Four Inspiring Movies
Forrest Gump (1992)
Forrest Gump is a simple man with a low IQ but good intentions. This movie follows the fictional story in which the simple man makes his way through some of the more turbulent (动荡的) times from the 1960s through 1980s. This film took home six Oscars, inspired a "Weird Al" song, and proves that a big heart is the most important thing.
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
No movie list would be complete without a nod to the past. Let's go with this Christmas classic, about a man with serious financial troubles who intends to commit suicide (自杀) by jumping off a bridge. His guardian angel Clarence Odbody stops him and tells him what life would have been like for those close to him had he never been born. Realizing how much he means to others, he rushes back home and all sorts of happy, inspirational, Christmassy things happen.
Dead Poet's Society (1990)
John Keating (Robin Williams) is a high school English literature teacher at a famous all-male boarding school who gets into trouble with the school administration after encouraging his students to challenge authority and think for themselves. It is certainly inspirational, if not also frustratingly sad.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
This movie tells the story of John Nash (Russell Crowe), a professor at Princeton, a US university, who revolutionized the field of game theory and fell into madness as a result of paranoid schizophrenia (精神分裂症) . With the love and support of his family as well as the help of medical professionals, he managed to overcome his mental illness and continued to make contributions to the field of mathematics.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is a place of outstanding beauty and extreme biodiversity. On a previous underwater assignment with my wife and photographic partner, Jennifer Hayes, we'd documented healthy coral reefs surrounded with fish, sharks, and crocodiles. We knew that time, increased tourism and climate change could make the park different—so 15 years later, we returned to see how it was going.
We were photographing some jellyfish. Jennifer, her back to me, was focused on something above her. Out of the corner of my viewfinder, I saw a sizable crocodile coming. As I began to take its photograph, I realized that the crocodile was going to swim directly between Jennifer and me. I started to make loud noises through my regulator and moved towards Jen, firing a burst of flash-lit shots to warn her that we had company. She quickly detected my signal and turned to meet our visitor.
She gave me a quick thumbs-up, nodded OK, and said "Hello, handsome" as she bent closer to take its photos. I admired her for treating the crocodile with respect, calm curiosity, and absolute joy. She didn't feel threatened. She was familiar with this kind of crocodile in this particular place—and she had a big underwater camera housing that could double as a mighty shield (盾牌) if needed. After a few pictures the crocodile, unimpressed with us, swam downstream on its way to do other crocodile things. We continued our search for jellyfish.
There is always risk in our line of work. But this encounter highlighted the good news that we saw all around us here. The crocodile is an indicator animal, a symbol of a healthy ecosystem that can support top predators (捕食性动物). The easing of travel restrictions is bound to bring more tourists—so it's vital to maintain a balance among ecotourism, exploration, and conservation. That's possible if visitors adopt the same philosophy that we hold toward that curious crocodile. We enter Earth's oceans on their terms, not our own.
Bacteria are a troublesome problem for astronauts. The microorganisms(微生物)from our bodies grow uncontrollably on surfaces(表面)of the International Space Station, so astronauts spend hours cleaning them up each week. How is NASA solving this very tiny big problem? It's turning to a group of high school kids. But not just any kids. It's depending on NASA HUNCH high school class, like the one science teachers Gene Gordon and Donna Himmelberg lead at Fairport High School in Fairport, New York.
HUNCH is designed to connect high school classrooms with NASA engineers. For the past two years Gordon's students have been studying ways to kill bacteria in zero gravity, and they think they`re close to a solution. "We don't give the students any breaks. They have to do it just like NASA engineers," says Florence Gold, a project manager. "There are no tests," Gordon says.
"There is no graded homework. There almost are no grades, other than ‘Are you working towards your goal?' Basically, it's ‘I've got to produce this product and then, at the end of year, present it to NASA.' Engineers come and really do an in-person review, and… it's not a very nice thing at time. It's a hard business review of your product."
Gordon says the HUNCH program has an influence on college admissions(录取)and practical life skills. "These kids are so absorbed in their studies that I just sit back. I don't teach." And that troublesome bacteria? Gordon says his students are emailing daily with NASA engineers about the problem, readying a workable solution to test in space.
The problem of robocalls has gotten so bad that many people now refuse to pick up calls from numbers they don't know. By next year, half of the calls we receive will be scams(欺诈). We are finally waking up to the severity of the problem by supporting and developing a group of tools, apps and approaches intended to prevent scammers from getting through. Unfortunately, it's too little, too late. By the time these "solutions"(解决方案) become widely available, scammers will have moved onto cleverer means. In the near future, it's not just going to be the number you see on your screen that will be in doubt. Soon you will also question whether the voice you're hearing is actually real.
