《美国之音》2006下半年新闻合辑MP3及文本-第3季度上

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c011

One Man's Dream Helps Rebuild New Orleans' Hardest Hit Neighborhood

"This Is my life and my world, right here. And this is my future of education in the community, the future House of Dance and Feathers."
Ronald Lewis left his house on Tupelo Street just before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans last year. Floodwater almost five meters deep devastated his neighborhood in the mostly black Lower Ninth Ward. Now he's one of the first to rebuild.
Volunteer students from Kansas State University are repairing his house and replacing the small private museum he had that was called the House of Dance and Feathers. It housed a collection of artifacts and costumes associated with the African-American way of celebrating Mardi Gras. Most of it was lost. The retired transit worker and community leader is intent on re-creating his museum.
"You know, it's not just about the artifacts. It's about the education of the culture of New Orleans."
Lewis' passion for preserving New Orleans' culture came to the attention of Patrick Rhodes, Assistant Professor of Architecture at Kansas State University. He and his students designed the new House of Dance and Feathers.
Professor Rhodes runs a non-profit group that creates community buildings with money from private donors. Thousands of volunteers like him and his students have been helping cleanup and rebuild New Orleans in cooperation with private community action groups. "The idea was that this would hopefully serve as a catalyst for this neighborhood. And that we can -- I don't know if inspire is the right word -- but if we can show people that things are happening down here."
Mardi Gras is the defining annual event in New Orleans, part of the Christian custom of Carnival. Elaborate costumes have long been a feature of the general celebration. African-Americans make fantastic feathered costumes called Mardi Gras Indians for parades in their own neighborhoods.
"So the idea of this museum here in the backyard of Ronald's house is that it also served as a kind of ad hoc community center. You understand his kind of dedication to passing on the traditions to the youth of the neighborhood. It touched a chord in all of us and we felt like we needed to do it."
Lewis and his wife are staying in an apartment about an hour away, but he says that his heart is on Tupelo Street. His friend Henry Faggen --also driven away by the storm and living in Texas -- came to visit today and wonders when he, too, can return.
"We love our community. As you see, there are trailers coming up on Tupelo Street. That's several neighbors coming back. (There are) trailers down in this block. Most of the houses on this street have been gutted out. And those that have not, we're working to assist them."
More affluent areas of New Orleans had less damage or have been able to get insurance money for repairs. Lower income families often had little or no insurance and many lived in rental housing. At least half the city's population has not returned, many because they have no place to live.
There are complaints about slow government aid, no electricity in some areas, and doubts about rebuilding in low lying sections. Yet private and community action groups are pushing hard for resettlement and helping people like Lewis.
"…We've seen a lot of activity on this block, just since we've been working here. They are on a deadline. If people don't move back and get things started, they are going to find that they don't get the public assistance they need and it's going to become infinitely harder for them to do what they have to do to get back home."
"I'm working my way back home. The life I live here in New Orleans to me is second to none. New Orleans is me... the life, the culture, everything. I'm here to show people of my community that through this tragedy we can have a new beginning, a new life. And that's what I'm working towards."
Celebration in New Orleans is not just for Mardi Gras. Parading goes on now in the recovered French Quarter despite the destruction in other parts of the city. Lewis looks to the day there can be parading again on his streets in the Lower Ninth Ward.
I’m Margaret Kennedy, VOA news, New Orleans.


¤注解¤:

1. devastate vt. 毁坏
2. volunteer n. 志愿者, 志愿兵
3. catalyst n. 催化剂
4. fantastic adj. 幻想的, 奇异的, 稀奇古怪的
5. dedication n. 贡献, 奉献
6. trailer n. 拖车

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c012

Osteoporosis Drug Reduces Breast Cancer Risk

The drug Tamoxifen can reduce a woman's risk of breast cancer by about half, but it now has a challenger. A nationwide U.S. study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds a similar breast cancer benefit from a drug used to reduce the risk of brittle bones.
"What we found was that the osteoporosis drug, raloxifene, was equally effective to the breast cancer treatment drug tamoxifen at reducing the risk of life-threatening breast cancer."
University of Pittsburgh physician Victor Vogel cites the main finding of a study of nearly 20,000 women who had reached menopause and were at high risk of breast cancer. Besides finding that raloxifene is as useful as tamoxifen, Vogel's team also found it safer.
"Compared to tamoxifen, raloxifene was safer in terms of causing fewer uterine cancers and fewer life-threatening blood clots."
Raloxifene also caused fewer cataracts, the clouding of the lens in the eyes.
But there were side effects with both drugs, which the doctors assessed in a second study of the same women. Those on tamoxifen had more leg cramps, and gynecological and bladder control problems. Women on raloxifene had more muscle and bone aches, pain during sexual intercourse, and weight gain.
Vogel's University of Pittsburgh colleague, Dr. Stephanie Land, says they asked the women how these unintended consequences affected them.
"What women are telling us is that although there are side effects with both of these treatments, that the side effects did not impact their overall quality of life in a negative way."
One of the raloxifene users was Marion Taube, who took it for five years as part of the two studies.
"I do not think I had any side effects - possibly leg cramping, but I do not know if that was related to the raloxifene or unrelated."
Researcher Stephanie Land says the studies are good news for women. She expects U.S. government drug regulators to approve raloxifene for breast cancer in about one year.
"The overall and exciting news from this study is that women will have two choices."
But Dr. Vogel says for older women, raloxifene may become the drug of choice.
"We concluded from the study that for postmenopausal women who were at increased risk, raloxifene was probably a better, safer choice for reducing the risk of life-threatening breast cancer."
David McAlary, VOA news, Washington.


