【Native Speaker每日综合训练—28系列】【28-02】科技

捉妖

Official Weibo:http://weibo.com/u/3476904471

大家好，今天的speaker教我们一个跨越国界地域的万能单词~
另外，Speed调查好消息和坏消息，人们要先听那个；Obstacle中则先告诉我们一个fat的好消息，接下来...

Part I：Speaker

Huh? Appears To Be Universally Understood
In multiple languages, a word that sounds a lot like "huh?" signals that the utterer needs to have verbal information repeated or restated. Karen Hopkin reports.
[Rephrase 1]

[Dialog, 1:15]


Transcript hided

What’s the most universal utterance in languages across the globe?

Male voice: Huh?

Correct!

Male voice: Huh?

That’s right.

Male voice: HUH?

Exactly. Because a new study finds that everybody around the world does indeed say “huh?” The finding is the journal PLOS One. [Mark Dingemanse Francisco Torreira and N. J. Enfield, Is “Huh?” a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent Evolution of Linguistic Items]

The researchers were exploring linguistic tools people use to assure fluid communication. In this case, they were looking for an interjection that signals that a listener missed something, and prompts the speaker to repeat or rephrase the original statement. In other words, something that works like the English word “Huh?”

So they eavesdropped on nearly 200 conversations in 10 different tongues, from Italian to Icelandic. And they found that, in language after language, a word that sounds a lot like “huh?” gets the job done. For example, [international huhs]. It’s short and sweet so it’s likely to stop the speaker before the listener gets too lost. And it sounds like a question [more international huhs], so it warrants a response.

The sound appears not to be innate. Babies don’t use it before they say mama. But most five-year-olds are masters of “huh?” No matter where they come from.

—Karen Hopkin

Source: Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=huh-appears-to-be-universally-under-13-11-15

捉妖

Part II：Speed

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?
by Bethany Brookshire 12:02pm, November 14, 2013  

[Time 2]
“So, there’s good news and bad news.”

An opening like that will send a chill through your veins, no matter what the topic. It’s especially worrying when coming from a significant other or a doctor. And the statement is often followed by a question: Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news? A new study says that you probably want the bad news first. But it also finds that, if the decision is left to the news deliverer, you can’t always get what you want.

Psychologists Angela Legg and Kate Sweeny from the University of California, Riverside decided to answer this age-old question, and to see whether the person giving the news wanted to give the good news or the bad news first. Finally, they looked at how the order that the information is delivered might change how people feel about the news. Their results were published November 4 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

The scientists had 121 college students come into the lab in pairs. The researchers assigned each pair a news-giver and a news-recipient. The students did not know their partner beforehand. All students took a personality test designed to assess the Big Five personality dimensions: conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness. A few minutes later, an experimenter came in and told the students that their tests were scored, and that there was both good news and bad news. For example, a student might have tested really high on leadership but turned out to look very selfish indeed.
[256 words]

[Time 3]
In reality, the tests had not been scored, and the students wouldn’t end up getting the real good news or bad news. They just had to pick which one they wanted first. For the news-receivers, the experimenter asked which they would like to receive first, and why. Their only job was to receive news. For the news-givers, the experimenter told them they would have to deliver the results of a personality test, and news-givers were asked which they would like to give first, and why.

Using separate groups of students in a new test, the experimenters then actually gave people the results of their personality tests with good news or bad news first, and asked how worried they were as the test went on. They also tested whether telling the news-givers to think of the other person’s feelings altered the order which in they wanted to give the news.

And we really do like to get the bad news first. A whopping 78 percent of students tested said that they wanted the bad news first, thanks. This is consistent with previous studies, which also showed that people would rather get bad news first. But however much you want it, you might not get it: 54 to 68 percent of news-givers preferred to give good news first. When the news-givers were prompted to feel empathy for the receiver with statements like “put yourself in the receiver’s shoes,” the percentage who wanted to give the bad news first increased, but the effects weren’t very large (though they were statistically significant). You want the bad news first, but they don’t want to give it to you.
[273 words]

[Time 4]
But does getting the bad news first make a difference? Legg and Sweeney had a third group of students get either good news first or bad news first, and assessed how worried they were before and after they’d gotten the news. Both groups showed increased worry, no matter what order the news came in. But it turns out a bitter pill is easier to sweeten: Students who received the bad news first ended up less worried than those who received the good news first.

