Plastic waste: eaten by enzymes Plastic pollution is a problem we've discussed before. It's an environmental issue which, like the growing amount of plastic waste, isn't going away. And now microparticles of plastic have even been found.... can you guess where, Beth? Hmm, let me guess - in our food? inside dead animals? at the North Pole? At the top of Mount Everest! Although the other places you mentioned are true as well. Plastic is a tough problem to fix, but fortunately scientists may now have found a solution. In this programme, we'll be hearing about chemical recycling, agroundbreaking way of making old plastic new again. And, as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well. But first I have a question for you, Beth. Visit the country or seaside and you'll soon see evidence of plastic waste. According to the UN, around 400 million tonnes of new plastic is produced every year, much of it going to waste. It's hard to imagine what 400 million tonnes looks like, so which of the following, if you placed on a set of scales, would weigh about the same? Is it: a) all the people on Earth, b) all the cars on Earth or, c) all the elephants on Earth? I think all the cars on Earth would weigh about 400 million tonnes. OK, Beth. We'll find out if that's the right answer later. Globally less than 10 percent of all plastic gets recycled. Some gets incinerated or burnt, and about half of all plastic waste goes straight to landfill, meaning it's buried underground. But as reporter for BBC World Service programme,'People Fixing The World', William Kremer, explained, this only fixes part of the problem: So, there is a mechanical process where some plastics can be sort of melted down and remoulded into a new shape or a new form, but not all plastics can go through that process at all. And also, it loses a little bit of quality every time you do that, so it will become slightly more brittle. So, it's actually more downcycling than recycling - every time it goes through that process it gets less useful. Each time plastic is recycled it gets more brittle, meaning it's easier to break or crack. As a result, what we call recycling is actually downcycling, creating recycled products which are less valuable and of lower quality than the original waste product. And that's where the new discovery fits in. Chemical recycling uses enzymes, natural chemicals which cause changes in other chemicals without being changed themselves. Certain enzymes have evolved the ability to break down plastic into its basic building blocks, and use that to make new plastic. The problem is that very few enzymes exist which can break the chemical bonds in stronger plastics like PET, the plastic used in drinks bottles. At least, that's what scientists used to think, until researcher, Sintawee Sulaiman, took an autumn walk in the park near her laboratory at the University of Osaka, Japan. In a pile of rotting leaves, she discovered the microorganism,'leaf-branch compost cutinase', or LCC for short. Sintawee mixed LCC with plastic and left it in her lab overnight. She was surprised to return the next morning and find the plastic gone, eaten by the enzyme! The news spread and soon scientists were predicting a major breakthrough, as William Kremer reported for BBC World Service programme,'People Fixing The World: This discovery wasn't the end of the story but the beginning. LCC showed promise in breaking down PET plastic, but it needed a lot more work to become stable and effective, The LCC enzyme showed promise in breaking down even strong plastics. If something shows promise, it has the potential to be successful in the future. Since then, that promise has started to come true. Scientists in France have used LCC to develop new enzymes and by 2025 they plan to recycle 50 thousand tonnes of plastic waste annually, including strong plastics like PET, and nylon which is used to make clothes. But there's still work to do. Fifty thousand tonnes sounds a lot, but not as much as the 400 million tonnes of plastic waste in your question, Neil. So, what was the correct answer? Right, I asked you what else would weigh about 400 million tonnes, the amount of new plastic we produce each year. You guessed all the cars on Earth would weigh the same, which was... he wrong answer, I'm afraid, Beth. In fact, it was all the people on Earth! OK, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned in this programme, starting with incinerate, another word for burn. Landfill is a method of dealing with rubbish by burying it in large holes in the ground. The adjective brittle means easily broken or snapped. Downcycling is recycling but in such a way that the resulting product is less valuable or of lower quality than the original. Enzymes are chemicals found in living cells which cause changes in other chemicals to happen while not being changed themselves. And finally, if something shows promise, it has a lot of potential for success in the future. ✔更多见公众号【琐简英语】

