Unit 1 Lesson 1VideoHome ListeningA conservation group says 163 newly discovered species of plantsand animals in the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asiawhere the Mekong River 1) flows are at risk of extinction becauseof rising global temperatures.Some of the most 2) unusual animalsincluded a frog with fangs in Thailand that eats birds and a leopard-spottedgecko found on an island in Vietnam. But in a report 3) released in Bangkokon Friday, the WWF says that temperatures in the region are 4) expected torise by as much as four degrees Celsius in the next 60 years and that couldthreaten their existence.The WWF says rare and endangered species are at the greatest 5) risk from climate change, because rising temperatures could affect food 6) supplies or cause weather problems that damage habitats. The newly discovered species that live at the tops of mountains only or low-lying islands only, like this Cat Ba gecko that was just found are 7) especially vulnerable to climate-change impacts because of their restricted habitats. More than 1,000 new species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong region in the past 8) decade.Changes to wildlife in the Mekong area could also affect many of the 60 million people who depend on the river for their livelihoods. Of all the region’s the WWF works in, the Mekong region 9) probably has the closest link between its resource and human livelihood than any other region in the world.The WWF report comes just days ahead of a major United Nations meeting in Bangkok on climate change. The Bangkok meeting will 10) try to narrow down a framework agreement on global emission targets to be negotiated at the end of this year.Unit 2Lesson 1AudioScriptWhen it comes to intelligence, there has always been one fundamental question: Is intelligence a function of nature? Is it simply encoded in a child’s genes? Or is it a function of nurture? Is it more about the environment that a child grows up in?On the one hand, if we take two people at random from the crowd, it is very likely that their degrees of intelligence will be completely different. However, if we take two identical twins, chances are that they will be as intelligent as each other. Therefore, a conclusion can be drawn thatintelligence is to some extent something we are born with. On the other hand, though, if we put identical twins in different environments, we would find differences in their intelligence several years later, which indicates that environment does play a crucial role in people’s intelligence.Recently, data has clearly indicated that nurture is indeed more than 50% of the equation. That is good news for educators, but even better news for society as a whole.Fortunately, President Obama has come out in strong support of early childhood education, particularly for those children most at risk of school failure. Investing in quality pre-school opportunities clearly helps give children from poverty-stricken areas the chance at a stronger start in school and in life.If we are serious about helping our children succeed in school, if we are truly interested in “Leaving No Child Behind,” we will take a hard look at t his compelling data and begin investing greater sums at the early childhood level.VideoScriptEinstein’s destiny as a great physicist was not obvious. As a child, his passion was music, not physics.“I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician.”But Einstein’s life changed when he was given a book on geometry. The universe could be tamed through numbers. His life’s work would be to control the music of the universe.During his life, Einstein changed our concept of space and time forever. He harnessed energy, mass and the speed of light in the most famous equation all time – E equals MC’ square.What made Einstein’s brain so exceptional? Dr. Jim Al-Khalili, like Einstein, is a physicist and is obsessed by the work of his hero. Brain specialist，Mark Lythgoe hunts for secrets of creativity inside the human mind.“My name is Dr. Jim Al-Khalili I believe Einstein’s genius came from his imagination, and no man or no machine can measure that. Am I right?”“M y name is Dr. Mark Lythgoe and I believe that Einstein’s genius comes from nerve cells, which can be analyzed. We can find out what made Einstein a genius. Am I right?”So which view is correct? To solve the riddle of Einstein’s genius, Mark and Jim would have to journey to America to hunt down and examine Einstein’s disembodied brain. Nature or nurture? Biology or training? Are geniuses born or are they made? Neurophysiologist Dr. Mark Lythgoe is a keen climber and finds parallels between his hobby and his profession.“N ow, there are two scenarios for how the brain works. The first scenario is the brain is like a muscle. Now I’ve trained to develop the stamina in my muscle, hopefully then I can hold on to this hole for a period of time. The second is that the brain is like a skeleton and it doesn’t matter how much I’ve trained, I’m never, ever going to be able to reach that hole right up there. “Now, in Einstein’s day they believed that the brain was like a skeleton that had natural limits, but that view is changing today. Instead, it is now understood that more and more parts of the brain behave like a muscle. They can expand with use. Then, if all of our brains are like muscles, could it be that we all have the ability to become Einstein?”Lesson 2AudioAlbert Einstein was a German-born physicist, although most people probably know him as the most intelligent person who ever lived. His name has become part of many languages when we want to say