VOA慢速英语20061107b

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - Flight to Service Hubble Telescope Could Take Place in Early 2008By Jerilyn Watson and Jill Moss¹

Broadcast: Tuesday, November 07, 2006

VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Doug Johnson.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Faith Lapidus. This week: The future suddenly looks brighter for the Hubble Space Telescope.

VOICE ONE:

Move over, Mickey Mouse -- meet the Cypriot mouse.

VOICE TWO:

Also, a technology report on a new cookstove for refugee camps in Darfur.

VOICE ONE:

And we tell you about a water-purifying device called the LifeStraw.

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VOICE TWO:


Hubble Space Telescope

The American space agency has decided² to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The orbiting observatory³ is sixteen years old. Over the years, space shuttle astronauts have flown to the Hubble four times to make repairs and improvements. A fifth visit had been set for last year.

But in two thousand four, NASA's administrator⁴ at the time, Sean O'Keefe, vetoed the plan. He said it would be too risky⁵. At that time all shuttle flights were suspended following the loss of the shuttle Columbia in two thousand three.

What about designing a robotic spacecraft to repair Hubble? Studies showed that would be too costly⁶ and too complex to attempt by two thousand seven. Engineers thought Hubble could fail next year because of weakening batteries and aging gyroscopes. The gyroscopes are part of Hubble's guidance system. They help keep the telescope pointed⁷ in the right direction.

Now, the current NASA administrator has renewed plans to send a shuttle crew on another Hubble repair flight. Michael Griffin announced the decision last week. He said he would not have agreed to it if he did not believe the plan could succeed, and succeed safely.

VOICE ONE:

NASA, the National Aeronautics⁸ and Space Administration, is preparing to retire its space shuttles. But before then, under the new plan, the shuttle Discovery will fly to the Hubble telescope. It could happen as early as May of two thousand eight. The seven-member crew will carry out repairs and add new equipment, including two new camera instruments. The hope is to keep Hubble operating until two thousand thirteen.

NASA chief Michael Griffin says the repair mission can wait until two thousand eight. Engineers have found ways to extend the life of Hubble's batteries and gyroscopes. But even if those systems fail before then, he says, Hubble could operate in a so-called safe mode until the astronauts arrive.

The telescope orbits six hundred kilometers above the Earth. Its images of the universe have led to a great many discoveries.

Michael Bakich at Astronomy magazine was among those very happy at NASA's decision. He calls the Hubble Space Telescope one of the great machines of all time.

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VOICE TWO:

You are listening to SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Thomas Cucchi is a French archeologist working at Durham University in England. He is an expert on the history of house mice.

Two years ago, he was on the island of Cyprus examining fossil remains⁹ of mice that lived during the Stone Age. He was comparing their teeth with those of modern European house mice. In the process, he identified a population of mice that live on Cyprus but are different from other European mice.

The archeologist says they must have arrived on Cyprus before the island broke away from the mainland. He says the mouse colonized¹⁰ and changed to survive the Cypriot environment several thousand years before humans arrived. Humans are believed to have settled on the island ten thousand years ago.

VOICE ONE:


Photo released by Durham University of Mus cypriacus, the newly identified mouse species on Cyprus

Genetic¹¹ tests at the University of Montpellier in France confirmed that the mouse is a different species. The scientific name is Mus cypriacus. It has a bigger head, ears, eyes and teeth than other European mice. Still, most people might mistake it for one of the common European house mice that also live on the island.

But Thomas Cucchi calls it a living fossil. He and other scientists described the new mouse in a report earlier this year in the publication Zootaxa. He says the mystery behind its survival offers a new area of study. He notes that most mammals disappeared from Mediterranean¹² islands after humans arrived. The exceptions are two kinds of shrews, and now this mouse.

Mammals are warm-blooded creatures that have hair and drink milk from their mothers. The new species of mouse is one of about twelve kinds of mammals discovered in the world in the past few years. But the discovery of a new mammal species in Europe surprised scientists.

Mister Cucchi says new mammal species are mainly discovered in areas like Southeast Asia. They are generally found in areas where few people live and where scientific visits are rare. He notes that scientists generally believed that all the mammals in Europe had already been identified.

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VOICE TWO:

Scientists have designed a cookstove that could make life a little easier for refugees in the Darfur area of Sudan. It might also help reduce the loss of forests in poor countries where trees are cut down as fuel for cooking fires. The scientists are from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley.

Two of them, Ashok Gadgil [ah-SHOKE GAD-gil] and Christina Galitsky, went to Darfur late last year. They found that many refugee families were missing meals for lack of fuel.

