The UK is home to 26 world-ranked universities of the top 200 globally. At the heart of each university is the library, a space for students to access resources, absorb knowledge and gather thoughts. Here are some of our must-visit libraries across the UK.
The British Library, London
Located in London, the British Library is home to over 170 million items. The collections offer a glimpse into literary heritage over the ages, from books to maps to manuscripts. Visitors can browse treasures including Leonardo da Vinci's notebook. Students with a reading pass are known to spend hours at a time in the reading rooms.
Bodleian Old Library, Oxford
Dating back to 1488, the Bodleian Old Library has three notable reading rooms. It is celebrated for its late Gothic architecture. You may recognize the elaborately carved ceiling from scenes in Harry Potter. Students at the university automatically get access to the library.
John Rylands Library, Manchester
Opened in 1900, this library is part of the University of Manchester, one of the top five universities in the UK. This library offers limitless research potential for students. Whether you want to make use of the rich collections available, or simply explore the site, this library should be on everyone's must-see list.
The Mitchell Library, Glasgow
The Mitchell Library is one of Glasgow's most famous landmarks. On the top of the copper dome（圆屋顶） is a bronze statue of the Roman goddess, Minerva. Visitors can climb the dome for the city's most distinctive rooftop views.
Cathy Brennan calmly paddled her bright yellow kayak（皮艇） down the Potomac River, continuing her voyage, the latest of her solo trips on major waterways. It was tough, but it allowed Brennan to let go of everything else, empty her brain of the everyday chores and focus on the now. "I'm in the moment, looking at the waves. " said Brennan.
The journey is a minimalist style: sleeping bag, small tent, rain jacket, change of clothes, first aid kit, apples and cheese sticks. When she's thirsty, she scoops water from the rivers and pumps it through a filter. "I always drink the river," she says. Brennan loves being on the rivers, seeing the bald eagles above, deer on the banks and a fascinating array of bugs and insects that never find their way into homes.
However, every few days Brennan will find a hotel for the night where she can get a shower and eat a cheeseburger. She'll also check in with her husband John, who has helped her select the river and research the trips at their home. "He's my virtual Sherpa with benefits," Brennan says, laughing. She has a phone with her but rarely calls or texts anyone. Her children usually keep track of her via the transponder that sends them her location every 10minutes or so.
Brennan knows that solo kayaking is not for everyone and she's not reckless. Brennan grew up on a lake and was a strong swimmer and boater from an early age. When going through rough rapids, she watches the weather carefully. She is cautious about where she camps and who is around her. She has packed up her gear and headed back out on the river when she has felt unsafe.
Surely, she is alone on these journeys but she isn't lonely. She suggested that we all need some disconnection from the wired world to find the wider world around us.
If you were bringing friends home to visit, you could show them the way. You know the landmarks—a big red house or a bus-stop sign. But what if you were swimming in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? Could you still find your way home? A loggerhead turtle（海 龟）could.
According to Dr. Ken Lohmann, loggerheads have a magnetic（磁力的）sense based on Earth's magnetic field. It helps them locate the best spots for finding food and their home beaches. Scientists already know that several other animals, such as whales and honeybees, can detect（探测到）magnetic fields. The difference between them and loggerheads, however, is the way they learn to use their magnetic sense. Young whales and honeybees can learn from adults. Loggerheads are abandoned as eggs.
As newborn loggerheads have no adults to learn from, what helps them figure out how to use their magnetic sense? Lohmann thinks one of the cues was light on the sea.
Baby loggerheads hatch only at night. However, a small amount of light reflects off the ocean. The light makes that region brighter. Heading toward the light helps them get quickly out to sea, where they can find food. Lohmann tested whether newborn loggerheads use this light source to set their magnetic "compasses"（罗盘）. He and his team put some newborns in a water tank and recorded which way they swam. Around the tank, the scientists created a magnetic field that matched the Earth's. They set a weak light to the east of the magnetic field. Then they let the newborns go.
At first, the newborns swam toward the light. After the scientists turned off the light, the turtles that had seen the light in the east always swam toward east. When the researchers reversed（颠倒）the magnetic field, these turtles turned around and swam toward the new "east".
This and the follow-up experiments all showed that loggerheads use light from the outside world to set their magnetic "compasses" and then remember the "correct" direction. If a turtle hatches on a brightly-lit beach, that would damage its magnetic sense forever and make survival hard for the turtle.
Lohmann's work has led others to protect the habitat of this endangered species. Yet many questions about these creatures remain unanswered, and researchers have a lot to study.
Hollywood's theory that machines with evil(邪恶) minds will drive armies of killer robots is just silly. The real problem relates to the possibility that artificial intelligence(AI) may become extremely good at achieving something other than what we really want. In 1960 a well-known mathematician Norbert Wiener, who founded the field of cybernetics（控制论）, put it this way: ＂If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot effectively interfere(干预), we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire. ＂
A machine with a specific purpose has another quality, one that we usually associate with living things: a wish to preserve its own existence. For the machine, this quality is not in-born, nor is it something introduced by humans; it is a logical consequence of the simple fact that the machine cannot achieve its original purpose if it is dead. So if we send out a robot with the single instruction of fetching coffee, it will have a strong desire to secure success by disabling its own off switch or even killing anyone who might interfere with its task. If we are not careful, then, we could face a kind of global chess match against very determined, super intelligent machines whose objectives conflict with our own, with the real world as the chessboard.
The possibility of entering into and losing such a match should concentrate the minds of computer scientists. Some researchers argue that we can seal the machines inside a kind of firewall, using them to answer difficult questions but never allowing them to affect the real world. Unfortunately, that plan seems unlikely to work: we have yet to invent a firewall that is secure against ordinary humans, let alone super intelligent machines.
