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Artificial Brain Ten Years AwayA top British professor has told a cutting-edge ideas conference he is close to building a replica human brain. Professor Henry Markham told the annual Technology, Entertainment, Design global conference that a working synthetic brain can be built in the next decade. He told his audience: "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years." He set himself a challenge by stating that if he succeeded, he would “send a hologram to T.E.D. to talk.” Professor Markram is director of the Blue Brain project, which aims to engineer mammals' brains from laboratory data. He has already had success with creating parts of a rat’s brain. Markham said the human brain was so complex, it was an “almost frightening organ”.
Professor Markham hoped his research would lead to new treatments for mental illnesses. He said: "There are two billion people on the planet affected by mental disorder." Markham believes synthetic brain technology will reduce the need for experiments on animals. "We cannot keep on doing animal experiments forever," he said. This will please many animal rights activists, who say such research is cruel. He hopes to create a kind of “Noah’s Ark” of animal brain models. Professor Markham provided a simple explanation of his work: "It's a bit like going and cataloguing a bit of the rainforest….But it is a bit more than cataloguing because you have to describe and discover all the rules of communication, the rules of connectivity."
WARM-UPS1. THE BRAIN: Walk around the class and talk to other students about the brain. Change partners often. Sit with your first partner(s) and share your findings. 2. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words from the article are most interesting and which are most boring.
Have a chat about the topics you liked. Change topics and partners frequently. 3. ARTIFICIAL: Are these artificial things useful? Complete this table with your partner(s). Change partners and share your ideas. Change again and share what you heard.
4. REPLICA: Students A strongly believe creating an artificial brain is a good thing; Students B strongly believe the opposite. Change partners again and talk about your conversations. 5. ORGANS: What do our body organs do? Think of as many ideas as you can for each organ. Write the number of ideas next to each word. Change partners and compare your ideas. Are there any extra functions these organs need to do?
6. BRAIN: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word ‘brain’. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories. BEFORE READING / LISTENING1. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F):
2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:
3. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one. combination is possible):
WHILE READING / LISTENINGGAP FILL: Put the words into the gaps in the text.
LISTENING: Listen and fill in the gaps.A top British professor ________________-edge ideas conference he is ________________ a replica human brain. Professor Henry Markham told the annual Technology, Entertainment, Design global conference that a working synthetic brain ________________ next decade. He told his audience: "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years." He set himself a challenge __________________ he succeeded, he would “send a hologram to T.E.D. to talk.” Professor Markham is director of the Blue Brain project, which ________________ mammals brains from laboratory data. He has already had success with creating parts of a rat’s brain. Markham said the human brain ________________ was an “almost frightening organ”. Professor Markham hoped his research __________________ treatments for mental illnesses. He said: "There are two billion people on the planet ________________ disorder." Markham believes synthetic brain technology will reduce the need for experiments on animals. "We cannot ________________ animal experiments forever," he said. This will please many animal rights activists, who ________________ is cruel. He hopes to create a kind of “Noah’s Ark” of animal brain models. Professor Markham provided a simple explanation of his work: "________________ going and cataloguing a bit of the rainforest….But it is a bit more than cataloguing because you have to describe and discover ________________ communication, the rules of connectivity." AFTER READING / LISTENING1. WORD SEARCH: Look in your dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … for the words ‘artificial’ and ‘brain’.
2. ARTICLE QUESTIONS: Look back at the article and write down some questions you would like to ask the class about the text.
3. GAP FILL: In pairs / groups, compare your answers to this exercise. Check your answers. Talk about the words from the activity. Were they new, interesting, worth learning…? 4. VOCABULARY: Circle any words you do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find their meanings. 5. TEST EACH OTHER: Look at the words below. With your partner, try to recall how they were used in the text:
STUDENT BRAIN SURVEYWrite five GOOD questions about the brain in the table. Do this in pairs. Each student must write the questions on his / her own paper. When you have finished, interview other students. Write down their answers.
BRAIN DISCUSSIONSTUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)
LANGUAGEA top British professor has told a (1) ____-edge ideas conference he is close to building a replica human brain. Professor Henry Markham told the (2) ____ Technology, Entertainment, Design global conference that a working synthetic brain can be built (3) ____ the next decade. He told his audience: "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years." He (4) ____ himself a challenge by stating that if he succeeded, he would “send a hologram to T.E.D. to talk.” Professor Markham is director of the Blue Brain project, which aims (5) ____ engineer mammals’ brains from laboratory data. He has already had success with creating parts of a rat’s brain. Markham said the human brain was so complex, it was an “almost (6) ____ organ”. Professor Markham hoped his research would (7) ____ to new treatments for mental illnesses. He said: "There are two billion people on the planet affected by mental disorder." Markham believes synthetic brain technology will reduce the (8) ____ for experiments on animals. "We cannot keep on doing animal experiments forever," he said. This will (9) ____ many animal rights activists, who say such research is cruel. He hopes to create a kind of “Noah’s Ark” of animal brain models. Professor Markham provided a simple (10) ____ of his work: "It's a bit (11) ____ going and cataloguing a bit of the rainforest….But it is a bit more than cataloguing because you have to describe and (12) ____ all the rules of communication, the rules of connectivity." Put the correct words from the table below in the above article.
WRITING:Write about the brain for 10 minutes. Correct your partner’s paper. _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ HOMEWORK1. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or Google’s search field (or another search engine) to build up more associations / collocations of each word. 2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find out more about the brain. Share what you discover with your partner(s) in the next lesson. 3. ARTIFICIAL BRAINS: Make a poster about the pros and cons of artificial brains. Show your work to your classmates in the next lesson. Did you all have similar things? 4. MONSTERS? Write a magazine article about artificial brains. Include imaginary interviews with a person who has one and a person who fears artificial brains will change us forever. Read what you wrote to your classmates in the next lesson. Write down any new words and expressions you hear from your partner(s). 5. LETTER: Write a letter to Professor Henry Markham. Ask him three questions about his research. Give them him three ideas on what he should do next to make our brains better. Read your letter to your partner(s) in your next lesson. Your partner(s) will answer your questions. ANSWERSTRUE / FALSE:
SYNONYM MATCH:
PHRASE MATCH:
GAP FILL: Artificial brain ten years awayA top British professor has told a cutting-edge ideas conference he is close to building a replica human brain. Professor Henry Markham told the annual Technology, Entertainment, Design global conference that a working synthetic brain can be built in the next decade. He told his audience: "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years." He set himself a challenge by stating that if he succeeded, he would “send a hologram to T.E.D. to talk.” Professor Markham is director of the Blue Brain project, which aims to engineer mammals’ brains from laboratory data. He has already had success with creating parts of a rat’s brain. Markham said the human brain was so complex, it was an “almost frightening organ”. Professor Markham hoped his research would lead to new treatments for mental illnesses. He said: "There are two billion people on the planet affected by mental disorder." Markham believes synthetic brain technology will reduce the need for experiments on animals. "We cannot keep on doing animal experiments forever," he said. This will please many animal rights activists, who say such research is cruel. He hopes to create a kind of “Noah’s Ark” of animal brain models. Professor Markham provided a simple explanation of his work: "It's a bit like going and cataloguing a bit of the rainforest….But it is a bit more than cataloguing because you have to describe and discover all the rules of communication, the rules of connectivity." LANGUAGE WORK
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