UFR - SFA

L2 IMPCI - ANGLAIS

DOCUMENTS - Semestre 4

2023-2024

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 1. Pilot Ace Computer - Listening - Take notes on a separate piece of paper

------------------------------------------
2. Why Nasa is exploring an Alien World in Antarctica
Help: to tower (over) : dominer / a proxy: un indicateur indirect / to carve out: tailler, sculpter
geyser vents: cheminées - conduits des geysers / screws : des vis
20 second intervals between each section
Section 1. x3
1."Mount Erebus towers over the Antarctic landscape, …………………………………………………………………………………………
2. What's inside?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……………
3. Why is NASA sending researchers there? Give details. [proxy]
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
- Joining me to talk about that is Aaron Curtis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. He’s part of the research. Welcome
to the program.
- Hello

Section II. x3
1. Aaron Curtis has been to Mount Erebus only once? T / F justify your answer.
………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………….
2. What is the presenter’s first question?
Wh ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
3. Which two adjectives does he use to describe the landscape? ………………………….. and …………………………….
4. What has carved out the massive caves in the ice? ………………………………………………………………………………….

Section III. x3
1. Find as much information as you can on what the caves and crystals are like:

- Wow
Section IV. x3
1. What is Aaron Curtis working on? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
2. Why do they need them? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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3. What is his project? Give details. [screw]
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Section V - x3
1. What can you find on comets, asteroids and dwarf planets like Pluto according to Aaron Curtis?
.....................................................................................................................................................................................
2. What is he most interested in? Give details
…………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………
3. What does it look like? What is there underneath the icy crust?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
4. What do they consider doing to explore the place?
……………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………………………….

Section VI. x3
1. What would the signs of life most likely be?...........................................................................
2. When Curtis is in Antarctica, how does he feel like? .....................................................................................

3. Fill in the gaps: (3-second pauses between each line)

"You know we get all bundled up (engoncé) in ………………………………………………………………………………………
and in some senses it’s kind of like ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
You know, ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
and you are …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
so maybe it’s a little bit ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Certainly there are surprises lurking (se cachant, tapies) around every corner, and so it's a real journey of
exploration.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

3. The Future of Nuclear Energy - Listening – Take notes on a separate piece of

paper

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WORKSHEET – Slime Mold
ANTICIPATION: BEFORE LISTENING

You will be listening to the audio version of an extract of a video called “This Pulsating Slime Mold Comes in Peace” and
the full audio version of a video called “Can Slime Mold Solve Mazes?”. They are both about something called Slime
Mold.

To prepare for the listening:

1. Define “slime” (use your phone if you need to):
2. The meaning of “Mold”, in this document, is close to “fungus”. Find the adapted definition (use your phone if
you need to):

3. Given the above information, you think slime mold could be from the kingdom of:
a. Monera (ex: bacillus)
b. Protista (ex: amoeba)
c. Fungi (ex: mushrooms)
d. Plantae (ex: any plant)
e. Animalia/Metazoa (ex: any animal or insect etc)

4. Write what you think:

a. The title “This pulsating Slime Mold Comes in Peace” implies that slime mold could be:

b. The title “Can Slime Mold Solve Mazes?” implies that slime mold could be:

Feel free to go back to the information above to fill in what you could not the first time around or use that information
to help with the work below

LISTENING – INSTRUCTIONS: the entire listening comprehension will take about 15 to 20 minutes with the key
To start: You will hear the entire document once. Just relax and see what you can understand. No need to take notes.
Then: You will hear the document in six sections (Part 1 to Part 6). You will hear each section two times. Try to give the
information in the exercises.
Finally: You will watch the video and check your answers as you listen before going over the key with your teacher.
Start: Entire document – 3:02 – just listen
Part 1 (00:00 – 01:26) – You will hear the extract from “This pulsating Slime Mold Comes in Peace” 2 times. Listen and
do the listening comprehension exercises below:

Part 1, Listening 1: Read the exercises below for “listening 1” before listening.
Aural discrimination: Read the sentences below. Try to identify the errors before you listen. As you listen, correct the errors.

