Indoor Pollution

Since the early eighties, we have been only too aware of the devastating effects of large-scale environmental pollution. Such pollution is generally the result of poor government planning in many developing nations or the short-sighted, selfish policies of the already industrialised countries which encourage a minority of the world’s population to squander the majority of its natural resources.

While events such as the deforestation of the Amazon jungle or the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl continue to receive high media exposure, as do acts of environmental sabotage, it must be remembered that not all pollution is on this grand scale. A large proportion of the world’s pollution has its source much closer to home. The recent spillage of crude oil from an oil tanker accidentally discharging its cargo straight into Sydney Harbour not only caused serious damage to the harbour foreshores but also created severely toxic fumes which hung over the suburbs for days and left the angry residents wondering how such a disaster could have been allowed to happen.

Avoiding pollution can be a full­time job. Try not to inhale traffic fumes; keep away from chemical plants and building sites; wear a mask when cycling. It is enough to make you want to stay at home. But that, according to a growing body of scientific evidence, would also be a bad idea. Research shows that levels of pollutants such as hazardous gases, particulate matter and other chemical ‘nasties’ are usually higher indoors than out, even in the most polluted cities. Since the average American spends 18 hours indoors for every hour outside, it looks as though many environmentalists may be attacking the wrong target.

The latest study, conducted by two environmental engineers, Richard Corsi and Cynthia Howard-Reed, of the University of Texas in Austin, and published in Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that it is the process of keeping clean that may be making indoor pollution worse. The researchers found that baths, showers, dishwashers and washing machines can all be significant sources of indoor pollution, because they extract trace amounts of chemicals from the water that they use and transfer them to the air.

Nearly all public water supplies contain very low concentrations of toxic chemicals, most of them left over from the otherwise beneficial process of chlorination. Dr. Corsi wondered whether they stay there when water is used, or whether they end up in the air that people breathe. The team conducted a series of experiments in which known quantities of five such chemicals were mixed with water and passed through a dishwasher, a washing machine, a shower head inside a shower stall or a tap in a bath, all inside a specially designed chamber. The levels of chemicals in the effluent water and in the air extracted from the chamber were then measured to see how much of each chemical had been transferred from the water into the air.

The degree to which the most volatile elements could be removed from the water, a process known as chemical stripping, depended on a wide range of factors, including the volatility of the chemical, the temperature of the water and the surface area available for transfer. Dishwashers were found to be particularly effective: the high-temperature spray, splashing against the crockery and cutlery, results in a nasty plume of toxic chemicals that escape when the door is opened at the end of the cycle.

In fact, in many cases, the degree of exposure to toxic chemicals in tap water by inhalation is comparable to the exposure that would result from drinking the stuff. This is significant because many people are so concerned about water-borne pollutants that they drink only bottled water, worldwide sales of which are forecast to reach $72 billion by next year. D. Corsi’s results suggest that they are being exposed to such pollutants anyway simply by breathing at home.

The aim of such research is not, however, to encourage the use of gas masks when unloading the washing. Instead, it is to bring a sense of perspective to the debate about pollution. According to Dr Corsi, disproportionate effort is wasted campaigning against certain forms of outdoor pollution, when there is as much or more cause for concern indoors, right under people’s noses.

Using gas cookers or burning candles, for example, both result in indoor levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter that are just as high as those to be found outside, amid heavy traffic. Overcrowded classrooms whose ventilation systems were designed for smaller numbers of children frequently contain levels of carbon dioxide that would be regarded as unacceptable on board a submarine. ‘New car smell’ is the result of high levels of toxic chemicals, not cleanliness. Laser printers, computers, carpets and paints all contribute to the noxious indoor mix.

The implications of indoor pollution for health are unclear. But before worrying about the problems caused by large-scale industry, it makes sense to consider the small-scale pollution at home and welcome international debate about this. Scientists investigating indoor pollution will gather next month in Edinburgh at the Indoor Air conference to discuss the problem. Perhaps unwisely, the meeting is being held indoors.

Question

Choose the appropriate letters A-D

As a result of their experiments, Dr Corsi’s team found that .......

Indoor Pollution

Since the early eighties, we have been only too aware of the devastating effects of large-scale environmental pollution. Such pollution is generally the result of poor government planning in many developing nations or the short-sighted, selfish policies of the already industrialised countries which encourage a minority of the world’s population to squander the majority of its natural resources.

While events such as the deforestation of the Amazon jungle or the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl continue to receive high media exposure, as do acts of environmental sabotage, it must be remembered that not all pollution is on this grand scale. A large proportion of the world’s pollution has its source much closer to home. The recent spillage of crude oil from an oil tanker accidentally discharging its cargo straight into Sydney Harbour not only caused serious damage to the harbour foreshores but also created severely toxic fumes which hung over the suburbs for days and left the angry residents wondering how such a disaster could have been allowed to happen.

Avoiding pollution can be a full­time job. Try not to inhale traffic fumes; keep away from chemical plants and building sites; wear a mask when cycling. It is enough to make you want to stay at home. But that, according to a growing body of scientific evidence, would also be a bad idea. Research shows that levels of pollutants such as hazardous gases, particulate matter and other chemical ‘nasties’ are usually higher indoors than out, even in the most polluted cities. Since the average American spends 18 hours indoors for every hour outside, it looks as though many environmentalists may be attacking the wrong target.

The latest study, conducted by two environmental engineers, Richard Corsi and Cynthia Howard-Reed, of the University of Texas in Austin, and published in Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that it is the process of keeping clean that may be making indoor pollution worse. The researchers found that baths, showers, dishwashers and washing machines can all be significant sources of indoor pollution, because they extract trace amounts of chemicals from the water that they use and transfer them to the air.

Nearly all public water supplies contain very low concentrations of toxic chemicals, most of them left over from the otherwise beneficial process of chlorination. Dr. Corsi wondered whether they stay there when water is used, or whether they end up in the air that people breathe. The team conducted a series of experiments in which known quantities of five such chemicals were mixed with water and passed through a dishwasher, a washing machine, a shower head inside a shower stall or a tap in a bath, all inside a specially designed chamber. The levels of chemicals in the effluent water and in the air extracted from the chamber were then measured to see how much of each chemical had been transferred from the water into the air.

The degree to which the most volatile elements could be removed from the water, a process known as chemical stripping, depended on a wide range of factors, including the volatility of the chemical, the temperature of the water and the surface area available for transfer. Dishwashers were found to be particularly effective: the high-temperature spray, splashing against the crockery and cutlery, results in a nasty plume of toxic chemicals that escape when the door is opened at the end of the cycle.

In fact, in many cases, the degree of exposure to toxic chemicals in tap water by inhalation is comparable to the exposure that would result from drinking the stuff. This is significant because many people are so concerned about water-borne pollutants that they drink only bottled water, worldwide sales of which are forecast to reach $72 billion by next year. D. Corsi’s results suggest that they are being exposed to such pollutants anyway simply by breathing at home.

The aim of such research is not, however, to encourage the use of gas masks when unloading the washing. Instead, it is to bring a sense of perspective to the debate about pollution. According to Dr Corsi, disproportionate effort is wasted campaigning against certain forms of outdoor pollution, when there is as much or more cause for concern indoors, right under people’s noses.

Using gas cookers or burning candles, for example, both result in indoor levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter that are just as high as those to be found outside, amid heavy traffic. Overcrowded classrooms whose ventilation systems were designed for smaller numbers of children frequently contain levels of carbon dioxide that would be regarded as unacceptable on board a submarine. ‘New car smell’ is the result of high levels of toxic chemicals, not cleanliness. Laser printers, computers, carpets and paints all contribute to the noxious indoor mix.

