2024-3-15 Has this ever happened to you: you eat a doughnut and get a sugar rush, a strong feeling of excitement and energy, only to collapse an hour later, with a headache? Food affects us more than we realise, and that's because what we eat alters our brain chemistry, changing our mood and emotions. Our brain is working 24 hours a day, even while we sleep, so it needs more fuel than other body parts. So can we eat our way to feeling happy? In this programme, we'll be discussing the relationship between food and the brain, and, as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well. Sounds great, Georgie, but first I have a question for you. Humans, with an average brain weighing one-and-a-half kilos, are one of the cleverest animals, but which mammal has the biggest brain? Is it: a) an African elephant, b) a dolphin or, c) a sperm whale? Hmm, I think it's an African elephant. OK, Georgie, I'll reveal the answer later in the programme. Now, did you know that despite making up only 2 percent of our total weight, our brain uses 20 percent of the body's energy? Nutritionist, Dr Reeta Achari, does. She thinks we should be specifically eating for our brains, as she explained to BBC World Service Programme, The Food Chain: Eating every day, right? And eating a balanced diet so you get the full complement of vitamins and minerals- it's critical. If you go low in something and one day if you just, you know, don't eat any protein for a day or-for me in my situation, if I don't eat any vegetables-I know the next day I'm not as sharp. Number one on Dr Achari's list of brain foods is a regular and balanced diet, a diet containing the proper types and amounts of food needed to stay healthy. Remember the 'Rainbow Rule'_ eat foods of many different colours with lots of leafy greens. A balanced diet also includes different types of nutrients - vitamins, fibre, protein and so on. But including these isn't always possible. You might go low on, meaning have very little of, one food type. Dr Achari says when this happens to her, she's not as sharp - as intelligent and quick to notice things, as usual. Dr Achari names lots of different foods which help boost our brains, from wild caught Alaskan salmon and avocado, to berries and walnuts. But hang on, Georgie! Wild-caught Alaskan salmon?! Very nice, and very.. expensive! It sounds like these superfoods are just for the super-rich! Well, not according to blogger Michelle Munt. Here she is telling BBC World Service's, The Food Chain, how eating well needn't cost a fortune: It's not expensive and everyone's got a freezer these days so, yes, you can batch cook things, freeze them, and then use them in like a week's time or something... so I think the problem is again it's about our lifestyles, it's about the fact that we feel like we've got limited time, and therefore people are trying to cut the time down in the kitchen by cooking things that are pre-made or even worse we're just chucking it in the microwave but actually you can do fresh food in 20 minutes flat... Michelle's idea for brain food on a budget involves batch cooking. Batch cooking means cooking a lot of food at one time, then saving some to eat later, usually by freezing it. Although microwave ready meals are convenient, they lack many nutrients needed by the brain. Luckily, adding some fresh vegetables to batch cooked food means anyone can make a brain-healthy meal quickly, or in 20 minutes flat as Michelle says, using the word flat to mean 'exactly' and to emphasise that it can be done quickly. OK, so we need balanced diets, and batch cooking for big brains! Now let's test your brain, Georgie, with my question. Right. You asked which mammal has the biggest brain, and I guessed it was an African elephant... Which was...the wrong answer, I'm afraid! In fact, the biggest brain belongs to the sperm whale, weighing about 8 kilos. And the sperm whale's main food? Fish! OK, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned in this programme starting with sugar rush, suddenly feeling excited and full of energy after eating food which contains a lot of sugar. A balanced diet includes the correct combinations of food needed to stay healthy. If you go low on something, you have very little of it. If you describe someone as sharp, you mean they're intelligent and quick to react to things. Batch cooking means cooking a lot of food at the same time and saving some for later. And finally, doing something in 20 minutes flat, means 20 minutes exactly, and is used to emphasise that it is done very quickly. Once again our six minutes are up! Have fun cooking up your own brain boosting breakfasts and remember to join us again next time, here at 6 Minute English. Goodbye for now! Bye! ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】，回复“1”，可进入【打卡交流群】

Ramadan: How PE lessons can change during Muslim holy month ｜Newsround Hi Newsround, my name is Ayaan.你好，新闻中心，我叫阿亚安。 And my name is Khadijah,我的名字是哈迪彻。 We're Muslims and we're about to enter the holy month of Ramadan.我们是穆斯林，我们即将进入神圣的斋月。 Ramadan is a really important time for Muslims all over the world.斋月对于全世界的穆斯林来说都是一个非常重要的时刻。 It means the hot month in Arabic and takes place in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.它在阿拉伯语中意为炎热的月份，发生在伊斯兰历的九月。 Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam and it helps us to draw nearer to God.斋戒是伊斯兰教的五大支柱之一，它可以帮助我们更加接近上帝。 When we fast, we are not allowed to have anything to eat or drink.当我们禁食时，我们不可以吃任何东西或喝任何东西。 This helps to remind us about the people that don't have enough food.这有助于提醒我们那些没有足够食物的人。 Although we'll be fasting during Ramadan, we'll still be going to school and taking part in lessons as usual. 虽然我们会在斋月期间禁食，但我们仍然会像往常一样去学校和上课。 However, one lesson which will look a little different is PE.然而，有一门看起来有点不同的课是体育课。 Normally, we take part in sports which require lots of energy, like this one.通常，我们会参加需要大量能量的运动，就像这样。 However, our lessons will soon look something like this. 然而，我们的课程很快就会像这样。 Fasting during Ramadan makes us have less energy, so lessons are changed to make sure that we don't get too tired. 斋月期间的禁食使我们精力不足，因此课程有所改变，以确保我们不会太累。 So during the month of Ramadan, when the students are fasting, the changes that we made within the PEdepartment is we've changed the curriculum. 因此，在斋月期间，当学生们禁食时，我们在体育系内所做的改变是我们改变了课程。 So the more high intense activities, whether they're team sports or athletics, we've changed. 因此，更高强度的活动，无论是团队运动还是田径运动，我们都发生了变化。 So the students do that in another term now. 所以学生们现在在另一个学期这样做。 And we've brought in more lower intensive activities, such as striking and fielding activities for cricket and table tennis. 我们还引入了更多强度较低的活动，例如板球和乒乓球的击球和防守活动。 So this is my second year of fasting in this school and I like PE during Ramadan because we do sports such as tabletennis and curling. 这是我在这所学校禁食的第二年，我喜欢斋月期间的体育运动，因为我们做乒乓球和冰壶等运动。 I like these sports because they're not on my everydaycurriculum of learning.我喜欢这些运动，因为它们不在我的日常学习课程中。 I think activities like these are good in Ramadan becauseyou dont use as much physical energy 我认为像这样的活动在斋月里很好，因为你不会消耗太多的体力。 And you'll get to take more frequent breaks.而且你会得到更频繁的休息。I really like fast-paced sports such as football and things like that but during Ramadan we do things like curling and table tennis which helps me learn different skills while also using less energy. 我真的很喜欢快节奏的运动，例如足球之类的运动，但在斋月期间,我们会做冰壶和乒乓球等运动，这有助于我学习不同的技能，同时消耗更少的能量。 ✔更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】回复“1”，进入【打卡交流群】

