Module 5 CloningFrankenstein’s MonsterPart 1 the story of FrankensteinFrankenstein is the name of a young scientist from Geneva, in Switzerland. While studying at university, he discovers the secret of how to create life. Using bones from dead bodies, he creates a creature that resembles a human being and gives it life. The creature, which is very large and strong, and is also extremely ugly, terrifies anyone who sees it. However, the monster, who has learnt to speak, is intelligent and has human emotions. He becomes lonely and unhappy when he cannot find any friends and soon he begins to hate his creator Frankenstein. When Frankenstein refuses to create a wife for him, the monster murders Frankenstein‟s brother, his best friend Clerval, and finally, Frankenstein‟s new wife Elizabeth. The scientist chases the creature to the Arctic in order to destroy him, but he dies there. At the end of the story, the monster disappears into the ice and snow to end his own life.Part 2 Extract from FrankensteinIt was on a cold November night that I saw my creation for the first time. Feeling very anxious, I prepared the equipment that would give life to the thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning and the rain fell against the window. My candle was almost burnt out when, by its tiny light, I saw the yellow eye of the creature open. It breathed hard, and moved its arms and legs.How can I describe my emotions when I saw this happen? How can I describe the monster who I had worked so hard to create? I had tried to make him beautiful. Beautiful! He was the ugliest thing I had ever seen! You could see the veins beneathe his yellow skin. His hair was black and his teeth were white. But these things contrasted horribly with his yellow eyes, his wrinkled yellow skin and black lips.I had worked for nearly two years with one aim only, to give life to a lifeless body. For this I had not slept, I had destroyed my health. I had wanted it more than anything in the world. But now I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and horror and disgust filled my heart. Now my only thoughts were, “I wish I had not created this creature, I wish I was on the other side of the world, I wish I could disappear!” When he turned to look at me, I felt unable to stay in the same room as him. I rushed out, and for a long time I walked up and down my bedroom. At last I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, trying to find a few moments of sleep. But although I slept, I had terrible dreams. I dreamt I saw my fiancée walking in the streets of our town. She looked well and happy but as I kissed her lips, they became pale, as if she were dead. Her face changed and I thought I held the body of my dead mother in my arms. I woke, shaking with fear. At that same moment, I saw the creature that I had created. He was standing by my bed and watching me. His mouth opened and he made a sound, then seemed to smile. I think he wanted to speak, but I did not hear. He put out a hand, as if he wanted to keep me there, but I ran out of the room. I hid in the garden and stayed there till morning, terrified by what I had done. Again and again I thought, “I wish I had not done this terrible thing, I wish I was dead!”You cannot imagine the horror of that face! I had seen him when he was unfinished – he was ugly then. But when he stood up and moved, he became a creature from my worst nightmares.Cloning and DNAMany people think that the science of genetics and cloning is recent. It‟s certainly true that in 1953, Watson and Crick, two scientist at Cambridge University, England, discovered the structure of the acid DNA – a transparent twisting ladder made of the fundamental components of life. But in fact, it was in 1866 that Mendel first recorded the results of growing pea plants. He understood that both the parentplants had influenced the genetic make-up of the new plant.In 1973, biochemists Cohen and Boyer discovered a procedure to use enzymes – chemicals formed in the body – to unzip the DNA, to cut out a sequence of genes, and finally to insert them into the host cell and combine with its DNA.Cloning takes the DNA from a single cell to create a whole new individual. A clone is an organism which is genetically identical to another one. But it‟s now certain that no clone is an ex act copy because of differences in experiences and upbringing.There are at least two teams of scientists which are trying to clone humans. Although controversial, there are many valid reasons to do so. An Italian doctor wants to offer cloning as an optional treatment for couples who find it difficult to have children. But anyone who was a clone of one of their parents would be under unknown psychological pressure throughout their childhood.Another reason is to reproduce the talents of exceptional human beings. But an Einstein clone might choose a path in life which is contradictory to the one the original Einstein chose. He may even possess new vices instead of existing virtues!A further reason is to obtain a supply of stem cells. Stem cells in embryos are very flexible and can develop into every other type of cell in the body. For example, it could help someone recover from a disease, repair human tissue, or help them walk again after an accident. These stem cells would need to come from an embryo taken from the clone of someone. But the embryo would then be wasted, which many people find unacceptable. What is clear is that some voluntary code of practice among scientists has to be agreed. If not, compulsory government