【Native Speaker每日综合训练—40系列】【40-09】科技

zxppx

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Part I: Speaker

Poor Diabetics Suffer More Amputations
Patients in low-income zip codes were up to 10 times more likely to lose a leg or foot than diabetic patients in more affluent zip codes. Dina Fine Maron reports.

Diabetics who live in poor areas in California are far more likely to suffer an amputation than are diabetics in wealthier neighborhoods. So finds an analysis in the journal Health Affairs. [Carl D. Stevens et al, Geographic Clustering Of Diabetic Lower-Extremity Amputations In Low-Income Regions Of California]

The study reveals that patients in low-income zip codes were up to 10 times more likely to lose a leg or foot than diabetic patients in more affluent zip codes. In poor areas like Compton, as many as 10.7 out of 1,000 diabetic adults ages 45 and older wound up losing a lower limb due to diabetes complications. In wealthier areas, including Malibu and Beverly Hills, no more than 1.5 diabetics per 1,000 lost a limb to the disease.

Fewer healthcare options for poorer patients and their providers may have contributed to the disparity, the researchers write.

The diabetes patients most at risk for amputations were male, older than 65, black and non-English speaking.

When blood sugar and other health metrics are carefully monitored and controlled, diabetes amputations are much more preventable. Otherwise, diabetes can lead to impaired circulation in the feet and nerve damage. Those conditions, in turn, can keep patients from noticing developing infections.

The researchers advise daily foot washing and checks for cuts to help keep patients on their feet. And improved health care access for communities most in need is a must.

- Dina Fine Maron

Source: scientificamerican
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/poor-diabetics-suffer-more-amputations/

[Rephrase 1, 1:45]

zxppx

Part II: Speed

Cosmologist’s ‘Cosmic Cocktail’ is a refreshing read
Katherine Freese explores dark matter and other mysterious parts of the universe
BY ANDREW GRANT | 10 August, 2014

[Time 2]

If the components of the universe were poured into a “cosmic cocktail,” scientists could easily predict how the drink would look and taste, yet they would have no idea what’s in it. Such is the state of cosmology today: While scientists can confidently explain the universe’s history and structure, the identities of its primary components — dark matter and dark energy — remain a mystery. In her first book, Freese, a theoretical physicist at the University of Michigan, chronicles scientists’ attempts, including her own, to discover what the universe is made of.

Freese is not the first scientist to delve into the mysteries of cosmology with a popular science book, but she seems to have the most fun doing it. It’s as if she’s sitting at a bar describing the cool stuff she studies every day.

The author hits her stride in the two chapters dedicated to the cocktail ingredient she’s spent nearly her whole career studying: dark matter, the invisible stuff that outweighs regular atoms in the universe by more than 5 to 1. She deftly explains why physicists are hunting for weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, rather than massive compact halo objects, or MACHOs (a true physics underdog story). Then she describes the recent flurry of tantalizing, often contradictory results of experiments designed to detect dark matter.

[218 words]

[Time 3]

Interspersed with explanations chock-full of historical figures, numbers and acronyms are valuable insights into the human side of science. She describes “dark matter wars” between rivals, including researchers with an Italian experiment called DAMA who insist they’ve unequivocally detected dark matter particles yet won’t share their data or detector technology. Freese’s personal anecdotes also reveal the perks of a career in the sciences and the challenges of working in a male-dominated field.

The future is bright for solving the mystery of dark matter, Freese concludes. The sensitivity of underground sensors designed to catch dark matter particles improves by a factor of 10 every two or three years, and scientists are dreaming up clever experiments including detectors made of DNA (SN: 12/1/12, p. 9). Within the next decade, Freese says, we should know the identity of one crucial ingredient of the tasty but mystifying cosmic cocktail.