How is coastal erosion affecting UK coastlines?| Newsround 海岸侵蚀如何影响英国海岸线 Hi Newsround! 嗨新闻中心！ My name's Eleanor. 我叫埃莉诺。 My name's Archie. 我叫阿奇。 My name's Isaac. 我叫艾萨克。 And we live in the village of Albrath, 我们住在阿尔布拉斯村。 It's a very beautiful place to live, 这是一个非常美丽的居住地。 But due to coastal erosion, some parts of the village has been disappearing. 但由于海岸侵蚀，村庄的一些部分已经消失。 Come see! 来看看！ What did it used to look like around here? 这里以前是什么样子？ The roads that did go round here, people were still driving on that about 10 to 15 years ago. 大约 10 到 15 年前，人们还在这条道路上行驶。 There used to be two hotels and a cafe and the caravan park that is still here, but they've lost a lot of their caravans because as the cliff comes back they have to move. 曾经有两家酒店、一家咖啡馆和大篷车公园仍然在这里，但他们失去了很多大篷车，因为当悬崖回来时，他们必须搬家。 And the people who had the hotels and the houses, they've had to move back as well. 那些拥有旅馆和房屋的人也不得不搬回来。 How long will it take for this area to be gone? 这个区域需要多长时间才会消失？ If it carries on going at sort of 2, 3, 4 meters a year, these houses that are behind us here and in front of me, they will have to come down in maybe the next 10 or 15 years. 如果它继续以每年 2、3、4 米的速度增长，我们身后和我面前的这些房子，也许在未来 10 或 15 年内它们将不得不倒塌。 Hiya! 嗨! Hiya! 嗨! You ready to see some dliffs? 你准备好去看悬崖了吗? Yeah! 是的！ Let's go! 我们走吧! How does erosion particularly affect this coastline? 侵蚀对这条海岸线有何特别影响? One is the type of rocks and soil that we've got in the cliffs that are very soft, but also that it's very low-lying, so that the sea is able to make a big cut every time it starts attacking the cliffs. 一种是悬崖上的岩石和土壤非常柔软，而且地势非常低，因此海水每次开始攻击悬崖时都能造成很大的切割。 Is this a new problem? 这是一个新问题吗？ It's not a new problem at all. 这根本不是一个新问题。 This has been happening since the end of the last ice age, over 10,000 years ago. 自一万多年前的最后一个冰河时代结束以来，这种情况就一直在发性。 This is some sea defences here. 这是这里的一些海上防御设施。 What do they do? 他们在做什么？ What they do is they stop the energy of the waves. 它们所做的就是阻止波浪的能量。 They break up the waves before they hit the cliffs so they don't attack the cliff as hard. 它们在撞击悬崖之前打破了海浪，这样它们就不会那么猛烈地攻击悬崖。 Unfortunately, what that means though, away from the sea defenses, the cliffs are eroded a bit more quickly because the sea focuses its energy into there. 不幸的是，这意味着，远离海防，悬崖被侵蚀得更快一些，因为海洋将能量集中到那里。 We can see here it's made up of a whole load of rocks. 我们可以在这里看到它是由一大堆岩石组成的。 They've been brought in from places like Norway. 它们是从挪威等地引进的。 But as you move to other parts of the coast, you might see some big walls that have been built and they're doing the same job. 但当你搬到海岸的其他地方时，你可能会看到一些已经建成的大墙，它们正在做同样的工作。 They're just protecting that bit of coast. 他们只是在保护那片海岸。 How does climate change affect erosion? 气候变化如何影响侵蚀？ Climate change is really affecting how the sea is behaving and how much rain we're getting. 气候变化确实影响着海洋的表现以及我们的降雨量。 When we look at the different cliffs and the types of soils in them, we can start to understand what happens when you put more water in there. 当我们观察不同的悬崖和其中的土壤类型时，我们可以开始了解当你往那里放更多的水时会发生什么。 And unfortunately for most of our cliffs, it means they start to collapse, they start to erode away a lot more quickly. 不幸的是，对于我们大多数的悬崖来说，这意味着它们开始崩塌，它们开始更快地被侵蚀。 How do you decide what areas to protect? 您如何决定要保护哪些区域？ So it's a really big town with lots of shops and people living in them and because there's so many people living there we can provide them with coastal defences but it's really expensive. 所以这是一个非常大的城镇，有很多商店和人们居住在那里，因为那里有很多人居住，我们可以为他们提供海岸防御，但它非常昂贵。 Unfortunately in areas where there's not so many people it's really important that erosion continues because the sand and the mud that comes from our cliffs 不幸的是，在人口不多的地区，侵蚀的持续存在非常重要，因为来自悬崖的沙子和泥土。 It goes right south all the way to Lincolnshire and down to Norfolk and right the way across to Germany and Denmark in some cases. 它一直向南延伸到林肯郡，然后一直延伸到诺福克，在某些情况下还 可以直接穿过德国和丹麦。 And that helps provide places for animals to live. 这有助于为动物提供栖息地。 It provides defences for Lincolnshire so people in Lincolnshire don't lose their homes. 它为林肯郡提供防御，使林肯郡的人们不会失去家园。 So it's really important that some areas are allowed to erode and that we help people in those areas. 因此，允许某些地区受到侵蚀并帮助这些地区的人们非常重要。 ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【打卡交流群】

Fighting loneliness with soup It might help to know that you're not the only one feeling lonely. Loneliness has been called the 'modern epidemi'. Although millions of us live together in towns and cities, more and more people report feeling lonely and unconnected to those they live close to. Loneliness can affect anyone. And while everyone's experience of loneliness is different, its effects can be serious. Research has shown that loneliness puts people at greater risk of many health issues, including dementia and heart disease. So, how can loneliness be fixed? In this programme, well be hearing about one project in the Netherlands aiming to do just that. And, as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well. But first, I have a question for you, Beth. Here in the UK, an organisation called the 'Campaign to End Loneliness' has been offering advice and support since 2011. So according to the Campaign, what proportion of British adults report feeling lonely at least some of the time? Is it: a) 29%? b) 39%? or