Questões de Inglês

The Microbial Puppet-Master

by Valerie Ross

from Discover Magazine:

Mind & Brain / Memory, Emotions & Decisions



When Timothy Lu was in medical school, he
treated a veteran whose multiple sclerosis was so
severe that she had to use a urinary catheter. As often
happens with invasive medical devices, the catheters
became infected with biofilms: gooey, antibioticresistant
layers of bacteria. Now the 30-year-old MIT
professor, who first trained as an engineer, designs
viruses that destroy biofilms, which cause everything
from staph infections to cholera outbreaks and that
account for 65 percent of human infections overall.



Discover: You started as an electrical
engineer. Was it a difficult transition becoming a
biologist?

Lu: I came into the lab not really understanding
how to do biology experiments and deal with
chemicals. I’m not a great experimentalist with my
hands, and one night I set the lab on fire.

Discover: How does a biofilm work, from an
engineering perspective?
Lu: A biofilm is essentially a three-dimensional
community of bacteria that live together, kind of like a
bacterial apartment building or city. Biofilms are made
up of the bacterial cells as well as all sorts of other
material — carbohydrates, proteins, and so on — that
the bacteria build to protect themselves.

Discover: And those communities make
bacteria especially dangerous?

Lu: Before I started medical school, I didn’t
think bacterial infections were a big deal, because
I assumed antibiotics had taken care of them, but
then I started seeing patients with significant biofilm
infections that couldn’t be cured.

Discover: What is your strategy to destroy
biofilms?
Lu: We use viruses called phages that infect
bacteria but not human cells. We cut the phages’ DNA
and insert a synthetic gene into the phage genome.
That gene produces enzymes that can go out into the
biofilm and chew it up.
Discover: If you had just $10 for entertainment,
how would you spend your day?

Lu: What can you even buy with $10? Maybe I
would buy a magnifying glass and just peer around
in the soil to see what other life was going on down
there. That would actually be fun.

Available at: . Retrieved on: 11 Sep. 2011. Adapted.



In Text, Lu reports that his method is successful in

a) extracting phages that are infected by a virus that can destroy all enzymes in the bacteria.
b) producing an enzyme that is inserted in a genetically marked bacteria to support viruses that live in the biofilm.
c) triggering a bacterial infection to the viruses that in turn yield enzymes that potently destroy the biofilm.
d) altering a special human-safe virus in order to produce an enzyme that penetrates the biofilm and destroys it.
e) inserting a synthetic gene in the phages genome that will affect the production of virus that get organized into biofilms.

A resposta correta é:

Electronic junk will create pollution problem around world, U.N. study warns


BALI, Indonesia — Sales of household electrical gadgets will boom across the developing world in the next decade, wreaking environmental havoc if there are no new strategies to deal with the discarded TVs, cell phones and computers, a U.N. report said today.
The environmental and health hazards posed by the globe"s mounting electronic waste are particularly urgent in developing countries, which are already dumping grounds for rich nations" high-tech trash, the U.N. Environment Program study said.
Electronic waste is piling up around the world at a rate estimated at 40 million U.S. tons a year, the report said, noting that data remain insufficient.
China produces 2.6 million tons of electronic waste a year, second only to the United States with 3.3 million tons, it said.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said the globe was ill-prepared to deal with the explosion of electronic gadgets over the past decade.
"The world is now confronted with a massive wave of electronic waste that is going to come back and hit us, particularly for least-developed countries, that may become a dumping ground," Steiner told The Associated Press ahead of a UNEP executive meeting in Bali.
He said some Americans and Europeans have sent broken computers to African countries falsely declared as donations. The computers were dumped outside slums as toxic waste and became potential hazards to people, he said.
The report predicts that China"s waste rate from old computers will quadruple from 2007 levels by 2020. Meanwhile, in India, waste from old refrigerators — which contain hazardous chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbon gases — could triple by 2020.
It said the fastest growth in electronic waste in recent years has been in communications devices such as cell phones, pagers and smart phones.
Most of the recycling of electronic waste in developing countries such as China and India is done by inefficient and unregulated backyard operators. The environmentally harmful practice of heating electronic circuit boards over coal-fired grills to leach out gold is widespread in both countries.
The report called for regulations for collecting and managing electronic waste, and urged that technologies be transferred to the industrializing world to cope with such waste.
While electrical products such refrigerators, air conditioners, printers, DVD players and digital music players account for only a small part of the world"s garbage, their components make them particularly hazardous.
Prof. Eric Williams, an Arizona State University expert on industrial ecology who did not participate in the UNEP study, said it was difficult to comment on the credibility of the electronic waste growth forecasts because the report gives little explanation of how they were calculated.
"It is the environmental intensity of e-waste rather than its total mass that is the main concern," Williams told the AP via e-mail.
"If e-waste is recycled informally in the developing world, it causes far worse pollution than the much larger mass of regular waste in landfills," he said.

