9. DIASPORA CONSCIOUSNESS
Diasporas – communities which live outside, but maintain links with, their homelands – are getting larger, thicker and stronger. They are the human face of globalization. Diaspora consciousness is on the rise: diasporans are becoming more interested in their origins, and organising themselves more effectively; homelands are revising their opinions of their diasporas as the stigma attached to emigration declines, and stepping up their engagement efforts; meanwhile, host countries are witnessing more assertive diasporic groups within their own national communities, worrying about fifth columns and foreign lobbies, and suffering outbreaks of ‘diasporaphobia’.This trend is the result of five factors, all of them connected with globalisation: the growth in international migration; the revolution in transport and communications technology, which is quickening the pace of diasporans’ interactions with their homelands; a reaction against global homogenised culture, which is leading people to rethink their identities; the end of the Cold War, which increased the salience of ethnicity and nationalism and created new space in which diasporas can operate; and policy changes by national governments on issues such as dual citizenship and multiculturalism, which are enabling people to lead transnational lives. Diasporas such as those attaching to China, India, Russia and Mexico are already big, but they will continue to grow; the migration flows which feed them are likely to widen and quicken in the future
Sample Answer
The trend that diasporas are conscious about their origins and that host countries are suffering outbreaks of diasporaphobia, results from five factors related to globalisation: the growth in international migration, transportation and communication technology revolution, a reaction against global homogenized culture, the end of the Cold War and policy changes by governments.
10. A CALL FOR REVOLUTIONARY THINKING
We live in an ageing world. While this has been recognized for some time in developed countries, it is only recently that this phenomenon has been fully acknowledged. Global communication is “shrinking” the world, and global ageing is “maturing” it. The increasing presence of older persons in the world is making people of all ages more aware that we live in a diverse and multi-generational society. It is no longer possible to ignore ageing, regardless of whether one views it positively or negatively.
Demographers note that if current trends in ageing continue as predicted, a demographic revolution, wherein the proportions of the young and the old will undergo a historic crossover, will be felt in just three generations. This portrait of change in the world’s population parallels the magnitude of the industrial revolution - traditionally considered the most significant social and economic breakthrough in the history of humankind since the Neolithic period. It marked the beginning of a sustained movement towards modern economic growth in much the same way that globalization is today marking an unprecedented and sustained movement toward a “global culture”. The demographic revolution, it is envisaged, will be at least as powerful.
While the future effects are not known, a likely scenario is one where both the challenges as well as the opportunities will emerge from a vessel into which exploration and research, dialogue and debate are poured. Challenges arise as social and economic structures try to adjust to the simultaneous phenomenon of diminishing young cohorts with rising older ones, and opportunities present themselves in the sheer number of older individuals and the vast resources societies stand to gain from their contribution.
This ageing of the population permeates all social, economic and cultural spheres. Revolutionary change calls for new, revolutionary thinking, which can position policy formulation and implementation on sounder footing. In our ageing world, new thinking requires that we view ageing as a lifelong and society-wide phenomenon, not a phenomenon exclusively pertaining to older persons.
Sample Answer
If the fact and trend that we are living in an ageing world continues, the demographic revolution, as powerful as the industrial revolution, will bring both challenges and opportunities to the society and will be a lifelong and society wide phenomenon.
11. THE PROBLEM OF PREDICTION
As far as prediction is concerned, remember that the chairman of IBM predicted in the fifties that the world would need a maximum of around half a dozen computers, that the British Department for Education seemed to think in the eighties that we would all need to be able to code in BASIC and that in the nineties Microsoft failed to foresee the rapid growth of the Internet. Who could have predicted that one major effect of the automobile would be to bankrupt small shops across the nation? Could the early developers of the telephone have foreseen its development as a medium for person-to-person communication, rather than as a form of broadcasting medium? We all, including the ‘experts’, seem to be peculiarly inept at predicting the likely development of our technologies, even as far as the next year. We can, of course, try to extrapolate from experience of previous technologies, as I do below by comparing the technology of the Internet with the development of other information and communication technologies and by examining the earlier development of radio and print. But how justified I might be in doing so remains an open question. You might conceivably find the history of the British and French videotex systems, Prestel and Minitel, instructive. However, I am not entirely convinced that they are very relevant, nor do I know where you can find information about them on-line, so, rather than take up space here, I’ve briefly described them in a separate article.
Sample Answer
We all, including expert, seem to be unlikely to predict the development of our, even recent, technologies, though you could compare them with earlier technologies and find relevant information
12. ARE FEMALE SONGBIRDS EVOLUTION’S UNSUNG HEROINES?
Males do the singing and females do the listening. This has been the established, even cherished view of courtship in birds, but now some ornithologists are changing tune.
Laszlo Garamszegi of the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and colleagues studied the literature on 233 European songbird species. Of the 109 for which information on females was available, they found evidence for singing in 101 species. In only eight species could the team conclude that females did not sing.
Females that sing have been overlooked, the team say, because either their songs are quiet, they are mistaken for males from their similar plumage or they live in less well-studied areas such as the tropics. Garamszegi blames Charles Darwin for the oversight. "He emphasised the importance of male sexual display, and this is what everyone has been looking at."
The findings go beyond modern species. After carefully tracing back an evolutionary family
tree for their songbirds, Garamszegi's team discovered that, in at least two bird families, singing evolved in females first. They suggest these ancient females may have been using their songs to deter other females from their territories, to coordinate breeding activities with males, or possibly to attract mates.