On these three rotting trunks, something is alive... Correction: _____________________

They can send up light and produce spores… Correction: _____________________

They’re not a fun guy … Correction: _____________________

They spread a crust on forests… Correction: _____________________

1. Write the end of the sentence:
- Each Slime mold is like
- And it moves in a
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Part 1, Listening 2: Read the exercises below for “listening 2” before listening

1. According to the video, the following statements about Slime Mold are TRUE or FALSE
a. Like mushrooms and plants, they produce spores TRUE FALSE
b. They are animals that chase food in forests TRUE FALSE
c. They are not quite liquid and not quite solid TRUE FALSE
d. They cannot go from one place to another TRUE FALSE
e. They eat bacteria and mushrooms TRUE FALSE

2. From this extract you can deduce that Slime Mold is from the kingdom of (see Anticipation):

3. Challenge - you heard the synonym for “frontier” or “limit” and it is:

Part 2 (01:36 – 02:54) – You will hear the next part of the video “Can Slime Mold Solve Mazes?” 2 times. Listen and
do the listening comprehension exercises below:

Part 2, Listening 1: Read the exercises below for “listening 1” before listening

Aural discrimination: Read the sentences below. Try to identify the errors before listening. As you listen, correct the
errors.

…studying a former slime mold… Correction: _____________________

…slime molds of fascinated scientists… Correction: _____________________
… the quickest route through arrays to get at some food… Correction: _____________________
…do more than just prefer more clever tricks… Correction: _____________________

Part 2, Listening 2: Read the exercises below for “listening 2” before listening

a. Write where Dr Mark Frikar works:

b. Dr Mark Frikar works in a team of ________________ and ______________________.
c. TRUE or FALSE: Phycerium Polycephalum are very good at finding their way through a labyrinth to find food.
TRUE FALSE
Justify in your own words (French or English):

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Part 3 (03:03-03:53) – You will hear the next part of the video “Can Slime Mold Solve Mazes?” 2 times. Listen and
do the listening comprehension exercises below:

Part 3, Listening 1 and 2 : Read the exercises below before listening

Fill in the blanks below:

Here, Mark is ______________ an experiment he _________________ with colleagues at ____________________. A

blob of slime mold is ____________________ a pattern of oat flakes an ___________________ for the slime mold.

What happens next is ___________________ a time-lapse camera.

Part 4 (04:03 – 04:49) – You will hear the next part of the video “Can Slime Mold Solve Mazes?” 2 times. Listen and
do the listening comprehension exercises below:

Part 4, Listening 1 and 2: Read the exercises below for before listening

Complete this rewritten sequencing of what happens with the slime mold by identifying the verbs:
First, the slime mold ___________ as this blob in the middle

Then it’s going to _____________ and ______________ the whole of the dish

It is trying to ______________ all of the oat flakes that were _______________ earlier

And then the slime mold ________________ each of the food resources

Last, some of those links would ________________ and some would be ________________

Part 5 (04:49 – 06:22) – You will hear the third part of the video “Can Slime Mold Solve Mazes?” 2 times. Listen and
do the listening comprehension exercises below:
Part 5, Listening 1: Read the exercises below for “listening 1” before listening. Choose the correct answers
Aural discrimination: Read the sentences below. Try to identify the errors before listening. As you listen, correct the
errors.
… on the majorities around Tokyo… Correction: _____________________

… not just the slime mold exploring a run-down distribution… Correction: _______________________

… trying to wipe out the region around Tokyo Correction: ______________________

… the slime mold would correct all of those… Correction: ______________________

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Part 5, Listening 2: Take notes on what you hear if necessary. Use the notes and what you have heard so far. With this
information in mind, create explanatory legends for the image (using the arrows and boxes below) and write a
paragraph explaining what we see in the image.