[145 words]
Source: sciencenews
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cosmologist%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98cosmic-cocktail%E2%80%99-refreshing-read


Chemical modification could make nuts safe to eat
BY Yael L. Maxwell | 11 August, 2014

[Time 4]

The threat of death does not loom over most people who dip their fists in a bowl of honey-roasted cashews. For those with severe nut allergies, however, such a treat can quickly turn into a trip to the emergency room. Now, preliminary research focusing on modifying the protein structures of peanuts and tree nuts could lead to the creation of hypoallergenic nuts that even the severely allergic can enjoy.

Peanuts and tree nuts such as cashews and walnuts cause life-threatening allergic reactions in an estimated 19 million adults and children in the United States. “The only widely accepted practice for preventing an allergic reaction to nuts is strict avoidance—stay away from the food,” notes Christopher Mattison, a molecular biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. But because even the most careful nut avoider is still prone to accidentally ingesting one, Mattison decided to look for an alternate solution: changing the food instead of changing the person.

Many nut allergies are triggered when the immune system recognizes specific proteins in the food and releases the antibody immunoglobulin E (IgE) to latch on to the allergen, thereby causing reactions from mild itching to life-threatening anaphylaxis, a whole body reaction that may include an itchy rash, throat swelling, and low blood pressure. Mattison knew that the problem isn’t the release of IgE per se, but rather the myriad allergic reactions triggered when it binds to the nut proteins. So he decided to modify the shape of cashew proteins so that IgE wouldn’t be able to recognize them.

For this preliminary experiment, Mattison and his team treated proteins from cashew extract with a potent combination of heat and sodium sulfite, a chemical often used in food preservation and known to be safe to eat. The treatment essentially cuts the proteins up into smaller pieces, destroying the IgE molecules' ability to recognize them. When the researchers tested the altered proteins by mixing them with IgE taken from people allergic to cashews, about 50% fewer of the IgE bound to the altered proteins compared with when they mixed the IgE with unmodified cashew proteins, they report today at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco, California, and in the 16 July issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

[385 words]

[Time 5]

Although similar studies had been conducted previously, Mattison’s is the first to use a compound (sodium sulfite) “generally regarded as safe,” or GRAS, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rather than harsh chemicals people could never hope to eat. Using a GRAS compound in this process is the only way the altered nuts could eventually be manufactured as a food product, Mattison says. Though that goal is still a long way off, his team is already at work on the next step: modifying whole cashews, rather than cashew extract, to be hypoallergenic. Then they’ll have to turn their attention to making sure the modified cashews taste the same as their allergy-causing cousins, Mattison says. After all, no one wants their snack to have a strange aftertaste.

Such applications may be a long way off, cautions Robert Wood, a pediatric allergist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Even the smallest amount of nut protein can set off an allergic reaction in certain patients, he notes. In other words, if even 1% of a patient’s IgE binds to cashew protein, that can still be enough to trigger an allergic reaction. Fifty percent, he says, is still way too dangerous. “My patients would love an allergy-free nut but would have no interest in an allergy-reduced nut.”

A “less allergenic” nut is “not going to change most of my patients’ lives,” agrees J. Allen Meadows, a practicing allergist in Montgomery and spokesman for the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Still, he says he would like to see the research continue, as other still-untested GRAS compounds may potentially be able to eradicate all traces of allergen someday. “This is research that is just one step along a long journey.”

[289 words]
Source: news.sciencemag
http://news.sciencemag.org/chemistry/2014/08/chemical-modification-could-make-nuts-safe-eat  


Premature baby's shrill cry may be sign of something deeper
BY Jia You | 12 August, 2014

[Time 6]

Premature babies are more likely to produce piercing cries than their full-term peers are, researchers report online today in Biology Letters. Scientists have studied infant crying as a noninvasive way to assess how well a baby’s nervous system develops. Previous research of full-term babies indicates that an abnormally high pitch is associated with disturbances in an infant’s metabolism and neurological development. The team recorded spontaneous crying in preterm babies and full-term babies of the same age and compared the pitch of their sobs. They found that preterm babies whimper in a shriller voice, but not because they are smaller in size or grew at a slower rate in their mothers’ wombs. Instead, the researchers suspect the high pitch could reflect lower levels of activities in a premature baby’s vagal nerve, which extends from the brain stem to the abdomen. Vagal nerve activities are believed to decrease tension in the vocal cords, thus producing a lower pitch. Previous studies show that giving preterm babies massage therapies can stimulate their vagal activities, improve their ingestion, and help them gain weight.

