Questões de Inglês

Texto II

Homeowners can get up to $1,500 back from the federal government for any number of energy efficiency upgrades at home. If you upgrade to energy efficient insulation, windows, doors, heating, air conditioning or water heaters between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010, you are eligible for a tax credits of up to 30 percent of product costs.

The credit is capped at $1,500 combined; meaning it only applies to $5,000 in total costs. More details are available at the website of the Tax Incentives Assistance Project, a coalition of public interest nonprofit groups, government agencies and other organizations focused on energy efficiency.

Of course, US administration is also thinking long term, and would like to leave its mark in furthering efforts to wean ourselves off foreign oil and increase our production and use of homegrown clean renewable energy. In light of such priorities, tax credits are also available for 30 percent of the cost—with no upper limit—on the installation of renewable energy equipment at home, such as geothermal heat pumps, solar panels, solar hot water heaters, small wind energy systems and fuel cells.

A number of new energy-efficiency incentives are also available at the state level across the country. The Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy website provides up-to-date listings of what may be available in your neck of the woods. With so much encouragement, how could you not want to go green?

Source: Scientific American (Adapted from http://www.scientificamerican.com/, November/2009)

Texto II

Homeowners can get up to $1,500 back from the federal government for any number of energy efficiency upgrades at home. If you upgrade to energy efficient insulation, windows, doors, heating, air conditioning or water heaters between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010, you are eligible for a tax credits of up to 30 percent of product costs.

The credit is capped at $1,500 combined; meaning it only applies to $5,000 in total costs. More details are available at the website of the Tax Incentives Assistance Project, a coalition of public interest nonprofit groups, government agencies and other organizations focused on energy efficiency.

Of course, US administration is also thinking long term, and would like to leave its mark in furthering efforts to wean ourselves off foreign oil and increase our production and use of homegrown clean renewable energy. In light of such priorities, tax credits are also available for 30 percent of the cost—with no upper limit—on the installation of renewable energy equipment at home, such as geothermal heat pumps, solar panels, solar hot water heaters, small wind energy systems and fuel cells.

A number of new energy-efficiency incentives are also available at the state level across the country. The Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy website provides up-to-date listings of what may be available in your neck of the woods. With so much encouragement, how could you not want to go green?

Source: Scientific American (Adapted from http://www.scientificamerican.com/, November/2009)

Texto II

Homeowners can get up to $1,500 back from the federal government for any number of energy efficiency upgrades at home. If you upgrade to energy efficient insulation, windows, doors, heating, air conditioning or water heaters between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010, you are eligible for a tax credits of up to 30 percent of product costs.

The credit is capped at $1,500 combined; meaning it only applies to $5,000 in total costs. More details are available at the website of the Tax Incentives Assistance Project, a coalition of public interest nonprofit groups, government agencies and other organizations focused on energy efficiency.

Of course, US administration is also thinking long term, and would like to leave its mark in furthering efforts to wean ourselves off foreign oil and increase our production and use of homegrown clean renewable energy. In light of such priorities, tax credits are also available for 30 percent of the cost—with no upper limit—on the installation of renewable energy equipment at home, such as geothermal heat pumps, solar panels, solar hot water heaters, small wind energy systems and fuel cells.

A number of new energy-efficiency incentives are also available at the state level across the country. The Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy website provides up-to-date listings of what may be available in your neck of the woods. With so much encouragement, how could you not want to go green?

Source: Scientific American (Adapted from http://www.scientificamerican.com/, November/2009)

Text I

"Crying baby" and "music" don't usually go together, but interesting science starts with questions no one else thought to ask—in this case, what are the musical contours of a newborn's cry? There had already been research on what sounds a fetus can hear in the womb and what effect that has right after birth, with several research teams finding that newborns prefer their mothers' voices over those of other people.

Now a team of scientists has gone a step further: they have found that newborns cry in their native language. They recorded 2,500 cries of newborn babies, 30 French and 30 German, between 2 and 5 days old. The idea was to extend the existing findings about what sounds babies can perceive—their native language, their mother's voice—to test what sounds they can create. Once the researchers had their recordings, they set to work analyzing the cries' melodic qualities.

Little babies produce wails that vary in pitch. Since most of us have heard only the cries of babies whose parents speak our language, we tend not to think twice about the pattern of pitch changes. But that is not what the scientists found. French babies tended to cry "with a rising melody contour". The pitch changed from low to high, rising toward the end of words as well as phrases within a sentence. In contrast, the German babies' cries had falling melodic contours. The pitch fell from high to low, which is consistent with the sound of German's falling melody contour, from the accented high-pitch syllable at the start of a phrase or word to the lower pitch at the end of a phrase. There is, in short, "a tendency for infants to utter melody contours similar to those perceived prenatally," write the scientists.

"The impressive finding of this study is that not only are [newborns] capable of producing different cry melodies, but they prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the ambient language they have heard during their fetal life, within the last trimester," said the research leader. "Contrary to orthodox interpretations, these data support the importance of human infants' crying for seeding language development."

It had been thought that babies' cries are constrained by their breathing patterns and respiratory apparatus, in which case a crying baby would sound like a crying baby no matter what the culture, since babies are anatomically identical. "The prevailing opinion used to be that newborns could not actively influence their production of sound," says researcher. This study refutes that claim: since babies cry in different languages, they must have some control over what they sound like rather than being constrained by the acoustical properties of their lungs, throat, mouth, and larynx.

