Listening 1 tapescript

EARLIER this summer the actor Jim Carrey, a star of the new superhero movie “Kick-Ass 2,” tweeted
that he was distancing himself from the film because, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, he
could not support the movie’s extensive and graphically violent scenes.

Mark Millar, a creator of the “Kick-Ass” comic book series and one of the movie’s executive
producers, responded that he has “never quite believed that violence in fiction leads to violence in real
life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more boy wizards in real life.”

Most people tend to agree with Mr. Millar. After all, millions of Americans see violent scenes in films
and on TV every day, but very few become killers.

But a growing body of research indicates that this reasoning may not be justified. Exposure to violent
scenes does not predetermine violence, but it is a risk factor. We would never say: “I’ve smoked
cigarettes for a long time, and I don’t have lung cancer. Therefore there’s no link between smoking
cigarettes and lung cancer.” So why use such simplified reasoning when it comes to media violence?

There is now consensus that exposure to media violence is linked to actual violent behavior — a link
found by many scholars to be similar with the correlation of exposure to secondhand smoke and the
risk of lung cancer. In an analysis of 217 studies published between 1957 and 1990, the psychologists
George Comstock and Haejung Paik found that the short-term effect of exposure to media violence on
actual physical violence against a person was moderate to large in strength.

Other studies have followed consumption of violent media and its behavioral effects throughout a
person’s lifetime. In an analysis of 42 studies involving nearly 5,000 participants, the psychologists
Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman found a statistically significant small-to-moderate-strength
relationship between watching violent media and acts of aggression or violence later in life.

In a study published in the journal Pediatrics this year, the researchers Lindsay Robertson, Helena
McAnally and Robert Hancox showed that watching excessive amounts of TV as a child or adolescent
— in which most of the content contains violence — was causally associated with aggressive behavior
in early adulthood. (An excessive amount here means more than two hours per weekday.)

What’s missing are studies on whether watching violent media directly leads to committing extreme
violence.

Of course, the absence of evidence of a link is not evidence of its absence. Indeed, in 2005, The Lancet
published a comprehensive review of the literature on media violence. The conclusion: Most of the
studies support the position that exposure to media violence leads to aggression and lack of sympathy
for victims of violence, particularly in children.

To be fair, violent behavior is a complex issue with a host of other risk factors.

But although exposure to violent media isn’t the only or even the strongest risk factor for violence, it’s
more easily modified than other risk factors (like being male or having a low socioeconomic status or
low I.Q.).

Certainly, many questions remain and more research needs to be done to determine what specific
factors drive a person to commit acts of violence and what role media violence might play.
But first we have to consider how best to address those questions. To prevent and treat public health
issues like AIDS, cancer and heart disease, we focus on factors related to an increased risk of a bad
outcome. Similarly, we should try to identify risk factors for violence and determine how they interact,
who may be particularly affected by such factors and what can be done to reduce some of the risk
factors.

Naturally, debate over media violence stirs up strong emotions because it raises concerns about the
balance between public safety and freedom of speech.

Even if violent media are found to cause real-life violence, we as a society may still decide that we are
not willing to regulate violent content. That’s our right. But before we make that decision, we should
rely on evidence, not instinct.

By VASILIS K. POZIOS, PRAVEEN R. KAMBAM and H. ERIC BENDER

Published: August 23, 2013

The New York Times

Listening 2 tapescript

The world's largest attempt to harness the power of fusion has entered a "critical" phase in southern
France. The Iter project at Cadarache in Provence is receiving the first of about one million
components for its experimental reactor.
Dogged by massive cost rises and long delays, building work is currently nearly two years behind
schedule. "We're not hiding anything - it's incredibly frustrating," David Campbell, a deputy director,
told BBC News.
"Now we're doing everything we can to recover as much time as possible - we'd all like to see fusion
energy as soon as possible."
After initial design problems and early difficulties coordinating this unique international project, there
is now more confidence about the timetable.
Since the 1950s, fusion has offered the dream of almost limitless energy - copying the fireball process
that powers the Sun - fuelled by two readily available forms of hydrogen.
The attraction is a combination of cheap fuel, relatively little radioactive waste and no emissions of
greenhouse gases.
But the technical challenges of not only handling such an extreme process but also designing ways of
extracting energy from it have always been immense.
In fact, fusion has long been described as so difficult to achieve that it's always been considered as
being "30 years away".
Now the Iter reactor will put that to the test. Known as a "tokamak", it is based on the design of Jet, a
European pilot project at Culham in Oxfordshire.
It will involve creating a plasma of superheated gas reaching temperatures of more than 200 million
degrees Celsius - conditions hot enough to force deuterium and tritium atoms to fuse together and
release energy.
The whole process will take place inside a giant magnetic field in the shape of a ring - the only way
such extreme heat can be contained.
The plant at JET has managed to achieve fusion reactions in very short bursts but required the use of
more power than it was able to produce.
The reactor at Iter is on a much larger scale and is designed to generate 10 times more power - 500
MW - than it will consume.
Iter brings together the scientific and political weight of governments representing more than half the
world's population.
Contributions are mainly "in kind" rather than in cash with, for example, the EU providing all the
buildings and infrastructure - which is why an exact figure for cost is not available. The rough overall
budget is described as £13bn or 15bn euros.
But the novel structure of Iter has itself caused friction and delays, especially in the early days.
Each partner first had to set up a domestic "agency", and there have been complications with import
duties and taxes.
Further delay crept in with disputes over access to manufacturing sites in partner countries. Because
each part has to meet extremely high specifications, inspectors from Iter have had to negotiate visits to
companies not used to outside scrutiny.
The result is that although a timeline for the delivery of the key elements has been agreed, there's a
recognition that more hold-ups are almost inevitable.
At a conference in Belgium last September, I asked a panel of experts when the first commercially-
available fusion reactor might generate power for the grid.
A few said that could happen within 40 years but most said it would take another 50 or even 60 years.
The fusion dream has never been worked on so vigorously. But turning it into reality is much more
than 30 years away.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23408073