Cambridge IELTS 11

What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island?

Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred ancient human statues - the moai. After this remote Pacific island was settled by the Polynesians, it remained isolated for centuries...
Sep 29,2017

Raising the Mary Rose

How a sixteenth-century warship was recovered from the seabed. On 19 July 1545, English and French fleets were engaged in a sea battle off the coast of southern England in the area of water called the Solent, between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight...
Sep 29,2017

Crop growing skyscrapers

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the Earth's population will live in urban centres. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about three billion people by then...
Sep 29,2017

Research using twins

To biomedical researchers all over the world, twins offer a precious opportunity to untangle the influence of genes and the environment - of nature and nurture...
Sep 29,2017

Neuroaesthetics

An emerging discipline called neuroaesthetics is seeking to bring scientific objectivity to the study of art, and has already given us a better understanding of many masterpieces. The blurred imagery of Impressionist paintings seems to stimulate the brain's amygdala, for instance...
Sep 29,2017

This marvellous invention

Of all mankinds manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions -the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread - may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human...
Sep 29,2017

The story of silk

The history of the world’s most luxurious fabric, from ancient China to the present day. Silk is a fine, smooth material produced from the cocoons - soft protective shells - that are made by mulberry silkworms (insect larvae)...
Sep 29,2017

Great Migrations

Animal migration, however it is defined, is far more than just the movement of animals. It can loosely be described as travel that takes place at regular intervals - often in an annual cycle - that may involve many members of a species, and is rewarded only after a long journey...
Sep 29,2017

An introduction to film sound

Though we might think of film as an essentially visual experience, we really cannot afford to underestimate the importance of film sound. A meaningful sound track is often as complicated as the image on the screen, and is ultimately just as much the responsibility of the director...
Sep 29,2017

Reducing the effects of climate change

Mark Rowe reports on the increasingly ambitious geo-engineering projects being explored by scientists. Such is our dependence on fossil fuels, and such is the volume of carbon dioxide already released into the atmosphere, that many experts agree that significant global warming is now inevitable...
Sep 29,2017