Reading Comprehension

     Imagine a school that expected its students to become literate without any formal instruction. Most parents would be alarmed by such an approach, which would leave their children confused and with gaps in their understanding. This however has been the philosophy on character development in many of our schools. Why is the development of character seen as somehow different from the other skills that we teach?

     Of course there will always be learning by osmosis(耳濡目染) in any school, but as a teacher and primary school head I have found that a child’s moral literacy is strengthened when they acquire the building blocks of good character such as consideration, courage and honor: qualities which are commonly known as virtue. 

     I personally find that exploring a virtue over a two-week period provides a simple and effective program that allows for the creative input of both teacher and student and a chance for the virtue to embed itself. Once a lesson on a virtue such as honesty has been completed we need to allow time for children to practice this concept just as would be the case with fractions or verbs. Allowing children to role play a situation such as making up excuses to cover a mistake can be enormously interesting, and the drama can be frozen allowing the characters to be questioned about their feelings and motives. It’s also a safe way for children to experience for themselves how a lie usually goes out of control.

     Our role as educators is also to look for opportunities to help our students as they attempt to strengthen their characters. When something goes wrong we guide the young person to the virtue that will prevent it from happening again. For instance, when am student thoughtlessly disturbs the calm atmosphere of the library, instead of a response such as, "that was really disrespectful and selfish of you!" we draw out from them the required virtue: "When you’re walking through the library, what virtues do you need to use?"

Reading Comprehension     

     Computer technology is advancing so fast that old hardware quickly becomes completely obsolete. The electronic waster (e-waste) from this constantly growing field is polluting the environment, both here and abroad.
     Computers contain toxic materials such as lead. Despite the danger of throwing these hazardous materials in a landfill, that's exactly where tons of computers end up. Americans reuse or recycle only about 10 percent of the 50 million computers they replace each year, according to ABC News. Eighty percent is being stockpiled, which could create even bigger problems in the future, and the remaining 10 percent is landfilled. Throwing e-waste in landfills creates a potential for landfills are tougher in the United States than in many other countries, e-waste is often exported, especially to some developing countries.
     Some countries are creating policies to deal with the growing e-waste problem. In the Netherlands, you can bring your old computer to the seller when buying a new one, and the seller must by law accept it free of charge. Japan passed a law in 2001 requiring producers to recycle certain parts.
     In the United States, a movement called the Computer Take Back Campaign is demanding that producers take more responsibility for disposing of old computers, California and Massachusetts recently prohibited certain computer parts in landfills, while Apple and IBM take back computers for about a $30 fee. Gateway is one step ahead: They will pay you $50 for recycling your old computer when you buy a new one from them. Lastly, many nonprofit programs accept used equipment, and services have popped up that distribute old computers to schools and other organizations.

Reading Comprehension

　　It is difficult to imagine what life would be like without memory．The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions, the basis for the decisions we make, and the roots of our habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences, which are brought into the present by memory.
　　Memory can be defined as the capacity to keep information available for later use．It not only includes "remembering" things like arithmetic or historical facts, but also involves any change in the way an animal typically behaves．Memory is involved when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed something suspicious in the grain pile. 
　　Memory exists not only in humans and animals but also in some physical objects and machines．Computers, for example, contain devices for storing data for later use．It is interesting to compare the memory storage capacity of a computer with that of a human being．The instant access memory of a large computer may hold up to 100, 000 "words"－string of alphabetic or numerical characters－ready for instant use．An average U. S. teenager probably recognizes the meaning of about 100, 000 words of English. However, this is but a fraction of the total amount of information that the teenager has stored．Consider, for example, the number of faces and places that the teenager can recognize on sight.
　　The use of words is the basis of the advanced problem-solving intelligence of human beings．A large part of a person's memory is in terms of words and combinations of words.