Title:

Description :

Part 6 (6:31 to end) – You will hear the third part of the video “Can Slime Mold Solve Mazes?” 2 times. Listen and
do the listening comprehension exercises below:
Part 6, Listening 1 and 2 : Read the exercises below before listening
1. When you compare the ________ Tokyo rail system and the ___________ that the slime molds come up

with, the two ___________ are remarkably __________. In just a few ________ the slime mold has done

what _________ engineers took years to ___________. It has found the most ___________ way to link

__________ multiple locations - every bit as ____________ as the _________________ Tokyo rail system.

2. TRUE or FALSE: Slime mold has a brain that can calculate how to produce a network very similar to the Tokyo rail
system.
TRUE FALSE
Justify in your own words (French or English):

And to finish… watch the video to verify your answers before looking at the key

5. QUANTUM COMPUTING - Listening - Take notes on a separate piece of paper

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 6. Earthquakes in Indonesia.
Help:
You'll hear about several Indonesian islands: Sumatra / Java / Flores / Irian Jaya / Papua New Guinea

Vocabulary: a remote area: isolated, difficult to reach

to hamper efforts: to make it difficult to...
makeshift: made hastily, using what is at hand
hurriedly: in a hurry, very quickly
to slip: to slide
to snap: to break suddenly

Section I. x3

1. Following the earthquakes in Indonesia just after New Year, we look at (complete) …
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
« Continuing earthquakes and aftershocks in the remote Papua region of Indonesia are hampering efforts to reach
the affected area. Several strong... »
2. What is said about people: …………………………………………………………………………………
3. Where are they sleeping? …………………………………………………………………………………..
4. Complete: « More than ………………………………………………………………………………………
5. Where is the affected area located? …………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Section 2 - x3
1. Fill in the blanks : « The earthquakes that ______ ___________ Indonesia just after New Year __________
_______ the _____________ memories of the ______________ earthquake and _____________ that
_______ the region __________ exactly _______ _______ _______, killing _____________ ________________
people.»
(pause)
2. How much did it reach? ………………………………………………
3. What did it trigger? ………………………………………………….
4. What about the damage? …………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
«Ever since the 2004 earthquake, there have been repeated calls for more warning and more precautions in
Indonesia. Roland Peas is a BBC Science expert, he's been following the earthquake activity in the area. »
Section 3 - 1x3 + 2x3.
1. What is her next question? (x3)
« Roland, first, …

(pause)
2. Try to give as much information as you can about what he says - x3

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Section IV - X3
Fill in the blanks: « And ________ ______________________ is ____ __________ ____ ________ __________?
Is it something that builds up into ___ _______________ __________________ and then slips or is it, in this area,
more complicated? »
- It is essentially that, they're like ___________ that are being ____________ together and then _____________
_________ _______ ____________, at some point rather, it snaps and they come _____________ together, and
that's when somehow you get an earthquake, it's incredibly active, you know I've got a list here:

Section V - x3. Complete the chart:

Place Year Number of victims Size of Tsunami

(x1) ...so this is going on and on and of course, the absolutely tragic events of Sumatra in 2004, and that's I think,
it is happening all the time, not ever on the scale of the Sumatran one but; well you're getting hundreds or
thousands being killed, year on, year on, year on; and it is going to be like that.

Section VI - x3.
1. « - Well, as you say, it is happening all the time, _______________ _______________ in this region, which of
course __________ ___________ __________ ____ _______ and ask questions about warnings,
_______________...what is being done and what could be improved on that and was it done in this case for this
year? »
(pause)

2. What does their system consist in? (warning / seismometer / sensors / forwards)

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7. Hacking Sleep TED - Listening – Take notes on a separate piece of paper

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 8. The Greatest Mathematician that Never Lived
Section I x 3
1. Nicolas Bourbaki applied to the _____________________________________________ in
__________________________

2. What are examples of Bourbaki’s influence?

•
•

3. Nicolas Bourbaki’s application was not accepted because

a. After WWII there weren’t enough mathematicians to make up a jury
b. There was no such person
c. His politics were too controversial
d. His mathematical theories were original but fragmented

4. Fill in the blanks.

Different branches used disparate methodology to_________________ their own goals. And the ____________
of a _______________________ mathematical language made it difficult to ______________ or expand their
work.

