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Have you ever tasted saltwater? I guess you have and if so, you will agree with me that it’s not very refreshing. In fact, drinking more than a few cups worth can kill you.

According to the United States Geological Survey, whose mission is to collect and disseminate reliable, impartial, and timely information that is needed to understand the nation’s water resources, about ninety-seven percent of the water on our planet is saltwater; the rest is stored in lakes, rivers, glaciers and aquifers underground. Moreover, only about one-third of the world’s potential fresh water can be used for human needs. As pollution increases, the amount of usable water decreases.

Water is the most precious and taken-for-granted resource we have on Earth. It is also one of the most threatened resources. Increased population and possible climate change will put more and more strain on supplies of this vital resource as time goes on. What could we do in this situation? Though it may seem like science fiction, the solution could lie in outer space.

I’m not saying we’re going to be teleporting to a spring on the other side of the galaxy or colonizing another planet just to have longer showers – it’s much more mundane than that. What we could achieve realistically in this century is the successful use of the solar system’s rare metals and water, barring the invention of the matrix.

You may be surprised to learn that the metal in your keys, coins, cell phone, computer, car and everywhere else, originally came to this planet from space. When Earth formed, the heavy metals sank to the center and formed a solid core. The lighter elements formed the mantle and the crust we live on. Asteroids and comets that struck the Earth brought water and metals to the surface.

There are thousands of asteroids orbiting near Earth. Most asteroids are made of rock, but some are composed of metal, mostly nickel and iron. Probes could be sent out to these to identify useful ones. Then larger probes could push them towards the Earth where they can be handled in orbit.

In order to fuel ships and probes, we simply need to find a source of water, such as a comet or the surface of the moon. We collect the water and pass an electric current through it from a solar panel. The water separates into oxygen and hydrogen, which in liquid form is a powerful rocket fuel.

Is this really possible? We may soon find out. Private company SpaceX has already started delivering equipment to the International Space Station (ISS).The ISS is proof that countries once at each other’s throats, like America and Russia, can work together and pull off multi-billion dollar projects.

Recently, a company called Planetary Resources Inc. made the news forgetting big names like Google and Microsoft to invest in exploring asteroids for material gain. Although it will take many decades, it is wise to put the gears in motion now.

We’ve already landed probes on the surface of asteroids and taken samples from them. We can put something as large as the ISS, which weighs just short of 500 tons, according to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in orbit.

We can make a half-million-mile round-trip to get rocks from the moon. We can do all of these things already. They just need to be applied and developed in a smart way.

What problem is raised in the article?

1. Cooperation in space.

2. Threats of climate change.

3. Danger of drinking salt water.

4. Lack of water supplies on Earth.

Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12-18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.

The risk of catastrophic climate change is getting worse, according to a new study from scientists involved with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Threats — ranging from the destruction of coral reefs to more extreme weather events like hurricanes, droughts and floods — are becoming more likely at the temperature change already underway: as little as 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) of warming in global average temperatures.

‘Most people thought that the risks were going to be for certain species and poor people. But all of a sudden the European heatwave of 2003 comes along and kills 50,000 people; [Hurricane] Katrina comes along and there’s a lot of data about the increased intensity of droughts and floods. Plus, the dramatic melting of Greenland that nobody can explain certainly has to increase your concern,’ says climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, who co-authored the research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as in several IPCC reports. ‘Everywhere we looked, there was evidence that what was believed to be likely has happened. Nature has been cooperating with climate change theory unfortunately.’

Schneider and his colleagues updated a graph, dubbed the ‘burning embers,’ that is designed to map the risks of damage from global warming. The initial version of the graph drawn in 2001 had the risks of climate change beginning to appear after 3.6 or 5.4 degrees F (2 to 3 degrees C) of warming, but the years since have shown that climate risks kick in with less warming.

According to the new graph, risks to ‘unique and threatened systems’ such as coral reefs and risks of extreme weather events become likely when temperatures rise by as little as 1.8 degrees F from 1990 levels, which is on course to occur by mid-century given the current concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. In addition, risks of negative consequences such as increased droughts and the complete melting of ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica definitively outweigh any potential positives, such as longer growing seasons in countries such as Canada and Russia.

