You might think that most of the patients at sleep clinic are being treated for sleeplessness, commonly referred to as insomnia, but that is not the case. The majority of sleep-clinic patients suffer from disorders of excessive sleep---or”hypersomnia.” While most insomniacs somehow manage to drag themselves through the day and function at acceptable, although not optimal, levels, this is not so for people who suffer from hypersomnia. They are incapacitated by irresistible urges to sleep during the day, often in inappropriate situations---at business meetings, in supermarkets, or at parties. Even more dangerous is their failure to remain awake when driving or operating machinery. Falling asleep in such situations could obviously be life-threatening. Many hypersomniacs suffer from narcolepsy, for which the primary symptom is excessive daytime sleepiness. Though not apparent in childhood, this symptom most often appears for the first time during the teen years and continues throughout a person’s life. The sleep attacks may occur as many as fifteen to twenty times during the course of the day and last for periods from fifteen minutes up to two hours. What can be done to help those suffering from narcolepsy? There are certain drugs that can help, and specialists suggest voluntary napping to decrease the frequency of such sleep attacks.! A6 a0 E8 [# R' Q
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[ 本帖最后由 icenot 于 2008-4-27 01:30 编辑 ]

Did you know you can catch a mood? A bad mood isn’t spread by a virus like the flu is, but it can be contagious. Moods sort of drift from person to person unconsciously---slight, unintentional signals carry the mood. You’ve probably experienced it yourself. You’re around someone who’s feeling down and showing it...slumped shoulders, downcast mouth, subdued voice---all that sort of thing. Pretty soon you begin to feel depressed too---of course, good moods are also catching, not just bad ones. Moods spread in steps. One person’s facial expression or whatever is observed by another, who then unconsciously begins to mimic. The process is automatic---a split second mimicry. The person isn’t even aware of the copying. A full-blown case of mood transfer develops as this copying continues. Not everyone picks up moods to the same degree. Those who’re most susceptible often have strong physiological responses to what’s going on around them. You know, people who break out in a nervous sweat easily and whose stomachs churn. People don’t all send moods equally well either. The best mood senders are expressive people because mood contagion can’t happen without signals. If they aren’t there---that is, the person gives no indication of the mood they’re in---nobody will pick up the mood.* h( ^5 S; u# ]. T
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[ 本帖最后由 icenot 于 2008-4-27 01:30 编辑 ]

Did you ever wonder why it is that most people are”programmed” to sleep at night instead of during the day? If there’s something about the cycle of light and dark that’s telling us when to sleep, then shouldn’t the sleep cycle of a blind person be different? As it turns out, many blind people---people with no visual perception of light at all---do have the same sleep cycle as sighted people. So now you’re wondering,”How can this happen?” The answer is: hormones---one hormone in particular. It’s called melatonin. In sighted people, the level of melatonin goes up at night (or when it’s dark) and goes down in the day (or when it’s light).It’s believed that it’s the presence of this hormone in the blood that gives us the urge to sleep. If an increase in melatonin level” programs” sighted people to sleep at night, then what about blind people? A researcher named Dr. Charles Czeisler tells about an interesting experiment. He tried shining a bright light into the eyes of some blind people. When he did this, he noticed that the level of the melatonin in the blood of these subjects went d own---just as it would do for sighted people. Somehow, the eyes of these subjects, even though they were damaged and had no visual perception of light, could tell their brain when there was more or less light. Now, this doesn’t work for all blind people; in fact, most of Creaser’s subjects had no hormonal response to light at all. Further research may be able to explain this sensitivity to light in terms of the type of blindness of the subject.
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[ 本帖最后由 icenot 于 2008-4-27 01:30 编辑 ]

ＬＺ好棒！我们一起加油～～～～

So, you see, physical illness can have psychological causes. Now, we just have time to introduce another interesting example of the interaction between the mind and the body---placebos.Placebos---maybe you’ve heard them called sugar pills---are harmless substances---not always sugar---that are used routinely on groups of sick people in experiments. These experiments test the effectiveness of new drugs. One group is given the new drug, the other group is given a placebo, and the results are measured. As you might guess, some of the people who receive the new drug get better. Surprisingly, however, some of the placebo group also get better. Why? Well, it’s an interesting question, one which doctors can’t quite answer. Some of the group may have gotten better on their own, without any treatment at all, but research has shown that the very act of taking a medication that you think will make you better, often does make you feel better. Have you even taken an aspirin and felt better in five minutes? Aspirin doesn’t work that fast, does it?[falling intonation Basically, if you believe you will get better---sometimes you do. The history of how doctors and healers have used the mind-body connection to cure people is long and interesting---but I see that it’s time to chose, so I’ll have to cover this in the next class. You’ll have to hold your questions on this topic till then....Before you go; I have some handouts for you concerning the midterm exams next week.1 d* P' p$ X( s$ i1 X
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[ 本帖最后由 icenot 于 2008-4-29 23:55 编辑 ]