regulations will have to control cloning.A fourth reason for cloning is that some scientists and farmers think it would be handy to clone, for example, a prize cow which can resist bacteria or disease, or to sow a cloned crop which can resist rot or pests. But to rely on a few cloned animals or crops would restrict the biodiversity of the bread.Finally, the latest research into DNA has helped solve crimes by analyzing the suspect‟s saliva which they spit at a crime scene or the dirt under their fingernails.Jurassic Park – Scientific Fact or Hollywood Fiction?Steven Spielberg‟s successful sci-fi adventure film follows two dinosaur experts – Dr Alan and Dr Ellie Sattler – as they are invited by the eccentric millionaire John Hammond to visit his new amusement park on an island off Costa Rica before it opens to the public. By cloning DNA taken from prehistoric mosquitoes, Hammond has created living dinosaurs for his new Jurassic Park. Accompanied by Hammond‟s two grandchildren, they are sent on a tour through Jurassic Park in computer-controlled cars. But a tropical storm hits the island, knocking out the power supply, and an employee destroys the security system so that he can steal dinosaur embryos and sell them. The dinosaurs start to get out of control…So, since it is possible to clone sheep, is it possible to clone dinosaurs? Or is this just Hollywood? First, any DNA that has been taken from a preserved mosquito is only 40 million years old, so even if any DNA was found, the mosquitoes need to be much older, and as far as we know, mosquitoes that old do not exist.Second, although it is possible to find preserved mosquitoes, only one male has been recovered. In fact, only females can absorb the DNA of another creature. Also, there is no way of knowing if the DNA was from a dinosaur or not. Since there has been no previous discovery of dinosaurs, there is nothing to compare the new sample with.Thirdly, dinosaur DNA would not be intact after the long period of time since their extinction. When life ends, DNA breaks down and does not repair itself.Many questions also arise in the cloning of dinosaurs. Some of these questions are: What will be needed to raise a baby dinosaur from childhood successfully? What kinds of conditions do dinosaurs need to survive? What are the diets of dinosaurs? What kinds of care would dinosaurs need in their adult lives? What would be done to protect humans from dinosaurs and vice versa? What ethical and human rights issues are raised by cloning?So cloning dinosaurs seems scientifically impossible. The world is not ready for it and the materials that are needed are not yet available. Even if it was possible to bring dinosaurs back to life they probably could not survive in the present day environment. Temperature, air, disease, and plants are all different today than in the era of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are used to a completely different world and would find great difficulty living here. The only place that dinosaurs seem to exist today is in Hollywood.Brave New WorldOne of the most famous 20th century novels in the western world is a book called Brave New World. Written in 1931 by an Englishman called Aldous Huxley, it became a subject of much discussion as soon as first appeared. The reason why Brave New World is still so famous is that it describes a terrifying future world that is becoming more and more possible.Brave New World takes place 600 years in the future. At this time there is a world government. Its aim is for people to be happy, so that there are no more wars or violence. This government uses several very powerful methods to control people. The first is that people are no longer born from human beings. Instead, they are cloned in factories. There are five different types of clones. The best type of clone, called Alphas, become the leaders of society. The second group, the Betas, also have good positions in society. There is only one of each Alpha person or each Beta person. However, with the three lower groups, one egg is used to create up to 96 clones. Each of these clones is of course identical. The only reason why scientists have not created thousands of identical clones is that they have not yet learnt how to do this. These lower groups do the harder, more boring jobs that are needed in society. For example, the lowest group, the Epsilons, are always factory workers.As small children, each cloned group is taught to like and dislike certain things and people. For example, the second group, the Betas, are taught to dislike the lower groups because “they are stupid”. While the Betas sleep, they are told that they are “glad they are not Alphas, because Alphas work too hard”. In this way, the government makes sure that people are happy with their position in society and will not try to change things.The government also keeps people happy with the use of a drug called soma that make people happy. As a result, very few people are unhappy or feel any strong emotion. Again, the government wants people to be happy so that they will not try to change society.In this novel, Huxley asks very important and serious questions, such as, “If we can completely control people, is that a good thing? If we can give people drugs to stop them feeling unhappy, is that good or bad? If we do this, do we just stop them feeling, so that they have no real emotions? Do we want real, sometimes dangerous human beings, or do we want a controlled, …safe‟ society?” Today, more than seventy years after Brave New World was