While western governments worry over the threat of Ebola, a more pervasive but far less harmful【C1】________ is spreading through their populations like a winter sniffle: mobile personal technology.

The similarity between disease organisms and personal devices is【C2】_____. Viruses and other parasites control larger organisms,【C3】__resources in order to multiply and spread. Smartphones and other gadgets do the same thing,【C4】__ever-increasing amounts of human attention and electricity supplied【C5】_____wire umbilici.

It is tempting to【C6】_____a “strategy” to both phages and phablets, neither of which is sentient.【C7】__, the process is evolutionary, consisting of many random evolutions,【C8】_____experimented with by many product designers. This makes it all the more powerful.

Tech【C9】_____occurs through actively-learnt responses, or “operant conditioning” as animal behaviourists call it. The scientific parallel here also involves a rodent, typically a rat, which occupies a【C10】__cage called a Skinner Box. The animal is【C11】_____with a food pellet for solving puzzles and punished with an electric shock when it fails.

“Are we getting a positive boost of hormones when we【C12】_____look at our phone, seeking rewards?” asks David Shuker, an animal behaviourist at St Andrews university, sounding a little like a man withholding serious scientific endorsement【C13】_____an idea that a journalist had in the shower. Research is needed, he says.

Tech tycoons would meanwhile【C14】_____that the popularity of mobile devices is attributed to the brilliance of their designs. This is precisely what people whose thought processes have been【C15】_____by an invasive pseudo-organism would believe.

【C16】_____, mobile technology causes symptoms less severe than physiological diseases. There are even benefits to【C17】__sufferers for shortened attention spans and the caffeine overload triggered by visits to Starbucks for the free Wi-Fi. Most importantly, you can【C18】__the Financial Times in places as remote as Alaska or Sidcup. In this【C19】__, a mobile device is closer to a symbiotic organism than a parasite. This would make it【C20】_____to an intestinal bacterium that helps a person to stay alive, rather than a virus that may kill you.

In recent years a new farming revolution has begun, one that involves the【C1】_____of life at a fundamental level—the gene. The study of genetics has【C2】__a new industry called biotechnology. As the name suggests, it【C3】__biology and modern technology through such techniques as genetic engineering. Some of the new biotech companies specialize in agriculture and are working feverishly to【C4】__seeds that give a high yield, that【C5】__diseases, drought and frost, and that reduce the need for【C6】__chemicals. If such goals could be achieved, it would be most【C7】_____. But some have raised concerns about genetically engineered crops.

In nature, genetic diversity is created within certain【C8】_____. A rose can be crossed with a different kind of rose, but a rose will never cross with a potato. Genetic engineering,【C9】__, usually involves taking genes from one species and inserting them into another【C10】__to transfer a desired characteristic. This could mean, for example, selecting a gene which leads to the production of a chemical with anti-freeze【C11】__from an arctic fish, and inserting it into a potato or strawberry to make it frost-resistant.【C12】__, then, biotechnology allows humans to【C13】_____the genetic walls that separate species.

Like the green revolution,【C14】_____some call the gene revolution contributes to the problem of genetic uniformity—some say even more so【C15】__geneticists can employ techniques such as cloning and【C16】_____ culture, processes that produce perfectly【C17】_____copies. Concerns about the erosion of biodiversity, therefore, remain. Genetically altered plants, however, raise new【C18】__, such as the effects that they may have on us and the environment. “We are flying blindly into a new【C19】__of agricultural biotechnology with high hopes, few constraints, and little idea of the potential【C20】_____,” said science writer Jeremy Rifkin.