The implications of indoor pollution for health are unclear. But before worrying about the problems caused by large-scale industry, it makes sense to consider the small-scale pollution at home and welcome international debate about this. Scientists investigating indoor pollution will gather next month in Edinburgh at the Indoor Air conference to discuss the problem. Perhaps unwisely, the meeting is being held indoors.

Question

Choose the appropriate letters A-D

In the 3rd paragraph, the writer suggests that .......

Indoor Pollution

Since the early eighties, we have been only too aware of the devastating effects of large-scale environmental pollution. Such pollution is generally the result of poor government planning in many developing nations or the short-sighted, selfish policies of the already industrialised countries which encourage a minority of the world’s population to squander the majority of its natural resources.

While events such as the deforestation of the Amazon jungle or the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl continue to receive high media exposure, as do acts of environmental sabotage, it must be remembered that not all pollution is on this grand scale. A large proportion of the world’s pollution has its source much closer to home. The recent spillage of crude oil from an oil tanker accidentally discharging its cargo straight into Sydney Harbour not only caused serious damage to the harbour foreshores but also created severely toxic fumes which hung over the suburbs for days and left the angry residents wondering how such a disaster could have been allowed to happen.

Avoiding pollution can be a full­time job. Try not to inhale traffic fumes; keep away from chemical plants and building sites; wear a mask when cycling. It is enough to make you want to stay at home. But that, according to a growing body of scientific evidence, would also be a bad idea. Research shows that levels of pollutants such as hazardous gases, particulate matter and other chemical ‘nasties’ are usually higher indoors than out, even in the most polluted cities. Since the average American spends 18 hours indoors for every hour outside, it looks as though many environmentalists may be attacking the wrong target.

The latest study, conducted by two environmental engineers, Richard Corsi and Cynthia Howard-Reed, of the University of Texas in Austin, and published in Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that it is the process of keeping clean that may be making indoor pollution worse. The researchers found that baths, showers, dishwashers and washing machines can all be significant sources of indoor pollution, because they extract trace amounts of chemicals from the water that they use and transfer them to the air.

Nearly all public water supplies contain very low concentrations of toxic chemicals, most of them left over from the otherwise beneficial process of chlorination. Dr. Corsi wondered whether they stay there when water is used, or whether they end up in the air that people breathe. The team conducted a series of experiments in which known quantities of five such chemicals were mixed with water and passed through a dishwasher, a washing machine, a shower head inside a shower stall or a tap in a bath, all inside a specially designed chamber. The levels of chemicals in the effluent water and in the air extracted from the chamber were then measured to see how much of each chemical had been transferred from the water into the air.

The degree to which the most volatile elements could be removed from the water, a process known as chemical stripping, depended on a wide range of factors, including the volatility of the chemical, the temperature of the water and the surface area available for transfer. Dishwashers were found to be particularly effective: the high-temperature spray, splashing against the crockery and cutlery, results in a nasty plume of toxic chemicals that escape when the door is opened at the end of the cycle.

In fact, in many cases, the degree of exposure to toxic chemicals in tap water by inhalation is comparable to the exposure that would result from drinking the stuff. This is significant because many people are so concerned about water-borne pollutants that they drink only bottled water, worldwide sales of which are forecast to reach $72 billion by next year. D. Corsi’s results suggest that they are being exposed to such pollutants anyway simply by breathing at home.

The aim of such research is not, however, to encourage the use of gas masks when unloading the washing. Instead, it is to bring a sense of perspective to the debate about pollution. According to Dr Corsi, disproportionate effort is wasted campaigning against certain forms of outdoor pollution, when there is as much or more cause for concern indoors, right under people’s noses.

Using gas cookers or burning candles, for example, both result in indoor levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter that are just as high as those to be found outside, amid heavy traffic. Overcrowded classrooms whose ventilation systems were designed for smaller numbers of children frequently contain levels of carbon dioxide that would be regarded as unacceptable on board a submarine. ‘New car smell’ is the result of high levels of toxic chemicals, not cleanliness. Laser printers, computers, carpets and paints all contribute to the noxious indoor mix.

The implications of indoor pollution for health are unclear. But before worrying about the problems caused by large-scale industry, it makes sense to consider the small-scale pollution at home and welcome international debate about this. Scientists investigating indoor pollution will gather next month in Edinburgh at the Indoor Air conference to discuss the problem. Perhaps unwisely, the meeting is being held indoors.

Question

Choose the appropriate letters A-D

In the first paragraph, the writer argues that pollution .......

Indoor Pollution

Since the early eighties, we have been only too aware of the devastating effects of large-scale environmental pollution. Such pollution is generally the result of poor government planning in many developing nations or the short-sighted, selfish policies of the already industrialised countries which encourage a minority of the world’s population to squander the majority of its natural resources.

While events such as the deforestation of the Amazon jungle or the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl continue to receive high media exposure, as do acts of environmental sabotage, it must be remembered that not all pollution is on this grand scale. A large proportion of the world’s pollution has its source much closer to home. The recent spillage of crude oil from an oil tanker accidentally discharging its cargo straight into Sydney Harbour not only caused serious damage to the harbour foreshores but also created severely toxic fumes which hung over the suburbs for days and left the angry residents wondering how such a disaster could have been allowed to happen.

Avoiding pollution can be a full­time job. Try not to inhale traffic fumes; keep away from chemical plants and building sites; wear a mask when cycling. It is enough to make you want to stay at home. But that, according to a growing body of scientific evidence, would also be a bad idea. Research shows that levels of pollutants such as hazardous gases, particulate matter and other chemical ‘nasties’ are usually higher indoors than out, even in the most polluted cities. Since the average American spends 18 hours indoors for every hour outside, it looks as though many environmentalists may be attacking the wrong target.

The latest study, conducted by two environmental engineers, Richard Corsi and Cynthia Howard-Reed, of the University of Texas in Austin, and published in Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that it is the process of keeping clean that may be making indoor pollution worse. The researchers found that baths, showers, dishwashers and washing machines can all be significant sources of indoor pollution, because they extract trace amounts of chemicals from the water that they use and transfer them to the air.

Nearly all public water supplies contain very low concentrations of toxic chemicals, most of them left over from the otherwise beneficial process of chlorination. Dr. Corsi wondered whether they stay there when water is used, or whether they end up in the air that people breathe. The team conducted a series of experiments in which known quantities of five such chemicals were mixed with water and passed through a dishwasher, a washing machine, a shower head inside a shower stall or a tap in a bath, all inside a specially designed chamber. The levels of chemicals in the effluent water and in the air extracted from the chamber were then measured to see how much of each chemical had been transferred from the water into the air.

The degree to which the most volatile elements could be removed from the water, a process known as chemical stripping, depended on a wide range of factors, including the volatility of the chemical, the temperature of the water and the surface area available for transfer. Dishwashers were found to be particularly effective: the high-temperature spray, splashing against the crockery and cutlery, results in a nasty plume of toxic chemicals that escape when the door is opened at the end of the cycle.

In fact, in many cases, the degree of exposure to toxic chemicals in tap water by inhalation is comparable to the exposure that would result from drinking the stuff. This is significant because many people are so concerned about water-borne pollutants that they drink only bottled water, worldwide sales of which are forecast to reach $72 billion by next year. D. Corsi’s results suggest that they are being exposed to such pollutants anyway simply by breathing at home.

The aim of such research is not, however, to encourage the use of gas masks when unloading the washing. Instead, it is to bring a sense of perspective to the debate about pollution. According to Dr Corsi, disproportionate effort is wasted campaigning against certain forms of outdoor pollution, when there is as much or more cause for concern indoors, right under people’s noses.

