BioBus – The UK’s first food and poo-powered bus

The BioBus is the first UK bus powered on gas generated from recycling food waste and treating sewage.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions.



1 How much food is wasted in British households every year?
2 How many homes benefit from the biomethane generated in the Bristol plant?
3 What breaks down food waste to produce biogas?
4 What can biomethane generate?
5 Where is the fuel stored on the Bio-Bus?
6 How much food and sewage waste is necessary for a return journey Bath to Bristol?

Ooh! Hello. Not everything we flush goes to waste. For quite a while now, energy's been produced from sewage, but there is another source of renewable energy that's right under our noses.
Every year, around 7 million tons of food waste is thrown away by households in the UK, and that contains a lot of potential energy. But what happens to our scraps once we throw them in the food waste bin?
The gas-to-grid plant at Bristol sewage works is the first and largest of its kind in the UK. It uses both food waste and sewage to produce enough biomethane to supply 8,300 homes every day. And biomethane is produced by anaerobic digestion. It's a completely natural process. It's very similar to our own digestive system.
Microorganisms break down food waste, and as they do that, they produce biogas. And biogas can be collected and purified, and it turns into biomethane. And biomethane can be used to generate electricity, to generate heat, and it can even be used to fuel vehicles.
This is the GENeco Bio-Bus, and it's powered entirely by biofuel from food and sewage waste stored up on the roof in dome-like tanks. On a full tank of fuel, this bus can travel about 200 miles.
The Bio-Bus is currently doing the Bath to Bristol Airport route. Now, one passenger's annual food and sewage waste should provide just enough energy for my return trip.
The use of the Bio-Bus and other gas-powered vehicles can significantly improve urban air quality.
The Bio-Bus offers the most sustainable, environmentally friendly way of traveling. I really hope it takes off.

Key:
1 7 million tons
2 8,300 every day
3 microorgamisms
4 electricity, heat, and fuel for vehicles
5 in a tank on the roof
6 the waste generated by a person in a year

Sugar Daddy, Sugar Baby: Trading intimacy for education

Meet British women who are funding themselves through university by dating rich older men via websites.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1 What did Samantha use to work as?
2 What has her new life-style bought for her?
3 Who do the Sugar website advertisements target?
4 What does '$3,000' refer to?
5 What do the Americans call this trend?
6 How much did Fred pay for her education?


Meet Samantha. She’s 28 and used to work as a glamour model, but 10 years ago she discovered the Sugar world, where wealthy men shell out thousands of pounds to turn a pretty girl into a princess.
Over the years I’ve got everything I basically wanted it to make my life how it is now. I’ve got my home, I had my car bought for me, I have watches, you know, expensive shoes, Louis Buttons.
Samantha says she’s only slept with one of her sugar daddies, the gifts are all given in the spirit of altruism.
Sounds too good to be true? Take a look at some of the Sugar website advertisements which often target students and you get a hint of what’s expected back.
Enrol the Sugar Baby University today and get your education paid for by a generous sponsor.
I like dating beautiful women…
Sugar daddy Mike works a lot and says he doesn’t have time to join the quest for love, so he’s opted for a short cut, and no strings attached Sugar arrangements, and he pays his current sugar baby $3,000 a month.
I look for companionship, loyalty, a friendship and, yes, intimacy as part of that.
Sex.
Yeah, if it’s with the right person.
The trend began, of course, in the US. The Americans call it Mutually Beneficial Dating. The head of PR of one US site claims to have 4,000,000 members worldwide.
So the top five countries that participate in arrangements are, in order, the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia and France. This is where we have the most not only Sugar daddies but also Sugar babies participating in this lifestyle.
It is really high-class prostitution, isn’t it? It is a conduit for sex.
For seeking arrangements, no matter what country you access us in we don’t allow that kind of behaviour on the website.
I got into it through a friend in second year.
Twenty-two year old Fred, who’s asked us to keep her identity secret, graduated from a top university last year dead free, exhausted by poorly paid bar work, she signed up as a Sugar baby. It was, she says, the financial no-brainer.
If a girl is sexually active, sexually inquisitive, sexually open, and you have your head screwed on your shoulders, it’s an absolute gold mine.
Love it or hate it, in our time-starved luxury-hungry society, sugar-dating is on the rise, and every week more students looking for a quick fix for their soaring debts are signing up.
Emma Jane Curby, BBC News.

Key:
1 a glamour model
2 a home, a car, watches, expensive shoes
3 students
4 the money Mike pays his current sugar baby a month
5 Mutually Beneficial Dating
6 nothing

Talking point: Medical science and other health issues

This week's talking point is medical science and controversial health issues. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

Health issues

• Do you think it should be obligatory for parents to vaccinate their children?
• Is it ever right to switch off the life support of a patient in a vegetative state? Why? Why not?
• Should hospitals be allowed to presume consent for organ donation unless objection has been registered?
• Should smoking be made illegal everywhere, including inside people’s homes, in cars and outside?
• Should smokers pay the full cost of their medical treatment?
• What are the arguments for and against free healthcare for everyone?
• Will imposing a sugar tax help curb obesity?
• Should marijuana be a medical option?
• Do you think alternative medicine (acupuncture, acupressure, chiropractic, homeopathy, hypnosis, hypnotheraphy, herbalism, osteopathy, reflexology) is fraud?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of genetic engineering (designer babies, cloning human beings)?

