大家一起来听写Science News

lumao66UID: 2383330

June 25, 2011

http://podcast.sciam.com/daily/sa_d_podcast_110625.mp3



In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the dwarf planet Pluto while looking at photographs of the night sky. Pluto was the first object to be found in what’s now known as the Kuiper belt, a region that’s also full of asteroids. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft intends to visit one or two of them after it flies past Pluto in 2015. But which ones?

That’s where you come in. Because astronomers are calling on citizen scientists to eyeball images that will help them find the outermost icy bodies in Pluto’s neighborhood. The project is described at the website icehunters.org

Some of the largest telescopes on Earth have helped produce millions of images of the relevant region of space. By comparing photos taken at different times, scientists can subtract out objects that appear stationary, like far-off galaxies, and focus on things that appear to be moving in orbits, like asteroids.

Now, these pictures can be a bit messy. So scientists say they could use plenty of eyes to help scan the pics for things that move—the same way Tombaugh first found Pluto. The winning object could become the most distant ever visited by a spacecraft from Earth. But you don’t even have to get off the couch.
—Karen Hopkin

lumao66UID: 2383330

June 26, 2011http://podcast.sciam.com/earth/sa_e_podcast_110626.mp3

Neodenticula seminae, a microscopic strand of photosynthesizing plankton, is common in much of the northern Pacific Ocean.

The plankton hadn't been seen in the northern Atlantic in some 800,000 years—until a survey in 1999 turned up a bunch in the Labrador Sea. Researchers speculate it traveled along with a pulse of warm Pacific water, part of the changing circulation patterns in the far north due to global warming.

Warming’s most obvious oceanic effect is the opening of the fabled Northwest passage for the first time in recorded history. Which makes it more likely for N. seminae to have fellow travelers.

Pacific zooplankton—microscopic animals—have made the trip, and clams, oysters, snails and slugs may soon follow. These Pacific denizens could displace or disrupt their Atlantic cousins, potentially transforming the entire food web. Which is why a consortium of 17 marine institutes in 10 European countries is now monitoring the migrations, an effort known as Climate Change and European Marine Ecosystem Research.

Over the last decade, N. seminae has firmly established itself in the Labrador Sea, waters near Iceland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. You can’t call the plankton a fish out of water. But you can say that its waters are changing—and fast.
—David Biello

lumao66UID: 2383330

June 27, 2011
http://podcast.sciam.com/space/sa_60ssp_podcast_110627.mp3

We Earthlings owe a lot to the moon, and not just for its romantic appeal. The moon locks in Earth's tilt, which would otherwise be a bit wobbly. That in turn stabilizes Earth's climate, which is good for nurturing life. Without Earth's lunar companion, we might not be here.

The moon apparently formed from debris kicked up by a Mars-size object colliding with the young Earth. But the other terrestrial planets missed out. Venus doesn't have a moon. Neither does Mercury. Mars has two pebbles that barely qualify. So is Earth just an outlier, a freak cosmic arrangement of planet and moon that makes for a nice, life-enabling climate?

Not exactly. A team of researchers simulated the formation of hundreds of planets. And they found that nearly half of them experience giant impacts that produce a stabilizing moon. Almost 10 percent wind up with a massive moon comparable to our own. The research appears in the journalIcarus. [Sebastian Elser et al., "How Common Are Earth–Moon Planetary Systems?"]

That means that if Earth-like planets exist in large numbers throughout the galaxy, at least some of them ought to enjoy the benefits of a moon. Romantic and otherwise.
—John Matson

lumao66UID: 2383330

June 27, 2011

http://podcast.sciam.com/daily/sa_d_podcast_110627.mp3


Oliver Smithies won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2007. On June 27th, he spoke to students [at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting] about what he learned from his thesis research, which involved developing a new method to measure the osmotic pressures of mixes of proteins:
"Here's my osmotic pressure measurement. And I was rather proud of this method. And I published it with great delight. This paper has a record, you know: nobody ever quoted it. And nobody ever used the method again. And I didn't use the method again. So I have to ask you, what was the point of it all? Well, the answer is really a very serious answer. The answer is I learned to do good science. But it didn't matter what I did when I was learning to do good science. So it doesn't matter what you do when you're doing a thesis, you see. But it's very important that you enjoy it. Because if you don't enjoy it, you won't do a good job and you won't learn science. So all of this comes around to the fact that if you don't enjoy what you're doing, ask your advisors to let you do something else. And if your advisor won't do that, there's another solution: change your advisor."
--Steve Mirsky

lumao66UID: 2383330

June 28, 2011

http://podcast.sciam.com/health/sa_60sh_podcast_110628.mp3

Clean water and decent sanitation. Those of us who live in developed countries probably don’t give these things a second thought. But for more than 800 million people around the globe, safe drinking water is a distant luxury. And more than a third of the world lacks adequate sanitation services.

Not having these basic amenities means lots of otherwise preventable infections. Worldwide, more than a million and a half kids under the age of five die every year from diseases that spread through poor sanitation or unsafe drinking water.