‘We’re definitely going to overshoot some of these temperatures where we see these very large vulnerabilities manifest,’ says economist Gary Yohe of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., another co-author. ‘We’re going to have to learn how to adapt.’ Adaptation notwithstanding, Yohe and Schneider say that scientists must also figure out a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reverse the heating trend to prevent further damage.

Several bills pending in Congress would set a so-called cap-and-trade policy under which an overall limit on pollution would be set — and companies with low output could sell their allowances to those that fail to cut emissions as long as the total stays within the total pollution cap. Any such federal policy would put a price on carbon dioxide pollution, which is currently free to vent into the atmosphere, Yohe note. He, however, favours a so-called carbon tax that would set a fixed price for such climate-changing pollution rather than the cap-and-trade proposals favoured by the Obama administration. ‘It’s a predictable price, not a thing that bounces around.’

But even with such policies in place—not only in the U.S. but across the globe—climate change is a foregone conclusion. Global average temperatures have already risen by at least 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degree C) and further warming of at least 0.7 degree F (0.4 degree C) is virtually certain, according to the IPCC. And a host of studies, including a recent one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have shown that global warming is already worse than predicted even a few years ago. The question is: ‘Will it be catastrophic or not?’ ‘We’ve dawdled, and if we dawdle more, it will get even worse,’ Schneider says. ‘It’s time to move.’

The current temperature change

1) is less than it was predicted.

2) is too little to cause any concern.

3) makes natural disasters more probable.

4) has caused the catastrophic climate change.

Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12-18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.

For almost 125 years, the secrecy surrounding the recipe for Coca-Cola has been one of the world’s great marketing tricks. As the story goes, the fizzy drink’s famous ‘7X’ formula has remained unchanged since it was developed in 1886. Today, the recipe is entrusted only to two Coke executives, neither of whom can travel on the same plane for fear the secret would go down with them.

Now, one of America’s most celebrated radio broadcasters claims to have discovered the Coke secret. Ira Glass, presenter of the public radio institution This American Life, says he has tracked down a copy of the recipe, the original of which is still supposedly held in a burglar-proof vault at the Sun Trust Bank in Atlanta, Georgia.

The formula was created by John Pemberton, an Atlanta chemist and former Confederate army officer who crafted cough medicines in his spare time. In 1887, he sold the recipe to a businessman, Asa Griggs, who immediately placed it for safekeeping in the Georgia Trust Bank.

Glass came across a recipe that he believes is the secret formula in a back issue of Pemberton’s local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, while he was researching an entirely different story. Tucked away on an inside page of the 8 February 1979 edition, he stumbled on an article that claimed to have uncovered the closely guarded 7X formula.

The column was based on information found in an old leather-bound notebook that belonged to Pemberton’s best friend and fellow Atlanta chemist, RR Evans. Glass was intrigued and, after some digging, found that the notebook had been handed down over generations until it reached a chemist in Georgia called Everett Beal, whose widow still possesses it.

The rediscovered recipe includes extract of coca leaves, caffeine, plenty of sugar (it specifies 30 unidentified units thought to be pounds), lime juice, vanilla and caramel. Into that syrup, the all-important 7X ingredients are added: alcohol and six oils –orange, lemon, nutmeg, coriander, neroli and cinnamon. The formula is very similar to the recipe worked out by Mark Pendergrast who wrote a history of the drink in 1993 called For God, Country & Coca-Cola.

Coke’s secret recipe is, in fact, partly a myth. The soda has changed substantially over time. Cocaine, a legal stimulant in Pemberton’s day, was removed from the drink in 1904 after mounting public unease about the drug. Extract of coca leaves is still used but only after the cocaine has been removed.

In 1980, the company replaced sugar, squeezed from beet and cane, with the cheaper corn sweetener that is often found in American food and drink. Coke fans were not impressed.