Medical advances
Rank these medical advances from the most important (1) to the least important (9). Give reasons.

• Completion of the sequencing of the human genome project
• Stem cell research which may lead to cure diseases and repair damaged tissues
• Targeted cancer therapies to interfere with the spread of cancer
• Laparoscopic surgery (minimally invasive surgery)
• HPV vaccine to protect against cervical cancer and genital warts
• HIV cocktails
• Face transplants
• Bionic limbs
• Nanomedicine

Dinner for Six in a Bite-Size Space

What does a night in one of New York's new micro apartments look like?

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1 How big is the apartment?
2 How much does the rent cost?
3 How wide is it?
4 How long is it?
5 What does ‘six’ refer to?
6 What does the desk transform into?
7 How do New Yorkers usually get their food when they entertain friends at home?
8 What used to be the legal minimum size for an apartment in New York?

When The Tiny House Movement comes to New York City, you get this: the micro apartment, full living quarters in a modest 300 square feet. That's me, Penelope.  I'm a reporter for the "Times," and I'm about 5' 8" tall. This micro apartment is located in the Carmel Place development in Manhattan, where 32 market rate studios rent for about $2,400 to $3,200 a month. 
If you think you can make the leap, that is, downsize to 300 square feet, consider this. You'd be occupying a space that's about 1/100 the size of Grand Central Terminal's main concourse and about the size of this bathroom in the Elizabeth Taylor suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. At its widest, it measures about half the width of your typical New York commuting platform, and at its longest, about a third of the length of this Metro North car. It's just smaller than the inside of the Metropolitan Museum's Temple of Dendur, which, by the way, has three bedrooms.
But then again, we New Yorkers have evolved to appreciate small spaces.  We dine in them regularly.  I can walk from one end of this apartment to the other in 6 seconds.  But the space, designed by the architecture firm N Architects, is surprisingly functional, with lots of closets and nooks to hide any mess.
The kitchen is outfitted with a refrigerator, electric stove tops, a microwave, and even a dishwasher.  Most of the furniture is multi-purpose and made to conveniently stow away when not in use. Take this desk.  In a couple of minutes, it'll transform into a fully extended dining table.  While the bathroom has a shower stall instead of a bath tub, it manages to feel… well, at least by our studio apartment standards -almost castle-sized.
But there are a compromises like the Murphy bed. If not raised into the wall, you'd find it taking up most of your living space all together. Putting it out of the way every day would get you your daily upper body workout. So it's a space purpose-built for one.
But what if you're the type who likes to entertain? Well, first of all, if you're like many New Yorkers, you'd probably skip cooking and order in. Having six at the dinner table is pushing it, but not if you're close friends.  It'll be cozy, and seating arrangements are tricky, and so is stepping over each other to use the facilities. You've probably seen wide angle shots like this used in apartment advertisements to make things look roomier than they are in real life.
So to put this shot into perspective, that's our video producer in the foreground, and she's standing just about here, close to the farthest end of the apartment opposite where we're hanging out.  New York City waived regulations requiring that apartments be at least 400 square feet so that the Carmel Place development could be built. 
Still, it's yet to be seen whether or not this style of living will catch on.  The apartments are about half the size of an average studio in Manhattan and cost considerably more in rent per square foot.  But it's a new, modern, and legal nook all of your own, without roommates, and perhaps with all the space one person might need as a haven from the city.
This is Penelope Green for the New York Times.

Key:
1 300 square feet
2 between $2,400 and $3,200
3 half the width of a platform
4 a third of a (train) car
5 the time the reporter takes to walk the apartment from one end to the other.
6 a dining table
7 they order it
8 400 square feet

Listening test: Life without wireless

Listen to a man talking about how it is possible to live without technology in US today and complete the blanks in the sentences below with up to THREE words. 0 is an example.

source: Deep English

0 Example:
In today’s technology-saturated world, it’s hard to imagine living life without a wireless connection.

1 The Quiet Zone in Green Bank is a ____________________ mile area that protects two telescopes from any signal interference.

2 Restrictions mean that not even ____________________ in this area.

3 People who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity experience headaches, nausea, ____________________ problems.

4 Diane Schou started experiencing the first symptoms of the disease when a new ____________________ was installed near her home.