But the past decade has seen improvements. More than 1.3 billion people gained access to an improved water supply or better sanitation. That’s according to a new report on the top global health achievements in the first decade of this century, put out by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Clean water and sanitation turn out to be smart financial investments, too. Every dollar spent around the world on improving water and sanitation paid back between five and 46 dollars in economic benefits. And in the larger sense, good health is priceless.
--Katherine Harmon

liaicUID: 2312329

大家一般都怎么个听法呢？之前看到有人提及5遍听法，可是在坛子里也没搜到具体的内容，还请大家指教。
我现在就是第一遍听大意，然后自己复述一遍
然后再仔细听几遍，争取听懂每一个句子
然后看原文，把没听出来的词画出来，再听两遍
最后自己快快的读一遍
不知道有没有效果的……

lumao66UID: 2383330

http://podcast.sciam.com/daily/sa_d_podcast_110628.mp3
June 28, 2011
Harold Kroto won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, the soccer ball shaped form of carbon better known as buckyballs. On June 28, he spoke to students [at the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting] about science as a philosophical construct:
"I'm going to talk about what science is because it's a totally misunderstood sort of subject. There are aspects of science which are important, and of course we know the body of knowledge that you learn at school, alright. The applications of that knowledge, technology, the only thing that journalists ever ask, in general, 99 percent of the time.
"Perhaps most important is that it's the way that we discover new knowledge. But for me the most important, by far, is that it's the only philosophical construct we have to determine truth with any degree of reliablity. Think about that. Because then it becomes a much bigger subject. In fact, for me, perhaps the most important subject there is. And the ethical purpose of eduction must involve teaching children how they can decide what they're being told is actually true. And that's not the case in general. The teaching of a skeptical, evidence-based assessment of all claims--all claims--without exception is fundamentally an intellectual integrity issue. Without evidence, anything goes.Think about it.
"Common sense says the sun goes around the Earth. Who agrees with me? Look at it! Starts over here, ends over there. It's uncommon sense that was needed to recognize that the Earth was turning on its axis. The uncommon sense of Copernicus, Galileo and Giordano Bruno, who burned to death. We have to learn to be very careful and to question everything. Let me just check--how many of you know the evidence for Galileo to say that the Earth was going around the sun? Put your hand up. You've accepted it. Almost nobody's put their hand up. It's incredible. Look at yourself, you've accepted this. You've accepted a lot of things without evidence. Find out what the evidence is for that, and find out what the evidence is for everything that you accept."

lumao66UID: 2383330

July 2, 2011http://podcast.sciam.com/psych/sa_p_podcast_110702.mp3

Take a hot bath, you’ll fee better. Not only does warm water soothe us, it can combat loneliness. According to research published in the journalEmotion.

Scientists analyzed the bathing habits of 51 people. And had them record how they felt before and after bathing. The researchers found that higher scores on a measure of chronic loneliness were associated with an increase in warmer baths or showers. In a separate study, to test the link between physical temperature and emotional state, scientists had subjects hold cold and hot packs and recorded levels of perceived loneliness. They confirmed the correlation between cold packs and high loneliness scores.

Then in another study the researchers had subjects recall a time when they were feeling excluded. This exercise made the subjects subsequently desire comforting social activities like hanging with friends. But this desire was reduced for those subjects who were asked to hold a warm pack.

The authors claim this association between warmth and security is innate, yet many are not aware of the link, at least when it comes to warm baths. In another study they found that subjects do not think of a frequent bather as a particularly lonely person. A little obsessive maybe, but not lonely.
—Christie Nicholson

lumao66UID: 2383330

http://podcast.sciam.com/space/sa_60ssp_podcast_110704.mp3
                                        July 4, 2011
Last week, astronauts on the International Space Station had an unwelcome visitor. A piece of space debris came out of nowhere to buzz the station at high speed. The debris was spotted too late for the space station to dodge it. So the six astronauts on the station were told to "shelter in place." They took cover in two Russian spacecraft docked to the station in case they had to make a hasty departure.
The debris, of unknown origin, passed by without incident last Tuesday morning. But it had a 0.3 percent chance of impact and came within about 250 meters of the station—way too close for comfort.
Orbital debris is a big problem, and there's currently no real solution. There are currently hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris in space—spent rockets, dead satellites, stray pieces of hardware. But only a small fraction are being tracked. A Chinese missile test in 2007 blew up a satellite and created thousands of pieces of debris. And an accidental collision in 2009 between two other satellites further littered the landscape. So we've proven that we're good at making a mess in space. Now someone just needs to figure out how to clean it up. Soon.
—John Matson

lumao66UID: 2383330

http://podcast.sciam.com/health/sa_60sh_podcast_110705.mp3

                                        July 5, 2011

Eating right, exercising and not smoking are all important for staying healthy. But a new study shows that these lifestyle choices can reduce the risk a woman will die from sudden cardiac arrest by a full 92 percent.

More than a quarter of a million people die from sudden heart failure in the U.S. each year. And most had not been diagnosed with heart disease—or even considered high risk.

In the new study of more than 81,000 Caucasian women, about 80 percent of sudden deaths were linked to lifestyle factors.