¤注解¤:

1. brittle adj. 易碎的, 脆弱的
2. tamoxifen n. [药] 三苯氧胺,它莫西芬
3. menopause n. [生理] 绝经期, 更年期
4. cataract n. 白内障
5. gynecological adj. 妇产科医学的
6. postmenopausal adj. [医] (妇女) 绝经后的

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c013

Paralyzed Man Operates Computer, TV Just by Thinking

26-year-old Matthew Nagle of Weymouth, Massachusetts, is paralyzed below the shoulders because he was stabbed in the neck during a fight. But his inability to move his limbs does not mean that he and others like him will forever be unable to perform some of the daily activities the rest of us do.
Brown University nerve scientist John Donoghue and colleagues give new hope to such patients in a paper in the journal Nature.
"The paper is about the technology that we've developed to help a paralyzed person communicate with the outside world again, to be able to use their thoughts to control devices."
Such patients might never be able to levitate a fork to feed themselves, but under Donoghue's supervision, Nagle was able to do things just as exciting. With a tiny electronic sensor implanted in his brain, he was able to use a television, a robot arm, and even a computer.
"We have the patient imagine that he's tracking a cursor on a screen. The patient is able to just think about moving and the cursor will move pretty much in the motion that the hand would take, if you were to imagine, say, moving left or right."
Nagle opened e-mail, changed the volume on a television, opened and closed a prosthetic hand and performed basic actions with a multi-jointed robotic arm.
The implanted brain sensor making this possible had an array of electrodes that recorded nerve activity in an area typically involved in arm movement. This is the first demonstration that such brain activity persists in paralyzed people. The information recorded by the electrodes was decoded and processed by a computer, allowing nerve firing patterns to be translated into movement commands that drove the devices.
But John Donoghue told Nature magazine, the movements are not yet smooth.
"The motion of the cursor by thought is wobbly and unstable. What that means is that, at least, we haven't found out how to exploit the brain's plasticity. So, we need to change the computer to make the control signal better. We're doing that, and actually having some good success."
A way to improve performance is described in a second Nature paper by Stanford University researchers. Nerve scientist Krishna Shenoy and colleagues implanted sensors in monkey brains that recorded nerve activity further ahead in the circuit involved in arm movement, not near the nerve cells controlling the movement itself, but those involved with the intention to move.
"These cells relate to how you wish to move your arm and through mathematical algorithms we're able to interpret those neurosignals to predict, which way one would wish to move their arm."
This is how the signal sounds.
The scientists were able to predict the intended location of movements before the monkeys made them.
Both sets of researchers say the implants are better than previous experiments with electrodes attached outside the scalp. The internal electrodes record nerve signals for specific movements, whereas the scalp electrodes sense activity throughout the brain.
Krishna Shenoy's Stanford University colleague, spine specialist Stephen Ryu, says the research could help improve the quality of life for paralyzed people.
"But, in order to actually translate this to something, which will be helpful to people, we're going to have to take it to another level, where we can show that they're both safe, and that they're effective, and can replace function that's already been previously lost."
A major issue is that the brain implants still require a lot of equipment. Ryu says that, to become practical, the devices will need to be much smaller and automated.
"I think it is only a matter of time before we really start to see some true promise from these things."
David McAlary, VOA news, Washington.


¤注解¤:

1. paralyze vt. 使瘫痪, 使麻痹
2. levitate v. (使) 轻轻浮起, (使) 飘浮空中
3. prosthetic adj. 修复术的
4. decode vt. 解码, 译解
5. scalp n. 头皮

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c014

Prison Physician Weighs His Role in Executions

Capital punishment has been outlawed by 85 countries, including most of the major western nations, but the United States allows execution as a punishment for murder.
Some executions are carried out with a lethal dose of sedative drugs administered intravenously, which means medical professionals must be involved in the process. But doctors and nurses take a professional oath to "do no harm," and many ethicists have questioned whether ending the life, even of a violent felon, violates their oath.
Carlo Musso is a physician in Georgia who provides health care to inmates. After years of working in the correctional system, Musso says he got a request to participate in the execution of a condemned prisoner. "My original thoughts were how horrible it must be for a physician to take care of an inmate on death row and then after years participate in the execution of his patient."
Musso told a New England Journal of Medicine interviewer that the first thing he did was witness an execution, an event that made him very sad. That was until he realized the execution was an end-of-life issue. "And at that point I felt that it was my duty to make sure if someone was going to die, that he die or she die in the most humane way possible, with the least amount of pain and suffering. And that this overwhelming duty that I felt outweighed any other issue or conflict I had in my mind at that time."
Musso's role in the few executions he has been involved in has been in pronouncing an inmate's death.
Nurses fill syringes with the lethal drugs and insert intravenous tubes. Prison employees administer the drugs that cause death. Musso says he would do anything except inject the drugs. "I feel that it is my duty that if this patient is going to die, my duty is to make sure that if he dies, he dies in a painless manner. However, I would not play the role of the executioner. I would not actually be the causation of his death."

