【每日阅读训练——速度4系列】【速度4-11】&【越障4-11】

抓抓sandra

I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU GUYS...YOU HAVE MY WORD~


【速度4-11】
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Scientists Look At Plant Products With An Eye To New Possibilities for Health
FAITH LAPIDUS: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, a program in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.
BOB DOUGHTY: And I'm Bob Doughty. Today, we will tell about herbs and spices, and some of their many uses.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: People have been using herbs and spices for thousands of years. Generally, herbs come from the green leaves of plants or vegetables. Spices come from other parts of plants and trees. For example, cinnamon comes from the hard outer cover of cinnamon plants. The spice ginger comes from the part of the ginger plant that grows underground.
Some herbs and spices are valued for their taste. They help to sharpen the taste of many foods. Others are chosen for their smell. Still others were used traditionally for health reasons.
BOB DOUGHTY: Some herbs and spices may be gaining importance in modern medicine. For example, American researchers say red pepper could help people seeking to lose weight. They say this could be especially true for people who do not usually add spices to their food.
Researchers from Purdue University reported about the effects of red pepper in the journal Physiology & Behavior. They found that small changes in diet, like adding the pepper, may reduce the desire to eat.
FAITH LAPIDUS: The spice used in the study was dried and ground cayenne red pepper. Cayenne is a chili pepper. Most chili peppers contain capsaicin -- a substance that makes chili peppers hot. Other studies have shown that capsaicin can reduce hunger and burn calories, the energy stored in food.
Over six weeks, twenty-five people of normal weight took part in the study. Thirteen of them liked spicy food. The twelve others did not. The researchers decided how much red pepper each group would receive.
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One and eight tenths grams of the pepper was given to each person who liked spicy food. The others received three tenths of a gram.
BOB DOUGHTY: The people who did not normally eat red pepper showed a decreased desire for food. That was especially true for fatty, salty and sweet foods. Purdue University Professor Richard Mattes said the effect may be true only for people who do not usually eat red pepper. He said the effectiveness of the pepper may be lost if spices are normally part of a person's diet. He said further study needs to be done. The goal is to learn how long the effect of red peppers will last and how to extend the effectiveness.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: The spice turmeric comes from a tropical plant common to India. Research involving turmeric is not new. Scientists have been studying its medical possibilities for many years.
For example, researchers in Singapore completed one such study several years ago. The study was based on earlier evidence that turmeric has strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities. These qualities can help protect against damage to the body's tissues and other injuries.
BOB DOUGHTY: The researchers said turmeric may reduce evidence of damage in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. For this reason, the researchers designed a study that examined results from a mental-performance test of older Asian adults. The study involved curry, which contains turmeric.
The adults were sixty to ninety-three years old. None had severe memory losses. Those who sometimes ate curry did better on the tests than individuals who rarely or never ate curry. This was also true of those who ate it often or very often.
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FAITH LAPIDUS: The work of the Mayo Clinic and its medical experts is world famous. In its "Health Letter" several years ago, the Mayo Clinic provided more evidence that herbs and spices can aid health. Its experts said spices could reduce salt use for people with health conditions like high blood pressure.
The experts said some plant chemicals are high in antioxidants. In addition to turmeric, these include cinnamon, ginger, oregano, sage and thyme.
The experts also said antioxidants like garlic, rosemary and saffron have qualities that could fight cancer. They also said limited evidence shows that cinnamon, fenugreek and turmeric may affect blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.
(MUSIC)
You are listening to SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. With Bob Doughty, I'm Faith Lapidus in Washington.
(MUSIC)
BOB DOUGHTY: Cooking meat at high temperatures in the open air is a favorite activity of many Americans. But the country's National Cancer Institute warns that this kind of meat preparation creates heterocyclic amines, also known as HCAs.
Scientists say HCAs contain substances that probably can help cause cancer. These chemicals form when amino acids react with creatine, a chemical found in muscles. Meats from organs and non-meat protein sources have little or no HCA.
Research on HCAs has made some people afraid to cook meat on a barbecue grill. On a grill, the meat heats over coals or a gas or open fire. But studies have found that adding spices to meat before cooking at high temperatures may reduce harmful chemicals. This can be done by preparing a marinade and placing it on the meat before cooking. Marinades usually contain spices and herbs added to vinegar, wine or oil. This liquid mixture also softens the meat.
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FAITH LAPIDUS: Researchers from Kansas State University experimented with marinades and meat in a study published in two thousand eight. The researchers placed some steaks in already prepared marinades.
The meat then was heated for five minutes on each side at a temperature of more than two hundred degrees Celsius. The researchers also cooked steaks marinated without spices, and steaks that were not marinated. They were prepared at the same temperature as meat with the marinade mixes.
The researchers compared levels of the HCAs in all the steaks. They found that the HCAs in the meat marinated in spices had decreased up to eighty- eight percent.
BOB DOUGHTY: Other unwanted substances, called PAHs, can be found in some meat cooked at high temperatures. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says these chemicals probably cause cancer. PAHs form when animal fat drops onto hot coals. The fat makes flames from the coals rise, leaving the PAHs on the meat.
Purdue University experts have a suggestion for preventing this. They advise people to use cooking tools that do not break the skin of the meat when turning it on the barbecue grill. And they say placing the meat in a marinade before grilling is helpful.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: Herbs and spices are not used just to lessen unwanted chemical effects. They make food taste better. Some spices also destroy bacteria. Spices have long been used to keep food safe to eat. In the past, spices also helped to prevent the wasting away of dead bodies.
Herb and spice plants grow in many countries. For example, the Molucca Islands in Indonesia are famous for producing spices like cloves, nutmeg and mace. Vanilla comes from orchid plants growing in South America and other places with warm, moist weather.
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BOB DOUGHTY: Spices have influenced world history. Ancient trade routes brought spices and silk to the Mediterranean Sea area beginning more than six thousand years ago. The Goth people of Europe defeated Roman forces in battle more than sixteen centuries ago. After the fighting ended, the leader of the Goths is said to have demanded five-thousand pounds of gold and three thousand pounds of pepper.
In later years, Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus discovered new lands while seeking to extend trade with spice-growing areas in Asia. The Italian cities of Genoa and Venice became powerful because they were at the center of the spice trade. The trade was so important to national economies that rulers launched wars in their struggle to control spices.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Jerilyn Watson. Our producer was June Simms. I'm Faith Lapidus.
BOB DOUGHTY: And I'm Bob Doughty. You can find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs at 51voa.com. And you can find us on Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.
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【越障4-11】
Hubble Telescope Successor Could Get a Financial Lifeline
The budget-busting James Webb Space Telescope could get extra cash from human spaceflight funds
By Eric Hand  | August 23, 2011 | 7
From Nature magazine
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is perilously overbudget and under threat of cancellation, but Naturehas learned that it may be offered a financial lifeline. The flagship observatory is currently funded entirely through NASA's science division; now NASA is requesting that more than US$1 billion in extra costs be shared 50:50 with the rest of the agency. The request reflects administrator Charles Bolden's view, expressed earlier this month, that the telescope is a priority not only for the science programme, but for the entire agency.


