SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - Mercury in Fish / Life on Land / The G

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - Mercury in Fish / Life on Land / The Goldman Environmental Prize
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Broadcast: Tuesday, May 11, 2004

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VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty¹.

VOICE TWO:

 
Graphic² Image
And I'm Sarah Long. On our program this week -- health advice about mercury in fish ...

VOICE ONE:

How some ancient fish gained the ability to do push-ups, and it had nothing to do with exercise.

VOICE TWO:

And, the winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

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VOICE ONE:

United States health officials have warned pregnant women to limit the amount of albacore tuna they eat. This is because of the levels of mercury in fish. The warning is also for young children, for women who may become pregnant and for women who nurse their babies.

Mercury is a danger to the nervous system, especially in babies and children. Even small amounts of this metal have been found to harm development. Mercury in water supplies and fish is connected to industrial waste. Electric power stations that burn coal are a major cause of mercury in the environment.

VOICE TWO:

Albacore is also known as "white" tuna. Health officials say albacore contains more mercury than other kinds that are sold as "light" tuna in cans.

The government says women and young children should eat up to three-hundred-forty grams of fish and shellfish a week. It says this may include up to one-hundred-seventy grams of albacore.

Women and young children are advised not to eat any shark, swordfish, king mackerel or tilefish. All of these fish contain high levels of mercury. The advice says five kinds of seafood³ low in mercury are shrimp⁴, canned light tuna, salmon⁵, pollock and catfish⁶.

VOICE ONE:

A committee advised the Food and Drug Administration on the issue of mercury in fish. One member resigned as soon as the public received the new advice.

Vas Aposhian is a mercury expert at the University of Arizona. He told the Washington Post that the committee wanted to add albacore to the list of fish not to eat at all. He says the experts thought children and pregnant women should not eat a lot of light tuna either.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection agency jointly⁷ released the new advice. The two agencies state that for most people, the risk from mercury by eating fish and shellfish is not a health concern. They say people should know that seafood can be part of a healthy and balanced diet.

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VOICE TWO:

Scientists have reported the oldest arm bone ever found. They say it comes from a small animal that lived about three-hundred-sixty-five million years ago. The discovery may help explain more about how animals moved from the sea to live on land.

Scientists at the University of Chicago and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia reported the finding. Their report is in the magazine Science. Neil Shubin from the University of Chicago led the team.

Professor Shubin says the creature was a mix of ancient fish and early amphibian⁸. Fish have fins⁹. Amphibians¹⁰ have arms and legs. They are able to live on land or in water, like frogs or crocodiles. The bone is said to show the changing structure as fins became limbs.

VOICE ONE:

The upper arm bone, or humerus, was hidden in rock from the state of Pennsylvania. The scientists collected the red sandstone in nineteen-ninety-three. But no one found the bone until two-thousand-one. Other evidence from the rock suggests that the animal lived in a freshwater system that flowed in ancient times.

The scientists say the animal was about sixty centimeters long and had thick front leg muscles. They think it looked something like a modern crocodile.

VOICE TWO:

Professor Shubin says the arm bone was connected to the same muscles that a person uses to do push-ups. Such an ability would have helped the animal raise its head above water to breathe. Also, it would have helped the creature move through plants in water that was not very deep. The animal might even have walked on land. But probably not very well.

Scientists say animals began to move from water to land during the Devonian period. This was between three-hundred-sixty and three-hundred-seventy million years ago.

Other fossils from the area where the bone was found suggest that the animal lived among meat-eating fish. In fact, one of them may have killed the creature. Neil Shubin says the arm bone has marks that could have been left by teeth.

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VOICE ONE:

Seven activists¹¹ are the winners this year of the Goldman Environmental Foundation awards. The winners each received one-hundred-twenty-five-thousand dollars. A ceremony took place in San Francisco, California.

Richard and Rhoda Goldman created the prize in nineteen-ninety. It is meant to show the difference that individuals can make to help the environment. Environmental groups nominate people. So do former winners, policymakers and others. Winners are chosen by a jury of foundation directors and environmental experts.

VOICE TWO:

This year, two people share the prize for Asia. Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla were victims of the chemical leak in Bhopal, India, in nineteen-eighty-four. More than twenty-thousand deaths have been blamed on the poison gas from a Union Carbide pesticide¹² factory. Many thousands more were severely¹³ injured. The two Goldman Prize winners were among them.

Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla have led efforts to make the new owner of Union Carbide, Dow Chemical, take responsibility. They organized a hunger strike. They have traveled to protest at Dow shareholder¹⁴ meetings. The two women are also part a legal action to make Dow clean up the factory and take other steps to help people in Bhopal.

VOICE ONE:

The Goldman Prize for North America went to Margie Richard of the United States. Mizz Richard grew up in Lorco, Louisiana, in an area with a high rate of cancer. People call it "Cancer Alley¹⁵."

The Shell company has a chemical factory there. The factory releases tons of poisons into the air. Margie Richard led a thirteen-year campaign to demand that Shell pay for people to move to safer areas. Shell agreed. It also has agreed to reduce the factory's pollution by thirty-percent. Mizz Richard is the first African American to win the award.

