17. NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
This year's Nobel Peace Prize justly rewards the thousands of scientists of the United Nations Climate Change Panel (the IPCC). These scientists are engaged in excellent,painstaking work that establishes exactly what the world should expect from climate change.
The other award winner, former US Vice President Al Gore, has spent much more time telling us what to fear. While the IPCC's estimates and conclusions are grounded in careful study, Gore doesn't seem to be similarly restrained.
Gore told the world in his Academy Award-winning movie (recently labeled "one-sided" and containing "scientific errors" by a British judge) to expect 20-foot sea-level rises over this century. He ignores the findings of his Nobel co-winners, the IPCC, who conclude that sea levels will rise between only a half-foot and two feet over this century, with their best expectation being about one foot. That's similar to what the world experienced over the past 150 years.
Likewise, Gore agonizes over the accelerated melting of ice in Greenland and what it means for the planet but overlooks the IPCC's conclusion that, if sustained, the current rate of melting would add just three inches to the sea level rise by the end of the century. Gore also takes no notice of research showing that Greenland's temperatures were higher in 1941 than they are today.
Gore also frets about the future of polar bears. He claims they are drowning as their icy habitat disappears. However, the only scientific study showing any such thing indicates that four polar bears drowned because of a storm.
The politician-turned-movie maker loses sleep over a predicted rise in heat-related deaths. There's another side of the story that's inconvenient to mention: rising temperatures will reduce the number of cold spells, which are a much bigger killer than heat. The best study shows that by 2050, heat will claim 400,000 more lives, but 1.8 million fewer will die because of cold. Indeed, according to the first complete survey of the economic effects of climate change for the world, global warming will actually save lives.
Sample Answer
Al Gore, in his award-winning movie, expresses his fear about sea-level rises over this century, the accelerated melting of ice in Greenland, the future of polar bears predicted a rise in heat-related deaths and these concerns go against scientific studies done by his co- winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the IPCC.
18. PARENT'S BORN ORDER AFFECTS THEIR PARENTING
Parents' own birth order can become an issue when dynamics in the family they are raising replicate the family in which they were raised. Agati notes common examples, such as a firstborn parent getting into "raging battles" with a firstborn child. "Both are used to getting the last word. Each has to be right. But the parent has to be the grown-up and step out of that battle," he advises. When youngest children become parents, Agati cautions that because they "may not have had high expectations placed on them, they, in turn, may not see their kids for their abilities."
But he also notes that since youngest children tend to be more social, "youngest parents can be helpful to their firstborn, who may have a harder time with social situations. These parents can help their eldest kids loosen up and not be so hard on themselves. Mom Susan Ritz says her own birth order didn't seem to affect her parenting until the youngest of her three children, Julie, was born. Julie was nine years younger than Ritz's oldest, Joshua, mirroring the age difference between Susan and her own older brother. "I would see Joshua do to Julie what my brother did to me," she says of the taunting and teasing by a much older sibling.
"I had to try not to always take Julie's side." Biases can surface no matter what your own birth position was, as Lori Silverstone points out. "As a middle myself, I can be harder on my older daughter. I recall my older sister hitting me," she says of her reactions to her daughters' tussles.
"My husband is a firstborn. He's always sticking up for the oldest. He feels bad for her that the others came so fast. He helps me to see what that feels like, to have that attention and then lose it." Silverstone sees birth-order triggers as "an opportunity to heal parts of ourselves. I've learned to teach my middle daughter to stand up for herself.
My mother didn't teach me that. I'm conscious of giving my middle daughter tools so she has a nice way to protect herself."
Whether or not you subscribe to theories that birth order can affect your child's personality, ultimately, "we all have free will," Agati notes. It's important for both parents and kids to realize that, despite the characteristics often associated with birth order, "you're not locked into any role."
Sample Answer
Despite the theory that parents' own birth order can affect their parenting, and that parents usually replicate the family in which they were raised, both parents and children have free will to build up their own personality and characteristics.
19. NAPPING
A large new study has found that people who regularly took a siesta were significantly less likely to die of heart disease.
"Taking a nap could turn out to be an important weapon in the fight against coronary mortality," said Dimitrios Trichopoulos of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, who led the study published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study of more than 23,000 Greek adults -- the biggest and best examination of the subject to date -- found that those who regularly took a midday siesta were more than 30 percent less likely to die of heart disease.