Despite such occasional controversies, one element has remained constant: Coke’s commitment to keeping its own secret. Speculation about the recipe has been a popular talking point for more than a century, proving good for business. The company has reacted to the This American Life story in a way that has been typical of its commercial strategy since the 19^th century. “Many third parties have tried to crack our secret formula. Try as they might, they’ve been unsuccessful,” Coca-Cola’s Kerry Tressler said.

The best title reflecting the message of the story probably is…

1) The History of Coca-Cola company.

2) Coca-Cola secret recipe revealed?

3) Tracking down the famous recipe.

4) The secret recipe is a fraud.

Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12-18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.

Family Fortune

In 1840, times were hard for Bentley Harcourt. He had a farm in Yorkshire, but it didn’t make money. He wanted to marry but decided to wait until better times came along. Better times did not come along. One day, he saw a newspaper article about the American West. It sounded like the land of milk and honey. He thought about it. He had no family. Nobody cared if he lived or died. Why not make a new life in the New World? He sold his farm and immigrated to America. After a year of drifting he found himself in Texas. He loved it. He loved the fact that you could travel for days and not meet another soul. He used his savings to buy some land. That year he died.

In 1910, an oil company moved on to his land and found oil. They took millions of barrels of oil out of the ground, all the profits due to the owner of the land were paid into a bank account in Houston, where they waited for a relative to claim them. The money sat in the bank for years. By 1975, the amount stood at two billion dollars.

In 1975, inBradford, England, a man called David Kingsley took up a new hobby – tracing his family tree. He studied church records, visited museums, checked every reference to families called Kingsley. He also checked on his mother’s family. They were called Harcourt. He discovered one day that his mother’s great-great uncle, a man with the splendid name of Bentley Harcourt, had sailed from Liverpool to America.

In the same year, shortly after learning about his great-great uncle, Kingsley read a magazine article about a fortune that lay unclaimed in a Texas bank. This article told the story of a lonely immigrant called Bentley Harcourt, and about how he had died shortly after buying his dream ranch in Texas. The magazine promised to pay the legal expenses of anyone who could claim to be a descendant and who might be entitled to the fortune. Kingsley read the story with mounting excitement. Surely, this must be the same Bentley Harcourt that he had come across during his research into his family tree! He talked the matter over with his wife and then wrote to the magazine.

As it turned out, Kingsley was not the only one who claimed to be a descendant. By the end of 1977, over 60 people were claiming they were entitled to the fortune. The arguments, the quarrels, and the court cases went on, and on, and on. In the end, Kingsley did not get the money, but, funnily enough, he didn’t mind. He had found something much more important. He had a great-great uncle named Bentley Harcourt, there was no doubt about that. But, amazingly, it was a different Bentley Harcourt. It seemed impossible that there could be two people with such an unusual name, but it was true. This Bentley Harcourt had settled in Orange Country, California, and had made his fortune in fish canning. He married a hardworking Swedish girl, and they had thirteen children. David Kingsley had found a different treasure: a branch of his family across the Atlantic. The two families wrote to each other. Later, they visited each other. They became the best of friends.

And the fortune of the other Bentley Harcourt? It is still unclaimed. As I write this, the sum stands at 2.3 billion dollars. This may be a good moment to start tracing your family tree!

What did Bentley Harcourt think about the American West when he read the newspaper article?

1) He thought it was a land with a lot of free food.

2) He thought he might find himself a wife there.

3) He thought it was a land where life was easy and wonderful.

4) He thought he could hide himself there from people.

Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12-18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.

Chronic lack of sleep affects one in three British workers

One in three British workers suffers from poor sleep, research shows, with stress, computers and taking work home blamed for the lack of quality sleep. Some employees get fewer than five hours sleep a night, only one in seven feels completely refreshed when they wake and more women have poor shut-eye than men. The alarming findings emerged from a study of self-assessments completed by 38,784 staff working in the UK for firms such as telecoms firm, O2, drugs developer, Quintiles and medical technology manufacturer, Medtronic.