Using gas cookers or burning candles, for example, both result in indoor levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter that are just as high as those to be found outside, amid heavy traffic. Overcrowded classrooms whose ventilation systems were designed for smaller numbers of children frequently contain levels of carbon dioxide that would be regarded as unacceptable on board a submarine. ‘New car smell’ is the result of high levels of toxic chemicals, not cleanliness. Laser printers, computers, carpets and paints all contribute to the noxious indoor mix.

The implications of indoor pollution for health are unclear. But before worrying about the problems caused by large-scale industry, it makes sense to consider the small-scale pollution at home and welcome international debate about this. Scientists investigating indoor pollution will gather next month in Edinburgh at the Indoor Air conference to discuss the problem. Perhaps unwisely, the meeting is being held indoors.

Question

Choose the appropriate letters A-D

Regarding the dangers of pollution, the writer believes that .......

Indoor Pollution

Since the early eighties, we have been only too aware of the devastating effects of large-scale environmental pollution. Such pollution is generally the result of poor government planning in many developing nations or the short-sighted, selfish policies of the already industrialised countries which encourage a minority of the world’s population to squander the majority of its natural resources.

While events such as the deforestation of the Amazon jungle or the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl continue to receive high media exposure, as do acts of environmental sabotage, it must be remembered that not all pollution is on this grand scale. A large proportion of the world’s pollution has its source much closer to home. The recent spillage of crude oil from an oil tanker accidentally discharging its cargo straight into Sydney Harbour not only caused serious damage to the harbour foreshores but also created severely toxic fumes which hung over the suburbs for days and left the angry residents wondering how such a disaster could have been allowed to happen.

Avoiding pollution can be a full­time job. Try not to inhale traffic fumes; keep away from chemical plants and building sites; wear a mask when cycling. It is enough to make you want to stay at home. But that, according to a growing body of scientific evidence, would also be a bad idea. Research shows that levels of pollutants such as hazardous gases, particulate matter and other chemical ‘nasties’ are usually higher indoors than out, even in the most polluted cities. Since the average American spends 18 hours indoors for every hour outside, it looks as though many environmentalists may be attacking the wrong target.

The latest study, conducted by two environmental engineers, Richard Corsi and Cynthia Howard-Reed, of the University of Texas in Austin, and published in Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that it is the process of keeping clean that may be making indoor pollution worse. The researchers found that baths, showers, dishwashers and washing machines can all be significant sources of indoor pollution, because they extract trace amounts of chemicals from the water that they use and transfer them to the air.

Nearly all public water supplies contain very low concentrations of toxic chemicals, most of them left over from the otherwise beneficial process of chlorination. Dr. Corsi wondered whether they stay there when water is used, or whether they end up in the air that people breathe. The team conducted a series of experiments in which known quantities of five such chemicals were mixed with water and passed through a dishwasher, a washing machine, a shower head inside a shower stall or a tap in a bath, all inside a specially designed chamber. The levels of chemicals in the effluent water and in the air extracted from the chamber were then measured to see how much of each chemical had been transferred from the water into the air.

The degree to which the most volatile elements could be removed from the water, a process known as chemical stripping, depended on a wide range of factors, including the volatility of the chemical, the temperature of the water and the surface area available for transfer. Dishwashers were found to be particularly effective: the high-temperature spray, splashing against the crockery and cutlery, results in a nasty plume of toxic chemicals that escape when the door is opened at the end of the cycle.

In fact, in many cases, the degree of exposure to toxic chemicals in tap water by inhalation is comparable to the exposure that would result from drinking the stuff. This is significant because many people are so concerned about water-borne pollutants that they drink only bottled water, worldwide sales of which are forecast to reach $72 billion by next year. D. Corsi’s results suggest that they are being exposed to such pollutants anyway simply by breathing at home.

The aim of such research is not, however, to encourage the use of gas masks when unloading the washing. Instead, it is to bring a sense of perspective to the debate about pollution. According to Dr Corsi, disproportionate effort is wasted campaigning against certain forms of outdoor pollution, when there is as much or more cause for concern indoors, right under people’s noses.

Using gas cookers or burning candles, for example, both result in indoor levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter that are just as high as those to be found outside, amid heavy traffic. Overcrowded classrooms whose ventilation systems were designed for smaller numbers of children frequently contain levels of carbon dioxide that would be regarded as unacceptable on board a submarine. ‘New car smell’ is the result of high levels of toxic chemicals, not cleanliness. Laser printers, computers, carpets and paints all contribute to the noxious indoor mix.

The implications of indoor pollution for health are unclear. But before worrying about the problems caused by large-scale industry, it makes sense to consider the small-scale pollution at home and welcome international debate about this. Scientists investigating indoor pollution will gather next month in Edinburgh at the Indoor Air conference to discuss the problem. Perhaps unwisely, the meeting is being held indoors.

Question

Choose the appropriate letters A-D

The Corsi research team hypothesised that .......

Indoor Pollution

Since the early eighties, we have been only too aware of the devastating effects of large-scale environmental pollution. Such pollution is generally the result of poor government planning in many developing nations or the short-sighted, selfish policies of the already industrialised countries which encourage a minority of the world’s population to squander the majority of its natural resources.

While events such as the deforestation of the Amazon jungle or the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl continue to receive high media exposure, as do acts of environmental sabotage, it must be remembered that not all pollution is on this grand scale. A large proportion of the world’s pollution has its source much closer to home. The recent spillage of crude oil from an oil tanker accidentally discharging its cargo straight into Sydney Harbour not only caused serious damage to the harbour foreshores but also created severely toxic fumes which hung over the suburbs for days and left the angry residents wondering how such a disaster could have been allowed to happen.

Avoiding pollution can be a full­time job. Try not to inhale traffic fumes; keep away from chemical plants and building sites; wear a mask when cycling. It is enough to make you want to stay at home. But that, according to a growing body of scientific evidence, would also be a bad idea. Research shows that levels of pollutants such as hazardous gases, particulate matter and other chemical ‘nasties’ are usually higher indoors than out, even in the most polluted cities. Since the average American spends 18 hours indoors for every hour outside, it looks as though many environmentalists may be attacking the wrong target.

The latest study, conducted by two environmental engineers, Richard Corsi and Cynthia Howard-Reed, of the University of Texas in Austin, and published in Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that it is the process of keeping clean that may be making indoor pollution worse. The researchers found that baths, showers, dishwashers and washing machines can all be significant sources of indoor pollution, because they extract trace amounts of chemicals from the water that they use and transfer them to the air.

Nearly all public water supplies contain very low concentrations of toxic chemicals, most of them left over from the otherwise beneficial process of chlorination. Dr. Corsi wondered whether they stay there when water is used, or whether they end up in the air that people breathe. The team conducted a series of experiments in which known quantities of five such chemicals were mixed with water and passed through a dishwasher, a washing machine, a shower head inside a shower stall or a tap in a bath, all inside a specially designed chamber. The levels of chemicals in the effluent water and in the air extracted from the chamber were then measured to see how much of each chemical had been transferred from the water into the air.

The degree to which the most volatile elements could be removed from the water, a process known as chemical stripping, depended on a wide range of factors, including the volatility of the chemical, the temperature of the water and the surface area available for transfer. Dishwashers were found to be particularly effective: the high-temperature spray, splashing against the crockery and cutlery, results in a nasty plume of toxic chemicals that escape when the door is opened at the end of the cycle.

In fact, in many cases, the degree of exposure to toxic chemicals in tap water by inhalation is comparable to the exposure that would result from drinking the stuff. This is significant because many people are so concerned about water-borne pollutants that they drink only bottled water, worldwide sales of which are forecast to reach $72 billion by next year. D. Corsi’s results suggest that they are being exposed to such pollutants anyway simply by breathing at home.