c) 49%? I'll guess it's 39%, OK, Beth, I'll reveal the answer later in the programme. Feeling lonely is not necessarily the same as being alone. Some people can happily spend lots of time on their own, while others may be surrounded by people but still feel disconnected. So, what do we mean when we say we feel lonely? Here's Myra Anubi, presenter of BBC World Service programme, People Fixing The World, explaining what loneliness means to her: Its that feeling when you crave people's company and you find it hard to connect. Or maybe you just feel left out with no one to turn to. Now, feeling lonely isn't just uncomfortable, when it's experienced over time, it's been associated with health issues like a higher risk of having depression, dementia, or even heart disease. When we're lonely, we crave people's company - we want their company a lot. We might also feel left out - unhappy because we're not included in what others are doing. And maybe we have no-one to turn to - no-one we can go to and ask for support and help. Someone who suffered all these feelings was Bep de Bruin. In 2013, Bep, aged 74, was found dead at her home in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Her death wasn't suspicious, but it shocked the whole country, because it turned out she had been dead for 10 years! Bep had lost contact with her only child and kept to herself in her apartment. So when she died sometime in 2003, no-one realised. Bep's tragic story inspired a national campaign to combat loneliness, including one project called, Oma's Soup, a kitchen bringing lonely elderly people together with schoolchildren and students to make soup. 'Oma' means 'grandma' in Dutch and the project encourages young people to spend time with their grandparent's generation. Here, Claire Bates, reporter for BBC World Service programme, People Fixing The World, explains how the project got started: Well, it's run by two young guys called Max Kranendijk and Martin Canters. And now they were concerned their grandparents' generation were becoming isolated and lonely. And meanwhile they had lots of student friends who had free time, so they thought why not try to bring these two generations together through making soup. Oma's Soup was started by Max and Martin, two local guys, or men. They wanted to involve their student friends.because they had lots of free time, time when they do not have to work or study, and can do what they want. Max and Martin found the perfect way to help elderly people who felt lonely by bringing them together with students. If you bring someone together, you help people or groups to become friendly or to do something together, especially something they wouldn't usually do... ike make soup. Oma's Soup has been a big success and has spread to other cities across the Netherlands, including Rotterdam, the hometown of Bep de Bruin, making her tragic death the spark for something much more hopeful. I think it's time to reveal the answer to your question, Neil. Right. I asked you what proportion of British adults report feeling lonely at least some of the time. And I said it was 39 percent. Which was... the wrong answer I'm afraid, Beth. Sadly, the correct answer is even higher - 49 percent of adults, that's around 26 million people in the UK, making it even more important to reach out and connect with others. OK, it's time to recap the vocabulary we've learned in this programme starting with the verb crave, to have a strong wish or desire for something. If you feel left out, you're unhappy because you've been excluded from something. To turn to someone means to go to someone and ask them for help or support. A guy is an informal way of saying a man. Free time, also called leisure time, is time when you do not have to work or study and can do what you want. And finally, the phrasal verb to bring someone together means to help people or groups become friendly or do something together, especially if they usually don't. 更多见公众号琐简英语

The village with a big bird poo problem | Newsround 鸟粪问题严重的村庄 They're just like thick black clouds. 它们就像厚厚的黑云。 You can hear them. 你可以听到他们的声音。 They'll just come around in really tight, dark, deep groups. 他们只会以非常紧密、黑暗、深入的群体的形式出现。 And you can just hear the rain of bird poop. 你只能听到鸟粪雨般的声音。 Check out this natural wonder. 看看这个自然奇观。 Murmurations of starlings swirling overhead. 椋鸟在头顶盘旋，发出低语声。 But on the ground, it's not so pretty. 但在地面上，情况并不那么漂亮。 Like clockwork, every evening the birds come and it literally rains with poo. 就像发条一样，每天晚上鸟儿都会飞来，然后就会下起便便雨。 It covers the back door, covers the cars, covers the road. 它遮盖后门、遮盖汽车、遮盖道路。 You could do dot to dot on the road, it's that close and that much. 你可以在路上一点一点地做，就那么近，就那么远。 It's literally been a nightmare, literally. 这确实是一场噩梦。 I've had to get my bucket out about five times. 我不得不把水桶拿出来大约五次。 Everybody found it fascinating to start with. 每个人一开始都觉得这很有趣。 Now they're fed up with it because they wash the car in the morning and at night it's just as bad. 现在他们已经厌倦了，因为他们早上洗车，晚上洗车也同样糟糕。 It's come to the point now where it's pointless washing the windows. 现在已经到了洗窗户毫无意义的地步了。 And my wife comes home, you go to the bin, you get bird poo on your head. 我妻子回到家，你去垃圾桶，你的头上沾满了鸟粪。 It's a matter of poo. 这是便便的问题。 Experts say that the birds tend to not stay in the same place for more than a few weeks. 专家表示，这些鸟往往不会在同一个地方停留超过几周。 But if you are playing out, it might be wise to get an umbrella. 但如果你出去玩，带把雨伞可能是明智之举。 ✔公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【英语晨读×全英交流群】

