【Native Speaker每日综合训练—40系列】【40-14】科技

AceJ

内容：AceJ 编辑：AceJ

公益申请，每月一名   

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Part I: Speaker

Nose knows what the mind tells it

They say that the nose knows. But it still gets its marching orders from the brain—at least when it comes to the lungs. Got that? Nose to brain to lungs. Because a new study shows that when people with asthma think they’re smelling something noxious, their airways become inflamed—even when the odor is harmless. The finding is in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research. [Cristina Jaén and Pamela Dalton, Asthma and odors: The role of risk perception in asthma exacerbation]

Asthma attacks can be triggered by pollen, dust, harsh chemicals or scents. These environmental annoyances constrict the airways in the lung, making breathing difficult.

In this study, researchers wanted to see whether an individual’s assumptions have any influence over this breathtaking series of events. So they exposed 17 asthma sufferers to a benign chemical that smells like roses for 15 minutes. Nine subjects were told the fragrance was a potential irritant, the other eight that it would be therapeutic.

The results were as plain as the nose on your face: subjects who expected an irritant experienced inflammation. And those who were primed to be soothed had no adverse reactions—even if they were normally bothered by perfumes.

The results suggest that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Or be as irritating as you expect it will.

—Karen Hopkin

Source: Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/nose-knows-what-the-mind-tells-it/

[Rephrase 1, 1:22]

AceJ

Part II: Speed

Man-made quakes shake the ground less than natural ones
BY Alexandra Witze | Aug 18, 2014

[Time 2]
Expanded oil and gas operations in the central and eastern United States have triggered earthquakes as large as magnitude 5.7, as drillers inject wastewater back into the ground. But seismologists now report a bit of good news: such 'induced' quakes appear to shake the ground less than a naturally occurring earthquake of the same magnitude would.

That is good news because less shaking means less damage. “Maybe induced earthquakes aren’t quite as fearsome as they may seem,” says Susan Hough, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Pasadena, California, whose work is published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America1. “The hazard from induced quakes is going to be down a notch relative to tectonic quakes.”

But the observation holds only for areas more than 10 kilometres from the earthquake’s epicentre. Anyone close to the drilling would still feel as much shaking as a natural quake would bring. “This might lead to a recommendation that deep injection wells should be kept 10 kilometres away from population centres,” says Hough.

The injection of wastewater during conventional oil and gas extraction tends to trigger earthquakes of about magnitude 4 to 52. (The controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, also generates earthquakes but usually only of around magnitude 3 in size.) Some of these quakes have caused significant damage, such as a series of three quakes in November 2011 near Prague, Oklahoma, that occurred within just a few kilometers of fluid injection wells and destroyed at least 14 homes in neighbouring towns3.
[254 words]

[Time 3]
Ground truth
“There’s been an awful lot of work on induced quakes, but people haven’t really been looking at the shaking they generate,” says Hough. So she decided to explore a USGS database known as the Did You Feel It? system, in which anyone who experiences the ground moving can report it. The sheer number of people who participate makes the database an accurate and useful tool, says Hough — especially in the central and eastern United States, which are not as densely studded with seismometers as, say, California.

Hough analysed data for 11 induced earthquakes in the central and eastern United States, from February 2011 in Arkansas to December 2013 in Oklahoma. “The observations are very straightforward — in every single case the intensities are low,” she says.

The relatively low levels of shaking suggest that induced earthquakes have a low 'stress drop', a measure of how an earthquake behaves. Two earthquakes of the same magnitude can have different stress drops. Imagine two trucks rumbling across the same distance: one moves in short, fast jerks; the other moves slowly and smoothly. The second truck would have the lower stress drop.

Induced earthquakes may have lower stress drop than natural ones because the fluids injected into the ground lubricate geological faults and allow them to slip more smoothly, Hough says. The discovery may provide another tool to determine whether an earthquake is natural or induced.

Danielle Sumy, a seismologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, says that Hough’s findings mesh with her own analysis of the Prague earthquakes. Sumy is analysing data from seismometers set out after the earthquakes there to capture the aftershocks. Her preliminary findings support the idea that induced quakes cause less shaking than natural quakes, Sumy says.

“[Hough] shows that what we think should happen during a natural tectonic quake isn’t really occurring for these induced events,” Sumy says. “That's the power of using community-based information.”
[321 words]

Source: Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/man-made-quakes-shake-the-ground-less-than-natural-ones-1.15742


NIH to probe racial disparity in grant awards
US agency will assess whether grant reviewers are biased against minority applicants.

BY Sara Reardon | August 19, 2014

[Time 4]
Richard Nakamura, director of the Center for Scientific Review at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), does not consider himself to be racially biased. Yet a test of his speed at associating certain words with faces of different races revealed a slight unconscious prejudice against minorities. If the director of the institute that oversees the NIH’s grant process harbours these inclinations, he wonders, are grant reviewers affected as well?

