Gravity, review: “heartachingly tender”

            Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts adrift in
                  space, Alfonso Cuarón’s astonishing thriller is one of the films of
                                           the year, says Robbie Collin

      Watch an astronaut drifting through space for long enough and eventually you notice how much they look like a newborn baby. The oxygen helmet makes their head bigger, rounder and cuter; their hands grasp eagerly at whatever happens to be passing; their limbs are made fat and their movements simple by the spacesuit’s cuddly bulk. They tumble head-over-heels like tripping toddlers or simply bob there in amniotic suspension. Even the lifeline that keeps them tethered to their ship has a pulsing, umbilical aspect.
      Gravity, the new Alfonso Cuarón picture, is a heart- achingly tender film about the miracle of motherhood, and the billion-to-one odds against any of us being here, astronauts or not. It’s also a totally absorbing, often overpowering spectacle - a $100 million 3D action movie in which Sandra Bullock and George Clooney play two Hollywood-handsome spacefarers, fighting for their lives 375 miles above the Earth’s crust.
      A series of captions over the opening titles reminds us that this is a dead zone: no oxygen or air pressure, and nothing to carry sound. “Life in space is impossible,” the final message tells us, as the cinema shakes with Steven Price’s resonant score, and then suddenly falls quiet.
      For Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock), a mission specialist in orbit for the first time, the lack of noise is welcome. She’s a medical engineer called up by NASA to install new software on to the Hubble Telescope, but also a mother in mourning for her four- year-old daughter, whom she lost in a senseless accident, and the silence enfolds her like a comfort blanket.

                                                            Available in: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

TEXT 2

                                                            Food Engineering

                                           MAKE A DIFFERENCE BE A FOOD ENGINEER


            Food engineering is the application of engineering principles to the storage, processing and distribution of food materials and _____ bio-products. It requires a sound engineering education, as well as fundamental training in chemistry and food science.
            Food Engineers can make valuable contributions in various capacities of food chain such as design of processing, handling, packaging and storage equipment and systems; scale-up of prototype food processes, machinery, and equipment; product/process research and development; regulation and protection of the public health; and engineering and technical Sales.

                                    Fonte: http://baen.tamu.edu/foodengineering/FEngr/FEngr.html Acesso em: 15/10/2013.

Text II

The Underwater Centre secures its biggest ever contract – worth $1.3million - to train Russian saturation divers

Your Oil and Gas News Magazine The world's leading commercial diver and Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) training facility, based in the Scottish Highlands and Australia, has secured its biggest ever contract – worth US$ 1.3 million – to train Russian saturation divers.

The award cements its reputation as a major service provider for the growing worldwide oil and gas industry. The men, already experienced air divers, were trained on saturation procedures and techniques and will receive the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme (ADAS) and the Closed Bell certification. More advanced than the ADAS, the Closed Bell is the certification appropriate to deep water dives of 60 meters / 200 feet, using a trimix tank with 16 percent oxygen (O2). During the training, divers lived in a chamber for up to 28 days, which was pressurized to the same pressure of the sea, exactly at the depth that they will be working at. Living and working at pressure mean that they can be transported quickly and efficiently to the work site under the water without decompression stops, allowing divers to work in much greater depths and for much longer periods of time. MRTS Managing Director Alexander Kolikov said: “Oil and gas firms in Russia are currently facing a skills shortage due to the rapidly increasing amount of exploration work underway at the moment. By investing in the training of our divers in saturation diving, we are addressing this need for experts in maintenance and repair activities vital to maintaining Russia's subsea infrastructure." Steve Ham, General Manager at the Fort William Centre said: “We were delighted when MRTS chose The Underwater Centre to train its divers in saturation diving, and I think this is testament to the hard work we have been putting in to ensure our reputation as a world-class training facility. Available at: . Retrieved on: 28 June 2012. Adapted.

Para responder às questões de números 26 a 31, considere o texto abaixo.

Good Stuff? - A Consumption Manifesto:
The Top Ten Principles of Good Consumption
Consumption is one of life's great pleasures. Buying
things we desire, traveling to beautiful places, eating
delectable food: icing on the cake of life. But too often the
effects of our blissful consumption make for a sad story.
Giant cars exhaling dangerous exhaust, hog farms pumping
out harmful pollutants, toxic trash pestering poor
neighborhoods - none of this if there weren't something
to sell.
But there's no need to trade pleasure for guilt. With
thoughtfulness and commitment, consumption can be a force
for good. Through buying what we need, produced the way
we want, we can create the world we'd like to live in.
To that end and for the future, a Consumption Manifesto:
Principle One. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This brilliant triad
says it all. Reduce: Avoid buying what you don't need-
and when you do get that dishwasher/lawnmower/toilet,
spend the money up front for an efficient model. Re-use:
Buy used stuff, and wring the last drop of usefulness out of
most everything you own. Recycle: Do it, but know that
it's the last and least effective leg of the triad. (Ultimately,
recycling simply results in the manufacture of more things.)
Principle Two. Stay close to home. Work close to home
to shorten your commute; eat food grown nearby; support
local businesses; join local organizations. All of these will
improve the look, shape, smell, and feel of your community.
Principle Three. Internal combustion engines are polluting,
and their use should be minimized. Period.
Principle Four. Watch what you eat. Whenever possible,
avoid food grown with pesticides, in feedlots, or by
agribusiness. It's an easy way to use your dollars to vote
against the spread of toxins in our bodies, land, and water.
Principle Five. Private industries have very little incentive
to improve their environmental practices. Our consumption
choices must encourage and support good behavior; our
political choices must support government regulation.
Principle Six. Support thoughtful innovations in
manufacturing and production. Hint: Drilling for oil is no
longer an innovation.
Principle Seven. Prioritize. Think hardest when buying
large objects; don't drive yourself mad fretting over the small
ones. It's easy to be distracted by the paper bag puzzle,
but an energy-sucking refrigerator is much more worthy of
your attention. (Small electronics are an exception.)
Principle Eight. Vote. Political engagement enables the
spread of environmentally conscious policies. Without
public action, thoughtful individuals are swimming
upstream.
Principle Nine. Don't feel guilty. It only makes you sad.
Principle Ten. Enjoy what you have-the things that are
yours alone, and the things that belong to none of us. Both
are nice, but the latter are precious. Those things that we
cannot manufacture and should never own-water, air, birds,
trees-are the foundation of life's pleasures. Without them,
we're nothing. With us, there may be nothing left. It's our
choice.
Umbra Fisk, Grist Magazine.
Slightly adapted from: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1470
Access on June 1, 2007.