The school of life｜为什么不被爱的人反而会恨自己 Why Unloved People Hate Themselves What happens to a child who isn't loved properly? The answer one might expect is that they start to hate the person who doesn't give them the love they need. But far from it, the reality is that the child becomes filled with shame - a sense that it's profoundly unworthy, dirty, soiled, sinful, ugly, embarrassing. 童年缺爱的小孩将会经历什么呢？我们通常会以为，他们可能会怨恨没有给予他们应有之爱的人。但事实并非如此，实际上，缺爱的孩子更有可能会觉得自己不够好，觉得自己低贱、肮脏、有罪、丑陋，让人尴尬，这种羞耻感会深深地影响他们的内心世界。 The child is unable to redirect the blame outwards; it doesn't ask: what's wrong with my parents for not loving me adequately? It simply wonders in a forlorn way: what have I done wrong in order to have ended up on the receiving end of my parents' disapproval? 孩子们往往不会把责任归咎于外界，他们不会去质疑：“为什么我的父母不能给予我足够的爱，是不是父母有什么问题？”相反，他们常常在绝望中自我反省：“我到底哪里做错了，为什么会得不到父母的认可？” The child prefers to attack itself for being bad than to confront a yet more awful possibility that it's entirely dependent for its well-being on inadequate and unkind parental figures. The child searches for explanations for the lack of love it has to endure and comes up with all the wrong answers. 孩子更倾向于攻击自己，觉得自己有问题，也不愿面对更加可怕的一个真相：自己的幸福完全依赖不够好也不够温柔的父母。在试图理解为什么自己得不到足够的爱的过程中，孩子找到了很多答案，但遗憾的是，都是错误的答案。 It concludes "I've not been impressive enough', and therefore it undertakes enormous efforts to prove to itself and outsiders that it does, nevertheless, deserve to exist. 孩子最终的结论是：自己不够优秀。因此他们开始付出极大的努力，想要向自己和他人证明，尽管自己不够好，他仍然有存在的价值。 At school, this kind of child might try seven times as hard as any other to show that it's clever and good. Or else, a child may go down an antisocial route and graffiti the nearby underpass as a desperate way of giving outward form to a feeling of badness it's tortured by inside. 在学校，缺爱的孩子可能会付出其他孩子七倍的努力，只是为了证明自己聪明且品德优良。然而，有的孩子可能会走上叛逆的道路，比如在附近的地下通道进涂鸦，这是他们试图以一种外在的方式，绝望地表达内心深处的痛苦和“不够好”的感觉。 There is so sadly no way out from the burden of shame -available either by trying to be extremely good or extremely bad. The only solution is to work against the grain of forgetting in order to perceive, for the first time, an awful possibility that one could never perceive as a child; that one has done nothing wrong at all; that wrong was done to one. 可悲的是，无论如何极力表现得非常好或非常坏，都无法真正摆脱羞耻的重负。唯一的出路是直面童年被父母忽视的事实，去认识到在童年时期无法理解的可怕真相：其实自己根本没有做错什么；真正的错误是别人对自己的所作所为。 ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“1”，进入【打卡交流群】

The world this week--Business America's House of Representatives passed a bill which would require ByteDance, the Chinese firm that owns TikTok, either to sell the platform or to stop operating in America, TikTok's biggest market. 本周国际要闻--商业美国众议院通过了一项法案，要求TikTok的所有者中国公司字节跳动要么出售该平台，要么停止在TikTok最大的市场美国运营。 The bill's supporters worry that China could lean on TikTok to massage content to its liking. 该法案的支持者担心，中国可能会向TikTok施压，按照自己的喜好修改内容。 TikTok became popular with its quirky video clips, but has morphed into a big provider of factual media. TikTok过去因其独特的视频片段而广受欢迎，但现已演变成一家大型事实媒体提供商。 A third of American adults under 30 use it to catch up on the news. 在30岁以下的美国成年人中，有三分之一的人用TikTok获知最新消息。 The bill now goes to the Senate. 该法案现将提交给参议院。 Sam Altman was restored to the board at OpenAI. 萨姆·奥尔特曼恢复OpenAI董事会的职位。 Mr Altman was sacked as chief executive by the previous board last November but swiftly reinstated in that job following a revolt by employees and investors. 去年11月，奥尔特曼被OpenAI前董事会解除了首席执行官一职，但在员工和投资者的反抗下，他很快官复原职。 An independent review into those events has concluded that there was a "breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust" between the prior board and Mr Altman. 经过对这些事件进行独立审查，得出的结论是，前董事会与奥尔特曼之间的“关系破裂，丧失了信任”。 Saudi Aramco reported a net profit of $121bn for 2023, more than the combined profits of the West's five biggest oil companies. 沙特阿美报告称，2023年实现净利润1210亿美元，超过了西方五大石油公司的利润总和。 Aramco increased its dividend pay-out to $98bn, a big source of income for the Saudi state, and promised even higher payments this year. 沙特阿美将其股息支出提高至980亿美元，这是沙特政府的一大收入来源。沙特阿美还承诺今年将支付更高的款项。 America's annual rate of inflation rose slightly in February, to 3.2%. 美国2月份的年通货膨胀率略有上升，达到3.2%。 Separate data showed that American employers created 275,000 jobs last month. 另有数据显示，美国雇主上个月创造了27.5万个工作岗位。 Although that was more than expected, January's red-hot figure of 353,000 new jobs was revised down to 229,000. 尽管就业岗位高于预期，但1月份火爆的35.3万个新增就业岗位下调至22.9万个。 Neither set of figures changed investors' expectations that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates in June. 这两组数据都没有改变投资者对美联储将在6月份开始降息的预期。 In Argentina the annual rate of inflation surged again, to 276% in February。 阿根廷年通货膨胀率再次飙升，2月份达到276%。 But the month-on-month increase in prices slowed to 13%, from 21% in January. 