【Native Speaker每日综合训练—33系列】【33-18】科技

cherry6891

Stay tuned to our latest post! Follow us here ---> http://weibo.com/u/3476904471

Part I: Speaker

Article 1

Eye-Catching Adapter Makes Smartphone Ophthalmic Screener

Transcript

Smartphone cameras have turned the selfie into an art form. And soon your selfie may be able to warn your doctor about a serious problem with your eyes, without a trip to the ophthalmologist.

Stanford University School of Medicine researchers are developing inexpensive adapters that let smartphones take high-quality images of the eye. Not just the lens in front but the retina in back too. With no need for eye drops that dilate your pupils for hours.

The research team is studying the quality of images taken using the adapters and their ability to track eye disease in patients with diabetes. This work was published online in the Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine. [David Myung et al, Simple, Low-Cost Smartphone Adapter for Rapid, High Quality Ocular Anterior Segment Imaging: A Photo Diary]

Right now, prototype adapters cost about $90 to make and are available only to other researchers. But if the adapters work as promised, patients could snap digital pictures of their eyes and e-mail them to a doctor. That’s a convenience for most of us, but a necessity for people living in remote areas with poor access to any local ophthalmic care.

And it could turn your iPhone into an “eye” phone.

Source:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/ophthalmic-iphone-adapter/

[Rephrase 1, 1:15]

cherry6891

Part II: Speed

Article 2

Me, Myself, and Why

Searching for the Science of Self by Jennifer Ouellette

Time 2
Near the end of Ouellette’s new book — a personal journey exploring what shapes people’s sense of self — she pops a candy tablet of LSD and settles in for her first psychedelic experience. Ouellette had heard that once the drug wore off and the acid-induced wonderland slipped away, the “self” came barreling back.

“I had to experience this firsthand,” she writes. “After all, it was ‘research.’ ” As the chemical toyed with her brain, Ouellette saw kaleidoscopes of swirling patterns and watched her husband transform into a dragon-man. She keeps the scene light, but her nonrecreational drug use adds a dogged, truth-seeking vibe to her latest project. It’s an ambitious effort to dissect the hodgepodge of genetic and environmental factors that sculpt people’s identities.

Ouellette submits herself to various scientific methods to figure out what makes her who she is, from a brain scan to personality tests to decoding her DNA. But the book isn’t just a lighthearted romp in and out of research labs. It also delivers meaty dollops of biology and history.

As the author of The Calculus Diaries and the blog Cocktail Party Physics, Ouellette is a veteran at breaking tough scientific concepts into bite-sized pieces. She offers richly detailed backstories about genetics and personality science, from Gregor Mendel’s pea plants to Franz Joseph Gall’s early efforts to read people’s traits by touching the bumps on their skulls.

Occasionally the book bites off chunks of science that could be too big to chew, but Ouellette tempers discussions of the latest research on gender identity and consciousness with her own journey of self-discovery. She steers tricky subjects away from textbook terrain by hopscotching through pop culture, dropping names from the X-Men to Harry Potter. Still, the book might appeal most to readers with a good grasp of the basics of biology and psychology.

The overall trip is as colorful as the one Ouellette took as “research” — and it’s probably more illuminating [353]

Source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/me-myself-and-why

Article 3

Should you hush that white noise?

Time 3
It truly pains me to bring you tired parents another round of “Is this bad for my baby?” But this week, a new study suggests that some white noise machines designed for babies can produce harmful amounts of sound.

Before you despair about trashing your baby’s hearing, please keep in mind that like any study, the results are limited in what they can actually claim. And this one is no exception.

I learned the power of white noise when Baby V and I ventured out to meet some new mamas for lunch. As I frantically tried to reverse the ensuing meltdown, another mom came over with her phone. “Try this,” she said as she held up her phone and blasted white noise. Lo and behold, her black magic worked. Instantly, Baby V snapped to attention, stopped screaming and stared wide-eyed at the dark wizardry that is the White Noise Lite app.

Since then, I learned that when all else failed, the oscillating fan setting could occasionally jolt Baby V out of a screamfest. In general, I didn’t leave the noise on for long. It was annoying, and more importantly, it stopped working after the novelty wore off.

But lots of parents do rely on white noise to soothe their babies and help them sleep through the night. These machines are recommended on top parenting websites by top pediatricians, parenting bloggers and, most convincingly, all of the other parents you know. Use liberally, the Internet experts recommend. To reap the benefits, white noise machines should be played all night long for at least the entire first year, many people think. And don’t be shy: The noise should be louder than you think.

