6月14日
NEWS Worthy Clips
Update your vocabulary with news clips from around the world
Science foresees a brave “old” world
Arthur Berrier and Irene McAnally are still exceptions in our society. They’ve both made it past their 100th birthdays, living healthy productive lives. They’ve seen their children grow to old age and their grandchildren become parents themselves.
But the rare status enjoyed by these centenarians is likely to change. Scientists are predicting that new technologies could extend the average person’s life span decades or longer. Much longer.
In a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers clashed over how long humans might one day live. But they all agreed that the prospects were good for adding decades.
“People alive today may be able to live indefinitely,” was the startling claim by Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist at the University of Cambridge.
Aging occurs as the body becomes less able to cope with the by-products of metabolism and other chemical processes that make life possible. Exercise becomes harder. Thinking gets slower. Eyesight dims. Bones grow frail.
Halting the aging process completely is far beyond the current understanding of science, de Grey said. Instead, researchers should act like engineers, repairing damage to the body’s cells and tissues before it progresses to disease.
“The engineering process is more realistic,” de Grey said.
De Grey’s claims have raised a storm of criticism in the scientific community. Some prominent scientists called his ideas “science fantasy.”
One of those researchers, Steven Austad of the University of Texas Health Science Center, dismissed de Grey’s ideas as mere “thought experiments.” He agreed, however, that progress in delaying aging would come in the next couple of decades. “What we’re really after is preserving (physical) function,” rather than just increasing life span, Austad said. “Virtually every physiological function you can measure declines with age. … What we want to do is slow the rate of change.”
Specialized Terms
Centenarian (n) 百岁老人 someone who is a hundred years old or more
Gerontologist (n) 研究老年医学的专家 a person who studies old age and the problems and diseases of elderly people
Vocabulary Focus
Extend (v) to add to something in order to make it longer
Clash (v) to fight or argue
Indefinitely (adv) 不确定地
Startling (adj) surprising and sometimes worrying
Prominent (adj) distinguished or important
Dismiss (v) put (thoughts, feelings, etc) out of one's mind
Physiological (adj) 生理学上的
Decline (v) become smaller, weaker, fewer, etc; diminish
Discussion Question
In your opinion, should researchers invest more time working to preserve the body's physical functions or to extend the life span of humans? Explain
Extra Exercise
1. Translate the following sentence into Chinese, ‘Aging occurs as the body becomes less able to cope with the by-products of metabolism and other chemical processes that make life possible.’
2. According the audio, what is the most important thing to live to be100?
说明：
1.文本摘自《Advanced 彭蒙惠英语》，由chandler30亲自录入。
2.回帖内容为大家讨论类话题，如非个人隐私，请不要选中“只有楼主可见”，以便大家交流。
3.参考答案在二楼，回复可见。
4.参与讨论问题奖励50沪元，回答问题奖励50沪元，本栏目谢绝灌水!