Reading Comprehension

     Jarden Zinc Products, a large zinc plant a few miles outside Greeneville, Tennessee, has a special claim. Since 1982, it has been the only supplier of penny blanks for the U.S. Mint (铸币厂). It's a good business for Jarden-since 2000, the company has earned more than $ 800 million. But it may not be a good deal for the U.S.
     The value of the penny has been dropping for years. In 2006, it began to cost more than a penny to make a penny. It now costs 2 ￠ to produce a 1 ￠ coin. Many countries have stopped using pennies. Is it time for the U.S. to do the same? 

     Jarden and the zinc industry are fighting to keep the penny. Since 2006, Jarden has given $1.2 million to Americans for Common Cents (ACC). The group's mission is to keep the penny in use. Mark Weller is ACC's executive director. He argues that there are three main reasons for keeping the penny: Without it, we would become more reliant on the five-cent coin, which also has problems; charities that depend on penny drives would not be able to raise as much money; and a 2012 survey shows that 67% of Americans want to keep the penny. (77) Many people surveyed said they feared they would end up paying more for products.
     Many experts disagree with ACC, They point to the dozens of countries that have gotten rid of their lowest-value coins without raising prices for consumers. And charities don't seem too concerned either.
     President Barack Obama says the mint could explore using cheaper metals to make pennies. Steel is less expensive than zinc. Pennies are 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper. But no matter what it is made of, the penny's days may be numbered. Most in-store purchases are now made with credit cards, not cash. Is it time for a change?

Reading Comprehension

     No country in the world has more daily newspapers than the USA. There are almost 2,000 of them, as compared with 180 in Japan, 164 in Argentina and 111 in Britain. The quality of some American papers is extremely high and their views are quoted all over the world. Famous dailies like the Washington Post or the New York Times have a powerful influence all over the country. However, they are not national newspapers in the sense that The Times is in Britain or Le Monde is in France, since each American city has its own daily newspaper. The best of these present detailed description of national and international news, but many tend to limit themselves to state or city news. 

     Like the press in most other countries, American newspapers range from the “sensational” which feature crime and gossip, to the “serious”, which focus on factual news and the analysis of world events. But with few exceptions, American newspapers try to entertain as well as give information, for they have to compete with the attraction of television.
     Just as American newspapers satisfy all tastes, so do they also try to attract readers of all political parties. A few newspapers support extremist groups on the far right and on the far left, but most daily newspapers try to attract middle-of-the-road Americans who are moderate. Many of these papers print columns by well-known journalists of different political and social views, in order to present a balanced picture.
As in other countries, American newspapers can be either responsible or irresponsible, but it is generally accepted that the American press serves its country well and that it has more than once courageously exposed political scandals or crimes, for instance, the Watergate Affair. The Newspapers drew the attention of the public to the horrors of the Vietnam War.

Reading Comprehension

     As the Titanic was sinking and women and children climbed into lifeboats, the musicians from the ship’s band stood and played. They died when the ship went down. Men stood on the deck and smoked cigarettes. They died, too. This behavior is puzzling to economists, who like to believe that people tend to act in their own self interest. “There was no pushing, ”says David Savage, an economist at Queensland University in Australia who has studied witness reports from the survivors. It was “very, very orderly behavior”.
     Savage has compared the behavior of the passengers on the Titanic with those on the Lusitania, another ship that also sank at about the same time. But when the Lusitania went down, the passengers panicked. There were a lot of similarities between these two events. These two ships were both luxury ones, they had a similar number of passengers and a similar number of survivors.
     The biggest difference, Savage concludes, was time. The Lusitania sank in less than 20 minutes. But for the Titanic, it was two-and-a-half hours. “If you’ve got an event that lasts two-and-a-half hours, social order will take over and everybody will behave in a social manner, ”Savage says. “If you’re going down in under 17 minutes, basically it’s instinctual. ”On the Titanic, social order ruled, and it was women and children first. On the Lusitania, instinct won out. The survivors were largely the people who could swim and get into the lifeboats.
     Yes, we’re self-interested, Savage says. But we’re also part of a society. Given time, social norms can beat our natural self-interest. A hundred years ago, women and children always went first. Men were stoic. On the Titanic, there was enough time for these norms to become forceful.

