in months or even weeks. At present, maintaining all the varieties the market might call for is too expensive for breeders, and k takes years to breed enough chickens to produce the billions of eggs that farmers need.

词汇:

Clone/ kləʊn /n. & v.克隆，无性繁殖

embryo / ˈembriəʊ /n.胚胎

implant / "ɪmplɑ:nt /v.植入；移植

chimera / kaɪˈmɪərə /n.嵌合体

embryonic / ˌembriˈɒnɪk /adj.胚胎的

fertilise / "fɜ:tɪlaɪz /v.使受精

pluripotent / plʊə"rɪpətənt /adj.多能的

vaccine / "væksi:n /n.疫苗

注释：

1. on a massive scale:大规模
2. genetically engineered：经过基因改造。genetical engineering：遗传工程
3. hatch into identical copies：孵出如出一辙的（小）鸡
4. help fund research： 资助研究。fund用作动词，research是它的宾语。
5. put off：意为 “discourage”（使……气馁）。
6. bulk-grow： 大量繁殖
7. stem cell：干细胞
8. culture：动词，意思是：培育。
9. a freshly laid, fertilized recipient egg:新产下的；已受精的；要接受细胞植入的鸡蛋
10. scale up： 提高，按比例增加。
11. team up with：与 合作。
12. up to 50,000 eggs：多达 5 万只鸡蛋。
13. different strains of chicken：不同品种的鸡。

Which statement is the best description of the new era of factory farming according to the firstparagraph?

A:Eggs are all genetically engineered B:Thousands of eggs are produced every hour C:Cloned chickens are bulk-produced with the same growth rate,weight and taste D:Identical eggs can be hatched on the production lines

Prices are sky-high, with profits to match. But looking further ahead, the industry faces wrenching change, says an expert of energy.
"The time when we could count on cheap oil and even cheaper natural gas is clearly ending. "That was the gloomy forecast delivered in February by Dave O’Reilly, the chairman of Chevron Texaco, to hundreds of oilmen gathered for a conference in Houston. The following month, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez gleefully echoed the sentiment: "The world should forget about cheap oil."
The surge in oil prices, from ＄10 a barrel in 1998 to above ＄50 in early 2005,has prompted talk of a new era of sustained higher prices. But whenever a "new era" in oil is hailed, scepticism is in order. After all, this is essentially a cyclical business in which prices habitually yo-yo. Even so, an unusually loud chorus is now joining Messrs O’Reilly and Chavez, pointing to intriguing evidence of a new "price floor" of ＄30 or perhaps even ＄40. Confusingly, though, there are also signs that high oil prices may be caused by a speculative bubble that could burst quite suddenly. To see which camp is right, two questions need answering: why did the oil price soar And what could keep it high
To make matters more complicated, there is in fact no such thing as a single "oil price": rather, there are dozens of varieties of crude trading at different prices. When newspapers write about oil prices, they usually mean one of two reference crudes: Brent from the North Sea, or West Texas Intermediate (WTI) . But when ministers from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) discuss prices, they usually refer to a basket of heavier cartel crudes, which trade at a discount to WTI and Brent. All oil prices mentioned in this survey are per barrel of WTI
The recent volatility in prices is only one of several challenges facing the oil industry. Although at first sight Big Oil seems to be in rude health, posting record profits, this survey will argue that the western oil majors will have their work cut out to cope with the rise of resource nationalism, which threatens to choke off access to new oil reserves. This is essential to replace their existing reserves, which are rapidly declining. They will also have to respond to efforts by governments to deal with oil’s serious environmental and geopolitical side-effects. Together, these challenges could yet wipe out the oil majors.
Judging from Paragraph 3, we may infer that oil prices will______.