Women make up half of humankind, and it is reasonable for representative institutions such as corporate boards to reflect this. 女性占全人类的一半，企业董事会等代表性机构反映出这一比例也是合理的。 In 2022 the European Parliament ruled that at least 40% of non-executive directors at firms with more than 250 employees should be women by 2026. 2022 年，欧洲议会规定，到2026年，员共超过250人的公司中，非执行董事至少40%为女性。 Britain's ftse 350 companies hit that mark last year, on average. 去年，英国富时350指数公司的平均水平达到了这⼀标准。 Japan, where only 18% of directors are women, recently told big businesses to get to 30% by 2030. ⽇本只有18%的董事是⼥性，最近才要求⼤企业到2030年将这⼀⽐例提⾼到30%。 America's constitutional dislike of quotas dooms similar efforts. 美国宪法对配额的抵触情绪注定了在美国类似的努力会失败。 But its markets regulator wants firms to disclose diversity statistics, which may shame some into action. 但美国市场监管机构希望企业披露多样性统计数据，这可能可以激励一些企业采取行动。 Our annual "glass-ceiling index", which ranks oecd members on ten indicators of female workplace empowerment (and can be found at economist.com/glassceiling), shows all this is having an effect. 我们的年度“玻璃天花板指数”对经合组织成员国的十项女性职场赋权进行了排名（见economics.com/glassceiling），结果表明，所有这些努力正在产生积极影响。 Across the club of mostly rich countries, women's share of directorships reached 33% in 2023, an all-time high. 在主要由富裕国家组成的俱乐部中，⼥性担任董事的⽐例到2023年达到 33%，创历史新高。 In France, New Zealand and Norway it is nudging 50%. 在法国、新西兰和挪威，这一比例正逐渐趋近50%。 Is there a business case for more female boards, as well as a moral one? 增加女性董事比例，除了道德上的考量，是否也有商业上的原因呢？ In 2020 consultants at McKinsey found that firms in the top quartile for board gender diversity were 25% likelier to outperform their industry average than those in the bottom quartile. 2020 年，麦肯锡公司的顾问发现，董事会性别多样性排名前四分之一的公司比排名后四分之一的公司，业绩上超过行业平均水平的可能性高出25%。 Studies have found that appointment of a woman as boss can boost a firm's share price and price-to-earnings ratio (though not its return on assets). 研究发现，任命女性为领导者可以提高公司的股价和市盈率（尽管不能提⾼资产回报率）。 Yet so many factors influence a firm's profitability that proving a causal link between representation and performance is next to impossible; companies that perform well for other reasons may have the luxury to also pay attention to things like diversity, for example. 然而，影响公司盈利能力的因素很多，几乎无法证明性别代表性与绩效之间的因果关系。例如，业绩好的公司可能也有机会关注多样性等问题。 So instead, Margarethe Wiersema of the University of California , Irvine, and Marie Louise Mors of Copenhagen Business School interviewed directors at 200 big companies in Europe and America. 因此，加州大学欧文分校的玛格丽特·威尔斯玛（Margarethe Wiersema）和哥本哈根商学院的玛丽·路易斯·莫尔斯（Marie Louise Mors）采访了欧美200 家大公司的董事。 They found that women are consistently better prepared for board meetings, had better attendance rates and were more willing to ask probing questions. 她们发现，女性董事在准备董事会会议方面始终表现更好，出席率更⾼，并且更愿意提出探究性问题。 Female directors in other words, are "setting a higher standard and mitigating the problem of groupthink". 换句话说，女性董事正在“设定更高的标准，并缓解了群体思维的问题”。 That should be a boon for corporate governance . 这对企业管理来说应该是一个福音。 ✔公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【英语晨读×全英交流群】

词汇表 prestigious university 名牌大学 extended period 长期 anxiety 焦虑 irritability 烦躁，易怒 self-protection 自我保护 withdraw 脱离，不再参与 apathetic 无兴趣的，冷漠的 unmotivated 无动力的，没有热情的 resilient 适应力强的 optimistic outlook 乐观的看法 settled 稳定的 work through 逐步处理、解决 involve（使）参与 surroundings 周围环境 maintain contact 保持联系 ✔公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【英语晨读×全英交流群】