Section II x 3
5. In 1934 a group of French mathematicians decided to write ____________________________________
________________________________________.

6. What is Eléments de mathématiques ?

7. This work started with ______________________________________ and then advanced to

_____________________________________________________

8. The _________________________ is an example of an important mathematical object that was given new,
_________________________________

Section III x 3
9. One way to consider functions, is to see them as __________________________ that accept
__________________________ and produce _________________________.

10. Another way to consider functions, is to see them as _____________________ __________________ two
groups.
11. What is wrong with defining a function where every numerical input corresponds to the same alphabetical
output?

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Section IV x 3
The group began to define functions by how they mapped elements across domains. If a function’s output came
from a unique input, they defined it as injective. If every output can be mapped onto at least one input, the
function was surjective. And in bijective functions, each element had perfect one to one correspondence.
12. Fill in the blanks.

This allowed mathematicians to establish logic that could be translated across the function’s domains in both
directions. Their systematic approach to abstract principles was __________________________ to the popular
belief that math was _____________________________________, and an over-dependence on logic
constrained creativity. But this __________________________________________
__________________________ gleefully ignored conventional wisdom. They were revolutionizing the field and
they wanted to mark the occasion ________________________________________________. They decided to
publish Eléments de Mathématiques and ______________________________________________ under a
collective pseudonym: Nicolas Bourbaki.

Section V x 3
13. How long did the Bourbaki deception last?

14. Give 2 examples of what Bourbaki’s inventors did to make him seem real?
•

15. Why did it become necessary for the Bourbaki’s inventors to stage his death?

16. What modern element of mathematics is Bourbaki partly responsible for?

Language work
In the following phrase, what tense is used for the verb in bold? Why is it used?
Many established mathematicians had lost their lives in the First World War
How are the following expressions pronounced?
Mathematics, mathematical, mathematician, calculus, axiom, theorem, function, abstract, principle, publication,
publish, proof

8. E-Waste - Listening - Take notes on a separate piece of paper

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 9. The Grandfather Paradox
Vocabulary:
to loop back in time / thus / entangled / double slit experiment = a demonstration that light and matter have
characteristics of both waves and particles. / to twist - to be twisted
Pre-listening = What do you know about Schrödinger's cat?

I. INTRO - X3
Fill in the blanks
……………………………………………., time ………………………………………………………
but if you could loop back ……………………………………………………………………..
a famous paradox arises.
What is the paradox? - use your own words.

II. What is an easy solution to that paradox? - x3

III. What are the consequences of following the paradoxical timeline through beyond its paradoxical
conclusion? -x3

IV. "I'm showing this as a looping, linear series of events, but really it's two entangled histories happening
in parallel. Is that even possible?"
What information can you gather on quantum superposition in the following passage? -x3

V. "And a similar paradox-free solution can be obtained by viewing the problem as a steady-state
solution to a Markov chain, but I won't go to that here."
Find the key elements of the last section and use your own words to summarize it. x3

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SCRIPTS for note taking documents
Pilot Ace Computer
We take it for granted that we can surf the net, write documents or play music all on one laptop, but Pilot ACE – Automatic Computing
Engine – was the first computer that could do more than one thing. It was built by the National Physical Laboratory in the 1950s. The design
for ACE embodied the original ideas of the mathematician Alan Turing.
I studied recently something about weather prediction, and that began in the early part of the 20 th century; and they had rooms full of
people, doing a calculation, passing the answers on to the people next to them, and iterating through space and time that way. And it took
them several days to compute what the weather was going to do over the next few minutes, and they got the answer spectacularly wrong,
so they must have dreamed of having something like a computing engine that you could electronically tell how to do the next step.
Well it’s a really, really important machine, because it incorporates Turing’s designs, he’s the father of modern day computing, and it’s the
only machine that we have that actually incorporates the designs that he created for computing.
What are the key features, then, that Turing was bringing to computing, that hadn’t been there in hand-cranked calculating machines, for
example?