A third were dissatisfied with the amount and quality of their sleep, with 8.4% saying they were "very unhappy" with it, and another 24.4% describing themselves as "unhappy". When asked how they felt 30 minutes after getting up, only 15.5% said "refreshed". Of the others, 3.3% said they were "exhausted", 24% said "unrefreshed" and 57.2% were still "a little tired".

While experts say that everyone should ideally get seven to eight hours sleep a night, only 38.5% of the 38,784 respondents did so. More had between five and seven hours (45%), only a lucky 10% reported sleeping for eight to nine hours and one in 100 enjoyed more than nine hours.

When researchers combined those results to give each respondent an overall "sleep score" out of 100, some 33.8% got a mark of less than 30 – the lowest category. That means someone either has, or is at high risk of developing, a sleeping problem. "This research is telling us that a large number of working adults, one in three in the UK, has a sleeping problem," said Dr Tony Massey, medical director of Vielife, the health and productivity firm that carried out the assessments between 2009 and 2011. "A very concerning number of British workers get too little sleep." Britain is near the top of an international league table for lack of sleep. A Vielife study of 116,452 staff in America found that 23.4% scored poorly for sleep.

The extent of inadequate rest has prompted fears that many people are too tired to do their jobs properly, with some so sleep-deprived their brains are as confused as if they had consumed too much alcohol.

"Too few people practice sleep hygiene," said Massey. "That involves little things that people can do without professional help, like ensuring your room is dark and quiet, getting to bed at the same time every night – just like a two-year-old – reading a book, which is a proven relaxant, and not looking at bright screens, such as the TV or computer, for an hour before you go to bed as that will disturb your sleep."

The growing tendency for employees to do extra work in the evenings and at weekends, which may have risen in the recession, also seems to be linked to poor sleep. "More people are scrunching the golden hour before they go to sleep, and they are paying the price in that their sleep isn't refreshing and they end up in a vicious cycle of fatigue, poor productivity and then feeling that they have to do the same again the next day to compensate," said Massey.

The best guarantee of good quality shut-eye is to work five days a week and sleep seven to eight hours a night. Five-days-a-week staff had the best sleep score, while those getting seven to eight hours a night scored 72.7.

"These are very worrying findings because lack of sleep is a risk factor for a whole range of serious health problems, such as stroke and heart disease," said Massey.

Which of the following is mentioned among the reasons for poorer sleep?

1) Work for telecom firms.

2) Consumption of drugs.

3) Work done at home.

4) Lack of communication.

Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12-18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.

Do you believe in climate change?

This may seem like an odd question for a climate scientist to ask, but it is one I am constantly asked now. The typical discussion starts: "I know that the climate is changing, but hasn't it always changed through natural cycles?" Then they will often give an example, such as the medieval warm period to prove their point.

Those asking the question include a wide range of people I meet in the pub, friends, politicians and, increasingly, even some of those active in sustainable development and the renewable energy businesses. What I find interesting is that I have known many of these people for a long time and they never asked me this before.

Recent studies show that public acceptance of the scientific evidence for man-made climate change has decreased. However, the change is not that great. The difference I find in talking to people is that they feel better able to express their doubts.

This is very hard for scientists to understand. The scientific evidence that humanity is having an effect on the climate is overwhelming and increasing every year. Yet public perception of this is confused. People modify their beliefs about uncomfortable truth, they may have become bored of constantly hearing about climate change; or external factors such as the financial crisis may have played a role.

Around three years ago, I raised the issue of the way that science can be misused. In some cases scare stories in the media were over-hyping climate change, and I think we are paying the price for this now with a reaction the other way. I was concerned then that science is not always presented objectively by the media. What I don't think any of us appreciated at the time was the depth of disconnect between the scientific process and the public.

Which brings me to the question, should you believe in climate change? The first point to make is that it's not something you should believe or not believe in –this is a matter of science and therefore of evidence – and there's a lot of it out there. On an issue this important, I think people should look at that evidence and make their own mind up. We are often very influenced by our own personal experience. After a couple of cold winters in the UK, the common question was: "Has climate change stopped?" despite that fact that many other regions of the world were experiencing record warm temperatures. And 2010 was one of the warmest years on record. For real evidence of climate change, we have to look at the bigger picture.