http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2010/02/electronic_junk_will_create_po.html (06/06/12)



What does "junk" mean?

a) Things that are considered to be of no use or value, or of low quality.
b) Things that people need to keep in the kitchen for a long time.
c) Everything people recycle specially paper and plastic.
d) Fast food people like to eat.
e) All that things we like to have at home.

A resposta correta é:

TEXT I


Emerging markets: a bubble that has finally burst?

Patrick Collinson, guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 August 2011

One of Britain"s most successful fund managers has warned about an emerging market bubble and told small investors, who
have poured billions of pounds into emerging market funds, that returns could be sorely disappointing over the next few
years.
British investors now hold more than £40bn in emerging market funds – typically invested in China, Brazil and India – and
those who jumped in early have done well. The average fund invested in China has made a 112% gain since 2006 while the
very best fund, run by First State, has notched up a breathtaking 159% gain for its investors. Meanwhile, the average fund
invested in UK shares has limped in with a rise of 18% over the same period.
But last week the head of global emerging market equities at First State, Jonathan Asante, told investors that the good times
may be over. Asante wrote to investors saying that most stocks in emerging markets are "fully valued", which in fund
manager speak means he believes that they are not worth investing in and could be headed for a fall. A formal warning to
investors from their fund manager is extremely rare, as it could prompt investors to bolt for the exit – and shrink the funds
from which they are paid.
Asante takes a longer view than most of his rivals. Profit sharing and bonuses at First State are only paid out on the basis of
three-year numbers rather than quarterly or half-yearly figures. Managers are also required to put most of their personal
wealth into their funds. "It means that managers have to eat their own cooking," he says.
Asante, who used to teach at the London School of Economics before becoming a fund manager, is not forecasting an abrupt
halt to the Chinese economic miracle, or an end to India"s growth. But he says that so much money has flooded into the
shares of emerging market companies that even the best of them may now be overvalued. Many companies command share
price ratings which are a multiple of their equivalents in the west, he says, yet are trading in areas where corruption is rife,
inflation rising, where legal systems are immature and where back-door state control is common.
Overvaluations are perhaps most severe in Latin America, particularly Brazil, he says. Indeed, he was so concerned that last
December he wrote a separate warning note to clients in his Latin American portfolios. It was a good call – the São Paulo
Bovespa index was then around 70,000, and is now around 56,000. He continues to believe that the Brazilian currency, the
real, is the "most ridiculously over-valued currency in the world".
It is telling what First State managers are doing with their own cash tied up in First State funds. They now only have around
60% in equity funds, with 40% in cash (sterling, Hong Kong dollar and Singapore dollar) and gold.
"The world is a very risky place right now. I would have to be sceptical of the China story. The central planners have in some
senses been wonderful at balancing growth, inflation, banking and environmental concerns. I applaud them but wonder if
they can keep this going forever."
However, Asante"s views are not shared by the majority of emerging market fund managers. In contrast, the manager of
another giant emerging markets fund, Michael Konstantinov, of the £870m Allianz RCM Bric Stars fund, this week told
potential investors that valuations are currently "very cheap" (his italics) and that they offer an "outstanding entry point".
"I think it is important to remind ourselves that the Bric [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries came through the global
economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 quite well. Brazil did not even go into recession in 2009 while India and China continued
to grow very strongly in the range of 8%-9%. Only Russia had a short-term setback, but has recovered well and is, again,
leading the global growth dynamic.
"As the demand side of these economies is mainly driven by domestic demand, not by exports, they are more resilient to a
global crisis."
Fidelity, which took more than £500m from UK investors into a China fund launched by its most high-profile manager,
Anthony Bolton, has struggled to make money for them yet. The trust is currently trading at 96p compared to its launch price
of 100p in April 2010, although Fidelity remains bullish on the region.
Nick Price, manager of Fidelity Emerging Markets fund and the Fidelity EMEA fund, says: "As an emerging market fund
manager you"d expect me to be bullish wouldn"t you? Clearly, many of the markets are facing headwinds right now and these
may last for some months. But having just come back from China where I spent a week visiting 30 companies, I remain
convinced that the China consumer story is as strong as ever.
"On a longer-term basis, emerging market stocks represent a fraction of their potential worth. It"s a strong statement I know,
but look at the facts. Emerging markets represent 90% of the world"s oil reserves, over 80% of the world"s population, over
60% of the world"s forex reserves, 30% of global GDP, but yet are only 13% of global stock market capitalisation. I am
convinced that the longer you look out, the more sure you can be that emerging markets offer great opportunities."
(source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/aug/05/emerging-markets-bubble-burst)