Well, this machine, it’s a demo-purposed computer, so Turing had created some initial ideas in 1936, mathematical concepts, really, when
he’d written a paper called “On Computable Numbers”; so it really explores whether you coud create a machine that could do a whole
range of different tasks, and he then went to Bletchley Park, during the war, and he worked on the Colossus code-breaking computer, and
he came to the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, in London, just after the war, and in 1946 he wrote the actual designs for the
ACE computer … err … these were actually implemented into the pilot ACE machine in the 1950s.
And was this blue sky work that he was doing, did somebody ask him to do it, or was he driven in that direction?
He was a genius mathematician, it was really, you know, the work he was doing at Cambridge to explore what was possible with numbers,
and what was possible with logic … and he was pushing it to the boundaries. But it wasn’t really until after the war that people became
confident about building, actually building these machines, not just thinking about them in conceptual terms, in mathematical terms, but
actually putting them together using valves, and delay lines, and, you know, actually using electrical components to build them.
What was driving Turing in that region, did he have particular problems that he wanted to solve?
It’s the same ideas that you’ve got with Charles Babbage, back in the Victorian times, it’s really how do you create a machine that will do
human thinking … err … and that’s, you know, a very fundamental and complicated idea to get your head around, actually. So with Babbage
it was by building a mechanical machine that you could turn the handle on and it would crunch the numbers. With Turing, he’s thinking
about how can we actually do it not through hard wiring, but through software, through, you know, through mathematics and
programming.
So this is the beginning of software, software starts here …

Absolutely, it’s the beginning of programming, yeah, yeah …

Right … right … So he didn’t have to choose a language, he had to write the language in the first place.
Absolutely, yeah, and then think about how you’d actually apply that, in terms of components. Well for his time, you know, many people
thought it was actually going to be impossible to build the ACE computer, and then once that had been built, people realised oh, this is
actually incredibly useful, you know, we could use this for a whole range of different functions, for working out the stresses on aircraft
wings, for ballistic trajectories of missiles; it was also used for x-ray crystallography, you know, for studying the structure of crystals and
molecules, good things as well as bad.
… to do some basic science …
I think, we tend to kind of think of science as something different to creativity, whereas in fact for me they’re very closely linked and you
can really see that in the way the machine’s been put together, the way it’s been solded, you know, it’s a beautiful object to actually,
physically look at, but also it’s that leading on to software, and the implications for what that means now, you know, the fact that we’re
getting machines not only that have graphical user interfaces but now it’s just purely touchscreen machines that you’re being able to just
touch something and not have to learn to use it but it’s intuitive.
But as a vision, once we step outside the constraints of the hardware that we have known, we can step away from that, let the imagination
run free, I think, we’ve got great distances to travel in this area. What we do with the information when we’ve got it, whether or not it
makes life any better, whether or not it makes life any more survivable, is another question.

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 The Future of Nuclear Energy

