A remarkable colony of inventors has emerged on an isolated Pacific island. They can fashion tools out of materials scavenged from the rainforest. They can even customise a tool for a given job. Meet the crows of New Caledonia. Thinkers as diverse as Freud, Engels and Thomas Carlyle once pointed to the use of tools …
Crows Can be Craftsmen too – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
Newspaper headlines and TV or radio news bulletins would have us believe erroneously that a new age has come upon us, the Age of Cassandra. People are being assailed not just with contemporary doom, or past gloom, but with prophecies of disasters about to befall. The dawn of the new millennium has now passed; the …
The politics of pessimism – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
A What counts as knowledge? What do we mean when we say that we know some-thing? What is the status of different kinds of knowledge? In order to explore those questions we are going to focus on one particular area of knowledge medicine. B How do you know when you are ill? This may seem to be …
Source Of Knowledge – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
A A little over a century ago, men of the ilk of Scott, Shackleton and Mawson battled against Antarctica’s blizzards, cold and deprivation. In the name of Empire and in an age of heroic deeds they created an image of Antarctica that was to last well into the 20th century—an image of remoteness, hardship, bleakness and …
Antarctica – In From The Cold? – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
Thomas Young (1773-1829) contributed 63 articles to the Encyclopedia Britannica, including 46 biographical entries (mostly on scientists and classicists) and substantial essays on “Bridge,” “Chromatics,” “Egypt,” “Languages” and “Tides”. Was someone who could write authoritatively about so many subjects a polymath, a genius or a dilettante? In an ambitious new biography, Andrew Robinson argues that …
Thomas Young The Last True Know-It-All – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
A Photography gained the interest of many scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge’s study of human and animal locomotion in 1887. Artists are equally interested by these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as …
High speed photography – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
Expertise is commitment coupled with creativity. Specifically, it is the commitment of time, energy, and resources to a relatively narrow field of study and the creative energy necessary to generate new knowledge in that field. It takes a considerable amount of time and regular exposure to a large number of cases to become an expert. …
From A Novice to An Expert – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
Morse code is being replaced by a new satellite-based system for sending dis-tress calls at sea. Its dots and dashes have had a good run for their money. A “Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.” Surprisingly this message, which flashed over the airwaves in the dots and dashes of Morse code …
Music and the brain are both endlessly fascinating subjects, and as a neuroscientist specialising in auditory learning and memory, I find them especially intriguing. So I had high expectations of Musicophilia, the latest offering from neurologist and prolific author Oliver Sacks. And I confess to feeling a little guilty reporting that my reactions to the …
Musical Maladies – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
A Dr William Masters was reading a book about mosquitoes when inspiration struck. “There was this anecdote about the great yellow fever epidemic that hit Philadelphia in 1793,” Masters recalls. “This epidemic decimated the city until the first frost came.” The inclement weather froze out the insects, allowing Philadelphia to recover. B If weather could be the …
Wealth in A Cold Climate – IELTS Academic Reading Passage Read More »