That's because there are a number of powerful voice manipulation(处理) and automation technologies that are about to become widely available for anyone to use. At this year's I/O Conference, a company showed a new voice technology able to produce such a convincing human-sounding voice that it was able to speak to a receptionist and book a reservation without detection.
These developments are likely to make our current problems with robocalls much worse. The reason that robocalls are a headache has less to do with amount than precision. A decade of data breaches(数据侵入) of personal information has led to a situation where scammers can easily learn your mother's name, and far more. Armed with this knowledge, they're able to carry out individually targeted campaigns to cheat people. This means, for example, that a scammer could call you from what looks to be a familiar number and talk to you using a voice that sounds exactly like your bank teller's, tricking you into "confirming" your address, mother's name, and card number. Scammers follow money, so companies will be the worst hit. A lot of business is still done over the phone, and much of it is based on trust and existing relationships. Voice manipulation technologies may weaken that gradually.
We need to deal with the insecure nature of our telecom networks. Phone carriers and consumers need to work together to find ways of determining and communicating what is real. That might mean either developing a uniform way to mark videos and images, showing when and who they were made by, or abandoning phone calls altogether and moving towards data-based communications—using apps like FaceTime or WhatsApp, which can be tied to your identity.
Credibility is hard to earn but easy to lose, and the problem is only going to get harder from here on out.
Adapted from Liang Xiaosheng's award-winning novel, the realistic drama A Li felong Journey recently has been a huge hit on TV and online.
Given that A Lifelong Journey is set in the 1960s, it's not surprising that the family has to deal with lots of social changes and uncertainties, like the restoration of Gaokao, the country's reform and opening-up, the passion for private business and so on. To create the neighborhood, the shooting crew built a set covering 8, 000 square meters in Changchun, Jilin province, collecting many old items, such as old-fashioned televisions and calendars, to re-create the past. The clothing, like Lei Feng-style hats, and interior spaces, also play an essential part, changing with time as the plot develops.
The five virtues in Confucianism—benevolence (仁), righteousness (义), courtesy(礼), wisdom and trust can be found in the lead character Zhou Bingkun, the youngest son in the family. In the show, Zhou Bingkun used to be a factory worker, the one who has taken care of the big family and friends selflessly.
Following the lives of Zhou's family, the drama gives viewers an insight into the lives of ordinary Chinese. It is the kind of show that strikes your heartstrings and leaves you in tears even if you've already read the book.
A. No wonder viewers thought highly of this drama.
B. It is time to create such a drama to remember the bygone times.
C. China has witnessed dramatic changes over the past five decades.
D. And it explores themes of family, friendship and romance in a bittersweet story.
E. He was played by Lei Jiayin, who says he can almost "see his father" in the drama.
F. Disney has also announced it has acquired the drama series for an international release.
G. Most of the narrative took place in a shantytown (棚户区), where Zhou's family lives.
It took humans thousands of years to understand our own planet, and centuries 1 our neighboring planets. Nowadays, new worlds are being 2 every week.
Up to the present time, astronomers have 3 more than 370 "exoplanets"—planets orbiting (绕……运动) outer space stars (恒星) other than our sun. There is a "hot Saturn (土星)" 260 light-years from Earth that orbits its parent star so 4 that a year there lasts less than three days. 5 another star 150 light-years out is a burning "hot Jupiter (木星)," where upper atmosphere (大气层) is being burning to form a huge comet-like tail. Astronomers have found another three 6 orbiting a pulsar (脉冲星)—the remains of a once huge star shrinking (收缩) into a small atomic nucleus the 7 of a city. Some planets have obviously fallen into their suns. Others have been thrown out of their 8 to become "floaters" that float in the darkness of the universe.
Among all these, scientists are eager to find a clue of the 9 : planets like the Earth. That is, planets orbiting their stars at just the right distance—neither too hot nor too cold—to 10 life as we know it. We have not yet found planets that are quite like our own, 11 because they're inconspicuous (不起眼的). To see a planet as 12 and slim as ours among the brightness of its star is like trying to see a firefly in a fireworks display. 13 by pushing technology to the 14 , astronomers are rapidly approaching the day when they can find another Earth. And when they do, they can examine it for 15 of life.
time, some plants develop features which help them to in particular conditions. Plants with helpful features are more likely to survive and . Plants without these features often die . This process is called natural .
Countries around the are spending billions of dollars and lots of time on various space missions, whether to Mars or other planets much further away. Some people argue that we should stop wasting time and money space. , we should feed the world's poor and find immediate solutions to other problems, such as pollution and diseases. However, others feel this is a view which fails to realise how exploring space helps us.
注意： 1. 词数100左右；2. 标题已给出，不计入总词数；3. 可适当增加细节以使行文连贯。
advocate: 支持，提倡 facial recognition: 人脸识别
Should We Advocate Artificial Intelligence?