someone is a genius, as in the phr ase, “She’s a real Einstein”. He must have been pretty brainy to discover the Theory of Relativity and the equation e=mc2.In 1999, Time Magazine named Einstein as the Person of the Century. No one could have guessed this would happen when he was in school. He was extremely interested in science but hated the system of learning things by rote memory. He said it destroyed learning and creativity. He had already done many experiments but failed the entrance exams to a technical college.He didn’t let this s etback stop him. When he was 16, he performed his famous experiment of imagining traveling alongside a beam of light. He eventually graduated from university, in 1900, with a degree in physics.Twelve years later he was a university professor and in 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics. He went on to publish over 300 scientific papers.Einstein is the only scientist to become a cult figure, a household name and part of everyday culture. He once joked that when people stopped him in the street, he alway s replied, “Pardon me, sorry! Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein.” Today, he is seen as the typical mad, absent-minded professor, who just happened to change our world.VideoScriptSo Einstein’s brain has given up some of its secrets to Mark and Jim. In the battle of biology versus ideas, Jim and Mark have each scored points. Seemingly, Einstein was born with overlaps in his brain. These overlaps may have meant maths and spatial thinking were more intuitive to him. Thinking like a child let him see the world in a unique way. And his unique, perhaps autistic, level of concentration, forced his brain to expand like a muscle. Extra glial cells were needed to cope with the extra demand, possibly helping make the maths area in the brain more than 15% wider than normal. All these effects united to give Einstein a mind unlike any other, perhaps the greatest mind in history. In the future, could we preserve a genius like Einstein in something better than the jar? Imagine a brave new world, where a genius’brain could be copied onto silicon using microscopic robots called nanobots. This is the vision of the futurologist Ray Kurzweil.“I think by the 2020s or the late 2020s, we will have completely reverse engineered the brain and understand how all the diff erent regions work. It’ll take us longer to be able to scan the entire brain and get capture of every detail of someone’s personality. The blood vessels of the brain go everywhere, and so if we send billions of nanobots through the capillaries of the brain, they can scan everything in the brain of a specific person at very high resolution. Then you could create a machine, a non-biological entity, that would simulate a specific person’s brain and that simulation will act just like that person, and if you the n talk to that simulation, you’d be convinced that it was that person.”“I am little worried about whether I’m talking to the real Ray or he’s at home having a cup of tea.”“Well, I worry about that too. Once we understand the basic principles of operatio n of how the brain works, we can take a brain-like system and expose it to a complicated problem and the system will learn on its own. It can actually do it thousands maybe eventually millions of times faster than a real human brain and actually develop skills that are far greater than a human being isSo a future Einstein could be put on a computer, literally a ghost in the machine.“Do you believe that, you know, just by looking at that, genius is– or genius is something else for you?It’s a k ey moment. Has Mark won Jim round?“Day by day, I’ve been changing my views. I’ve been–I started off feeling that Einstein’s ideas have gone forever. What he thought of, what he’s capable of imagining were something of the past. I’m not so sure now. I fe el somehow there are still, maybe, possibly, some secrets locked inside in this jar.”Home ListeningMost people know that Albert Einstein was a famous scientist who came up with the formula e=mc2. But do you know other facts about this 1) genius?When Einstein died in 1955, his body was cremated and his ashes 2) scattered according to his wishes. However, before his body was cremated, Thomas Harvey at Princeton Hospital 3) conducted an autopsy in which he removed Einstein’s brain. Rather than putting the brain back in the body, Harvey decided to keep it for study. Harvey did not have 4) permission to keep Einstein’s brain, but days later, he 5) convinced Einstein’s son that it would help science. Shortly thereafter, Harvey was fired from his position at Princeton because he refused to give up Einstein’s brain. For the next four 6) decades, Harvey k ept Einstein’s chopped-up brain in two mason jars with him as he moved around the country.Einstein’s mother, Pauline, was an 7) accomplished pianist and wanted her son to love music too, so she started him on violin lessons when he was six years old. Unfortunately, at first, Einstein hated playing the violin. 8) He would much rather build houses of cards, which he was really good at, or do just about anything else. When Einstein was 13-years old, he suddenly changed his mind about the violin when he heard the music of Mozart. 9) With a new passion for playing, Einstein continued to play the violin until the last few years of his life.Part of Einstein’s charm was his disheveled look. In addition to his uncombed hair, one of Einstein’s peculiar habits was to never wear socks. 