60-SECOND PSYCH 官方听力文稿 + 讨论帖

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60-SECOND PSYCH每周一期，是SciAm旗下属于心理学分支的另一个语音节目，唯一的不同就是因为只做psychology一个方面的节目，所以出节目的频率比较慢。关于节目的专业性和语速，和60-SECOND SCIENCE 并没有不同。

以下是豆豆~版主的原话

个人对 60-SECOND SCIENCE 的看法：

这是个很好的练习听力的材料，语速比较快，适合英语水平中上的选手。MS原来听别人说过：ETS公开表示过他们的听力题的主要来源就是这个 60-SECOND SCIENCE。不过是真是假，多听听总能提高真实水平 用来练口语也是不错的材料，这个文稿是原封不动的把录音写了下来，也就是说，有些词语的略读和连读都可以看得一清二楚，方便大家学习。

如果对听力文稿中有什么疑问的，可以跟贴提问，也希望大家能互相解答的就互相解答:-)

有些网友反应下载速度比较慢，这可能是由于同时在线的人数过多而引起的。在此建议同学们早上下载录音。一般更新的时间为每天下午1:00以后，所以同学们在第二天早上肯定能够下载到前一天的节目。祝大家听力进步！

我个人的看法是，这类节目除了练听力的作用以外，的确是练口语的好材料，因为比较短，模仿发音，并全部录音复读，自我检测口音问题的工作不会特别繁重，即时刻见成效，能保证学习的积极性。60sec的节目，在信息量的集中性上是保证质量的，如果能够做到刚听完就能正确复述，甚至能记下笔记来，出国后直接上专业课是绝对没有问题的。至于在60sec science以外发布60sec psych，主要是想给网友听一听新的声音。基础不是特别牢固的同学可能会出现这种情况：用某种特定的材料练习了很久，某天感觉突然顿悟了，突然什么都听懂了，但再听到一个新的声音说英语，又听不懂了。学习是很枯燥的活，就是得把所有材料都拿过来研究，练习一轮再一轮，才能有所成就。与子征战兮路漫长呵:loveliness:

【Phat Yeti出品】60-SECOND SCIENCE 官方听力文稿 + 讨论帖

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While at Stanford in the mid-1960s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest author Ken Kesey started adding a peculiar ingredient to his homemade venison stew—LSD. Now, more than forty years later, the psychedelic pioneer's beloved drug is giving neuroscientists new clues about what causes schizophrenic psychosis. Their research was published this week in the journal Nature.

You've got a lot of chemical messengers naturally swimming in your brain. Serotonin and glutamate are two of them, and they have corresponding receptors to accept their chemical messages.

LSD is a chemical messenger too. When it binds to a serotonin receptor, the hallucinations kick in—but only if the serotonin receptor is hooked up to a glutamate receptor. The neuroscientists say this serotonin-glutamate receptor pair could be the culprit for both hallucinations and mental psychosis

Curiously, when neuroscientists added a chemical messenger to block the glutamate receptor, LSD didn't have any psychedelic effect. There's currently a drug in the second stage of clinical trials that does just that—block the glutamate receptor—and it may bring us one step closer to curing the psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia.

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psychedelic ：Of, characterized by, or generating hallucinations, distortions of perception, altered states of awareness, and occasionally states resembling psychosis.

psychosis：A severe mental disorder, with or without organic damage, characterized by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social functioning.

culprit ：One charged with an offense or crime.

Serotonin：An organic compound, C10H 12N 2O, formed from tryptophan and found in animal and human tissue, especially the brain, blood serum, and gastric mucous membranes, and active in vasoconstriction, stimulation of the smooth muscles, transmission of impulses between nerve cells, and regulation of cyclic body processes.

glutamate ：A salt or ester of glutamic acid, especially one that functions as a neurotransmitter that excites cells of the central nervous system.

[ 本帖最后由 lintelle 于 2008-4-15 15:11 编辑 ]

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When my sister and I were kids, we mistakenly referred to Alzheimer's disease as "old timer's". It made sense to us—old people with old brains got old timer's disease.

But neuroscientists at the Buck Institute in California made a startling discovery—young brains may experience memory loss due to the same mechanism responsible for Alzheimer's, but this memory loss could give young brains the ability to rewire. They say all brains may have a forward-reverse switch for making and breaking memories, but in certain older brains this switch can go awry, leading to Alzheimer's.

A protein called APP could control the switch. The researchers previously found they could stop Alzheimer's in mice by preventing APP from being cut in two. Recently they found that YOUNG brains have ten times more cut APP than the diseased brains of Alzheimer's patients—and you'd think that was a bad thing. But this isn't detrimental to young brains because they are constantly rewiring to make new neural connections—so some broken memories along the way don't hurt.

