四级深度阅读资料1.doc

1Modern technology and a hastened lifestyle are seeing many old traditions worldwide come to an end, but in the U.S. city of Baltimore, one tradition is fighting to survive, and perhaps even grow. Street merchants who sell fruits and vegetables from colorful horse-drawn carts have disappeared from most U.S. cities, but still can be found in Baltimore. Soon, the citys streets may be home to even more.Residents of Baltimore are familiar with the traditional call of what are known as arabbers - street vendors who sell fruits and vegetables from horse-drawn carts.Twenty-five-year-old BJ Abdullah has been arabbing most of his life. He starts his day by loading his cart with local, freshly bought produce. I got cabbage, I got collard greens, I got string beans, calls out Abdullah.Customers can have the goods delivered at their doorstep or go to the cart when they hear the distinct sound. Many of the regular customers are elderly people who cannot walk to the market, while others just find them convenient.Its convenient, they come to you. You dont have to go out and get it, explains local arabber patron Veronica Cunningham.The origin of the word arabbers could have derived from the 19th century expression street arabs, referring to people, mostly African-American men, who had access to the port and horses and could start arabbing as a small business.In recent years, the tradition began to decline and some stables have been shut down for building code violations. Animal rights activists also have complained that the horses are poorly treated.In 1994, a preservation society was formed to address these issues and preserve the tradition. President Daniel Van Allen said recent years have seen a revival of the historic trade.Weve gone, in the past few years, from one to two wagons after one of the stables was shut down for urban renewal, and back up to eight wagons out on the street, and hopefully well have four more wagons out on the street next year, said Van Allen.BJ Abdullah said he does not plan to give up his job in any case.Oh Im going to keep on going until I cant walk no more. Were gonna be around, we aint going nowhere. Its been around over a hundred years, this trade business aint going nowhere, said Abdullah.Long hours at work for many Americans and a growing demand for wholesome local produce may put the old Baltimore trade on the road to recovery.2Imagine having an idea, drawing it on paper, bringing it to a store and seeing it turned into a physical object. This is now possible with the help of 3D printers. Such machines were once used just by universities and big companies, but now, stores with 3D printing services are appearing around the United States. Bryan Jaycox and his wife opened The Build Shop LLC in Los Angeles two years ago. The store is filled with tools like a laser cutter, an industrial sewing machine and 3D printers. The Jaycoxs offer 3D printing classes and services for anyone who is interested.I think 3D printing is going to be huge. Its going to make a huge impact on society as a whole.One of the students in a recent class was KiChong Tran. He plans to open a 3D print business in Cambodia.3D printing services are becoming available for American consumers. The UPS Store is a nationwide retailer that provides shipping, copying and other services. The UPS Store recently put 3D printers in three of its independently-owned stores. Burke Jones owns one of the stores in San Diego.The demand has been amazing. Its been much more than I would have imagined.The UPS Store plans to add 3D printers in three more stores. For $11, Jonathan Netter used a 3D printer to produce two small plastic parts as part of a knuckle for a hand. He works for a medical device company, the company is testing finger prosthetics. He says the same-day or next-day printing services will speed up testing of parts and get the devices to patients faster.An office supply company, Staples is selling 3D printers on its website for as low as about $1,300. A cartridge of color plastic costs $50. As with any technology - experts expect the printing speed and price to improve. Bryan Jaycox requires $15 an hour to print an object, he also charges a fee depending on the size of the object and up to $50 an hour for design and labor services. At The UPS Store, the cost of the object depends on the amount of materials used. The store charges up to $95 an hour to design the object with computer software that creates a digital file to guide the printer.Mr Jaycox predicts that within five years, 3D printing technology could become more consumer friendly. But KiChong Tran says even current technology can make a difference in a developing country like Cambodia.With 3D printing you can give them tools, you put it in their hands so they are responsible more for their own development and they learn skills beyond just learning English and becoming a tour guide or something like that or working at a bank you can actually create things that give value to the world. He says its not just Cambodia but anywhere where there is a 3D printer, it can turn a good idea - into reality.3Last week we talked about ways to avoid cold-weather injuries. This week we are going to talk about emergency treatment of hypothermia.Hypothermia can be mild, moderate or severe. Mild hypothermia is something that most people have experienced if they live in cold climates. You feel so cold that your body starts to shake - not very much, but uncontrollably. An Italian climber is saved after suffering hypothermia and other injuries on Argentinas Mount Aconcagua in January The treatment for mild hypothermia starts with getting out of the cold and, if necessary, changing into dry clothes. Drinking warm, non-alcoholic liquids and eating something sugary can stop the shivering. Taking a warm bath or sitting by a fire or doing some exercise can also help the body warm up. These are all common sense treatments.But treatment needs change when people enter the moderate or severe stages of hypothermia. In that situation, their