According to Text I, Jonathan Asante is:

a) an investor working for the global emerging market equities at First State.
b) a consumer following the global emerging market equities at First State.
c) an emergent head representing the global emerging market equities at First State.
d) a fund manager leading the global emerging market equities at First State.
e) a teacher forecasting tendencies about the global emerging market equities at First State.

A resposta correta é:

The Microbial Puppet-Master

by Valerie Ross

from Discover Magazine:

Mind & Brain / Memory, Emotions & Decisions



When Timothy Lu was in medical school, he
treated a veteran whose multiple sclerosis was so
severe that she had to use a urinary catheter. As often
happens with invasive medical devices, the catheters
became infected with biofilms: gooey, antibioticresistant
layers of bacteria. Now the 30-year-old MIT
professor, who first trained as an engineer, designs
viruses that destroy biofilms, which cause everything
from staph infections to cholera outbreaks and that
account for 65 percent of human infections overall.



Discover: You started as an electrical
engineer. Was it a difficult transition becoming a
biologist?

Lu: I came into the lab not really understanding
how to do biology experiments and deal with
chemicals. I’m not a great experimentalist with my
hands, and one night I set the lab on fire.

Discover: How does a biofilm work, from an
engineering perspective?
Lu: A biofilm is essentially a three-dimensional
community of bacteria that live together, kind of like a
bacterial apartment building or city. Biofilms are made
up of the bacterial cells as well as all sorts of other
material — carbohydrates, proteins, and so on — that
the bacteria build to protect themselves.

Discover: And those communities make
bacteria especially dangerous?

Lu: Before I started medical school, I didn’t
think bacterial infections were a big deal, because
I assumed antibiotics had taken care of them, but
then I started seeing patients with significant biofilm
infections that couldn’t be cured.

Discover: What is your strategy to destroy
biofilms?
Lu: We use viruses called phages that infect
bacteria but not human cells. We cut the phages’ DNA
and insert a synthetic gene into the phage genome.
That gene produces enzymes that can go out into the
biofilm and chew it up.
Discover: If you had just $10 for entertainment,
how would you spend your day?

Lu: What can you even buy with $10? Maybe I
would buy a magnifying glass and just peer around
in the soil to see what other life was going on down
there. That would actually be fun.

Available at: . Retrieved on: 11 Sep. 2011. Adapted.