但物价环比涨幅从1月份的21%放缓至2月份的13%。 Javier Milei, the country's president, has embarked on economic reforms that he acknowledges are painful. 阿根廷总统哈维尔·米雷已着手进行他承认是痛苦的经济改革。 UNICEF has warned that 70% of Argentine children could be living in poverty. 联合国儿童基金会警告称，阿根廷70%的儿童可能生活在贫困中。 Meanwhile, the government rolled over $50bn-worth of debt that was to mature this year for securities that are due next year, the largest debt-swap in Argentina's history. 同时，阿根廷政府将今年到期的500亿美元债务展期，换成明年到期的证券，这是阿根廷历史上最大的债务置换。 And the central bank cut its benchmark interest rate from 100% to 80%. 阿根廷央行将基准利率从100%下调至80%。 France increased its share of the global arms-export market to 11% in 2019-23 from 7.2% in 2014-18, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 斯德哥尔摩国际和平研究所的数据显示，法国在全球武器出口市场的份额从2014年到2018年的7.2%增加到2019年到2023年的11%。 France gained by selling more weapons to countries such as India, the world's biggest arms importer, taking some of Russia's business. 法国通过向印度(世界上最大的武器进口国)等国出售更多武器而获益，夺走了俄罗斯的部分业务。 Russia's share of the global market dropped to 11% from 21%. 俄罗斯在全球市场的份额从21%降至11%。 Reddit, a social-media platform, will float its shares in New York on March 21st, according to Bloomberg. 据彭博社报道，社交媒体平台Reddit将于3月21日在纽约上市。 Reddit hopes to raise nearly $750m, which could be one of the biggest IPOs so far this year. Reddit希望筹资近7.5亿美元，这可能是迄今规模最大的首次公开募股之一。 ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【打卡交流群】

When did we start walking for leisure?"散步"的起源 'Going for a walk' is a popular pastime among older and younger generations alike because of its well-known benefits for our physical and mental health. “散步”是老一辈和年轻一代中流行的消遣方式，因为它对我们的身心健康有好处。 But you may be surprised to hear that meandering through pretty streets or hiking along mountainous ridges have not always been considered leisure activities, according to Daniel Gale, a researcher of pedestrianism. 但步行行为研究员丹尼尔·盖尔(Daniel Gale)表示，你可能会惊讶地发现，蜿蜒穿过美丽的街道或沿着山脊徒步旅行并不总是被视为休闲活动。 He says that in Britain, walking for fun "wasn't really a thing" until the 1780s. 他说，在英国，直到 1780 年代，为了好玩而散步“才真正成为一件事”。 Before that, it was just something people did out of necessity, and some people associated it with criminal activity. 在此之前，这只是人们出于必要而做的事情，有些人将其与犯罪活动联系起来。 But for Charles Dickens, the famous English 19th Century author, marching through London streets and tramping around the countryside was a big part of the creative process; a time to absorb what was going on around him. 但对于英国 19 世纪著名作家查尔斯·狄更斯来说，在伦敦街头游行、在乡村漫步是创作过程的重要组成部分；一个吸收周围发生的事情的时间。 He walked at an impressive pace of four miles per hour, according to his biography by Peter Ackroyd. 根据彼得·阿克罗伊德（Peter Ackroyd）为他撰写的传记，他行走的速度令人印象深刻，为每小时四英里。 But if speed-walking isn't your thing, perhaps you can take inspiration from another big-thinking wanderer. 但如果你不喜欢快走，也许你可以从另一位有远见的流浪者那里获得灵感。 19th Century American writer Henry David Thoreau took a slower approach, preferring to saunter over hills and fields and meander through the woods. 19世纪的美国作家亨利·大卫·梭罗采取了一种缓慢的方式，更喜欢漫步在山丘和田野上，蜿蜒穿过树林。 He said that he could not preserve his health and spirits, unless he spent four hours a day walking at least. 他说，除非每天至少步行四个小时，否则他无法保持健康和精神。 This idea of taking a stroll to clear your head has survived through to the 21st Century, but has pedestrian etiquette remained the same? 散步来清醒头脑的想法一直延续到了 21 世纪，但行人礼仪还保持不变吗？ A 1780 article for the London Magazine advised pedestrians to avoid things such as loitering in conversation and obstructing people behind you with a "sauntering gait".] 1780 年《伦敦杂志》的一篇文章建议行人避免在谈话中闲逛以及以“漫步步态”妨碍身后的人等行为。 Nowadays, we could probably add distracted phone-users to that list. 如今，我们或许可以将分心的电话用户添加到该列表中。 In this modern age, when many of us are tied to our desks and to our screens, the simple act of stepping out onto the city pavements, or getting lost in nature, may make all the difference to our wellbeing. 在当今时代，当我们许多人都被办公桌和屏幕束缚时，走出城市人行道或迷失在大自然中的简单行为可能会对我们的健康产生重大影响。 Whether you see yourself more as a casual stroller or a purposeful strider, why not build a habit out of it? 无论你认为自己是一个休闲的散步者还是一个有目的的漫步者，为什么不养成一种习惯呢? 词汇表 go for a walk 散步 pastime 消遣，娱乐 meander 漫步，闲逛 hike 远足 leisure activity 休闲活动 pedestrianism 徒步主义 march 行走 tramp 长途行走 pace 步速 speed-walking 快速行走 wanderer 四处游走的人 saunter 漫步，闲逛 stroll 散步，溜达 pedestrian etiquette 行人礼仪 loiter 游荡，徘徊 gait 步态，步法 step out 走出去 pavement 人行道 stroller 散步的人 strider 阔步行走的人 ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“1”，进入【打卡交流群】

