2009年医学博士外语真题试卷

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Too much alcohol dulls your senses, but a study in Japan shows that moderate drinkers have a higher IQ than teetotalers.

Researchers at the National Institute for Longevity Sciences in Aichi Prefecture, 250 kilometers west of Tokyo, tested the IQs of 2000 people between the ages of 40 and 79. They found that, on average, men who drank moderately—defined as less than 540 milliliters of sake or wine a day— had an IQ that was 3. 3 points higher that men who did not drink at all. Women drinkers scored 2. 5 points higher than female teetotalers.

The type of alcohol didn’ t influence the results. The volunteers tried a variety of tipples, which ranged from beer and whisky to wine and sake.

The researchers are quick to point out that the results do not necessarily show that drinking will make you more intelligent.

” It’ s very difficult to show a cause-effect relationship,” says senior researcher Hiroshi Shi-mokata. “We screened subjects for factors such as income and education, but there may be other factors such as lifestyle and nutritional intake. “

Shimokata says that people who drink sake, or Japanese rice wine, tend to eat more raw fish. This could be a factor in enhanced intelligence, as fish often contain essential fatty acids that have been linked to brain development. Similarly, wine drinkers eat a lot of cheese, which is not something Japanese people normally consume or buy. Shimokata says the high fat content of cheese is thought to be good for the brain.

If alcoholic drinks are directly influencing IQ, Shimokata believes chemicals such as polyphenols could be the critical factor. They are known to have antioxidant properties and other beneficial effects on ageing bodies, such as dilating constricted coronary arteries.

The study is part of a wider research project to find out why brain function deteriorates with age.

Women do not avoid fighting because they are dainty or scared, but because they have a greater stake than men in staying alive to rear their offspring. Women compete with each other just as tenaciously as men, but with a stealth and subtlety that reduces their chances of being killed or injured, says Anne Campbell of the department of psychology at the University of Durham.

Across almost all cultures and nationalities, men have a much smaller role than women in rearing children. “Males go for quantity of children rather than quality of care for offspring, which means that the parental investment of women is much greater,” says Campbell. And unlike men, who can’ t be sure that their children have not been fathered on the sly by other men, women can always be certain that half an offspring’ s genes are theirs.

Women have therefore evolved a strong impulse than men to see their children grow up into adults. Men’ s psychological approach is geared to fathering as many children as possible.

To make this strategy work and to attract partners, men need to establish and advertise their dominance over rival males. Throughout evolution this has translated into displays of male aggression, ranging in scale from playground fights to world wars.

Men can afford to take more risks because as parents they are more expendable. Women, meanwhile, can only ensure reproductive success by overseeing the development of their children, which means avoiding death.

” The scale of parental investment drives everything,” says Campbell. “ It’ s not that women are too scared to fight,” she says. “It’ s more to do with the positive value of staying alive, and women have an awfully big stake not just in offspring themselves but in offspring they might have in the future,” she says.

This means that if women do need to compete—perhaps for a partner—they choose low-risk rules of engagement. They use indirect tactics, such as discrediting rivals by spreading malicious rumors. And unlike men who glory in feats of dominance, women do better by concealing their actions and their “victories”.

But there is no doubt, says Campbell, that the universal domination of culture by males has exaggerated these differences in attitudes to physical aggression. “The story we’ ve always been told is that females are not aggressive,” says Campbell. And when they are aggressive; women are told that their behavior is “odd or abnormal”.

The first line reads; “She sits on the bed with a helpless expression. What is your name? Au-guste. Last name? Auguste. What is your husband’ s name? Auguste, I think. ” The 32 pages of medical records that follow are the oldest medical description of Alzheimer’ s disease. Psychiatrist Konrad Maurer and his colleagues at Johann Wolfgan Goethe University in Frankfurt found the file in their hospital’ s archive, where it had been missing for nearly 90 years, and published exerpts from it last May in The Lancet. The notes, in a cramped, archaic German script, were written by Alois Alzheimer—the physician who first described the disease.

His patient, Auguste D. , was a 51-year-old woman who had suffered fits of paranoid jealousy and memory lapses so disturbing that her family finally brought her to a local hospital known as the Castle of the Insane. Over the next four years Aizheimer tracked her condition. Upon her death he examined her brain tissue and found the distinctive lesion that are now hallmark of the disease.

Today Alzheimer’ s afflicts some 4 million Americans. Although it still cannot be cured, or e-ven treated very well, several recent studies hint that some treatments—from estrogen to vitamin E to anti-inflammatory drugs—can reduce either the risk of developing the disorder or its symptoms. And more is being learned about its distinctive pathology. This past year, for instance, researchers discovered a new kind of lesion in Alzheimer’ s patients. A genetic study also pinpointed a mutation that is present in some 60 percent of them—a mutation in the DNA of mitochondria, the energy— producing organelles of the cells.

But nearly a century ago, it was Alois Alzheimer who first described the disease an in so doing became one of the first physicians to offer a biological basis fro a psychiatric condition. Finding the file, Maurer says, “is like holding history in your hands. “

Dry-cleaning machines that use liquid carbon dioxide as a solvent will go on sale in the US next year—thanks to chemists in North Carolina who have developed CO₂-soluble detergents.

