XJTUPSA－西安交通大学英语公共演说协会

Coffee - [sociology]

www.nationalgeografic.com     the Green Guide

original  

Organic and fair-trade coffee is becoming more and more accessible as major coffee chains, such as Starbucks, and supermarkets, such as ...

Microsoft Wants Your Health Records - [internet]

Its new service will store your data in one place—and search ads could make it pay. Will enough people put their trust in HealthVault? by Jay Greene   www.buisnessweek.com

Step into a medical office, and you're faced wi...

Cambridge at the centre of £5m solar initiative - [Finance & Economics]

By Lautaro Vargas, 04 October 2007

www.buisnessweekly.co.uk

The Technology Partnership (TTP) and the University of Cambridge have been assigned the task of developing rolls of solar energy harnessing film that can be delivered at radically lower costs and used on a wide range of surfaces including roofs...

Birth of an Earthlike Planet Spied By Spitzer - [Science & Technology]

Mason Inman
for National Geographic News
October 3, 2007A warm belt of dust around a young star is offering astronomers a glimpse of what Earth might have looked like when it was just beginning to take shape.

The star is part of a binar...

Cycad Plants "Woo" Insects With Heat, Odor - [Science & Technology]

Sara Goudarzi
for National Geographic News
October 4, 2007A primitive plant called the Australian cycad relies on a surprisingly sophisticated system of meting out food to ensure successful pollination.

These plants take an active role ...

Bush and health care-Children in the balance - [hot issues]

Oct 4th 2007 | AUSTIN
From Economist.com

Why did George Bush veto a popular health-care bill?GEORGE BUSH has some fight left in him and he has chosen a thankless battle. On Wednesday October 3rd the president vetoed legislation that would have reauthorised and expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provi...

Livestock diseases-Double whammy - [environment]

Sep 27th 2007
From The Economist print edition

An old pox returns and a new one arrivesTHE timing was unfortunate, to say the least. On September 8th, five weeks after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease at two farms in Surrey, Debby Reynolds, Britain's chief vet, announced that the country was once again free of the disease. But...

Anglicanism-The turbulence of priests - [religion]

Sep 27th 2007
From The Economist print edition

A meeting in Louisiana papers over the cracksIN NEW ORLEANS it is hard to stop talking about hurricanes, even metaphorically. “People came here thinking this was going to be Katrina II,” said Gene Robinson, the gay American Episcopalian whose ordination as bishop in 2003 pl...

Ukraine's election-preparing for the next drama - [politics]

Sep 27th 2007 | KIEV
From The Economist print edition

The real test for Ukraine's warring parties will come after this weekend's electionTHE stage on Independence Square is set, the props are out, the players are ready for the general election on September 30th. There are blue tents for the Party of the Regions, led by the prime mi...

France's budget-Unausterity programme - [Finance & Economics]

Unausterity programmeSep 27th 2007 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition

The new government's first budget is notable mainly for its lack of discipline
THE French have grown so used to their new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, breaking with tradition that when he lapses into bad old ways it comes almost as a shock. So it was with the French...

Israel- the land of Zion - [politics]

Sep 27th 2007 | JERUSALEM
From The Economist print edition

How the Jewish National Fund may have to change
WHEN the Jewish National Fund (JNF) was set up a century ago, its mission was to buy land in Palestine for settling Jews there, with the coins that diaspora Jews the world over put into the fund...

Capital punishment-Cause for a pause - [religion]

TheSep 27th 2007
From The Economist print edition Supreme Court agrees to examine executions by lethal injectionFACED by a growing stream of contradictory rulings on the legality of executions by lethal injection, the Supreme Court on September 25th at last decided to review the issue itself. Abolitionists may have...

America and Iran-The limits of free expression - [hot issues]

Sep 27th 2007 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

A rough ride for Iran's presidentNEW YORK is used to the drama (and the traffic) created by visiting dignitaries. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, caused more stir than most. He started by asking whether he could lay a wreath at Ground Zero as a show of respect. &l...

Black leadership in America-Race, justice and Jena - [politics]

Sep 27th 2007 | JENA, LOUISIANA
From The Economist print edition

An overzealous prosecution highlights America's changing racial politicsA SIGN outside Jena describes it as “a nice place to call home”. But this town in Louisiana is small, poor and, for many, a new symbol of old-style American racism. On September 20th s...

Ukraine-A second bite of the orange - [politics]

Oct 1st 2007 | KIEV
From Economist.com

Yulia Tymoshenko’s block looks set for victory in Ukraines parliamentary electionONE consistent feature of Ukraine’s fluid politics is its ability to defy predictions. The biggest surprise of the parliamentary elections on Sunday September 30th was the strong support for Yulia Tymoshenko, a...