Reading Comprehension

       Television has opened windows in everybody’s life. Young men will never again go to war as they did in 1914. Millions of people now have seen the effects of a battle. And the result has been a general dislike of war, and perhaps more interest in helping those who suffer from all the terrible things that have been shown on the screen.
　　Television has also changed politics. The most distant areas can now follow state affairs, see and hear the politicians before an election. Better informed,people are more likely to vote, and so to make their opinion count.
　　Unfortunately, television’s influence has been extremely harmful to the young. Children do not have enough experience to realize that TV shows present an unreal world; that TV advertisements lie to sell products that are sometimes bad or useless.They believe that the violence they see is normal and acceptable. All educators agree that the “television generations” are more violent than their parents and grandparents.
　　Also, the young are less patient. Used to TV shows, where everything is quick and interesting, they do not have the patience to read an article without pictures; to read a book that requires thinking; to listen to a teacher who doesn’t do funny things like the people on children’s programs. And they expect all problems to be solved happily in ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes. That’s the time it takes on the screen.

Reading Comprehension

     Long bus rides are like television shows. They have a beginning,a middle,and an end-with commercials thrown in every three or four minutes. The commercials are unavoidable. They happen whether you want them or not. Every couple of minutes a billboard glides by outside the bus window. "Buy Super Clean Toothpaste.""Drink Good Wet Root Beer.""Fill up with Pacific Gas."Only if you sleep,which is equal to turning the television set off,are you spared the unending cry of "You Need It! Buy It Now!"
     The beginning of the ride is comfortable and somewhat exciting, even if you’ve traveled that way before. Usually some things have changed-new houses, new buildings, sometimes even a new road. The bus driver has a style of driving and it’s fun to try to figure it out the first hour or so. If the driver is particularly reckless or daring,the ride can be as thrilling as a suspense story. Will the driver pass the truck in time? Will the driver move into the right or the left hand lane? After a while,of course, the excitement dies down. Sleeping for a while helps pass the middle hours of the ride. Food always makes bus rides more interesting. But you’ve got to be careful of what kind of food you eat. Too much salty food can make you very thirsty between stops.
     The end of the ride is somewhat like the beginning. You know it will soon be over and there’s a kind of expectation and excitement in that. The seat of course,has become harder as the hours have passed. By now you’ve sat with your legs crossed,with your hands in your lap,with your hands on the armrestseven with your hands crossed behind your head. The end comes just at no more ways to sit.

Reading Comprehension

     There is no doubt that adults, and even highly educated adults, vary greatly in the speed and efficiency of their reading. Some proceed very lowly throughout; others dash along too quickly and then have to regress. Poor readers in particular may lack the ability to vary their manner of reading according to the type of reading matter and to their intentions in reading it. A good reader can move at great speed through the text of a novel or similar light reading matter. He may be able to skim a page, picking up a word or two here and there, and gain a general idea of what the text is about without really reading it. In reading more difficult material, with the intention of taking in the whole of it, he will proceed more slowly, but even then he will vary his pace, concentrating on the key words and passages, perhaps re-reading them several times and pass more quickly over the remainder. A less efficient reader tends to maintain the same speed whatever the material he reads. Consequently, even light reading matter gives him little pleasure because he reads so slowly. But this pace may be too fast for really difficult material which requires special concentration at difficult points.
     A type of reading which necessitates careful attention to detail is proofreading, in which the reader, in order to detect misprints in a sample print, has to notice not so much the meaning of what he reads as the exact shape and order of letters and words in the text. This is extremely difficult for most people, since they are accustomed to overlooking such details. In fact, considerable practice is required to practise this task efficiently and it can be done only by reading very slowly, and by paying comparatively little attention to the general meaning of the text.

