☊ 碧瓏司の→ßeℒongŚ

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20151202sa_science.mp3

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🎁 中英文稿：
How do you attract a mate? If you’re a male mouse, you take the Frank Sinatra approach—you sing. Scientists have known about crooning male mice for years. And past experiments showed that if you leave male mice alone with an unconscious female or even with just a trace of her urine, the males will sing. If you reverse roles, the females do not sing. So scientists believed that in courtship, males made all the noise. Until now.
你會怎樣吸引異性?如果你是一隻雄性老鼠，那麼可以採用弗蘭克•辛納屈的方法——唱歌。多年以來，科學家們就知道雄性老鼠會唱歌。以往的研究表明，如果讓一隻雄性老鼠與一隻無意識的雌性老鼠獨處，或者僅是留下雌性老鼠的尿液的痕跡，那麼這只雄性老鼠就會唱歌。但是如果角色互換，這只雌性老鼠不會唱歌。所以，以前科學家們認為在戀愛階段，所有的聲音都是雄性老鼠製造的。
“The problem with the field is that we’ve never had a way to figure out who’s vocalizing.” Neuroscientist Josh Neunuebel at University of Delaware. He realized that researchers needed better listening tools.
“這個領域的問題是我們從沒有弄清楚是誰在唱歌。”Josh Neunuebel是德拉瓦大學的一位神經科學家。他認為研究人員需要更好的聽力工具。
So Neunuebel built a mouse sized recording studio. His team lined a small closet with nylon mesh and foam, which absorb sound rather than reflect it. And they installed ultrasonic microphones, because mice make sounds at a frequency that’s above the range of human hearing.
所以，Neunuebel 建立了一個老鼠大小的錄音室。他的團隊排了一個由尼龍網布和泡沫製成的小櫃子。這個小櫃子不會將聲音反彈，而會將聲音吸收。並且他們在裡面安置了超聲波麥克風，因為老鼠的聲音頻率要高於人類的聽覺範圍。
That’s some mouse singing slowed down so we can hear it.
我們將老鼠的歌聲放緩，這樣我們就能聽到。
Neunuebel’s set-up made it possible for the researchers to determine that some songs were in fact coming from female mice. The gals that sang back to the males pursuing them also slowed down their pace, as if to say (Neunuebel’s voice): “Hey! I’m interested in you. Catch me if you can.” The study is in the journal eLife.

 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20151225sa_science.mp3

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🎁 中英文稿：
Microbes play a huge role in our nutrition, our immunity, maybe even our mental health. But we aren’t the only ones that rely on these armies of resident bacteria. "Baby cockroaches, the ones that just emerge from the egg, don't have any gut bacteria." Coby Schal, an entomologist and chemical ecologist at North Carolina State University. "The first thing they do is take a nice feces meal: basically, eating the poop of their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers."
微生物在我們的營養、免疫力甚至我們的心理健康中都發揮著重要的作用。但是並只是是我們人類依賴這些常住細菌。“那些剛才出殼的幼兒蟑螂，腸道內並沒有含有細菌。”科比•沙爾是北卡羅萊納州立大學的一名昆蟲學者和化學生態學家。他講到，“這些剛出生的蟑螂所作的第一件事情就是享受一場糞便盛宴，基本上就是吃他們兄弟姐妹和父母的糞便。”
Excrement inoculates the roaches with beneficial gut bugs, Schal says. And it's also a longevity-boosting nutritional supplement. But the weirdest thing is, the poop actually calls the tots to come hither. Because it's laced with compounds, like fatty acids, that attract roaches of all ages. The substances are called aggregation pheromones. So poop essentially serves as a rallying call to congregate—and feast.
沙爾稱，糞便孕育蟑螂擁有有益的腸道細菌。同時糞便還為蟑螂提供長期的營養供給。但是最奇怪的事情是，這些糞便會招引一些幼兒的蟑螂。因為這些糞便中含有脂肪酸等有機化合物，會吸引各個年齡階段的蟑螂。這些物質被稱為聚合資訊素。所以糞便實際上是蟑螂們聚集——享受盛宴的集合信號。
To determine where the attractive chemicals come from, Schal and his colleagues raised a group of sterile, microbe-free cockroaches—and then collected their excrement.
為了確定這些有吸引力的化學物質來自哪裡，沙爾和同事們飼養了一群無菌的、無微生物的蟑螂，並收集了他們的排泄物。
But as they suspected, the sterile stuff, without any microbial by-products, failed to tantalize other roaches. They then gave the sterile bugs a fecal transplant. "So we took feces of normal cockroaches, and exposed sterile cockroaches to those feces. They very readily eat these feces and they incorporate the microbes, the bacteria from these feces, into their gut. And then these cockroaches then produce the aggregation pheromone again." They published the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
但是令他們懷疑的是，這些無菌、沒有任何微生物副產品的糞便並沒有吸引其他的蟑螂。之後，研究人員給這些無菌的蟲子進行糞便移植。“我們收集正常蟑螂的糞便，然後將無菌的蟑螂來接觸這些糞便。這些無菌的蟑螂非常樂意享受這些糞便，然後它們就會吸收這些糞便中的微生物和細菌。之後這些蟑螂就會產生聚合資訊素。”研究人員將研究結果發表在《美國國家科學院院刊》上。

