全新主题大学英语2 U1 S.docVIP

Unit One Discovering the Future Section A Pre-reading Questions 1. If you can make a prediction of life in 2050, what would that be? 2. Will humans continue to be the most intelligent creature on earth in 2050? 3. Describe some changes you would like to see happen in the far future. Human beings are fascinated with their future because it is mysterious and unpredictable. In this text, the author sheds some lights on the unimaginable changes that would happen by 2050 with respect to cars, medicine, clothing as well as the house we’ll live in. Future Shock 1 A week earlier, Bill Mitchell, from MIT’s famously forward-thinking Media Lab, told me that in this Cambridge neighborhood, the Technology Square, innovation is sparking and the next chapter in Greater Boston’s evolution is unfolding. That knowledge will reshape everything in our city, from the way it looks at ground level to the skyline we see above, and from the clothes we wear to the cars we drive and the homes in which we live. Car 2 On the third floor of the Media Lab in the Technology Square, the center of what’s supposed to be the New Boston, Ryan Chin, a 30-year-old doctoral student, is leading a team of young astronautical engineers, urban planners, architects, and neuroscientists developing a concept car under the direction of Mitchell and with the help of architect Frank Gehry. Chin says that it’s only a matter of time before the parking dilemma is largely eliminated. In a few years, he says, when the whole area is wireless, cars will communicate with buildings, other cars, and the urban infrastructure — including parking meters. The meters will tell drivers when and where a spot is open. No more blind searching, and potentially less cursing. “It will cut the inefficiency of driving around block after block looking for a space,” he says. Medicine 3 Physicians predict that the medicine chest might remind patients to take a pill. And Bostonians of the future may not have to worry about ca