【文章大意】本文是一篇新闻报道，报道了伦敦最新的摩天大楼the Shard的建造所带来的争议。一部分人认为这是对传统的传承，但也很多人都反对这栋大楼，说它并没有向一个好的方向改变。 London’s newest skyscraper (摩天大楼) is called the Shard and it cost about 430 million pounds to build. At a height of almost 310 metres, it is the tallest building in Europe. The Shard has completely changed the appearance ofLondon. However, not everyone thinks that it is a change for the better.The Shard was designed by the famous Italian architect Renzo Piano. When he began designing the Shard for London, Piano wanted a very tall building that looked like a spire (尖顶). He wanted the glass surfaces to reflect the sky and the city. The sides of the building aren’t regular. So the building has an unusual shape. It looks like a very thin, sharp piece of broken glass. And that is how the building got the name: the Shard. Piano says that the spire shape of the Shard is part of a greatLondontradition. The shape reminds him of the spires of the churches of London or the tall masts (桅杆) of the ships that were once on the river Thames.The Shard has 87 floors. At the top, there is an observatory. At the moment the building is empty, but eventually there will be a five-star hotel. There will also be top quality restaurants, apartments and offices.Before building work began, a lot of people didn’t want the Shard though the plans were approved. Now they are still unhappy about the Shard. Some critics say that such a tall skyscraper might be good in a city likeNew York, but not inLondon. They say that the best thing about the Shard is its spire shape. But that is the only thing. There is no decoration, only flat surfaces. The Egyptians did that 4,500 years ago. They also think the Shard is too big forLondon. It destroys the beauty of the city.Other critics don’t like what the Shard seems to represent. They say that the Shard shows howLondonis becoming more unequal. Only very rich people can afford to buy the expensive private apartments and stay in the hotel. But the people who live near the Shard are among the poorest inLondon. So the Shard seems a symbol of the division in society between the very rich and the poor.The Shard now dominates theLondonskyline. It is not certain, however, that ordinaryLondoncitizens will ever accept it as a valuable addition to the city. 

【文章大意】根据UKERC的最新研究发现房屋居住者的行为和房屋的设计在环保节能方面一样重要。文章号召人们要注意自己的生活习惯即消费质量，进而来达到节能环保的作用。         The behaviour of a building’s users may be at least as important as its design when it comes to energy use, according to new research from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). The UK promises to reduce its carbon emissions (排放）by 80 percent by 2050, part of which will be achieved by all new homes being zero-carbon by 2016. But this report shows that sustainable building design on its own — though extremely important- is not enough to achieve such reductions: the behaviour of the people using the building has to change too.    The study suggests that the ways that people use and live in their homes have been largely ignored by existing efforts to improve energy efficiency (效率)，which instead focus on architectural and technological developments.“Technology is going to assist but it is not going to do everything,” explains Katy Janda, a UKERC senior researcher, “consumption patterns of building users can defeat the most careful design.” In other words, old habits die hard, even in the best-designed eco-home.Another part of the problem is information. Households and bill-payers don’t have the knowledge they need to change their energy-use habits. Without specific information, it’s hard to estimate the costs and benefits of making different choices. Feedback (反馈) facilities, like smart meters and energy monitors, could help bridge this information gap by helping people see how changing their behaviour directly affects their energy use; some studies have shown that households can achieve up to 15 percent energy savings using smart meters.Social science research has added a further dimension (方面), suggesting that individuals’ behaviour in the home can be personal and cannot be predicted 一 whether people throw open their windows rather than turn down the thermostat (恒温器) , for example. Janda argues that education is the key. She calls for a focused programme to teach people about buildings and their own behaviour in them. 

【语篇解读】本文通过叙述Dr Alecia Carter在狒狒身上进行的分组研究，显示了动物的性格在社会化的学习中起着很重要的作用。同样人类也与此相似，我们正是通过交换信息等社会学习活动而形成相关文化的。 Working with a group of baboons (狒狒) in the Namibian desert, Dr. Alecia Carter of the Department of Zoology, CambridgeUniversityset baboons learning tasks involving a novel food and a familiar food hidden in a box. Some baboons were given the chance to watch another baboon who already knew how to solve the task, while others had to learn for themselves. To work out how brave or anxious the baboons were, Dr Carter presented them either with a novel food or a threat in the form of a model of a poisonous snake.She found that personality had a major impact on learning. The braver baboons learnt, but the shy ones did not learn the task although they watched the baboon perform the task of finding the novel food just as long as the brave ones did. In effect, despite being made aware of what to do, they were still too shy to do what the experienced baboon did.The same held true for anxious baboons compared with calm ones. The anxious individuals learnt the task by observing others while those who were relaxed did not, even though they spent more time watching.This mismatch between collecting social information and using it shows that personality plays a key role in social learning in animals, something that has previously been ignored in studies on how animals learn to do things. The findings are significant because they suggest that animals may perform poorly in cognitive (认知的) tasks not because they aren’t clever enough to solve them, but because they are too shy or nervous to use the social information.The findings may impact how we understand the formation of culture in societies through social learning. If some individuals are unable to get information from others because they don’t associate with the knowledgeable individuals, or they are too shy to use the information once they have it, information may not travel between all group members, preventing the formation of a culture based on social learning. 