These machines are inescapable. But now, a study published online March 3 in Pediatrics is attempting to silence these ringing endorsements. After analyzing the max output of these machines, the study authors conclude that some have the potential to harm babies.  
[332]


Time 4
Pediatric ear surgeon Blake Papsin at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto got interested in these white noise machines when he went into a patient’s room and was blasted with white noise. “The parents said, ‘Oh, the sleep doula tells us this is good for sleeping,’” Papsin recalls. The next time he went into the room, he brought a sound pressure meter. “Eighty-five decibels is what this thing was pumping out,” he says. That’s a level that can be reached by a loud hair dryer.

Curious about this modern-parenting phenomenon, Papsin and colleagues bought 14 commercial noise machines marketed for babies and tested their noise output when turned up all the way. “To our surprise, three of the devices were capable of presenting a toxic, hazardous level of sound,” he says. At a distance of 30 centimeters (to mimic crib-rail placement), those three machines were pumping out noise louder than 85 decibels, the limit set as safe for workplaces. Above that limit, government regulations mandate that adults wear ear protection.

Those three machines were the worst offenders, but all of the machines were capable of exceeding 50 decibels, the level considered safe for nurseries in hospitals. These levels were hit from a distance of 30 and 100 centimeters (mimics placement near the crib), the team found. All but one machine still pumped 50 decibels from a distance of 200 centimeters.

Because of this potential for harm, Papsin and colleagues recommend regulations that prevent these machines from producing more than 85 decibels and suggest the machines have automatic shutoffs. Papsin would also like to see a warning on the side that urges parents to use the machines for a short amount of time at the lowest volume possible.
[300]
Source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/growth-curve/should-you-hush-white-noise?mode=topic&context=69

article 4

Sing a song of bird phylogeny

by Bethany Brookshire

5:42pm, March 12, 2014

Time 5
Spring will be here soon. And with daffodils, crocuses and other signs of spring comes a burst of birdsong as males duke it out to get female attention. While the males trill loud songs, the females sit quietly, choosing who will be the lucky male.

Vocal male and quiet female songbirds are common in temperate zones, and have given rise to a common assumption. The best male songs get picked for reproduction, and this sexual selection results in complex song; females just listen and choose, so female song should be rare. After all, females don’t need to sing to attract mates.

But it turns out this commonly held assumption is not true. A new study shows that the majority of females of songbird species do sing, and it’s likely that the ancestor of modern songbirds was also a vocal diva. The results challenge the old wisdom about female songbirds, and suggest that when it comes to female song, it’s not all about sex.

Karan Odom, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has always been interested in birdsong. “As I began to study it in depth,” she says, “I realized there was a lot that’s unknown, and one area was the extent to which females were singing and the role that song plays in males and females.” Odom and her colleagues did a survey of 44 songbird families, going through bird handbooks and other sources to find records of whether males, females or both were singers. In results published March 4 in Nature Communications, they showed that female melodies are not rare at all. In fact, 71 percent of the species surveyed have singing ladies. So much for that quiet, retiring female bird.

The scientists then mapped the bird species on a phylogenetic tree, a family tree of sorts for a particular group of organisms. By putting species, or family members, in their correct places on the family tree, you can divine what their ancestors may have been like, even if you have never seen that ancestor, notes Mike Webster, an ornithologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. “If you had a whole bunch of relatives,” he says, “some with blonde hair and some with brown hair, you map that on the family tree, and you can see that blonde hair originates with one particular person.” We may not know what great-uncle Moe looked like, but if all of his descendants had brown hair, there’s a high likelihood that he did, too.
[433]

Time 6
Modern phylogenetic trees are often based on DNA from species that have been sequenced. Scientists can examine areas in the DNA where one letter might have been replaced with another. The similarities and differences between the letters can help determine how closely species are related.

The scientists took a phylogenetic tree of songbirdsand looked at each species, noting which had been observed to have female song and which hadn’t. By putting all of the song records on the tree to observe how closely related various species were, Odom and colleagues were able to show that the ancestor species of all songbirds probably had female singers. Kevin Omland, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Maryland and a coauthor on the paper, says that it is far more likely that a small and closely related songbird group lost female song than it is that 71 percent of all songbird species to gained female song through selection.

The scientists say that idea that female songbirds don’t sing probably arose not from the songbirds themselves, but from which species were studied and where. “When people first began studying birdsong,” Odom explains, “a lot of them were in temperate regions where not as many female birds sing.” This gave rise to the assumption that singing females were rare.

Marlene Zuk, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, is “always a fan of studies that examine commonly held assumptions.” She hopes the results of this paper will cause scientists to examine their ideas a little more. “Not everything is the same as in the temperate zone,” she notes. “There could be other implicit assumptions we are not aware of.”

