C

Nowadays more and more people are talking about genetically modified foods ( GM foods). GM foods develop from genetically modified organisms (有机体), which have had specific changes introduced into their DNA by genetic engineering techniques. These techniques are much more precise where an organism is exposed to chemicals to create a non-specific but stable change. For many people, the high-tech production raises all kinds, of environmental, ethical(伦理的), health and safety problems. Particularly in countries with long farming traditions, the idea seems against nature.

In fact, GM foods are already very much a part of our lives. They were first put on the market in 1996. A third of the corn and more than half the cotton grown in the US last year was the product of biotechnology, according to the Department of Agriculture. More than 65 million acres of genetically modified crops will be planted in the US this year. The genetic genie is out of the bottle.

However, like any new product entering the food chain, GM foods must be subjected to careful testing. In wealthy countries, the debate about biotech is not so fierce by the fact that they have a large number of foods to choose from, and a supply that goes beyond the needs. In developing countries desperate to feed fast-growing and under fed populations, the matter is simpler and much more urgent: do the benefits of biotech outweigh the risks?

The statistics on population growth and hu nger are disturbing. Last year the world’s population reached 6 billion. The UN states that nearly 800 million people around the world are unhealthy. About 400 million women of childbearing age don’t have enough iron, which means their babies are exposed to various birth defeats. As many as 100 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, a leading cause of blindness.

How can biotech help? Genetic engineering is widely used to produce plants and animals with better nutritional values. Biotechnologists have developed genetically modified rice and they are working on other kinds of nutritionally improved crops. Biotech can also improve farming productivity in places where food shortage are caused by crop damage attributable to drought, poor soil and crop viruses.

9. The passage mainly talks about _______.

A. the world’s food problem             B. the development in biotech

C. the genetically modified foods         D. the way to solve food shortage

10. According to the passage, GM foods ________.

A. will replace naturally grown foods

B. are far better than naturally grown foods

C. may help to solve the problem of poor nutrition

D. can cause serious trouble in developing countries

11. The underlined sentence “The genetic genie is out of the bottle.” in paragraph 2 probably means that _______.

A. GM foods are available everywhere

B. the technology in producing GM foods is advanced

C. genetic technology may have uncontrollable powers

D. genetic technology has come out of laboratories into markets

12. What’s the writer’s attitude towards GM foods?

A. Enthusiastic.    B. Cautious.    C. Disapproving.     D. Unbelievable.

D

If you start each day desperately wishing for an extra hour in bed, the following is likely to leave you feeling even grumpier.

Scientists have identified a sleepless elite—a small group of people for whom a lie-in is a waste of time. Rather than being tired and bad-tempered underachievers, they are an energetic, outgoing and optimistic group who can happily and healthily get by on just four of five hours of shut-eye a night.

If that is not tiring enough, they tend to be able to hold down two jobs at the sane time, and breeze through their extra-long days without needing caffeine pick-me-ups or catnaps. Working out how the gene cuts sleep without any obvious impact on health could help in the design of drugs that give us all a few extra hours in our day. The bad news is that while many of us get by on a few hours’ sleep a night, just one to three people in 100 qualify to be part of the sleepless elite.

The research team is now appealing to members of the lucky group to come forward to allow their DNA to be studied. University of California researcher Ying-Hui Fu said, “My long-term goal is to someday learn enough so t hat we can control the sleep pathways without damaging our health.”

“Everybody can use more waking hours, even if you just wa tch movies.”

Many of those have already volunteered to share fascinating characteristics. They are thinner than the average, relentlessly upbeat (enthusiastic) and seem to have a high tolerance for physical pain and psychological setbacks.

Researcher Dr  Christopher Jones told the Wall Street Journal, “Typically, at the end of a long-structured phone interview, they will admit they have been testing and surfing the Internet and doing crossword puzzles at the same time, on less than six hours of sleep.”

13. We can infer from the second paragraph that a sleepless elite is _______.

A. a group of people who always have a phenomenon of sleeplessness every day

B. those who are not willing to sleep long but always energetic, outgoing and optimistic

C. a group of people for whom a lie-in is a pleasure of killing time

D. those who have no time for a good sleep because of their busy work

14. Ying-Hui Fu’s research is intended to _______.

A. control people’s sleep pathways         B. make medicine to cure the sleeplessness

C. work continuously without any sleep     D. control a sleepless elite’s genes

15. A sleepless elite has the following things in common except _______.

A. great energy   B. tough mind   C. being much thinner   D. high tolerance