英音听力｜BBC & 经济学人等 - 节目列表

Kids in a Cost of Living Crisis | Newsround This is cool. 这很酷。 I feel like I'm on a TV set. 我感觉自己就像在电视机里一样。 Money worries me. 钱让我担心。 I know it goes in, and then most of it has to go out again to pay bills. 我知道它进去了，然后大部分又要出去支付账单。 And I know that my mum works long hours to earn her money. 我知道我妈妈长时间工作是为了赚钱。 All of a sudden, the bills have gone up, so we're paying double for our house and our shop. 突然间，账单上涨了，所以我们要为房子和商店付双倍的钱。 This winter's been really hard because it's very cold and we've not been able to put the heating on because of costs. 今年冬天真的很难熬，因为天气很冷，而且由于成本原因我们无法开暖气。 The other day, it was probably one of the coldest days. 前几天，这可能是最冷的日子之一。 It was unbearable. 这是难以忍受的。 In every part of the UK, there are children living in poverty, as the cost of almost everything has increased. 在英国的每个地方，都有生活在贫困中的儿童，因为几乎所有东西的成本都在增加。 Many families have been finding it difficult to cope. 许多家庭都难以应对。 Children are living in cold houses as their parents struggle to pay the energy bills. 孩子们住在冰冷的房子里，而他们的父母却在为支付电费而苦苦挣扎。 And some no longer have enough money to buy food and clothes., 有些人不再有足够的钱购买食物和衣服。 Oh, this one looks warm. 哦，这个看起来很温暖。 This is the story of just four children. 这是四个孩子的故事。 Like many others right across the UK, they've made tough choices this year. 和英国各地的许多其他人一样，他们今年做出了艰难的选择。 They've experienced one of the hardest winters of their lives. 他们经历了一生中最艰难的冬天之一。 It has got to times where we've had to last on only f2 a week, and that was very hard for me. 有时我们每周只能靠 2 英镑维持生活，这对我来说非常困难。 During the pandemic, our mum was really ill and she couldn't work. 大流行期间,我们的妈妈病得很重,不能工作。 We couldn't earn a lot of money because our dad had to give up his job. 我们赚不到很多钱，因为我们的父亲不得不放弃他的工作。 That meant we as a family had less money. 这意味着我们一家人的钱更少了。 My mum's got a disability. 我妈妈有残疾。 They missed a payment on her gas and everything 他们没有支付她的汽油费和所有费用。 That was also a hard week. 那也是艰难的一周。 Zoe, Jo, Noah and Alia are going to be guiding us through their winter months and telling us how they are coping with their cost of living crisis. 佐伊、乔、诺亚和阿莉亚将引导我们度过他们的冬季，并告诉我们他们如何应对生活成本危机。 ✔公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【英语晨读×全英交流群】

Business Bartleby Working from nowhere Every location has got worse for actual work. Work would be so much better if you could get work done. It has always been hard to focus amid the staccato rhythms of meetings, the relentless accumulation of messages or the simple distraction of colleagues thundering past. But since the covid-19 pandemic, every single place of work has become less conducive to concentration. Start with the home office. The promise of hybrid working is that you can now choose your location depending on the task at hand. If you need to focus on work, you can now skip the commute, stay home and get your head down. This tactic would have worked well in 2019, when no one else was ever at home. Now there are likely to be other people there, too, grabbing the best spot for the Wi-Fi, merrily eating your lunch and talking loudly to a bunch of colleagues in their own workplaces. Home has become a co-working space but without any of the common courtesies. Even if none of your family or flatmates is at home, they now know you might be! That spells disaster. Parcels are delivered with monotonous regularity; large chunks of the day are spent being photographed on your own doorstep holding intriguing packages that are not for you. Children who want food or money know where to track you down. Worst of all,jobs that once required a day off can now be done at no personal cost by booking them in for days when someone else is at home. "Are you going in today?" might sound like an innocuous question. It should put you on high alert. It means that a bunch of people with drills will storm the house just as you settle down to the laptop. One natural response is to head to the place you were trying to avoid-the office. But its role has changed since the pandemic. It was never a great place for