A:enter into a "new era" B:reach a new "price floor" C:get to a new high D:be hard to predict

Text 2
The idea of public works projects as a device to prevent or control depression was designed as a means of creating job opportunities for unemployed workers and as a "pump priming" device to aid business to revive. It was conceived during the early years of the New Deal Era ( 1933 -- 1937). By 1933, the number of unemployed workers had reached about 13 million. This meant that about 50 million people -- about one-third of the nation -- were without means of support. At first, direct relief in the form of cash Or food was provided these people. This made them recipients of government charity. In order to remove this stigma and restore to the unemployed some measure of respectability and human dignity, a plan was devised to create governmentally sponsored work projects that private industry would not or could not provide. This would also stimulate production and revive business activity.
The best way to explain how this procedure is expected to work is to explain how it actually worked when it was first tried. The first experiment with it was the creation of the Works Project Administration (WPA). This agency set up work projects in various fields in which there were many unemployed. For example, unemployed actors were organized into theater projects, orchestras were organized for unemployed musicians, teaching projects for unemployed teachers, and even writers’ projects for unemployed writers. Unemployed laborers were put to work building or maintaining roads, parks, playgrounds, or public buildings. These were all temporary work relief projects -- rather than permanent work opportunities.
More substantial work projects of a permanent nature were organized by another agency, the Public Works Administration (PWA). This agency undertook the planning of construction of schools, houses, post offices, dams, and other public structures. It entered into contracts with private construction firms to erect them, or it loaned money to local or state governments which undertook their constructions. This created many jobs in the factories producing the material as well as in the projects themselves, and greatly reduced the number of unemployed.
Still another agency which provided work projects for the unemployed was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). This agency provided job opportunities for youths aged 16 to 20 to work in national parks or forests clearing land, guarding against fires, building roads, or doing other conservation work. In the event of a future depression, the federate government might revive any or all of the above methods to relieve unemployment and stimulate business.

A:the New Deal Era (1993 -- 1937) B:the WPA and the PWA C:a pattern for the future D:one-third of a nation

Text 1
A new era is upon us. Call it what you will: the service economy, the information age, the knowledge society. It is all translated to a fundamental change in the way we work. Already we’ve partly been there. The percentage of people who earn their living by making things has fallen dramatically in the Westeni World. Today the majority of jobs in America, Europe and Japan ( two thirds or more in many of these countries) are in the service industry, and the number is on the rise. More women are in the work force than ever before. There are more part time jobs. More people are self-employed. But the breadth of the economic transformation can’t be measured by numbers alone, because it is also giving rise to a radical new way of thinking about the nature of work itself. Long-held notions about jobs and careers, the skills needed to succeed, even the relation between individuals and employers -- all these are being changed.
We have only to look behind us to get some sense of what may lie ahead No one looking ahead 20 years possibly could have foreseen the ways in which d single invention, the chip (蕊片), would transform our world thanks to its applications in personal computers, digital communications and factory robots. Tomorrow’s achievements in biotechnology, artificial Intelligence or even some still unimagined technology could produce a similar wave of dramatic changes. But one thing is certain: information and knowledge will become even more vital, and the people who possess it, whether they work in manufacturing or services, will have the advantage and produce the wealth. Computer knowledge will become as basic a requirement as the ability to read and write. The ability to solve problems by applying information instead of performing routine tasks will be above all else. If you cast your mind ahead 10 years, information services will be predominant. It will be the way you do your job.

A:Computers and the Knowledge Society B:Service Industries in Modem Society C:Features and Implications of the New Era D:Rapid Advancement of Information Technology