Jessica Berman，VOA news, Washington.


¤注解¤:

1. outlaw v. 宣布...为不合法
2. ethicist n. 伦理学家
3. physician n. 医师, 内科医师
4. intravenous adj. 静脉内的
5. inject vt. 注射, 注入
6. executioner n. 死刑执行人, 刽子手

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c015

Robot Digitizes Literature, Broadens Access to the Public

The speed-reading robot is making a major contribution to the digital revolution, turning pages and scanning more than 1,100 pages an hour. Stanford librarian Michael Keller said, "My goal is to see how much of these eight million volumes we have gathered here we make accessible and more available because they've been digitized."
Converting books into digital data used to be a tedious job, limiting the number of complete books available on the Internet. Bill Lefurgy of the Library of Congress says robots have revolutionized the process. "…What this machine does is make digital copies much, much more quickly…"
Lefurgy manages the library's Digital Initiatives Project. "There is tremendous pressure in cultural heritage collections all over the world to be able to get more of their materials digitized and online."
"The internet presents us now with a way to make them more broadly available and more deeply available."
Using a search engine, or Stanford's website, the public can sample digitized materials from Stanford's library and other collections. Lefurgy says digitizing is gaining momentum. "It's a very popular activity, because it enables, being able to put information -- which up to this point has been on shelves, or in drawers or somehow preserved within libraries -- and make it available on the Internet…"
Another site, EBRARY.com, offers subscribers books, maps, scientific papers and sheet music. EBRARY'S Christopher Warnock is searching for “love.” "…If we search for every occurrence of 'love' within this document, we can find it much more quickly and efficiently than if we had to go through and read the entire book."
Even at 1,100 pages an hour, the scanning project at Stanford will continue for years, but eventually is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of books to the Internet.
Paul Sisco, VOA news.


¤注解¤:

1. accessible adj. 易接近的, 可到达的, 可理解的
2. digitize v. [计] 将资料数字化
3. tremendous adj. 极大的, 巨大的
4. momentum n. 动力, 要素
5. subscriber n. 订户, 签署者, 捐献者

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c016

Southeast Asian Nations Step Up Bird Flu Assistance

More than 130 people have died from the H5N1 avian virus in the past three years, most of them in Southeast Asia.
Vietnam has recorded 42 human deaths, making it one of the hardest hit countries. Thailand has had 14 fatalities. However, they have reported no human cases so far this year.
Flu experts say that record is the result of new surveillance programs and education campaigns in both countries. These are relatively low-cost and effective ways of teaching farmers how to prevent bird flu and how to spot outbreaks quickly.
Peter Cordingley, a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman, says these programs show what developing countries can do to fight avian flu.
"Thailand have pretty well mastered the situation at home although not complete control, but they're doing very, very well. Vietnam is doing relatively well. These countries have developed the expertise are now beginning to help countries that don't have the resources."
The H5N1 virus is most deadly to poultry, it has killed or led to the culling of tens of millions of chickens, ducks and geese on three continents since it reappeared in Southeast Asia in 2003. Most human victims contracted the virus from sick birds. However, international experts fear the virus will mutate and begin to spread easily among humans, which could lead to a pandemic that would kill millions of people.
To protect their people and their poultry industries, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Cambodia have agreed to raise their cooperation in the fight against avian flu.
The agreement hopes to build on the experience of Thailand and Vietnam.
This may be crucial for Laos, Burma and Cambodia - three of the poorest and least developed countries in Asia. International experts, including from the WHO, have warned they are the least prepared to fight bird flu. And, since the five countries share borders, containing the virus in one will be key to containing it throughout Southeast Asia.
Cordingley says Cambodia and Laos in particular need support.
"Laos is an example of a country that is struggling. Cambodia needs a lot of help as well. So we're looking to see a much higher level of information exchange and assistance."
Virachai Plasai is a director general of international economic affairs with Thailand's Foreign Ministry. He says the five countries' bird flu strategy concentrates on small communities.
"We focus on how we respond to any possible outbreak based on surveillance, community-based methods, village volunteer system, but also early detection through setting up of mobile laboratories and subsequently national laboratories."
Under the regional agreement, Thailand will train people from Laos, Cambodia and Burma on how to create village volunteer systems to find bird flu outbreaks and will help them provide "transparent and updated" information to all the countries. Virachai says this particularly is crucial if the prevention program is to succeed.
So far, Laos has reported no human deaths from the virus, although in 2004, there was a modest outbreak among poultry.
The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization representative in Laos, Leena Kirjavainen, says since then the international community has built up surveillance programs in Laos and animal health facilities.
For instance, the United States has given $1.5 million to teach Lao farmers to report sick birds and warn them not to eat birds that die of illness. Many human victims have contracted H5N1 by handling and eating sick birds.
Despite the international support, Kirjavainen says serious challenges remain. The first problem is that most farmers in Laos, like millions across Southeast Asia, let chickens and ducks wander freely around their homes. That increases the risk the birds will catch the virus and spread it to humans.
"It's free range and it's very much household backyard production. And poultry production - it's mainly women and children who take care of the backyard poultry and so their awareness building and understanding what to do is critical."
The next problem is the sheer difficulty of travel in many parts of Laos, which has poor roads and communications systems.
"We have had cases in the northern part when we have sent a team. You have to drive first with the car maybe a couple of days and then you go by boat, and the rest of the way by walking to the villages. It is a big challenge."
And, she says, once investigators get to isolated areas, it takes days to get tissue samples back to a laboratory to determine whether birds died of flu or other diseases.
Experts say it is crucial to get new systems in place in Laos, as well as Cambodia and Burma soon. The peak flu season comes at the end of the year, when the weather cools, and having the right tools now could well prevent serious outbreaks then.
Ron Corben for VOA news, Bangkok.


