Questões de Concursos Sinônimos Synonyms

Doctors Know Best

By Ted Spiker

Along with all the disease stomping, heart reviving, baby delivering, and overall people healing they do, doctors have another full-time job: keeping themselves healthy. Scratch that - keeping themselves healthiest. So instead of peeking into their medical practices, we looked at what they actually practice - in their own lives. Use personal strategies and insider tips from the best medical pros to supercharge your health this year.

( I)-______ "As soon as I feel an illness coming on, I go to sleep for at least nine hours," says Hilda Hutcherson, MD, clinical professor of ob-gyn at Columbia University Medicai Center. "I also lie on the floor with my legs elevated and propped against the wall and breathe deeply for five minutes." It helps lower stress, which weakens the immune system.

(II )-______ Instead of having a garden-variety green salad, Margaret McKenzie, MD, assistant professor of surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, tosses napa cabbage, radicchio, edamame, and carrots with ginger-soy dressing. "It gives me a lot of vitamins, antioxidants, and protein and makes me feel full," she says.

(III)-______ [...] Gary Small, MD, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of The Alzheimer's Prevention Program, plays Scrabble and Words With Friends on his smartphone most days. These word games are perfect brain boosters, because they build not only verbal and math skills but also spatial abilities as you position letters to create words. "Combining several mental tasks strengthens multiple neural circuits," Dr. Small says. "It's like cross-training for your brain."

(IV) - _____ Make your bedroom spalike: Dim the lights at least an hour before you go to bed; ban cell phones, laptops, and the TV; ask your partner for a foot rub. "I do deep breathing exercises," Dr. Hutcherson says. "Sometimes I play relaxing music softly."

(V) - _____ The most important meal is breakfast, says David Katz, MD, director and founder of Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center in Derby, Connecticut. He often has two breakfasts, divvying up his morning meal so that he eats half before his workout and half after. "It helps with portion control, and it establishes a daily eating pattern," Dr. Katz says. Plan your breakfast at night to start the next day on a healthy note.

(Abridged from https ://www.fitnessmagazine.com/health/doctors-tips-tostay-healthy/)

Read Text II and answer question

University Degree Sill Best Way into Good Job

How do you get a good job? It might literally be a milliondollar question. And researchers from Georgetown University in the US have an answer: the best way is still to get a college education, even if you're a little late. That's their simple answer – one they came up with after looking at US government data for more than 8,000 Americans who were born in the early 1980s. They found that getting a bachelor's degree by the age of 26 gave people a 56% chance of getting a good job by the age of 30. For their study, the researchers defined a "good job" as one paying at least $ 38,000 for workers under the age of 45.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the research didn't focus on people who went straight to college after finishing high school because they already have a high chance of getting a good job. Instead, it looked at different pathways that people who didn't go straight to college after high school could take to increase their chances of getting a good job. For example, even just beginning a bachelor's degree by age 22 increased the likelihood of getting a good job by 16 percentage points, according to the report. But despite this evidence, according to a separate Wall Street Journal survey, more than half of people don't feel that doing a four-year degree is worth the cost, because students may finish without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt.

According to US News, in the academic year that ended in the summer of 2023, the average cost of going to an American university for a year started at about $ 10,000 for a public university, and went as high as almost $ 40,000 for a private school. And Zach Mabel, one of the authors of the Georgetown report, admits that although a university education is likely to be beneficial, for financial reasons "the risk of pursuing higher education is higher than it's ever been."

Source: https://engoo.com.br/app/daily-news/article/study-university-degree-stillbest-way-into-good-job/crbIxBR3Ee6ComdOtgdXYw

TEXT I

Why do birds sing so loudly in the morning in spring? It’s the ‘dawn chorus’

As spring begins, so does a fresh song at daybreak, unique to the season. Just before the sun rises, birds start singing their melodies, creating a chirpy symphony.

This phenomenon is known as the dawn chorus, and it’s special for a number of reasons: There are more birds singing at this time of year, and they also sing more often. This energetic burst of birdsong is often louder than usual too. The dawn chorus’ early morning explosion of sounds has even inspired multiple poems and songs.

“It's the epitome of spring,” says Jordan E. Rutter, an ornithologist at the American Bird Conservancy. After the long and cold winter, “all of a sudden you have this influx of so many beautiful birds coming back and singing.”

This harmony of birdsong at dawn happens during a fundamental time of the year. The dawn chorus is, in fact, mostly composed of birds of both genders singing to find a mate so they can breed (though males may sing more).

“There is such a large increase in quantity of song by individuals and the collective,” Rutter says. “These birds sing louder to literally be heard. They need to compete with each other as well, and the louder the better in regards to who is the most impressive mate.”

During this time, males also sing to assert their dominance and claim their territory. “Those songs are how they communicate to other males of the same species, or even just other birds and predators in general, and say, ‘This is my home,’” says Rutter.

In the United States and Canada, the dawn chorus can be heard roughly from March through May, when many bird species migrate there from their winter homes to breed. Peak dawn chorus times might depend on where you live, Rutter says. For example, April is peak for the southern U.S., but birds in Washington, D.C., will put on the best show in early May. (Alternatively, in the tropics, the dawn chorus can be heard almost any time of year, as many birds have a prolonged breeding season in those warmer climates.)