To answer that question, the NIH will launch ambitious analyses beginning in September to determine whether bias hampers minority scientists who seek agency funding. A 2011 study in Science found that white researchers receive NIH grants at nearly twice the rate that African American researchers do (see ‘Grant gap’). Even when factors such as publication record and training are considered, an African American scientist is still only two-thirds as likely as a white scientist to be funded (D. K. Ginther et al. Science 333, 1015–1019; 2011). The disparity seems to arise early during the review process, when grants are first rated.

The findings spurred the NIH to launch a ten-year, US$500-million effort in 2012 to train and mentor minority scientists. But officials acknowledge that the racial gap among grantees is not just because there are fewer qualified applications from minority researchers. Now the agency will look inward to determine where its grant process may be failing — and what to do about it.

One basic issue that the NIH will address is whether grant reviewers are thinking about an applicant’s race at all, even unconsciously. A team will strip names, racial identification and other identifying information from some proposals before reviewers see them, and look at what happens to grant scores. (Such identity stripping is surprisingly difficult: even citations might reveal who the applicant is, and reviewers need some information about an applicant to make a fair appraisal.) The results could be telling. “If the disparity drops with anonymization, that’s clear evidence of bias,” says Nakamura.
[326 words]

[Time 5]
Such a finding would be in line with other results in this area. A study published this year found that faculty members in US universities are less likely to respond to interview requests from prospective students whose names are associated with minority groups than they are to identical requests from students with ‘white’ names (K. L. Milkman et al. Soc. Sci. Res. Network http://doi.org/t9h; 2014).

The NIH will also study reviewers’ work in finer detail, by analysing successful applications for R01 grants, the NIH’s largest funding programme for individual investigators. The goal is to see whether researchers can spot trends in the language used by reviewers to describe proposals put forward by applicants of different races. There is precedent for detectable differences: in a paper to be published in Academic Medicine, a team led by Molly Carnes, a physician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, used automated text analysis to show that reviewers’ critiques of R01 grant applications by women tended to include more words denoting praise, as though the writer is surprised at the quality of the work. And numerous other studies show that different standards exist for men and women in a variety of fields. “Women do, indeed, have to be twice as good to get the same competence rating as a man,” says Carnes.

The NIH will also analyse text in samples of reviewers’ unedited critiques. The Center for Scientific Review typically edits the wording and grammar of these reviews before grant proposals are returned to applicants, but even the subtlest details of such raw comments might hold clues about bias. Nakamura says that reviewers will not be told whether their comments will be analysed, because that in itself would bias the sample. “We want them to be sloppy,” he says.
[293 words]

[Time 6]
The NIH’s Study Sections, in which review groups discuss the top 50% of grant applications, might also harbour bias: the 2011 Science paper found that submissions authored by African Americans are less likely to be discussed in the meetings. But when they are, a negative comment arising from even one person’s unconscious bias could have a major impact in such a group setting, says John Dovidio, a psychologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the NIH’s Diversity Working Group. “That one person can poison the environment,” he says.

Even if the NIH investigation does not turn up evidence of bias, it may still reveal some of the causes of the racial disparity in the NIH’s grant-making process. Perhaps grants from minority researchers are more likely to be written in a way that does not appeal to reviewers, says Monica Basco, executive secretary of the Diversity Working Group’s peer-review subcommittee. That would suggest fixes such as grant-writing help. Evidence of bias would be harder to address, and any interventions would need to be tailored to address the point at which it occurs, says Basco.

Nakamura expects that the NIH’s effort to identify and root out prejudice, which he says could cost up to $5 million over three years, might prove controversial. “People resent the implication they might be biased,” he says — an idea borne out by some responses to his 29 May blogpost on the initiative. One commenter wrote, “It is absolutely insulting to be accused of review bigotry. Please tell me why I should continue to give up my time to perform peer review?”

But Nakamura believes that the NIH — and reviewers — need to keep open minds. After all, he says, “we are human beings with emotions and feelings we’re not in control of”.
[299 words]

Source: Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/nih-to-probe-racial-disparity-in-grant-awards-1.15740

AceJ

Part III: Obstacle

A mouse with the same cancer as you
For $12,000, a company grafts a patient’s cancer into rodents and tests drugs on them.

By Alexandra Morris | August 11, 2014

[Paraphrase 7]
At a laboratory in Baltimore, hairless mice kept in racks of plastic crates are labelled with yellow cards, each identifying a person fighting cancer. These mice are cancer “avatars”—the lumpy tumors visible under their skin come from actual patients.

The animals serve as personalized, living test tubes. Each mouse will eventually be treated with a different drug and its tumors measured. Results showing which medicine worked best will be sent back to a doctor trying to treat a difficult cancer case.