[178 words]
Source: news.sciencemag
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/08/premature-babys-shrill-cry-may-be-sign-something-deeper

zxppx

Part III: Obstacle

The other Ebola debate: What about existing drugs?
BY Martin Enserink | 12 August 13, 2014

[Paraphrase 7]

An ethical panel convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) broke new ground today when it said that using experimental, unapproved drugs or vaccines in the current Ebola outbreak is ethical—assuming a set of criteria is met. There is a big problem, however: None of the experimental therapies and vaccines appears to be available in quantities large enough to treat the thousands in need. One of the issues that needs to be debated is how to fairly distribute the scant resources, the panel said in a statement.

That's why another debate is brewing among some scientists and public health officials: What about trying existing drugs that have been approved for other diseases but that might benefit Ebola patients as well?

Several researchers have floated proposals for trying such drugs. One idea—to try using statins and other widely used, cheap medicines—created a "firestorm" this past weekend after a draft op-ed piece discussing the plan (which was submitted to The New York Times today) was circulated to some 80 researchers worldwide, says Thomas Geisbert, an Ebola researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Geisbert is squarely opposed to the idea, because he says there isn't enough evidence that the drugs would do any good. "I am very, very concerned about this," he says.

But David Fedson, a retired pharma executive living in France who drafted the article together with Steven Opal of Brown University, says there is enough reason to believe that statins and some other used drugs such as ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers can save lives and should be tried. Fedson says almost 30 scientists, including very prominent ones, have agreed to co-sign the article.

In Fedson's view, the problem in Ebola is not so much the virus infection itself but a runaway immune reaction that also occurs in the bacterial infection known as sepsis. Statins and other drugs can dampen that immune reaction; a 2012 trial in sepsis patients showed that atorvastatin reduced the risk of progressing to severe sepsis by 83%. He says he has written to WHO Assistant Director-General Marie-Paule Kieny about the idea; she replied with a detailed letter about the agency's reservations, he says. The op-ed article is another attempt to get the issue on the international agenda.

But Geisbert thinks it's a terrible idea. Researchers should be able to show that any therapy taken to Africa has at least prevented death in monkeys, he says—and the drugs that Fedson and Opal are promoting haven’t met that test. "I completely understand that people mean well, and we all want to do something," Geisbert says. "But I have seen so many things that looked promising and didn't work in rodents, or that worked in rodents but didn't protect monkeys. … We shouldn't just grab anything on the back burner" that's approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for some uses.

Compounds that change the immune response could actually make Ebola infection worse, Geisbert warns. And if drugs used today in Africa prove ineffective, that could set back the prospects of Ebola drugs as a whole, says Stephan Becker, an Ebola scientist at the University of Marburg in Germany. (Another veteran Ebola researcher at Marburg, Hans-Dieter Klenk, says he has signed the letter, however.)

Fedson says that many scientists who study filoviruses like Ebola have yet to catch on to the idea of treating the immune response. "All they can think about is hammering the virus," he says. (Fedson has also lobbied for years to get statins and other immunomodulatory agents accepted as potential treatment during influenza pandemics.)

Other scientists are trying to get attention for existing drugs as well. Eleanor Fish, a researcher at the University of Toronto in Canada, is hoping to convince WHO and Doctors Without Borders of the benefits of using Infergen, a synthetic interferon α that she has studied and that has been used widely to treat hepatitis C and other diseases. Pharmunion BSV Development, the Ukrainian company that makes it, has offered to ship 60,000 vials to Africa for free, she says.