You can see research by the Met Office that shows the evidence of man-made warming is even stronger than it was when the last report was published. A whole range of different datasets and independent analyses show the world is warming. There is a broad consensus that over the last half-century, warming has been rapid, and man-made greenhouse gas emissions are very likely to be the cause.

Ultimately, as the planet continues to warm, the issue of whether you believe in climate change will become more and more irrelevant. We will all experience the impacts of climate change in some way, so the evidence will be there in plain sight.

The more appropriate questions for today are how will our climate change and how can we prepare for those changes? That's why it's important that climate scientists continue their work, and continue sharing their evidence and research so people can stay up to date – and make up their own minds.

Paragraph 1 says that people …

1) think that the climate is not changing.

2) doubt that climate change is man-made.

3) believe that in medieval times climate was harsh.

4) tend to ask strange questions about climate change.

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Women and the maths problem

Women's underachievement in maths may not be due to their poor self-image in the subject, a new report suggests. Researcher Dr. Gijsbert Stoet at the University of Leeds says that the so-called "stereotype threat" theory  which holds that women perform worse than men because they expect to do badly  "does not stand up to scrutiny".

Earlier research had serious flaws, he says, with improper use of statistical techniques and methodology. Clearly, those who carried out this research need to review their own competence in maths. Stoet believes the gender gap may simply be that men and women have different interests from an early age, and says the answer to getting more women into maths and engineering is probably a matter of motivation.

According to last year's results, even though girls perform as well as boys in their maths GCSEs, 60% of A-levels in the subject are taken by boys, who achieve 60% of grade As.

I am an engineer, who has worked in the chemical industry for most of my working career. When I graduated in the 80, I assumed we were at the start of a new era for women in science: I studied alongside intelligent and motivated women, opportunities seemed aplenty, in-roads had been made.

But 20 years down the line, only 8.7% of British engineers are women, the lowest proportion in Europe, compared with 25% in Sweden. So what has happened?

One of the main problems is that careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (known as Stem) are not sufficiently promoted in schools, with fewer children taking up these subjects at GCSE and A-level. Year in, year out, we are told that Britain has a skills shortage. The general lack of interest among schoolchildren in maths and science subjects, together with the underlying social conditioning that still remains  that science subjects "aren't really for girls"  has led to a double-whammy effect, reducing female entrants even further.

Over the past few years, I have been involved in Stemnet, an organization dedicated to promoting these careers by getting people who work in jobs from biologists to builders to talk to schoolchildren about what they do. It's an attempt to debunk the myth that maths and sciences are too difficult or too boring. I was amazed to see hundreds of schoolboys and girls at a recent event at the ScienceMuseum, presenting a range of experiments and projects they had prepared. And the ones prepares by girls were equally challenging and sophisticated.

I agree with the new study that rather than focusing on the problems of stereotyping, we should devote more time to encouraging girls into science and technology: they clearly respond.

But encouraging schoolgirls into university and careers is not all. As is typical in most sectors, I see a number of female engineers at the entry and mid-levels of companies, but precious few at the top. This is a huge waste of talent. It also raises the issue of certain professional inequality and a biased attitude towards women. The report has done well to challenge the myths behind women's underachievement in schools, but more work still needs to be done to address the problem of women's lack of achievement in the workplace. At least in the spheres closely related to science and engineering.

Dr. Gijbert Stoet claims that women do worse than men at maths because they…

1) are not encouraged to do the subject.

2) do not believe in their own competence.

3) use improper methods in problem-solving.

4) employ wrong stereotypical techniques.

Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12-18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.

The Difference Engine: No more addresses

Remember the panic over the “millennium bug”, when computers everywhere were expected to go haywire on January 1st, 2000, thanks to the way a lot of old software used just two digits to represent the year instead of four? Doomsters predicted all sorts of errors in calculations involving dates when the clocks rolled over from 99 to 00. In the event, the millennium dawned without incident. That may have been because of the draconian preparations undertaken beforehand. Or perhaps, as many suspected, the problem was grossly exaggerated in the first place, as it often happens. Certainly, the computer industry made a packet out of all the panic-buying of new hardware and software in the months leading up to the new millennium. And who would blame them for this? Business is business.