Now that Odom knows more female songbirds sing, she wants to dig deeper to find out why. Females don’t have to sing to attract mates, but Odom hypothesizes that “maybe some other selection pressures are at play: to defend a territory or compete for resources.”  With the new understanding of how widespread female song is, that’s a question that doesn’t have to be left for the birds.
[366]

Source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/sing-song-bird-phylogeny?mode=topic&context=76

cherry6891

Part III: Obstacle

The Key to the Next Energy Revolution?

[Paraphrase 7]
Natural gas is great at heating our houses, but it’s not so good at fueling our cars—at least not yet. Researchers in the United States have discovered a new and more efficient method for converting the main components in natural gas into liquids that can be further refined into either common commodity chemicals or fuels. The work opens the door to displacing oil with abundant natural gas—and reducing both carbon emissions and society’s dependence on petroleum in the process.

Over the past several years, the United States and other countries have undergone an energy revolution as new drilling techniques and a process called hydraulic fracturing have made it possible to recover vast amounts of natural gas. Today, most of that gas is burned, either for heating homes or to drive electricity-generating turbines. But chemical companies have also long had the technology to convert the primary hydrocarbons in natural gas—methane, ethane, and propane—into alcohols, the liquid starting materials for plastics, fuels, and other commodities made by the train load.

However, this technology has never been adopted on a wide scale, because it requires complex and expensive chemical plants that must run at temperatures greater than 800°C in order to carry out the transformation. Converting petroleum into those commodities has always been cheaper, which is why we’ve grown so dependent on oil.

Two decades ago, Roy Periana, a chemist at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, started looking for metal catalysts that could transform natural gas into alcohols at lower temperatures. He knew he needed to find metals that were deft at breaking the carbon-hydrogen bonds that are at the heart of methane, ethane, and propane, short hydrocarbons known as alkanes, and then add in oxygen atoms that would transform the alkanes into alcohols. But all the catalysts he discovered—including platinum, rhodium, and iridium—are rare and expensive, and the technique was never commercialized.

Periana says that what he didn’t appreciate at the time was that to be a good catalyst, the metals need to do another job in addition to transforming C-H bonds into C-O bonds. That’s because in a reactor, these catalysts are surrounded by solvent molecules. So before a metal can break an alkane’s bond, the alkane must first nudge a solvent molecule aside. It turns out that the expensive metals Periana was using aren’t so good at that part of the process: They require extra energy to push the solvent molecules out of their midst. Periana’s team realized that the different electronic structure of more abundant “main group” metals means that they wouldn’t have to pay this energetic price, and, therefore, might be able to carry out the C-H to C-O transformation more efficiently.

It worked better than he expected, Periana says. When he and his colleagues at Scripps and Brigham Young University ran a methane reaction with thallium—a main group metal—alkanes pushed the solvent molecules aside 22 orders of magnitude faster than when the reaction was run with iridium, reducing the overall energy required by about one-third, they report online today in Science. The success brought other benefits as well. The reaction runs at 180°C, and works on all alkanes at the same time, unlike the conventional natural gas conversion technology that works on only one species of alkane at a time. That could make it far easier, and thus potentially cheaper, to build chemical plants to convert natural gas to liquids using the new approach.

“This is a highly novel piece of work that opens the way to upgrading of natural gas to useful chemicals with simple materials and moderate conditions,” says Robert Crabtree, a chemist at Yale University. But that way is not entirely clear yet, Periana cautions. For now, the chemistry works one batch at a time. To succeed as an industrial technology, researchers must work out the conditions to get it to work on a continuous basis, he says. If they do, it may one day make it cheaper to derive commodity chemicals and fuels from natural gas than from petroleum. And that would be an energy revolution indeed.[718]


Source:
http://news.sciencemag.org/chemistry/2014/03/key-next-energy-revolution

cherry6891

抢沙发。。。。

Speaker:smart phone can sent the selfie to a doctor to check the problems with eyes but now only available to researcher

Obstacle: 4:50

--Now researcher find new method(new catalyst) to change natural gas to liquids which will open the door to displace oil with abundant natural gas.