concentrating (the periods of lockdown were glorious exceptions). But it has become even less suitable now that the office is seen as the place where collaboration and culture-building happen. Before you might have been able to sit in a cubicle, fenced off from other people; now openness is in vogue, which means fewer partitions and greater visibility. Before you might have had a normal chair and a desk; now you will be asked to wobble awkwardly on a tall stool at a champagne bar. Before you were interrupted; now you are being given an opportunity to interact. There is much more emphasis on meetings, brainstorming, drinking, eating, bouncing around on space-hoppers or whatever appalling activity builds team spirit. There is much less emphasis on single-minded attention. Home is heaving, the office is off-putting, What about other places, like co-working spaces and coffee shops? These too have got worse since the pandemic, for two reasons. First, there is more competition for spaces. Everyone else who is finding it hard to concentrate has had exactly the same idea of heading to a third location. Second, online meetings have made it acceptable to reach everyone everywhere. It used to be said that you are never more than six feet away from a rat; now the same is true of a Zoom call. Wherever you are-homes, offices, cafes, libraries, monasteries-someone is within earshot, yapping away about something that manages to be both tedious and impossible to ignore: the plight of local papers in Maine, the risk calculations behind Solvency 2 or why Denise is so impossible to work with. There are ways around the concentration problem. One is to become richer: everything is so much easier if you have another wing of the house, or indeed another house. Another is deliberately to swim against the hybrid tide: if Monday is the day when most people work from home in order to focus, the office is going to be a better place to work that day. The most common and least healthy answer is to defer focused work until the evenings and weekends. This is not a lament for the pre-pandemic world. Just because each location has got worse as a place to do focused work does not mean that things have got worse overall. Hybrid work allows people to pick the most appropriate locations for specific tasks. The option of occasionally staying at home, even if home is noisier than it was before 2020, is still better for many workers and employers than the pre-covid norm of coming into the office every day. But wherever you are, other people are more likely to be there or to have a greater expectation of interacting with you. The ability to concentrate is sold as a benefit of flexibility. It can be the price you pay for it. ✔公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【英语晨读×全英交流群】

The curious history of filming the sneeze | BBC Ideas Thanks to the latest research into violent expiratory events- or, sneezes - we can now observe in very close detail the "turbulent multiphase cloud" which distributes a payload of droplets and mucosalivary ligaments, or, well, stringy gobs of spit, at high speeds and over great distances. 得益于对剧烈呼气事件（或喷嚏）的最新研究，我们现在可以近距离观察“多相湍流气体云”的细节，它将液滴和黏液唾液带，或者说是一连串的唾液，以高速、远距离的形式传播。 These gross but engrossing images are made possible by highly sensitive, slow-motion cameras which can track each single speck of snot. 高灵敏度的慢动作摄像机可以追踪每一滴鼻涕微粒，从而拍摄出这些恶心但非常有趣的图像。 This is high-tech stuff, but the fascination with sneezing and the attempt to capture and examine the sneeze is actually as old as the moving image itself. 这虽然是高科技的产物，但人们对打喷嚏的痴迷以及捕捉和研究喷嚏的尝试其实与动态影像本身一样久远。 This short film, known as Fred Ott's Sneeze, was recorded in 1894 to test a new moving picture machine called the Kinetoscope. 这部短片名为《弗雷德·奥特的喷嚏》，录制于 1894 年，目的是测试一种名为“活动电影放映机”的新型电影放映机。 This five-second long film, showing Fred Ott taking a pinch of snuff and then sneezing, captured the imagination of a public who were wowed by the idea that something as fast as a sneeze could now be captured, preserved, and repeated. 