--Nuclear power plants are so big, complicated and expensive to build that more are shutting down than opening up. An Oregon company
wants to build a new kind of nuclear power plant that many see as the future of the industry. NPR's Jeff Brady reports.
--Power plants are so big because they're designed to take advantage of economies of scale.
--What we've done is we've developed economies of small.
--Jose Reyes is co-founder of NuScale Power and says his company's reactors are more adaptable for a world moving away from fossil fuels
to cleaner forms of energy.
--We haven't just taken a large plant and shrunk it down. We've completely simplified it and changed how we operate those plants.
--And, Reyes says, the design cuts expensive construction time by about half. NuScale hasn't actually built a plant yet, though it does have
models of its design about an hour and a half south of Portland, Ore. One is a simulated control room.
--The room we're in is the same size as the room we expect the control room to be in.
--Outside, there's a mockup of one of the modules that would hold a NuScale reactor. It's a big, metal tank several stories tall but still much
smaller than a typical reactor. And this on squeaky door.
--This is kind of the main access port for when we want to...
--Inside, it's painted industrial gray, and only a few people can fit at a time. Instead of one big reactor powering a plant, NuScale plans a
series of up to 12 much smaller reactors like this one. They'd be built in a factory and transported by truck. Karin Feldman is a vice president
with the company and says that manufacturing will get more efficient over time.
--We know that the first one's going to take longer than the second one. But we anticipate by the time you get to, say, the third one or the
fourth one, you've learned everything that you need to learn about that manufacturing process. And you can be very predictable.
--Feldman says this design is safer, too. The Fukushima disaster in 2011 happened when a tsunami knocked offline the emergency
generators that cooled the reactors and spent fuel, leading to a meltdown. Feldman says NuScale's design is cooled passively. The reactors
sit underground in a huge pool of water that can absorb heat.
--The reactor will fail to a safe position. It doesn't require additional water, doesn't require AC or DC power, doesn't require any operator
action. And it can stay in that safe configuration for as long as it's needed.
--NuScale plans to build its first nuclear power plant at the Idaho National Lab. The electricity will head across the state border to a group
of utilities called the Utah Associated Municipal Power System - or UAMPS. The group was looking for a carbon-free source of electricity to
generate power when solar panels and wind turbines can't. While big nuclear reactors run all the time, this collection of smaller reactors
can be ramped up and down relatively quickly to meet demand. Batteries can do that too, but UAMPS CEO Doug Hunter says NuScale's
reactors are cheaper.
--Each module will be - have enough fuel in it for two years of operation, so it's like we're a battery that has a two-year charge to it.
--NuScale still must convince regulators the plant is safe. That's a challenge because the design is so different that existing regulations have
to be changed. That worries Edwin Lyman with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
--My concern about NuScale is that they believe so deeply that the reactor is safe and doesn't need to meet the same criteria as the large
reactors that it's pushing for lots of exemptions and exceptions.
--So Lyman will be among those watching regulators closely as NuScale pushes to have its first power plant built and operating in 2026.

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How will quantum computing change the world? | The Economist
Quantum computing is not just better computing, faster computing. It's a different kind of computing. It’s predicted to solve some of the
world’s most fundamental problems, from inventing new drugs to making brand new materials and creating more precise climate models.
It could solve some problems in seconds that would take current supercomputers thousands of years. The technology is in its early stages
but the effort is quickly gaining momentum. So how will quantum computing change the world? A standard computer might have billions
of bits, each one can be a one or a zero and they’re all completely separate from each other. Quantum bits, or qubits, work differently for
a couple of reasons that come from quantum mechanics.

Thanks Jason, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole. All you need to know is this: the theory shows that certain kinds of problems, not all,
just some particularly thorny ones, are made much easier when you’ve got quantum computers. One of those problems is in encryption,
the kinds of codes that protect your credit-card details online or your messages in Whatsapp or Signal. What got people really interested
in making quantum computers was the realisation that they couldbreak encryption that was supposed to be too hard to crack because
regular computers couldn’t crack them. That’s the kind of thing that gets the attention of national governments: the ability to crack other
countries’ encrypted networks. As in the case of artificial intelligence, China says it intends to lead the world in quantum science and has
announced plans to open its own national quantum laboratory to open in 2020. America is getting involved too; it intends to create a
national quantum initiative. That’s because the prize that quantum computing offers, the potential strategic or commercial advantage is
huge. Imagine if you could make minute-to minute, real-time stock predictions based on data from every trade ever made, or if you could
simply compute the formula for a new fuel or a drug that beats a horrible disease. That’s the kind of promise that quantum computing may
offer.