So maybe bad news first is the way to go. The authors believe that the findings could be generalized to many different types of bad news, used by doctors or your soon-to-be-ex.

I’m not so sure about that myself. After all, receiving news that you’re kind of a selfish jerk on a personality test is one kind of news. Hearing you might have cancer is entirely another. And does it change when the news affects, say, your community or something impersonal? Does it change when it’s news that you can do something about? After all, you can develop leadership skills or practice playing well with others. But some types of bad news are completely beyond your control.  

In addition, in all of these cases, the students were put in pairs. They did not know each other beforehand. How does that change the way you give or receive information? Do you want it in another order if you receive it from someone you know and trust, or who is in a position you respect, like a doctor?

I’m also curious to know why we want the bad news first. I’ve always been told that you should take the bad news first. Get it over with, pull the Band-Aid off quick. Do I believe that just because that’s what I’ve been told? It’s an interesting question and one that this study couldn’t really get at. A study for another time.
[322 words]

Source: Science News
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/do-you-want-good-news-or-bad-news-first

Bacteria may transfer mom's stress to fetus
by Laura Sanders 8:05am, November 13, 2013

Expecting mice under pressure passed altered microbes to their pups, affecting the babies’ brains

[Time5]
SAN DIEGO — When stress during pregnancy disrupts a growing baby’s brain, blame bacteria. Microbes take part in an elaborate chain reaction, a new study finds: First, stress changes the populations of bacteria dwelling in a pregnant mouse’s vagina; those changes then affect which bacteria colonize a newborn pup’s gut; and the altered gut bacteria change the newborn’s brain.

The research, presented at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting, may help explain how a stressful environment early in life can make a person more susceptible to disorders such as autism or schizophrenia. The finding also highlights the important and still mysterious ways that the bacteria living in bodies can influence the brain.

“This is really fascinating and promising work,” said neuroscientist Cory Burghy of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “I am excited to take a look at how these systems interact in humans,” she said.

Stress during pregnancy dramatically shifts the mix of bacteria that dwell in the vagina, Christopher Howerton of the University of Pennsylvania reported November 11. The alarming odor of foxes, loud noise, physical restraints and other stressful situations during a mouse’s pregnancy changed the composition of its vaginal bacteria, he and his colleagues found.

The population of helpful Lactobacillus bacteria, for instance, decreased after stress. And because newborn mouse pups populate their guts with bacteria dwelling in their mother’s birth canal, microbes from mom colonize the baby’s gut. Mice born to moms with lower levels of Lactobacillus in the vagina had lower levels of Lactobacillus in their guts soon after they were born, the team reported.

Lower levels of Lactobacillus in the newborn mice seem to influence the brain, Howerton reported. Genes in a brain region called the hypothalamus behaved differently in mice with low levels of Lactobacillus in their guts.
[295 words]

[Time6]
Those results make sense, said neuroscientist Jane Foster of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Previous studies have shown that stress can influence the bacteria in human bodies, she said, and in turn these bacteria also influence how a person’s body and brain respond to stress. “It is exciting that neuroscientists are starting to pay attention to this important area of research,” Foster said.

It’s not clear how the bacteria in newborn mice’s guts influence their brains, but the researchers have some hints: Levels of some key chemicals important for brain development were different in mice born to stressed mothers, the researchers found, an effect that could come from altered nutrient absorption in the gut. Another possibility is that stress changes the mix of bacteria in the vagina by shifting the levels of immune cells, allowing more dangerous bacteria to slip in and ultimately make it into the baby, edging out the friendly Lactobacillus, Howerton said.