In Text, the word in parentheses describes the idea expressed by the expression in boldface type in

a) gooey - line 5 (sticky)
b) layers - line 6 (fragments)
c) designs - line 7 (controls)
d) outbreaks - line 9 (clinics)
e) overall - line 10 (on people)

A resposta correta é:

The Microbial Puppet-Master

by Valerie Ross

from Discover Magazine:

Mind & Brain / Memory, Emotions & Decisions



When Timothy Lu was in medical school, he
treated a veteran whose multiple sclerosis was so
severe that she had to use a urinary catheter. As often
happens with invasive medical devices, the catheters
became infected with biofilms: gooey, antibioticresistant
layers of bacteria. Now the 30-year-old MIT
professor, who first trained as an engineer, designs
viruses that destroy biofilms, which cause everything
from staph infections to cholera outbreaks and that
account for 65 percent of human infections overall.



Discover: You started as an electrical
engineer. Was it a difficult transition becoming a
biologist?

Lu: I came into the lab not really understanding
how to do biology experiments and deal with
chemicals. I’m not a great experimentalist with my
hands, and one night I set the lab on fire.

Discover: How does a biofilm work, from an
engineering perspective?
Lu: A biofilm is essentially a three-dimensional
community of bacteria that live together, kind of like a
bacterial apartment building or city. Biofilms are made
up of the bacterial cells as well as all sorts of other
material — carbohydrates, proteins, and so on — that
the bacteria build to protect themselves.

Discover: And those communities make
bacteria especially dangerous?

Lu: Before I started medical school, I didn’t
think bacterial infections were a big deal, because
I assumed antibiotics had taken care of them, but
then I started seeing patients with significant biofilm
infections that couldn’t be cured.

Discover: What is your strategy to destroy
biofilms?
Lu: We use viruses called phages that infect
bacteria but not human cells. We cut the phages’ DNA
and insert a synthetic gene into the phage genome.
That gene produces enzymes that can go out into the
biofilm and chew it up.
Discover: If you had just $10 for entertainment,
how would you spend your day?

Lu: What can you even buy with $10? Maybe I
would buy a magnifying glass and just peer around
in the soil to see what other life was going on down
there. That would actually be fun.

Available at: . Retrieved on: 11 Sep. 2011. Adapted.



In Text, Lu answers that if he was reduced to $10 for entertainment, he would

a) spend it by having fun with his peers.
b) go to his peer"s home to study.
c) have fun by walking around the garden, observing all life forms that inhabit the plants.
d) purchase a magnifying glass and would observe the tiny creatures on the ground.
e) not buy anything with it, but would still have fun with his peers.

A resposta correta é:

Electronic junk will create pollution problem around world, U.N. study warns


BALI, Indonesia — Sales of household electrical gadgets will boom across the developing world in the next decade, wreaking environmental havoc if there are no new strategies to deal with the discarded TVs, cell phones and computers, a U.N. report said today.
The environmental and health hazards posed by the globe"s mounting electronic waste are particularly urgent in developing countries, which are already dumping grounds for rich nations" high-tech trash, the U.N. Environment Program study said.
Electronic waste is piling up around the world at a rate estimated at 40 million U.S. tons a year, the report said, noting that data remain insufficient.
China produces 2.6 million tons of electronic waste a year, second only to the United States with 3.3 million tons, it said.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said the globe was ill-prepared to deal with the explosion of electronic gadgets over the past decade.
"The world is now confronted with a massive wave of electronic waste that is going to come back and hit us, particularly for least-developed countries, that may become a dumping ground," Steiner told The Associated Press ahead of a UNEP executive meeting in Bali.
He said some Americans and Europeans have sent broken computers to African countries falsely declared as donations. The computers were dumped outside slums as toxic waste and became potential hazards to people, he said.
The report predicts that China"s waste rate from old computers will quadruple from 2007 levels by 2020. Meanwhile, in India, waste from old refrigerators — which contain hazardous chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbon gases — could triple by 2020.
It said the fastest growth in electronic waste in recent years has been in communications devices such as cell phones, pagers and smart phones.
Most of the recycling of electronic waste in developing countries such as China and India is done by inefficient and unregulated backyard operators. The environmentally harmful practice of heating electronic circuit boards over coal-fired grills to leach out gold is widespread in both countries.
The report called for regulations for collecting and managing electronic waste, and urged that technologies be transferred to the industrializing world to cope with such waste.
While electrical products such refrigerators, air conditioners, printers, DVD players and digital music players account for only a small part of the world"s garbage, their components make them particularly hazardous.
Prof. Eric Williams, an Arizona State University expert on industrial ecology who did not participate in the UNEP study, said it was difficult to comment on the credibility of the electronic waste growth forecasts because the report gives little explanation of how they were calculated.
"It is the environmental intensity of e-waste rather than its total mass that is the main concern," Williams told the AP via e-mail.
"If e-waste is recycled informally in the developing world, it causes far worse pollution than the much larger mass of regular waste in landfills," he said.

http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2010/02/electronic_junk_will_create_po.html (06/06/12)



"Study" is a synonym for

a) Mathematics.
b) Research.
c) Comprehension.
d) Understanding.
e) Interpretation.

A resposta correta é:

TEXT I


Emerging markets: a bubble that has finally burst?

Patrick Collinson, guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 August 2011

One of Britain"s most successful fund managers has warned about an emerging market bubble and told small investors, who
have poured billions of pounds into emerging market funds, that returns could be sorely disappointing over the next few
years.
British investors now hold more than £40bn in emerging market funds – typically invested in China, Brazil and India – and
those who jumped in early have done well. The average fund invested in China has made a 112% gain since 2006 while the
very best fund, run by First State, has notched up a breathtaking 159% gain for its investors. Meanwhile, the average fund
invested in UK shares has limped in with a rise of 18% over the same period.
But last week the head of global emerging market equities at First State, Jonathan Asante, told investors that the good times
may be over. Asante wrote to investors saying that most stocks in emerging markets are "fully valued", which in fund
manager speak means he believes that they are not worth investing in and could be headed for a fall. A formal warning to
investors from their fund manager is extremely rare, as it could prompt investors to bolt for the exit – and shrink the funds
from which they are paid.
Asante takes a longer view than most of his rivals. Profit sharing and bonuses at First State are only paid out on the basis of
three-year numbers rather than quarterly or half-yearly figures. Managers are also required to put most of their personal
wealth into their funds. "It means that managers have to eat their own cooking," he says.
Asante, who used to teach at the London School of Economics before becoming a fund manager, is not forecasting an abrupt
halt to the Chinese economic miracle, or an end to India"s growth. But he says that so much money has flooded into the
shares of emerging market companies that even the best of them may now be overvalued. Many companies command share
price ratings which are a multiple of their equivalents in the west, he says, yet are trading in areas where corruption is rife,
inflation rising, where legal systems are immature and where back-door state control is common.
Overvaluations are perhaps most severe in Latin America, particularly Brazil, he says. Indeed, he was so concerned that last
December he wrote a separate warning note to clients in his Latin American portfolios. It was a good call – the São Paulo
Bovespa index was then around 70,000, and is now around 56,000. He continues to believe that the Brazilian currency, the
real, is the "most ridiculously over-valued currency in the world".
It is telling what First State managers are doing with their own cash tied up in First State funds. They now only have around
60% in equity funds, with 40% in cash (sterling, Hong Kong dollar and Singapore dollar) and gold.
"The world is a very risky place right now. I would have to be sceptical of the China story. The central planners have in some
senses been wonderful at balancing growth, inflation, banking and environmental concerns. I applaud them but wonder if
they can keep this going forever."
However, Asante"s views are not shared by the majority of emerging market fund managers. In contrast, the manager of
another giant emerging markets fund, Michael Konstantinov, of the £870m Allianz RCM Bric Stars fund, this week told
potential investors that valuations are currently "very cheap" (his italics) and that they offer an "outstanding entry point".
"I think it is important to remind ourselves that the Bric [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries came through the global
economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 quite well. Brazil did not even go into recession in 2009 while India and China continued
to grow very strongly in the range of 8%-9%. Only Russia had a short-term setback, but has recovered well and is, again,
leading the global growth dynamic.
"As the demand side of these economies is mainly driven by domestic demand, not by exports, they are more resilient to a
global crisis."
Fidelity, which took more than £500m from UK investors into a China fund launched by its most high-profile manager,
Anthony Bolton, has struggled to make money for them yet. The trust is currently trading at 96p compared to its launch price
of 100p in April 2010, although Fidelity remains bullish on the region.
Nick Price, manager of Fidelity Emerging Markets fund and the Fidelity EMEA fund, says: "As an emerging market fund
manager you"d expect me to be bullish wouldn"t you? Clearly, many of the markets are facing headwinds right now and these
may last for some months. But having just come back from China where I spent a week visiting 30 companies, I remain
convinced that the China consumer story is as strong as ever.
"On a longer-term basis, emerging market stocks represent a fraction of their potential worth. It"s a strong statement I know,
but look at the facts. Emerging markets represent 90% of the world"s oil reserves, over 80% of the world"s population, over
60% of the world"s forex reserves, 30% of global GDP, but yet are only 13% of global stock market capitalisation. I am
convinced that the longer you look out, the more sure you can be that emerging markets offer great opportunities."
(source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/aug/05/emerging-markets-bubble-burst)


