If bingeing on chocolate makes your trousers too tight, blame the genes

CHOCOHOLICS no longer need to feel quality about their craving. They are simply the victim of their genes, scientists have found.

The so-called “sweet tooth gene” has been identified by separate teams of researchers and helps explain why some find it harder to resist chocolate bars and cream cakes.

It also raises the possibility of designing a drug which could “switch off” the gene and help

people resist sugary foods. Children, in particular, risk their health by eating too many sweets and chocolates.

To identify the gene, the research teams - based at Harvard medical School in Boston and mount Sinai School of medicine in New York – conducted almost identical experiments using mice which have differences in their ability to taste sweet foods. They compared the DNA of the two types of mice and noticed differences in the gene called TIR3.

Dr. Gopi Shanker, of the Mount Sinai team, said: “It contains information which produces a protein called the sweet taste receptor.

“This recognizes the sweet content of food and initiates a cascade of events which signal to the brain that a sweet food has been eaten.” Dr. Shanker added: “Exactly the same gene exists in humans, so it means that if your parents have a sweet tooth then you probably will as well.”

Research by the Harvard team has come to the same conclusion.

But Aubrey Sheiham, professor of dental public health at University College, London, said the results did not provide chocoholics with an excuse to give up dieting.

He said: we have always know that some people have a sweeter tooth than other. But it has

also been proved that if you gradually expose people to less sugar, then the body becomes

accustomed to less. They will be satisfied with a lower level of sweetness.

Mr. Sheiham warned against any form of gene therapy which sought to deactivate the

sweet tooth gene.

“We have produced this gene through evolution because sweet food in nature are not poisonous and also give us energy. We all need to have some sugar in our diet”.

The U.S researchers are using their discovery to develop artificial sweeteners without an

aftertaste.

Text 4 OH, WHAT A CARRY ON!

‘They are wonderful things for other people to go on,’ Jean Kerr, an American dramatist once quipped. Flying has become safer, faster and cheaper but I seem ever more stressful. One frequent cause is the noise that children, especially bored once, inflict on other travelers. A year ago one magazine proposed that all planes should have child-free zones, just like no-smoking zones; children (and parents) should be confined to the back of the plane. As yet, sadly, no airline seems to agree that children should be screened and not heard.

Undeterred, we would like to raise another cause of what economists call a negative externality. i.e. something which is nice for you but imposes costs on others. This is excessive carry-on luggage. In America six out of ten passengers now take a suitcase on to a flight rather than check it in, three times as many as in 1990. The result is delay, because flights take no longer to board. Passengers trying to squeeze 3-foot suitcases into 2-foot bins hold up people trying to board behind them. Some travelers have tried to take refrigerators, television sets and even a stuffed moose-head on board. The problems of both children and luggage could be solved in one stroke by putting the children in the hold, to make more space for carry-on luggage. But that we concede, might be unacceptable. Instead, to reduce delays, most airlines are rightly imposing stricter limits on the size or weight of bags that can be carried on to planes. This has provoked outrage as passengers are forcibly separated from their belongings at check-in.

Understandably: if you put luggage in the hold, you have to wait ages for it at the other end – if it shows up at all.

Once you have experienced the nightmare of waiting at the luggage carousel until it stops, with no sign of the suitcase you checked in, it is clear why people prefer to plug their cases on board. You took a flight from London to Tokyo; your luggage and your smart clothes decided to hop on to one to Los Angeles. Not an externality but certainly negative.

In America only 0.5% of bags go missing, but if you are a frequent traveler, that risk is too high. A survey of 150 frequent fliers found that two-thirds had experienced some sort of delay or loss to their luggage in the previous 12 months. And, if luggage remains lost, your likely compensation is paltry- a maximum of $1,250 regardless of whether your clothes were bought at Wal-Mart or Armani.

If airlines are to restrict carry-ons, therefore, they also need to offer better compensation for delayed or lost luggage. At the least they should extend frequent-flier miles to luggage as well as its owner: if your luggage travels to Tokyo via Los Angeles, you should get triple frequent- flier miles. In addition, passengers could be made to pay if they want to take extra luggage on board. Better still, given the frequent correlation between the size of the traveler and the weight of his (yes, bis) carry- on, why not take a tip from Papua New Guinea? When flying within the country, a passenger used to be weighed along with his luggage before boarding the plane. Fight the flab and you can bring your bag on board. Aero planes and diets would then indeed be closely connected.