US:America's creaking infrastructure-A bridge too far gone - [hot issues]

Aug 9th 2007 | LOS ANGELES AND MINNEAPOLIS
From The Economist print edition

The spotlight turns to deficiencies everyone would rather ignore WHETHER driven by grief or curiosity, local people in Minneapolis still congregate on the banks of the Mississippi River to see their collapsed bridge. It is a monumentally stra...

US:Lexington-Gotcha! - [Finance & Economics]

RUPERT MURDOCH'S takeover of the Wall Street Journal is a spectacular business coup (see article). Mr Murdoch has pocketed one of the country's two best-respected newspapers. He has paid top dollar for the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones. And he has arguably pr...

UK:Bagehot-Carnival queen - [hot issues]

Aug 23rd 2007
From The Economist print edition

A decade after her death, Princess Diana's legacy is not the one that might have been expected IN 1712, aged two, Samuel Johnson was brought to London by his mother. Almost blind and ill with scrofula, he was taken to St James's Palace to be “touched” by Qu...

US:Wildfires-burn,baby,burn - [sociology]

Aug 23rd 2007 | BOISE
From The Economist print edition

The American West is on fire. That's good news
TWO hours' drive north-east of Boise, the fires begin. They stretch northwards through Idaho in a smoking chain 400 miles (640km) long that finally peters out in Canada. So far this year 1.5m acres (600,000 hectares) of the state ha...

US:Health in schools-Fat and getting fatter - [education]

Aug 23rd 2007 | KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
From The Economist print edition

Attempts to make schools healthier are faltering THE proportion of children in America who are overweight has tripled over the past 20 years and now exceeds 17%, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CD...

Sanctuary-Not hiding but talking - [sociology]

Aug 23rd 2007 | SAN JOSE
From The Economist print edition

And hoping to change the law THE Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church in San Jose, California, shares its building with four other congregations, including Korean and Vietnamese Baptists. Small as it is, the church has declared itself a part of a new movement. The Re...

Russia's economy - [Finance & Economics]

Aug 24th 2007
From the Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire

Despite market jitters, stability seems assured for now In the wake of the US subprime crisis, Russia’s central bank has for the first time in years sold dollars in order to support the rouble, which is usually subject to appreciation pressures. Generally, cha...

Iraq and Vietnam-Fearing a bloody exit - [global security]

Aug 24th 2007
From Economist.com

George Bush’s curious comparison GEORGE BUSH elicited predictable howls of outrage this week when he drew parallels between the catastrophes in Indochina (re-education camps, boat people and the killing fields) that followed America’s withdrawal from Vietnam after 1973 and what mig...

Will work for food - [sociology]

22:28 GMT +00:00

Posted by: Economist.com | NEW YORK Categories: Behavioural Economics I HEARD a touching story recently about a now-dead financial economist. Following an extraordinary rese...

Beijing and Tianjin-Another cultural revolution - [cultrue]

Aug 24th 2007
From Economist.com

Our Asia editor finds beauty more popular than truth Monday

IN BEIJING the past is not so much a foreign country—it’s another planet. From the window of my hotel, peering through the hazy smog and a jungle of high-rises, ...

Tech.view-Video Wars II - [Science & Technology]

Aug 24th 2007
From Economist.com

Can Toshiba’s David topple Sony’s Goliath? A COUPLE of months ago, the battle over which of the two competing high-definition formats would replace the DVD seemed to be drawing to a close. Blockbuster, the world’s largest video-rental chain, announced that, in future, it woul...

Pakistan's political crisis-Good grief, Sharif - [politics]

Aug 24th 2007 | DELHI
From Economist.com

An emboldened Supreme Court piles another problem on to Pervez Musharraf’s plate WITH constrictor-like certainty, the democratic forces that General Pervez Musharraf has provoked to ire, are starting to throttle him. On Thursday August 23rd the Supreme Court of Pakistan decreed t...

"The Simpsons Movie"-Dysfunctional family on the move - [Books & Arts]

Jul 26th 2007
From The Economist print edition

A wonderfully smart, witty film that rescues Hollywood from the doldrumsAFTER 18 years on prime-time television, “The Simpsons Movie” brings to the big screen all the qualities that have made the Simpson family superstars. That should reassure pundits who have been fret...

Power transmission-Where the wind blows - [Science & Technology]

Jul 26th 2007
From The Economist print edition

A grandiose plan to link Europe's electricity grids may recast wind power from its current role as a walk-on extra to being the star of the showPLUG in your toaster—or your television or your vacuum cleaner—and the electricity that surges through it is an alternatin...

Urbanisation in China-China's Chicago - [sociology]

Jul 26th 2007 | CHONGQING
From The Economist print edition

A giant city in the south-west is a microcosm of China's struggle to move millions from rural to urban areasDEEP in the heart of China, the hilly riverside city of Chongqing is burning with ambition and wreathed in a shroud of smog. Visitors are astonished by the sc...