The complex chain of events outlined in the new study — from stress to mom’s vaginal bacteria to baby’s gut bacteria to baby’s brain — might help explain how stress early in life, perhaps even during gestation, can make a person more vulnerable to psychiatric disorders later, said study coauthor Tracy Bale of the University of Pennsylvania. “Every neuropsychiatric disorder, without exception, is influenced by stress,” she said. Figuring out how stress becomes dangerous might ultimately help scientists identify who is at risk, and how to prevent the ill effects of stress.

So far, the work has been restricted to mice, but Bale and her colleagues plan to study the effects of stress on bacteria in pregnant women and their newborn babies.
[275 words]

Source: Science News
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bacteria-may-transfer-moms-stress-fetus

捉妖

Part III： Obstacle

With trans fat going away, doughnuts may taste a little different. Photo courtesy of Flickr user sea turtle

10 Things We’ve Learned About Fat
Posted By: Randy Rieland — Food,Health and Medicine,In the News,Neuroscience
[Paraphrase 7]
It wasn’t much of a surprise last week when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it’s about to drop the hammer on trans fat—the by-product of the process of adding hydrogen to vegetable oil, which brings taste and texture to a bunch of food that’s not so good for us.

Yes, in the future, doughnuts may be a bit oilier, microwave popcorn could go back to popping in butter and manufacturers of frozen pizzas will need to find another additive to keep them reasonably edible. But the FDA has had its eye on trans fat since the 1990s, when the agency first proposed that nutrition labels disclose how much of the artificial fat is inside. That didn’t happen until 2006, which was the same year New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared war on trans fat. Two years later, a ban on trans fat in the city’s restaurants kicked in.

The reason, of course, is that it’s a notorious artery-clogger, one with a double negative of decreasing good cholesterol and raising bad cholesterol.
But, as we say a not so fond farewell to trans fat, researchers keep finding out new things about fat, whether in our food or in our bodies. Here are 10 things they’ve learned so far this year:

1) Let’s start with the good news: Chocolate may actually help reduce a person’s abdominal fat. According to a European study published in the journal Nutrition, teenagers who eat a lot of chocolate tend to have smaller waists. Even though chocolate contains sugar and fat, it also is high in flavonoids–particularly dark chocolate–and they’ve been found to be good for your health.

2) But wait, there’s more: A team of scientists in Japan determined that both cold weather and chili peppers can help burn fat. Specifically, exposure to cold temperatures and consumption of the chemicals found in the hot peppers appear to increase the activity of “brown fat” cells, which burn energy, instead of storing it as “white” fat cells do.

3) On the other hand: Low-fat yogurt may be more fattening than we’ve been led to believe, at least according to researchers behind a project called the Nutrition Science Initiative. They contend that easily digested carbohydrates—such as the sugars that are added to low-fat yogurt to replace the fat that has been removed—drive weight gain by promoting insulin resistance. This signals the body to convert more sugar into fat and to hold on to more of the fat in the food.

4) Ah, the vicious circle: Based on research with mice, scientists say that one reason people can have such a hard time switching to a healthier diet is that high-fat diets can interfere in the communication between the gut and the brain’s reward center. And that can make people think they need to eat more to feel satisfied.

5) So belly fat drains the brain?: Middle-aged people with a lot of belly fat are more than three times as likely to have memory problems and suffer from dementia when they’re older, according to researchers at the Rush Medical Center in Chicago. It turns out that both the liver and the hippocampus–the brain’s memory center–need the same protein, and the more the liver uses to burn abdominal fat, the less that’s available to the brain.

6) And saturated fats lower sperm counts?: Scientists in Denmark found that young men who ate a lot of food high in saturated fat, such as rich cheeses and red meat, had a significantly lower sperm count than men who ate low levels of fat. The researchers said that might help explain why sperm counts are dropping around the world.

7) Then again, maybe saturated fats aren’t so evil: A British cardiologist says his research suggests that saturated fats aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be, and that the crusade against them has driven people to low-fat foods and drinks full of sugar. In a recent issue of the British Medical Journal, Aseem Malhotra wrote: “It is time to bust the myth of the role of saturated fat in heart disease and wind back the harms of dietary advice that has contributed to obesity.”