Fish has long studied the broad antiviral properties of interferon α, and in 2003 she used it on patients infected with another epidemic virus, SARS; a paper she published in The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that it appeared to help them. In an e-mail she sent to officials at Doctors Without Borders and WHO yesterday, Fish cited two papers by researchers at the Public Health Agency of Canada that suggest it can help monkeys survive an otherwise fatal dose of Ebola.

But in those studies, interferon—delivered by an adenovirus—was used in combination with a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies. Geisbert says the efficacy of the mix may have been due to the antibodies; past studies that he and others have conducted have found no effect on Ebola from interferon itself, he says. Fish agrees there is no published evidence that interferon by itself can save monkeys.

Daniel Getts, chief scientific officer of Cour Pharma in Chicago, Illinois, says he has written WHO to suggest the use of his company's Immune Modifying Nanoparticles, designed to reduce tissue damage by binding immune cells called monocytes. The agency has rejected the idea; "they are only interested in therapies with primate data," he says.

Some researchers also see promise in two selective estrogen receptor modulators approved by FDA—one of them is used to treat breast cancer—that were shown to inhibit Ebola infection in vitro and in a mouse model in a 2013 paper in Science Translational Medicine.

Fish says she realizes she's not the only one trying to get the agency's attention. "I imagine people are probably falling out of the trees with all kinds of garlic therapies and who knows what," she says. Indeed, whether WHO has time and resources to look at all of the ideas is unclear; at an 8 August press conference, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said that her organization is "extremely stretched," as is Doctors Without Borders. WHO's media office did not respond to e-mails today from ScienceInsider about the topic.

The outbreak shows no signs of abating. Today, WHO reported that there have been 1848 cases so far and 1013 deaths; the real numbers almost certainly exceed that tally because some patients don't seek medical care.

[1000 words]
Source: news.sciencemag
http://news.sciencemag.org/africa/2014/08/other-ebola-debate-what-about-existing-drugs

cherry6891

妥妥的沙发

charming9386

板凳待会再来

风随心动01

首页~地板一个~
Time 2：
Lap 1        00:02:01.69        
- A scientist,F, wrote a book attempting discover the components of the universe.
-F studied the problem with most fun.
-Some details in the book include some new theory.
第三段单词都查出来了，我还是看不懂。。。
Time 3
Lap 2        00:01:52.65        
-F open her findings to her rivals,and impressed other scientists.
-The future of this kind of scientice aspects.
Time 6
Lap 4          00:01:41.86        
BACKGROUND:  premature babies are more likely to poduce piercing cries than full-term peers.
STUDY AIM: To study piercing cries is to study babies'N system.
STUDY METHODS: to record and compare
STUDY CONCLUSION: Piercing cries indicate low level of VNA
EXPLAINATION: VNA decrease vocal cords, which will lower pitches.
THE WAY TO SOLVE: to give babies massage therapies.

Time 6 参考了楼下charming大神的阅读方法，整理了一下文章结构。把178字的速度文章当做越障来做，我情何以堪。。。

a2360239

2  1.23.09 propose a phenomenon and introduce a book
3  0.58.19  alternative solution
4  2.24.02  keep the taste and keep the nuts safe to the persons who are allegic
5 01.48.81 one step of a long journey
6 2.15.60  the correlation between the high pitch of the premature baby and disturbance and some physical disorders and propose a solution to keep the baby healthy

charming9386

13 AUG 今天感觉简单一些加油加油 开始GWD。。。
SPEED
01:04 [218 words]
Structure:
          1)background
            the universe is just like "cosmic cocktail"and scientists konw the how it tates BUT don't know how it is made of.
          2)book about cosmic cocktail
            the author spends her career to study what the dark matter is and conduct the experiment to detect the the dark matter.

00:43 [145 words]
Mainidea:the scientists are competed in researching the dark matter. In the next decade,the dark matter is still mysterious.

01:38  [385 words]
Mainidea:chemical modification make the nuts safe to eat
Structure:
          1)background
           In U.S. ,many people are allegic to the nuts because IgE in body would recognize the protein from nuts
          2)research
          the scientist decide to modify the protein in nuts rather than modify the cell in human
          3)result
          It turns out to be 50% decrease in IgE ability to recognize the protein.