¤注解¤:

1. fatality n. 命运决定的事物, 不幸, 灾祸, 天命
2. surveillance n. 监视, 监督
3. expertise n. 专家的意见, 专门技术
4. mutate v. 变异
5. poultry n. 家禽
6. representative n. 代表

 

[angelonduty]

A第3季度上-c018

Stroke Prevention Tips

Bill Witherspoon is in better health at age 66 than he was in his 50s, when he suffered the first of his three strokes. "My strokes got my attention, telling me that I had to make a change in my life. But I don't understand why I had to wait for a stroke to make that decision."
One decision he made was to exercise regularly. People cannot change certain risk factors -- age, race or family history, but they can change their lifestyles.
The American Stroke Assocation recently updated its guidelines for preventing a first stroke.
The recommendations include using statins to treat diabetes patients. Drugs such as Zocor, Lipitor and others can lower cholesterol.
Dr. Larry Goldstein is with the American Stroke Association "We knew for some time that tight control of blood pressure in diabetics decreases their risk of stroke. We now also know that treatment with a certain class of drugs, the lipid lowering drugs -- cholesterol drugs like statins -- can significantly decrease the risk of stroke in diabetics."
Doctors say blacks have a greater risk of stroke than other racial groups.
One of the new guidelines recommends ultrasound screening for children with sickle cell disease, which predominantly affects people of black African descent.
Again, Dr. Goldstein. "We can now identify children with a test called 'the transcranial Doppler', which is a sound picture of the blood vessels of the brain identifying children who may be at increased risk of stroke related to sickle cell. And we now have ways of reducing that risk through transfusion therapy."
Dr. Goldstein says another recommendation concerns people who suffer from sleep apnea -- a common sleep disorder that puts them at increased risk for stroke. "Sleep apnea is associated with high blood pressure and treatment of sleep apnea reduces blood pressure. That alone is an important reason. "
An episode of sleep apnea can cause a person to stop breathing, decreasing the oxygen supply to the brain. Dr. Goldstein says this increases the risk of stroke.
The new guidelines include some well-known prevention measures -- control high blood pressure, do not smoke or allow yourself to be exposed to other people's smoke, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and losing weight, if you are overweight.
Bill Witherspoon lost 75 pounds after having his strokes. "I feel outstanding today, and, yes, I feel that I have done everything that I can do and what the doctors have told me to do to prevent another stroke."
The American Stroke Association also warns people to avoid saturated fats and trans fatty acids. Trans fat raises cholesterol levels. It is made when manufacturers add hydrogen to vegetable oil. It can be found in vegetable shortenings, some margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods.
The association also recommends that people with an irregular heartbeat or other heart problems see their doctors for treatment.
Carol Pearson, VOA news.


¤注解¤:

1. stroke n. (心脏病) 突然发作
2. diabetes n. [医] 糖尿病, 多尿症
3. cholesterol n. 胆固醇
4. transfusion n. 注入, [医] 输血, 输液
5. apnea n. 无呼吸, 呼吸暂停
6. margarine n. 人造黄油

 

[linn]

回复: 《美国之音》2006下半年新闻合辑MP3及文本-第3季度上

感谢lz!加声望了!!!
先下载,这个对我来说可是听天书了,但要向lz学习,坚持哦!

 

[rill]

回复: 《美国之音》2006下半年新闻合辑MP3及文本-第3季度上

感谢ing

 

[angelonduty]

A第3季度上-c017

Space Shuttle Discovery Lands Safely in Florida

Discovery's safe landing is an obvious relief to NASA, which was forced to halt assembly of the half-built space station more than three years ago when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry into the atmosphere.
Discovery, roaring like any other airplane, glided smoothly onto a runway at the Kennedy Space Center.
After landing, shuttle commander Steve Lindsey inspected the spacecraft and declared it free of damage, after its nearly nine million-kilometer journey.
"This is my fourth flight, and I've done four walk-arounds, and I've never seen a vehicle that looked as clean as this one did."
That is important to NASA, because it worked more than three years to ensure that shuttles suffer as little damage as possible from the kind of launch debris that doomed Columbia. That orbiter burned up when searing atmospheric gases entered a hole in its wing, caused by hard foam insulation that broke away from the external fuel tank during liftoff and hit it.
As a result, NASA removed or reshaped several areas of tank foam, installed an array of ground cameras to monitor launches, and put new cameras and sensors on shuttles to detect possible launch debris strikes or hits by micro-meteoroids while in orbit.
NASA chief Michael Griffin attributes Discovery's near-pristine condition to these new measures and a bit of luck.
"This is as good a mission as we've ever flown, but we're not going to get overconfident. We have to take it flight by flight."
During Discovery's two-week flight, two spacewalking astronauts tested new procedures to make repairs in orbit to the shuttle's fragile heat shield. The orbiter also transported a third crew member to the space station, which had only two since Columbia's accident. Station manager Mike Suffredini says it also hauled up new supplies and equipment, and its crewmembers made repairs to station systems critical to resuming the outpost's construction.
"So with this flight, in our minds, we are ready to get on with assembly, and we will do just that."
Station assembly restarts late next month, when the shuttle Atlantis is to deliver a pair of solar energy panels, new batteries and a truss segment on which to mount other components.
NASA chief Griffin points out that shuttle flights are always risky and that station assembly missions are the most complicated that shuttles fly. He says only 16 shuttle flights remain before the fleet is retired in 2010, and more orbiter troubles could be ruinous for the space station's construction schedule.
"We don't have any slack [leeway]. We have just enough shuttle flights left to do the job. So, we can't afford to mess up."
Griffin thanked America's international partners in the space station program for their patience and support, while NASA took time to make shuttles safer to fly.
David McAlary, VOA news, Washington.