【语篇解读】本文是新闻报道类文章，作者在文中阐述了在英国Balcombe人们对于发展风电项目持有两种截然不同的意见，进而提出了自己的看法：如实报道这个问题，以便人们对此进行讨论并做出抉择。         As has been all too apparent in recent days at Balcombe, few issues cause greater concern than energy policy. Many village communities feel their countryside is being ruined by the power-producing machines of wind farms; yet they never take “direct action”, even though the planning laws put them at a severe disadvantage. And the generous subsidies (财政补贴) , which encourage the expansion of wind power, are not favorable to the village communities and set landowners in conflict with other residents (居民) .       Those who disagree with the rapid expansion of wind farms state that the damage they cause is out of proportion(比例) to the benefits they bring, because their energy output cannot match that of the carbon-based power stations they are supposed to replace. Supporters insist that wind must be part of a mix of renewables, nuclear and carbon, and that the country is committed to meeting EU (European Union) targets for non-carbon energy generation.       Against this background, the fact that there is an argument within the Government over whether to publish an official report on wind farms’ impact on the countryside becomes even more extraordinary. The two parties in the coalition (联合) government are in disagreement over what it should say.      We have some advice for the two parties: publish the report, and let the country be the judge.  Even if it contains evidence that wind farms are harmful, it will hardly be a pleasant surprise to people who do not like them. Equally, supporters must argue their case by acknowledging the concerns and explaining why they are either misplaced or worthy of much attention.      The suggestion that further negotiations are to take place to produce an “acceptable” report suggests that the politics of coalition government are doing the country harm in a certain way. Given the sensitivities involved, all the information should be available so that people can reach their own conclusions, rather than being left with the suspicion（猜疑）that facts are being replaced by political beliefs. 

  【语篇解读】作者在本文中通过对几项数据的对比，显示了美国之前的与当今的环境问题的不同。进一步说明当今人们的环境保护意识得到了加强，尤其是环境教育对此所起的作用。  Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Americans have gotten a lot “greener” toward the environment(环境). “We didn’t know at that time there even was an environment, let alone that there was a problem with it,” says Bruce Anderson, president of Earth Day USA.But what began as nothing important in public affairs has grown into a social movement. Business people, political leaders, university professors, and especially millions of grass-roots Americans are taking part in the movement. “The understanding has increased many, many times,” says Gaylord Nelson, the former governor from Wisconsin, who thought up the first Earth Day.According to US government reports, emissions（排放）from cars and trucks have dropped from 10.3 million tons a year to 5.5 tons. The number of cities producing CO beyond the standard has been reduced from 40 to 9. Although serious problems still remain and need to be dealt with, the world is a safer and healthier place .A kind of “Green thinking” has become part of practices.Great improvement has been achieved. In 1988 there were only 600 recycling（回收利用）programs; today in 1995 there are about 6,600. Advanced lights, motors, and building designs have helped save a lot of energy and therefore prevented pollution.Twenty –five years ago, there were hardly any education programs for environment. Today, it’s hard to find a public school, university, or law school that does not have such a kind of program.” Until we do that, nothing else will change!” say Bruce Anderson. 

 【语篇解读】本文讲述了非洲大陆的大象害怕发怒的蜜蜂，科学家Lucy的团队正在研究并验证这个现象，以便能利用它来保护庄稼。 Recordings of angry bees are enough to send big, tough African elephants running away, a new study says. Beehives (蜂窝)—either recorded or real—may even prevent elephants from damaging farmer’s crops.In 2002, scientist Lucy King and her team found that elephants avoid certain trees with bees living in them. Today, Lucy wants to see if African honeybees might discourage elephants from eating crops. But before she asked farmer to go to the trouble of setting up beehives on their farms, she needed to find out if the bees would scare elephants away.Lucy found a wild beehive inside a tree in northern Kenyaand set up a recorder. Then she threw a stone into the beehive, which burst into life. Lucy and her assistant hid in their car until the angry bees had calmed down. Next，Lucy searched out elephant families in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya and put a speaker in a close to each family.From a distance, Lucy switched on the pre-recorded sound of angry bees while at the same time recording the elephants with a video camera. Half the elephant groups left the area within ten seconds. Out of a total of 17 groups, only one group ignored the sound of the angry bees. Lucy reported that all the young elephants immediately ran to their mothers to hide under them. When Lucy Played the sound of a waterfall (瀑布) instead of the angry bees to many of the same elephant families, the animals were undisturbed. Even after four minutes, most of the groups stayed in one place.Lucy is now studying whether the elephants will continue to avoid the sound of angry bees after hearing it several times. She hasn't tested enough groups yet to know, but her initial (最初的) results were promising enough to begin trials with farmers. She has now begun placing speakers in the fields to see if elephants are frightened away. 

巴西世界杯合作伙伴Ray Whelan因为涉嫌参与倒卖门票被捕。警方已经将一个十一人的跨国黄牛团伙捣毁，缴获的东西包括现金、电脑、门票、手机和一些文件。这个团伙已经参与了连续四届世界杯的倒票活动，仅一场比赛就能牟利90万美元。

美国交通安全局担心基地恐怖分子密谋炸毁前往美国的航班，在欧洲、中东以及非洲的机场增加了对手机的扫描检测，任何没有电的手机将被禁止带到前往美国的航班上。美国方面担心基地组织的恐怖分子已经掌握了将手机改装为爆炸装置并不易探测的技术。

7月5日，飓风“阿瑟”离开美国的北卡来罗纳州，袭击了加拿大东部沿海各省，造成了大面积的停电、停水，并造成航班延误，道路关闭。加拿大飓风中心称，飓风“阿瑟”将于周日离开加拿大沿海，北上纽芬兰。

7月2日，一名受雇于美国的德国联邦情报人员被捕，涉嫌为美国提供情报。德国已就此事召见美国大使，要求美方给出解释。这是继斯诺登揭露美国窃听默克尔总理电话之后又一起刺探德国情报的间谍事件，势必进一步恶化德美之间的信任危机。