NASA expects that the total cost of getting the 6.5-metre telescope to the launch pad by 2018 will be about $8 billion, around $1.5 billion more and three years later than an independent panel predicted in November 2010. Because in the next few years agency budgets are likely to be flat at best, scientists had feared that the JWST would end up swallowing the $1-billion astrophysics budget whole, or at least heavily eroding the $5-billion science-division budget. The new proposal would scrape money from other corners of the agency's $18-billion budget, which also supports programmes such as aeronautics, technology development and human spaceflight. Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, says he is glad that the agency is making the JWST a priority. "There's an acknowledgement that the science budget can't solve this on its own," says Mountain, whose institute operates the Hubble Space Telescope and is preparing to do the same for the JWST.


The proposal to share the JWST's costs across the agency is part of a 'replan' developed by NASA after the independent panel criticized the project's management and found it to be colossally overbudget (see Nature 468, 353–354; 2010). The plan has been under consideration for weeks by the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which has an oversight role in setting budgets. NASA declined to comment on the cost-sharing aspects of the plan, but spokesman Trent Perrotto notes that five years of operational costs will bring the telescope's overall price tag up to $8.7 billion. If the OMB rejects the plan, it would cast further doubt on whether the JWST will ever fly, because a House of Representatives committee has already voted, on 13 July, to cancel the telescope.


The drama surrounding the JWST is clearly on the mind of Bolden, NASA's highest official. On 2 August, before a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council began, Bolden told an assembly of dozens of advisers that the JWST is now one of the agency's top three priorities.