Reading Comprehension

     The old idea that child prodigies “burn themselves” or “overtax their brains” in the early years, therefore, suffer from failure and (at worst) mental illness is just a myth. As a matter of fact, the outstanding thing that happens to bright children is that they are very likely to grow into bright adults.
     To find this out, 1,500 gifted persons were followed up to their thirty-fifth years with these results:
     On adult intelligence tests, they scored as high as they did as children. They were, as a group, in good health, physically and mentally. Eighty-four percent of their group were married and seemed content with their life.
     About 70 percent had graduated from colleges, though only 30 percent had graduated with honors. A few had even flunked out (退学), but nearly half of these had returned to graduate.
     Of the men, 80 percent were in one of the professions or in business, managerial or semiprofessional jobs. The women who had remained single had offices, business, or professional occupations.
     The group had published 90 books and 1,500 articles in scientific, scholarly, and literary magazines and had collected more than 100 patents.
     In a material way they didn’t do badly either. Average income was considerably higher among the gifted people, especially the men, than for the country as a whole, despite their comparative youth when last surveyed.
     In fact, far from being strange, maladjusted (难以适应) people locked in an ivory tower, most of the gifted were turning their early promises into practical reality.

Reading Comprehension

     Another thing an astronaut has to learn about is eating in space．Food is weightless, just as men are． Food for space has to be packed in special ways．Some of it goes into tubes that a man can squeeze into his mouth．Bite-sized cookies are packed in plastic． 

     There is a good reason for covering each bite．The plastic keeps pieces of food from traveling in the spaceship．On the earth very small pieces of food would simply fall to the floor．But gravity doesn’t pull them to the floor when they are out of the plastic in a spaceship．They move here and there and can get into a man’s eyes or into the spaceship’s instruments． If any of the instruments is blocked, the astronauts may have trouble getting safely home．
     As astronauts travel on longer space trips, they must take time to sleep． An astronaut can fit himself to his seat with a kind of seat belt. Or, if he wants to, he can sleep in a sleeping bag which is fixed in place under his seat．But be careful he must put his hands under the belt when he goes to sleep．This is because he is really afraid that he might touch one of controls that isn’t supposed to be touched until later．

Reading Comprehension

     In what now seems like the prehistoric times of computer history, the early postwar era, there was a quite widespread concern that computers would take over the world from man one day. Already today, less than forty years later, as computers are relieving us of more and more of the routine tasks in business and in our personal lives, we are facing with a less dramatic but also less foreseen problem. People tend to be over trusting of computers and are reluctant to challenge their authority. Indeed, they behave as if they were hardly aware that wrong buttons maybe pushed, or that a computer may simply malfunction(失灵).
     Obviously, there would be no point in investing in a computer if you had to check all its answers, but people should also rely on their own internal computers and check the machine when they have the feeling that something has gone wrong. Questioning and routine double checks must continue to be as much a part of good business as they were in pre computer days. Maybe each computer should come with the following warning: for all the help this computer may provide, it should not be seen as a substitute for fundamental thinking and reasoning skills.

Reading Comprehension

     When the United States Congress created Yellowstone National Park in 1872, the goal was to set aside a place where Americans could enjoy the beauty of nature for years to come. Now, 142 years later, there are hundreds of national parks across the country, and technology is changing the way people experience them. Should park visitors be able to use cell phones, or should their use be restricted?
     "Connectivity presents a real challenge to all of us." Al Nash says. He is a public affairs officer at Yellowstone National Park. He says cell phone service at Yellowstone is available in parts of the park with stores and campgrounds. This makes it easy for visitors to share photos of their trip on social networking sites and to stay in touch with friends and family members. (80) If a nark visitor is hurt or in danger, cell phones make it easier to get help. Some say the ability to download applications that provide information about plants and animals in the park can enrich a visitor’s experience.
     Others say cell phones disturb people’s enjoyment of our national parks. In their view, cell phone towers are an eyesore, and they’d rather hear the sound of birds than the ring of an incoming call. Can you imagine looking out a peaceful lake or field of grass only to be disturbed by a person shouting into their phone, "Can you hear me now?"
     Nash says Yellowstone tries to strike a balance. "Ultimately, our job is to let visitors understand and enjoy nature better while protecting what people find special about Yellowstone, and one of those things that’s special is the ability to get away from the hustle and bustle of one’s daily life."

