Outcomes Advanced Audio script

Page 63 Unit 7 Track 20

1
A: Did you read that thing about transplanting the noses of mosquitoes?
B: What? Are you serious? I didn’t think mosquitoes even had noses!
A: Yeah, well, it’s obviously not a nose in the sense of our noses, but apparently it’s like the
smelling receptors on the antennae on their heads. And what they do is they somehow get
these receptors to grow inside frog’s eggs so that they can do tests on them.
B: How on earth do they do that?
A: To be perfectly honest, I’m not really sure. They extract the DNA from the receptors, or
something, and then insert it into the eggs. It’s a bit beyond me, really. I just thought it was
amazing.
B: It sounds a bit peculiar, if you ask me. I mean, what’s the point?
A: Well, apparently, they use them to see what smells trigger the receptors.
B: And?
A: Well, it’s to stop the spread of malaria. Obviously, mosquitoes are strongly attracted to the
smell of human sweat, but if they can find smells which create a bigger stimulus or which
produce no trigger, then they could use those smells to manufacture traps to tempt the
mosquitoes away from humans, or spray-on repellents that mask human smells.
B: OK. I suppose that makes sense. I have to say, though, I still find all that gene
manipulation a bit worrying.
A: What d’you mean?
B: Well, it’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? One moment it’s mosquito noses, the next they’ll be
engineering babies.
A: Come off it! It’s hardly the same thing!

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C: Did you read that thing about building a sun shield in space to prevent global warming?
D: No. It sounds a bit unlikely, though. I mean, how big would it have to be?
C: Well, apparently, about 60,000 miles long!
D: 60,000! That’s ridiculous! I mean, how on earth are they going to build something that
big, let alone get it up there? They struggle to build a stadium here on time and on budget.
C: Well, that’s it – the idea with this is it’s not like one big structure; it’s millions of little
reflectors which form a massive ‘cloud’.
D: But how many would you need?
C: Trillions. They reckon if they launched a pile of these things every five minutes or so, it’d
take ten years to make.
D: Hardly an instant solution, then!
C: No.
D: And what about the cost?
C: I’ve no idea, to be honest, but they claim it’s all quite possible. Anyway, this guy got a
grant to look into it further.
D: You’re joking! What a waste of money! Are you sure it isn’t just a scam or some made-up
story?
C: It was on a fairly reliable website. They wouldn’t have just made it up.
D: Pah! Mind you, I sometimes wonder whether the whole climate change thing isn’t all just
a scam. I mean, there are a lot of rich and powerful people out there who stand to benefit
from us being scared into believing it’s all true.
C: You’re not serious, are you?
D: Yeah, why not?
C: Because the evidence is pretty conclusive.
D: Says who?