There are already quantum computers out there but it’s a bit like the situation with regular computers in the 1950s: big basement-sized
things that required a pile of PhDs to operate and they still weren’t very powerful. "A typewriter-like keyboard is the master control sending
out data and instructions on a punched tape which in turn feeds the electronic computer." There’s a huge effort to make more powerful
quantum computers. This used to be the stuff of university physics departments but you can see the potential when you see who’s in the
business now. It’s big names like Google, Microsoft, IBM. But it’s not just about when one day one company or one lab invents this one
computer. It’s going to be a bunch of small advances towards the kind that’s commercially available, reliable and can really solve some of
these big problems. "Problems that once took the human mind seven years to solve."

Here’s the thing: when we talk about quantum computing people tend to think of all-singing, all- powerful machines that can run any kind
of program, what’s called a universal computer. That’s still a distant prospect but in the meantime there will be smaller machines more
specific- purpose, less general-purpose. These things are incredibly hard to run: they’re held at temperatures lower than that of deep space
in very, very controlled laboratory environments. Even if you could just pick one up off the shelf, you wouldn’t. Yes, they’re incredibly
powerful for some kinds of problems but they’re not going to replace the kind of computer on your desk or in your phone. You don’t need
quantum powers to edit photos or send emails. In fact, what will probably happen is that a few companies have the best computers and
you can use them on a kind of time-share basis, in the cloud or you send off your gnarly quantum problem and just get an answer back.
But the kinds of problems that we’ll be able to pose, the kinds of answers we’ll be able to get, are absolutely unthinkable now. That’s what has
governments, industry giants and plucky startups in on the race.

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How sound can hack your memory while you sleep TED
Who wouldn’t love acing a geography exam, remembering all the locations of the countries on a map, or avoiding embarrassing situations
of suddenly forgetting the person’s name standing right in front of you? It turns out that memory, like other muscles in the body, can be
strengthened and enhanced. But instead of practicing with flash cards, there may be an interesting way that we can hack our memory
while we sleep.

Why do we sleep? This has been a question asked since the early days of civilization. And while we may not know the exact answer, there
are a number of really good theories about why we need it. Sleep is when the brain transfers short-term memories experienced throughout
the day into long-term memories. This process is called memory consolidation and it’s the memory consolidation theory that has scientists
wondering if we can enhance certain memories over others.

There was a paper recently in the journal Science by Ken Paller and his colleagues at Northwestern that seemed to show that this may be
true, and that piqued our curiosity. Joud has been working on a DIY version to see if we can improve memories through the use of sound
in sleep.

--So Joud, how do you test if we can improve our memories with sleep?

--We need a human subject. We have a memory game that we have on an iPad and then we make our subject play this game and remember
the images and where they appear on the screen.

--So, this is like a memory game you used to play as a child, which picture was where. And we tie each picture with a sound that represents
that picture.

--So, if you see a picture of a car, for example, and you would hear the car engine.

--Just before you go to sleep, we’re going to test you. We’re going to see how well do you remember where the pictures are. Every time
you see the picture, you’re going to hear the sound. And now comes the experiment. You’re going to go take a nap. While you’re sleeping,
we’re going to be recording your EEGs.

--And then we wait for them to go what is called the slow-wave sleep, which is the deepest phase of you sleep, where it’s really hard for
you to wake up.

--OK, pause. So, here’s some information on sleep. There are four stages: we have lighter stages of sleep and REM, but what we’re
interested in is called slow-wave sleep. And it gets its name from the electrical signals called Delta waves that we record from the brain.
Now, this is the part of sleep where scientists believe that memory consolidation can happen. In this deep period of sleep, we’re going to
do something that you don’t know we’re going to do.

--Here’s where the tricky part comes and we start playing our cues.

--Do you play all the cues from the game?

--Ok, No. The interesting part is we only want to play half of them to see if there’s a difference.

--So, your hypothesis is the one that they were listening to while they’re sleeping, they’re going to do better at when they wake up.