"It leaves us with a perplexing question," says Garamszegi. 'What evolutionary forces drove some females to give up singing?"
Before people believed that male sings and female listen, traditionally studies normally focus on male as they are more important in xx areas. After examined the family tree of songbird, at least two female sings for surviving reasons.
Sample Answer
A research done by Laszlo Garamszegi and his team shows that most female songbirds could sing and some species sing for surviving reasons and that this fact is overlooked due to Darwin's emphasis on the importance of male display.
13. COUNTRY LIVING
Live in the country and last three years longer than my city friends? Good news indeed, more backing for a lifestyle choice made half a lifetime ago when it seemed a good idea to exchange an Edinburgh terrace for a farm cottage.
I knew it was a good idea because I had been there before. Born and reared on a farm I had been seduced for a few years by the idea of being a big shot who lived and worked in a city rather than only going for the day to wave at the buses.
True, I was familiar with some of the minor disadvantages of country living such as an iffy private water supply sometimes infiltrated by a range of flora and fauna (including, on one memorable occasion, a dead lamb), the absence of central heating in farm houses and cottages, and a single-track farm road easily blocked by snow, broken-down machinery or escaped livestock.
But there were many advantages as I told Liz back in the mid-Seventies. Town born and bred, eight months pregnant and exchanging a warm, substantial Corstorphine terrace for a windswept farm cottage on a much lower income, persuading her that country had it over town might have been difficult.
Sample Answer
Although there are many advantages of country living, it is still difficult to persuade a town- born and bred person to live in the country due to disadvantages and inconvenience of country living life.
14. HOUSE MICE
According to new research, house mice (Mus musculus) are ideal biomarkers of human settlement, as they tend to stow away in crates or on ships that end up going where people go. Using mice as a proxy for human movement can add to what is already known through archaeological data and answer important questions in areas where there is a lack of artifacts, Searle said.
Where people go, so do mice, often stowing away in carts of hay or on ships. Despite a natural range of just 100 meters (109 yards) and an evolutionary base near Pakistan, the house mouse has managed to colonize every continent, which makes it a useful tool for researchers like Searle.
Previous research conducted by Searle at the University of York supported the theory that Australian mice originated in the British Isles and probably came over with convicts shipped there to colonize the continent in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
In the Viking study, he and his fellow researchers in Iceland, Denmark and Sweden took it a step further, using ancient mouse DNA collected from archaeological sites dating from the 10th to 12th centuries, as well as modern mice.
He is hoping to do just that in his next project, which involves tracking the migration of mice and other species, including plants, across the Indian Ocean, from South Asia to East Africa.
Sample Answer
Due to their nature of stowing away around humans, house mice are used by researchers as additional information sources to known archaeological data, to study human settlement and movement.
15. BEAUTY CONTEST
Since Australians Jennifer Hawkins and Lauryn Eagle were crowned Miss Universe and Miss Teen International respectively, there has been a dramatic increase in interest in beauty pageants in this country. These wins have also sparked a debate as to whether beauty pageants are just harmless reminders of old-fashioned values or a throwback to the days when women were respected for how good they looked.
Opponents argue that beauty pageants, whether it’s Miss Universe or Miss Teen International, are demeaning to women and out of sync with the times. They say they are nothing more than symbols of decline.
In the past few decades Australia has taken more than a few faltering steps toward treating women with dignity and respect. Young women are being brought up knowing that they can do anything, as shown by inspiring role models in medicine such as 2003 Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley.
In the 1960s and 70s, one of the first acts of the feminist movement was to picket beauty pageants on the premise that the industry promoted the view that it was acceptable to judges women on their appearance. Today many young Australian women are still profoundly uncomfortable with their body image, feeling under all kinds of pressures because they are judged by how they look.
Almost all of the pageant victors are wafer thin, reinforcing the message that thin equals beautiful. This ignores the fact that men and women come in all sizes and shapes. In a country where up to 60% of young Australians.
Sample Answer
Opponents to beauty pageants argue that it is demeaning to women and is a symbol of decline because in the past, Australian women were treated with dignity and respect, while beauty pageants, promoted from the 1960s, seem to convey that women could be judged on their appearance.
16. COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES
With an abundance of low-priced labor relative to the United States, it is no surprise that China, India and other developing countries specialize in the production of labor-intensive products. For similar reasons, the United States will specialize in the production of goods that are human- and physical-capital intensive because of the relative abundance of a highly-educated labor force and technically sophisticated equipment in the United States.
This division of global production should yield higher global output of both types of goods than would be the case if each country attempted to produce both of these goods itself. For example, the United States would produce more expensive labor-intensive goods because of its more expensive labor and the developing countries would produce more expensive human and physical capital-intensive goods because of their relative scarcity of these inputs. This logic implies that the United States is unlikely to be a significant global competitor in the production green technologies that are not relatively intensive in human and physical capital.
Nevertheless, during the early stages of the development of a new technology, the United States has a comparative advantage in the production of the products enabled by this innovation. However, once these technologies become well-understood and production processes are designed that can make use of less-skilled labor, production will migrate to countries with less expensive labor.
Sample Answer
Although some developing countries, such as China, become competent in the production green industries because they have a comparative advantage over the United States, in producing labour intensive goods due to the relatively lower-priced labour, the United States still has a comparative advantage enabled by innovation in the production at the early stage of the development of a new technology.
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