Text 5 GEORGE’S TRIAL

George had stolen some money, but the police had caught him and he had been put in

prison. Now his trial was about to begin, and he felt sure that he would be found guilty and sent to prison for a long time.

Then he discovered that an old friend of his was one of the members of the jury at the trial.

Of course, he did not tell anybody, but he managed to see his friend secretly one day. He said to

him, “Jim, I know that the jury will find me guilty of having stolen the money. I cannot hope to be found not guilty of taking it –that would be too much to expect. But I should be grateful to you for the rest of my life if you could persuade the other members of the jury to add a strong

recommendation for mercy to their statement that they consider me guilty.”

“Well, George,” answered Jim, “I shall certainly try to do what I can for you as an old

friend, but of course I cannot promise anything. The other eleven people on the jury look terribly strong-minded to me.”

George said that he would quite understand if Jim was not able to do anything for him, and

thanked him warmly for agreeing to help.

The trial went on, and at last the time came for the jury to decide whether George was

guilty or not. It took them five hours, but in the end they found George guilty, with a strong

recommendation for mercy.

Of course, George was very pleased, but he did not have a chance to see Jim for some time

after the trial. At last, however, Jim visited him in prison, and George thanked him warmly and

asked him how he had managed to persuade the other members of the jury to recommend mercy.

“Well, George,” Jim answered, “as I thought, those eleven men were very difficult to

persuade, but I managed it in the end by tiring them out. Do you know, those fools had all wanted to find you not guilty!”

Text 6 ANA FINDS AN APARTMENT

Ana, her husband Mario, and their four-year-old son, Antonio, just moved to North Carolina.

They need a temporary place to call home until they get settled into their new surroundings.

Right now, they are staying in a hotel not far from Mario’s job.

Ana begins a search for an apartment for the family to live in.

First, Ana picks up an Apartment Book at the local newspaper stand. The Apartment Book contains listings of all the major apartment complexes in her area.

Ana starts by looking at the prices for apartments in the Apartment Book. Then, she reads about the amenities that each apartment complex offers.

For example, some apartments have a clubhouse. Some have a gym, which is also called a fitness center. Some have a pool. Some have all of these!

Ana notices that the more amenities an apartment complex has, the more it costs each month. She wants the family’s new apartment to be nice, but she does not want to spend too much money on it. Ana and Mario are trying to save money to buy a house.

After considering prices, amenities, and locations, Ana finds several apartment complexes that she thinks the family will like.

Ana calls the apartment complexes. She sets up appointments with the apartment managers to see the apartments she thinks are interesting.

Ana makes five phone calls in total.

When Mario gets back to the hotel from work, Ana shows him the list of apartments. “These look good,” he says.

The next day, while Mario is at work and Antonio is at childcare, Ana visits the apartment complexes.

She likes the fifth one the best. It is in a good school district. It has a pool, but no fitness center or clubhouse. It is near Mario’s job. Ana hopes to find a job nearby, as well.

When Ana gets back to the hotel, she discusses all that she has seen with Mario. They decide to rent the last apartment Ana saw.

The next day, Ana calls the manager of the apartment complex with the news.

The manager asks Ana and Mario to sign a lease and pay a security deposit.

If the family damages the apartment in any way while they are living there, the security deposit will help to pay for the cost of repairs.

Ana and Mario sign a lease and pay the money. They will move in next week.

Text 7 CANOPY OF NATURE

Dad decided last Sunday that we should all go on a camping trip.

He read an article in the Sunday paper about camping and how it “brings families together under the canopy of nature.”

“Overrated,” I joked. “What about the canopy of television or the canopy of restaurant food?”

“This will be good for us,” Dad said, sliding the magazine across the coffee table. “Let’s go next week-end.”

I shot a quick look over at my little brother, Paul. He gave me a slow eyebrow raise which meant, “This will probably not go off completely as planned.”

My smile back said, "But it will surely be fun."

I started to think back. Once Dad decided “we should all learn how to canoe.” We borrowed two canoes from our friends, hoisted them on the van and drove for three hours to a secluded lake in Virginia. Once we got there, we discovered that we had forgotten the paddles.

Paul and I got in a canoe with Dad, and our two younger sisters got in a canoe with Mom. We floated aimlessly around the lake for hours. Then we all jumped in with our life jackets on. We pushed the canoes back to shore. It was a fantastic trip.

Another time, Dad decided “we should all learn how to ski.” All of us hate the cold so we spent the week-end huddled by the fire, drinking hot cocoa in the ski lodge and playing board games. It was great. We had a blast.

When I stopped daydreaming, Mom was saying, “Sweetheart, we don’t have a tent.”

“We don’t need one!” Dad said happily. “We’ll take all the seats out the van when we get to the campsite and put in an air mattress.”

I don't know what the punch line will be on this excursion, but I am sure with Mom, Dad and the four of us kids scrunched in a van at some national park, we are bound to have a good time.

Text 8 TRAVELER’S TALES

Christina Dodwell was born in Nigeria and has always loved travelling. She has been a traveler and travel writer since her mid-twenties. She has made journeys by horse around Africa, New Guinea and Turkey. She has also travelled by canoe, dog sledge and micro light in China, Kamchatka and West Africa, though she hasn’t been to the poles.

Christina once spent time with cannibals but doesn’t worry about danger. She never shows fear and when she thinks there could be trouble, she says, ‘My husband is a policeman. He’s waiting for me in the next village’.

Christina lives with her husband on a farm surrounded by horses and cattle. She works for a charity that she set up to help the Third World and she often makes TV and radio programmes. She is now working on a programme for BBC radio about indigenous culture in Ethiopia. Her books have been translated into several languages.

Benedict Allen is an experienced explorer who has visited remote natural environments all over the world . He has lived with the Amazon Indians, with a tribe in New Guinea and with Aborigines in Australia. He has crossed the Amazon forest with no map or compass, walked across the mountains of New Guinea and canoed from New Guinea to Australia . He has also made journeys across the Gobi and Namib deserts on foot and by camel and trekked across the Arctic . He has been lost in the jungle more than once and survived by copying the local tribes and eating plants .

Benedict doesn’t like travelling with people and he usually makes films of his journeys without a film crew . He doesn’t get lonely because he makes friends wherever he goes, even of his camels! He also talks to his to his video camera .

‘It’s getting hot out here . Hotter than I’ve ever been ,’ he said on his trip in Namibia when temperatures reached 50^o C.

Benedict has worked for the BBC for years and has made several television series . He has also written nine books . His TV programmes and books have made him very popular in the UK . He isn’t travelling at the moment but is promoting his latest book , Icedogs , about 1,000-mile trek through Siberia .

Text 9 A MEMORY

“Love hit me when I was twelve. I was still in shorts but little hairs were starting to grow on my upper lip. A young girl, Lucy, lived in the flat above ours. She was pretty with lovely, brown hair and perfect teeth. One day, after I had saved my pocket money for some time, I invited Lucy to go a variety show with me. I only seventy cents but I had worked it at all out: two tickets for the theatre, fifty cents, and four tram tickets, twenty cents.

It was January and it had showed earlier that day so we took the tram. Lucy looked charming and I looked handsome as we got off in Times Square. Unfortunately, a candy vendor was standing outside the theatre. I hadn’t thought about that. Lucy saw her favourite coconut candy and asked for it. Like a fool, I bought it for ten cents.

We were miles away from the stage and the noise of Lucy eating her candy was louder than the actor’s voices. During the performance, Lucy ate every single bit of the candy. On the way out, I was a bit upset about the candy. But then I realized I only had enough money for ticket back home. Today I feel terrible about this, but remember, I was only twelve, it was very cold and Lucy had eaten all the candy.

I turned to her and said, “Lucy, when we left home I had seventy cents, enough for tickets and the tram fare. I hadn’t planned on candy. I didn’t want candy. You wanted candy and you had all the candy. I have every right to go home by tram and leave you to walk. But, you know I’m mad about you. So I’m going to give you a fair chance. I’m going to toss this coin. If it’s heads, you get to ride home. If it’s tails, I ride home.” It was tails. For some curious reason, Lucy never spoke to me again. What had I gone wrong?’

Text 10 BEST MAN TRIED TO KILL US BOTH

HORRIFIED wedding guests saw a best man plunge naked to his death from a Mexican hotel

after he yelled at his girlfriend during a row: “We are both going over the balcony.”

Fiancée Lisa Miller told police how Adrian Fletcher, 34, struggled in vain to throw her to her doom, then leapt 150ft himself.

Shocked witnesses described him “swallow diving” off the top floor of the 14-storey hotel. One member of the 22-strong wedding party — which had flown out to the resort of Cancun from Manchester said: “It was awful.”

“We were in the bar when someone said there was a commotion going on.

“I went outside and looked up to see Adrian plunging to the ground.”

Lisa, 33, was to have been chief bridesmaid at the wedding of pals John Rourke and Lisa Cooksey.

Police said: “During the argument, the man said, ‘We are both going to die together’. She managed to fight him off.

“But he extended his arms and threw himself off.”

Cops held Lisa for questioning over Thursday’s horror at the five-star RIU Hotel — but confirmed she was only a witness. She was freed after members of the wedding party paid £500 bail.

One guest insisted: “Lisa is completely innocent. She didn’t push him.” The couple had themselves been planning to wed. Lisa, who suffered a bruised and scratched face, was last night said to be “shattered.”

The bride and groom were considering scrapping their wedding next Friday.

Their children aged 14, five and three were among the wedding party from the Bolton area.

Mobile phone salesman Adrian was from the village of Little Lever, where his distraught parents

Howard and Doloris were being comforted. Childhood friend Fiona Clinch, 34, said: “He and Lisa had their arguments like anyone else but she is a lovely girl.”

The landlord of the Hardy Hall, a working men’s club where Adrian was a regular, said: “His friends have started to gather here. The mood is one of utter sadness.”

Additional texts. Texts for professional purpose

Text 1. Сomputers Concern You

When Ch. Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, invented the first calculating machine in 1812, he could hardly have imagined the situations we find ourselves in today. Almost everything in modern world is done with the help of computers – the complicated descendants (потомки) of his simple machine. Computers are being used more and more extensively in the world today, for the simple reason that they are far more efficient that human beings. They have much better memories and can store (запоминать) great amount of information and they can do calculations in a fraction of the time required by a human mathematician. No man alive can do 500,000 sums in one second, but a modern computer can.

In fact, computers can do many things we do, but faster and better. They can control machines at factories, work out tomorrow’s weather and even play chess, write poetry or compose music. Let’s look now at some of the ways in which computers concern people in their daily lives and work.

Many people associate computers with the world of science and mathematics, but they are also a great help to scholars in subjects: in history, literature and so on. It is now possible her a scholar to find a book or an article he needs very quickly, nowadays when a million or more new books are published year is quite an advantage. You tell the computer which subject you are interested in and it producers any microfiche (микрофише) you need in seconds.

There are also systems which are being developed to translate articles from foreign magazines by computer and to make up many lists of information which are needed in a modern library. So, computer can help us to deal with the knowledge explosion in many ways. One can imagine a time when libraries will by run by computers, without human beings at all.

Or, let”s take another example. When a man drives a can for long distances he has two problems: to keep the car at a constant speed and watch that he does not run into the car in front of him. Engineers are now experimenting with a system which has a computer control of these two problems. The car’s computer keeps the speed constant. The beam meets the rear reflectors of the car in front and it is reflectors back, which enables to measure the distance. This information is fed to the computer which adjusts its speed control accordingly.

Text 2. Solar Light by Night

Most people living in towns consider it a usual thin that streets are lit at night. But street lights need a power supply (источник энергии) therefore distant areas with no source of electricity remain in darkness until the sun comes up again.

With new appliances now offered by several British firms, many distant places could be lit with solar-powered street lights. It may seem strange that the lamps can use the power of the sun which shines by day when the lamps are needed at night, but they work by using energy accumulated during the day from a solar panel. The solar panel produces electricity which charges (заряжать) a battery. When the sun goes down, the battery power is then used for lighting. Each lamp has its own panel so the system can be used for one individual light or a number of them.

In the south of Saudi Arabia a motorway tunnel miles from any power supply is lit day and night by solar-powered devices. The solar panels provide power during the day and charge batteries which accumulate enough power to light the tunnel at night. The generation of electricity by batteries is still expensive but the advantage of sun-powered lamps is that they can bring light to areas distant from any other power supply.

There is one more advantage of solar power: not only it is unlimited, but also its use does not pollute the environment. That is why it is very important to develop devices which make it possible to transform solar power into mechanical or electric forms of power.

Text 3. Importance of transportation

Many of the world’s major cities were built long before the car appeared and people realized the need to built efficient road systems. Current traffic management problems may be connected with old city planning.

The thing that saves some of these cities is an effective public transport system, usually below ground. London has an old but effective underground train system known as a tube, and a comprehensive bus and train system above the ground. Hong Kong has cheap, swift and effective public transport in the form of Mass Transit Railway, buses and ferries.

But there are newly built cities, such as for example, Dallas, Baltimore and Los Angeles in America. Dallas is a wealthy city in Texas, which has grown up in an era when cars were considered to be essential to move about. It has an excellent road system, as does Baltimore, another new city with wise city leaders who insisted on building good roads. However, the public transport system in both Dallas and Baltimore is extremely poor. As a result, travel in these cities is easy except for peak hour, when a twenty minute run can take more than an hour traffic jams. Los Angeles suffers from chronic highway blockages, despite efforts to encourage people to use public transport.

Cities with good road system can use other methods to reduce the number of vehicles traveling together at peak hour. Flexible time is one good method: offices open and close at different times so people are traveling to and from work at different times. Vehicles carrying more than one person can use special priority lanes, which mean they can travel more quickly. There are even systems to make peak hours car use more expensive, with electronic chips recording the presence of a vehicle in a given high traffic area at a given time.

Text 4. Electricity.

It is impossible to imagine our civilization without: economic and social

progress will be turned to the past and daily lives completely transformed.

Electrical power has become universal. |Thousands of application of electricity such as lighting, electrochemistry and electrometallurgy are longstanding and unquestionable.

With the appearance of the electrical motor, power cables replaced transmission shafts, gear wheels, belts and pulleys in the, 19-th century workshops. |And in the home a whole range of various time and lab our saving appliances have become a part of our everyday lives.

Other devices are based on specific properties of electricity: electrostatics in the case of photocopying machine and electromagnetism in the case of radar and television. These applications have made electricity most widely.

The fist industrial application was in the silver workshops in Paris. The generator – a new compact source of electricity – was also developed there. The generator replaced the batteries and other devices that had been used before.

Electronic lighting came into wide use at the end of the last century with the development of the electric lamp by Thomas \Edison. |Then the transformed was invented, the first electric lines and networks were set up, dynamos and indication motors were designed.

Since the beginning of the 20^th century the successful development of electricity has begun throughout the industrial world. The consumption of electricity has doubled every ten years.

Today consumption of electricity per capita is an indicator of the state of development and economic health of a nation. Electricity has replaced other sources of energy as it has been realized that is offers improved service and reduced cost.

One of the greatest advantages of electricity is that it is clean, easily – regulated and generates no by-products. |Applications of electricity now cover all fields of human activity from house washing machines to the latest laser devices. Electricity is the efficient source of some the most recent technological advances such as the laser and electron beams. Truly electricity provides mankind with the energy of the future.

Notes to the Text

transmission shafts, gear wheels, belts and pulleys – трансмиссионные валы, зубчатые колёса, ремни и блоки

time and lab our saving appliances - электроприборы, экономящие время и труд

induction motors – индукционные моторы

per capita – на человека, на душу населения

by – products – побочные продукты

Text 5. Radio transmitter design

Radio transmitter design is a complex topic which can be broken down into a series of smaller topics. A radio communication system requires two tuned circuits each at the transmitter and receiver, all four tuned to the same frequency. The transmitter is an electronic device which, usually with the aid of an antenna, propagates an electromagnetic signal such as radio, television, or other telecommunications.

Design issues

The radio transmitter is one element of a radio system. As well as the perpetual constraints of budget and schedule common to any project, a radio transmitter design must consider multiple technical and regulatory factors. These include the frequency of operation, the type of modulation, the stability and purity of the resulting signal, the efficiency of power use, and the power level required to meet the system design objectives. High-power transmitters may have additional constraints with respect to radiation safety, generation of X-rays, and protection from high voltages. Typically a transmitter design includes generation of a carrier signal, optionally one or more frequency multiplication stages, a modulator, a power amplifier, and a filter and matching network to connect to an antenna. A very simple transmitter might contain only a continuously running oscillator coupled to some antenna system. More elaborate transmitters allow better control over the modulation of the emitted signal and improve the stability of the transmitted frequency. For example the Master Oscillator-Power Amplifier (MOPA) configuration inserts an amplifier stage between the oscillator and the antenna. This prevents changes in the loading presented by the antenna from altering the frequency of the oscillator.

Frequency synthesis

Fixed frequency systems

For a fixed frequency transmitter one commonly used method is to use a resonant quartz crystal in a Crystal oscillator to fix the frequency. Where the frequency has to be variable, several options can be used.