Australia is literally a land apart. While it is attractive and welcoming to visitors, from the perspective of     46      they are very keen to keep themselves separate. Australia has had some bad experiences    47    misguidedly importing rabbits and cane toads into the country.    48    hence has become a major concern. The government maintains a data base of about 20,000 materials that have the potential to cause trouble and must be declared at the    49    . If you fail to declare them upon arrival, it is almost certain they will be confiscated and you may    50    have to paya fine up to $66,000. If you have declared all the items in the Incoming Passenger Card, then even if the goods are not permitted and must be confiscated, you will not be liable for a fine. The authorities are not unreasonable, just strict.

        Terms considered proper for a group or phenomenon seem to change every generation or so. The term crippled, forexample, sounds abusive today,__ 36__ it was once considered civil by educated, sensitive people. Crippled began asa(n) __37__ term. However, a sad reality of human society is that there are negative associations and even dismissalharbored__ 38__  those with disabilities. Crippled thus became accreted with those overtones to the pointthat handicapped was fashioned as a replacement term __39__ from such baggage. Similarly, because humans stayedhuman, handicapped, later__40__     shades of abuse, also conditioned another replacement like disabled. Such a(n)periodic semantic renewal is an inevitable and healthy process.

       Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American who emigrated to New York City in 1884, was a scientist and visionary who developed the basis for alternating current (AC) that most of us use today and pioneered numerous technologies that improve our everyday lives. Without his contribution to the AC electric power, we would be fifty years behind technologically than where we are today.

       In 1884, Tesla left Europe and worked for Thomas Edison, the developer of direct current (DC). It was said that Edison promised Tesla $50,000 to fix the problems with his DC system. When Tesla succeeded and demanded his reward, Edison claimed the offer was a joke, saying “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.” This prompted Tesla to quit and he ended up in a battle with Edison. Today, Tesla’s AC system is predominantly used to power most of the world’s electricity. DC motors are still used for some industrial machines, but often require more maintenance. 

         It is not just AC power that Tesla worked on. Motors, radios, X-rays, neon signs were advanced by his extraordinary mind. History often touts Italian entrepreneur Guglielmo Marconi as the inventor of radio, but actually he was using technology from seventeen of Tesla’s patents. The two inventors became embroiled in a patent war. In 1943, the United States Supreme Court revoked Marconi’s radio patents in favor of Tesla. Unfortunately, Tesla and Marconi had already passed away by the time the court handed down their decision.

       Tesla also invented one of the world’s earliest remote control and was a pioneer of X-ray technology. He took some of the first X-ray images of the human body and was one of the first scientists to hypothesize that X-rays could be harmful. The brilliant inventor contributed to reusable energy as well. Nine out of the twelve patents used to build the world’s first hydroelectric station, erected at Niagara Falls, New York, belonged to Tesla. He helped pave the way toward clean energy because he understood the physics behind energy and what might be possible in the future.

       Often referred to as “the man who invented the 20th century,” Tesla was involved in many more discoveries and creations. When he died in 1943, there was so much interest in what he was working on that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided his hotel room within hours of his death. Experts say Tesla envisioned his inventions improving people’s lives. Indeed, his innovative ideas were milestones of technology. The great pioneer believed “Invention is the most important product of men’s creative brain.”