1. Since the early nineties, the trend in most businesses has been toward on-demand, always-available products and services that suit the customer's ______ rather than the company's.
Part Ⅱ Cloze What draws my firm's attention is the design of cities. When we designed America's first "green" office building two decades ago, we felt very 1 But today, the idea that buildings can be good for people and the environment will be increasingly influential in years to come. Back in 1984 we discovered that most manufactured products for decoration weren't designed for 2 use. The "energy-efficient" buildings constructed after the 1970s energy crisis revealed indoor air quality problems caused by materials such as paints and carpet. So, we've been focusing on these materials 3 to the molecules, looking for ways to make them safe for people and the planet. Home builders can now use materials that don't 4 the quality of the air, water, or soil. 5 , our basic design strategy is focused not simply on being "less bad" but on creating completely healthful materials that can be either safely returned to the soil 6 reused by industry again. In fact, the world's largest manufacturer has already 7 a fully and safely recyclable carpet. No one 8 to create a building that destroys the planet. But our current industrial systems are inevitably causing these conditions. So 9 simply trying to reduce the damage, we are adopting a positive approach. We're giving people healthful products and an opportunity to make choices that have a 10 effect on the world. It's not just the building industry, either. Entire cities are taking these environmentally positive approaches to design, planning and building.
A mother who is suffering from cancer can pass on the disease to her unborn child in extremely rare cases, 11 a new case report published in PNAS this week. According to researchers in Japan and at the Institute for Cancer Research in Sutton, UK, a Japanese mother had been diagnosed with leukemia a few weeks after giving birth, 12 tumors were discovered in her daughter's cheek and lung when she was 11 months old. Genetic analysis showed that the baby's cancer cells had the same mutation as the cancer cells of the mother. But the cancer cells contained no DNA whatsoever from the father, 13 would be expected if she had inherited the cancer from conception. That suggests the cancer cell made it into the unborn child's body across the placental barrier. The Guardian claimed this to be the first 14 case of cells crossing the placental barrier. But this is not the case—microchimerism, 15 cells are exchanged between a mother and her unborn child, is thought to be quite common, with some cells thought to pass from fetus to mother in about 50 to 75 per cent of cases and to go the other way about half 16 . As the BBC pointed out, the greater 17 in cancer transmission from mother to fetus had been how cancer cells that have slipped through the placental barrier could survive in the fetus without being killed by its immune system. The answer, in this case at least, lies in a second mutation of the cancer cells, which led to the 18 of the specific features that would have allowed the fetal immune system to detect the cells as foreign. As a result, no attack against the invaders was launched. 19 , according to the researchers there is little reason for concern of "cancer danger". Only 17 probable cases have been reported worldwide and the combined 20 of cancer cells both passing the placental barrier and having the fight mutation to evade the baby's immune system is extremely low.