Questões de Vestibular
Sobre advérbios e conjunções | adverbs and conjunctions em inglês
Foram encontradas 125 questões
40.
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Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power
Sergei Supinsky: This storage facility near the site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant currently houses nuclear waste. What's nuclear power's biggest advantage? It doesn't depend on fossil fuels and isn't affected by fluctuating oil and gas prices. Coal and natural gas power plants emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change. With nuclear power plants, CO2 emissions are minimal. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the power produced by the world's nuclear plants would normally produce 2 billion metric tons of CO2 per year if they depended on fossil fuels. In fact, a properly functioning nuclear power plant actually releases less radioactivity into the atmosphere than a coal-fired power plant. Plus, all this comes with a far lighter fuel requirement. Nuclear fission produces roughly a million times more energy per unit weight than fossil fuel alternatives. And then there are the negatives. Historically, mining and purifying uranium hasn't been a very clean process. Even transporting nuclear fuel to and from plants poses a contamination risk. And once the fuel is spent, you can't just throw it in the city dump. It's still radioactive and potentially deadly. On average, a nuclear power plant annually generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel, classified as high-level radioactive waste. When you take into account every nuclear plant on Earth, the combined total climbs to roughly 2,000 metric tons a year. All of this waste emits radiation and heat, meaning that it will eventually corrode any container that holds it. It can also prove lethal to nearby life forms. As if this weren't bad enough, nuclear power plants produce a great deal of low-level radioactive waste in the form of radiated parts and equipment. Over time, spent nuclear fuel decays to safe radioactive levels, but this process takes tens of thousands of years. Even low-level radioactive waste requires centuries to reach acceptable levels. Currently, the nuclear industry lets waste cool for years before mixing it with glass and storing it in massive cooled, concrete structures. This waste has to be maintained, monitored and guarded to prevent the materials from falling into the wrong hands. All of these services and added materials cost money -- on top of the high costs required to build a plant. Disponível em: Acesso em: abr. 2011.
The Boom Is Nigh
Why the coming recovery will hurt like hell.
Here is what you really need to know: a Sonic Boom is coming. It will be caused by globalization. And while globalization may be driving you crazy, it’s just getting started. Thirty years ago, Shenzhen, China, did not exist; today, it has nearly 9 million residents, roughly the same as New York City. In a single generation, it has grown from a village of tarpaper shacks into an important urban center. It has become the world’s fourth-busiest port, busier than Los Angeles and Long Beach combined. Never before has a great city been built so fast, nor a productive economy established from so little.
The international recession that began in 2008 has made the Sonic Boom quieter, but history shows that when a crisis ends, the larger trends in place before the crisis usually resume. Shenzhen represents the larger trend of growth, change, and transformation at unprecedented velocity. Thanks to vast increases in productivity, worldwide economic growth soon will pick up, creating rising prosperity and higher living standards for most people in most nations. The world will be far more interconnected, leading to better and more affordable products, as well as ever better communication among nations.
But there’s a big catch: just as favorable economic and social trends are likely to resume, many problems that have characterized recent decades are likely to get worse, too. Job instability, economic insecurity, a sense of turmoil, the fear that even when things seem good a hammer is about to fall—these are also part of the larger trend. As world economies become ever more linked by computers, job stress will become a 24/7 affair. Frequent shakeups in industries will cause increasing uncertainty. The horizon has never been brighter, but we may not feel particularly happy about it.
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Because of the bright lights of the modern cities, when we look up at the sky we can see no more than 100 stars. But from dark parts of the Earth, the naked eye can see more than 5,000! And modern telescopes tell a very different story.
With the help of some of the world’s most powerful instruments to measure the brightness of all the galaxies in one sector of the cosmos, Australian astronomers say it is probable that there are 70 sextillion stars in the visible Universe. In other words and numbers, seven followed by 22 zeroes, a really astronomical figure.
That is more than the total number of grains of sand in all the world’s beaches and deserts, and that is only the visible Universe within range of our telescopes.
Dr. Simon Driver, of the Australian National University, has a theory that some of them probably have life. Dr. Driver’s theory is not exactly new, and those planets are so distant, he says, that there is no real possibility for us to see or contact anyone living on them.
Retirado do livro “Inglês série Brasil”, p. 8, 2008
PRISONS AND MOBILE PHONES
Bricking the intruders
If mobile phones can’t be kept out of prisons, can they be made useless?
Oct 14th 2010 | RAIFORD, FLORIDA AND PARCHMAN, MISSISSIPPI
THE striking thing about mobile phones in American prisons is not that they exist—though they do, in great numbers—but the ingenuity used to get and keep them. There are the usual entry methods: from visitors, corrupt guards or in packages hurled over the fence. But phones often take more exotic paths. In South Carolina a potato gun was used to fire phones over prison walls from a distance of a third of a mile. In Mississippi a suspiciously heavy and bounceless basketball in the recreation yard was found to contain 19 phones and chargers. (…)
Available on http://www.economist.com/node/17257847?story_id=17257847, accessed on November 4, 2010
TEXTO:
Can animals predict natural disasters?
CAN, animals predict natural disasters? Disponível em: <http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/8178-1/Adaptado. Acesso em: 20 dez.2009.
The Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill on the U.S.
www.freewebs.com/mathewstolte/oilspills.html. 21/06/2010
Although the oil has been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico for months, the consequences of this larger than ever environmental disaster have yet to be fully examined and determined. Scientists and researchers have started to put together some of the puzzle pieces, and the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are likely to be big.
North Americans will have fewer choices on the store shelves. The Gulf of Mexico is a huge shipping lane through which products of all shapes and sizes come into North America. From toys to clothes to cars to building materials, you may find that the selection at your local store begins to shrink as shipping lanes slow down as a result of the oil spill.
Whether you’re taking a vacation or hoping to walk along the shore, you may be disappointed. Many beaches in the U.S.A. are now closing as clean-up efforts on removing oil slick from the sands. But the impact may be felt for quite some time as oil continues to wash up on shore.
Many wildlife animals will be impacted by the oil spill. Oiled birds, otter, bald eagles, pelicans, turtles, fish, and dolphins are already washing up on shore, making the beach sights less than palatable for someone looking to see some pristine nature.
Over time, molluscs like clams incorporate calcium into their shells throughout their lifetimes. But the heavy metals like nickel and vanadium from the petroleum industry and the resulting oil spill may be incorporated into the shells of these creatures. As other wildlife consumes these clams, they incorporate the toxins into their bodies, and on it goes as the heavy metals bio-accumulate in the food chain. This could have serious, long-term consequences for human health.
Environmentalists have been working on restoring the populations of oysters by reseeding certain reefs to boost their numbers. The Gulf of Mexico has been home-working on some of these projects, but with the massive oil spilling into that environment, the oysters could soon become tainted with chemicals, making them unsafe to eat.
The Gulf of Mexico is also a nursery for species like shrimp that grow up in the estuaries. The oil that is taking over this natural environment will choke out the plants that make the estuaries so nutritious to shrimp.
According to the National Weather Service, a hurricane like Hurricane Katrina could have a devastating impact on New Orleans. Researchers expect 15 named storms to develop into 8 hurricanes, and with a well-placed hurricane, the oil could be pushed onto New Orleans shores, further impacting the already devastated region.
Adapted from http://www.thenewecologist.com (21/06/2010)
COLLYNS, Dan. Peruvian mummy found. Disponível em: <www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2009/09/090916_witn_peru_mummy.shtm>
“contemporary with the better-known Chavin and Cupisnique cultures.” (l. 24-25)
The word “better” in this sentence is the irregular degree of
A TOOL FOR SPIES
When Iran’s opposition protesters used Twitter and other forms of social media last year to let the world know about their regime’s brutal post election crackdown, activists praised Twitter as the tool of revolution and freedom. But now Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has figured out how to twist this tool into one of repression. Though as recently as this past January Chávez was decrying Twitter as a weapon of terrorists, he’s since turned into an avid Twitterer himself ( his account, the country’s most popular, boasted more than half a million followers at press time ), as well as a devoted Facebook user and blogger.
Far from embracing the democratic spirit of the Web, though, the Venezuelan strongman is using his accounts and blog to exhort people to spy on each other. At the launch of his Twitter account, Chávez enjoined the Boliviarian faithful to use it to keep an eye on state enemies, namely the wealthy. My Twitter account is open for you to denounce them, “ Chávez announced on his television program. El Presidente has hired a staff of 200 to deal with tweeted “requests, denunciations, and other problems,” which have resulted in actions against allegedly credit-stingy banks and currency speculators. He’s now considering going a step further and ruling that all Venezuelan Web sites must move from U.S.- based servers to domestic ones - which would, of course, make them far easier to control. Big Brother would be proud.
(Newsweek – June 14, 2010. By Mac Margolis and Alex Marin)
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