What they found,in attempting to model thought,is that the human brains roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented—and human perception far more complicated—than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error 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 percent that is irrelevant,instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth cant approach that kind of ability,and neuroscientists still don't know quite how we do it.
1. Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in .
[A]the use of machines to produce science fiction.
[B]the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry.
[C]the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work.
[D]the elites cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work.
2. The word "gizmos" (line 1,paragraph 2)most probably means .
[A]programs. [B]experts. [C]devices. [D]creatures.
3. According to the text,what is beyond mans ability now is to design a robot that can .
[A]fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgery.
[B]interact with human beings verbally.
[C]have a little common sense.
[D]respond independently to a changing world.
4. Besides reducing human labor,robots can also .
[A]make a few decisions for themselves.
[B]deal with some errors with human intervention.
[C]improve factory environments.
[D]cultivate human creativity.
参考答案:
1.C 2.C 3.D 4.B
The Supreme Courts decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering. Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect," a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects—a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen—is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect.
Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient.
Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who "until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient mediation to control their pain if that might hasten death."