Well, something similar is about to happen in the months ahead. This time, the issue concerns the exhaustion of Internet addresses – those four numbers ranging from 0 to 255 separated by dots that uniquely identify every device attached to the Internet. According to Hurricane Electric, an Internet backbone and services provider based in Fremont, California, the Internet will run out of bulk IP addresses sometime next week – given the rate addresses are currently being gobbled up.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) will then have doled out all its so-called "slash-eight" blocks of addresses to the five regional Internet registries around the world. In turn, the registries are expected to have allocated all their remaining addresses to local network operators by October at the latest. After that, any organization applying for new addresses will be told, “Sorry, none left”.

The issue is real and has been a long time in the making. The Economist first warned about it ten years ago. The problem concerns the address space of the existing version of the Internet protocol (IPv4), which is only 32 bits wide. The total number of binary addresses possible with such an arrangement is 4.3 billion. Back in the 1980s, when the Internet connected just a couple of dozen research institutes in America, that seemed like a huge number. Besides, the Internet was thought at the time to be just a temporary network anyway.

But with the invention of the Web in 1990 came an explosion in popular demand. It was soon clear that it was only a matter of time before the Internet would exhaust its supply of addresses. Work on a replacement for IPv4 began in the early 1990s, with IPv6 finally being made available around 1998. By giving the new internet version an address space of 128 bits, the designers pretty well guaranteed that it would not run out of unique identifiers for decades, or even centuries, to come.

Two raised to the 128th power is an astronomical number. That will come in handy when the "Internet of things" becomes a reality. Already, some two billion people have access to the Internet. Add all the televisions, phones, cars and household appliances that are currently being given Internet access – plus, eventually, every book, pill case and item of inventory as well – and a world or two of addresses could easily be accounted for. And yet, the solution of any problem begins with its verbalization. We are forewarned and it means – forearmed.

The fears of the users about the “millennium bug” were …

1) justified.

2) unrealistic.

3) overestimated.

4) suppressed.

Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12–18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.

The lure of the screen

I used to tell my parents that the first cell phone I will allow my own children to have will be a flip phone, incapable of Internet access and certainly without the ability to use “apps.” I argued that their first phones would have only the capabilities of my first phone – texting and calling – used primarily to contact their parents, and once in a while classmates to ask about homework. Isn’t it primarily what we think kids need phones for?

It took me a while to realize how impractical this was because if the first piece of a given technology that I possessed had been the same as my parents’, I would have been walking around with a cassette player in a world of iPods (incidentally, I loved my Sony Walkman CD player).

So maybe it was a little ridiculous for me to suggest this, but I think my point was (and is) valid. I look at young kids today and see that they’re as attached to mobile devices as their adult counterparts. It has come to the point where kids would rather sit inside and play games on their parents’ (or their own) iPads than go outside and play hide-and-seek, or catch, well, do anything.

And while I recall my parents telling me to drop the Legos or even the PlayStation controller and head outside, I, unlike these children, often actually did it, and when I didn’t, at least I was capable of breaking away to utter a response.

Today, however, youngsters are becoming so attached to technology at such a young age, as young as 3 or 4, that they are forgetting – if they ever learned in the first place – how to have fun without an iPad – literally.

In April, The Telegraph quoted North Ireland teacher Colin Kinney, who said his colleagues, “have concerns over the increasing numbers of young pupils who can swipe a screen but have little or no manipulative skills to play with building blocks or the like, or the pupils who cannot socialize with other pupils but whose parents talk proudly of their ability to use a tablet or smartphone.”

Kinney goes on to say that the “brilliant computer skills” these children possess is “outweighed by their deteriorating skills in pen and paper exams because they rely on instant support of the computer and are often unable to apply what they should have learned from their textbooks.”