The aim of such research is not, however, to encourage the use of gas masks when unloading the washing. Instead, it is to bring a sense of perspective to the debate about pollution. According to Dr Corsi, disproportionate effort is wasted campaigning against certain forms of outdoor pollution, when there is as much or more cause for concern indoors, right under people’s noses.

Using gas cookers or burning candles, for example, both result in indoor levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter that are just as high as those to be found outside, amid heavy traffic. Overcrowded classrooms whose ventilation systems were designed for smaller numbers of children frequently contain levels of carbon dioxide that would be regarded as unacceptable on board a submarine. ‘New car smell’ is the result of high levels of toxic chemicals, not cleanliness. Laser printers, computers, carpets and paints all contribute to the noxious indoor mix.

The implications of indoor pollution for health are unclear. But before worrying about the problems caused by large-scale industry, it makes sense to consider the small-scale pollution at home and welcome international debate about this. Scientists investigating indoor pollution will gather next month in Edinburgh at the Indoor Air conference to discuss the problem. Perhaps unwisely, the meeting is being held indoors.

Question

Choose the appropriate letters A-D

The Sydney Harbour oil spill was the result of a .......

Indoor Pollution

Since the early eighties, we have been only too aware of the devastating effects of large-scale environmental pollution. Such pollution is generally the result of poor government planning in many developing nations or the short-sighted, selfish policies of the already industrialised countries which encourage a minority of the world’s population to squander the majority of its natural resources.

While events such as the deforestation of the Amazon jungle or the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl continue to receive high media exposure, as do acts of environmental sabotage, it must be remembered that not all pollution is on this grand scale. A large proportion of the world’s pollution has its source much closer to home. The recent spillage of crude oil from an oil tanker accidentally discharging its cargo straight into Sydney Harbour not only caused serious damage to the harbour foreshores but also created severely toxic fumes which hung over the suburbs for days and left the angry residents wondering how such a disaster could have been allowed to happen.

Avoiding pollution can be a full­time job. Try not to inhale traffic fumes; keep away from chemical plants and building sites; wear a mask when cycling. It is enough to make you want to stay at home. But that, according to a growing body of scientific evidence, would also be a bad idea. Research shows that levels of pollutants such as hazardous gases, particulate matter and other chemical ‘nasties’ are usually higher indoors than out, even in the most polluted cities. Since the average American spends 18 hours indoors for every hour outside, it looks as though many environmentalists may be attacking the wrong target.

The latest study, conducted by two environmental engineers, Richard Corsi and Cynthia Howard-Reed, of the University of Texas in Austin, and published in Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that it is the process of keeping clean that may be making indoor pollution worse. The researchers found that baths, showers, dishwashers and washing machines can all be significant sources of indoor pollution, because they extract trace amounts of chemicals from the water that they use and transfer them to the air.

Nearly all public water supplies contain very low concentrations of toxic chemicals, most of them left over from the otherwise beneficial process of chlorination. Dr. Corsi wondered whether they stay there when water is used, or whether they end up in the air that people breathe. The team conducted a series of experiments in which known quantities of five such chemicals were mixed with water and passed through a dishwasher, a washing machine, a shower head inside a shower stall or a tap in a bath, all inside a specially designed chamber. The levels of chemicals in the effluent water and in the air extracted from the chamber were then measured to see how much of each chemical had been transferred from the water into the air.

The degree to which the most volatile elements could be removed from the water, a process known as chemical stripping, depended on a wide range of factors, including the volatility of the chemical, the temperature of the water and the surface area available for transfer. Dishwashers were found to be particularly effective: the high-temperature spray, splashing against the crockery and cutlery, results in a nasty plume of toxic chemicals that escape when the door is opened at the end of the cycle.

In fact, in many cases, the degree of exposure to toxic chemicals in tap water by inhalation is comparable to the exposure that would result from drinking the stuff. This is significant because many people are so concerned about water-borne pollutants that they drink only bottled water, worldwide sales of which are forecast to reach $72 billion by next year. D. Corsi’s results suggest that they are being exposed to such pollutants anyway simply by breathing at home.

The aim of such research is not, however, to encourage the use of gas masks when unloading the washing. Instead, it is to bring a sense of perspective to the debate about pollution. According to Dr Corsi, disproportionate effort is wasted campaigning against certain forms of outdoor pollution, when there is as much or more cause for concern indoors, right under people’s noses.

Using gas cookers or burning candles, for example, both result in indoor levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter that are just as high as those to be found outside, amid heavy traffic. Overcrowded classrooms whose ventilation systems were designed for smaller numbers of children frequently contain levels of carbon dioxide that would be regarded as unacceptable on board a submarine. ‘New car smell’ is the result of high levels of toxic chemicals, not cleanliness. Laser printers, computers, carpets and paints all contribute to the noxious indoor mix.

The implications of indoor pollution for health are unclear. But before worrying about the problems caused by large-scale industry, it makes sense to consider the small-scale pollution at home and welcome international debate about this. Scientists investigating indoor pollution will gather next month in Edinburgh at the Indoor Air conference to discuss the problem. Perhaps unwisely, the meeting is being held indoors.

Question

The Reading Passage describes a number of cause and effect relationships.

Match each Cause with its Effect.

The accidental rainforest

According to ecological theory, rainforests are supposed to develop slowly over millions of years. But now ecologists are being forced to reconsider their ideas

When Peter Osbeck. a Swedish priest, stopped off at the mid-Atlantic island of Ascension in 1752 on his way home from China, he wrote of ‘a heap of ruinous rocks’ with a bare, white mountain in the middle. All it boasted was a couple of dozen species of plant, most of them ferns and some of them unique to the island.

And so it might have remained. But in 1843 British plant collector Joseph Hooker made a brief call on his return from Antarctica. Surveying the bare earth, he concluded that the island had suffered some natural calamity that had denuded it of vegetation and triggered a decline in rainfall that was turning the place into a desert. The British Navy, which by then maintained a garrison on the island, was keen to improve the place and asked Hooker's advice. He suggested an ambitious scheme for planting trees and shrubs that would revive rainfall and stimulate a wider ecological recovery. And, perhaps lacking anything else to do, the sailors set to with a will.

In 1845, a naval transport ship from Argentina delivered a batch of seedlings. In the following years, more than 200 species of plant arrived from South Africa, from England came 700 packets of seeds, including those of two species that especially liked the place: bamboo and prickly pear. With sailors planting several thousand trees a year, the bare white mountain was soon cloaked in green and renamed Green Mountain, and by the early twentieth century, the mountain's slopes were covered with a variety of trees and shrubs from all over the world.

Modern ecologists throw up their hands in horror at what they see as Hookers environmental anarchy. The exotic species wrecked the indigenous ecosystem, squeezing out the islands endemic plants. In fact. Hooker knew well enough what might happen. However, he saw greater benefit in improving rainfall and encouraging more prolific vegetation on the island.

But there is a much deeper issue here than the relative benefits of sparse endemic species versus luxuriant imported ones. And as botanist David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK pointed out after a recent visit to the island, it goes to the heart of some of the most dearly held tenets of ecology. Conservationists' understandable concern for the fate of Ascension’s handful of unique species has, he says, blinded them to something quite astonishing the fact that the introduced species have been a roaring success.

Today's Green Mountain, says Wilkinson, is ‘a fully functioning man-made tropical cloud forest' that has grown from scratch from a ragbag of species collected more or less at random from all over the planet. But how could it have happened? Conventional ecological theory says that complex ecosystems such as cloud forests can emerge only through evolutionary processes in which each organism develops in concert with others to fill particular niches. Plants eco-evolve with their pollinators and seed dispersers, while microbes in the soil evolve to deal with the leaf litter.