这段 5 秒长的视频展示了弗雷德·奥特吸了一撮鼻烟，然后打喷嚏的画面，吸引了公众的想象力，他们惊叹于像打喷嚏这样快的动作现在也能被捕捉、保存和重复。 Of course, sneezes were also an object of fascination long before the cinema. 当然，早在电影出现之前，打喷嚏也是让人着迷的对象。 For the ancient Greeks, sneezes could be an omen from the gods. 对古希腊人来说，打喷嚏可能是神灵的预兆。 According to one ancient Roman doctor, sneezing during sex could be used as a contraceptive. 根据一位古罗马医生的说法，嘿咻时打喷嚏可以用来避孕。 But the most common interpretation of a sneeze is probably that you might be getting ill. 但对打喷嚏最常见的解释可能是你也许生病了。 But it was not until the late 19th Century that the idea that infectious diseases can be caused by microscopic pathogens was introduced. 但直到 19 世纪末，人们才开始认识到传染病可以由微观病原体引起。 It was this new understanding of how disease is spread, along with the global shock of the Spanish Flu pandemicin 1918, that spawned the public health messages that we know today, like,"Coughs and sneezes spread diseases." It was the development of stroboscopic photography in the 1930s which really brought this message home. 正是这种对疾病传播方式的新认识，加上 1918 年西班牙流感大流行对全球造成的冲击，催生了我们今天所熟知的公共卫生信息，比如“咳嗽和喷嚏会传播疾病。”20 世纪 30 年代频闪摄影技术的发展才真正将这一信息传播开来。 This work, led by the MIT researcher Harold Edgerton, used short sharp flashes of light to seemingly freeze time andanalyse all sorts of high-speed phenomena, including the humble sneeze. 这项由麻省理工学院研究员哈罗德·埃杰顿领导的工作，利用短促锐利的闪光似乎可以凝固时间，分析各种高速现象，包括不起眼的打喷嚏。 Images like this one helped us to understand the raw power of sneezes, and to think about how we might protect ourselves and those around us. 这样的图像帮助我们了解喷嚏的原始威力，并思考我们应该如何保护自己和周围的人。 An infectious sneeze can be dangerous at any time. 具有传染性的喷嚏在任何时候都会很危险。 But the prospect of a wave of viral infections was particularly worrying to public health officials in the UK during the Second World War who were keen to protect the health of those working in the war effort. 但在第二次世界大战期间，英国的公共卫生官员对病毒感染浪潮的可能性尤为担忧，他们渴望保护参战人员的健康。 Wartime propaganda made good use of these stroboscopic sneezes to persuade people to cover their mouths and wear masks. 战时宣传充分利用了打喷嚏的这些频闪图像，劝说人们捂住嘴巴，戴上口罩。 The germ mask is a simple way of keeping the germs at bay. 细菌口罩是防止细菌传播的一种简单方法。 Get one and wear it now. 现在就去买一个戴上吧。 In the age of SARS and COVID-19, cutting-edge technology is still being used to try to better capture and visualise the mechanics of the sneeze. 在非典和 2019 冠状病毒病时代，人们仍在使用尖端技术，试图更好地捕捉打喷嚏的原理并将其可视化。 Maybe an even fuller understanding of exactly how a sneeze works will help us to use tools like masks and social distancing more effectively in the fight against epidemics 也许，更全面地了解打喷嚏的确切原理将有助于我们在抗击流行病时更有效地使用口罩和保持社交距离等手段方法。 But it's not only researchers who are continuing the long tradition of filming sneezes. 不过，不仅是研究人员在延续拍摄喷嚏的悠久传统。 A quick search on a video streaming site will bring up homemade footage from vloggers and filmmakers, all capturing these explosive moments for themselves. 只要在视频流网站上搜索一下，你就会看到视频博主和电影制作人自制的视频片段，他们都为自己捕捉到了这些一触即发的瞬间。 The image of the sneeze is with us to stay. 打喷嚏的图像将一直伴随着我们。 Yes, it can provide us with useful information, but it can also be a comic punchline, a tool for persuasion, or just a source of fascination. 是的，它可以为我们提供有用的信息，但它也可以是喜剧的笑料、说服的工具，或者仅仅是令人着迷的源泉。 It's something that is common to us all, yet it is also so strange, spontaneous, and fast that we never really get to see it. 打喷嚏是我们每个人都会做的事，但它又是如此奇怪、自发和快速; 以至于我们从未真正看到过它。 Maybe capturing it on film, repeating it, and slowing it down, gives us a measure of control- or at least the illusion of control - that we can't have in real time. 也许在影片中捕捉它、重复它、放慢它的速度，能给我们一定程度掌控感——或者至少是掌控的错觉——这是我们无法实时控制的事情。 And so in well over a century since Fred Ott's Sneeze, in some respects our viewing habits haven't really changed so much after all. 因此，在《弗雷德·奥特的喷嚏》之后的一个多世纪里，我们的观影习惯在某些方面并没有发生太大变化。 ✔公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【英语晨读×全英交流群】