Reading Comprehension

     There was one thought that air pollution affected only the area immediately around large cities with factories and heavy automobile traffic. At present, we realize that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is literally worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the east of the United States and brought health warnings in rural areas away from any major concentration of manufacturing and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be infected by air pollution. Some scientists consider that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels (coal and oil) is creating a “greenhouse effect”— conserving heat reflected from the earth and raising the world’s average temperature. If this view is correct and the world’s temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be in water.
     Another view, less widely held, is that increasing particular matter in the atmosphere is blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature — a result that would be equally disastrous. A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to a new ice age, and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. Today we do not know for sure that either of these conditions will happen (though one recent government report drafted by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very possible). Perhaps, if we are lucky enough, the two tendencies will offset each other and the world’s temperature will stay about the same as it is now. 

Reading Comprehension

     Spending 50 minutes with a cell phone close to your ear is enough to change brain cell activity in the part of the brain closest to the antenna. But whether that causes any harm is not clear, scientists at the National Institute of Health said at a conference last month, adding that the study will not likely settle concerns of a link between cell phones and brain cancer. "What we showed is glucose(葡萄糖metabolism (a sign of brain activity) increases in the brain in people who were exposed to a cell phone in the area closest to the antenna," said Dr. Nora Volkow of the NIH, whose study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study was meant to examine how the brain reacts to electromagnetic fields caused by wireless phone signals.
     Volkow said she was surprised that the weak electromagnetic radiation from cellphones could affect brain activity, but she said the findings do not shed any light on whether cellphones cause cancer. "This study does not in any way indicate that. What the study does is to show the human brain is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation from cell phone exposures. " Use of the devices has increased dramatically since they were introduced in the early 1955s, with about 5billion cell phones now in use worldwide.
     Some studies have linked cell phone exposure to an increased risk of brain cancers, but a large study by the World Health Organization did not offer a clear answer to this. Volkow’s team studied 47 people who had their brain examined while a cell phone was turned on for 50 minutes and another while the phone was turned off. While there was no complete change in brain metabolism, they found a 7 percent increase in brain metabolism in the region closest to the cell phone antenna when the phone was on.
     Experts said the results were interesting, but urged that they be understood with great care. " Although the biological significance, if any, of increased glucose metabolism from too much cell phone exposure is unknown, the results require further investigation," Henry Lai of the University of Washington in the U. S. and Dr. Lennart Hardell of University Hospital in Sweden, wrote in an article in JAMA. "Much has to be done to further investigate and understand these effects." They wrote.

Reading Comprehension

     By education, I mean the influence of the environment upon the individual to produce a permanent change in the habits of behavior, of thought and of attitude．It is in being thus susceptible to the environment that man differs from the animals, and the higher animals from the lower．The lower animals are influenced by the environment but not in the direction of changing their habits．Their instinctive responses are few and fixed by heredity．When transferred to an unnatural situation, such an animal is led astray by its instincts．Thus the "ant-lion"whose instinct implies it to bore into loose sand by pushing backwards with abdomen, goes backwards on a plate of glass as soon as danger threatens, and endeavors, with the utmost exertions to bore into it．It knows no other mode of flight, "or if such a lonely animal is engaged upon a chain of actions and is interrupted, it either goes on vainly with the remaining actions(as useless as cultivating an unsown field)or dies in helpless inactivity"． Thus a net-making spider which digs a burrow and rims it with a bastion of gravel and bits of wood, when removed from a half finished home, will not begin again, though it will continue another burrow, even one made with a pencil．
     Advance in the scale of evolution along such lines as these could only be made by the emergence of creatures with more and more complicated instincts．Such beings we know in the ants and spiders．But another line of advance was destined to open out a much more far-reaching possibility of which we do not see the end perhaps even in man．Habits, instead of being born ready-made(when they are called instincts and not habits at all), were left more and more to the formative influence of the environment, of which the most important factor was the parent who nOW cared for the young animal during a period of infancy in which vaguer instincts than those of the insects were molded to suit surroundings which might be considerably changed without harm．
     This means, one might at first imagine, that gradually heredity becomes less and environment more important．But this is hardly the truth and certainly not the whole truth．For although fixed automatic responses like those of the insect-like creatures are no longer inherited, although selection for purification of that sort is no longer going on, yet selection for educability is very definitely still of importance．The ability to acquire habits can be conceivably inherited just as much as can definite responses to narrow situations．Besides, since a mechanism--is now,for the first time, created by which the individual(in contradiction to the species)can be fitted to the environment, the latter becomes, in another sense, less not more important．And finally,less not the higher animals who possess the power of changing their environment by engineering feats and the like, a power possessed to some extent even by the beaver,and preeminently by man．Environment and heredity are in no case exclusive but always―supplementary factors．

Reading Comprehension

     The top of the world is a wonderland. In winter, the temperature often fails to -30°F and the sun never rises. The ocean is surrounded by frozen ground. There are few people or trees, but to polar bears, the Arctic is home.
     Polar bears have thick fur, big paws and other features that make them well prepared for life in their tough environment. In fact, they need the Arctic sea ice for survival. But climate change is causing larger and larger areas of summer sea ice to melt. Experts say that if warming pat-terns continue, the Arctic could be free of summer sea ice by 2050. That may cause two-thirds of the word's 20,000 polar bears to be gone by then too.
     Polar bears can't survive for long on land. Seals are their main source of food. The only place where polar bears can hunt seals is on the ice. Although these bears are strong swimmers, they are no match for lighming swift seals in the water. A polar bear has brilliantly clever strategies to overcome this disadvantage. In winter the bear waits motionless beside a sea’ls breathing hole, which is a narrow tunnel through the ice. Often many hours pass before the seal comes up for air and the bear kills it with a powerful blow of its paw. In summer, the polar bears that live on land eat very little and wait for the sea ice to return.
     With the sea ice forming later in the year and melting earlier, polar bears do not have enough opportunity to hunt and eat. Less sea ice makes it harder for the bears to catch the seals. The bears must swim longer distances between ice packs, and they can't always make it.. The ice is also getting thinner. These conditions can cause polar-bear cubs to become separated :from their mothers, who provide them with food.
     Steven Amstrup is the chief scientist of Polar Bear International. The group aims to save the bears and their home. "The more people who see polar bears and understand their difficult situations, the better the chance we'll alter our warming path in time to save them," he says.

Reading Comprehension

　　It is difficult to imagine what life would be like without memory．The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions, the basis for the decisions we make, and the roots of our habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences, which are brought into the present by memory.
　　Memory can be defined as the capacity to keep information available for later use．It not only includes "remembering" things like arithmetic or historical facts, but also involves any change in the way an animal typically behaves．Memory is involved when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed something suspicious in the grain pile. 
　　Memory exists not only in humans and animals but also in some physical objects and machines．Computers, for example, contain devices for storing data for later use．It is interesting to compare the memory storage capacity of a computer with that of a human being．The instant access memory of a large computer may hold up to 100, 000 "words"－string of alphabetic or numerical characters－ready for instant use．An average U. S. teenager probably recognizes the meaning of about 100, 000 words of English. However, this is but a fraction of the total amount of information that the teenager has stored．Consider, for example, the number of faces and places that the teenager can recognize on sight.
　　The use of words is the basis of the advanced problem-solving intelligence of human beings．A large part of a person's memory is in terms of words and combinations of words.

