Have you ever thought about what our food will be in the future?
More land will be used for building new towns and houses for all the people. Then there will be less room for cows and sheep, so meat will be more expensive. Instead, people will eat more fruit and vegetables. In this way, people may be healthier.
Only about 29%of the Earth's area is land and the rest is sea, so some think maybe we can get more food from the sea.
Besides, though rice supports more than half the world's population, it needs a lot of water to grow. Therefore, it might be impossible to grow rice in the future. Some farmers are experimenting with new crops. The soybean (黄豆) makes a good substitute (替代品) for rice and meat.
A. Maybe no one will eat it every day. B. Scientists predict (预测) the climate will get drier during the next century. C. Scientists are always trying out new ways of growing food. D. Farmers like to grow beans because they don't need much water, and beans also improve the quality of the soil. E. As the population is growing fast, there must be changes in our food. |
In the mid 1990s, people started doing business on the Internet. At that time, there were two kinds of companies. First, there were traditional companies which sold things in shops. Then, there were Internet companies which didn't have shops; they sold things only over the net.
Traditional companies didn't want to lose any business. Quickly, they created their own website and began selling things over the net. These are the so-called "brick and click" companies. Many shops are made of brick, and you click on your mouse to buy things with your computer. That's where the name "brick and click" comes from.
By the late 1990s, e-businesses like Amazon.com and Buy.com were in trouble. Their profits were not very high, and there was a lot of competition. Many of these businesses lost a lot of money, and in 2000, many e-businesses went out of business.
Why are "brick and click" companies, like Barnes & Noble, Toys "R" Us, and Walmart so successful? First, many customers know and trust their names. Their websites, like walmart.com, are easy to remember. These companies also have a lot of experience. They know how to run a successful business.
In the world of e-commerce, companies are fighting for every dollar and every customer. Will "brick and click" companies win the war? Only time will tell.
Mason has seen the future—and it's fun. Mason likes thinking about how machines can make our life easier by doing the work we hate, such as cleaning. He shows a floor cleaning machine that's built into the wall. It can clean up the floor.
When it comes to the kitchen, Bruce, an expert at Whirlpool, is sure that in a few years, robots will be doing most of the boring work, freeing us to relax. "More than just fun, future kitchens will be environmentally friendly," he says. A new system will be built in the house which can recycle energy lost from your kitchen to make the whole home warm.
"The fridge will be the centre of the home," says Daniel, a market expert. The fridge will have a touch screen (触摸屏幕) where you can watch TV, surf the Internet, check your emails, keep a shopping list and order vegetables. "Your fridge is the first place you go to in the morning and the last place at night," says Daniel.
"I wonder why a 1.9-metre man and 1.6-metre woman have to cook meals on counters (柜台) of the same height," Jane Langmuir, an expert of cooking machines, says. "But times have changed. We have made a new counter where you can press a button and it moves to whatever height you want."
Ted Selker has made the dish maker which lets you make dishes and bowls out of plastics at home. After each meal, the dishes are changed straight back into plastics.