The technology is a twist on personalized medicine that’s being developed by Champions Oncology. The company, based in New Jersey and Maryland, has started offering mouse avatars directly to patients, at a cost of $10,000 to $12,000. Insurance companies don’t yet pay for the technology, which remains experimental.

In the service Champions is selling, doctors first remove a piece of a patient’s tumor during a surgery or biopsy. Then they ship it to the company, where it gets grafted under the skin of an immune-deficient mouse. Because the rodents have impaired defenses, the human tumor is able to grow. Parts of it can be removed and implanted in additional mice.

The data from the avatars is potentially life-saving, since the choice of what drug to give a cancer patient is often made by guesswork or trial and error. “Generally, the drugs we give to patients are more likely to not work than to work,” says Justin Stebbing, an oncologist at the Imperial College London, who has been involved in medical studies of Champions’s technology. The results from the personalized mice, he says, “give patients an additional layer of confidence.”

Cancer avatars are part of a wider effort to carry out experiments on people’s tumors outside their bodies. Some researchers have created fruit flies that share the same gene mutations patients have. Another technology, still in development, looks to capture floating tumor cells from a person’s bloodstream, then grow and test them in culture dishes (see “A Laboratory for Rare Cells Sheds Light on Cancer”). Still further out, scientists have plans to grow mini-organs, complete with an immune system that matches the patient’s (see “Building an Organ on a Chip”).

Don Ingber, director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, says these outside-the-body approaches face some similar challenges. For one, cancer cells vary so much that it’s not certain the tumor in the mouse is the same as the one in the person. What’s more, the immune system is closely involved in the body’s response to cancer, but these mice lack one. “I think the real issue is that it’s still a mouse,” he says.

Champions, founded in 2007, has successfully grown tumors from more than 350 patients, says company president Ronnie Morris. In June, the company said it would collaborate with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York, to create mouse avatars for an additional 100 breast cancer patients. “On the whole, it seems to yield very convincing data that’s predictive, so it tells you what treatment is going to work ahead of giving these expensive and toxic drugs,” says Stebbing, who has tried the technology with patients suffering from rare or unusual cancers.

Not every graft works. In about 30 percent of cases, Champions hasn’t been able to grow a patient’s tumor in mice. But the biggest limitation to cancer avatars is that tumors grow at about the same speed in a mouse as in a person. That means the avatars won’t be helpful for patients who need to be treated quickly, as is often the case. Morris says it takes four to six months to grow the tumors, treat the mice, and send doctors a report.

In a study Stebbing published in April in the journal Cancer, for instance, Champions created avatars for 22 patients with advanced sarcoma. But nine of the patients died before the results were ready. “Within a couple of months after their surgery or biopsy, they get chemotherapy and they pass away,” says Morris. “We build the avatar, but the patient can’t use it.”
[680 words]

Source: Technologyreview
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529901/a-mouse-with-the-same-cancer-as-you/

风随心动01

Time 2： 00:03:05.51
Background// Human activities will cause the quakes.
A scientist found the quakes, which will cause damage, effected less than the natural quakes.
BUT ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time 2: 00:02:44.79
STATEMENT: man-made quakes effected less than the natural quake.
EVALUATION: It's a good news because less quake cause less damage.
BUT: the wells only 10km far from the earth still cause same quake feeling as the natural quake. So the well need to be over 10 km deep.
BACKGROUND：the human quake cause serious damage.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time 3:00:03:54.99
H decided to set up a datebase of feelings about induced quakes.
H collected a lot of date from...to...
H found induced quake had less stress drop than the natual quake.
DS, another seismologist, agreed with H's statement because his experiment about induced quake.
DS thought the found was benefit from communities-information base.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Obstacle: 00:12:27.73
Overview:
Scientist came up a way to deal with cancer: putting the cancer cell of a partical human being on mice, and finding the treatment with the tumor created in the mice.
-mice in a lab are cancer avatars.
-cancer avatars mice are personalized medical treatment. They will be given tumors from cancer patients and  tested by medicine, and the effective one will be given back to the patients.
-patients pay for the cancer avatars themselves
-how the progress are going on
-JS said the avatars are life-saving method and will plus the layer of patients' confidence.
-beside cancer avatars, there are other two outside- the- body treatment.
-DI said the outside- the- body treatment face similar challenges
----the cancer cell will vary
----the immune system was involved in the response to cancer in human body, while the mice lack the system.
-C: there is successful case of the treatment.
-30% of the treatment failed, and the limitation of the treatment was the speed of tumor growing in mice was slow.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
今天的文章不难，让我对科技类阅读有了信心，再次感谢AceJ的分享~