It is true that we are moving into a world in which the ability to understand the language of computer coding is more important than the ability to read and write cursive. This, however, is not an excuse for the extent to which young children have become as addicted (or more so) to their mobile devices as their parents.

LeapFrog, the popular children’s brand is set to unveil a product called the Leap Band; the first wearable tech catered specifically toward children. And although the wristwatch-like product is designed to get kids up and moving, it raises a question for me: How young is too young?

I read that Google is considering allowing online accounts for children under the age of 13 (though giving their parents control over how the service is used).

Because of this cross-generational addiction, this week has been designated as “Screen Free Week” in schools around the country. The week is aimed at getting every member of the family away from computer and device use for just one week and head outside.

For parents, technology is now a dilemma: Give it to their kids at a young age so they are in line with their classmates in terms of computer prowess or withhold it and allow them the gift of social skills … only time will tell, but I fear the former is gaining ground.

What kind of a phone does the author want her children to have first?

1) An old-type phone.

2) A modern phone.

3) Something like her parents’ phone.

4) Something like her “old” phone.

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The truth about bananas

When I was in college, I had a professor who had some strange habits. Every now and then, this professor came to class with the sticker from a banana on his shirt. One day a student asked him what was with the stickers. He replied, solemnly, “Oh. Yeah. Well, whenever I have a banana for breakfast that has a sticker on it, I put the sticker on my shirt to remind me of the suffering of the banana pickers in Latin America, who sometimes earn just 50c for a 12-hour day of work in grueling conditions. I wear it to show my solidarity with them, as a silent protest for better treatment.” From that day on, we saw the professor in a completely new light and we started thinking about bananas differently too. As I was later to discover, almost nothing about bananas is as it seems.

On a trip to Costa Rica, the major exporters of bananas, I saw endless banana plantations and visited a botanical garden where a botanist shared some fascinating details about banana trees. He said there are about 300 varieties of banana, but only a small fraction is cultivated commercially. The edible type of banana grown in Costa Rica is a hybrid that is larger and sweeter than its naturally occurring ancestors.

Among the other interesting tidbits we learned was that banana “trees” are not even trees – they’re the world’s largest perennial herbs. The distinction is not merely academic; the stems, which may appear to be solid trunks, are simply multiple layers of very large leaves that could be cut through with a regular knife. In fact, the stems often break under the weight of the bananas and need to be supported with poles.

Bananas also have an unusual life cycle. Normally, the primary reason for a plant to bear any sort of fruit in the first place is to propagate itself, since the fruit contains the seed. Modern, commercial strains of banana don’t have seeds. Seedless fruit-bearing plants normally propagate only with human help, because the plant has no natural way to regenerate when it dies. Each banana plant produces just one bunch of fruit over its lifetime of about a year and then diesor at least appears to. But the stem above ground is just a portion of the plant, the so-called pseudostem. There is also an underground stem, called a rhizome, which produces new shoots at the base of the visible stem. These begin growing into new, flowering stems just as the old one is dying. The new plant, then, really isn’t new at all, and is genetically identical to its predecessor.

These peculiarities aside, bananas are simply tasty. They are also an excellent source of potassium and are extremely good for keeping scoops of ice cream aligned in a dish. Bananas have been referred to as “the world’s most popular fruit,” “the world’s most popular tropical fruit,” “America’s most popular fruit,” and a variety of other designations in the upper strata of fruit stardom, based on different metrics for assessing popularity. In any case, Americans,and much of the rest of the world, certainly consume immense quantities of bananas.

But what about banana pickers? I’m sorry to say it’s true. The life of the average banana picker is still rather bleak. But if the producers paid their workers a living wage, bananas would become so expensive that few people would buy them, thus reducing demand, and so on. For my part, I wear banana stickers just as my professor did, not because I think it will have any tangible impact, but to remind myself of the real price of bananas.

The professor wore the banana stickers on his shirt to …

1) protest against his life conditions.

2) express his support for banana pickers.

3) remind himself to buy some bananas.

4) make his students curious.