8) Fat and taxes: Another British study contends that a 20 percent tax on sodas could reduce obesity in the U.K. by 180,000 people. About one in four Britons is obese, just slightly lower than the U.S. The researchers believe the tax could reduce soda sales by as much as 15 percent and would have the greatest impact on people under 30, who are more likely to guzzle sugary drinks.

9) Taking one for the team: Here’s something you’ve probably always suspected: When a sports fan’s team loses, he or she tends to scarf down a lot of high-fat food. That’s the conclusion of a study published recently in the journal Psychological Science, which found that football fans’ saturated-fat consumption increased by as much as 28 percent following defeats and decreased by 16 percent following victories. As Pierre Chandon, one of the study’s co-authors, told the New York Times, “No one ate broccoli after a defeat.”

10) Yes, bacon rules: A comprehensive analysis by Wired.com of all of the recipes and comments on the Food Network’s website determined that meals that include bacon tend to be more popular than those with any other food. Based on its data-crunching, Wired.com found that the only foods that people felt didn’t go better with bacon were pasta and desserts.

[917 words]

Source:Smithsonian
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2013/11/10-things-weve-learned-about-fat/

dongr87

huh? 沙发节奏~

speed
1'28"
1'37"
1'52"
2’19”
1'28"

obstacle
5'30"
The FDA is about to ban the artificial fat due to how harmful it can be to human. But the article describes 10 new results from recent researches about fat, most of them are positive.

疏离无罪

板凳，感谢妖妖，现在小分队格式是改了么，把沙发到板凳全抢了

Speaker:The word Huh is used to show that listener missed something and need a repeat.This sound like Huh is used and can be understood worldwide.

01:22
Psychologists made a experiment to find out how the good news and bad news affect people's feelings.

01:30
The process and the result of the experiment shows that most news-receivers want to get bad news first and most news-givers want to give good news first.

01:26
The result also shows that people who get bad news first were less worry than those who get good news first.But the experiment is limited.The information given to student is not a serious thing such as cancer and the news-giver is not someone student know or trust.These two factors both can affect the result and futher study should be made.

02:05
Study finds that stress during pregnancy may increase the bacteria in the vagina and then these bacteria may influence the infant's brain.

01:10
Stress can influence the bacteria in human bodies.Although the reason is still unknown,there are several possible explanations.The study is restricted to mice,but scientists will go on studying it on human.

05:13
Main Idea:10 Things We’ve Learned About Fat
Recently FDA announced to decrease the use of trans fat.Although trans fat makes food tasty,it also makes people obese.
10 more things about fat.
1 Chocolate,espeically black chocolate,can reduce people's abdominal fat.
2 Cold weather and chili peppers can help burn fat.
3 Low-fat yogurt may be more fattening than we’ve been led to believe.
4 High-fat diets can make people satisfied.
5 Fat people may have bad memories.
6 People who eat food which has saturated fat may have lower sperm counts
7 Saturated fat doesn't play a key role in heart diseases.
8 Tax on sodas may help people lose weight.
9 Football fans may eat more high-fat diet when the team loses.
10 Meals that include bacon tend to be more popular than those with any other food.

miyini

占首页   

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交作业了   今天的speaker  太搞笑了

2013-11-19 28-02

2  256  1’44 there is a very normal situation about whether you want to know bad newsor good news first. According to a survey, it is said that most people wouldlike the bad news first, but if it is decided by the news delivers it is oftenthe good news comes first. A scientist do a experiment on the situation. Someundergraduates are divided in to two group one is the news receiver the otheris the news deliver with only themselves know the identities of themselves.

3  273  1’28 the scientist collected the preferences of which news they would like toget for the news-recipients or give for the news-givers and also the reasonsfor doing so. They get the conclusion that 78% recipients want the bad newsfirst and 58 out of 78 givers always give the good news first. The reasons maybe that the news givers want to feel the sympathy of the recipients. Improvementof the experiment is telling the givers about the feeling of recipients over receivingthe good news first, but the result is the same of the last experiment evenwith the percentage declining a little.  