first written, these questions have become more important than ever.Module 6 War and PeaceThe D-Day Landings – Passage 1In September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany after Germany invaded Poland. The war, which lasted until 1945, is known as the Second World War. During the war, Germany occupied many countries, including France. He most important battle of the war in Europe was Operation Overlord, the military operation in 1944 to invade France.Operation Overlord started when boats full of soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy in France, known as the D-Day landings. More than 5,000 ships crossed the English Channel, carrying 130,000 troops to the French coast.Troops from the United States, Britain and Canada took part in the D-Day landings. The operation was extremely dangerous and many soldiers were killed before they even got off the boats. American soldiers attempted to land at the most dangerous place, known as Omaha Beach.The situation at Omaha Beach was so bad that the US army commanders thought about abandoning the invasion. Eventually, the soldiers made a breakthrough and the D-Day landings were successful. It was the beginning of the end of the Second World War.Operation Overlord started as a story of danger and confusion and ended as a story of bravery and acts of heroism.The D-Day Landings – Passage 2The soldiers of Able Company crossed the English Channel in seven boats early on the morning of 6 June 1944. when they were about 5 kilometres from the beach, the Germans started firing artillery shells at them but the boats were too far away. The Germans continued firing and Boat 5 was hit one kilometer from the beach. Six men drowned before help arrived. Twenty men fell into the water and were picked up by other boats. As a result, they missed the fighting on the beach. Six men drowned before help arrived. Twenty men fell into the water and were picked up by other boats. As a result, they missed the fighting on the beach. They were lucky. If they had reached the beach, they would probably have been killed.When Boat 3 was a few metres form the beach, the soldiers jumped out, but the water was so deep that some of them disappeared under the water. Many of the men were either killed or wounded by machine gun fire.The soldiers on Boat 1 and Boat 4 jumped into the water, but it was too deep and most of them drowned. Half an hour after the first attack, two thirds of the company (a company is a group of about 100 soldiers) were dead. The survivors lay on the beach, exhausted and shocked.After an hour and forty-five minutes, six of the survivors tried to climb up the cliff to get off the beach. Four were too exhausted to reach the top. The other two, Private Jake Shefer and Private Thomas Lovejoy, joined a group from another company and fought with them. Two men. Two rifles. This was Able Company‟s contribution to D-Day.The D-Day Landings – Passage 3On 6 June 2004, survivors of the D-Day landings from many different countries returned to France to remember their lost comrades. Many of them went to the cemetery and memorial which overlooks Omaha Beach.The cemetery and memorial are situated on a cliff overlooking the beach and the English Channel, from where the boats attempted their landing. The cemetery contains the graves of 9,386 Americans who died during the landings. The memorial also contains the names of more than 1,500 men who were never found.On the memorial, there is part of a poem called “For the Fallen”, which was written by an English poet, Lawrence Binyon:They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.The poem was first published in The Times newspaper on 14 September 1914 and can be seen on war memorials in many parts of the world.Saving Private Ryan (1998)A review by Jenny Carter, aged 15Saving Private Ryan is a film which was directed by Steven Spielberg. The two main characters are Captain John Miller, played by Tom Hanks, and Private James Ryan, played by Matt Damon.James Ryan is the fourth brother to be involved in the Second World War. His three brothers have already been killed, two of them in the D-Day landings in Normandy, the other in a battle in another part of the world. Their heart-broken mother receives news about all her dead sons on the same day. The US army decides to send a group of men into the French countryside to try to find the fourth brother. Captain Miller, a hero and survivor of the Omaha Beach battle, is chosen to lead the rescue team of eight men.The film opens with a 30-minute sequence of the invasion of Normandy, probably the most violent images of war ever shown in a film. We see the full horror of war, and the chaos and senseless waste of life.Saving Private Ryan is an unforgettable anti-war film and also a story of courage and sacrifice. Spielberg has made a lot of good films, but he has never made one with such a strong message. And the message is simple –we want peace; we don‟t want war.D-Day + 2To our astonishment, just two days after we had received our confidential orders to join the D-Day landing troops, and after a day fighting and seeing many of my friends killed by the enemy, we found ourselves outside a peaceful village in France. It was so sudden, after the mess and confusion of war on the beach.It was late afternoon, and the sun was setting on a perfect country scene of farm buildings, a main street, a few shops, a garage and a church. But we hesitated because we were aware that there might still have been enemy soldiers. Our lieutenant told Private