Smell-o-vision, a television which allows you to smell things as well as see them; and a miracle pill which cures all diseases. These predictions for the future were made in the 1930s, but so far they haven't come true. Making predictions for the future isn't easy -just asktech billionaire, Elon Musk, who recently predicted that artificial intelligence will eventually mean that no one will have to work. In fact, there have been many predictions about the future of work, for example that robots will take over most jobs, and that everyone will work from home. During Covid, one of these predictions came true. Millions were forced to work from home. So what will work be like in the future? That's what we'll be discussing in this programme and, as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary too. But first I have a question for you, Beth. Another idea for the future is the 'four-day working week' where employees work four days for the same money as five. After Covid, many British companies gave the idea a go, but out of the sixty companies taking part in a four-day working week trial in 2023, how many said they planned to continue with a shorter work week? Was it: a) 52%? b) 72%? or, c) 92%? Hmm,I guess 52% of the companies plan to continue with a four-day week. OK, Beth,I'll reveal the answer later in the programme. Now, whatever Elon Musk thinks, as we've seen, it's difficult to make your predictions accurate. Here's Shaun Ley, presenter of BBC World Service programme, The Real Story, asking University of Cambridge professor, Brendan Burchell, what he thinks about predictions for the future of work: Brendan Burchell, when you look at all the predictions that have been made, certainly in your working lifetime, do you take some of the things that are being predicted now with a large pinch of salt? I do. I think we have to be sceptical. I think the track record for economists and other social scientists isn't good when we look.. you know, for hundreds of years, a hundred years now, people have been predicting that they'll be really quite dramatic reductions in working time, like Elon Musk has just made, and previously those predictions - although we're heading very gradually in that direction- those predictions of very, very large changes in working time just haven't come to pass. Shaun asks if we should take predictions with a pinch of salt. To take something with a pinch of salt is an idiom meaning to doubt that what you've been told is accurate or likely to come true. For example, if your friend always lies, you take what they say with a pinch of salt. Professor Burchell thinks predictions for the future of work have a bad track record. A track record means all the achievements on failures that someone has had in the past. When it comes to predicting the future of work, most predictions simply haven't come to pass, an old-fashioned way of saying 'happened' or 'come true'. So, are predictions for a future of leisure, relaxing by the pool while robots do all the work, just a dream? Let's hear from Andrew Palmer, business editor for The Economist magazine, talking to BBC World Service programme, The Real Story: I'm not a tech dystopian, I don't think that machines or Al are going to get rid of all jobs, but I do worry about a sequencing risk. So, there will be some disruption from Al. Some jobs, some professions are at risk. And, although economists like to say new jobs will crop up, they won't necessarily be aligned at the same time - there won't be coordination. Andrew is not a dystopian, someone who imagines a nightmarish future of suffering and injustice. He doesn't think Al will get rid of all jobs. To get rid of something means to remove it because you no longer want it. Andrew predicts that Al will replace some jobs and those workers will need support, but he also thinks new jobs will crop up, they will appear unexpectedly. And that's exactly the problem - the future is hard to predict because it's so unexpected! Anyway, I reckon a shorter working week is something we can all agree on right, Neil? Absolutely. I think it's time to reveal the answer to my question about the sixty companies trying out a shorter working week in 2023. Actually, a whopping 92% of the companies plan on keeping a four-day week because it was so popular, with bosses as well as workers! Right, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned from this programme starting with the idiom take it with a pinch of salt, meaning don't completely believe that what you are told is true. A track record means the achievements or failures of someone's past performance. To come to pass is an old-fashioned way of saying to take place or happen. A dystopian is someone who foresees a nightmarish future where there is great suffering and injustice in society. If you get rid of something, you remove something that you no longer want. And finally, if something crops up, it appears or happens unexpectedly. ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“1”，进入【打卡交流群】

Advertising is particularly good at attaching emotions to brands. 广告尤其擅长将情感与品牌联系起来。 A terrific example from years back is a car called the Renault Glio. 多年前，雷诺克里奥的汽车广告就是个很好的例子。 Years ago they launched with an advertising campaign featuring a couple of daft French people, Papa and Nicole. 几年前，他们推出了一个广告活动，主角是一对愚蠢的法国人，帕帕和妮同。 The whole idea of that ad was supposed to be that the Renault Clio is a terrifically easy car to drive. 该广告的整个创意应该是雷诺克里奥是一款非常容易驾驶的汽车。 However, when you look at that ad what you're looking at is two people flirting, being terrifically sexy. 然而，当你看到这则广告时，你看到的却是两个人在调情，非常性感。 And of course what that does, is result in you thinking the Renault Clio is a terrifically sexy little car, and lots of people want to be sexy. 当然，这样做的结果就是让你觉得雷诺克里奥是一款非常性感的小车，而很多人都想变得性感。 