Those with the lowest risk got at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, followed a healthful Mediterranean-style diet high in fibers and lean protein, were not overweight and didn’t currently smoke. The findings are in the Journal of the American Medical Association. [Stephanie Chiuve et al, Adherence to a Low-Risk, Healthy Lifestyle and Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death Among Women]

These preventive measures might be especially important for women, who are less than half as likely as men to be diagnosed with heart disease or dysfunction before a fatal attack.

And if these factors hold true for men and other groups of women, making healthy lifestyle choices could save more than 200,000 Americans from sudden cardiac arrest death each year.
—Katherine Harmon

lumao66UID: 2383330

http://podcast.sciam.com/daily/sa_d_podcast_110705.mp3

July 5, 2011

If you’ve ever wondered where the Earth came from, the answer, it seems, is blowin’ in the wind—the solar wind. Or so say scientists who, after examining solar wind samples collected by the Genesis spacecraft, conclude that the inner planets of our solar system formed a little differently than we’d thought. The work appears in the journal Science. [Bernard Marty et al., "A 15N-Poor Isotopic Composition for the Solar System as Shown by Genesis Solar Wind Samples"]
Our solar system arose from a large, rotating cloud of interstellar debris called the solar nebula. The sun came first and the planets followed not long after.

But the new study shows that the ratio of oxygen and nitrogen isotopes found in the solar wind is different from the ratio here on earth, or on the moon or Mars. We’ve got more of the heavier versions of these atoms than our Sun does.

Now we just have to figure out why. Scientists say the excess heavy nitrogen could have come from a comet. And the heavier oxygen from a natural process that left more of the light isotope in the part of the nebula that made the sun. So we are made of star stuff. But when it comes to our elemental composition, we’re not a carbon copy.
—Karen Hopkin

lumao66UID: 2383330

http://podcast.sciam.com/daily/sa_d_podcast_110707.mp3

                                        July 7, 2011

(Chirping sound.) That may not sound like much – but it’s the loudest animal in the world. For its size, that is. The insect called the water boatman is two millimeters long. And these peeps can be heard from a stream bottom by the human ear.
Animals are generally constrained by the mechanics of size. But small creatures need to be heard as well. Researchers thought some freshwater species might rely on sound because of poor visibility. So they collected water boatmen from a stream and pond in France. They recorded 13 males doing their thing.  They measured the sound level and the insects’ bodies. And they compared those figures with 227 other loud species, like elephants. And relative to its body, the little water boatman made the biggest racket, maxing out at 99 decibels. The research was published in the journal Public Library of Science One. [Jérôme Sueur, David Mackie, James Windmill, So Small, So Loud: Extremely High Sound Pressure Level from a Pygmy Aquatic Insect (Corixidae, Micronectinae)]
The scientists say they haven’t figured out exactly how the tiny creature produces such volume – in part it comes from rubbing part of its genitalia against its abdomen. But understanding the amplification could help us improve our own acoustic technology. Using different techniques, of course.
—Cynthia Graber

lumao66UID: 2383330

July 6, 2011

http://podcast.sciam.com/daily/sa_d_podcast_110706.mp3

What does a bookworm have in common with a black-tufted marmoset? They both like a little quiet. Or so say scientists in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. [Marina Duarte et al, Noisy human neighbours affect where urban monkeys live]
As urban areas continue to expand, their human inhabitants spread all sorts of pollution: air pollution, light pollution, even noise pollution. Each of these environmental encroachments affects the survival and behavior of local wildlife. And monkeys are no exception.

Scientists in Brazil were studying how marmosets in a city park cope with ambient noise. And they found that the monkeys tend to settle down in whatever part of the park is most quiet. On weekdays, the marmosets steered clear of the roar of traffic, and on Sundays they shunned the clamor of visiting crowds. They dodged all the din, even when moving meant that they had to leave behind the places that offered them the most food.

It could be that the monkeys are just skittish when it comes to unwelcome sounds. Or maybe they can’t hear what their friends are saying when it gets too loud. Either way, next time you see a cute little marmoset, forget “oooh” or “awwww” or “ee-ee-ee.” Try shhhh.
—Karen Hopkin

lumao66UID: 2383330

http://podcast.sciam.com/tech/sa_60st_podcast_110707.mp3

July 7, 2011

Used to be, if parents wanted to know what their kids were up to, they’d just rummage through their dresser drawers. But now parents take advantage of social network spying solutions.

A recent study of 1,000 U.S. parents found that half have used Facebook to learn more about their kids' friends. More than a third with teenagers use Facebook to check on their kids' friends' parents. However, only about 12 percent use Facebook to learn more about their kids' dates. Maybe they'd rather not know. The study was done by consumer electronics research and review site Retrevo.

The nosiest group of "iParents"? iPhone users, naturally. Retrevo found that parents with iPhones are almost twice as likely as the average parent to use Facebook to learn more about their kids' dates. The survey also revealed that iPhone parents are more likely than Google Android-using parents to get anxious if they don't check Facebook or Twitter, to sometimes neglect responsibilities because of those social networks and to give up activities they used to enjoy because they spend so much time on those sites. What would Ward and [url=]
June Cleaver
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think?
—Larry Greenemeier