5 She started looking for a place in US where she could escape ____________________ .

6 Diane didn’t find it easy to adjust to Green Bank and suffered ____________________ at the beginning.

7 It is difficult to imagine how long we could survive ____________________  of modern technology.

Invisible rays are all around us, and most of us never even notice. In today’s technology-saturated world, it’s hard to imagine living life without a wireless connection. But in one American town, wireless is actually illegal. Green Bank, West Virginia is a small town located in the United States’ National Radio Quiet Zone. The Quiet Zone is a 13,000 square mile area that protects two telescopes from any radio or wireless signal interference. That means no Wi-Fi, no cell phones, no Bluetooth, no microwave ovens, no TV, and even no radio is allowed in this area.
While many of us would shudder at the thought of pulling the plug on our cell phones, laptops, and televisions, the wireless ban has attracted people who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Many of these people have decided to live in the town to get relief from their condition, which causes severe headaches, nausea, pain and heart problems.
Diane Schou is one of these people with electromagnetic hypersensitivity. In 2003, after a new cell-phone tower was installed near her home in Iowa, Diane began to experience an onslaught of negative symptoms. First came heart palpitations, then fatigue, nausea and migraines. After learning about electromagnetic hypersensitivity, Schou set off on a journey across the United States, looking for a place where she could escape wireless signals. When a park ranger told her about Green Bank, Schou went out on a limb and moved to the town, and she hasn’t looked back. In Green Bank, she says, she can finally live a life free of pain.
Living in Green Bank is no easy feat, Schou says. Coming to the town is a culture shock, and adjusting to a world with little technology beyond electric lights and heating is hard for many. But for people suffering from electromagnetic sensitivity, it is one of the only places where they can find relief. Today, the town has become a gathering place for a few dozen electrosensitives from around the United States.
While most of us couldn’t imagine life in Green Bank, for the electrosensitives who live there, it’s hard to imagine life outside of it. How long could you survive without all of the conveniences of modern technology.

Key:
1 13,000 square
2 radios are allowed
3 pain and heart
4 cell-phone tower
5 wireless signals
6 (a) culture shock
7 without the conveniences

Extensive listening: The surprising science of happiness

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don't go as planned.

Dan Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist who says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong — a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness.

You can read a full transcript for the talk here.

Reading test: Ways to be a fabulous grandparent

In this week's reading test we are going to practise the heading-matching kind of task. To do so, we are going to read part of The Guardian article 10 ways to be a fabulous grandparent.

Read the text and match each of the paragraphs 1-6 with its corresponding heading. There are three headings you do not need to use. 0 is an example.

A - Accept that you have no control
B - Avoid jealousy
C - Be clear about cash
D - Break the rules a bit
E - Brush up on your skills
F - Don’t admit your fears 0 Example
G - Don’t Project
H - Don’t spend a fortune
I - Manage long distance
J - Only offer what you can give

0
Your beloved adult child is about to embark on a lifelong commitment about which they understand nothing. So it’s not surprising you’re as alarmed for them as you would be if they were sailing the Northwest Passage in flip-flops. Whichever phrase of warning or concern springs to your lips, however, hold it in. Your child needs support, not panic. So if you can’t pretend you’re thrilled, find something supportive to say. It will be appreciated.

1
Perhaps you had a nightmarish birth, featuring forceps, hallucinations and seven junior doctors moving around like women of the bedchamber. Maybe your baby was a shocking sleeper, or refused to eat anything but peas for the first three years. None of this, however, means that your children will have the same experience of parenthood. So while empathy and practical support are useful, constantly referring back to your own parental traumas is not.

2
“I really don’t understand why she buys our grandson those terrible clothes …” If you’re not careful, your remarks about the other grandma could turn you into a obsolete Mrs de Winter in Rebecca, constantly obsessed with your counterpart, living with the building paranoia that she’s somehow better, more loved, and more of a gran than you’ll ever be.
Nobody wants to be juggling a new baby and your easily bruised feelings, so biting remarks about the tastes or childcare practices of the other gran are unacceptable. It’s not a competition – it’s a family, although there’s often a fine line.

3
The general assumption is that grandparents are selfless. But even if you’re retired, you’re used to owning your time and offering flexible childcare can fast become a very long piece of string indeed. So it’s vital to consider how much time you can provide – and make the arrangement as formal as possible. Nobody wants to be sitting round the table with a lawyer; equally, you don’t want your loving arrangement of two afternoons a week turning into three days, two evenings and a Saturday morning, unless you’re willing.

4
While you may have been able to change a nappy with one hand and puree a cauliflower with the other 30 years ago, it’s likely that you have forgotten more than you ever knew. Although some of it will return, there are some areas where times have changed. What babies can eat, for example. Where they sleep and how pushchairs work. So don’t go in unprepared – do some research before the baby arrives.

5
After sweets and bedtimes, perhaps the most difficult issue of grandmother-hood is money. Nobody wants to quote a babycare price to their nearest and dearest, but with almost half of families with children reliant on grandparents for at least part-time childcare, if you spend between three and six days a week doing the hard work, is it reasonable to do it all gratis or should you be demanding some recompense for your labour? There’s no rule, though many grandparents find the whole idea of charging distasteful. Plus if you take a wage, you need to be a registered childminder and then it becomes complicated. Some avert the issue by accepting expenses, others just view their costs as part of the grandparental lot. What you must do is clarify your position at the outset.

6
Spoiling, of course, is often just another word for spending. And as a new grandparent, watching your adult children struggle to afford the raft of baby equipment and clothes and toys required can start an avid credit-card finger. Not only will this diminish your resources, it may also make your children feel inadequate.
Few parents like to feel that they can’t manage so if you want to buy a gift, consult them first. Keep presents appropriate and affordable.

KEY: 
1G 2B 3J 4E 5C 6H