The result? The most successful car launch ever in the UK. 结果呢？这是英国有史以来最成功的汽车发布会。 Meta-communication are all the twiddly bits - the music, the characters, the setting, the storyline...Anything that's not actually to do with what you're telling people., 元传播是指所有的细枝末节——音乐、人物、场景、故事情节...任何与你要告诉人们的内容无关的东西。 The interesting thing about meta-communication is that we are programmed not to be able to unprocess it. 元传播的有趣之处在于，我们被设定为无法对其进行反处理。 Once it's exposed to us, we've got it. 一旦它暴露在我们面前，我们就已经知道了。 Here's a good example: the famous Apple 1984 ad was shown once on midnight in 1983, and once in the Superbowl in 1984. 这有个很好的例子：著名的苹果公司 1984 广告在 1983 年午夜播放了一次，在 1984 年的超级碗中播放了一次。 And yet that ad is known practically all around the world. 然而，这则广告几乎家喻户晓。 The ad is the girl running down this aisle with all these zombie-like people, and she hurls the mallet through the screen. 广告中的女孩在过道上奔跑，周围都是像僵尸一样的人，她把木槌扔过屏幕。 And of course, the message in that ad is very simple -the world is being dominated in that era by IBM and Apple is going to break out of that era. 当然，这则广告传达的信息非常简单——在那个时代，IBM 在世界占据垄断地位，而苹果公司将打破那个时代。 That idea of Apple being the defender of the people, and the defender of freedom of course reflected into Steve Jobs, who became the epitome of the defender of the people. 苹果公司是人民的捍卫者，是自由的捍卫者，这一理念当然也体现在史蒂夫！乔布斯身上，他成为了人民捍卫者的缩影。 Which means people who buy Apple computers and in most cases, astonishingly, even though that ad would never have actually been seen by them on air, they know about this ad. 这意味着购买苹果电脑的人，在大多数情况下，即使他们从未在电视上看到过这则广告，但他们也知道这则广告。 And they feel Apple is a terrific company, 他们觉得苹果是一家了不起的公司。 And in that respect, once you get a reputation like that established, it's there forever. 在这方面，一旦你建立了这样的声誉，它就会永远存在。 How do you stop your emotions being influenced by advertising? 如何让自己的情绪不再被广告影响? Well, in my book, there's only two ways to do it, 在我看来，只有两种方法可以做到。 One is just don't watch any advertising, 一是不要看任何广告。 The other way, curiously enough, is to watch the ad very carefully, is to look at it and to say: What are you trying to do? 有趣的是，另一种方法就是仔细观察广告，看着广告说：你想做什么？ "What are you trying to influence?""What's really behind this ad?" If I see this little furry animal in the woods, what's it there for? Is it there to make me feel good about this brand? “你想影响什么？”“这则广告背后的信息到底有什么？”如果我在树林里看到这只毛茸茸的小动物，它在那里做什么？是为了让我对这个品牌产生好感吗？ Yeah, of course it is, 对的，当然是了。 And by doing that, you can do something called counter-arguing. 这样做，你就可以进行反驳。 We're not used to counter arguing the emotion in advertising but if you look at the ads, if you look at the emotive content in the ads, if you listen to the music you can say,"Ah! I know what you're trying to do." So emotionally you can counter-argue that ad. 我们不习惯反驳广告中的情感，但如果你看广告，如果你看广告中的情惑内容，如果你听音乐，你就会说，“啊！我知道你想做什么。”因此，你可以从情感上反驳这则广告。 Of course, it probably won't work but at least you can feel you're slightly more in control of your life than the advertisers are. 当然，这可能不会奏效，但至少你会觉得自己比广告商更能掌控自己的生活。 Thanks for watching. 感谢收看。 If you enjoyed that, be sure to check out these videos next, 如果你喜欢这期内容，一定要看看接下来的这些视频。 And if you havent already, hit the subscribe button and click the bell to get a notification each time we upload a new video. 如果你还没有订阅，请点击订阅按钮并点击铃铛，这样每次我们上传新视频时都会收到通知。 ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“1”，进入【打卡交流群】

媒体英语 Whale song mystery solved by scientists 科学家揭开鲸鱼 “歌声之谜”  科学家们已经研究出海洋中一些体型最大的鲸鱼发出令人难忘的复杂叫声的方式，它们的叫声被人们称为 “鲸歌”。座头鲸和其它须鲸体内有一种进化而来的特殊的 “音箱”，使它们能够在水下 “唱歌”。 The humpback's song sounded so strange and haunting to sailors, they used to think it belonged to ghosts or mythical sea creatures. Now, a study has revealed how the animals produce their complex songs. 座头鲸的鲸歌听起来很奇怪，让水手们难以忘记，他们曾认为这种 “歌声” 来自鬼魂或神话中的海洋生物。现在，一项研究揭示了这些动物唱出复杂 “歌声” 的原理。 Researchers examined the voice boxes of three dead whales: larynxes that were taken from a stranded minke, humpback and a sei whale. Pumping air into the giant U-shaped structures from the whales' throats showed how they vibrate to make a sound when air moves across them. 研究人员检查了三头死鲸体内的 “音箱”，也就是它们的 “喉部”，三头死鲸分别是一头因被搁浅而死亡的小鳁鲸、一头座头鲸和一头塞鲸。研究人员向巨大 U 型结构的鲸鱼喉咙中注入空气，结果发现当空气流过时，这个U型结构通过振动发声。 That's similar to how our vocal folds work, but baleen whales can recycle the air around this specialised vocal anatomy, meaning they can sing while holding their breath without inhaling water. 这些鲸鱼的发声方式与我们声带的发声方式相似，但须鲸可以回收循环利用其体内这种特殊的发声结构周围的空气，这意味着它们可以不吸水而屏住呼吸 “唱歌”。 More analysis showed that the frequency of the whale song overlaps with the noise ships produce, so the sound of human activity in the ocean can interrupt communication that's essential to these animals' lives. 进一步的分析表明，鲸歌的频率与船只行驶时产生的噪音重叠，因此海洋中人类活动的声音会干扰这些鲸鱼生活中至关重要的沟通和交流过程。 词汇表 haunting 令人难忘的 voice boxes 音箱 larynxes 喉头，喉咙 stranded 搁浅的 vibrate 振动 vocal folds 声带 baleen 鲸须，有鲸须的 anatomy （动植物的）结构 inhaling 吸气 ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“1”，进入【打卡交流群】

Snowy Owls Commitment to Parenthood 生词表 Arctic tundra 北极苔原 paternity 父亲关系 pair up 配对 monogamous 单配的 breeding season 繁殖期 brood 孵（蛋） flat out 全力 lemming旅鼠 skua 贼鸥 voracious贪婪的 ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“1”，进入打卡交流群