In the following excerpts taken from Text I - "who have poured billions of pounds into emerging market funds"; "Many companies command share price ratings which are a multiple of their equivalents in the west"; "which took more than £500m from UK investors into a China fund launched by its most high-profile manager" -, the relative pronouns refer, respectively, to:

a) "small investors"; "price ratings"; "Fidelity".
b) "market bubble"; "equivalents"; "China fund".
c) "market funds"; "multiple"; "UK investors".
d) "emerging market"; "many companies"; "most high-profile manager".
e) "fund managers"; "command"; "£500m".

A resposta correta é:

Has Higgs been really discovered?

by Scientific American

Top physicists have recently reached a frenzy
over the announcement that the Large Hadron
Collider in Geneva is planning to release what is
widely expected to be tantalizing - although not
conclusive - evidence for the existence of the Higgs
boson, the elementary particle hypothesized to be the
origin of the mass of all matter.

Many physicists have already swung into
action, swapping rumors about the contents of the
announcement and proposing grand ideas about what
those rumors would mean, if true. “It’s impossible to
be excited enough,” says Gordon Kane, a theoretical
physicist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

The spokespeople of the collaborations using the
cathedral-size ATLAS and CMS detectors to search
for the Higgs boson and other phenomena at the
27-kilometer-circumference proton accelerator of the
Large Hadron Collider ( LHC ) are scheduled to present
updates based on analyses of the data collected to
date. “There won’t be a discovery announcement, but it
does promise to be interesting, since there are rumors
that scientists have seen hints of the elusive Higgs
boson” says James Gillies, spokesperson for CERN
(European Organization for Nuclear Research), which
hosts the LHC.

Joe Lykken, a theoretical physicist at Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill, and a
member of the CMS collaboration, says: “Whatever
happens eventually with the Higgs, I think we’ll look
back on this meeting and say. ‘This was the beginning
of something.’” (As a CMS member, Lykken says he is
not yet sure himself what results ATLAS would unveil;
he is bound by his collaboration’s rules not to reveal
what CMS has in hand.)

Available at: . Retrieved on: 11 Dec. 2011. Adapted.



Text reports that

a) although it is not certain yet, physicist Higgs Boson is planning to release news on the origin of all matter.
b) the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva has released the exciting news that the elementary particle Higgs was found.
c) the origin of the mass of all matter is in a tantalizing frenzy.
d) the news that has been widely expected about physicist Higgs Boson will probably be released in the near future.
e) physicists are excited with the news that there might be an announcement that the hypothetical elementary particle Higgs might have been encountered.

