Google, the Internet search and mapping company, has developed a car that can steer without a driver. Sometimes the reality is stranger than science fiction: Google is road-testing cars that steer, stop and start without a human driver. The goal is to "help prevent traffic accidents, free up people's time and reduce carbon emissions." says Sebastian Thrun, who is the project leader for the driverless car, or Carbot. By developing the car and the software that drives it, Google wants to change how people get from place to p1ace. Eric Schmidt, one of the company's top officials, said, "Your car should drive itself. It just makes sense." So far, the driverless autos have gone about 140,000 miles on California roads without people taking over the driving. Many of the roads are very busy or full of curves that challenge human drivers. The autos' software makes it possible to know speed limits, traffic patterns and road maps. The vehicles use radar, lasers and video cameras to find other cars and avoid people crossing streets. There has only been one accident during the testing. And in that case, the Carbot was hit from behind by a human driver when Goog1e's car was stopped at a red light. Engineers say the driverless cars are safer than autos with people behind the wheel because the computers react much more quickly than humans. The Carbot is still in very early testing stages. Experts agree that it will be years before you will be able to buy one. But it is likely that one day you will be sitting in the driver's seat of a driverless car. When the auto was first invented it was called a "horseless carriage". Now it seems that it is time for the "driverless carriage" to be part of our 1ives. The advantage of the Carbot is that   _  . A) it can drive all by itself B) it can avoid any traffic accident C) it doesn't pollute the environment D) it is the most fashionable car nowadays
A

The government of prefix = st1 /Norwayis planning to build an unusual storage center on an island in the Arctic Ocean. The place would be large enough to hold about two million seeds. The goal is to present all crops known to scientists. The British magazine New Scientist published details of the plan last month. The structure will be designed to protect the world's food supply against nuclear war, climate change and other possible threats. It will be built in a mountain on the NorwegianislandofSpitsbergen. The mountain is less than one thousand kilometers from the North Pole, the northernmost position on earth. An international group called the Global Crop Diversity Trust is working on the project. The director of the group, Cary Fowler, spoke to New Scientist. He said the project would let the world rebuild agriculture if, in his word, "the worst came to the worst". Norwayis expected to start work next year. The project is expected to cost three million dollars. Workers will drill deep in the side of a sandstone mountain. Temperatures in the area never rise above 0oC. The seeds will be protected behind concrete walls a meter thick and high-security door. The magazine report says the collection will represent the products of ten thousand years of farming. Most of the seeds at first will come from collections at seed banks in Africa, Asia and Latin America. To last a long time, seeds need to be kept in very low temperatures. Workers will not be present all the time. But they plan to replace the air inside the storage space each winter. Winter temperatures on the island are about eighteen degrees below 0oC. The cold weather would protect the seeds even if the air could not be replaced. Mr. Fowler says the proposed structure will be the world's most secure gene bank. He says the plant seeds would only be used when all other seeds are gone for some reason. Norwayfirst proposed the idea in the 1980s. But security concerns delayed the plan. At that time, the Soviet Union was meeting inRomeof the Food and... We can infer from the text that   _  . A) People will get newly-developed seeds from the center every year B) The storage center will greatly promote world agriculture C) Norway had meant to build the storage centre about 20 years before D) There haven't been any seed storage centres in the world before
C

Over the holidays, I took my three young children into a fancy chocolate shop to buy gifts. Halfway home, I noticed my 7-year-old son playing with a plastic noisemaker. Long story short: He had stolen the toy. I kept my cool -- even when he said, "but it was only $1.50, Mom!" --and explained why it was unacceptable to take things we didn't buy. A few hours later, I marched my son back to the store with two dollars from his piggy bank. He walked embarrassedly to the counter and told the clerk that he had taken something without paying for it, that he was sorry to break it and that he would pay for it now. I know exactly how terrible he was feeling. Returning to the scene of the crime is the same shame-causing punishment I received when I was five and stole something from a store. 1 remember my dad sending me back to return the item. It remains one of my clearest child- hood memories. After that day, I never stole again. My dad taught me such an important lesson 30 years ago and I saw an opportunity to do the same for my son. But now I wonder if it was the fight thing to do. "Returning to the store is absolutely the right thing to do," Laura Markham, Ph.D., a child psychologist and author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, says. "Many children steal -- they' re not born knowing the rules so it' s our job to teach them." And stay calm when you set them. "If you overreact or yell, you might create a fascination with the behavior and a willful child will be more likely to fight against you," she  says. Having a child physically return the stolen item helps him or her grasp the situation -- and the consequence. But don't talk about it for too long. "lf you continuously bring up the incident, the child will believe they' re a thief and that they' re bad," she says. Only time will tell if this experience will have the same powerful effect on my son as it had on me, but at the same time I can rest if I haven' t dealt with the situation badly. What does the author think of Laura Markham' s words? A) They are doubtful. B) They are unacceptable. C) They help her to stop feeling worried. D) They have taught her a good lesson.

C