Questões de Inglês

Text I

CNET News: Dear Maggie How young is too young for a cellphone or smartphone?

Dear Maggie,

This is a three-part question. I’m considering

getting a regular cellphone for my 11-year old daughter

for Christmas. A lot of girls in her class already have

phones. She’s been begging me for one. But I’m not

sure if this is too young. What do you think?

Also, at what age do you think it’s appropriate for

me to switch her from a regular- feature phone to a

smartphone? Are there any phones or services you

recommend so that I can prevent overages?

Thanks,

Annemarie

Dear Annemarie,

I’m probably a bit more conservative than most

people on this subject, but I think it’s better to wait as

long as possible before giving your child a cellphone.

While I recognize that it can be a nice convenience

for busy parents and families with hectic schedules, I

think it also can turn into a huge distraction for kids

and it opens a whole can of worms in terms of social

interaction for children at a time when they may not

need to be connected every moment to their peers.

So, if the only reason you are getting the phone is

just because her friends have them and she wants to

socialize, then I think that it’s wise to wait and so do

some parenting experts:

“When you give your child a cellphone you are

giving him or her a lot more freedom and access to

a social life that can’t be supervised,” said Marybeth

Hicks, editor of Family Events, a newsletter for families

and moms, and author of two books on parenting.

“(…) Getting a cellphone should be viewed as rite of

passage,” she said. “It is a sign of kids’ independence

and maturity that comes along with entering high

school. On the other hand, it also provides a kind

of electronic tether to home.” She means that kids

should be warned that once they have a cellphone,

they are expected to call home if they find themselves

in a situation in which they aren’t comfortable with

what’s going on around them. With a phone in hand,

there’s no excuse for not calling mom when they’re

at a party without any parental supervision and other

kids start drinking alcohol or doing drugs.

I agree with Hicks’ philosophy, and so I think that

an 11-year-old is a bit young to be given a cellphone

of her own. Kids today will have a lifetime of gadgets

and cellphones. It won’t hurt them to wait another

few years before getting one of their own. As to the

smartphone, let them provide this upgrade with their

own means.

I hope this was helpful. And good luck!

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers’

wireless and broadband questions. The column now

appears twice a week on CNET offering readers a double

dosage of Ask Maggie’s advice. If you have a question, we’d

love to hear from you.

Available at: <http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3- 57333400-266/how-young-is-too-young-for-a-cellphone- or-smartphone/?tag=mncol;topStories> Retrieved on: Dec. 02, 2011. Adapted.

Text I

CNET News: Dear Maggie How young is too young for a cellphone or smartphone?

Dear Maggie,

This is a three-part question. I’m considering

getting a regular cellphone for my 11-year old daughter

for Christmas. A lot of girls in her class already have

phones. She’s been begging me for one. But I’m not

sure if this is too young. What do you think?

Also, at what age do you think it’s appropriate for

me to switch her from a regular- feature phone to a

smartphone? Are there any phones or services you

recommend so that I can prevent overages?

Thanks,

Annemarie

Dear Annemarie,

I’m probably a bit more conservative than most

people on this subject, but I think it’s better to wait as

long as possible before giving your child a cellphone.

While I recognize that it can be a nice convenience

for busy parents and families with hectic schedules, I

think it also can turn into a huge distraction for kids

and it opens a whole can of worms in terms of social

interaction for children at a time when they may not

need to be connected every moment to their peers.

So, if the only reason you are getting the phone is

just because her friends have them and she wants to

socialize, then I think that it’s wise to wait and so do

some parenting experts:

“When you give your child a cellphone you are

giving him or her a lot more freedom and access to

a social life that can’t be supervised,” said Marybeth

Hicks, editor of Family Events, a newsletter for families

and moms, and author of two books on parenting.

“(…) Getting a cellphone should be viewed as rite of

passage,” she said. “It is a sign of kids’ independence

and maturity that comes along with entering high

school. On the other hand, it also provides a kind

of electronic tether to home.” She means that kids

should be warned that once they have a cellphone,

they are expected to call home if they find themselves

in a situation in which they aren’t comfortable with

what’s going on around them. With a phone in hand,

there’s no excuse for not calling mom when they’re

at a party without any parental supervision and other

kids start drinking alcohol or doing drugs.

I agree with Hicks’ philosophy, and so I think that

an 11-year-old is a bit young to be given a cellphone

of her own. Kids today will have a lifetime of gadgets

and cellphones. It won’t hurt them to wait another

few years before getting one of their own. As to the

smartphone, let them provide this upgrade with their

own means.