Culture Book review Gabriel Garcia Marquez No solitude Until August. By Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A seemingly happily married, middle-aged woman, Ana Magdalena Bach, makes an annual pilgrimage to an offshore island to lay a bunch of gladioli on her mother's grave. She does this every year on August 16th, staying on theisland for only one night and following the same routine, until one year she meets a stranger in the hotel bar and goes to bed with him. This, in turn, becomes a routine, with a different, random man each year, a ritual that begins as controlled but turns her inner life upside down. She comes to realise that her marriage was sustained "by a conventional happiness that avoided disagreements in order not to stumble over them, the way people hide dirt under the rug". Her husband, too, has been unfaithful, she discovers, but they stay together. 她发现，她的丈夫也对她不忠，但他们仍然在一起。 It sounds like a conventional plot, but this slim novella is by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian Nobel laureate. 这听起来像是老生常谈的情节，但这部篇幅很短的中篇小说的作者是 来自哥伦比亚的诺贝尔奖获得者加西亚·马尔克斯。 It has been published-against his express request-to mark the tenth anniversary of his death. 这本书已经出版（违背了他不要出版的明确要求），用于纪念马尔克斯逝世十周年。 An act of defiance of a dead person's wishes happens toappear at the end of the novella. 而在这部中篇小说的结尾，恰好出现了违抗死者意愿的行为。 But is it justified in life? 但这种行为在生活中是正当的吗? In a brief preface, the author's two sons recall that their father's judgment, as he declined into dementia, was:"This book doesn't work. It must be destroyed." Confessing "an act of betrayal" in deciding to publish it, they speculate that just as their father's decline prevented him finishing the book, so it may also have prevented him realising how good it Are they right? 他们是对的吗？ The master's voice can certainly be heard in "Until August". 马尔克斯的声音绝对可以在《我们八月见》中被听到。 Unusually for Garcia Marquez's works of fiction, it is set in the present. 对于加西亚·马尔克斯的小说来说，这本书的不同寻常之处是故事背景设定在现在。 The unidentified place is the Colombian Caribbean as nobody else can conjure it, with its blue herons, palm-fringed lagoons, squalor and sensuality, and the sea, sometimes sleepy, sometimes terrifying. (It is also the setting of his greatest works:"One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera".) It is a world peopled by silver-haired dandies in white linen suits and imperiously beautiful women crooning bolero. (这也是他最伟大的作品《百年孤独》和《霍乱时期的爱情》的故事背景。)在这个世界里，到处都是穿着白色亚麻西装的银发花花公子和低声哼唱着波列罗舞曲的傲慢美丽的女人。 Music occupies a central place in Latin American life, as it does in both "Until August" and, by a curious coincidence, in the latest novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, Garcia Marquez's friend (until they fell out), who also won the literature Nobel. Mr Vargas Llosa, who is 87, has said that "Le Dedico Mi Silencio"("I Give You My Silence") will be his last book. 现年87岁的巴尔加斯·略萨曾表示，《我给你沉默》将是他的最后作品。 Garcia Marquez sketches the complicated complicities and compulsions of love and sex, his favourite subject matter. 加西亚·马尔克斯描绘了爱和性的复杂的同谋及强迫性，这是他最喜 欢的主题。 With his precise, vivid prose, beautifully translated into English, Garcia Marquez creates an atmosphere as few other writers can. 他用精准、生动的文笔（英文翻译也很优美）创造出了一种很少有其 他作家能创造的气氛。 But here he does not do as much with it as he might have inhis prime. 但在这本书里，他没有像他在巅峰期时那样太多地发挥这方面。 Garcia Marquez worked intermittently on the text of "Until August", which was originally conceived as a long novel, over many years. 加西亚·马尔克斯断断续续地写出了《我们八月见》的文本，而且写了很多年，这本书最初是被构思为一部长篇小说。 He published two fragments in magazines. 他在杂志上发表了其中两段节选。 But despite several drafts, he was unable to finish the slimmed-down story to his satisfaction before he died. 尽管写了几稿，他还是没能在去世前把这个精简版故事写到让他满意的程度。 Whether a dead author's wishes regarding unpublished material should always be respected is a vexed question. 已故作家对于未出版作品的意愿是否应该一直得到尊重，这是一个很棘手的问题。 Few today would quibble with the decision of Max Brod, Franz Kafka's friend and literary executor, to publish "The Trial" and "The Castle" against the writer's instructions. 马克斯·布罗德是卡夫卡的朋友和文学执行人，他不顾卡夫卡的要求出版了《审判》和《城堡》，如今很少有人会抱怨他的决定。 More questionable were the actions of Ernest Hemingway's publishers in marketing four works assembled from unfinished material, some many years after the author's death. 更值得质疑的是欧内斯特·海明威的出版商的行为，他们把未完成的残稿汇编成四部作品并进行推销，其中一些作品是在作者去世多年后才出版的。 "You think something is in shape to be published or you don't, and Hemingway didn't," complained Joan Didion, an American writer, speaking for many creators. “你要么认为某个东西可以出版，要么认为不能出版，而海明威认为不能。”为许多创作者发声的美国作家琼·狄迪恩抱怨道。 Garcia Marquez's Spanish editor, Cristobal Pera, claims to have hewed closely to the original, approaching it as a "restorer facing a great master's canvas". 加西亚·马尔克斯的西班牙语编辑克里斯托巴尔·佩拉声称，他保留了作品的原汁原味，以“面对大师画布的修复者”的态度处理了文本。 Diehard fans will rejoice at this posthumous bonus track. But others will find it hard to banish a slight queasiness-much as Ana Magdalena Bach felt on the return ferry from the island-at the commercial opportunism surrounding its publication. ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“1”，进入【打卡交流群】