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Have you ever wondered how many cigarettes you’re passively smoking while walking through the streets of a polluted, smog-infused city? No? Well, a pair of digital developers just invented an app that will definitely and accurately answer that question.
Shit, I Smoke! was created by Brazilian-born designer Marcelo Coelho and Paris-born app developer Amaury Martiny in just a week, after they read a study that analyzed air pollution and its equivalent (等量) to cigarette smoking. The article, co-written by Richard Mueller, a MacArthur fellow and physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, explains a mathematical model that compares smoking and tobacco-related deaths to levels of PM2.5, a microscopic particle (微粒) that is a dangerous, cancerous pollutant after burning.
The app shows that Parisians can effectively take in between three and six cigarettes per day, while a person in Delhi could be smoking up to 20 cigarettes--without even touching one--on a bad day. Other cities have worrying numbers, too (6.5 cigarettes daily in Mexico City).
“I was surprised to see that Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo have the best air quality in all Latin America, despite the fact that these are heavily populated cities,” said Coelho, who’s originally from the latter, Brazil’s largest city.
For both Coelho and Martiny, the app isn’t only a useful tool to inform users about their city’s air quality; it also makes this information more accessible and easier to understand. “These air-quality monitoring stations are just numbers, numbers that are very specific to professionals who work in environmental issues,” Martiny said. “So when you make this conversion (转换) to cigarettes, it makes it easier to understand what people are dealing with and the consequences air quality has in the daily lives.”
The developers’ plan now is to keep working on and enriching the app’s features. This will most likely include monthly average cigarette rates, and enabling users to get data from cities other than the one they’re in.
21. What does the underlined part “that question” mean?
A. How much harmful air you’re taking in. B. How harmful it is to smoke in urban areas.
C. How many cigarettes one usually smokes daily. D. How severely a city’s air is polluted.
22. According to Shit, I Smoke!, which city has the worst air quality?
A. Paris B. Mexico City. C. Delhi. D. Sao Paulo.
23. Before Coelho used the app, he probably thought that__________.
A. Brazil might have good air condition
B. his hometown was a badly polluted city
C. air pollution wasn’t a problem in Latin America
D. Buenos Aires had the best air quality in Latin America
24. In the opinion of Coelho and Martiny, what is the usage of the app?
A. Encouraging people to abandon the habit of smoking.
B. Helping people better know their everyday air quality.
C. Recommending some best places for people to live in.
D. Reminding people to do something for the environment.