¤注解¤:

1. atmospheric adj. 大气的
2. insulation n. 绝缘
3. debris n. 碎片, 残骸
4. shield n. 防护物, 护罩, 盾
5. component n. 成分

 

[angelonduty]

A第3季度上-c019

Study: American Parents Using TV as an Electronic Babysitter

Katie Weaver has her hands full. Four children in her kitchen ... two of them are hers ... all of them are under the age of six ... and thirsty at the same time.
It's enough to get on the nerves of any adult. Like many of the 1,000 parents surveyed in a Kaiser Family Foundation study, Katie admits she sometimes uses TV as a pacifier when her children are overly-excited ... and it usually works.
"I don't use it as a babysitter because they don't watch enough or long enough for that, but if they are very hyped up ... sometimes I'll use TV to calm 'em down."
While there has been some concern that watching too much television fosters obesity in children, the long-term effects of parking a very young child in front of the 'tube' are not clear.
Child psychologist Stanley Greenspan is worried that some parents are taking the easy way out.
"A lot of them are two-parent working families, so we're talking about having very little time with the children, and if that time is used in front of a screen, rather than interactively ... it's compromising the way these children are learning to pay attention ... the way they're learning to problem-solve ... and most importantly, the way they're learning to think and use language."
Katie Weaver's two children - five-year-old Andrew and three-year-old Daisy -- watch an average of an hour a day, five days a week. It is the same for friend Jack and brother Carter who are visiting.
In the survey, parents of children much younger ... up to a year old ... report viewing averages of an hour per day. For kids one to two years, it's close to an hour and a half.
Greenspan believes babies and children under the age of two should not be watching at all and he's worried that some parents are concealing the real truth.
"If anything, it's an underestimation, because people would be aware that for kids under one, it's not the greatest thing in the world, so they would tend to ... if a kid's watching two hours, they might say an hour ... so I think what we're getting is a minimal estimate."
Television programming for very young children has been increasing. Yet one researcher involved in the Kaiser study says there is still no evidence that children up to the age of two learn anything of value from television. Katie Weaver says her kids have too much physical energy to sit and watch television for very long. In warmer weather, they're more often outside.
Melinda Smith, VOA news.


¤注解¤:

1. survey vt. 调查
2. foster vt. 养育, 抚育, 培养, 形成
3. obesity n. 肥胖, 肥大
4. compromise v. 妥协, 折衷

 

[dopod568]

回复: 《美国之音》2006下半年新闻合辑MP3及文本-第3季度上

感谢楼主的无私分享，尤其是对于我们这些刚踏上这条未卜道路的新人。再次感谢！

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c020

Tigers Threatened by Human Poaching and Development

These tigers at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. will never go hungry or be poached for their body parts. But the same cannot be said for wild tigers that populate the forests of India and Southeast Asia.
"A world without tigers is a world without hope. It's like a clear night sky without stars."
Scientists from various environmental organizations gathered recently at the zoo to present their findings from a decade-long study. They warn that tiger populations worldwide are declining faster than had been predicted.
Jeff Trandahl is executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. He says the tiger habitat range once extended from the Korean Peninsula to the Black Sea. Trandahl says 90 percent of that range has been lost in the last 150 years. "Tiger habitat range is down to only seven percent of its original range. We're losing habitat every day. We're losing animals in the wild. So we're at a critical point in terms of responding to the crisis."
The crisis was created by the expanding human populations in India and Southeast Asia. People encroach on tiger habitat, kill tigers illegally, and hunt the game that tigers prey upon.
John Seidensticker is senior scientist at the National Zoo. "Many of the forests of Asia are devoid of prey. Tigers need large deer, wild pigs. In India they eat gaur, which is a large wild cattle. And it's loss of prey that's actually one of the biggest things that threatens tigers."
Tigers are poached for their valuable parts. Tiger skin is in great demand from an increasingly affluent Asian population. Tiger bone has been used in traditional medicine for hundreds of years. The poaching goes on despite laws in most countries making trafficking in tiger parts illegal. India has even established parks for the protection of tigers, but the trend continues.
"The hard part is you have very poor populations surrounding many of those parks. And suddenly poaching a tiger is very attractive because you can earn more by poaching one animal than you could by working a full year."
Trandahl says there is hope, thanks to more private and public funding. "The study gives us both good news and bad news. The good news is, we looked at our investments over the last 11 years, and we find that those targeted populations that we've been investing in are not only stable but some are actually expanding."
Some of those stable and expanding populations can be found in the Russian Far East and on the border between Nepal and India. Scientists say with proper funding, education and government protection more areas can become habitable and help secure the long-term survival of these majestic animals.

¤注解¤:

1. poach vt. 侵入偷猎, 窃取vi.偷猎
2. habitat n. (动植物的) 生活环境, 产地, 栖息地
3. encroach vi. (逐步或暗中) 侵占, 蚕食
4. habitable adj. 可居住的

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c021

Twentieth Century Visionaries On View in New York

Buckminister Fuller never completed a university degree, but became a 20th century icon as a designer, architect, and inventor. He was also a mathematician, engineer and poet. He is perhaps best-known for his work developing geodesic domes: spherical structures without internal supports that enclose far greater interior areas than traditional post-and-beam constructions. Fuller hoped such structures would ease housing shortages.
Isamu Noguchi led a less-public life, experimenting with materials such as stainless steel, bronze, sheet aluminum and even water to create streamlined sculptures, gardens, parks, and set designs.
Shoji Sadao, a business partner to both men, put together an exhibit dedicated to them at the Noguchi Museum in New York. He says Fuller and Noguchi were both independent thinkers who wanted to use their talents to improve lives. "They both wanted to work to better society, Bucky through science and technology and Isamu though his art. Bucky was, I think, concerned more about the physical well-being of people, the standard of living and so forth. Isamu was interested more in the aesthetic and intellectual well-being, psychological. Their common philosophy in terms of very egalitarian point of view, in terms of human kind and bettering mankind's existence on earth is what got them together."
The two men first met in 1929. Fuller had already established himself as a futurist with his 1927 Dymaxion House, an inexpensive, technically advanced house that could be assembled on-site from a kit. Sadao says his early interests in environmental issues, aerodynamics and social well-being set him apart. "At the very beginning many people thought that he was a crank or a nut because some of his ideas seemed to be so outlandish. But he was 50 or 100 years ahead of his times in terms of the concepts or things that he was proposing like the Dymaxion House and the Dymaxion car exhibited here."
"Noguchi was immediately influenced by Fuller's ideas about space and habitat. He sculpted a chrome-plated bronze bust of Fuller in seven sittings, which is on exhibit in the show. In 1932, Fuller asked Noguchi to create a three-dimensional plaster model for his fuel-efficient Dymaxion car."
The two men continued to collaborate throughout their long lives, with Noguchi often creating models of Fuller's ideas. In 1986, three years after Fuller's death and just two years before his own, Noguchi created a monumental, 30-meter sculpture based on Fuller's view that the basic building block of the cosmos was the tetrahedron, a solid having four triangular faces.
"He was experimenting with these kinds of structures and Isamu was very perceptive and he saw the potential of it being a very beautiful piece of sculpture. This is the Challenger monument that was dedicated to the astronauts that perished in the Challenger crash."
The exhibit contains photographs and a model of the Challenger 7 Memorial, which is located in a Miami, Florida park designed by Noguchi and Shoji Sadao.
The exhibit offers a new generation of visitors a chance to become acquainted with the genius of Buckminster Fuller and his vision. Shoji Sadao calls him a true renaissance man. "He was described at one time as even the Leonardo da Vince of the 20th century. His knowledge was broad and expansive and he was very much of a humanitarian too. Very warm, very easy to get to know. He never talked down to anyone, even to young children. He would talk to them as though they were equals and his peers."
Visitors can also see some of the more than 1,000 sculptures that Noguchi completed in his life, which are on view throughout the museum and its garden. The peaceful setting invites visitors to reflect on the creativity and collaboration of two 20th century geniuses.

¤注解¤:

1. mathematician n. 数学家
2. stainless adj. 纯洁的, 无瑕疵的, 不锈的
3. aesthetic adj. 美学的, 审美的, 有审美感的
4. aerodynamics n. 空气动力学, 气体力学

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c022

UN Says HIV-AIDS Could Slow India's Economic Growth

The report says the potential economic costs of HIV-AIDS in India could be huge, cutting economic growth by close to one percent over the next 10 to 15 years. India's economy has been growing at nearly eight percent in recent years.
The study was done jointly by the United Nations Development Program and India's National Council of Applied Economic Research - a body funded by the Indian government.
Despite the large number of HIV-AIDS sufferers in India, they are still a small percentage of the overall population. But the author of the report, Suman Bery, says the numbers will become large enough to affect India's labor supply and productivity, if the disease continues to spread unchecked.
"Even for a giant country like India, which currently has low prevalence, it could end up being significant in affecting the overall growth rate. The reason it has this impact is that this is a disease that affects people in their prime working age, and even though India has lots and lots of people at the skilled and semi-skilled level, that sort of loss in the labor force can have an aggregate impact."
The report says the increase in spending on health by both individuals and government will result in a decline in savings, slowing growth and investment.
But the government agency in charge of halting the spread of HIV-AIDS, the National Aids Control Agency, says the findings of the report represent a worst-case scenario. Sujata Rao, the head of the agency, says efforts are in progress to cut transmission of HIV in the country's worst-hit areas by targeting groups most affected by the disease: sex workers and migrant laborers.
"It is not difficult. They are getting empowered. They are getting to understand, after all they also love their lives. If we really have a saturation strategy in place in the next five years, I am positive we will make an impact."
The agency is also backing demands for homosexuality to be legalized. Volunteer groups argue current laws drive homosexuals - a high-risk group - underground, making it difficult to reach them with AIDS-prevention campaigns. A local AIDS charity has petitioned a court to throw out the law making homosexuality illegal.
Anjana Pasricha for VOA news, New Delhi.

