Monitoring and Diagnosis
The iBrain can provide easy-to-use, accurate, at-home monitoring. The data it collects can be used to help understand a number of medical problems and to monitor a patient’s brain.
Section B.
Q&A.COM
TOPIC: Science and Technology
Question: What is your opinion of the iBrain?
Most recent answer: Submitted by Sciencefreak.
The iBrain is an amazing development! If this device achieves its purpose, it will be great for Dr Hawking, and many others like him whose medical problems prevent them from communicating normally. It is always a pleasure to see people pursuing their passion. My congratulations must go to Dr Low for refusing to accept capital from commercial businesses. Science must be used to help society or there will be no society. I hope medicine and helping human beings will always be Dr Low’s first priority.
Section C.
iBrain: The Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind
by Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan
Small and Vorgan’s ‘iBrain’ is a fascinating book that describes how new technologies are changing our brains. Their main point is that our brains and the brains of our children are much easier to shape than we have been led to believe. They differentiate between digital immigrants: people who had to learn technology such aas computers and cell phones as adults, and digital natives: people who have known technology all their lives. The good news for digital immigrants is that they find it easier to form relationships, communicate with others and adapt to the demands of modern society. In other words, they retain the social skills that digital natives sometimes don’t develop.
The message of ‘iBrain’ is not that technology is good or bad, but that it is both. Electronic devices can change the structure of our brains and leave us disconnected and lonely, but they can also help us accomplish much in terms of work, economics and social connection.
Section D.
The Washington Post: Stephen Hawking to Demonstrate iBrain Technology next month
By Emi Kolawole
Scientists may have discovered a way to read the brain of one of the world’s most famous scientists. Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist, who was diagnosed with a serious muscular disease, lost the ability to speak 30 years ago. Up to now, a computerized voice generated by a sensor inside Hawking’s mouth has allowed him to communicate. However, the muscles controlling the device have weakened , limiting his speech to as little as one word per minute.
Without a new means of communication, Hawking runs the risk of total isolation. This is a horrifying prospect not only for Hawking himself, but also for the scientific community, who have benefitted greatly from his work.
Now, a new device called the iBrain may significantly improve Hawking’s ability to communicate. Developed by Stanford University professor, Philip Low, the device can record brain function at a level of detail never achieved before. The two scientists, Hawking and Low, have been working on the device for over a year, and plan to demonstrate it in Hawking’s hometown of Cambridge, England, next month.
Questions 13 refers to section D above.
What do we learn about Hawking and Low?




A.They first met each other a year ago.
B.They have been cooperating for some time.
C.They both suffer from the same disease.
D.They both grew up in Cambridge, England.

Các câu hỏi liên quan

Read the passage and mark A, B, C or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
In the early 1800’s, over 80 percent of the United States labor force was engaged in agriculture. Sophisticated technology and machinery were virtually nonexistent. People who lived in the cities and were not directly involved in trade often participated in small cottage industries making handcrafted goods. Others cured meats, silversmiths, candle or otherwise produced needed goods and commodities. Blacksmiths, silversmiths, candle makers, and other artisans worked in their homes or barns, relying on help of family.
Perhaps no single phenomenon brought more widespread and lasting change to the United States society than the rise of industrialization. Industrial growth hinged on several economic factors. First, industry requires an abundance of natural resources, especially coal, iron ore, water, petroleum, and timber-all readily available on the North American continent. Second, factories demand a large labor supply. Between the 1870’s and the First World War (1914-1918), approximately 23 million immigrants streamed to the United States, settled in cities, and went to work in factories and mines. They also helped build the vast network of canals and railroads that crisscrossed the continent and linked important trade centers essential to industrial growth.
Factories also offered a reprieve from the backbreaking work and financial unpredictability associated with farming. Many adults, poor and disillusioned with farm life, were lured to the cities by promises of steady employment, regular paychecks, increased access to goods and services, and expanded social opportunities. Others were pushed there when new technologies made their labor cheap or expendable; inventions such as steel plows and mechanized harvesters allowed one farmhand to perform work that previously had required several, thus making farming capital-intensive rather than labor-intensive.
The United States economy underwent a massive transition and the nature of work was permanently altered. Whereas cottage industries relied on a few highly skilled craft workers who slowly and carefully converted raw materials into finished products from start to finish, factories relied on specialization. While factory work was less creative and more monotonous, it was also more efficient and allowed mass production of goods at less expense.
What aspect of life in the United States does the passage maily discuss?




A.The transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
B.The invention that transformed life in the nineteenth century.
C.The problems associated with the earliest factories.
D.The difficulty of farm life in the nineteenth century.