Exercise 2. Scan the text and say if the sentences are True or False.
1. Humanity is staring down the threat of a decreasing population and concerns that there eventually will be enough food to go around.
2. Although genetically engineered crops are extremely beneficial, all indications are that they will disappear.
3. Environmental pollution, unsustainable water use, and large-scale land use changes raise doubts about our current food production systems.
4. Returning to the technological innovation will help us find modern solutions.
5. Aside from pest and herbicide resistance, plant breeders are also looking to incorporate other useful agronomic traits, such as drought and cold tolerance, virus resistance, and enhanced nutrient content.
Exercise 3. Answer the questions to the text.
1. What does the abbreviation GE mean?
2. Can a booming human population invent its way out of starvation once again?
3. In your opinion can we innovate, invest in, and accept the technologies we will need to feed the world sustainably?
4. Do the technology of genetic engineering is expanding at an extraordinary rate?
5. How many people will we have to feed in a world by 2050?
6. Why is it likely that any successful plans to feed the world will involve the use of GE crops?
7. What can technological innovation provide us with?
Text 3
Exercise 1. Read the article.
Desk-top publishing
Laser printers, combined with personal computers and document-generating software, are part of that growing phenomenon, desk-top publishing, known as DTP. Today such systems allow anyone to produce almost typeset-quality manuscripts. Where early printers left quite a lot to be desired, the latest inexpensive ones are very impressive. As with a good video recorder, it is possible to tell that the output isn't "real", but casual glancers will be fooled.
Within unpacking a new printer in the office, we'd persuaded it to generate a page of our documentation laid out and typeset in the same way as IBM's technical references. Not just close – the characters, tables, graphics and page numbering were spot-on. Fancy that, we thought. And most users will probably leave it there, content to use the new technology as the makers intend. But like most innovative products, there are uncharted byways where the over-creative can over-indulge. Most office workers will have experienced mock memos which, ranging from the obviously fake to the subtly mischievous, inform the workforce of new unisex toilets or the company electric chair scheme.
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These are common because all the bits needed to make them up – corporate letterhead, typewriter and photocopier – are readily to hand. A good DTP system with a laser printer offers the prankster much more: the equivalent of a design studio and professional printing press in two small boxes.
For starters, take the unloved but perennially popular Metropolitan Police parking ticket. For some time these have been officially produced with a laser printer on plain white paper – which makes them the ideal first-time target for a joker. In one lunchtime, he (it's usually a he) could produce enough dodgy parking tickets to panic a boardroom full of Porsche owners. False disc labels, misleading pages for ring-bound manuals, or even completely concocted instruction leaflets are all tempting targets for the office fool with a warped sense of humour and a mouse.
A friend has produced a lapel badge identifying him as a prominent member of a major European research organisation that doesn't quite exist. But it looks the part. If enough people were to turn up at an establishment wearing such insignia, it would need a very brave doorman to turn them away. All it takes to produce cartloads of this sort of thing is an eye for current corporate style and a desktop publishing system.
There are even more devious and culpable uses for DTP. Buying departments the world over know of the telex directory fraud. An enterprising fellow got a load of fake invoices printed up at considerable expense, purporting to be bills for inclusion in an international telex listing. He mailed these to a selection of large companies, most of whose overworked secretaries sent a cheque by return. With access to an office laser printer, the "considerable expense" aspect of cons like that goes away, and almost anyone can play.
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