¤注解¤:

1. sufferer n. 受害者
2. productivity n. 生产力
3. prevalence n. 流行
4. empower v. 授权与, 使能够

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c023

US ‘Wounded Warriors’ Learn Water Sports Without the Use of Their Limbs

The war in Iraq is something Dean Schwartz will live with for the rest of his life.
"We were fixing a hole from a roadside bomb that killed two soldiers the week before, and just kind of stayed out too long, and a guy came with an RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade] and shot it in my truck, and my leg came off instantly."
But don't call Schwartz's amputation a disability. Not here in the waters off Breezy Point in New York. And not during this water sports festival hosted by the Wounded Warriors Project, the New York City Fire and Police departments, and the Adaptive Sports Foundation, where Kim Seevers works.
"Instead of looking at the amputation as a disability, we just find their abilities, you know, work around whatever is not happening, try to find what we can use and help them see what is going to be successful and you can pretty much get anybody doing whatever they want to do."
What most veterans want to do is to live a normal life after the war. While it's harder with an injury and especially without a limb, the water sports festival is one of the first steps in opening the doors to possibilities for those still coping with a life-changing loss.
For Dean Schwartz, living without a leg is a war he continues to fight, even on summer vacation from college -- two years after he served in Iraq.
"My philosophy is if I let it keep me down, they win -- the insurgent that shot the RPG into me -- he wins, so I try to live my life normally and just stay happy."
"A lot of the folks who are here have been in Walter Reed (Army Medical Center), and this is their first opportunity to really get out and see, ‘Now I can still do that and I can still do this,’ and yeah, I definitely think it's a gateway to bigger and better things."
Those bigger and better things begin with the empowerment that comes from the small victories right here on the water… Like water skiing on one leg.
"Seeing someone come out here and be successful and seeing how much joy it gives them to be able to do something, to find out if they can water ski again or wakeboard or whatever, that's the cool thing."
Surrounding the wounded veterans is a community of volunteers. Many have donated time over their summer vacations to improve the quality of life for those struggling to adapt to life on the homefront.
"People care tremendously about this, and if you watch an event like this for five minutes and it doesn't touch your heart, there's something wrong."
Kane Farabaugh, VOA news, New York.

¤注解¤:

1. amputation n. 切断手术
2. veteran n. 老兵, 老手
3. gateway n. 门, 通路, 网关
4. donate v. 捐赠, 赠予

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c024

US Scientists Work on Computer Model to Detect Earthquakes

It is a common bond shared by countries around the world - the likelihood that natural disasters, such as earthquakes, can strike at any time. But what is uncommon is that some countries have installed underground sensors to detect an earthquake and send out early warnings to prepare people.
The system works because electronic signals can be sent to a computer much faster than the shock waves that move through the earth.
Such systems are in place in Japan, Mexico, Taiwan and Turkey. In the United States, scientists at the California Institute for Technology are also working on ways to warn people just before a quake.
Tom Heaton, an earthquake engineer at Cal Tech, says the system is still years away. "We have about 150 sensors that are appropriate for this task out in southern California at the moment. To really run this correctly, my guess is it would take more like 600 sensors."
Work on the early warning software is just beginning, but researchers believe within five to 10 years, warnings could be transmitted to cell phones. Heaton hopes the new computer system can give residents a warning of at least 30 to 60 seconds. While that is not a lot of time, Heaton describes a scenario in which a short warning could make a big difference.
"I don't know about you, but I don't want to be stuck in an elevator in an earthquake, so the elevator would go to the closest floor and open the door."
But in southern California, fault lines are everywhere, making it a challenge for the sensors to detect an earthquake. "In many of those instances, you'll be near the epicenter and this system won't help you at all. You'll just feel the earthquake as severe shaking."
Scientists hope the new model will prepare them in case of another massive earthquake like the one that hit San Francisco in 1906, killing 3,000 people. The U.S. Geological Society is also using computer models to recreate the ground motions from the 1906 quake, to better understand the distribution of shaking and damage along more than 480 kilometers of the San Andreas fault. The results of these investigations could help U.S. scientists develop early warning systems like those of other countries.
I’m Anthony Stokes, VOA news.

¤注解¤:

1. likelihood [ n. 可能, 可能性
2. sensor n. 传感器
3. scenario n. 想定
4. epicenter n. 震中, 中心

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c025

US Shuttle Astronauts Make "Highwire" Spacewalk

Like a circus highwire act, astronauts Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers stood 340 kilometers above Earth, bouncing, twisting, and bending forward and backward at the end of the 30 meter boom.
The boom is an extension of the shuttle's original robot arm. It was designed to hold a camera to inspect potential damage to the fragile heat shield on the shuttle's underside. NASA developed the orbital inspection procedure as the result of the disintegration of the shuttle "Columbia," whose heat shield was punctured by hard insulating foam that had broken away from the external fuel tank during launch.
NASA wanted to know if the spindly boom is stable enough to hold people in case human inspection and emergency orbital repairs are necessary beneath the shuttle.
Fossum gave his opinion to U.S. Mission Control in Houston. "The boom's motion itself if smooth, very smooth."
The astronauts' other task during their seven hour outing was to replace a cable to the space station's rail car, which positions the outpost's mechanical arm during construction. The cable was accidentally severed last year by a cable cutter, so the two crewmen also locked the cutter to prevent a recurrence.
But, work was not the only thing on their mind. Before floating out of the hatch into space, Sellers asked mission control what countries will face each other in Sunday's World Cup football championship. They launched Tuesday before the finalists were known.
[Sellers] "We never found out. We've been too busy. Maybe Houston knows."
[Mission Control] "It's France and Italy. They are still in it. The final game is tomorrow."
[Sellers] "Oh, okay. Thanks. [We've] got to pick a side."
This was Sellers' fourth spacewalk, but the first for Fossum. Like all novices, he marveled at the view below and picked out several geographical points, including South America's Andes mountains, Ireland, England, and the Caspian Sea. "I'm in a dream. Nobody wake me up!"
He and Sellers will make take two more spacewalks during the shuttle's two-week visit to the space station. It is the first shuttle mission in almost one year. One purpose is to replace space station supplies and deliver German astronaut Thomas Reiter as a third crewmember. But it is also a mission to test shuttle repair techniques and changes NASA has made to the orbiter's external tank to ensure it never again sheds pieces of foam large enough to endanger a shuttle.
David McAlary, VOA news, Washington.

¤注解¤:

1. fragile adj. 易碎的, 脆的
2. disintegration n. 瓦解
3. recurrence n. 复发, 重现, 循环
4. finalist n. 参加决赛的选手

 

[angelonduty]

VOA第3季度上-c026

Vietnam Tries to Limit Online Game Playing

Over the last three years, the market for on-line games has exploded in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government is worried that kids are now spending too much time in Internet cafes, battling each other with virtual swords and lasers.
A new government regulation requires gaming companies to make it harder for players to receive bonus points, or "level up", after they have been on-line for three hours, and to stop giving them points after five.
Vu Xuan Thanh, chief inspector at the Ministry of Culture and Information, says the government is responding to its own concerns, and those of many parents.
"Some kids play so long they collapse right on their keyboards. If your child played for 10 hours straight, he asked, would you be pleased with him?"
At one on-line gaming cafe in Hanoi, the kids admitted they tended to play for long sessions.
Trung, 15, was playing a game called Space Cowboy. He said the longest he has played at one sitting was five hours.
"No," said his friends, "it was 24 hours."
The new regulation took effect July 1, but neither the players nor the owner of this cafe had heard of it.
The owner, who asked that her name not be used, says that limiting the players' time would not work. She would have to record their ID numbers, and if she did that, she says, no one would come to her cafe.
American Bryan Pelz is the CEO of Vinagame, which markets Swordsman, the number one on-line game in Vietnam. Pelz says the government consulted extensively with the industry before issuing the regulation.
"Vinagame, FPT, VAFP, and maybe a couple of other online game providers were contacted, early on. And then I think that they met with gamers themselves, cafe owners, game operators, a variety of different groups, to discuss."
But Mr. Pelz says that implementing the regulation may be difficult.
"There's a technical implementation issue. How do we make sure that after three hours they don't level up as quickly, and after five hours they're cut off? We don't actually write the games ourselves, we actually license them from abroad. So we have to go to our partners abroad and have them make modifications."
Mr. Pelz says he is glad the government issued the regulation, since it provides the industry with a legal framework, and he says his company will comply. But some in the industry take a harder line.
Tran Vu Hai is the director of VDIG, the company that sells the scratch-off pre-paid cards used to play games like MU and Space Cowboy.
Hai says the restrictions are meaningless, because players can set up multiple accounts to evade the controls. He says trying to forbid things usually has the opposite effect, and says the government needs to build more sports facilities for young people, so they have something safe to do besides playing on-line games.
Vietnam is hardly the only country concerned about children spending too much time with on-line games. But the effort to limit on-line playing time does have a particularly Vietnamese flavor.
Just 15 years ago, Vietnam was still a tightly controlled society, where the government kept tabs on people through their neighborhoods, their places of work, or their families. But as the Internet becomes a part of life, Vietnam is starting to get used to one of the signal qualities of cyberspace: anonymity.
"Anonymity is one of the fascinating things about an on-line game, because it allows anybody to be whoever it is they want to be, in the game. And that's one of the reasons why people play the games. But yet at the same time, it's a double-edged sword. As a game operator, we really don't know who they are."
That anonymity will make it hard for Vietnam to keep its kids from playing till they drop.
Matt Steinglass for VOA news, Hanoi.


¤注解¤:

1. Vietnam n. 越南
2. Gaming n. 赌博, 赌胜负
3. implement vt. 贯彻, 实现 v. 执行
4. modification n. 更改, 修改, 修正

 

[angelonduty]

回复: 《美国之音》2006下半年新闻合辑MP3及文本-第3季度上

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