Why is it a ‘dawn’ chorus?

But why birds sing in the early morning is still “an open question,” says Mike Webster, an ornithologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “There's a lot of debate, and I don't think there's any consensus on exactly why it is that everything happens at dawn."

One hypothesis is that weather conditions at daybreak make it easier for birdsong to travel.

“In general, sound travels farther when the air is cooler and more dense. Sound also transmits more clearly (and very slightly faster) when humidity is higher so that details of the song do not degrade as much over distance,” says Heather Williams, a professor at Williams College who has studied the neuroscience of birdsong. She notes that wind may also impede sound transmission. “At dawn, the cooler air results in decreased winds at ground level, so coupled with the higher humidity, sound carries farther and more clearly, with less distortion.”

Extract from

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/birds-dawn-chorus (Accessed on 14 April 2025.)

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While plastic refuse littering beaches and oceans draws high-profile attention, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Assessment of agricultural plastics and their sustainability: a call for action suggests that the land we use to grow our food is contaminated with even larger quantities of plastic pollutants. “Soils are one of the main receptors of agricultural plastics and are known to contain larger quantities of microplastics than oceans”, FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo said in the report’s foreword.

According to data collated by FAO experts, agricultural value chains each year use 12.5 million tonnes of plastic products while another 37.3 million are used in food packaging. Crop production and livestock accounted for 10.2 million tonnes per year collectively, followed by fisheries and aquaculture with 2.1 million, and forestry with 0.2 million tonnes. Asia was estimated to be the largest user of plastics in agricultural production, accounting for almost half of global usage. Moreover, without viable alternatives, plastic demand in agriculture is only set to increase. As the demand for agricultural plastic continues surge, Ms. Semedo underscored the need to better monitor the quantities that “leak into the environment from agriculture”.

Since their widespread introduction in the 1950s, plastics have become ubiquitous. In agriculture, plastic products greatly help productivity, such as in covering soil to reduce weeds; nets to protect and boost plant growth, extend cropping seasons and increase yields; and tree guards, which protect young plants and trees from animals and help provide a growth-enhancing microclimate. However, of the estimated 6.3 billion tonnes of plastics produced before 2015, almost 80 per cent had never been properly disposed of. While the effects of large plastic items on marine fauna have been well documented, the impacts unleashed during their disintegration potentially affect entire ecosystems.

(https://news.un.org, 07.12.2021. Adaptado.)

TEXT I

Why do birds sing so loudly in the morning in spring? It’s the ‘dawn chorus’

As spring begins, so does a fresh song at daybreak, unique to the season. Just before the sun rises, birds start singing their melodies, creating a chirpy symphony.

This phenomenon is known as the dawn chorus, and it’s special for a number of reasons: There are more birds singing at this time of year, and they also sing more often. This energetic burst of birdsong is often louder than usual too. The dawn chorus’ early morning explosion of sounds has even inspired multiple poems and songs.

“It's the epitome of spring,” says Jordan E. Rutter, an ornithologist at the American Bird Conservancy. After the long and cold winter, “all of a sudden you have this influx of so many beautiful birds coming back and singing.”

This harmony of birdsong at dawn happens during a fundamental time of the year. The dawn chorus is, in fact, mostly composed of birds of both genders singing to find a mate so they can breed (though males may sing more).

“There is such a large increase in quantity of song by individuals and the collective,” Rutter says. “These birds sing louder to literally be heard. They need to compete with each other as well, and the louder the better in regards to who is the most impressive mate.”

During this time, males also sing to assert their dominance and claim their territory. “Those songs are how they communicate to other males of the same species, or even just other birds and predators in general, and say, ‘This is my home,’” says Rutter.

In the United States and Canada, the dawn chorus can be heard roughly from March through May, when many bird species migrate there from their winter homes to breed. Peak dawn chorus times might depend on where you live, Rutter says. For example, April is peak for the southern U.S., but birds in Washington, D.C., will put on the best show in early May. (Alternatively, in the tropics, the dawn chorus can be heard almost any time of year, as many birds have a prolonged breeding season in those warmer climates.)

Why is it a ‘dawn’ chorus?

But why birds sing in the early morning is still “an open question,” says Mike Webster, an ornithologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “There's a lot of debate, and I don't think there's any consensus on exactly why it is that everything happens at dawn."

One hypothesis is that weather conditions at daybreak make it easier for birdsong to travel.

“In general, sound travels farther when the air is cooler and more dense. Sound also transmits more clearly (and very slightly faster) when humidity is higher so that details of the song do not degrade as much over distance,” says Heather Williams, a professor at Williams College who has studied the neuroscience of birdsong. She notes that wind may also impede sound transmission. “At dawn, the cooler air results in decreased winds at ground level, so coupled with the higher humidity, sound carries farther and more clearly, with less distortion.”

Extract from

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/birds-dawn-chorus (Accessed on 14 April 2025.)