Report and vocabularyunearthed 16 November 2011

Mind reading crash course 9 November 2011

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transcript Stopped in the nick of time! This road safety system uses lasers to detect potential hazards. If the driver doesn't brake, the car does. Now a new Swiss project is looking to take things further by reading drivers' minds. Researchers are testing its viability by monitoring brainwaves to see if they can predict the driver's next move. The hope is technology could intervene to prevent accidents. in the nick of time just in time road safety driving without accidents hazards dangers viability workability intervene act on behalf of someone else Exersise Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from a BBC news report. Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly. in the nick of time / road safety / hazards / viability / intervene

1. An iceberg of the size expected will need to be monitored carefully, and not just because it could eventually become a __________ to shipping. The biggest icebergs can have a major impact on their surroundings. 2. During the debate Mr Cameron said a no-fly zone had "effectively been put in place over Libya". He added: "It is also clear that coalition forces have helped to avert what could have been a bloody massacre in Benghazi. In my view they did so just _______________." 3. Twenty soldiers also died in fighting in the central city of Homs. Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, has warned western powers not to _________ - saying that could cause what he called an "earthquake" that would burn the whole of the Middle East. 4. Plans have been announced to improve ___________ in a Staffordshire town. The scheme includes installing a pedestrian crossing and improving a footpath close to where a person was knocked down and killed, in 2009. 5. Even the __________________ of the euro has always been in question, with its creation having been seen by many to have been driven by political rather than economic reasoning.

Report and vocabulary

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transcript Freak snowstorms have hit America's East coast. Some say Mother Nature played a Halloween trick on 60 million people. Only four times in the last 135 years has New York's Central Park seen snow this early. The blizzards caused power cuts and some deaths as roads became treacherous. More than a thousand flights were cancelled with some passengers trapped on grounded planes for hours. freak unusual, irregular Mother Nature an expression used to refer to the power of nature, the weather and so on blizzards heavy snowstorms with strong winds

treacherous extremely dangerous grounded not permitted to fly Exercise Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from a BBC news report. Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly. freak / Mother Nature / blizzards / treacherous / grounded 1. Last winter Edinburgh experienced the worst __________ for decades. Hundreds of tonnes of salt were used on roads and pavements. Offenders and the Army were brought in to clear routes. 2. Ms Hedges said: "The __________ waters round the Isle of Wight present a major challenge - there are so many unknowns. My emotions are very up and down at the moment, going from being really excited to really scared." 3. Before the president joined the children for a reading lesson, the White House and the president already knew a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, but they thought it was a ___________ accident. 4. Qantas ______________ all Saturday's flights, affecting some 70,000 travellers. 5. "An element of luck was involved with this, as with any expedition of this nature when the variables are out of your control - the weather, __________ herself," he said.