The light metal stove uses only about one-fourth as much wood as the cooking method currently used in the camps. That method is known as the three-stone fire. Less need for fuel would mean less need for women to leave the camps to search for wood and risk being attacked in violence-torn Darfur.

VOICE ONE:

Since that visit, the researchers have improved the stove. Now they are trying to set up production. They estimate that the stoves could be built locally in Darfur for about fifteen dollars each. They say about three hundred thousand are needed. The hope is to begin producing five thousand stoves by the end of the year.

Ashok Gadgil says his team agrees with aid organizations that the stoves should not be given away free of charge. If they are free, he says, they will be undervalued. People might then try to sell them for the value of the metal. The scientists say microlending programs could help people buy the stoves with loans if they do not have enough money. And people could use borrowed money to start their own stove-building business.

VOICE TWO:

San Francisco area members of Engineers Without Borders-USA are providing engineering support for the project. The groups working on the Darfur Cookstoves Project are also seeking donations to support their work.

The project has a Web site. The address is darfurstoves.lbl.gov.

VOICE ONE:

During the nineteen nineties, Ashok Gadgil invented a water-purifying system that won awards for its design. The system is called UV Waterworks. It uses ultraviolet light to disinfect water of viruses and bacteria. And it can be powered by a car battery or energy from the sun.

Now there is another award-winning water-purifying device on the market. The Vestergaard Frandsen Group, a Danish company with headquarters in Switzerland, invented the LifeStraw last year. The LifeStraw won an award from a nonprofit organization in Denmark that honors designs to improve life.

VOICE TWO:

The LifeStraw is a thick plastic tube twenty-five centimeters long. You place one end into water and drink from the other. The water passes through a series of filters to catch extremely small particles. Iodine¹³ and active carbon are also used in the cleaning process. It takes about eight minutes to filter one liter.

Vestergaard Frandsen says the LifeStraw kills organisms that spread diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid and cholera¹⁴. The device filters most bacteria and parasites¹⁵. But it has limits, including against viruses. Also, it does not remove arsenic¹⁶ or other heavy metals from water.

VOICE ONE:

The LifeStraw costs about three dollars. It can be worn on a string around the neck. It has a lifetime of up to seven hundred liters, or about one year.

The company notes that each day, worldwide, more than six thousand children and adults die from unsafe drinking water.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jerilyn Watson and Jill Moss. I'm Faith Lapidus.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Doug Johnson. Learn more about science, and download transcripts¹⁷ and MP3 files of our programs, at www.unsv.com And join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

1 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 observatory   

n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台

参考例句：

• Guy's house was close to the observatory.盖伊的房子离天文台很近。
• Officials from Greenwich Observatory have the clock checked twice a day.格林威治天文台的职员们每天对大钟检查两次。

4 administrator   

n.经营管理者，行政官员

参考例句：

• The role of administrator absorbed much of Ben's energy.行政职务耗掉本很多精力。
• He has proved himself capable as administrator.他表现出管理才能。

5 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

6 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

7 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

8 aeronautics   

n.航空术，航空学

参考例句：

• National Aeronautics and Space undertakings have made great progress.国家的航空航天事业有了很大的发展。
• He devoted every spare moment to aeronautics.他把他所有多余的时间用在航空学上。

9 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

10 colonized   

开拓殖民地，移民于殖民地( colonize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The area was colonized by the Vikings. 这一地区曾沦为维京人的殖民地。
• The British and French colonized the Americas. 英国人和法国人共同在美洲建立殖民地。

11 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

12 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

13 iodine   

n.碘，碘酒

参考例句：

• The doctor painted iodine on the cut.医生在伤口上涂点碘酒。
• Iodine tends to localize in the thyroid.碘容易集于甲状腺。

14 cholera   

n.霍乱

参考例句：

• The cholera outbreak has been contained.霍乱的发生已被控制住了。
• Cholera spread like wildfire through the camps.霍乱在营地里迅速传播。

15 parasites   

寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫

参考例句：

• These symptoms may be referable to virus infection rather than parasites. 这些症状也许是由病毒感染引起的，而与寄生虫无关。
• Kangaroos harbor a vast range of parasites. 袋鼠身上有各种各样的寄生虫。

16 arsenic   

n.砒霜，砷；adj.砷的

参考例句：

• His wife poisoned him with arsenic.他的妻子用砒霜把他毒死了。
• Arsenic is a poison.砒霜是毒药。

17 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句