But that’s not what happened on Green Mountain. And the experience suggests that perhaps natural rainforests are constructed far more by chance than by evolution. Species, say some ecologists, don’t so much evolve to create ecosystems as make the best of what they have. ‘The Green Mountain system is a man-made system that has produced a tropical rainforest without any co-evolution between its constituent species,’ says Wilkinson.

Not everyone agrees. Alan Gray, an ecologist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. argues that the surviving endemic species on Green Mountain, though small in number, may still form the framework of the new' ecosystem. The new arrivals may just be an adornment, with little structural importance for the ecosystem.

But to Wilkinson, this sounds like clutching at straws. And the idea of the instant formation of rainforests sounds increasingly plausible as research reveals that supposedly pristine tropical rainforests from the Amazon to south-east Asia may in places be little more titan the overgrown gardens of past rainforest civilisations.

The most surprising thing of all is that no ecologists have thought to conduct proper research into this human-made rainforest ecosystem. A survey of the island’s flora conducted six years ago by the University of Edinburgh was concerned only with endemic species. They characterised everything else as a threat. And the Ascension authorities are currently turning Green Mountain into a national park where introduced species, at least the invasive ones, are earmarked for culling rather than conservation.

Conservationists have understandable concerns, Wilkinson says. At least four endemic species have gone extinct on Ascension since the exotics started arriving. But in their urgency to protect endemics, ecologists are missing out on the study of a great enigma.

‘As you walk through the forest, you see lots of leaves that have had chunks taken out of them by various insects. There are caterpillars and beetles around.' says Wilkinson. ‘But where did they come from? Are they endemic or alien? If alien, did they come with the plant on which they feed or discover it on arrival?’ Such questions go to the heart of how- rainforests happen.

The Green Mountain forest holds many secrets. And the irony is that the most artificial rainforest in the world could tell us more about rainforest ecology than any number of natural forests.

The accidental rainforest

According to ecological theory, rainforests are supposed to develop slowly over millions of years. But now ecologists are being forced to reconsider their ideas

When Peter Osbeck. a Swedish priest, stopped off at the mid-Atlantic island of Ascension in 1752 on his way home from China, he wrote of ‘a heap of ruinous rocks’ with a bare, white mountain in the middle. All it boasted was a couple of dozen species of plant, most of them ferns and some of them unique to the island.

And so it might have remained. But in 1843 British plant collector Joseph Hooker made a brief call on his return from Antarctica. Surveying the bare earth, he concluded that the island had suffered some natural calamity that had denuded it of vegetation and triggered a decline in rainfall that was turning the place into a desert. The British Navy, which by then maintained a garrison on the island, was keen to improve the place and asked Hooker's advice. He suggested an ambitious scheme for planting trees and shrubs that would revive rainfall and stimulate a wider ecological recovery. And, perhaps lacking anything else to do, the sailors set to with a will.

In 1845, a naval transport ship from Argentina delivered a batch of seedlings. In the following years, more than 200 species of plant arrived from South Africa, from England came 700 packets of seeds, including those of two species that especially liked the place: bamboo and prickly pear. With sailors planting several thousand trees a year, the bare white mountain was soon cloaked in green and renamed Green Mountain, and by the early twentieth century, the mountain's slopes were covered with a variety of trees and shrubs from all over the world.

Modern ecologists throw up their hands in horror at what they see as Hookers environmental anarchy. The exotic species wrecked the indigenous ecosystem, squeezing out the islands endemic plants. In fact. Hooker knew well enough what might happen. However, he saw greater benefit in improving rainfall and encouraging more prolific vegetation on the island.

But there is a much deeper issue here than the relative benefits of sparse endemic species versus luxuriant imported ones. And as botanist David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK pointed out after a recent visit to the island, it goes to the heart of some of the most dearly held tenets of ecology. Conservationists' understandable concern for the fate of Ascension’s handful of unique species has, he says, blinded them to something quite astonishing the fact that the introduced species have been a roaring success.

Today's Green Mountain, says Wilkinson, is ‘a fully functioning man-made tropical cloud forest' that has grown from scratch from a ragbag of species collected more or less at random from all over the planet. But how could it have happened? Conventional ecological theory says that complex ecosystems such as cloud forests can emerge only through evolutionary processes in which each organism develops in concert with others to fill particular niches. Plants eco-evolve with their pollinators and seed dispersers, while microbes in the soil evolve to deal with the leaf litter.

But that’s not what happened on Green Mountain. And the experience suggests that perhaps natural rainforests are constructed far more by chance than by evolution. Species, say some ecologists, don’t so much evolve to create ecosystems as make the best of what they have. ‘The Green Mountain system is a man-made system that has produced a tropical rainforest without any co-evolution between its constituent species,’ says Wilkinson.

Not everyone agrees. Alan Gray, an ecologist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. argues that the surviving endemic species on Green Mountain, though small in number, may still form the framework of the new' ecosystem. The new arrivals may just be an adornment, with little structural importance for the ecosystem.

But to Wilkinson, this sounds like clutching at straws. And the idea of the instant formation of rainforests sounds increasingly plausible as research reveals that supposedly pristine tropical rainforests from the Amazon to south-east Asia may in places be little more titan the overgrown gardens of past rainforest civilisations.

The most surprising thing of all is that no ecologists have thought to conduct proper research into this human-made rainforest ecosystem. A survey of the island’s flora conducted six years ago by the University of Edinburgh was concerned only with endemic species. They characterised everything else as a threat. And the Ascension authorities are currently turning Green Mountain into a national park where introduced species, at least the invasive ones, are earmarked for culling rather than conservation.

Conservationists have understandable concerns, Wilkinson says. At least four endemic species have gone extinct on Ascension since the exotics started arriving. But in their urgency to protect endemics, ecologists are missing out on the study of a great enigma.

‘As you walk through the forest, you see lots of leaves that have had chunks taken out of them by various insects. There are caterpillars and beetles around.' says Wilkinson. ‘But where did they come from? Are they endemic or alien? If alien, did they come with the plant on which they feed or discover it on arrival?’ Such questions go to the heart of how- rainforests happen.

The Green Mountain forest holds many secrets. And the irony is that the most artificial rainforest in the world could tell us more about rainforest ecology than any number of natural forests.

The accidental rainforest

According to ecological theory, rainforests are supposed to develop slowly over millions of years. But now ecologists are being forced to reconsider their ideas

When Peter Osbeck. a Swedish priest, stopped off at the mid-Atlantic island of Ascension in 1752 on his way home from China, he wrote of ‘a heap of ruinous rocks’ with a bare, white mountain in the middle. All it boasted was a couple of dozen species of plant, most of them ferns and some of them unique to the island.

And so it might have remained. But in 1843 British plant collector Joseph Hooker made a brief call on his return from Antarctica. Surveying the bare earth, he concluded that the island had suffered some natural calamity that had denuded it of vegetation and triggered a decline in rainfall that was turning the place into a desert. The British Navy, which by then maintained a garrison on the island, was keen to improve the place and asked Hooker's advice. He suggested an ambitious scheme for planting trees and shrubs that would revive rainfall and stimulate a wider ecological recovery. And, perhaps lacking anything else to do, the sailors set to with a will.

In 1845, a naval transport ship from Argentina delivered a batch of seedlings. In the following years, more than 200 species of plant arrived from South Africa, from England came 700 packets of seeds, including those of two species that especially liked the place: bamboo and prickly pear. With sailors planting several thousand trees a year, the bare white mountain was soon cloaked in green and renamed Green Mountain, and by the early twentieth century, the mountain's slopes were covered with a variety of trees and shrubs from all over the world.