Solving the safety problem well enough to move forward in AI seems to be possible but not easy. There are probably decades in which to plan for the arrival of super intelligent machines. But the problem should not be dismissed out of hand, as it has been by some AI researchers. Some argue that humans and machines can coexist as long as they work in teams—yet that is not possible unless machines share the goals of humans. Others say we can just ＂switch them off＂ as if super intelligent machines are too stupid to think of that possibility. Still others think that super intelligent AI will never happen.
Every animal sleeps, but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month.
One idea is that sleep helps us strengthen new memories. We know that, while awake, fresh memories are recorded by reinforcing (加强) connections between brain cells, but the memory processes that take place while we sleep have been unclear.
Support is growing for a theory that sleep evolved so that connections between neurons(神经元) in the brain can be weakened overnight, making room for fresh memories to form the next day.
Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right. The synapses in the mice taken at the end of a period of sleep were 18 per cent smaller than those taken before sleep, showing that the connections between neurons weaken while sleeping.
If Tononi's theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night's, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information — our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.
Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapses become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size. "You keep what matters," Tononi says.
A. We should also try to sleep well the night before.
B. It's as if the brain is preserving its most important memories.
C. Similarly, when people go for a few days without sleeping, they get sick.
D. The processes take place to stop our brains becoming loaded with memories.
E. That's why students do better in tests if they get a chance to sleep after learning.
F. "Sleep is the price we pay for learning," says Giulio Tononi, who developed the idea.
G. Tononi's team measured the size of these connections, or synapses, in the brains of 12 mice.
Over the past few decades, more and more countries have opened up the markets, increasingly transforming the world economy into one free-flowing global market. The question is: Is economic globalization 1 for all?
According to the World Bank, one of its chief supporters, economic globalization has helped reduce 2 in a large number of developing countries. It quotes one study that shows increased wealth 3 to improved education and longer life in twenty-four developing countries as a result of integration (融合) of local economies into the world economy. Home to some three billion people, these twenty-four countries have seen incomes 4 at an average rate of five percent—compared to two percent in developed countries.
Those who 5 globalization claim that economies in developing countries will benefit from new opportunities for small and home-based businesses. 6 , small farmers in Brazil who produce nuts that would originally have sold only in 7 open-air markets can now promote their goods worldwide by the Internet.
Critics take a different view, believing that economic globalization is actually 8 the gap between the rich and poor. A study carried out by the U. N. -sponsored World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization shows that only a few developing countries have actually 9 from integration into the world economy and that the poor, the uneducated, unskilled workers, and native peoples have been left behind. 10 , they maintain that globalization may eventually threaten emerging businesses. For example, Indian craftsmen who currently seem to benefit from globalization because they are able to 11 their products may soon face fierce competition that could put them out of 12 . When large-scale manufacturers start to produce the same goods, or when superstores like Wal-Mart move in, these small businesses will not be able to 13 and will be crowded out.
One thing is certain about globalization—there is no 14 . Advances in technology combined with more open policies have already created an interconnected world. The 15 now is finding a way to create a kind of globalization that works for the benefit of all.
Huazhao Festival have remained silent for centuries. However, the traditional festival closely (connect)with spring is coming back to life,because of growing enthusiasm for traditional Chinese culture and a rising need for seasonal sightseeing tours.
Huazhao Festival (say)to be celebrated as the birthday of the flower goddess in every second month on the Chinese lunar calendar. Its origin can date the period before the Qin Dynasty and was (official)set as a festival during the Sui and Tang dynasties. During the Tang Dynasty,the festival(fall) on the 15th day of the second lunar month. It was one of the three nationwide celebrations back then. The other two were Lantern Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival.
However,the timing of the festival varies between regions, because of the difference in when flowering begins. As result, many parts of the country took turns (launch)their celebrations as if presenting a feast for the eyes in relay.
Despite(variety)highlights, the festive celebrations across different regions shared the features of hanfu--a traditional Chinese style of clothing and flower appreciation. The festival also plays a key role in boosting shopping and caters to spending in nearby areas.
Its renaissance reflects the change in young people's aesthetie orientation(审美取向), emotional needs and consumption preferences and indicates their ( recognize)of excellent traditional Chinese culture.
Behind that is the(grow)cultural confidence among young people.
It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The rivers and streams were long gone back into the earth. If we didn't see some rain soon, we would lose everything. It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of sharing and saw the best miracle (奇迹) in my life.
I was making lunch for the family in the kitchen when I saw my six-year-old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He was obviously walking with a great effort trying to be as still as possible. Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again toward the house. I went back to make sandwiches, thinking that whatever task he had been doing was completed.
Moments later, however, he was once again walking toward the woods. This activity went on for over an hour. Finally, my curiosity got the best of me. I crept out of the house and followed him on his journey.
He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked, very careful not to spill (洒出) the water he held. I stepped closer as he went into the woods. Branches and thorns slapped his little face but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much greater purpose, I thought. As I came closer, I saw the most amazing sight. Several large deer stood in front of him. Billy walked right up to them, I almost screamed at him to get away. A huge buck was dangerously close. But the buck neither threatened him nor even moved as Billy knelt down. And I saw a baby deer lying on the ground, obviously suffering from heavy loss of water and heat exhaustion, lifting its head with great effort to drink the water in my boy's hands.
注意： 1. 续写词数应为150 左右； 2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
When the water was gone, Billy jumped up to run back to the house.
……
This time I joined him, with a small pot of water from the kitchen.