Other experts said the results are intriguing. Heart disease kills more than 650,000 Americans each year, making it the nation's No. 1 cause of death.
"It's interesting. A little siesta, a little snooze may be beneficial," said Gerald Fletcher, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., speaking on behalf of the American Heart Association. "It's simple, but it has a lot of promise."
While more research is needed to confirm and explore the findings, there are several ways napping could reduce the risk of heart attacks, experts said.
"Napping may help deal with the stress of daily living," said Michael Twery, who directs the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's National Center on Sleep Disorders Research. "Another possibility is that it is part of the normal biological rhythm of daily living. The biological clock that drives sleep and wakefulness has two cycles each day, and one of them dips usually in the early afternoon. It's possible that not engaging in napping for some people might disrupt these processes."
Researchers have long known that countries such as Greece, Italy, and Spain, where people commonly take siestas, have lower rates of heart disease than would be expected. But previous studies that attempted to study the relationship between naps and heart disease have produced mixed results. The new study is first to try to fully account for factors that might confuse the findings, such as physical activity, diet, and other illnesses.
Sample Answer
Although more research is needed, some studies show that a regular midday siesta could reduce the probability of death caused by heart disease, by helping to deal with stress and biological rhythm of daily living.
20. TREE RING DATING/DENDROCHRONOLOGY
Here’s how tree ring dating, known to scientists as dendrochronology (from the Greek roots Dendron = tree, and chronos = time), works. If you cut a tree down today, it’s straightforward to count the rings inwards, starting from the tree’s outside (corresponding to this year’s growth ring), and thereby to state that the 177th ring from the outermost one towards the centre was laid down in the year 2005 minus 177, or 1828. However, the widths of tree growth rings vary from year to year, depending on the rain or drought conditions in each year.
Hence the sequence of the rings in a tree cross-section is like a message in Morse code formerly used for sending telegraph messages; dot-dot-dash-dot-dash in the Morse code, wide-wide-narrow-wide-narrow in the tree ring sequence. Actually, the tree ring sequence is even more diagnostic and richer in information than the Morse code, because trees actually contain rings spanning many different widths, rather than the Morse code choice between dot and dash.
Tree ring specialists (known as dendrochronologists) proceed by noting the sequence of wider and narrower rings in a tree cut down in a known recent year, and also noting the sequences in beams from trees cut down at various times in the past. They then match up and align the tree ring sequences with the same diagnostic wide/narrow patterns from different beams.
In that way, dendrochronologists have constructed tree ring records extending back for thousands of years in some parts of the world. Each record is valid for a geographic area whose extent depends on local weather patterns because weather and hence tree growth patterns vary with location.
A bonus of dendrochronology is that the width and substructure of each ring reflect the amount of rain and the season at which the rain fell during that particular year. Thus, tree ring studies also allow one to reconstruct the past climate, e.g., a series of wide rings means a very wet period, and a series of narrow rings means a drought.
Sample Answer
Dendrochronology is a scientific method of dating based on the construction and analysis of patterns of tree rings and it can help to reconstruct the past climate for a geographic area.
21. THE KHOIKHOI
San , people of southern Africa, consisting of several groups and numbering over 85,000 in all. They are generally short in stature; their skin is yellowish brown in color; and they feature prominent cheekbones. The San have been called Bushmen by whites in South Africa, but the term is now considered derogatory. Although many now work for white settlers, about half are still nomadic hunters and gatherers of wild food in desolate areas like the Kalahari semi-desert, which stretches between today's Nation States of Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. Their social unit is the small hunting band; larger organizations are loose and temporary. Grashuts, caves and rock shelters are used as dwellings. They possess only what they can carry, using poisoned arrowheads to fall game and transporting water in ostrich-egg shells. The San have a rich folklore, are skilled in drawing, and have a remarkably complex language characterized by the use of click sounds, related to that of the Khoikhoi. For thousands of years the San lived in southern and central Africa, but by the time of the Portuguese arrival in the 15th cent., they had already been forced into the interior of southern Africa. In the 18th and 19th cent., they resisted the encroachment on their lands of Dutch settlers, but by 1862 that resistance had been crushed.