The first is to continue to support the development of commercial rockets able to carry people to and from the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit, a goal of companies such as Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California. Second is the development of a heavy-lift rocket that can take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to reach objects such as nearby asteroids. Both of these activities would fall under the aegis of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, which was formed on 12 August in a merger of the programme that operated the now-retired space-shuttle fleet and the programme that began the development of the Constellation rockets, part of the now-cancelled project to return to the Moon. That Bolden's third priority is the JWST "makes it clear that he's going to be fighting for it", says Alan Boss, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington DC and chair of a NASA astrophysics advisory subcommittee.


Even allowing for cost-sharing within the agency, lawmakers on Capitol Hill would have to cough up more money for NASA than recommended by the House committee if it is to turn all of Bolden's priorities into realities. In September, when Congress returns from recess, it is expected to resume the appropriations process for the 2012 fiscal year. All eyes will be on the Senate and Barbara Mikulski (Democrat, Maryland) to see how strongly she fights for the JWST project, which is being managed in her state.


If the OMB approves NASA's plan — and if lawmakers oblige by appropriating enough money — astronomers should consider themselves lucky. Some observers suggest that if the science division has to cover only half of the JWST's overruns, it could do so without delaying or cancelling any other missions.
But Brett Alexander, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, says that shifting the cuts onto other parts of the agency will definitely hurt. He points out that scientists complained loudly in 2006 when money was redirected from science to support the Constellation rocket-building effort. "Now the science community may be looking for human spaceflight money to cover the science overruns," he says.
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on August 22, 2011.

balapupu

嘿~~今天轮我沙发啦~
1.1'13'
2.1'14'
3.59'
4.1'05'
5.25'

superbat28

占板凳~
90s
80s
90s
94s
50s

呃~我肿么这么慢= =

南瓜0729

84s
73s
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41s
今天看电脑看多了 眼睛都花了 恍惚。。。

superbat28

5''44'  是最近文章结构混杂么？怎么都是感觉怪怪的。。你们都不读T T
画个圈圈诅咒你们！~~~~

1. The new telescope faces financial constrain. There is a new plan propsing a 50:50 cost share with the agency. This plan is just the reflection of the derector, who expressed similar idea earlier in the month.
2. A director work in Baldimore says it is good for the agency to make this telescope a prioirty. And the director operates service on Hubble Telescope, also will on the new telescope.
3. This new plan is just a replan of the previous plan. WIthout such a new plan, it is doubtful whether the telescope can be flyed. Since OMB has just voted previously to cancel the operation of the new telescope.
4. The new telescope would cost 8 billion dollars, this number is to some degree not that compatible with what autority has anticipated. Since a merely operation would make the cost up to 8.7 billion, the NASA's decision to make it one of the top 3 priority is highly suggested.
5. The three priorities: The first is to invest in spaceflights that can bring astronauts from and to the low-orbit space station. THe second is to incest in some flights that enable astronauts to get nearby asteroids. THe third is to let the new telescope to fly.
6. The congress will reconvene, and it is time to appropriate for the 2012 budget. If half of the costs if gotten from the corners of other sources of science costs, it would be wonderful. But a person is not such enthusiastically, since he noted that from 2006, there are scientists complaining about such distribtution of the budget.

daisyの小夢想

今晚睡前一定读完！！！

superbat28

今晚睡前一定读完！！！

-- by 会员 daisyの小夢想 (2011/8/25 21:39:20)

嘿嘿~我等着吼~还是daisy好~哈哈~~~~

fox0923

93s
加快速度全神贯注....不能再咬笔或是托下巴了...
67s
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82s
33s

________________________________________________________________
我郁死了，大家有什么好的方法可以改掉阅读时候影响速度尤其是理解力的臭毛病坏习惯吗？我经常喜欢咬嘴唇或是托腮帮子，好像不弄就难受，是不是得去看看医生阿？！

fox0923

4‘44”

-JSWT has exceeded the budget plan, the scientists used to plan to finish this telescope development within $1billion budget, but now it seems that this plan will at least erode another $5billion as well.
-The house is negotiating if they will cancel this plan since it has been taken over too much money from the research budget, even from other budgets of other projects development.  If the house rejected this plan, the JSWT may not be predicted to go to the moon and finished its mission.
- There are top three priorities, and telescope is one of them. These three are: one is that the telescope will take people to the low earth orbit from the space; the second is that the rocket that can take the astronauts to the low earth orbit; the third.....我怎么没找着？
- The congress has to also concern the 2012 budget during this economic period, so the scientists would be lucky if they can keep this plan runs well.

daisyの小夢想

70s
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还是神游ing。。