Scientific American 60 Second Science听抄（有音频文件）

abstinentUID：137004

1-29
Pay attention! Retailers, for a fatter bottom line, you might wanna have some hunks and hotties on hand. That’s what Jennifer Argo and her collegue say, she teaches bussiness at the University of Alberta. The research team did a study to be published in the upcoming issue of the journal of Consumer Research. The result --- customers were more enthusiastic about clothing when they saw good-looking people handling the clothes. The team studied responses of 300 shoppers who were sent to a store to try on a specific shirt. When the shoppers saw a planted average-looking person trying on the shirt they came for, they weren’t even that interested in buying it. But when a fetching model of the opposite sex were seeing to sport the shirt, the shoppers said they were then actually willing to spend more for it. Regular joes and jeans （janes）don’t take that as meaning you have  no future on the sales floor. Argos says that retailers can still get more appearance connected sales milage（mileage） from their average-looking staff, just by making sure the employees stay well-groomed to give a natty appearance.

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a fatter bottom line --- 更丰厚的利润底线;
bottom line: the last line of a financial statement, used for showing net profit or loss
hunk --- 大块头
hottie --- 辣妹
plant:to station (a person) for the purpose of functioning in secret,as by observing, spying, or influencing behavior: Detectives wereplanted all over the store; 安置，安放；
fetching ---- 动人人，迷人的；
sport --- wear or display in an ostentatious or proud manner
joes and janes --- （待查????????????）
on the sales floor
sales mileage
well-groomed --- having tasteful clothing and being scrupulously neat; 头发衣服整洁的；
groom --- 马夫；新郎；整理（give a neat appearance to）;

[ 本帖最后由 abstinent 于 2008-2-1 14:15 编辑 ]

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Every expecting （expectant）mother gets to ask （asked）the same question, boy or girl. For mammals like us, xxx （it's an easy call）, two X chromes （chromosomes）you get pink putties（butties）, X and Y you get blue. But for some reptiles, the answer depends on the weather, well, on the temperature, to be precise. For many lizzards （lizard）and turtles, and gaters（gators）, the sex of the hatchlings depends on the temperature in the nest where the eggs incubate. But why were （would）animals bothered （bother）with such a seemingly snapdashed （slapdash）system for assigning sex? The only logical answer is there must be some benefit. Each sex must fare better at the temperature that tends to produce that sex. A fine theory, but no one has been able to test it until now. In the January 20th online issue of Nature, scientists at the Iowa State University described how they used hormones to produce lizzards with the wrong sex, animals that came out male even though they were incubated at the female temperature. And vice versa. They found that females born and raised at the female temperature made more babies than female hatched at the wrong male temperature, dido （ditto）for the males. Call it the goldy locks （goldilocks）principle, you’re born at a temperature that’s just right, at least if you’re a lizzard.

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expectant --- 预期的；in an advanced stage of pregnancy
an easy call
chromosome --- 染色体 (chrome 铬)
butty --- 三明治（口语）
lizard (拼写，不是lizzard)
gator --- an alligator 短鼻鳄鱼
alligator --- 美洲鳄鱼；
hatchling --- 人工孵化的鱼苗或小鸟
slapdash ---草率的，马虎的；
fare ---  to meet one's day-to-day needs <residents of the flood-ravaged town are faring much better than one might have expected>             — see get along  1  进展；过活；
fare better than --- live better than ...
ditto ---与前相同的；同样的；adv.
goldilocks --- 金凤花的一种；金发的；



[ 本帖最后由 abstinent 于 2008-2-1 19:53 编辑 ]

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The search for alternative fuels to gasoline is at （has led to）surprising possibilities. For instance, the waste oil from making french fries. But one of the most unusual alternative candidates might be chicken fat. Yes, chicken fat, also called shemorts（schmaltz）. So if you’re make chicken soup, you might have a valueable （valuable）resource in your kitchen, besides the extra （actual）soup. Chemical engineers at the University of Akensel report that when chicken fat is combined with methenol （methanol）under very high temperature and pressure, known as super critical conditions, they got biodisel（biodiesel）. The method converted 89% of the chicken fat to biodisel. The research was done as part of Macheussete’s （master's thesis）project by chemical engineering student Brad Shoutie. Many people have high hopes for biodisels as a replacement for fossile （fossil）fuels because it uses renewable resources such as plant oils, or in thise case, chicken fat which there’s certainly no shortage. But hunt for biodisels may mostly take place outdoors. But the potential of french fry flossom （flotsam）and chicken fat also means the search can sometimes end in the kitchen.

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schmalts
valuable （拼写）
French fry --- 炸薯条
methanol --- 甲醇
biodiesel --- 生物柴油
diesel --- 柴油机；
master's thesis
fossil （注意拼写）
flotsam --- （遇难船）漂流货物; 同样的词语还有jetsam ; 这里应该指 炸完薯条的废油

[ 本帖最后由 abstinent 于 2008-2-1 21:41 编辑 ]

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Air pollution is bad for our health, but scientists say we don’t know much about the long-term affects（effects）. So researchers at （in）Canada and Netherlands decided to gather genetic information in an urban industrial environment by looking at mouse sperm. They published the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists placed the cages of mature male mice near two steel mills on （and）a major high way, in the city of Hemalton（Hamilton）, and Montereal （in Ontario）Canada. Some of the mice breathed in the ambian particular （ambient particulate-filled）filled air, the control mice breathed pure filtered air. After ten weeks, researchers checked the two groups. The mice exposed to the polluted air had a 60% higher rate of sperm mutation. It occured in a piece of DNA particularly succeptible to mutation. Researchers say these specific mutations are known to affect gene expression and genomes stability and could lead to changes in genetic composition and disease. They say they cannot yet extrapolate from these findings to the long-term health affects （effects）in humans. But the results definitely warned （warrant）a more detailed look at pollution’s affects on our genes.

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effect / affect 区别
Affect 一般不做名词，做名词时表示”the conscious and subjective aspect of feeling and emotion“
effect 名词意思：影响，作用；
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sperm --- 精子；精液；
steel mill --- 钢厂；
ambient --- 周围的；包围的；
particulate --- 微粒子；微尘；
sperm mutation --- 精子变异
extrapolate --- 推测；
Ontario
Hamilton

[ 本帖最后由 abstinent 于 2008-2-1 21:26 编辑 ]

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Vinegrete （Vinaigrette）dressing. When you shake it, little vinegrete droplets scatter through the oil. But when you put it down, the droplets merge and then dressing seperates. That’s probably not a big inconvenience to you, but it is to industries that use lots of vinegretes like mixtures. So to study this on mixing（unmixing）, French researchers planned to flow （float）water droplets one at a time through a channel of flowing oil. The channel winded （widened）into the middle so the oil would slow down and bump the water droplets together. Then the passage nilled （narrowed）again, so the the oil would speed up and pull the droplets apart. The researchers expected that the droplets would merge when they bumped together. But that’s not what happened. In fact, it was when the droplets started to pull apart from each other that they suddenly mixed. In Physical Review letters, the researchers say the pulling apart may mean （make）the pressure between the droplets fall that would make the droplets burst open and then they could merge into one big water droplet. What the researchers don’t say is whether this finding could lead to a true breakthrough --- stay mixed salad dressing.

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Vinaigrette --- vinegar and oil with mustard and garlic;
unmixing --- 混合物的分离；

[ 本帖最后由 abstinent 于 2008-2-7 21:51 编辑 ]

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When is an ant like a piece of fruit? When it’s infected by a paraxite. Researchers affiliated with the Sim Missonean Tropical Reserch Institute discovered this bizzare occurrance （bizarre occurrence）in central America as they were studying the gliding ability of certain species of ant. They found some colony members with bright red swollen abdomens. The scientists took specimens back to the lab and discovered that they were full of hundreds of limotowd （nematode）eggs. The bright red bellys （bellies）look suspiciously like the brilliant red and pink berries that pulifrate （proliferate）in the rainforest. Researchers think the limotowd makes the ant look like the fruit to get the birds to eat the ants. Birds usually keep the ants off their menu because of amor （armor）and bad chemical taste. The birds then spread paraxite eggs in their droppings. Ants farge through bird droppings for seeds, they feed infected droppings to ant larva（larvae）, beginning the infection process all over again. The red belly ant is the first known case of a paraxite causing fruit mimicry. One of the researchers was surprised that something dumb as a limotowd can manipulate its host in such a sophisticated way. But evolution works no matter how organisms are.

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bizarre （注意拼写）
occurrence  （拼写注意）
nematode --- 线虫；线虫的；
proliferate （发音不熟悉）
armor --- 盔甲 （拼写）
forage --- （注意该词发音）
larva --- larvae （复数形式）

[ 本帖最后由 abstinent 于 2008-2-7 22:06 编辑 ]

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When you have an itch, nothing feels better than a good scratch. Now scientists from Wakforest University Baptist Medical Center think they know why. The scientists were wondering why raking finger nails across skin brings （+us）such a pleasure. So they looked to the brain, more precisely, they looked in the brain. Using advanced imaging techniques, the scientists looked to see which parts of the brain were most active when people scratch, or in this case, when people scratch by a gind wide lab cone （a guy in a white lab coat）with a special scratching brush. What they found is scratching does not activate areas of the brain normaly （normally）associated with pleasure, although it did boost the activity of the prefrontal cortex which can be involved in compulsive behavior. That makes sense. But the major effect of scratching was to decrease the activity of brain regions associated with the unpleasant sensory experiences. So scratching seems to relieve the unpleasant feelings that acompany（accompany）, well  itching. Yes （+in）a landmark study that appears in the journal of Investigated Dermytology （Investigative Dermatology）--- scratching gets rid of the itch. Main ample denoun （Me, I'm holding out）for the study that shows that people bend （bang）their heads against wall because it feels so good when you stop.

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itch --- 痒；使。。痒；渴望
fingernail
rake --- 耙子；move through something as if or with a rake
normally （注意拼写）
accompany（注意拼写，两个C）
dermatology （拼写）
hold out

（最后一句啥意思，不懂？以后再琢磨）

[ 本帖最后由 abstinent 于 2008-2-7 22:36 编辑 ]

abstinentUID：137004

这活动我坚持了两个月，当时考托福，觉得很有用
现在人在美国了，却不想听了，唉～～