Modern ecologists throw up their hands in horror at what they see as Hookers environmental anarchy. The exotic species wrecked the indigenous ecosystem, squeezing out the islands endemic plants. In fact. Hooker knew well enough what might happen. However, he saw greater benefit in improving rainfall and encouraging more prolific vegetation on the island.

But there is a much deeper issue here than the relative benefits of sparse endemic species versus luxuriant imported ones. And as botanist David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK pointed out after a recent visit to the island, it goes to the heart of some of the most dearly held tenets of ecology. Conservationists' understandable concern for the fate of Ascension’s handful of unique species has, he says, blinded them to something quite astonishing the fact that the introduced species have been a roaring success.

Today's Green Mountain, says Wilkinson, is ‘a fully functioning man-made tropical cloud forest' that has grown from scratch from a ragbag of species collected more or less at random from all over the planet. But how could it have happened? Conventional ecological theory says that complex ecosystems such as cloud forests can emerge only through evolutionary processes in which each organism develops in concert with others to fill particular niches. Plants eco-evolve with their pollinators and seed dispersers, while microbes in the soil evolve to deal with the leaf litter.

But that’s not what happened on Green Mountain. And the experience suggests that perhaps natural rainforests are constructed far more by chance than by evolution. Species, say some ecologists, don’t so much evolve to create ecosystems as make the best of what they have. ‘The Green Mountain system is a man-made system that has produced a tropical rainforest without any co-evolution between its constituent species,’ says Wilkinson.

Not everyone agrees. Alan Gray, an ecologist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. argues that the surviving endemic species on Green Mountain, though small in number, may still form the framework of the new' ecosystem. The new arrivals may just be an adornment, with little structural importance for the ecosystem.

But to Wilkinson, this sounds like clutching at straws. And the idea of the instant formation of rainforests sounds increasingly plausible as research reveals that supposedly pristine tropical rainforests from the Amazon to south-east Asia may in places be little more titan the overgrown gardens of past rainforest civilisations.

The most surprising thing of all is that no ecologists have thought to conduct proper research into this human-made rainforest ecosystem. A survey of the island’s flora conducted six years ago by the University of Edinburgh was concerned only with endemic species. They characterised everything else as a threat. And the Ascension authorities are currently turning Green Mountain into a national park where introduced species, at least the invasive ones, are earmarked for culling rather than conservation.

Conservationists have understandable concerns, Wilkinson says. At least four endemic species have gone extinct on Ascension since the exotics started arriving. But in their urgency to protect endemics, ecologists are missing out on the study of a great enigma.

‘As you walk through the forest, you see lots of leaves that have had chunks taken out of them by various insects. There are caterpillars and beetles around.' says Wilkinson. ‘But where did they come from? Are they endemic or alien? If alien, did they come with the plant on which they feed or discover it on arrival?’ Such questions go to the heart of how- rainforests happen.

The Green Mountain forest holds many secrets. And the irony is that the most artificial rainforest in the world could tell us more about rainforest ecology than any number of natural forests.

The accidental rainforest

According to ecological theory, rainforests are supposed to develop slowly over millions of years. But now ecologists are being forced to reconsider their ideas

When Peter Osbeck. a Swedish priest, stopped off at the mid-Atlantic island of Ascension in 1752 on his way home from China, he wrote of ‘a heap of ruinous rocks’ with a bare, white mountain in the middle. All it boasted was a couple of dozen species of plant, most of them ferns and some of them unique to the island.

And so it might have remained. But in 1843 British plant collector Joseph Hooker made a brief call on his return from Antarctica. Surveying the bare earth, he concluded that the island had suffered some natural calamity that had denuded it of vegetation and triggered a decline in rainfall that was turning the place into a desert. The British Navy, which by then maintained a garrison on the island, was keen to improve the place and asked Hooker's advice. He suggested an ambitious scheme for planting trees and shrubs that would revive rainfall and stimulate a wider ecological recovery. And, perhaps lacking anything else to do, the sailors set to with a will.

In 1845, a naval transport ship from Argentina delivered a batch of seedlings. In the following years, more than 200 species of plant arrived from South Africa, from England came 700 packets of seeds, including those of two species that especially liked the place: bamboo and prickly pear. With sailors planting several thousand trees a year, the bare white mountain was soon cloaked in green and renamed Green Mountain, and by the early twentieth century, the mountain's slopes were covered with a variety of trees and shrubs from all over the world.

Modern ecologists throw up their hands in horror at what they see as Hookers environmental anarchy. The exotic species wrecked the indigenous ecosystem, squeezing out the islands endemic plants. In fact. Hooker knew well enough what might happen. However, he saw greater benefit in improving rainfall and encouraging more prolific vegetation on the island.

But there is a much deeper issue here than the relative benefits of sparse endemic species versus luxuriant imported ones. And as botanist David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK pointed out after a recent visit to the island, it goes to the heart of some of the most dearly held tenets of ecology. Conservationists' understandable concern for the fate of Ascension’s handful of unique species has, he says, blinded them to something quite astonishing the fact that the introduced species have been a roaring success.

Today's Green Mountain, says Wilkinson, is ‘a fully functioning man-made tropical cloud forest' that has grown from scratch from a ragbag of species collected more or less at random from all over the planet. But how could it have happened? Conventional ecological theory says that complex ecosystems such as cloud forests can emerge only through evolutionary processes in which each organism develops in concert with others to fill particular niches. Plants eco-evolve with their pollinators and seed dispersers, while microbes in the soil evolve to deal with the leaf litter.

But that’s not what happened on Green Mountain. And the experience suggests that perhaps natural rainforests are constructed far more by chance than by evolution. Species, say some ecologists, don’t so much evolve to create ecosystems as make the best of what they have. ‘The Green Mountain system is a man-made system that has produced a tropical rainforest without any co-evolution between its constituent species,’ says Wilkinson.

Not everyone agrees. Alan Gray, an ecologist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. argues that the surviving endemic species on Green Mountain, though small in number, may still form the framework of the new' ecosystem. The new arrivals may just be an adornment, with little structural importance for the ecosystem.

But to Wilkinson, this sounds like clutching at straws. And the idea of the instant formation of rainforests sounds increasingly plausible as research reveals that supposedly pristine tropical rainforests from the Amazon to south-east Asia may in places be little more titan the overgrown gardens of past rainforest civilisations.

The most surprising thing of all is that no ecologists have thought to conduct proper research into this human-made rainforest ecosystem. A survey of the island’s flora conducted six years ago by the University of Edinburgh was concerned only with endemic species. They characterised everything else as a threat. And the Ascension authorities are currently turning Green Mountain into a national park where introduced species, at least the invasive ones, are earmarked for culling rather than conservation.

Conservationists have understandable concerns, Wilkinson says. At least four endemic species have gone extinct on Ascension since the exotics started arriving. But in their urgency to protect endemics, ecologists are missing out on the study of a great enigma.

‘As you walk through the forest, you see lots of leaves that have had chunks taken out of them by various insects. There are caterpillars and beetles around.' says Wilkinson. ‘But where did they come from? Are they endemic or alien? If alien, did they come with the plant on which they feed or discover it on arrival?’ Such questions go to the heart of how- rainforests happen.

The Green Mountain forest holds many secrets. And the irony is that the most artificial rainforest in the world could tell us more about rainforest ecology than any number of natural forests.

The accidental rainforest

According to ecological theory, rainforests are supposed to develop slowly over millions of years. But now ecologists are being forced to reconsider their ideas

When Peter Osbeck. a Swedish priest, stopped off at the mid-Atlantic island of Ascension in 1752 on his way home from China, he wrote of ‘a heap of ruinous rocks’ with a bare, white mountain in the middle. All it boasted was a couple of dozen species of plant, most of them ferns and some of them unique to the island.