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[ 本帖最后由 lintelle 于 2008-4-15 14:42 编辑 ]

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We’re in the midst of a revolution in brain science. The long-held dogma that brain connections are unchangeable after age five, is being usurped with findings that the brain is more plastic than we thought.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published a study in PLoS One this week, showing that our capacity for empathy can be learned and mastered ? as one might learn to play soccer or piano. The skill here comes from meditation.

They studied the fMRI scans of 32 subjects, half were trained meditators including the Olympians of meditation, the Tibetan monks. The others were age-matched novices.

In the brain scanner, all were subjected to emotional sounds (like a baby laughing or woman screaming.)

They found that the insula (the area of the brain responsible for physical feelings of compassion) was highly active in the experts. And the right temporal-parietal juncture (an area connected to understanding anothers’ emotional state) was also much more active in experts than in the novices.

It may not be proof that we can turn a schoolyard bully into Gandhi, but it shows meditative training has a significant impact.

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非常佩服这次的主讲，居然能讲得那么快还那么清楚。不过如果没有transcript，这集我可听不懂……:mad

usurpe：To seize and hold (the power or rights of another, for example) by force and without legal authority.See Synonyms at appropriate

empathy ：Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.See Synonyms at pity

insula ：the area of the brain responsible for physical feelings of compassion

temporal-parietal juncture：an area connected to understanding anothers’ emotional state

meditate：To engage in contemplation, especially of a spiritual or devotional nature.See Synonyms at ponder

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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (or fMRI)—the tool that creates a Technicolor map of our brains showing areas that are "lit up" where we experience anger, empathy or even morality—is either thought of as one of the greatest scientific advancements or nothing more than a high-tech phrenology—the theory that personality can be revealed by the positions of bumps in the skull.

Debates aside, the colorful brain images are a media fetish—and they have an impact on how we view news.

A study in the journal Cognition this month shows that the public views news stories as more scientifically sound when accompanied by a flashy brain image.

Researchers presented 156 subjects with news stories based on flawed science. Subjects rated the stories as more credible when accompanied by a colorful brain image as opposed to a bar graph, a colorful topographic map or no graphic at all.

The results remind us of a study done at Yale, where researchers found that gratuitous neuroscience jargon led nonexperts to believe that a story was more credible than the same story without the jargon.

So take note: When reading the news, may we never lose our skepticism.

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[ 本帖最后由 lintelle 于 2008-4-15 15:26 编辑 ]

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fetish：An object of unreasonably excessive attention or reverence

gratuitous ：Unnecessary or unwarranted; unjustified

jargon ：The specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group.See Synonyms at dialect

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One of the darker Internet trends is the spread of pro-suicide Web sites. Victims meet online, exchange the best methods and may even make a pact to terminate themselves as a group.

An investigation published in the British Medical Journal this week found that Web searches for information on self-murder are likely to return sites that encourage, and even facilitate, suicide attempts.

Of 240 sites analyzed, just under half provided methods for taking one's own life, and 45 of those openly encouraged suicide.

The top three most frequently occurring sites in any Web search were all pro-suicide and gave information on the speed, reliability and likely amount of pain associated with various methods. Furthermore, chat rooms may exert peer pressure or reinforce ones' resolve to commit suicide, the authors wrote.

There is no regulation of suicide sites in the U.K., but the authors suggest that self-regulation by Internet service providers or the use of filtering software can help block the more damaging Web sites. Australia has made such sites illegal and service providers in Japan and South Korea have already started to block them.

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In 1973 a book called A Random Walk Down Wall Street rocked the trading world, as it suggested that a "blindfolded monkey" could be as successful as any experienced trader, because, the author Burton Malkiel argued, there is no way to predict stock prices in the short term.

That may be, but a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA suggests there is market predictability in terms of trading success and hormones.

Researchers found that high testosterone levels in traders correlated with unusually successful trading days.

They followed 17 male traders over eight days, taking saliva samples, at 11 a.m. and at 4 p.m., venturing into the dangerous abyss between the traders' short-selling, margin-calling jaws. What they found was that testosterone levels were significantly higher on days when the market players beat their daily average profit.

According to the researchers, this increase can lead to more confidence and further winning, summed up in a positive feedback loop termed the "winner effect."

But the researchers speculate that long periods of elevated testosterone, as might be the case during a market bubble, can turn risk-taking into a form of addiction, thus exaggerating the market's upward turn—until it deflates under the exhausting pressure of impulsivity.

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blindfolded :To cover the eyes of with or as if with a bandage

abyss :An immeasurably profound depth or void

exaggerate：To represent as greater than is actually the case; overstate

deflate：To reduce or lessen the size or importance of