Dry-cleaners will lose their characteristic smell, and the new process will cut the amount of toxic waste produced in cleaning clothes.

Joseph DeSimone, a chemist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says liquid CO₂is an ideal solvent because after cleaning, the CO₂can be evaporated off, collected, liquefied and reused.

The problem in developing the process, says DeSimone, has been that CO₂by itself is not a good solvent. However, he points out that not much dissolves in water without the help of detergents, yet water is the most common solvent. What CO₂needed, he thought, was the right detergent.

Detergent molecules such as those in washing-up liquid have two chemically distinct ends; one has a liking for water, the other sticks to dirt. Normal detergents do not dissolve in liquid CO₂, so DeSimone created three CO₂-soluble detergents. One end of the detergents has a fluorocarbon group, which makes them soluble in CO₂. The other end is soluble in water, oil or silicone, depending on the type of dirt being removed. The person doing the dry-cleaning has to decide which of the detergents is best for the job.

DeSimone’s company, MiCell, will start selling liquid CO₂dry-Cleaning machines next year. They operate at room temperature at a pressure “about ten times the pressure of a bicycle tyro” , according to a spokesman for MiCell.

Most dry-cleaners currently use chlorinated hydrocarbons such as perchloroethylene. But the US Environmental Protection Agency(EPA)is clamping down on the toxic waste emission this produces. After cleaning with the new machines, the liquid CO₂is evaporated and collected for reuse, leaving a residue of detergent and dirt.

Brad Lienhart, president of MiCell, says that cutting waste and pollution is the company’ s strongest selling point. “ Dry-cleaner owners are saying ’ get this burden off my back’ ,” he says. He hopes to sell a hundred machines, in the first year of business. About 15000 conventional drycleaning machines are sold around the world every year. Buster Bell, who owns Bell Laundry and Dry Cleaning in South Carolina, says the MiCell-technology looks competitive, and he likes the reduced environmental impact. “You really don’t know what is coming from the EPA,” he says.

The alarm on our household computer terminal rings and wakes me up. My husband simply stirs and goes back to sleep. I transfer today’ s information onto the personal data card I carry with me everywhere and scan today’ s readings. Values are given as to the number of liters of water I can use, the amount of coal-generated electricity I have allocated and how many “envirocredits” I have earned.

I am free to use the water and electricity as I chose, however I notice that the ration of electricity is decreasing everyday. Of course, this will not be a problem when we have earned enough envirocredits to buy another solar panel. Envirocredits are earned by buying goods with limited or no packaging, minimizing the amount of garbage thrown out, by financially supporting “ environtechn-ology”. Before cars were phased out due to unpopularity, credits could be gained by using public transport.

I notice an extra passage added to the readings. At last I have been given permission to have a child. Almost instantaneously a package arrives with a label on it; “Anti-sterilization Unit”. Inside there are instructions and a small device that looks like a cross between a pistol and a syringe. Eagerly I follow the instructions. The procedure is painless and I don’ t know if I am imagining it but I seem to feel the effects at once.

Shaken my husband awake, I tell him the good news. I want to get started baby-making right now. “ You’ ve been on the waiting list for 37 years,” he says. “ Can’ t you wait until I’ ve woken up properly?”

I decide that I probably don’ t have much choice and wander downstairs. I am feeling very privileged to have the opportunity to create a new life. It is saddening, however, when I realize that, because of strict population controls, this new life will be replacing an old one.

I decide to ring my mother and tell her the good news. When she answers the phone she is crying. She has received word that my grandmother has failed her latest health check and will be euthanized next week.

For some reason, I don’t feel like creating that new life anymore.

Just because you’ re better educated doesn’ t mean that you’ re any more rational than everyone else, no matter how hard you may try to give that impression.

Take the selection of lottery numbers. A survey in Florida described at this year’ s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science shows that better educated people try to use random number systems to pick their lottery numbers.

Despite the apparent logic of choosing random numbers, however, their chances of winning are no better than those of ordinary folk who use birthdays, anniversaries and other “lucky” dates. Nor are they better off than those who draw on omens and intuitions, picking numbers seen on car number-plates and in dreams. But no doubt they feel a lot more rational.

That appearance of “rationality” may be a dangerous thing. Scientists are not immune to subtle and subjective influences on their judgements. Take the data from a survey of the public and member of the British Society of Toxicology discussed at the same meeting.

The survey showed that most people agree with the view that animals can be used to help predict how human will react to chemicals, and that if a chemical causes cancer in an animal, we can be “reasonably sure” it will cause cancer in humans. The toxicologists, however, are more circumspect. They accept the fast statement but less likely to agree that if a chemical causes cancer in an animal, it will do so in a human.

Can this difference be attributed to their expertise? Perhaps. But consider the considerable variation among toxicologists: those who were young, female, working in academia rather than industry or who felt that technology is not always used for the good of all, were more likely to agree that what causes cancer in an animal will cause cancer in a human.

Maybe we need to think more about how who we are affects our “rational” decisions.