And so it might have remained. But in 1843 British plant collector Joseph Hooker made a brief call on his return from Antarctica. Surveying the bare earth, he concluded that the island had suffered some natural calamity that had denuded it of vegetation and triggered a decline in rainfall that was turning the place into a desert. The British Navy, which by then maintained a garrison on the island, was keen to improve the place and asked Hooker's advice. He suggested an ambitious scheme for planting trees and shrubs that would revive rainfall and stimulate a wider ecological recovery. And, perhaps lacking anything else to do, the sailors set to with a will.

In 1845, a naval transport ship from Argentina delivered a batch of seedlings. In the following years, more than 200 species of plant arrived from South Africa, from England came 700 packets of seeds, including those of two species that especially liked the place: bamboo and prickly pear. With sailors planting several thousand trees a year, the bare white mountain was soon cloaked in green and renamed Green Mountain, and by the early twentieth century, the mountain's slopes were covered with a variety of trees and shrubs from all over the world.

Modern ecologists throw up their hands in horror at what they see as Hookers environmental anarchy. The exotic species wrecked the indigenous ecosystem, squeezing out the islands endemic plants. In fact. Hooker knew well enough what might happen. However, he saw greater benefit in improving rainfall and encouraging more prolific vegetation on the island.

But there is a much deeper issue here than the relative benefits of sparse endemic species versus luxuriant imported ones. And as botanist David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK pointed out after a recent visit to the island, it goes to the heart of some of the most dearly held tenets of ecology. Conservationists' understandable concern for the fate of Ascension’s handful of unique species has, he says, blinded them to something quite astonishing the fact that the introduced species have been a roaring success.

Today's Green Mountain, says Wilkinson, is ‘a fully functioning man-made tropical cloud forest' that has grown from scratch from a ragbag of species collected more or less at random from all over the planet. But how could it have happened? Conventional ecological theory says that complex ecosystems such as cloud forests can emerge only through evolutionary processes in which each organism develops in concert with others to fill particular niches. Plants eco-evolve with their pollinators and seed dispersers, while microbes in the soil evolve to deal with the leaf litter.

But that’s not what happened on Green Mountain. And the experience suggests that perhaps natural rainforests are constructed far more by chance than by evolution. Species, say some ecologists, don’t so much evolve to create ecosystems as make the best of what they have. ‘The Green Mountain system is a man-made system that has produced a tropical rainforest without any co-evolution between its constituent species,’ says Wilkinson.

Not everyone agrees. Alan Gray, an ecologist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. argues that the surviving endemic species on Green Mountain, though small in number, may still form the framework of the new' ecosystem. The new arrivals may just be an adornment, with little structural importance for the ecosystem.

But to Wilkinson, this sounds like clutching at straws. And the idea of the instant formation of rainforests sounds increasingly plausible as research reveals that supposedly pristine tropical rainforests from the Amazon to south-east Asia may in places be little more titan the overgrown gardens of past rainforest civilisations.

The most surprising thing of all is that no ecologists have thought to conduct proper research into this human-made rainforest ecosystem. A survey of the island’s flora conducted six years ago by the University of Edinburgh was concerned only with endemic species. They characterised everything else as a threat. And the Ascension authorities are currently turning Green Mountain into a national park where introduced species, at least the invasive ones, are earmarked for culling rather than conservation.

Conservationists have understandable concerns, Wilkinson says. At least four endemic species have gone extinct on Ascension since the exotics started arriving. But in their urgency to protect endemics, ecologists are missing out on the study of a great enigma.

‘As you walk through the forest, you see lots of leaves that have had chunks taken out of them by various insects. There are caterpillars and beetles around.' says Wilkinson. ‘But where did they come from? Are they endemic or alien? If alien, did they come with the plant on which they feed or discover it on arrival?’ Such questions go to the heart of how- rainforests happen.

The Green Mountain forest holds many secrets. And the irony is that the most artificial rainforest in the world could tell us more about rainforest ecology than any number of natural forests.

ROBOTS

Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, onerous, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has culminated in robotics - the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines.

A. The modern world is increasingly populated by quasi-intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose creeping ubiquity has removed much human drudgery. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with rote politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. Our mine shafts are dug by automated moles, and our nuclear accidents - such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl - are cleaned up by robotic muckers fit to withstand radiation.

Such is the scope of uses envisioned by Karel Capek, the Czech playwright who coined the term ‘robot’ in 1920 (the word ‘robota’ means ‘forced labor’ in Czech). As progress accelerates, the experimental becomes the exploitable at record pace.

B. Other innovations promise to extend the abilities of human operators. Thanks to the incessant miniaturisation of electronics and micro­mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy - far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. At the same time, techniques of long-distance control will keep people even farther from hazard. In 1994 a ten- foot-tall NASA robotic explorer called Dante, with video-camera eyes and with spider-like legs, scrambled over the menacing rim of an Alaskan volcano while technicians 2,000 miles away in California watched the scene by satellite and controlled Dante’s descent.

C. But if robots are to reach the next stage of labour-saving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves - goals that pose a formidable challenge. ‘While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,’ says one expert, ‘we can’t yet give a robot enough common sense to reliably interact with a dynamic world.’ Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence (Al) has produced very mixed results. Despite a spasm of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s, when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to perform in the same way as the human brain by the 21st century, researchers lately have extended their forecasts by decades if not centuries.

D. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain’s roughly one hundred billion neurons are much more talented - and human perception far more complicated - than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognise the misalignment of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 per cent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the woodchuck at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a tumultuous crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can’t approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don’t know quite how we do it.

E. Nonetheless, as information theorists, neuroscientists, and computer experts pool their talents, they are finding ways to get some life like intelligence from robots. One method renounces the linear, logical structure of conventional electronic circuits in favour of the messy, ad hoc arrangement of a real brain’s neurons. These ‘neural networks’ do not have to be programmed. They can ‘teach’ themselves by a system of feedback signals that reinforce electrical pathways that produced correct responses and, conversely, wipe out connections that produced errors. Eventually, the net wires itself into a system that can pronounce certain words or distinguish certain shapes.

F. In other areas researchers are struggling to fashion a more natural relationship between people and robots in the expectation that some day machines will take on some tasks now done by humans in, say, nursing homes. This is particularly important in Japan, where the percentage of elderly citizens is rapidly increasing. So experiments at the Science University of Tokyo have created a ‘face robot’ - a life-size, soft plastic model of a female head with a video camera imbedded in the left eye - as a prototype. The researchers’ goal is to create robots that people feel comfortable around. They are concentrating on the face because they believe facial expressions are the most important way to transfer emotional messages. We read those messages by interpreting expressions to decide whether a person is happy, frightened, angry, or nervous. Thus the Japanese robot is designed to detect emotions in the person it is ‘looking at’ by sensing changes in the spatial arrangement of the person’s eyes, nose, eyebrows, and mouth. It compares those configurations with a database of standard facial expressions and guesses the emotion. The robot then uses an ensemble of tiny pressure pads to adjust its plastic face into an appropriate emotional response.

G. Other labs are taking a different approach, one that doesn’t try to mimic human intelligence or emotions. Just as computer design has moved away from one central mainframe in favour of myriad individual workstations - and single processors have been replaced by arrays of smaller units that break a big problem into parts that are solved simultaneously - many experts are now investigating whether swarms of semi-smart robots can generate a collective intelligence that is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what beehives and ant colonies do, and several teams are betting that legions of mini-critters working together like an ant colony could be sent to explore the climate of planets or to inspect pipes in dangerous industrial situations.

Do the following statements agree with the information given in The Reading Passage?

YES       if the statement agrees with the information
NO         if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage

Karel Capek successfully predicted our current uses for robots.
Lives were saved by the NASA robot, Dante.
Robots are able to make fine visual judgements.
The internal workings of the brain can be replicated by robots.
The Japanese have the most advanced robot systems.