I hope this was helpful. And good luck!

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers’

wireless and broadband questions. The column now

appears twice a week on CNET offering readers a double

dosage of Ask Maggie’s advice. If you have a question, we’d

love to hear from you.

Available at: <http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3- 57333400-266/how-young-is-too-young-for-a-cellphone- or-smartphone/?tag=mncol;topStories> Retrieved on: Dec. 02, 2011. Adapted.

Text I

CNET News: Dear Maggie How young is too young for a cellphone or smartphone?

Dear Maggie,

This is a three-part question. I’m considering

getting a regular cellphone for my 11-year old daughter

for Christmas. A lot of girls in her class already have

phones. She’s been begging me for one. But I’m not

sure if this is too young. What do you think?

Also, at what age do you think it’s appropriate for

me to switch her from a regular- feature phone to a

smartphone? Are there any phones or services you

recommend so that I can prevent overages?

Thanks,

Annemarie

Dear Annemarie,

I’m probably a bit more conservative than most

people on this subject, but I think it’s better to wait as

long as possible before giving your child a cellphone.

While I recognize that it can be a nice convenience

for busy parents and families with hectic schedules, I

think it also can turn into a huge distraction for kids

and it opens a whole can of worms in terms of social

interaction for children at a time when they may not

need to be connected every moment to their peers.

So, if the only reason you are getting the phone is

just because her friends have them and she wants to

socialize, then I think that it’s wise to wait and so do

some parenting experts:

“When you give your child a cellphone you are

giving him or her a lot more freedom and access to

a social life that can’t be supervised,” said Marybeth

Hicks, editor of Family Events, a newsletter for families

and moms, and author of two books on parenting.

“(…) Getting a cellphone should be viewed as rite of

passage,” she said. “It is a sign of kids’ independence

and maturity that comes along with entering high

school. On the other hand, it also provides a kind

of electronic tether to home.” She means that kids

should be warned that once they have a cellphone,

they are expected to call home if they find themselves

in a situation in which they aren’t comfortable with

what’s going on around them. With a phone in hand,

there’s no excuse for not calling mom when they’re

at a party without any parental supervision and other

kids start drinking alcohol or doing drugs.

I agree with Hicks’ philosophy, and so I think that

an 11-year-old is a bit young to be given a cellphone

of her own. Kids today will have a lifetime of gadgets

and cellphones. It won’t hurt them to wait another

few years before getting one of their own. As to the

smartphone, let them provide this upgrade with their

own means.

I hope this was helpful. And good luck!

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers’

wireless and broadband questions. The column now

appears twice a week on CNET offering readers a double

dosage of Ask Maggie’s advice. If you have a question, we’d

love to hear from you.

Available at: <http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3- 57333400-266/how-young-is-too-young-for-a-cellphone- or-smartphone/?tag=mncol;topStories> Retrieved on: Dec. 02, 2011. Adapted.

Text II

Scientists Want Your Help to ID Creatures in Your Home

By Danielle Venton

The next time you hunger to see wildlife without

leaving the city limits, save yourself a trip to the zoo,

and take a peek inside the refrigerator. Places inside

your home, like the fridge, water heater and bedroom

pillows, contain more wild and unknown species than

any nature reserve.

A project to collect and identify the little-studied

flora and fauna of our homes, with our help, was

launched Aug. 21 by ecologists at North Carolina

State University (the same biology department

organizing the School of Ants project). The Wild Life

of Your Home project will collect samples from rural

and urban homes in all 50 states. […]

Normally when samples of bacteria, insects or

fungi are collected from homes, it is by people interested

in killing them. Next to nothing is known about

the benign species that intimately share our lives, said

Dunn, who got his start in research studying tropical

forest species.

“There is still a ton of stuff to find around rainforest

trees,” said Dunn, “but there is also a ton of stuff

to find around our basement, in our bedrooms. Really

no one is researching those places, especially in the

context of new discoveries.”

Dunn and his colleagues are looking for 10

homes from each state to volunteer: five from urban

areas, five from rural. Rural homes will provide a

historical baseline of the critters our recent ancestors

lived around.

As our society has become progressively more

urbanized, Dunn said, we’ve intentionally filtered out

many of the species we once lived with. Today our

in-home environment is spectacularly artificial: the

creatures that do manage to stick around are a sort

of freak show.