A resposta correta é:

Electronic junk will create pollution problem around world, U.N. study warns


BALI, Indonesia — Sales of household electrical gadgets will boom across the developing world in the next decade, wreaking environmental havoc if there are no new strategies to deal with the discarded TVs, cell phones and computers, a U.N. report said today.
The environmental and health hazards posed by the globe"s mounting electronic waste are particularly urgent in developing countries, which are already dumping grounds for rich nations" high-tech trash, the U.N. Environment Program study said.
Electronic waste is piling up around the world at a rate estimated at 40 million U.S. tons a year, the report said, noting that data remain insufficient.
China produces 2.6 million tons of electronic waste a year, second only to the United States with 3.3 million tons, it said.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said the globe was ill-prepared to deal with the explosion of electronic gadgets over the past decade.
"The world is now confronted with a massive wave of electronic waste that is going to come back and hit us, particularly for least-developed countries, that may become a dumping ground," Steiner told The Associated Press ahead of a UNEP executive meeting in Bali.
He said some Americans and Europeans have sent broken computers to African countries falsely declared as donations. The computers were dumped outside slums as toxic waste and became potential hazards to people, he said.
The report predicts that China"s waste rate from old computers will quadruple from 2007 levels by 2020. Meanwhile, in India, waste from old refrigerators — which contain hazardous chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbon gases — could triple by 2020.
It said the fastest growth in electronic waste in recent years has been in communications devices such as cell phones, pagers and smart phones.
Most of the recycling of electronic waste in developing countries such as China and India is done by inefficient and unregulated backyard operators. The environmentally harmful practice of heating electronic circuit boards over coal-fired grills to leach out gold is widespread in both countries.
The report called for regulations for collecting and managing electronic waste, and urged that technologies be transferred to the industrializing world to cope with such waste.
While electrical products such refrigerators, air conditioners, printers, DVD players and digital music players account for only a small part of the world"s garbage, their components make them particularly hazardous.
Prof. Eric Williams, an Arizona State University expert on industrial ecology who did not participate in the UNEP study, said it was difficult to comment on the credibility of the electronic waste growth forecasts because the report gives little explanation of how they were calculated.
"It is the environmental intensity of e-waste rather than its total mass that is the main concern," Williams told the AP via e-mail.
"If e-waste is recycled informally in the developing world, it causes far worse pollution than the much larger mass of regular waste in landfills," he said.

http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2010/02/electronic_junk_will_create_po.html (06/06/12)



According to the text, electronic junk can cause pollution to the

a) Computers.
b) Old gadgets.
c) Neighborhood.
d) House.
e) Environment.

A resposta correta é:

Has Higgs been really discovered?

by Scientific American

Top physicists have recently reached a frenzy
over the announcement that the Large Hadron
Collider in Geneva is planning to release what is
widely expected to be tantalizing - although not
conclusive - evidence for the existence of the Higgs
boson, the elementary particle hypothesized to be the
origin of the mass of all matter.

Many physicists have already swung into
action, swapping rumors about the contents of the
announcement and proposing grand ideas about what
those rumors would mean, if true. “It’s impossible to
be excited enough,” says Gordon Kane, a theoretical
physicist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

The spokespeople of the collaborations using the
cathedral-size ATLAS and CMS detectors to search
for the Higgs boson and other phenomena at the
27-kilometer-circumference proton accelerator of the
Large Hadron Collider ( LHC ) are scheduled to present
updates based on analyses of the data collected to
date. “There won’t be a discovery announcement, but it
does promise to be interesting, since there are rumors
that scientists have seen hints of the elusive Higgs
boson” says James Gillies, spokesperson for CERN
(European Organization for Nuclear Research), which
hosts the LHC.

Joe Lykken, a theoretical physicist at Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill, and a
member of the CMS collaboration, says: “Whatever
happens eventually with the Higgs, I think we’ll look
back on this meeting and say. ‘This was the beginning
of something.’” (As a CMS member, Lykken says he is
not yet sure himself what results ATLAS would unveil;
he is bound by his collaboration’s rules not to reveal
what CMS has in hand.)

Available at: . Retrieved on: 11 Dec. 2011. Adapted.



The excerpt "Many physicists have already swung into action" (lines 8-9, Text II) could be properly completed in

a) yesterday after they heard the rumors.
b) before they heard the rumors.
c) since they heard the rumors.
d) if they hear the rumors.
e) when they will hear the rumors.

A resposta correta é: