【Native Speaker每日综合训练—34系列】【34-11】科技

cherry6891

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Part I: Speaker

Health Insurance Mystifies Many Americans

Obama: “Have you heard of the Affordable Care Act?”
Galifianakis: “Oh yeah, I heard about that…that's the thing that doesn't work?” Zach Galifianakis ribbing President Obama in the instant classic viral video.

But even if Americans have heard of Obamacare, via Zach or more conventional means, many don't know how it works—or even how health insurance works generally.
Last fall, researchers quizzed 6000 Americans, age 18 to 65, on health insurance and the new law. Half didn't know about the insurance marketplaces, or their subsidies. Forty-two percent couldn't define a deductible. And two thirds didn't know the difference between an HMO, with its restrictive physician network, and a PPO, which typically offers more flexibility. The full survey is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Silvia Helena Barcellos et al,  Preparedness of Americans for the Affordable Care Act]
Study author Silvia Helena Barcellos of USC says those most likely to benefit from the law—like uninsured young and low-income respondents—typically know the least. "It's very hard to believe that people will make informed choices…without having knowledge of these basic concepts." And until we master the basics, she says, simpler insurance options might be just what the doctor ordered.

Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/health-insurance-ignorance/


[Rephrase 1, 1:31]

cherry6891

Part II: Speed

article2

The Monkey's Voyage

time2
By 26 million years ago, the ancestors of today’s New World monkeys had arrived in South America. How those primates reached the continent is something of a conundrum. The leading explanation has the animals floating across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa aboard a giant raft of vegetation.

The scenario may sound preposterous. But de Queiroz, an evolutionary biologist, uses fossil, genetic and geologic evidence to make a compelling case that a variety of plants and animals have dispersed on long-distance ocean voyages throughout evolutionary history.

The idea is not new: Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel ** were convinced that ocean voyages played a role in evolution. But by the mid-20th century, when geologists had verified plate tectonics and realized that continents are not stationary, the theory fell out of favor. Many biologists thought that sea level changes and continental breakups better explain how closely related organisms can end up on opposite sides of an ocean. Proponents of the vicariance hypothesis, in which a barrier divides a species’ range, were dogmatic — they “seemed a bit like an unruly cult,” de Queiroz writes — and ridiculed those who thought creatures could sail on the high seas and survive.

But in example after example — from amphibians to flightless birds — de Queiroz challenges the vicariance camp’s dogma. Over the last several decades, evidence of ocean journeys has piled up. For instance, the fossil record and genetic analyses that estimate when lineages diverged indicate that New World monkeys split from Old World monkeys and apes at least 50 million years after South America and Africa broke apart. That leaves a transatlantic trip as the only reasonable way primates could have migrated to the New World.

Although de Queiroz is unlikely to persuade staunch vicariance advocates, The Monkey’s Voyage is a captivating look at one of biogeography’s most puzzling problems, with just the right balance between science and scientific drama [328]

source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/monkeys-voyage

article3

Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why

time3

It’s certainly possible to over-analyze a joke. But can the same be said for humor as a whole? Considering the abundant research on the topic, maybe not.

Scott Weems, a neuroscientist, takes readers on a wide-ranging tour that explains what humor is and why readers should care. Turns out, humor influences health and social well-being in many ways.

Humor improves interpersonal relationships, and studies show that simply watching a funny movie can lower stress, improve immune system response and even help viewers better solve problems.

The complexity of the human brain makes humor possible, Weems argues, and it also helps explain how some people can find a joke hilarious while others deem it grossly offensive.

Humor takes many forms — as many as 44 by one researcher’s count — but shares certain traits and themes. From puns and riddles to slapstick, humor is inherently subversive, Weems says, often treating serious subjects with frivolity or even rudeness. Prisoners of war and others in dire situations, for instance, often turn to dark humor.

Ha! isn’t a self-help guide to being funny, though a careful reader can find useful nuggets throughout. The funniest jokes carry a little edginess, but not too much. Surprise helps, too, whether it’s the incongruity of an elephant hiding in a cherry tree or the absolute improbability of Raquel Welch and the pope ending up in the same lifeboat.

The final chapter divulges Weems’ semisuccessful attempt at stand-up comedy. He got a few laughs, he says, but not where he expected them. Maybe practice does make perfect: The joke that got Weems the most laughs, and judged by one website’s readers as the best in the world, is a story that he had practiced many dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. [302]

Source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ha-science-when-we-laugh-and-why

article4

This winter warrior made the gravitational waves discovery possible

time4
The wind chill is −80° Celsius when Steffen Richter, donning a red parka, hops on a snowmobile and heads to work. Lighting his path are the stars, a sliver of moon and the faint green glow of the aurora australis, the southern lights.

It’s the kind of day that might make him miss home — but Boston is nearly 15,000 kilometers away, and no pilot would dare fly anywhere near Richter’s location for months. Plus, the Harvard engineer has a job to do. Hitched to Richter’s snowmobile is a vat of liquid helium, the lifeblood of a telescope built at the far end of the world to detect and dissect the universe’s oldest light.

On March 17, several scientists sat in a climate-controlled auditorium at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to announce that their South Pole telescope, BICEP2, had detected ripples in spacetime dating back to a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang (SN: 4/5/14, p. 6). It’s a potentially Nobel Prize–winning discovery, and it could not have been made without Richter. His daily maintenance checks and semiweekly helium deliveries during three consecutive Antarctic winters allowed BICEP2 to remain fixated on exposing the earliest moments of the universe.

Spending a winter at the planet’s southernmost point is the ultimate commitment. The Amundsen–Scott research station there is inaccessible by air for nearly nine months of the year, eliminating any opportunity for escape. Once the sun dips below the horizon in March, it doesn’t return until September, leaving behind a frigid, dry environment that’s ideal for astronomical observation but abysmal for human habitation. [291]

time5
That doesn’t bother Richter, an adventurer whose passions include riding motorbikes in remote parts of the world. In his nine winters at the polar station (which put him in a tie for the most spent there), he has served as the only line of engineering defense for several multimillion-dollar experiments. Two of the biggest are BICEP and IceCube, which recently detected neutrinos from beyond the solar system (SN: 12/28/13, p. 6). Every day, he trekked out in temperatures averaging 58 degrees Celsius below zero to inspect the instruments and their data.

BICEP2, which Richter oversaw for the winters of 2010 through 2012, required extra attention. Even in the pole’s frigid temperatures, the telescope needed to be kept much colder to detect radiation emitted just after the Big Bang, which hovers just a few degrees above absolute zero. Missing one delivery of liquid helium coolant could cripple the telescope for weeks. “You have to do it no matter what the weather is,” he says. “Running out of liquid helium is not an option.”

The rest of his time, he was bonding with the roughly 50 scientists, doctors, cooks, electricians, plumbers and others operating the research station. They ate together, shared stories and performed feats possible only during polar winters: Richter is a proud member of the 300 Club, having run outside naked in -100 degree Fahrenheit temperatures after roasting in a 200-degree sauna.

He plans to return to the South Pole later this year to install upgrades for the new and improved BICEP3 telescope. But he won’t spend the winter — the team found another willing victim to take his place. “I have high confidence in him,” Richter says of his stand-in. “Hopefully he’ll be great so that I won’t have to do it every year.”[313]
Source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/winter-warrior-made-gravitational-waves-discovery-possible

article5

Skewed gender ratios turn bird world into a soap opera

time6
It can be easy to romanticize birds. After all, some 90 percent of bird species are monogamous. And there are sweet stories like maleemperor penguins that keep eggs warm and hornbills that sing duets together.

But when adult populations become dominated by one gender, all that sweetness, it seems, hides worlds of wrecked relationships and promiscuity, report András Liker of Sheffield University in England and colleagues in the April 14 Current Biology.

Liker and his team began by compiling data on 187 bird species, examining information on a population’s gender ratio of adults, polygamy, infidelity and rates of divorce — when a pair of birds separates or just doesn’t get back together in the following breeding season. Then the researchers looked for patterns in that data. Monogamy began to unravel when one gender dominated, but there were differences between male-dominated and female-dominated populations.

In female-dominated societies, divorce was twice as common as in species with more males. Divorce can happen in various ways: A paired-up male might desert his mate when she’s been fooling around, or he might leave to pair up with a female with better qualities. Male blue-footed boobies (Sula nebouxii) are known to split up with his mate for those reasons.

Or when there aren’t enough males to go around, an unpaired female might horn in on another relationship, breaking a pair up so that she can get a mate. North Island brown kiwis (Apteryx mantelli) are thought to go that route.

In bird societies that have more of one gender, the rarer sex often takes advantage of the wealth of potential mates to play the field — polygamy becomes more common. This can happen whether it’s the girls or guys with the improved mating opportunities, but it’s a bit more common when males are fewer in number, the researchers report.
When males are greater in number, there’s more infidelity. This could be because females have more opportunity to try out different mates. But it could also have a more sinister source — males that can’t find permanent mates may take to forcing unwilling females.

When Science News’ Susan Milius wrote about bird divorce in 1998, researchers weren’t ready to apply any of their bird knowledge to humans, but it seems that times have changed. “Our results in birds show striking parallels with studies in humans,” Liker and colleagues write. “For instance, divorce rates are higher in both birds and humans in female-biased than in male-biased populations.” They’re still not saying that human and bird populations are alike when it comes to romance, but they note that the bird studies point to some areas of human relationships that might be worthy of more study.[472]

Source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/skewed-gender-ratios-turn-bird-world-soap-opera

cherry6891

Part III: Obstacle

Technology: The $1,000 genome

In Silicon Valley, Moore's law seems to stand on equal footing with the natural laws codified by Isaac Newton. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore's iconic observation that computing power tends to double — and that its price therefore halves — every 2 years has held true for nearly 50 years with only minor revision. But as an exemplar of rapid change, it is the target of playful abuse from genome researchers.

In dozens of presentations over the past few years, scientists have compared the slope of Moore's law with the swiftly dropping costs of DNA sequencing. For a while they kept pace, but since about 2007, it has not even been close. The price of sequencing an average human genome has plummeted from about US$10 million to a few thousand dollars in just six years (see ‘Falling fast’). That does not just outpace Moore's law — it makes the once-powerful predictor of unbridled progress look downright sedate. And just as the easy availability of personal computers changed the world, the breakneck pace of genome-technology development has revolutionized bioscience research. It is also set to cause seismic shifts in medicine.

In the eyes of many, a fair share of the credit for this success goes to a grant scheme run by the US National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). Officially called the Advanced Sequencing Technology awards, it is known more widely as the $1,000 and $100,000 genome programmes. Started in 2004, the scheme has awarded grants to 97 groups of academic and industrial scientists, including some at every major sequencing company.

It has encouraged mobility and cooperation among technologists, and helped to launch dozens of competing companies, staving off the stagnation that many feared would take hold after the Human Genome Project wrapped up in 2003. “The major companies in the space have really changed the way people do sequencing, and it all started with the NHGRI funding,” says Gina Costa, who has worked for five influential companies and is now a vice-president at Cypher Genomics, a genome-interpretation firm in San Diego, California.

A giant's legacy
The $1,000 genome programme, now close to achieving its goal, will award its final grants this year. As technology enthusiasts look to future challenges, the coming milestone raises questions about how the roughly $230-million government programme managed to achieve such success, and whether its winning formula can be applied elsewhere. It benefited from fortuitous timing and the lack of an entrenched industry. But Jeffery Schloss, director of the division of genome sciences at the NHGRI in Bethesda, Maryland, who has run the programme from its inception, says that its achievements also suggest that there are ways to navigate public–private partnerships successfully. “One of our challenges is to figure out what is the right role for the government; to not get in the way, but feed the pipeline of private-sector technology development,” he says.

The quest to sequence the first human genome was a massive undertaking. Between 1990 and the publication of a working draft in 2001, more than 200 scientists joined forces in a $3-billion effort to read the roughly 3 billion bases of DNA that comprise our genetic material (International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium Nature 409, 860–921; 2001). It was a grand but sobering success. The project's advocates had said that it would reveal 'life's instruction book', but in fact it did not make it possible to interpret how the instructions encoded in DNA were transformed into biology. Understanding how DNA actually influences health and disease would require studying examples of the links between genes and biology in thousands, perhaps millions, more people.

The dominant technology at the time was Sanger sequencing, an inherently slow, labour-intensive process that works by making copies of the DNA to be sequenced that include chemically modified and fluorescently tagged versions of the molecule's building blocks. One company, Applied Biosystems in Foster City, California, provided the vast majority of the sequencers to a limited number of customers — generally, large government-funded laboratories — and there was little incentive for it to reinvent its core technology.

Still, researchers had seen some advances, including robots that replaced some human work and improvements in devices capable of handling small amounts of liquid. At a 2002 meeting convened by the NHGRI, scientists predicted that such developments would drive costs down at least 100-fold over the next five years. But that was not enough.

They debated what price target would make human genome sequencing routine, the kind of thing a physician might order to help diagnose a patient — on a par with a magnetic resonance imaging scan. “Somebody threw out, to great rolling of eyes, 'a thousand dollars',” recalls Schloss.

That seemed too ambitious, given the state of the technology. “The risk associated with that is not one that your normal investor is willing to spend any money on,” says Eric Eisenstadt, a retired official from the US government's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency who is now a consultant in Reston, Virginia.

So Schloss and the NHGRI stepped in and began to fund basic research on entirely new methods of sequencing, as well as industrial research to develop these technologies for commercial use. The mixture of applied and academic research within a single programme was uncommon at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the NHGRI's parent agency. The project was also more nimble than the typical NIH grant programme because it allowed the agency to make small awards for work considered promising but risky. “That flexibility is unusual for the NIH,” says Schloss.[943]

Source:

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/their-homes-warm-salamanders-shrink

cherry6891

这回儿应该没人来抢沙发了吧 哈哈 还是 愚人节的沙发

Speaker: many people don’t familiar with obamacare. They don’t know insurance market and what is can be deductible. So it is hard to believe that people will make informed chooses.

Obstacle 6:48

The price of DNA sequencing drop to $1000. Then introduce the start of NIH project and the influence of the development of sequencing. The new sanger method and the use of the robots replaced some human work make higher efficiency and lower cost.

Still they work more on finding new sequencing method and industrial research to develop this technologies for commercial use.

Time2 2:07

A book tells the importance of voyages throughout evolutionary history

Time3 1:59

A neuroscientist explains what humor is and why reader should care. At the same time,humor influences health and social well-being in many ways

Time4 2:00

A depiction of a engineer’s job at South pole--dissect the universe’s oldest light ,detect ripple,maintain checks and semiweekly helium deliveries

Time5 1:40

Adventurer Richard enjoys the job here. During working time they detect radiation emitted after the big bong and maintain the helium while the rest of the time ,he has fun with his coworkers in the research station  

xiaofan0205

那就愚人节的板凳吧~~~

Speaker:
Many Americans didn't know about the insurance marketplace, or their subsidies, or they can't tell the difference between HMO and PPO, if they don't know these basic concepts, it's hard to believe that they can make informed choices.

Time2: 2'28"
The ancestors of today's New World monkeys had arrived in South America by 26 million years ago, and evidences show that a transatlantic tirp as the only reasonable way primates could have migrated to the New World.

Time3: 2'22"
Humor influences health and social well-being in many ways. The complexity of the human brain makes humor possible and it also helps explain how some people can find a joke hilarious while others deem it grossly offensive.

Time4: 2'12"
Time5: 2'05"
Steffen Richter needs to go to South Pole every year to do his daily maintenance checks and semiweekly helium deliveries during three consecutive Antarctic winters allowed their South Pole telescope, BICEP2 to remain fixated on exposing the earliest moments of the universe. Now the team found another willing victim to take his place.

Time6: 3'34"
Some 90 percent of bird species are monogamous, but when adult populations become dominated by one gender, monogamy began to unravel, but there were differences between male-dominated and female-dominated populations. The results in birds show striking parallels with studies in humans.

疏离无罪

愚人节的地板
楼下的小野 好~~
我是太闲了，做做作业督促自己！

Speaker: Most american do not know how Obama care works.And the people who can benefit from this most know this thing least.

01:20
Ocean voyages were once thought be unaccpetable in evolution.Sea level change and breaking continents may be the better explanation.But recent study shows that ocean voyages may be right.

01:51
Humor influences health and social well-being in many ways.The complexity of human brain help people to understand the joke.And humor also have many forms.

01:33
Richter's tough daily work in South pole station makes the discovery of gravitational waves which appear after the big bang possible.

01:20
Descirbe Richter's daily life in South Pole Station.

02:25
In female-dominated siciteties,divorce is twice as common as in species with more males.And the inbalance in the gender will make birds do sth as in soap opera.

05:35
Main Idea: The process of the 1000 dollar gene program
It seems that Moore's law can also be used in genome resaerch.The price to sequence DNA decreasing greatly in a few years.Thanks to the development of technology and NHGRI.
NHGRI has funded mant competing companies in this field and the result is execellent.The 1000 dollar dollars genome program is close to success now.The question now is where to apply this tech.
The quest to sequence the first human genome was a tough task and expensive research.And the following studies are aslo expensive and risky,which makes no investors want to spend money on this program.
So NHGRI setted and funded many programs to have further study on human genome.,which is unusual to NIG.

晓野的野

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
愚人节的后排，居然占到个首页，yeah
啵，想起昨天的作业还没做，呃，啵，我得小声一点
楼上的疏离好呀，你好腻害一直坚持
俺三天晒网，然后又晒网【捂脸奔
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掌管 3        00:01:33.07        00:04:37.61
掌管 2        00:01:40.60        00:03:04.54
掌管 1        00:01:23.93        00:01:23.93

MAGGIEHE1993

愚人节快乐~~~~~~~~~~~谢谢楼主啦~~~~~~~~~
-----------------------------------------------------------
十天没看越障文的下场就是看了两遍还是不知道文章在讲什么小分队的练习真是不能停啊-_-!
Speaker: Researches have shown that people are ignorant about Obama care. Two thirds of the people surveyed didn't know
         the difference between HMO and PPO. An expert said that people can't make inform decisions without knowledge
         of the health care project.

time2: 2min 20"
       The leading explanation has the animals floating across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa aboard a giant raft of
       vegetation. Although the scenaria may sound preposterous, an evolutionary biologist uses fossil, genetic and
       geologic evidence to make a compelling case that a varitey of plants and animals have dispered on long-distance
       ocean voyages throughout evolutionary history.

time3: 2min 25"
       The passage is about a researcher's analysis about humor. He has found that humor improves interpersonal relationships,
       and lower stress.

time4: 2min 09"
       The writer described the daily work of Steffen Richter, a scientist who observes cosmic lights at South Pole.

time5: 1min 56"
       Every day, he trekked out in temperatures averaging 58 degrees Celsius below zero to inspect the instruments and their
       data. Richter has to deliver liquid helium every day no matter what the weather is. Richter spends his spare time in
       South Pole with many other people and they have many activities together. Richter does not have to return to South
       Pole this winter for the team has found another willing victim to take his place.

time6: 3min
       Scientists have found that in female-dominated societies, the divorce of birds was twice as common as in species with
       more males. Their results in birds show striking parallels with studies in humans.

Obstacle: 7min 23"
       Scientists have compared the slope of Moore's law with the swigtly dropping costs of DNA sequencing and have found that
       the decreasing of the price of sequencing makes the once-powerful predictor of unbridled progress look downright sedate.
       In the eyes of many, a fair share of the credit for this success goes to a grant scheme run by the US NHGRI.
       The organizatuib has encouraged mobility and cooperation among technologists and helped to launch dozens of competing
       companies.
       The $1,000 genome programme, now close to achieving its goal, will award its final grants this year.
       The quest to sequence the first human genome was a massive undertaking.

yinghua9122

这么早来学校，那就占个首页吧。
Speaker
Mr Obama's health care law seems not to arouse interesting among American citizens. A survey found that the vast majority didn't know this care law basically. and the researcher who conduct this survey thinks that those most likely to benefit from the law typically know the least.

time2 1'50
monkey float across the Atlantic ocean from Africa to the South America. and the development of this hypothesis.

Time3
humor can influnence our health and social well-being. it help us to release pressure and improve interpersonal relationships. Humor can be practiced, and practice does make perfect.

Time4 1'47
Richter is a recorder at the South pole.  his daily miantenance checks and semiweekly helium deliveres in the three consentive years allows researchers to expose the earliest moment of the universe.

Time5 1'42
Richter has stay in the South Pole for nine years. he is so important to all the experiments of Antarctic. this year he is replaced by another person. he can have a rest.

Time6 3'16
the gender ratio will have effect on the divorce rate and polygamy in the bird kingdom. in the female-dominated societies, divorce was twice as common i nspecies with more males. the rarer sex often have advantage to get or change mate.

ieveline

谢谢楼主

Speaker
Many don't know how Obamacare works, or even don't know how health insurance works.
Half of tested American didn't know insurance marketplaces or their subsideis.
2/3 don't know the differences between definions in healthcare.
The target of obamacare- uninsured young and low-incomers know the least.
Speed
1--02:09
How monkey reahed continet is a mystery.
DQ uses fossil, genetic and geologic eveidence to prove that a lot of pants and animals have dispersed on long-distance ocean voyages.
Sicentists believe ocean voages played a role in evolution.
Many bioloigst thought sea levels changes and contiental breakup explains closely related organism end up on opposite sides of an ocean.
Evidence shos animal split up after continents broke apart.
2--01:56
Humor improves interpersonal realtionship and lower stress, improve immune system respons and more.
The complexity of human brain makes humor possible and different people have different reaction to the same story.
Humor takes many forms.
3--01:56
SR helpd to find a potentially nobel preize winning discovery, ripples in spacetime dating back to a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Bing Bang.
AS research station in Mrach to September is ideal place for astronomical observation but abysmal for human habitation.
4--01:45
SR have two experiments to take care.
BICEP2 need very colder temperarture, a few degrees above absolute zero, to work, requiring SR deliver liquid helium coolant in time.
Apart of the baby-sitting time, SR stays with other scientists.
New guy will replace SR.
5--03:00
Scientists studied 187 bird species to find out the matting pattern.
Female-dominated societies have twice divorce as male-dominated ones.
The rarer sex often takes advantage of the wealth of potential mates to play around.
Polygamy can happen, expercially when males are fewer in number.
And bird populations seems similar with human populaitons when it comes to romance.
Obstacle--05:53
The costs of DNA sequencing dramatically decreased
The costs of DNA researchs are decreasing in recent years.
NHGRI provides funds to many genome programs,helps to launch companies.
Challenge--the role of government--not get in the way, but support private-sector technology development
Sequence human genome was advocated as revealing life's instruction book, but did not make it possible to transform DNA into biology.
Still need more to study.
The dominant technology was slow, with intensive process, but has some advances.
NHGRi began to fund basic research on new methods of sequencing and technologies for commerical use.