10) Whether it was while out sailing or at a formal dinner at the White House, Einstein went without socks everywhere. To Einstein, socks were a pain because they often would get holes in them. Plus, why wear both socks and shoes when one of them would do just fine?Unit 3Lesson 1AudioScriptMcDonald’s Corporation (MCD) is one of the leading fast-food restaurant chains in the world, touching the lives of people every day. As the world’s largest chain of restaurants, it primarily sells hamburgers, chicken, french fries, milkshakes, soft drinks, etc.The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald. Initially, they just owned a hotdog stand. But after establishing the restaurant they served around 25 items, which were mostly barbecued. It became a popular and profitable teen hangout.Their introduction of the “Speed Service System” in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc on April 15, 1955.In effect, Kroc opened his first and the overall ninth restaurant in Chicago, Illinois, and gave birth to McDonald’s Corporation. In 1958, the restaurant chain sold its 100 millionth hamburger. In 1960, Kroc renamed his company as “McDonald’s Corporation”. In 1961, Kroc convinced the McDonald brothers to sell the business rights to him in the company. Thus he purchased the brothers’ equity for a sum of $2.7million and led to its worldwide expansion.As McDonald’s expands successfully into many international markets, the company became a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Its prominence also made it a frequent subject of public debates about obesity, corporate ethics and consumer responsibility. VideoScriptTanya: It’s the fast food chain with the iconic golden arches that have been spotted all over the world. Yes, we are talking about McDonald’s. But did you know McDonald’s, year after year, is voted one of the best places to work? We’re looking today at this all-American company and what we can learn from its success. We’re joined by Paul Facella, author of the book, Everything I Know About Business, I Learned At McDonald’s: The Seven Leadership Principles That Drive Breakout Success. Paul was a former McDonald’s executive who has the behind-the-scenes story on the world’s most successful restaurant organization. Hi there, Paul. Thanks for joining us. Paul: Thank you, Tanya. Nice to be here.Tanya: Now, while you no longer work for McDonald’s, I understand that the company has had a huge impact on your life. Tell us why you decided to write a book on business lessons that you learned from a fast food chain.Paul: Sure. Well, not only myself but literally hundreds of thousands of people that went to the McDonald’s system and were guided by a lot of the principles. When I left McDonald’s, I went into consulting and, and one of the surprises I had was many of the organizations, both large and small, was the fact that some of the basic principles, some of the foundations that good organizations need to be successful, weren’t there. And I was constantly being asked about, “Well, tell me how you did in McDonald’s”. And my thinking was, “Gee, I’ll write a book about it and help my client base and I’ll be able to help them move forward with it.” So that was the thinking behind it.Tanya: Well, we’re gonna get into some of those secrets of success. I wanna start by asking you, you know, obviously a lot of people know McDonald’s for their burgers and Big Macs. But, I’m sure a lot people will be surprised to know that it has one of the highest corporate employee retention rates of any company, I mean people assume, fast food chain, people just want to get in and get out. What makes McDonald’s so successful?Paul:I think, I think there’s a number of factors, but I think the retention piece is about McDonald’s, when you work, there it’s really about a meritocracy. It is about advancement that is based on achievement. And from the first crew person moving in all the way up to store manager, all the way up to the present CEO, Jim Skinner, who was a crew person 35 years ago and moved into, after 35 years, moved into the CEO ranks. So it’s always been a progression of opportunity for people, and I think that's one of the great things that keeps folks there. Every CEO has gone through the ranks.Tanya: Is there any crossover from those who work on the server side to the executive side, or you have to go back to school for that?Paul: Oh, no, all the time, I mean, I started as a 16-year-old crew person. Mike Quinlan, who’s a CEO for 14 years started in the mail room, so there’s plenty of crossover.Lesson 2AudioScriptSince setting up the first McDonald’s in China, the Western restaurant chain has been expanding steadily and successfully. So far, other than the home market–the United States–China is the No. 1 growth market for McDona ld’s, with over 1000 restaurants and over 60,000 employees.China also represents one third of all capital expenditures in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa region, where the fast-food giant is in 37 markets. According to Skinner, vice-chairman and CEO of this world’s largest fast-food company, “We’ve been steadily growing with China for the past 20 years and are very excited for what the future holds,” he says.In 1990, McDonald’s chose Shenzhen, a pioneer Special Economic Zone in Guangdong province bordering Hong Kong, to open its first 500-seat store in the developing market. McDonald’s quickly won over the local consumers, due to its many attractions like its Ronald McDonald clown, Golden Arches or the yellow “M” logo, Big Mac, the smiling attendants and the quick service. The success of the Shenzhen outlet prompted McDonald’s to expand its chain nationwide. And McDonald’s has not stopped from aggressively