The idea of the study wasn't to make the sound of a screaming baby more interesting to listeners but to explore how babies acquire speech. That acquisition, it is now clear, begins months before birth, probably in the third trimester. Until this study, scientists thought that babies became capable of vocal imitation no earlier than 12 weeks of age. That's when infants listening to an adult speaker producing vowels can parrot the sound. But that's the beginning of true speech.

Source: Newsweek (Adapted from: http://www.newsweek.com/id/221357, November/2009)

Text I

"Crying baby" and "music" don't usually go together, but interesting science starts with questions no one else thought to ask—in this case, what are the musical contours of a newborn's cry? There had already been research on what sounds a fetus can hear in the womb and what effect that has right after birth, with several research teams finding that newborns prefer their mothers' voices over those of other people.

Now a team of scientists has gone a step further: they have found that newborns cry in their native language. They recorded 2,500 cries of newborn babies, 30 French and 30 German, between 2 and 5 days old. The idea was to extend the existing findings about what sounds babies can perceive—their native language, their mother's voice—to test what sounds they can create. Once the researchers had their recordings, they set to work analyzing the cries' melodic qualities.

Little babies produce wails that vary in pitch. Since most of us have heard only the cries of babies whose parents speak our language, we tend not to think twice about the pattern of pitch changes. But that is not what the scientists found. French babies tended to cry "with a rising melody contour". The pitch changed from low to high, rising toward the end of words as well as phrases within a sentence. In contrast, the German babies' cries had falling melodic contours. The pitch fell from high to low, which is consistent with the sound of German's falling melody contour, from the accented high-pitch syllable at the start of a phrase or word to the lower pitch at the end of a phrase. There is, in short, "a tendency for infants to utter melody contours similar to those perceived prenatally," write the scientists.

"The impressive finding of this study is that not only are [newborns] capable of producing different cry melodies, but they prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the ambient language they have heard during their fetal life, within the last trimester," said the research leader. "Contrary to orthodox interpretations, these data support the importance of human infants' crying for seeding language development."

It had been thought that babies' cries are constrained by their breathing patterns and respiratory apparatus, in which case a crying baby would sound like a crying baby no matter what the culture, since babies are anatomically identical. "The prevailing opinion used to be that newborns could not actively influence their production of sound," says researcher. This study refutes that claim: since babies cry in different languages, they must have some control over what they sound like rather than being constrained by the acoustical properties of their lungs, throat, mouth, and larynx.

The idea of the study wasn't to make the sound of a screaming baby more interesting to listeners but to explore how babies acquire speech. That acquisition, it is now clear, begins months before birth, probably in the third trimester. Until this study, scientists thought that babies became capable of vocal imitation no earlier than 12 weeks of age. That's when infants listening to an adult speaker producing vowels can parrot the sound. But that's the beginning of true speech.

Source: Newsweek (Adapted from: http://www.newsweek.com/id/221357, November/2009)

Brazil’s huge river diversion project divides opinion

By Henry Mance

  Outside his house by the São Francisco river, Emanoel de Souza toys with the skin of a crocodile he hunted a month earlier. “There are plenty out there. You leave a cow’s heart on a hook by the river, and by morning a crocodile will have bitten,” he smiles. The meat makes for a good meal and the skin provides an amusing decoration.

  But Mr. de Souza gets much more than crocodiles from the São Francisco. The river also provides water for him to farm fish and rice. The profits of the last harvest alone paid for a new motorbike. This makes him one of the lucky ones. Just a few kilometres away, out of reach of the São Francisco’s water, Raquel Torres has lost a crop of beans and maize due to lack of rain. “This is the second consecutive year. There is no irrigation here,” she says. The water she uses for drinking, cooking and washing arrives every few weeks by lorry. Like many residents of Brazil’s dry north-east, she knows that water can be the scarcest commodity.

  The national government’s solution is to divert part of the São Francisco – the only major river that starts and finishes in Brazil – through the sertão, the semi-arid backlands. Two large canals, one of 400km and another of 220 km, will deliver water to cities and to agriculture. The basic idea is not new – it has been mooted for centuries and seriously mulled over for decades – but its implementation is. Works began in 2009 and are scheduled for completion in 2025. Then, the government claims, the project will benefit more than 12 million “people who are thirsty”.

  And the north-east feels thirsty. Looking over the potentially fertile soils of the sertão under the intense sun, locals are prone to echo a single sentiment: all that is lacking is water. They point to the example of Petrolina, a nearby city that, thanks to irrigation, has become one of Brazil’s leading producers of fruit for export. Indeed, it is the only place in the world where grapes can be harvested twice a year.

  Not everyone is so optimistic. Environmentalists say the São Francisco is already overused. The current project, they say, threatens the river’s capacity to generate the North East’s hydroelectricity, as well as the livelihoods of those who, like Emanoel de Souza, currently depend on it for agriculture. “The diversion won’t resolve the water supply problem of the most-at-need people in the sertão, because they are geographically so spread out,” argues João Suassuna, a long-time critic. “And the São Francisco River, because it has multiple uses, won’t be able to supply the volumes of water necessary to ensure the viability of the venture.” Instead, he points to a 2005 study, the Northeast Atlas, which concluded that reservoirs and rainfall could supply three times as many people as the diversion, for about half the cost.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8575010.stm. Adaptado.)