ROBOTS

Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, onerous, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has culminated in robotics - the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines.

A. The modern world is increasingly populated by quasi-intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose creeping ubiquity has removed much human drudgery. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with rote politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. Our mine shafts are dug by automated moles, and our nuclear accidents - such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl - are cleaned up by robotic muckers fit to withstand radiation.

Such is the scope of uses envisioned by Karel Capek, the Czech playwright who coined the term ‘robot’ in 1920 (the word ‘robota’ means ‘forced labor’ in Czech). As progress accelerates, the experimental becomes the exploitable at record pace.

B. Other innovations promise to extend the abilities of human operators. Thanks to the incessant miniaturisation of electronics and micro­mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy - far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. At the same time, techniques of long-distance control will keep people even farther from hazard. In 1994 a ten- foot-tall NASA robotic explorer called Dante, with video-camera eyes and with spider-like legs, scrambled over the menacing rim of an Alaskan volcano while technicians 2,000 miles away in California watched the scene by satellite and controlled Dante’s descent.

C. But if robots are to reach the next stage of labour-saving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves - goals that pose a formidable challenge. ‘While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,’ says one expert, ‘we can’t yet give a robot enough common sense to reliably interact with a dynamic world.’ Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence (Al) has produced very mixed results. Despite a spasm of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s, when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to perform in the same way as the human brain by the 21st century, researchers lately have extended their forecasts by decades if not centuries.

D. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain’s roughly one hundred billion neurons are much more talented - and human perception far more complicated - than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognise the misalignment of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 per cent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the woodchuck at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a tumultuous crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can’t approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don’t know quite how we do it.

E. Nonetheless, as information theorists, neuroscientists, and computer experts pool their talents, they are finding ways to get some life like intelligence from robots. One method renounces the linear, logical structure of conventional electronic circuits in favour of the messy, ad hoc arrangement of a real brain’s neurons. These ‘neural networks’ do not have to be programmed. They can ‘teach’ themselves by a system of feedback signals that reinforce electrical pathways that produced correct responses and, conversely, wipe out connections that produced errors. Eventually, the net wires itself into a system that can pronounce certain words or distinguish certain shapes.

F. In other areas researchers are struggling to fashion a more natural relationship between people and robots in the expectation that some day machines will take on some tasks now done by humans in, say, nursing homes. This is particularly important in Japan, where the percentage of elderly citizens is rapidly increasing. So experiments at the Science University of Tokyo have created a ‘face robot’ - a life-size, soft plastic model of a female head with a video camera imbedded in the left eye - as a prototype. The researchers’ goal is to create robots that people feel comfortable around. They are concentrating on the face because they believe facial expressions are the most important way to transfer emotional messages. We read those messages by interpreting expressions to decide whether a person is happy, frightened, angry, or nervous. Thus the Japanese robot is designed to detect emotions in the person it is ‘looking at’ by sensing changes in the spatial arrangement of the person’s eyes, nose, eyebrows, and mouth. It compares those configurations with a database of standard facial expressions and guesses the emotion. The robot then uses an ensemble of tiny pressure pads to adjust its plastic face into an appropriate emotional response.

G. Other labs are taking a different approach, one that doesn’t try to mimic human intelligence or emotions. Just as computer design has moved away from one central mainframe in favour of myriad individual workstations - and single processors have been replaced by arrays of smaller units that break a big problem into parts that are solved simultaneously - many experts are now investigating whether swarms of semi-smart robots can generate a collective intelligence that is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what beehives and ant colonies do, and several teams are betting that legions of mini-critters working together like an ant colony could be sent to explore the climate of planets or to inspect pipes in dangerous industrial situations.

Question

Complete the summary below with words taken from paragraph F.

Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 25-27 on your answer sheet.

The prototype of the Japanese ‘face robot’ observes humans through a which is planted in its head. It then refers to a of typical ‘looks’ that the human face can have, to decide what emotion the person is feeling. To respond to this expression, the robot alters it’s own expression using a number of  .

ROBOTS

Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, onerous, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has culminated in robotics - the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines.

A. The modern world is increasingly populated by quasi-intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose creeping ubiquity has removed much human drudgery. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with rote politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. Our mine shafts are dug by automated moles, and our nuclear accidents - such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl - are cleaned up by robotic muckers fit to withstand radiation.

Such is the scope of uses envisioned by Karel Capek, the Czech playwright who coined the term ‘robot’ in 1920 (the word ‘robota’ means ‘forced labor’ in Czech). As progress accelerates, the experimental becomes the exploitable at record pace.

B. Other innovations promise to extend the abilities of human operators. Thanks to the incessant miniaturisation of electronics and micro­mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy - far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. At the same time, techniques of long-distance control will keep people even farther from hazard. In 1994 a ten- foot-tall NASA robotic explorer called Dante, with video-camera eyes and with spider-like legs, scrambled over the menacing rim of an Alaskan volcano while technicians 2,000 miles away in California watched the scene by satellite and controlled Dante’s descent.

C. But if robots are to reach the next stage of labour-saving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves - goals that pose a formidable challenge. ‘While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,’ says one expert, ‘we can’t yet give a robot enough common sense to reliably interact with a dynamic world.’ Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence (Al) has produced very mixed results. Despite a spasm of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s, when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to perform in the same way as the human brain by the 21st century, researchers lately have extended their forecasts by decades if not centuries.

D. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain’s roughly one hundred billion neurons are much more talented - and human perception far more complicated - than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognise the misalignment of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 per cent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the woodchuck at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a tumultuous crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can’t approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don’t know quite how we do it.

E. Nonetheless, as information theorists, neuroscientists, and computer experts pool their talents, they are finding ways to get some life like intelligence from robots. One method renounces the linear, logical structure of conventional electronic circuits in favour of the messy, ad hoc arrangement of a real brain’s neurons. These ‘neural networks’ do not have to be programmed. They can ‘teach’ themselves by a system of feedback signals that reinforce electrical pathways that produced correct responses and, conversely, wipe out connections that produced errors. Eventually, the net wires itself into a system that can pronounce certain words or distinguish certain shapes.

F. In other areas researchers are struggling to fashion a more natural relationship between people and robots in the expectation that some day machines will take on some tasks now done by humans in, say, nursing homes. This is particularly important in Japan, where the percentage of elderly citizens is rapidly increasing. So experiments at the Science University of Tokyo have created a ‘face robot’ - a life-size, soft plastic model of a female head with a video camera imbedded in the left eye - as a prototype. The researchers’ goal is to create robots that people feel comfortable around. They are concentrating on the face because they believe facial expressions are the most important way to transfer emotional messages. We read those messages by interpreting expressions to decide whether a person is happy, frightened, angry, or nervous. Thus the Japanese robot is designed to detect emotions in the person it is ‘looking at’ by sensing changes in the spatial arrangement of the person’s eyes, nose, eyebrows, and mouth. It compares those configurations with a database of standard facial expressions and guesses the emotion. The robot then uses an ensemble of tiny pressure pads to adjust its plastic face into an appropriate emotional response.

G. Other labs are taking a different approach, one that doesn’t try to mimic human intelligence or emotions. Just as computer design has moved away from one central mainframe in favour of myriad individual workstations - and single processors have been replaced by arrays of smaller units that break a big problem into parts that are solved simultaneously - many experts are now investigating whether swarms of semi-smart robots can generate a collective intelligence that is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what beehives and ant colonies do, and several teams are betting that legions of mini-critters working together like an ant colony could be sent to explore the climate of planets or to inspect pipes in dangerous industrial situations.

The Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.

From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph.