Read aloud

1)

When they examined the brain of someone who understood many languages, scientists found that the area that governed speech did not have the same form as in most monolingual learning changes the brain or whether some people are born with this quality.

2)

The castle is a masterpiece of wooden construction, the finest surviving example of Japanese castle architecture from this era, and preserves all its significant features intact. It is part of the network of such fortresses that were created all over Japan to ensure the country's continued unification.

3)

People undertake a range of recreational activities during their time in Antarctica. Each station has a library as well as DVD players and a range of movies which are updated each year. Stations have a small spa and sauna, a gymnasium as well as billiards, table tennis, volleyball, board games, darts and some communal band and stage equipment.

4)

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in studying the calls of parrot chicks in the wild. They find that the birds learn their first calls from their parents, much as human infants do. The findings suggest that parrots may be better than songbirds as models for studying how humans acquire speech.

5)

The development of mobile, self-propelled robots that can navigate independently across very uneven ground as well as carrying out non-repetitive tasks is known as field robotics. The university's School of Field Robotics is focused on the continuing advancement of this technology both in the laboratory and in the field to meet the challenges of our next few decades.

6)

History rubs shoulders and often overlaps with many other areas of research, from myths and epics to the social sciences, including economics, politics, biography, demography, and much else besides. Some histories are almost pure narratives, while others go in for detailed, tightly-focused analyses of, for example, the parish records of a Cornish village in the 16th century.

7)

There are many kinds of pond, but nearly, all small bodies of shallow, stagnant water in which plants with roots can grow. Water movement is slight and temperatures fluctuate widely. The wealth of plants ensures that during daylight hours oxygen is plentiful. However, at night, when photosynthesis no longer takes place, oxygen supplies can fall very low.

8)

Before the time of Alexander the Great, the only eastern people who could be compared with the Greeks in the fields of science and philosophy were from the Indian sub-continent. However, because so little is known about Indian chronology, it is difficult to tell how much of their science was original and how much was the result of Greek influence.

9)

While far fewer people these days write letters and therefore have less use for stamps, there are still a few categories of stamp which attract collectors. Stamps in common use for an indefinite period - until the price goes up - are called "definitive" issues, while a more collective type of stamp is the "commemorative" issue honoring people, events and anniversaries.

10)

In the second quarter of the 19th century, a rapidly growing middle class created a great demand for furniture production. Yet at this stage, while machines were used for certain jobs, such as carved decoration, there was no real mass production. The extra demand was met by numerous woodworkers. Mass production came later and the quality of domestic furniture declined.

11)

In the Middle Ages, the design and use of flags were considered a means of identifying social status. Flags were, therefore, the symbols not of nations, but of the nobility. The design of each flag resembled the "devices" on the noble's Coat of Arms, and the size of the flag was an indication of how high the owner stood in the nobility.