Reading Comprehension

     Is that 6 a.m. workout getting in the way of good sleep? Don’t think your fat cells won’t notice. A new study published in The Annals of Internal Medicine (a medical journal) finds that inadequate shut-eye has a harmful effect on fat cells, reducing their ability to respond to insulin (胰岛素) by about 30 percent. Over the long-term, this decreased response could set the stage for type-2 diabetes (a medical condition in which someone has too much sugar in his or her blood), fatty liver disease and weight gain. 
   The study adds to a growing body of evidence that there’ “an intimate relationship between the amount of sleep we get and our ability to maintain a good, healthy body weight,” says sleep expert Helene Emsellem, director of the Center for Sleep and Wake Disorders in Chevy Chase, Maryland. But Americans don’t seem to be getting the message that we need seven to nine hours par night. More than 1 in 5 of us, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is getting six or fewer hours of sleep per night, on average. 
   So how did researchers study fat cells in the Annals paper? Matthew Brady of the University of Chicago and a group of colleagues selected and persuaded seven volunteers to take part in the research project. They were all young, thin and healthy and agreed to sleep for eight nights in a sleep lab. “For four nights they were allowed to stay in bed for 8.5 hours a night,” says Brady. Then, a month later, they came back for four additional nights——but this time they were allowed just 4.5 hours of sleep per night. And after each visit, researchers got a sample of their fat. Brady explains that the fat cells responded significantly to the loss of sleep. “I was very surprised to be honest,” he says. 
   Bad things can happen when fat cells become less responsive to insulin. “Fat cells are actually your friend,” he says. “They’re there to store lipids (血脂).” When lipids stay inside the cells, your body can utilize the fat when you’re exercising or sleeping or going about your day. “However, when fat cells stare to become insulin resistant, the lipids star to leach out of the fat cells and rise in the bloodstream,” Brady says.

Reading Comprehension

     Increasingly, over the past ten years, people--- especially young people –have become aware of the need to change their eating habits, because much of the food they eat, especially processed food, is not good for the health. As a result, there has been a growing interest in natural foods: foods which do not contain chemical additives and which have not been affected by chemical fertilizers, widely used in farming today.
     Natural foods, for example, are vegetables, fruit and grain which have been grown in soil that is rich in organic matter. In simple words, this means that the soil has been nourished by unused vegetable matter, which provides it with vitamins and minerals. This in itself is a natural process compared with the use of chemicals and fertilizers, the main purpose of which is to increase the amount—but not the quality—of foods grown in commercial farming area.
     Natural foods also include animals which have been allowed to feed move freely in healthy pastures. Compare this with what happens in the mass production of poultry：there are battery farms, for example, where thousands of chickens live crowded together in one building and are fed on food which is little better than rubbish. Chickens kept in this way are not only tasteless as food; they also produce eggs which lack important vitamins.
     There are other sides of healthy eating which are now receiving increasing attention from experts on diet. Take, for example, the question of sugar. This is actually unnecessary food. It is not that sugar is harmful in itself. But it does seem to be addictive: the quantity we use has grown steadily over the last two centuries and in Britain today each person consumes an average of 200 pounds a year! Yet all it does is provide us with energy, in the form of calories. There are no vitamins in it, no minerals, and no fibre.

     It’s very important that nowadays fibre is considered to be an important part of a healthy diet .In white bread ,for example ,the fibre has been removed .But it is present in unrefined flour and of course in vegetables .It is interesting to note that in countries where the national diet contains large quantities of unrefined flour and vegetables ,certain diseases are comparatively not often seen .For this reason ,the importance is placed on the eating of wholemeal bread and more vegetables by modern experts on “healthy eating”.