01:01 [289 words]
Mainidea: The research is just a step in a long journey and even if the smallest amount ,it may give rise to allergy.
          And people want to allergy-free nuts rather than less-allergy nuts.

00:53 [178 words]
Mainidea:premature baby's shrill cry may be sign of something deeper and cry may reflect infant's low metabolism and vagal nerve by the research.

Obstacle
04:01 [1000 words]
Mainidea:Ebola--what about existing drugs????
attitude:critical
Structure:
          1)background
            Now, the Ebola has not any existing drugs to treat.And many scientists suggest that we should use some other drugs,which can cure other disease other than Ebola.
          2)debate
            1.some scientists claim that this measure may make immune system more complex and be useless because of compound disease associated with Ebola
             More conspicuous, in this way can make the immune produce anti-reaction.
            2.other scientists persuade the agency to use drugs because they conducted the research by monkeys.And it turns out that it is safe to use drugs in human.
          3)future
           There is no any sign of decreasing the Ebola.And the real number of infected people is more than we konow because many people would not seek medical care.

daisyjin

2.
Not know the composition.
Freese describes that. In interesting way.
Two chapter in the book.

3.
Research rivals.
Bright future.

4.
Allergy to nut. Hard to avoid.
Change the nut rather than person.
The mechanism of allergy.
Change protein, less recognized by E.

5.
Nut product with modified cashew is on.
Still risk to allergy.
The research needs to be continue.

6.
preterm babies cry louder.
Research done, louder voice means the disturb in vagal nerve. A treatment can help those babies to develop better.

Obstacle.
Ebola break out. The medicine is not large enough to treat the disease.
Some argues to use the current medicine, with the previous experience to treat the other ill.
Geisbert does not agree, with treatment to Ebola is unknown, and what now matters is to damp the ebola bacteria.
Serval suggestion to use the current medicine is on, while the office does not respond. The Ebola continues.

MAGGIEHE1993

    谢谢楼主~~~~~~~~~~~
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker: A study reveals that patients in low-income zip codes were up to 10 times more likely to lose a leg or foot
         than diabetic patients in more affluent zip codes. Fewer healthcare options for poorer patients and their
         providers may have contributed to the disparity.
time2: 1min 21"
       Freese explained her study field, dark matter and dark energy in her first book. She seems to have the most fun
       researching dark matter than any other scientists. Her new book was described as a cosmic cocktail.
time3: 57"
       Interspersed with explanations chock-full of historical figures, numbers and acronyms are valuable insights into
       the human side of science. The future is bright for solving the mystery of dark matter.
time4: 2min 30"
       People who are allergic to nuts are prevented from enjoying them freely. Scientists came up with an idea to change
       the structure of nut protein that will cause allergic reaction so that allergic people can also enjoy peanuts, tree
       nuts, cashews and many other types of nuts.
time5: 1min 55"
       The author introduced the way how to make cashew to be low hypoallergenic. But a pediatric allergist said even a
       change of 50% still cannot be regarded as safe. There is still a long way to go to be able to eradicate all traces
       of allergen someday.
time6: 1min 11"
       Researchers have discovered that premature babies are more likely to produce high pitch voice than their full-term
       peers are. Scientists have found that may reflect the lower levels of activities in a premature baby's vagal nerve.
Obstacle: 7min 35"
       The World Health Organization announced that using experimental, unapproved drugs or vaccines in the current Ebola
       outbreak is ethical. But scientists also doubt that existing drugs may be used for treatment. Several researchers
       have floated proposals for trying such drugs, including David Fedson. But Geisbert is squarely opposed to the idea.
       He thinks that the existing drugs have not yet been approved effective on rodents or monkeys and therefore cannot
       be used on human being. Fedson thinks that the existing drugs can be used to attack the immune response and therefore
       can be effective. Other scientists are also trying to get attention for existing drugs as well. Fish is studing interferon
       in the use of Ebola treatment.