Before starting our tour of Monticello,I’d like to give you some historical facts that might help you appreciate what you see today even more. Monticello was the very much loved home of Thomas Jefferson for over fifty years.Jefferson, who was,of course,President,was also a great reader and language enthusiast.He read widely on different subjects,including architecture.He wasn’t formally trained in architecture,but as a result of his study and observation of other buildings,he was able to help design and build the house.He chose the site himself,naming the estate”Monticello,”which means”little mountain”in Italian.In fact,many of the ideas behind the design also came from the Italian architect Andrea Palladio, who lived in the sixteenth century and who had a great influence on the architecture of England. Jefferson,however,ignored one of Palladio’s principles---that is,not to build in a high place. Monticello’s elevation made the transportation of what was needed at the house---for example, food---especially difficult.But the view from the estate would not be as spectacular if Jefferson had followed Palladio’s advice;there really is no boundary between the house and the nature around it,and so Jefferson was able to look out on his beloved state of Virginia from his wonderful vantage point.

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原帖由 为托福而生 于 2008-4-27 11:19 发表
9 [' M0 c& Z1 @5 ^ＬＺ好棒！我们一起加油～～～～

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Welcome to the Four Winds Historical Farm,where traditions of the past are preserved for visitors like you.Today,our master thatches will begin giving this barn behind me a sturdy thatched roof able to withstand heavy winds and last up to a hundred years.How do they do it?Well,in a nutshell,thatching involves covering the beams or rafters---the wooden skeleton of a roof--- with reeds or straw.Our thatches here have harvested their own natural materials for the job---the bundles of water reeds you see lying over there beside the barn.Thatching is certainly uncommon in the Untied States today.I guess that’s why so many of you have come to see this demonstration.But it wasn’t always that way.In the seventeenth century,the colonists here thatched their roofs with reeds and straw,just as they had done in England.After a while,though,they began to replace the thatch with wooden shingles because wood was so plentiful.And eventually,other roofing materials like stone,slate,and clay tiles came into use.It’s a real shame that most people today don’t realize how strong and long lasting a thatched roof is.In Ireland,where thatching is still practiced,the roofs can survive winds of up to one hundred ten miles per hour.That’s because straw and reeds are so flexible.They bend but don’t break in the wind like other materials can.Another advantage is that the roofs keep the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.And then,of course,there’s the roofs’longevity---the average is sixty years,but they can last up to a hundred.With all these reasons to start thatching roofs again, wouldn’t it be wonderful to see this disappearing craft return to popularity?

A lot of people in the United States are coffee drinkers.Over the last few years,a trend has been developing to introduce premium,specially blended coffees---knows as”gourmet coffees”--- into the American market. Boston seems to have been the birthplace of this trend.In fact,major gourmet coffee merchants from other cities like Seattle and San Francisco came to Boston,where today they’re engaged in a kind of”coffee war”with Boston’s merchants.They are all competing for a significant share of the gourmet coffee market. Surprisingly,the competition among these leading gourmet coffee businesses will not hurt any of them.Experts predict that the gourmet coffee market in the United States is growing and will continue to grow,to the point that gourmet coffee will soon capture half of what is now a 1.5-million-dollar market and will be an 8-million-dollar market by 1999.Studies have shown that coffee drinkers who convert to gourmet coffee seldom go back to the regular brands found in supermarkets.As a result,these brands will be the real losers in the gourmet coffee competition.

You may remember that a few weeks ago we discussed the question of what photography is.Is it art,or is it a method of reproducing images?Do photographs belong in museums or just in our homes?Today I want to talk about a person who tried to make his professional life an answer to such questions.Alfred Stieglitz went from the United States to Germany to study engineering.While he was there, he became interested in photography and began to experiment with his camera.He took pictures under conditions that most photographers considered too difficult---he took them at night,in the rain,and of people and objects reflected in windows.When he returned to the United States he continued these revolutionary efforts.Stieglitz was the first person to photograph skyscrapers, clouds,and views from an airplane.What Stieglitz was trying to do in these photographs was what he tried to do throughout his life: make photography an art.He felt that photography could be just as good a form of self-expression as painting or drawing.For Stieglitz,his camera was his brush.While many photographers of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s thought of their work as a reproduction of identical images,Stieglitz saw his as a creative art form.He understood the power of the camera to capture the moment.In fact,he never retouched his prints or made copies of them.If he were in this classroom today,I’m sure he’d say,”Well,painters don’t normally make extra copies of their paintings,do they?”