increasing the number of its outlets in China. The mainland’s fast-food market is growing at a rate of16 percent per year. “We are going to continue our growth at a faster rate in China. China is a huge market with great opportunities for businesses around the world, and it's no different for McDonald’s,” Skinner adds.VideoScriptT anya: And in your book, you’ve broken down some of the keys, the fundamental keys of McDonald’s success, in terms that can be applied to other companies. So, let’s go through these one by one. The first you say is honesty and integrity, and this obviously comes at a time when so many people have lost trust in Wall Street. How can we apply this?Paul: Yeah, I think, it’s, well, honesty and integrity started very early on with Ray Kroc who started the McDonald’s system in 1955, and back then franchise s were just starting to proliferate, and there were not a lot of laws about how they would conduct businesses. And one of the things was done, sadly, was that many of those franchisors would take commissions back from suppliers that supplied the franchisees product. From the beginning, that's now how we’re gonna do businesses. We’re gonna have integrity, we’re gonna be honest with our franchisees, I wanna the franchisees to make the first dollar, I’ll make the second dollar, and that kind of got into the DNA very early. And to this day, there is a wonderful relationship of integrity and honesty with our relationships with our operators, with our vendors.Tanya: And I would imagine that motivates everybody because you feel like if you do well, you will get rewarded.Paul:That’s correct. Absolutely, no question about that. How important everybody working together as a team is!Tanya: Right, and another secret to McDonalds’ success, I understand, is relationships, and the company apparently promotes the idea that relationships are sort of the secret sauce, as, if you will, and everyone who works for the company is a part of an extended family, is that right?Paul: The Mcfamily!Tanya: Yeah.Paul: It's a great safe way from honesty and integrity. If you start with the foundation of honesty [and] integrity, it goes right into relationships. And Fred Turner, who is still to this day, 54 years later, is active, was actually the one that coined the phrase “the three-legged stool”. What it really meant was, that there were three legs in our relationship: the franchisees, the suppliers and the company people. And all of us pulling together, and working together as a team and the synergy of that team, is how it will be successful. And if you think about that, you know how important that is, that you really don’t want to let your team members down and you want them to be successful. Tanya: Sure, and every leg of the stool is only as strong as the other leg, right?Paul: Absolutely.Tanya: And another secret is the idea of standards. One of the McDonalds’ mottos, apparently, is never be satisfied? [Yes.] Tell us about the company’s no excuses working environment.Paul: Yeah, well, standards are very important and you know is – in order to have a standard, you have that measurement, and if it’s worth doing, it’s worth measuring. And every time you measure something, performance improves because people have a guideline –they know where they’re going, and that, that’s actually part of even the people side of that. The meritocracy wasn’t based on anything, but clear metrics on how you advance through the ranks on that. But it was never satisfied, we always felt we could do it harder, quicker, faster. And that stayed one step ahead of the competition and kept our franchisees the best in the system.Home ListeningInternational business is a term used to collectively describe all commercial transactions (private and governmental, sales, investments, logistics,and transportation) that take place between two or more nations. Usually, private companies 1) undertake such transactions for profit; governments for profit and for political reasons. It refers to all business activities which involve cross 2) border transactions of goods, services and resources between two or more nations. Transaction of economic resources include capital, skills, people, etc. for international production of physical goods, and services such as finance, banking, 3) insurance, construction, etc.The increase in international business and in foreign 4) investment has created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and skills in cross-cultural communication. Americans, however, have not been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the same level of success in 5) negotiation in an international arena as their foreign counterparts. Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching an agreement. It involves persuasion and compromise, but in order to 6) participate in either one, the negotiators must understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is reached within the culture of the negotiation.In studies of American negotiators abroad, several traits have been 7) identified that undermine the negotiator’s position, two of which, in particular, are directness and 8) impatience. Furthermore, American negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals. Foreign negotiators, on the other hand, may value the relationship established between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-term benefits. 9) In order to solidify the relationship, they may chooseindirect interactions without regard for the time involved in getting to know the other negotiator. Clearly, perceptions and differences in values affect the outcomes of negotiations and the success of negotiators. 