ffffionabear

感谢AceJ~占坑
----无限感恩~！！进击的阅读小分队~~你的作业（ ￣ー￣）[冷笑]  不，是你的作业~~一天不做，浑身哆嗦--------------------------------------
[speaker]
Researchers found that individual's assumptions have influence on events.
[speed]
1'22
Man-made quakes shake the ground less than a nature one,and less shaking means less damage to the nature.
1'21
Most of induced quakes have a low "stress drop",because the fluids injected into the ground slip more smoothly.
1'47
A director in NIH found that many people may harbour unconscious prejudice against minorities like him,so he raise a test to probe that question.
1'48
The study shows the bias exist indeed.Faculty member in US universities are less likely to respond to requests from students with "un-white" names,and people harbour different standards based on gender.
56'
One person with racial bias can poison the whole activity.We should keep open-minded from heart.
[obstacle]
2'40
main idea:The cancer avatars,which defines mice with transferred cancer from a actual patient,really offer helps in life-saving treatment.However,30% of rare cancer cannot be transferred to mice,and most patient can wait till the end of the avatar tests.And the essential problem of the cancer avatar program is that they are still mice,not real human being.   

Dmyzywy

谢谢aceJ
嘿嘿~占个坑~

x先更下OBSTACLE。。。明早来speed
OBSTACLE:[3'54]
  transform cancer from people to mice to see the effort of treatments.
  chanlledges that scientists face-> different in immune system and tumor situation
  big limitation: different situation for the growing of tumor.
补全
TIMER 2:[1'28]
  a research shows that damage of human made shake is less than natrual.(good news)
  but it still causes damages.

TIMER 3:[1'58]
  because many people ignore the importance of shaking, H establish a system to observe the shaking.
  the static can help people analyze the earthquake and support some researches.

TIMER 4:[2'23]
  grant reviewers affected as well?
  experiments: details
  problems and main points.

TIMER 5:[1'40]
  a study this year.
  some details of reviewers.

TIMER 6:[2'33]
  negative effection
  major impact
  no evidence->still reveal, it hard to find an evidence
  open mind about that.

cynthia.bai

SPEED
Time2: 254, 3min26
MI: sci: man-made quake< natural ones, this is good, bcs less quake=less damage; but, the distance between ppl and drill<10km, ppl can feel shake

Time3: 321, 4min28
MI: H and DS prove that induced quakes have less stress drop scientifically. H also analyze the cause and how to determine.

Time4: 326, 3min42
MI: During scientific analysis, grant reviewers have prejudice against minorities.

Time5: 293, 3min03
MI: more scientific analysis: 1. In uni, white stu will be requested more; 2. In grant process, w require more approved words than m; 3. Raw comments before grant proposals might have biases.

Time6: 299,3min16
MI: a reviewer who has bias can affect other reviewers, N suggests to root out prejudice, but it is controversial, bsc ppl resent to be told that they have prejudice.

OBSTACLE
680, 10min6
The hairless mice have the same cancer from patients.
Each mouse is treated with a different drug, in order to find which drug works best.
C company offer funds to experiment.
Research make some good outcome: the tumor can be transplanted from one mouse to another.
Researchers can grow mini-organ outside the body, but it has chanllenges.
Researchers can grow tumors successfully, that means , they can find what treatment going to work.
But not all works, the biggest proble: the speed of tumor in experiment=in real ppl’s body, so many patients miss the treatment and even pass away

YajunJessica

Speed:
Time 2:1’16’’ (254w)
Time 3: 1’43’’ (321w)
Time 4: 1’55’’ (326w)
Time 5: 1’50’’ (293w)
Time 6: 1’44’’ (299w)
Obstacle: 4’10’’ (680w)

leo688

回帖就直接用作业回。哥在自习室就不占座，网上也一样。

Part I: Speaker
when people with asthma think they're smelling something noxious, their airway become inflamed.
17 asthma suffers taking test of benign chemical,
people who were soothed felt good
thing could be irritating as you expect it will

annoyances
soothed

[Time 2]
1'12
oil dill in the central and eastern US induced earthquakes, 5.7 magnitude
such artificial influence is less than the natural one

[Time 3]
1'55
study about the drop stress
comparison between two heavy trucks, one slow smooth, another fast jerks
artificial earthquakes drops less stress

[Time 4]/[Time 5]/[Time 6]
5'36
NIH to probe racial disparity in grant awards
minority get less opportunity to get grants
even the institute deny the bias prone to the white application
some studies uncovered that the minority are degreed during funding application, paper reviewing
diff from names among the white and the minority
open mind is necessary

Part III: Obstacle
5'5
CO., Ltd developed mouse with the same cancer as the targeted patient
the mouse share the same gene mutation patients have
still underdevelopment
it hard to speed up the tumors in mouse, so current patients can not have enough time to waiting for the proved result for treatment

HolliHuang

time2-1'33
time3-2'30
time4-2'36
time5-1'31
time6-...忘记record了
time7-3‘50