The Goldman Prize for Africa went to Rudolf Amenga-Etego of Ghana. He is a lawyer from Accra. He stopped a plan to give control of the water system in Ghana to private companies. Mister Amenga-Etego says getting clean drinking water is difficult enough already. He got many people involved in the campaign. These included farmers, teachers, trade groups and religious leaders.

VOICE TWO:

Manana Kochladze of Tbilisi, Georgia, is the Goldman Prize winner for Europe. She established a group called Green Alternative. It pressured the government and British Petroleum¹⁶ about a major oil-pipeline¹⁷ project. The path would cut through the mountains where Georgian mineral water comes from.

Mizz Kochladze helped gain promises from the project leaders to protect local villagers and the environment. Her work also led to the creation of an international group of scientists. The group was formed to study possible environmental effects of the pipeline project.

VOICE ONE

The prize winner from South and Central America is Libia Grueso of Colombia. She helped other black Colombians win territorial¹⁸ rights to lands they have lived on for hundreds of years. The law now recognizes Afro-Colombians as a separate ethnic¹⁹ group with rights to more than two-million hectares of land. Mizz Grueso has also helped restrict activities that can harm the environment, like logging, gold mining and fishing.

The final Goldman Prize winner this year is Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho of East Timor, representing island nations. The former resistance fighter has established the Haburas Foundation. This private group helped to secure environmental language in the constitution when East Timor became independent from Indonesia. The document recognizes the right to a healthy environment. It also recognizes the need to deal with national resources in an intelligent, responsible way.

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VOICE TWO:

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Caty Weaver²⁰, Robert Brumfield and Cynthia Kirk, who was also our producer. This is Sarah Long.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Bob Doughty. Listen next week for more news about science, in Special English, on the Voice of America.

1 doughty   

adj.勇猛的，坚强的

参考例句：

• Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质：脾气倔强，性格刚强。
• The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。

2 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。

3 seafood   

n.海产食品，海味，海鲜

参考例句：

• There's an excellent seafood restaurant near here.离这儿不远有家非常不错的海鲜馆。
• Shrimps are a popular type of seafood.小虾是比较普遍的一种海味。

4 shrimp   

n.虾，小虾；矮小的人

参考例句：

• When the shrimp farm is built it will block the stream.一旦养虾场建起来，将会截断这条河流。
• When it comes to seafood,I like shrimp the best.说到海鲜，我最喜欢虾。

5 salmon   

n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的

参考例句：

• We saw a salmon jumping in the waterfall there.我们看见一条大马哈鱼在那边瀑布中跳跃。
• Do you have any fresh salmon in at the moment?现在有新鲜大马哈鱼卖吗？

6 catfish   

n.鲶鱼

参考例句：

• Huge catfish are skinned and dressed by hand.用手剥去巨鲇的皮并剖洗干净。
• We gigged for catfish off the pier.我们在码头以鱼叉叉鲶鱼。

7 jointly   

ad.联合地，共同地

参考例句：

• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。
• She owns the house jointly with her husband. 她和丈夫共同拥有这所房子。

8 amphibian   

n.两栖动物；水陆两用飞机和车辆

参考例句：

• The frog is an amphibian,which means it can live on land and in water.青蛙属于两栖动物，也就是说它既能生活在陆地上也能生活在水里。
• Amphibian is an important specie in ecosystem and has profound meaning in the ecotoxicology evaluation.两栖类是生态系统中的重要物种，并且对环境毒理评价有着深远意义。

9 fins   

[医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌

参考例句：

• The level of TNF-α positively correlated with BMI,FPG,HbA1C,TG,FINS and IRI,but not with SBP and DBP. TNF-α水平与BMI、FPG、HbA1C、TG、FINS和IRI呈显著正相关，与SBP、DBP无相关。 来自互联网
• Fins are a feature specific to fish. 鱼鳍是鱼类特有的特征。 来自辞典例句

10 amphibians   

两栖动物( amphibian的名词复数 )； 水陆两用车； 水旱两生植物； 水陆两用飞行器

参考例句：

• The skin of amphibians is permeable to water. 两栖动物的皮肤是透水的。
• Two amphibians ferry them out over the sands. 两辆水陆两用车把他们渡过沙滩。

11 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 pesticide   

n.杀虫剂，农药

参考例句：

• The pesticide was spread over the vegetable plot.菜田里撒上了农药。
• This pesticide is diluted with water and applied directly to the fields.这种杀虫剂用水稀释后直接施用在田里。

13 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

14 shareholder   

n.股东，股票持有人

参考例句：

• The account department have prepare a financial statement for the shareholder.财务部为股东准备了一份财务报表。
• A shareholder may transfer his shares in accordance with the law.股东持有的股份可以依法转让。

15 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

16 petroleum   

n.原油，石油

参考例句：

• The Government of Iran advanced the price of petroleum last week.上星期伊朗政府提高了石油价格。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

17 pipeline   

n.管道，管线

参考例句：

• The pipeline supplies Jordan with 15 per cent of its crude oil.该管道供给约旦15%的原油。
• A single pipeline serves all the houses with water.一条单管路给所有的房子供水。

18 territorial   

adj.领土的，领地的

参考例句：

• The country is fighting to preserve its territorial integrity.该国在为保持领土的完整而进行斗争。
• They were not allowed to fish in our territorial waters.不允许他们在我国领海捕鱼。

19 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

20 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。