10) For Americans to play a more effective role in international business negotiations, they must put forth more effort to improve cross-cultural understanding.Unit 4Lesson1AudioScriptA leading US scientist has predicted that computers will be as intelligent as humans by 2029. Futurologist Dr Ray Kurzweil told the American Association for the Advancement of Science that in the near future, machine intelligence will overtake the power of the human brain. He said that within two decades computers will be able to think quicker than humans. Dr Kurzweil painted a picture of us having tiny robots called nanobots implanted in our brain to boost our intelligence and health. He told reporters that these microscopic nanobots would work with our brains to make us think faster and give us more powerful memories. Kurzweil explained that we are already “a human machine civilization” and that the upcoming technology “will be a further extension of that.”Dr Kurzweil was one of 18 top intellectuals asked by the US National Academy of Engineering to identify our greatest technological challenges. Other experts included Google founder Larry Page and the human genome pioneer Dr Craig Venter. Kurzweil has a very impressive background in science and innovation. He was an innovator in various fields of computing, including the technology behind CDs. He also pioneered automatic speech recognition by machines. He predicts the pace of new inventions will increase greatly from now, saying: “…the next half century will see 32 times more technical progress than the past half century.” This means scenes from science fiction movies, like Blade Runner, The Terminator and I Robot, will become more and more a part of our everyday lives.VideoScriptSurrogates today are more like Gina Scanlon and Jennifer (again, first name only), both from the Pittsburgh area.Scanlon, 42 years old, is a portrait painter and mother of three. She delivered twins as a surrogate two years ago. And now, in part because her husband Brian needs expensive surgery, Scanlon is pregnant again.In contrast, this is Jennifer’s first try as a surrogate. She’s a 36-year-old stay-at-home mother of two.Jennifer: Being a mother, I can’t imagine life without my children and so you know. It really came to the fact that I would really like to help another couple have a child that they otherwise could not.Anchor: What about you Gina? What do you think is inside of you that said, ‘I want to be a surrogate’?Gina: I love being pregnant. It’s a great experience. And having met friends and family whoexperienced infertility, their choices are limited. I felt that I wanted to do this for someone else. Anchor: Did you ever worry, first time, that you would not want to give up those babies?Gina: It was never something that entered my mind.Anchor: Never at all?Gina: No. You go into it with the thought that this is for someone else. It is not your baby to give up. It’s their baby from the start. And the end is the reward: The end is being able to deliver this baby and turn it over to the parents. And see, they’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. And it finally happens when they’re holding their own child. And it’s so worth it.Paying a surrogate remains illegal in several parts in the United States.It’s also against the law in most of Europe, which is why Sylvia and Michaela came all the way from Italy to the La Jolla IVF Clinic in California.Sylvia lost her uterus –and almost her life –after a miscarriage. The couple watched as embryos created through his sperm and her eggs were placed inside the body of a 30-year-old surrogate –a woman they’d earlier communicated with from afar but never before met.The process took just minutes.Michaela: It is inconceivable to have done this maybe 30 years ago.A few weeks later, they will learn the procedure was a success –and it’s twins.Sylvia: A miracle!The miracle has a high price. The fee for the entire surrogacy process ranges from $80,000 to well over $100,000.Of that, doctors get $9,000 to $15,000; agencies, $15,000 to $20,000; and the surrogates? First-timers get $18,000 to $25,000; experienced surrogates, up to $40,000. And in this tough economy, applications from potential surrogates are escalating. Still, Brisman says, of the 100 to 200 applications received every week, she only accepts about five to ten.Anchor: Some feminists who say, you know, this is like “womb for rent”; “mother for hire”; “it’s like prostituting yourselves.” What’s your reaction to that?Jennifer: It’s, it’s kind of offensive. It’s insulting. It’s very insulting.Anchor: Does it make you angry when you hear something like that?Jennifer: A little bit, yeah.Gina:It’s a service that you’re providing, if you want to think of it that way. More than, it’s an exploitation of your body. You’re not selling your body.All the same, surrogacy remains an act raising questions about our whole notion of motherhood, that unmistakable bond between mother and child.Brisman: The definition of motherhood is changing over time. Like, it’s not necessarily the woman who gives birth is the mother. It’s very hard for people to accept. I th ink in a few years or, you know, maybe ten years, this is just going to be old news.Lesson 2AudioScriptThe scientists who launched the Human Genome Project believed in the power of genetic information to transform health care to allow earlier diagnosis of diseases than ever before and to fuel the creation of powerful new medicines.But it was also clear that genetic information could potentially be used in ways that are。