UFOs
1. UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. Some people also call UFOs flying saucers,because their shapes look like saucers.
2. In its broader sense, the UFO includes any object or light, reportedly sighted in the sky, that cannot be immediately explained by the observer.
3. I remember as a child, I would save every penny my mother gave me to buy the latest UFO magazines from the grocery store. 4. We cannot deny the existence of the UFO phenomenon simply because we have not seen it or cannot explain it.
5. Science has its limitations and many mysteries throughout the world have remained unsolved. 6. Sightings of unusual aerial phenomena date back to ancient times.
7. The early cave paintings and ancient scriptures(经文) seem to indicate that we may have had visitors from other worlds or planets in the past.
8. In fact, ancient scriptures from many different cultures would give us the impression that we've had visitors from outer space.
9. How do you explain ancient tales of chariots(战车) from the sky? And what are the flying ships appearing in science fiction novels before the first plane was ever thought about?
10. Even the Bible has been suggested as possible evidence of alien contact,for its numerous accounts of objects in the sky, and other strange events.
11. What secrets lie with ancient Egypt, Stonehenge(Salisbury),or possibly even Atlantis ?Have there indeed been more advanced civilizations of man that have somehow been lost?
12. Some UFO enthusiasts even claim to have been abducted and taken aboard UFOs.But so far, no one has produced scientifically acceptable proof of these claims. 13. Some people believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft,even though no scientifically valid evidence supports that belief.
14. Scientists speculate that intelligent life may well exist elsewhere in the universe. 15. In addition to many reports and sightings of UFOs,observers have provided photographs or even videos.
16. UFOs became widely discussed only after the first widely publicized US sighting in 1947.Many thousands of such observations have since been reported worldwide. 17. From 1947 to 1969 the US Air Force investigated UFOs as a possible threat to national security.
18. A total of 12618 reports were received ,of which 701 or 5.6 percent were listef as unexplained.
19.Since 1959 no agence of the us government has had any active program of ufo investigation.
20. In 1997 the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) admitted that the US military had deceived the American publicin an effort to hide information about high-altitude spy planes.
21. At least 90 percent of UFO sightings can be identified as conventional objects, although time-consuming investigations are often necessary for such identification.
22. The objects most often mistaken for UFOs are bright planets and stars, aircraft, birds, balloons, kites, aerial flares, peculiar clouds, meteors, and satellites.
Laughter: the Best Medicine
1. Laughter is rightly called the best medicine as it relieves not only the one who laughs, but all those around him too.
2. A healthy sense of humour helps you to laugh at the worst situations and above all at yourself, a very positive sign of a happy life.
3. The world is certainly not worth crying over and little jokes show us the funny side of the gravest things.
4. A sense of humour makes you more acceptable in society. It makes you welcome everywhere, especially at parties, picnics and social gatherings.
5. There is a popular Kids’ song which says “just one moon and a golden sun and a smile means friendship to everyone.”
6. Laugh and make others laugh and get rid of nervousness and depression.
7. If you can learn to relax with a sense of humour you can keep away boredom and fatigue, job pressures and domestic worries.
8. It is proved that laughter enhance the level of hormones which stimulate the heart and act as natural pain-killers. 9. Doctors say laughter removes stress, burns calories and improves one’s digestion 10. A man who always sees the funny side if a situation can never be a pessimist. 11. If you can learn to laugh at yourself it will ease all your tension and worries. 12. Laughing at yourself is of immense benefit for your puffed-up pride.
13. Laughter has been known to have cured serious illnesses and helped people get over bad phases in their lives.
14. Science has proven that when we're happy, the body recovers more quickly from the biological arousal of upsetting emotions.
15. Adults laugh approximately 15 times per day, while children laugh about 400 times a day! When we grow up, somehow we lose a few hundred laughs a day. 16. If you can use humour to bridge the gap between people from different backgrounds, you can learn how to use diversity to enhance business objectives. 17. People believe that if they try to be funny and no one laughs, something terrible and embarrassing will happen.
18. The problem is that I tell a joke to co-workers and no one laughs. Now every time I see a straight face I have a panic attack. 19. We now know that there are two types of stress: good stress and bad stress. Laughter is a form of good stress, or stress in reverse.
20. Research on stress has shown that bad stress suppresses your immune system while good stress, or laughter, improves the immune system. 21. Being unhappy or very sad can seriously damage your health. So don't worry, be happy and laugh!
Euthanasia
1. Unknown to most people, assisted suicide has been legal in switzerland for over
60 years.
2.The world first euthanasia law went into effect in australia’s Northern territory in 1996. 3.There is no mercy in killing a patient and there is no quality of life to speak of when the patient is dead.
4.Laws must be fair and just,they must be applied equally and justly to all persons including doctors who abuse their responsibilities.
5.Doctors should never put anything else before their patient’s care.
6.WHY is murdering a person hidden behind such words as enthanasia ,mercy killing,physician-assisted suicide or quality of life?
7.A merry heart does good like a medicine while a broke spirit dries the bones. 8.A doctors’s job is to bring the patient back to the highest level of health posible. 9.Terminally ill people all the time feel powerless,they need able to be able to have more information as to their opitions. 10.the doctor suggests that those ending their own lives write a note clearing others of responsibilities.
11. I don’t want to go through what they want through,I want to maitain my dignity until such time as I am ready to die .
12.We should listen to elderly people who had made a rational decision to end their own lives even through they were healthy/
13.we don’t encourage any form of suicide for mental health or emotional reasons. 14.euthanasia option should be available to every hopelessly ill,mentally person as a meana to end unbearable suffering.
15.If medical science cannot provide for a hopelessly ill person a resonable guality of life, he has every right to take the risk of mercy killing. 16.IT shoud be possible to administer euthanasia to anyone who is clearly in a miserable state of health with no reasonable chance of recovery.
17.Obviously,extensive legislative and public debate would be adviseable on the issue of mercy killing.
18.penalties such as the loss of a doctor’s medical license and imprisionment would provide adequate protection against abuse.
19.regarding mercy killing,risks are wortth taking if there is reasonable chance of favorable results. 20.a growing number of people around the world believe that the possible rewards of implementing mercy killing outweig the risks.
21.Studies show that almost 80 percent of health professionals feel they give dying patients too liter pain relief and too much life-sustaining treatment. 22In most of the case those who ended their own lives by way of euthanasia were ,well-education cancer victims.
Pseudoscience
1. science can be defined as the observation, identification,description,experimental investigation,and theoretical explanation of phenomena. 2. pseudoscience is a theory,methodology or practice that is considered to be without
scientific foundation.
3. science is extremely important,also,it is a very fragile structure, and mankind always remians a few steps away another dark age.
4. science is so easily destroyed that we should defend it from the attacks being lanched by the ignorant and supertitious beliefs which surround us on all sides. 5. Anti-scince sentiments are at an all-time high in mordern society, and therefore we must fight against them.
6. science is not strengthened by attempts to slience its critics, slience is not strengthened by attemta to hide its embrarrassing limitations, either. 7. We all know the saying that seeing is believing but at times seeing is being take in.
8. Magic,also known as conjuring,is the art of entertraining with tricks that are in apparent violation of natural laws.
9. The principles of deception that magicians use are psychological and the methods are manipulative and mechanical.
10. Harry houdly was one of the US greatest and best-remembered magicians ,He was renowned for his abilities as an escape artist.
11. Houdini began his career in 1882 as a trapeze performer. Subsequently he became world-famous for his feat of magic.
12. Houdini showed astounding ability in extricating himself from handcuffs, ropes locked trunks, and bonds of any sort.
13. The last years of Houdini’s life were devoted to a relentless compaign against fraudulent mediums .His thorough knowledge of deceptive techniques enable him to expose their methods.
14. James randi was a magician and escape artist,but today he is best known as the word’s most tireless investigator of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. 15. Randi heads the James Randi educational foundation, Heis a lecture and the author of numberous books disproving paranormal claims across the world. 16. Randi has appeared on numberous talk shows and was named as one of esquire magazine’s hunderd best people in the world ,’in 1997.
17. URI Geller ,the former psychic superstar,was at one time actually believed to be able to bend spoons by mind power. 18. Dowsing is the claimed ability to discover underground sources of water or metals by means of a “downing rod”.
19. Anything supernatural,like psychics,mediums and faith healers are fakes and homeopathic medicines are useless,james said.
20. “People sometimes need to believe”in things that can not be proved ,such as religion,Randi said “because sometimes fiction is more attractive than reality. 21. The media are largely irresponsible they often report stories that are not supported by facts.”
全新版大学英语听说教程第五册4-6单元
