1. Wearing a seat belt saves lives; it reduces your chance of death or serious injury by more than half.

　　2. But it will be the driver’s responsibility to make sure that children under 14 do not ride in the front unless they are wearing a seat belt of some kind.

　　3. However, you do not have to wear a seat belt if you are reversing your vehicle; or you are making a local delivery or collection using a special vehicle; or if you have a valid medical certificate which excuses you from wearing it.

　　4. Remember you may be taken to court for not doing so, and you may be fined if you cannot prove to the court that you have been excused from wearing it.

　　5. Professor Taiju Matsuzawa wanted to find out why otherwise healthy farmers in northern Japan appeared to be losing their ability to think and reason at a relatively early age, and how the process of ageing could he slowed down.

　　6. With a team of colleagues at Tokyo National University, he set about measuring brain volumes of a thousand people of different ages and varying occupations.

　　7. Computer technology enabled the researchers to obtain precise measurements of the volume of the front and side sections of the brain, which relate to intellect (智能) and emotion, and determine the human character.

　　8. Contraction of front and side parts as cells die off was observed in some subjects in their thirties, but it was still not evident in some sixty and seventy-year-olds.

　　9. The findings show in general terms that contraction of the brain begins sooner in people in the country than in the towns.

　　10. White collar workers doing routine work in government offices are, however, as likely to have shrinking brains as the farm worker, bus driver and shop assistant.

　　11. We know that you have a high opinion of the kind of learning taught in your colleges, and that the costs of living of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you.

　　12. But you must know that different nations have different ways of looking at things, and you will therefore not be offended if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same as yours.

　　13. We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we refuse to accept it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take care of their education, teach them in all we know , and make men of them.

　　14. In what now seems like the prehistoric times of computer history, the earth’s postwar era, there was quite a wide-spread concern that computers would take over the world from man one day.

　　15. Already today, less than forty years later, as computers are relieving us of more and more of the routine tasks in business and in our personal lives. We are faced with a less dramatic but also less foreseen problem.

　　16. Obviously, there would be no point in investing in a computer if you had to check all its answers, but people should also rely on their own internal computers and check the machine when they have the feeling that something has gone wrong.

　　17. Certainly Newton considered some theoretical aspects of it in his writings, but he was reluctant to go to sea to further his work.

　　18. For most people the sea was remote, and with the exception of early intercontinental travellers or others who earned a living from the sea, there was little reason to ask many questions about it , let alone to ask what lay beneath the surface.

　　19. The first time that the question “ What is at the bottom of the oceans?” had to be answered with any commercial consequence was when the laying of a telegraph cable from Europe to America was proposed.

　　20. At the early attempts, the cable failed and when it was taken out for repairs it was found to be covered in living growths, a fact which defied contemporary scientific opinion that there was no life in the deeper parts of the sea.

第一部分（1-20句译文）

　　1、系好安全带能够挽救性命，它能将丧生和重伤的概率减少一半以上。

　　2、但是司机有责任确保14岁以下的孩子不要坐在前排，除非他们系好了安全带。

　　3、当然，如果有以下情况你可以不系安全带：你在倒车时，或者你用一种特殊交通工具进行当地的货物运送、收集时，或者你有合法的医学证明你不能系安全带时。

　　4、注意你如果不这么做（系安全带）的话，你有可能被告上法庭，而且你有可能被处以罚款除非你能证明你有不带安全带的理由。

　　5、Taiju Matsuzawa 教授想找出为什么日本北部的健康农民在相对年轻的年龄就显得开始失去思考与推理的能力的原因以及怎样才能延缓老化过程。

　　6、在东京国立大学的同事们的帮助下，他开始对一千来自不同职业的人群进行了大脑体积的测量。

　　7、计算机技术帮助研究人员获得人脑前部和侧部的准确体积，这是与人的智能和情绪有关的部分，而且也决定人的性格特点。

　　8、有的人(大脑)前部和侧部的收缩——随着细胞的死亡——在三十多岁时就能被观察到了，但是也有些人直到六七岁依然不明显。

　　9、研究结果表明在农村的人大脑收缩基本上比城市里的人要早。

　　10、在政府部门从事简单重复工作的白领也像农场工人、公共汽车司机和商店职员一样大脑细胞容易收缩。

　　11、我们知道你们很看重你们在大学里面教育的学习方法，而且我们的年轻人与你们生活的花费即使对于你们来说也不便宜。

　　12、但是你们也要明白不同的民族看待事物有不同的方法，所以如果刚好我们的看法与你们的不一样的话，你们也不应觉的被冒犯了。

　　13、当然，对于你们的盛情我们没有被逼迫的感觉，尽管我们拒绝接受。而且，为了表示我们的感谢，如果维吉利亚洲的绅士们愿意派来一些他们的子弟的话，我们会尽全力教育他们，并把他们培养成为真正的男人。

　　14、在这个像是计算机史前时代的时代，地球的战后时代，人们普遍担忧有一天计算机会取代人类控制世界。

　　15、今天或者不到五十年后，计算机将越来越多的减轻人们的工作事务和日常琐事。我们也将面对一个没有什么戏剧性和更不可预测的问题。

　　16、显然，如果你不得不检查计算机提供的所有答案的话，对它投资就没有任何意义了。但是当人们觉的计算机确实出了一些问题的时候，应该靠自己内部的“计算机”来检查机器。

　　17、当然牛顿在他的作品中写到了一些理论方面的东西，但他不愿进行更加深刻的研究。

　　18、除了一些洲际旅行者和以大海为生的人，对于大多数人来说，大海是遥远的，没有什么必要提出太多问题，更别说思考大海海底的东西了。

　　19、当铺设一条从欧洲到美洲的海底电报光缆的时候，出于商业动机，人们第一次不得不回答这个问题“海底是什么东西”。

　　20、在早期的尝试中，光缆铺设失败，不得不取出来维修。这时人们发现上面覆盖有生物，这推翻了当时科学界认为深海没有生命的理论。