“If you look at an apartment in Manhattan, it is

essentially a who’s who of evolutionary miracle stories,”

said Dunn.

“You have bed bugs that have evolved pesticide

resistance. You have rats that have evolved resistance

not just to rat poison, but even to rat traps. They’ve

evolved a fear of new things, which is not found to the

same extent in wild native rats. You have antibioticresistant

bacteria. Who we live with is essentially the

biggest and the baddest of the sneaky species.”

One of the more promising explanations of why far

lower incidence of immunological and autoimmune

diseases, such as asthma, Crohn’s disease, multiple

sclerosis and autism, is found in the developing world

than the industrialized world, is the so-called hygiene

hypothesis. The human immune system evolved to

cope with an abundance of bacterial diversity and 

beasts of the gut, such as tapeworms. The thinking is

that stripping those organisms from our environment

may then leave our immune system amped up to

defend itself against absent threats, which could

cause it to turn against our own cells instead, as

happens with autoimmune diseases.

“The creatures we were interacting with when

we were living in small villages are very different from

what is around now,” said Dunn. “As people send in

samples from all over the country, that will help us

determine what consequences this transition has

had.”

After getting a collection kit, volunteers will swab

specific areas of the house, collect dust from under

the sofa, sample their own foreheads and belly button

fauna, and mail the kit back. Dunn and his colleagues

will identify the organisms with microscopes and DNA

sequencing, let the people who sent the samples

know what they are living with, and post (anonymous)

results on the project’s website for the curious public.

Dunn hopes the project will go beyond uncovering

new species and encourage people to think about

how they are treating the life in their homes.

“As a species we’re very unusual. We’ve spent

very little time thinking about how to promote favorable

species in our daily lives and much more time

thinking about how to kill species. Look at species

like leaf-cutter ants. They favor and encourage the

species that help them, like their foods, and then they

try to keep the bad species at bay.”

Available in: <http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/ wildlife-in-your-home/> Retrieved on: August 26th, 2011. Adapted.

Text II

Scientists Want Your Help to ID Creatures in Your Home

By Danielle Venton

The next time you hunger to see wildlife without

leaving the city limits, save yourself a trip to the zoo,

and take a peek inside the refrigerator. Places inside

your home, like the fridge, water heater and bedroom

pillows, contain more wild and unknown species than

any nature reserve.

A project to collect and identify the little-studied

flora and fauna of our homes, with our help, was

launched Aug. 21 by ecologists at North Carolina

State University (the same biology department

organizing the School of Ants project). The Wild Life

of Your Home project will collect samples from rural

and urban homes in all 50 states. […]

Normally when samples of bacteria, insects or

fungi are collected from homes, it is by people interested

in killing them. Next to nothing is known about

the benign species that intimately share our lives, said

Dunn, who got his start in research studying tropical

forest species.

“There is still a ton of stuff to find around rainforest

trees,” said Dunn, “but there is also a ton of stuff

to find around our basement, in our bedrooms. Really

no one is researching those places, especially in the

context of new discoveries.”

Dunn and his colleagues are looking for 10

homes from each state to volunteer: five from urban

areas, five from rural. Rural homes will provide a

historical baseline of the critters our recent ancestors

lived around.

As our society has become progressively more

urbanized, Dunn said, we’ve intentionally filtered out

many of the species we once lived with. Today our

in-home environment is spectacularly artificial: the

creatures that do manage to stick around are a sort

of freak show.

“If you look at an apartment in Manhattan, it is

essentially a who’s who of evolutionary miracle stories,”

said Dunn.

“You have bed bugs that have evolved pesticide

resistance. You have rats that have evolved resistance

not just to rat poison, but even to rat traps. They’ve

evolved a fear of new things, which is not found to the

same extent in wild native rats. You have antibioticresistant

bacteria. Who we live with is essentially the

biggest and the baddest of the sneaky species.”

One of the more promising explanations of why far

lower incidence of immunological and autoimmune

diseases, such as asthma, Crohn’s disease, multiple

sclerosis and autism, is found in the developing world

than the industrialized world, is the so-called hygiene

hypothesis. The human immune system evolved to

cope with an abundance of bacterial diversity and 

beasts of the gut, such as tapeworms. The thinking is

that stripping those organisms from our environment

may then leave our immune system amped up to

defend itself against absent threats, which could

cause it to turn against our own cells instead, as

happens with autoimmune diseases.