--over the past years,hydraulic fracturing make natural gas into alcohol with expensice chemical plants and high temperature

--two decades ago, lower temperature but with expensive catalysts

--now,they find a good catalyst with low temperature, still the problems of working on a continuous basis is unsolved

Article 2   2:42

JO’s new book-a personal journey exploring what she shape sense of her self

--the methods:brain scan,decode her DNA based on biology and history

--this book might appeal to reader with basic knowledge of biology anf paychology

Article 3  4:00

--White noise that parents do relay on to soothe the babies to help them sleep is harmful to babies

--use the machines for short time and lowest volume

Article 4

--Scientists found that female birds sing which challenge the old wisdom about female birds

--what interest scientist is when the female sing and when birds sing

--scientists mapped a birds species on a phylogenetic tree based on DNA from species and found that 71 percent of all songbird species gained female song through selection

--the reason why they have wrong conclusion before is based on the pace birds locate,temperature zone birds rarely sing

--a lot of female songbirds sing,but why they sing?

xiaofan0205

谢谢cherry~~~

Speaker:
Researchers are developing inexpensive adapters that let smartphones take high-quality images of the eye, which can be sent to your doctor to track eye disease.

Time2: 2'39"
Ouellette submits herself to various scientific methods to figure out what makes her who she is, and she is a veteran at breaking tough scientific concepts into bite-side pieces. She offers richly detailed backstories about genetics and personality science.

Time3: 2'40"
Time4: 2'07"
Lots of parents rely on the white noise machine to soothe their babies and help them sleep through the night, but a study shows that these white noise are harmful to the baby's hearing, so parents should use the machines for a short amount of time at the lowest volume possible.

Time5: 3'34"
Time6: 2'44"
Male songbirds song for reproduction, but females don't have to sing to attract mates. A new study shows that the majority of females of songbirds do sing. The scientist took a family tree to find out the reason why females sing, and hypothesizes that maybe some other selection pressures are at play.

Obstacle: 4'45"
Natural gas is great at heating houses, but not so good at fueling cars, because converting it into liquids that can be further refined into either common commodity chemicals or fuel is too expensive and need high temperatures greater tahn 800'C. Researchers in the United States have discovered a new and more efficient method for the converting, and it will reduce both carbon emissions and society's dependence on petroleum in the process.

jokerking

微博是个好东西~   首页站直~~
spk :  Eye-Catching adapter could warn your doctor about a serious problem with your eyes,whithout a trip to the ophthalmologist. make your selfie into a convenient diagnose, and it is also a necessity for people living in remote areas with poor access to any local ophthalmic care
spd :  1.57   1.48   1.28   1.59   1.38  
ob  :  3.50
researchers have discovered a new method for converting the natural gas into fuels.-- over past several years, many countries have undergone this revolution, but because its complex and expensive progress get this technology into using limitation.-- scietnist P found a new way to transform gas into alchol at lower temperature: using metal catalysts.But all the catalysts he discovered are rare and expensive.-- the key problem is the metal require extra energy to push the solvent molecules out of their midst. he used different electronic metals to solve this. -- if this technology succeed as an industrial technology, it will open the gate of energy revolution .

疏离无罪

继续地下室....

Speaker:Study shows that an selfie can help doctor to dectc eye diseases which can save time for patient.

01:47
A book and research about finding who we are and the sense of self.

01:22
Parents prefer to use white noise machine to soothe their babies and help them sleep.But a recent study shows that this machine may be harmful to babies.

01:16
Most of these machines can produce noise exceeding 50 decibels,the worst can reach even 85 decibels.,which is harmful to ears.Government should set regulation on these machines.

02:29
Old opinion is that only male birds sing to attract females.But a new study shows that female birds also sing.And scientists make a phylogenetic tree for songbird according to their special organisms.

01:38
Modern phylogenetic trees are often based on DNA.According to the study of this DNA tree,scientists find that ancestors of all songbirds had female singers.Some lost this ability for several reasons.The wrong idea comes from that the beginning of the study about songbirds is at temperate region where few female singers exits.

04:38
Main Idea: A new metal catalyst that can help convet natural gas.
Natural gas is a good energy source but it is not good at fueling our cars.Scientists try to convert it into liquid for further use.This will bring a energy revolution.
In the past few years,some companies can convert primary hydrocarbons in natural gas.But this convertion is not in wide scale,because this process is complex and expensive.
So some scientists want to find metal catalysts to make this process economical and effective.But some viable metals are rare and expensive.And other metals need more energy in this process.
Recently a group of scientists find out that thallium perform well in this process.But before this metal can be widely used in industrial technology,more experiments need to be done.