body temperature drops below thirty-five degrees Celsius. They lose the ability to think clearly. Their muscles become stiff. They might bump into things or fall over objects. We got advice from a park ranger experienced in search-and-rescue for the National Park Service. She explained that rescuers will first try to prevent additional heat loss. They will place extra covering around the chest, head and neck of hypothermia victims to keep them warm. It is important to work fast to get people out of the cold. Hypothermia victims need medical help as soon as possible. But it is equally important to move them slowly and gently. Any rough or sudden movement can force cold blood from the arms, legs and hands deep into the warmer middle of the body. The sudden flow of cold blood can create shock, a serious condition. It can also cause a dangerously abnormal heartbeat. The process of rewarming a person needs to be done slowly, in a hospital setting. Members of search-and-rescue teams have a saying that victims are not dead until they are warm and dead. An extremely low body temperature can cause the heart to beat so slowly that a pulse may be difficult to find. In other words, a person who is suffering from the effects of severe cold may seem dead, but still be alive.People in Hong Kong speak a rich mixture of languages. Hong Kong was a British colony for more than 156 years before was returned to Chinese control in 1997. English was the only official language until 1994. Most people in Hong Kong today speak Cantonese, but Mandarin and other dialects also are heard, and English as the British used is still widely spoken and taught here. Now however, many people are choosing to learn English as it spoken in the United States.Victor Chan, for example, has children who attend school called Nature EQ on Saturday and Sunday, they are learning to say words the American way. Mr Chan says he wants his sons to learn American English, because he plans to send them to the United States for further study.Nature EQ is one of a growing number of schools in Hong Kong that offer American English classes. Frankie Ng opened the school 17 years ago, at that time, he had only 40 students. Today, the school has 350 students, it does not have space for any more.Mr Ng says American English is clear and defined, he says it is easy to teach and easily understood. That, however, is not the main concern of the children.Student Sam Yu has another reason for studying English spoken the American way.I think American English is getting more and more important, and is maybe taking over the dominance of British English, so Im willing to learn, said Sam Yu.Public schools in the former British colony still teach mostly British English. But the number of private language schools teaching American English is growing.In Hong Kongs Tseung Kwan O district, for example, the American English Workshop school had 20 students a week when it opened one year ago. Today, it has more 180 each week.Some observers say American English is becoming the language of international business. Increased contact with American culture, like movies, television programs, computer games and the Internet is spreading American expressions and accents in areas other than business.Language teachers in Hong Kong say wealthy people who live in mainland China are helping to increase the demand for classes in American English. Mainland Chinese are crossing into Hong Kong because it has more educational choices.But for now, people hearing English in the streets of Hong Kong are mainly hearing traditional British English.We can understand both, but for what we speak, we speak with the British accent, said one local woman.The British is better I think, commented a local man.The Philippine government is defending its efforts to get assistance to victims of Typhoon Haiyan. Many have received little or no assistance since the storm struck a week ago. Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said Friday in the city of Tacloban that the need is massive, immediate and not everyone can be reached.The aircraft carrier USS George Washington and other US Navy ships arrived in the Philippines this week to help with disaster relief operations. The ships brought helicopters and emergency aid.The Navy is deploying the helicopters to inspect damage from Typhoon Haiyan. The aircraft are also being used to transport supplies to affected communities. The aircraft carrier also has medical services and can produce 1.5 million liters of fresh water a day.The storm displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The countrys chief of disaster relief said Friday that at least 3,600 people are known to have died.The amount of food and other aid sent to the Philippines has increased in recent days. But moving the aid from airports or other areas has been a slow process, in part because wreckage blocks many roads.Scientists say Typhoon Haiyan was one of the strongest storms on record ever to hit land. Some people wonder whether man-made climate change played a part in the typhoon. Bob Ward is with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics.Theres certainly strong circumstantial evidence because we know that the strength of tropical cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, depends very much on sea surface temperatures. They act as the fuel. And weve got very warm waters in the Pacific at the moment, which have been increasing because of climate change, and those very warm waters are what powered this typhoon.Bob Ward says the intensity of storms seems to be increasing.Our models are not very clear at the moment. But we might expect in the future that we might even see fewer, but those that do occur will be much stronger than were experiencing now.Benedict Dempsey is with the aid group Save the Children. He says detailed weather predictions meant that some aid workers were already in place when the storm hit.Half a dozen people went into the path of the storm in order to be prepared for the response in Tacloban