“The creatures we were interacting with when

we were living in small villages are very different from

what is around now,” said Dunn. “As people send in

samples from all over the country, that will help us

determine what consequences this transition has

had.”

After getting a collection kit, volunteers will swab

specific areas of the house, collect dust from under

the sofa, sample their own foreheads and belly button

fauna, and mail the kit back. Dunn and his colleagues

will identify the organisms with microscopes and DNA

sequencing, let the people who sent the samples

know what they are living with, and post (anonymous)

results on the project’s website for the curious public.

Dunn hopes the project will go beyond uncovering

new species and encourage people to think about

how they are treating the life in their homes.

“As a species we’re very unusual. We’ve spent

very little time thinking about how to promote favorable

species in our daily lives and much more time

thinking about how to kill species. Look at species

like leaf-cutter ants. They favor and encourage the

species that help them, like their foods, and then they

try to keep the bad species at bay.”

Available in: <http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/ wildlife-in-your-home/> Retrieved on: August 26th, 2011. Adapted.

Text II

Scientists Want Your Help to ID Creatures in Your Home

By Danielle Venton

The next time you hunger to see wildlife without

leaving the city limits, save yourself a trip to the zoo,

and take a peek inside the refrigerator. Places inside

your home, like the fridge, water heater and bedroom

pillows, contain more wild and unknown species than

any nature reserve.

A project to collect and identify the little-studied

flora and fauna of our homes, with our help, was

launched Aug. 21 by ecologists at North Carolina

State University (the same biology department

organizing the School of Ants project). The Wild Life

of Your Home project will collect samples from rural

and urban homes in all 50 states. […]

Normally when samples of bacteria, insects or

fungi are collected from homes, it is by people interested

in killing them. Next to nothing is known about

the benign species that intimately share our lives, said

Dunn, who got his start in research studying tropical

forest species.

“There is still a ton of stuff to find around rainforest

trees,” said Dunn, “but there is also a ton of stuff

to find around our basement, in our bedrooms. Really

no one is researching those places, especially in the

context of new discoveries.”

Dunn and his colleagues are looking for 10

homes from each state to volunteer: five from urban

areas, five from rural. Rural homes will provide a

historical baseline of the critters our recent ancestors

lived around.

As our society has become progressively more

urbanized, Dunn said, we’ve intentionally filtered out

many of the species we once lived with. Today our

in-home environment is spectacularly artificial: the

creatures that do manage to stick around are a sort

of freak show.

“If you look at an apartment in Manhattan, it is

essentially a who’s who of evolutionary miracle stories,”

said Dunn.

“You have bed bugs that have evolved pesticide

resistance. You have rats that have evolved resistance

not just to rat poison, but even to rat traps. They’ve

evolved a fear of new things, which is not found to the

same extent in wild native rats. You have antibioticresistant

bacteria. Who we live with is essentially the

biggest and the baddest of the sneaky species.”

One of the more promising explanations of why far

lower incidence of immunological and autoimmune

diseases, such as asthma, Crohn’s disease, multiple

sclerosis and autism, is found in the developing world

than the industrialized world, is the so-called hygiene

hypothesis. The human immune system evolved to

cope with an abundance of bacterial diversity and 

beasts of the gut, such as tapeworms. The thinking is

that stripping those organisms from our environment

may then leave our immune system amped up to

defend itself against absent threats, which could

cause it to turn against our own cells instead, as

happens with autoimmune diseases.

“The creatures we were interacting with when

we were living in small villages are very different from

what is around now,” said Dunn. “As people send in

samples from all over the country, that will help us

determine what consequences this transition has

had.”

After getting a collection kit, volunteers will swab

specific areas of the house, collect dust from under

the sofa, sample their own foreheads and belly button

fauna, and mail the kit back. Dunn and his colleagues

will identify the organisms with microscopes and DNA

sequencing, let the people who sent the samples

know what they are living with, and post (anonymous)

results on the project’s website for the curious public.

Dunn hopes the project will go beyond uncovering

new species and encourage people to think about

how they are treating the life in their homes.

“As a species we’re very unusual. We’ve spent

very little time thinking about how to promote favorable

species in our daily lives and much more time

thinking about how to kill species. Look at species

like leaf-cutter ants. They favor and encourage the

species that help them, like their foods, and then they

try to keep the bad species at bay.”

Available in: <http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/ wildlife-in-your-home/> Retrieved on: August 26th, 2011. Adapted.