4  322  1’49 the third experiment is to testing the feeling of receiving news. Nomatter which news comes first, the students would be worrying after all thenews being telling. But in the group of bad news first it is often less worriedthan the group of good news first. However, the experiment and its result cannot tell us the reason and what will people feel when they are confronted withthis situation. Because the bad news may be a news of cancer from your doctor. Itis out of control in reality. The what if the news teller is someone therecipients already know and trust. All these different situations make theoutcome complex and unknowing for us.

5  295  1’58  a new finding that stress ofa pregnant women will affect the unborn baby’s development of brain for stresswill change the number of bacteria in mom’s mouse and then change the bacteria’skind and number in the baby and these bacteria will affect the baby’s brain. Scientiststhink this new finding is very meaningful and also interesting.

6  275  1’38 the object of the experiment is mice. The outcome gives scientists moreinformation of how mental diseases like autism develop in human’s early lifeand help doctors to determining who need more attention of getting thesediseases.

7  917  6’18 ten truths about fat . 1 fat is not so bad, for teenagers who eat a lotof chocolate tend to have small wait. Although there are lots of sugar and fatin chocolate, a kind of material especially in black chocolate really help thehealth. 2 both cold weather and chilli pepper can consume fat. 3 low-fat yoghurtcan be more fattening than we normally thinking. 4 it is hard for you to loseweight if you used to have a high-fat and high-oil diet, because your brain maytell you it is not satisfied eating less. 5 belly fat drains the brain. Because the protein used in consuming fatin liver is also used by brain. So the more fat needed to be consumed the lessprotein the brain will get for use.  6fat will decline the sperm counts. 7 saturated fat is not so bad as peopleusually think. It is not the only crucial criteria of determining somecardiovascular diseases. 8 raise tax of soda can turn down the percentage offat people especially young people. 9 if a fan’s favorite team lost in the gameit is more likely for him to have more fat-related food. 10 people prefer toeat the food containing bacon.    

AceJ

必须重回首页

Speaker: Huh? Appears To Be Universally Understood

What is the most universal arguing say in languages across theglobe? Huh!

New study finds that everybody around the world does indeed say Huh,which is used to express understanding. And they found in language afterlanguage, a word sounds a lot like "Huh" gets the job done.

Babies use it before they say Mama.

ttlovej

重回首页！！！！！

今天的SSS好有意思：）

TIME 2  1’17

TIME 3  1’05

TIME 4  1’23

The passage involves a experiment itself.The theme of the experiment is what kind of news people prefer to receive first?Bad news or good news?The professors separate the volunteers into two groups,news givers and news receivers.The result shows that about 78% new receivers want to hear bad news first while around 60% news givers would like to give good news first.

TIME 5  1’49

TIME 6  1’40

sherlock1992

Thx, 妖姐！    By SH

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Obstacle-5'06''
10 new things about fat.

吐吐yeah

谢谢捉妖~我来抢个首页的位子 0v0~

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掌管 5 00:01:27.92 00:07:11.93
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obstacle
main idea:10 Things We’ve Learned About Fat
structure:
1.The FDA is going to stop the trans fat.
2.The author introduces 10 things we’ve learned about fat.
    Chocolate,cold weather,chili peppers and taxes help reduce fat.
    Low-fat yogurt and belly fat are not good.
    Saturated fats lower sperm counts,but they don't lead to heart disease and obesity.
    When a sports fan’s team loses, he or she tends to eat less high-fat food.
    Meals that include bacon tend to be more popular.

Ps:反式脂肪（Trans fats），又称为反式脂肪酸、逆态脂肪酸或转脂肪酸（Trans fatty acid），是一种不饱和脂肪酸（单元不饱和或多元不饱和）。主要来自经过部份氢化的植物油。反式脂肪对健康并无益处，也不是人体所需要的营养素。