Why Nice People Repel Us There are many things that might disrupt the mood of a promising early date: a sudden discovery of a maddening political opinion, a grating laugh, poor dental hygiene, an unfortunate choice of top. 有许多事情可能会破坏一个非常有希望的约会的情绪：突然发现一个令人抓狂的政治观点，一个刺耳的笑声，糟糕的牙齿卫生情况，或者是一个不幸的选择。 But there is a far more perplexing and, superficially at least, paradoxical kind of distaste that might abruptly arise. 但是还有一种更加令人困惑的，至少从表面上看是自相矛盾的令人反感的情况可能会突然出现。 One might want to take leave of a companion - and even rush outdoors to vomit - not because they are crude, dim or nasty but because they have revealed themselves to be undeniably and conspicuously nice. 一个人可能想告别自己的另一半——甚至严重到想要冲到户外呕吐——不是因为他们粗鲁、昏暗或下流，而是因为他们展示了自己不可否认、非常明显的善良。 Why might kindness be so hard to bear? 为什么善良会如此难以承受？ Why should warmth prove - on occasion -comprehensively repulsive? 为什么温暖有时反倒是令人厌恶的？ Why might nausea descend in the face of emotional maturity? 为什么厌恶感会在情绪成熟时下降? Perhaps because, through no fault of our own, our whole character may have been built up around the need to cope well with not being given what we want; with not finding intimate satisfaction, with not being the recipient of anyone's reliable kindness, with being foiled in our search for tenderness and sympathy. 也许是因为，不是因为我们自己的过错，我们的整个性格可能是围绕着需要很好地应对没有得到我们想要的东西；找不到亲密的满足感，得不到任何人可靠的善意，在我们寻求温柔和同情的过程中被狠狠挫败。 As people with an allergic response to warmheartedness, somewhere in our past, we are liable to have experienced severe letdown, against which we had to insulate ourselves with a plethora of clever defensive strategies. 作为对热情过敏的人，在我们过去的某个时候，我们很可能经历过严重的失望，对此，我们不得不用大量聪明的防御策略来隔离自己。 We learnt to always reject before we were rejected; we learnt not to get taken in by anyone's honeyed words, we firmly exchanged hope for cynicism and vulnerability for impregnability. 我们学会了在被拒绝之前先拒绝别人；我们学会了不被任何人的甜言蜜语所欺骗，我们坚定地用希望换来愤世嫉俗，用脆弱换来坚不可摧。 No wonder then that a kind soul might come across as extremely threatening. 难怪一个善良的灵魂会被认为是极其危险的。 The nausea we feel in their presence isn't so much disgust as fear; the fear that we may have to shed our defences in the name of trusting that life may not going forward have to be as cold, isolated, and frightening as it evidently once was. 我们在他们面前感到的恶心与其说是厌恶，不如说是恐惧；因为相信生活可能并不会像预期地那样朝冰冷、孤独、令人害怕的方向发展，所以需要甩掉我们的防御的恐惧。 We hear so often of the difficulties of emotional misery; they may be as nothing next to the challenges of emotional contentment, the challenge of having to unclench our suspicions and give up on our reserves of fear and disdain. 我们经常听到情感痛苦的困难；它们可能比不上情感满足的挑战，这是我们不得不解除怀疑和放弃恐惧和蔑视的挑战。 The real risk of dating isn't that our partners will be awful (there's no end of fun to be had turning minor disasters into dark wit), but that once in a while, they may be unblemished and sweet. 约会的真正风险不是我们的伴侣会很糟糕（把小灾难变成黑暗智慧的乐趣是永无止境的），而是偶尔他们可能会完美无瑕。 Anyone can bear love that fails; it takes a very fortunate and secure childhood to countenance that it might in fact work out. 任何人都可以忍受失败的爱情；只有一个非常幸运和安全的童年才能保证保证爱情的顺顺利利。 It can be so tempting to accuse a kind candidate of something - to call them'boring' or 'soppy' or to make an acid remark about their way of stepping through a door or asking for more ice. 指责一个善良的对象这种做法是如此诱人——称他们为“无聊”或“多愁善感”，或者对他们进门或想要更多冰的方式发表尖刻的评论。 We should have sufficient insight into our own difficult trajectories to put a finger more accurately on the true sources of our discomfort: that these unfortunates are in danger of not making us suffer in the way we have grown up expecting that we will have to suffer in order to feel that we are in love. 我们应该对自己艰难的轨迹有足够的洞察力，以便更准确地指出我们不适的真正来源：这些不幸的人有可能不会像我们长大后那样让我们受苦，因为我们期望我们必须受苦才能感觉到我们在恋爱。 We reject not out of meanness, but because we have had so little experience of kindness. 我们拒绝不是因为吝啬，而是因为我们对善良的体验太少了。 The next time the ick of kindness descends, we might dare to turn it away in the name of starting out on what might turn out to be the greatest adventure of our lives: a belief in the possibility of contentment and closeness. 下一次善良的渴望降临时，我们可能会敢于以开始我们一生中最伟大的冒险的名义拒绝它：相信满足和亲密的可能性。 ✔公众号【琐简英语】回复“打卡”，进入【英语晨读×全英交流群】

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】