Kowalski and me to advance and check the village.As we entered the main street, a young woman on a tractor drove out of the garage, saw us and called out something in French. Immediately five men came out of the bar, and two more from a farmyard, holding guns. I took off my helmet and yelled, “American! Put your guns down!” they gathered round us, shouting and shaking our hands, some women appeared and kissed us.We soon understood that the enemy had abandoned the village, so Kowalski went back to the others to let them know it was safe. I walked into a barbershop and stroked my chin, to show I needed to shave. The barber had a magnificent moustache, which he used wax to keep in shape. He filled a tin with cold water, and took out a razor from a drawer. He used a leather sharpener on the razor, and then gave me the best shave I had had in years. Finally he picked up a pair of scissors and a comb, and cut my hair.When the rest of our company arrived, they unloaded their baggage and bedding while the villagers brought out some jars of wine, and laid a table in the middle of the street, which they then covered with plates of potatoes and carrots, ham and sausages. Someone shouted “Cheers!” in English and we all drank to liberation and to the French constitution. Some of our boys had never tasted wine before, and spat it out, thinking it was vinegar.We gave stockings to the women, which they loved, and in return, they gave us perfume for our girlfriends. I was too ashamed to admit that I was too young to have a girlfriend. But the villagers treatedus like heroes, and for a brief moment, I felt that all the fear and danger had been worthwhile. But I also remembered my fiends who had died earlier that day, and wondered if they would have agreed.Winston Churchill’s SpeechesWinston Churchill is well-known as a statesman, politician and as the British Prime Minister during most of the Second World War. He is especially famous for his speeches which many believe made people even more determined to defeat the enemy. Many of these speeches contained lines which are remembered even today.Churchill made one of his greatest speeches in 1940, when he was invited to become Prime Minister of Britain, and the leader of a new government. The country had been at war for over eight months, and he knew that it would suffer many great defeats before it would begin to win the war. So on 13 May 1940 he promised the House of Commons: “I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined the Government, …I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.‟”A month later, the Germany army had advanced across northern Europe, and the British Army had retreated to the coast of the English Channel. The only escape was to cross the sea back to England. Hundreds of small boats set out from ports on the English coast to bring back the soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in France. But Churchill encouraged people that this was only a temporary defeat in a speech which included the words, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”On 18 June 1940, Churchill gave another fine speech when he drew attention to the courage of everyone defending Britain. “In years to come,” he said, “…men will say, …This was their finest hour.‟”The Germans continued their attacks on Britain from the air. A small number of pilots resisted the much larger German Air Force. Germany lost many airplanes, and was forced to change their strategy. Britain was no longer threatened by an early invasion, and on 20 August 1940, he said, “Never in the filed of human conflict was s o much owed by so many to so few.”In two years, Germany began to lose some important battles. After a defeat in North Africa, on 10 November 1942 he made a speech with the famous words, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the en d. But is is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”Many people believe that Churchill‟s leadership inspired people to remain brave in the face of Nazi Germany. His speeches are still remembered and quoted today, and remain some of the finest examples of spoken English.How the United Nations Tries to Keep the PeaceIf you see soldiers wearing sky-blue helmets, they are United Nations peacekeepers. The idea of UN peacekeepers began more than 60 years ago. They were the idea of Canadian Foreign Minister Lester Pearson, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.The first UN peacekeepers were sent to the Middle East in 1948. They only went to see what was happening, and were not armed. The first armed UN peacekeepers were sent to the Middle East in 1957 when there was a disagreement between the British and Egyptian governments about the Suez Canal.Since then, there have been more than 50 UN peacekeeping operations, many of them since the year 2000. In 2003, there were fifteen, involving nearly 37,000 personnel (soldiers and civilians).UN peacekeepers have included soldiers and other personnel from more than 120 countries. Since 2000, most of the personnel have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Ghana. There have also been soldiers from China, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Canada, Ireland, Italy and Australia.During the 1990s, eastern European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic also sent personnel.There have been many UN peacekeeping successes, but also some fai lures. The UN couldn‟t stop a terrible civil war in the African state of Rwanda in 1995, despite warnings of the dangers from nearby states.。