--Yes, exactly.

--When you wake back up and you play the game again, do you do better or worse than before a nap? What we found is that if we played
you a cue during your sleep, for example a car. You would remember the position of that car when you woke up again. But, if we didn’t
play you the cue during the sleep, for example, a guitar, you would be less likely to remember the guitar when you woke up. The memories
that were cued they remembered better than the ones they weren’t, even thought when they woke up they don’t remember hearing those
sounds?

--Yes, exactly, we ask them.

--We know they’re sleeping, they can’t hear it, they wake up, they do better on those than the ones you didn’t play. That’s amazing.

--Yah, it’s like magic.

--So, Joud ran this experiment on 12 people and the results were significant. So, it’s not that you remember things better; it’s that you
forget them less. I was a huge skeptic when I first heard that you could do better at a memory test, just by playing sounds during sleep. But
we replicated these experiments for ourselves. The facts and memories we collect throughout the day are very fragile, and they are easily
lost and forgotten. But by reactivating them during sleep, even without us being aware, it seems like we could make them more stable and
less prone to forget. That’s pretty incredible. Our brains are still active even when we’re not. So, if you’re like me and a bit forgetful, perhaps
a solution is a pair of headphones and a soft couch.

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China: Worlds dumping ground for e-waste (CNN)
In 2010 China became the largest exporter in the world, but with the increased popularity of smartphones, tablets and other
gadgets, China has also become a major importer of electronic waste. Much of the world’s old electronics end up in family
run workshops in China. But, as the country’s wealth grows, it’s not just foreigners adding to the stockpile (1) of e-waste.
Did you ever wonder what happens to your old computer or TV when you throw it away? Chances are some of your electronic
junk ends up here in China—the world’s biggest dumping ground for electronic waste. Electronic waste or e-waste arrives by
the truckload to a south-eastern Chinese town called Guiyu, where locals are experts at ripping apart (2) electronic trash.
There are e-waste disposal businesses here on nearly every street. And in mom-and-pop operations like this, workers rip
apart the appliances and pull out the most valuable elements and components for resale to future manufacturers.
They work fast, identifying and sorting plastic with the help of a flame. The women here tell us all the trash is foreign, even
though Chinese law bans the import of electronic waste. The most valuable electronic guts (3), like circuit boards, are
separated and the rest treated like some giant plastic harvest. Workers take piles of plastic chips and mix them into what
looks like a synthetic stew (4). The men here say this plastic will be resold to the company Foxconn which makes parts for
Apple’s iPhone. Guiyu may be one of the world’s largest informal recycling operations for e-waste. But it is dirty, dangerous
work.
When recycling is done in primitive ways, like what we have seen here in China with the electronic waste, it is hugely
devastating for the local environment. Greenpeace says the water and the air in Guiyu is terribly polluted. I am walking on
flat screens. These come from laptops or computer monitors or video TV screen and they can contain a highly toxic chemical,
mercury. And you can see how those chemicals could then seep into (5) the environment and even into the food supply (6)
of nearby livestock (7).
Locals insist that it is cleaner here than it used to be.
When my family moved here six years ago, this place was flooded with trash. But now it’s much better. The authorities crack
down (8) pretty hard and banned people from burning plastic. But talk to someone who doesn’t rely on e-waste to make a
living and you get a very different story.
--Do you guys drink the water here?
These migrant farmers say they don’t dare drink the water. One of them has a shocking admission.
It may not sound nice, but we refuse to eat this rice that we plant because of all the pollution. We don’t know
who ends up eating this rice.
Workers here complain their business has been hurt by a crackdown (9) on e-garbage smuggled (10) in from the US, Europe
and other Asian countries. But as Chinese consumers become more wealthy, the country is increasingly generating its own
electronic waste. That puts new pressure on China as well as the rest of the world to figure out a cleaner, safer way to dispose
of all this electronic junk.

Found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-_ubuFhqQA35

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