Text 3
In the 90’s, people went crazy about wireless. Electronic communications once thought bound permanently to the world of cables and hard-wired connections suddenly were sprung free, and the possibilities seemed endless. Entrenched monopolies would fall, and a new uncabled era would usher in a level of intimate contact that would not only transform business but change human behavior. Such was the view by the end of that groundbreaking decade--the 1890s.
To be sure, the wild publicity of those days wasn’t all hot air. Marconi’s "magic box" and its contemporaneous inventions kicked off an era of profound changes, not the least of which was the ad vent of broadcasting. So it does seem strange that a century later, the debate once more is about how wireless will change everything. And once again, the noisy confusion is justified. Changes are on the way that are arguably as earth shattering as the world’s first wireless transformation.
Certainly a huge part of this revolution comes from introducing the most powerful communication tools of our time. Between our mobile phones, our BlackBerries and Treos, and our Wi-Fi ( Wireless Fidelity) computers, we’re always on and always connected--and soon our cars and our appliances will be, too. While there has been considerable planning for how people will use these tools and how they’ll pay for them, the wonderful reality is that, as with the Internet, much of the action in the wireless world will ultimately emerge from the imaginative twists and turns that are possible when dig ital technology trumps the analog mindset of telecom companies and government regulators.
Wi-Fi is itself a shining example of how wireless innovation can shed the tethers of conventional wisdom. At one point, it was assumed that when people wanted to use wireless devices for things other than conversation, they’d have to rely on the painstakingly drawn, investment-heavy standards adopted by the giant corporations that earn a lot through your monthly phone bill. But then some re searchers came up with a new communications standard exploiting an unlicensed part of the spectrum. It was called 802.11, and only later sexed up with the name Wi-Fi .
Though the range of signal was only some dozens of meters, Wi-Fi turned out to be a great way to wirelessly extend an Internet connection in the home or office. A new class of activist was born: the bandwidth liberator, with a goal of extending free wireless Internet to anyone venturing within the range of a free hotspot. Meanwhile, Apple Computer seized on the idea as a consumer solution, others followed and now Wi-Fi is as common as the modem once was.

A:an important fruit in daily life. B:a supplement to cable communications. C:the opening of a new uncabled era. D:a new type of monopoly.

Prices are sky-high, with profits to match. But looking further ahead, the industry faces wrenching change, says an expert of energy.
"The time when we could count on cheap oil and even cheaper natural gas is clearly ending. "That was the gloomy forecast delivered in February by Dave O’Reilly, the chairman of Chevron Texaco, to hundreds of oilmen gathered for a conference in Houston. The following month, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez gleefully echoed the sentiment: "The world should forget about cheap oil."
The surge in oil prices, from ＄10 a barrel in 1998 to above ＄50 in early 2005,has prompted talk of a new era of sustained higher prices. But whenever a "new era" in oil is hailed, scepticism is in order. After all, this is essentially a cyclical business in which prices habitually yo-yo. Even so, an unusually loud chorus is now joining Messrs O’Reilly and Chavez, pointing to intriguing evidence of a new "price floor" of ＄30 or perhaps even ＄40. Confusingly, though, there are also signs that high oil prices may be caused by a speculative bubble that could burst quite suddenly. To see which camp is right, two questions need answering: why did the oil price soar And what could keep it high
To make matters more complicated, there is in fact no such thing as a single "oil price": rather, there are dozens of varieties of crude trading at different prices. When newspapers write about oil prices, they usually mean one of two reference crudes: Brent from the North Sea, or West Texas Intermediate (WTI) . But when ministers from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) discuss prices, they usually refer to a basket of heavier cartel crudes, which trade at a discount to WTI and Brent. All oil prices mentioned in this survey are per barrel of WTI
The recent volatility in prices is only one of several challenges facing the oil industry. Although at first sight Big Oil seems to be in rude health, posting record profits, this survey will argue that the western oil majors will have their work cut out to cope with the rise of resource nationalism, which threatens to choke off access to new oil reserves. This is essential to replace their existing reserves, which are rapidly declining. They will also have to respond to efforts by governments to deal with oil’s serious environmental and geopolitical side-effects. Together, these challenges could yet wipe out the oil majors.
Judging from Paragraph 3, we may infer that oil prices will______.

A:enter into a "new era" B:reach a new "price floor" C:get to a new high D:be hard to predict

Text 1

A:enter into a "new era" B:reach a new "price floor" C:get to a new high D:be hard to predict