Sample Answer
San, short Southern African people with yellowish brown skin color and prominent cheekbones, are living in primitive ways and small hunting bands previously lived in southern and central Africa.
22. COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
Consider the current situation: Like their counterparts in the United States, engineers and technicians in India have the capacity to provide both computer programming and innovative new technologies. Indian programmers and high-tech engineers earn one- quarter of what their counterparts earn in the United States. Consequently, India is able to do both jobs at a lower dollar cost than the United States: India has an absolute advantage in both. In other words, it can produce a unit of programming for fewer dollars than the United States, and it can also produce a unit of technology innovation for fewer dollars.
Does that mean that the United States will lose not only programming jobs but innovative technology jobs, too? Does that mean that our standard of living will fall if the United States and India engage in international trade?
David Ricardo would have answered no to both questions—as we do today. While India may have an absolute advantage in both activities, that fact is irrelevant in determining what India or the United States will produce. India has a comparative advantage in doing programming in part because such activity requires little physical capital. The flip side is that the United States has a comparative advantage in technology innovation partly because it is relatively easy to obtain capital in this country to undertake such long-run projects. The result is that Indian programmers will do more and more of what U.S. programmers have been doing in the past. In contrast, American firms will shift to more and more innovation. The United States will specialize in technology innovation; India will specialize in programming. The business managers in each country will opt to specialize in activities in which they have a comparative advantage. As in the past, the U.S. economy will continue to concentrate on what are called the "most best" activities.
Sample Answer
What a country will engage in international trade depends on its comparative advantage so India will do more computer programming due to its comparative disadvantage of obtaining physical capital while the United State will engage in capital-intensive technology innovation, though India can do both at lower costs.
23. TOURISM INDUSTRY
Jobs generated by Travel & Tourism are spread across the economy - in retail, construction, manufacturing, and telecommunications, as well as directly in Travel & Tourism companies. These jobs employ a large proportion of women, minorities and young people; are predominantly in small and medium sized companies, and offer good training and transferability. Tourism can also be one of the most effective drivers for the development of regional economies. These patterns apply to both developed and emerging economies.
There are numerous good examples of where Travel & Tourism is acting as a catalyst for conservation and improvement of the environment and maintenance of local diversity and culture. Travel & Tourism creates jobs and wealth and has tremendous potential to contribute to economically, environmentally and socially sustainable development in both developed countries and emerging nations. It has a comparative advantage in that its start-up and running costs can be low compared to many other forms of industry development. It is also often one of the few realistic options for development in many areas. Therefore, there is a strong likelihood that the Travel & Tourism industry will continue to grow globally over the short to medium term.
Sample Answer
Travel and tourism industry improves the development of regional economies and maintenance of the environment and culture and it will continue to grow in the short to medium term because of its comparatively low starting and running costs
24. THEORY OF RESONANCE
The history of marketers seeking the advice of physicists is a short one, but an understanding of the Theory of Resonance may give communications experts the edge. Resonance Theory explains the curious phenomenon of how very small pebbles dropped into a pond can create bigger waves than a large brick. The brick makes a decent splash but its ripples peter out quickly. A tiny pebble dropped into the same pond, followed by another, then another, then another, all timed carefully, will create ripples that build into small waves.
As Dr. Carlo Contaldi, a physicist at Imperial College London, explains, a small amount of energy committed at just the right intervals - the 'natural frequency' - creates a cumulatively large effect.
Media consultant Paul Bay believes that just as with pebbles in a pond, a carefully choreographed and meticulously timed stream of communication will have a more lasting effect than a sporadic big splash during prime time TV breaks.
Innocent is a testament to the power of pebbles. Until last year, the maker of smoothies had never advertised on TV, instead drip-feeding the market with endless ingenious marketing ploys - from annotating its drinks labels with quirky messages to hosting its own music festival, Fruitstock. The company sent a constant stream of messages rather than communicating through the occasional big and expensive noise.
So whether you're trying to make waves in the laboratory or in the media, the people in white coats would advise a little and often. A big budget is not the prerequisite of success.
Sample Answer
Resonance theory, which explains that very small pebbles dropped into a pond can create bigger waves than a large brick, could also be applied to media and a carefully choreographed and meticulously timed stream of communication will create a more cumulative and lasting effect than a big occasional propaganda.
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