TaoRs92

首页首页~~thx~~


time:2:07.17
O did many researchs to find who she is.Not only scientific,but also histroy and personal expereiences.
______________
time:1:49.96
Many parents use White Noise to sooth their babies and help them sleep during the night.
White Noise machine is very popular among parents.
But a new study shows that some of them can harm babies.
_________________
time:1:31.33
The team finds that some of these machines make noises higher than 80 decibels.And many of them can produce harmful sounds.
They roccommand that parents use them just in a short time and in the lowest volume.
______________
time:2:23.35
Old view--female songbirds are rare.male songbirds sing songs for attracting female.
New view--femle songbirds are not rare.they sing not only for mating.
The study of the family tree of these birds.
______________
time:2:12.52
Researchers find that all the songbirds may decend from the species which had female birds which could sing.
The single,close related bird group has much possiblity to lose the female songs than gain female songs through selection.
Temperate regions may be one of the factor.
Futher study--why these female songbirds sing.
________________
time:4:07.69
Consider using natural gas to fuel our cars.
The situation now:
the use of most natural gas.
why it can not be used in a wide scale--it's expensive to transform it into the fuel we use most(much expensive than petrolium,very difficult,requir extreme conditions).
The finding two decades ago--use catalyst to break up the bonds in the molecules in natural gas.But the catalysts people found were also very expensive.
What's more,the catalyst should do another job--to nudge the molecules around.And this is the reason why these catalysts have low efficiency.
The new fidning--main group metals can do these two things better and in higher efficiency.Other advantages.
Prediction--if the new catalysts can work on continuous basis,the tech will lead to energy revolution.

MAGGIEHE1993

谢谢cherry~~~~~~~
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker: Your selfie now can be turned into an are form. Selfie can warn your doctors serious problems of your eyes.
         Researchers of Stanford University have developed an inexpensive adapters that can take high quality images
         of eyes. The device is especially useful for people who lack access to the ophthamologist.

time2: 2min 14"
       Ouellette used various scientific methods to figure out what makes her who she is. She is good at breaking through
       scientific concepts into bite-sized pieces.

time3: 2min 06"
       Many parents rely on white noise to soothe their babies and help them sleep through the night. But a recent study
       has shown that white noise device may some have potential to harm babies.

time4: 1min 53"
       A researcher in a hospital of Toronto and his team did a research about white noise device and found that some of
       them are able to create noise even louder than the safe limit set for adults. The researcher suggested regulations
       that prevent these machines from producing more than 85 decibels. Also he suggested that parents should use the
       machines for a short amount of time at the lowest volume possible.

time5: 2min 16"
       People usually believe that female birds do not have to sing to attract mates and that they seldom sing. But a new
       research has found that the majority of females of songbird species do sing. Karan from the University of Maryland
       has found that 71 percent of the species surveyed have singing ladies. The scientists used the method of family tree
       to find the ancestors of the singing ancestors.

time6: 1min 55"
       Scientists used the method of family tree have found that the ancestor species of all songbirds probably had female
       singers and species that do not have female singers lost the ability during evolution. The false assumption earlier
       may be due to the study limited to the temporary zone. Scientists warned that there may be other implicit assumptions
       they are not aware of. Also the scientists think that there may be some other seletion pressures at play when female
       birds sing.

Obstacle: 4min 11"
       Natural gas is great at heating our houses but is not so good at fueling our cars. The reason is that the reaction
       converting natural gas to liquid starting materials requires high temperatures and plants used for the reaction is
       expensive. Scientists have been researching a way transforming natural gas into alcohols at lower temperatures.
       Later they found that more abundant main group metals might be able to carry out the transformation more efficiently.
       The new finging can make the transform from natural gas to liquids far easier and potentially cheaper. The finding is
       highlighted by a scientist of Yale University. If scientists continue to work on the reaction, there may be an energy
       revolution indeed.

olivia瓜瓜

还以为是首页~~~~~~~~

Psychedelic ADJ Psychedelic means relating to drugs such as LSD that have a strong effect on your mind, often making you see things that are not there.

Wonderland ： 仙境

Lighthearted 心情愉悦的，无忧无虑的

meaty dollops肉块

hopscotching 跳房子游戏

Time 2： 2m16s

Ouellette experienced the LSD firsthand to explore the sense of self.

This new book is not just about things referred to the research lab, it also delivers the biology and history.

Time 3: 1m41s

The white nose make me annoying, and stop work when the novelty worn off, but many parents depend on it to relieve their child to calm down and sleep.

Time4: 1m21s

Papsin and his colleges fund that the most white nose product in the market have more than decibel 50, which is sound level harm to the hearing.

Time5: 1m59s

The assumption that female do not sing song is not right and also the female sing not only about sex.

Time 6: 1m36s

The phylogenetic tress show that the ancestors of the songbird are all female songbirds.

This fallacy is due to the original studies about the songbirds, which only be taken in temperate zone.

The temperate area often have rare female songbirds.