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://static.iyuba.com/sounds/minutes/87.mp3

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🎁 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. My name is Jennifer and I am joined in the studio today by Neil.
大家好，歡迎來到本期BBC六分鐘英語。我是Jennifer，這是我今天的搭檔Neil。
Hi there.
嘿，你好。
In this programme, we are going to talk about coffee and an interesting new project which is going on in many European cafes. Do you like coffee?
本期節目中，我們要講講咖啡，並談談即將在諸多歐洲咖啡館開始實施的有趣新專案。Neil，你喜歡喝咖啡嗎？
Yes, I do like a cup of coffee.
恩，我喜歡喝咖啡。

👌👌✪20個道地英語用法👌👌
　　
✪ I'm good ✪
I'm good除了可以用來回答How are you?，表示“我很好”之外，還常用於：
- Do you want some chips with your sandwich?
你的三明治要帶薯條嗎？
- No, I'm good. Thanks.
不用了，謝謝。
- Do you have any questions?
你還有什麼問題嗎？
- No, I'm good.

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/2015/20151207sa_mind.mp3

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🎁 中英文稿：
Back in ancient times, philosophers like Aristotle were already speculating about the origins of taste, and how the tongue sensed elemental tastes like sweet, bitter, salty and sour. "What we discovered just a few years ago is that there are regions of the brain—regions of the cortex—where particular fields of neurons represent these different tastes again, so there's a sweet field, a bitter field, a salty field, etcetera." Nick Ryba, a sensory neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health
在古代的時候，亞里斯多德等思想家曾經猜測味道的起源，以及舌頭如何感知到酸、甜、苦、鹹、辣等味道。“就在幾年以前，我們曾經討論大腦區域——大腦皮層——特定領域的神經元代表著不同的味道嗎，這樣，就會有負責甜味的區域、苦味的區域、鹹味的區域等等。”美國國立衛生研究院的感官神經科學家尼克•里巴，講述了上述言論。
Ryba and his colleagues found that you can actually taste without a tongue at all, simply by stimulating the "taste" part of the brain—the insular cortex. They ran the experiment in mice with a special sort of brain implant—a fiber-optic cable that turns neurons on with a pulse of laser light. And by switching on the "bitter" sensing part of the brain, they were able to make mice pucker up, as if they were tasting something bitter—even though absolutely nothing bitter was touching the tongues of the mice.
里巴和他的同事研究發現，實際上，即使沒有舌頭，你也可是嚐出味道，而這僅需要通過刺激大腦中的“味覺”部分——島葉皮層即可。他們在老鼠身上做了實驗，老鼠植入了特殊的大腦結構——光纖電纜，通過雷射光束，此光纖電纜可以“刺激”神經元。研究人員通過刺激大腦中的“苦味”感官部分，而使老鼠脾氣暴躁，彷彿老鼠品嚐到了苦味的東西——而老鼠沒有嚐到任何苦的東西。
In another experiment, the researchers fed the mice a bitter flavoring on their tongues—but then made it more palatable by switching on the "sweet" zone of the brain. "What we were doing here was adding the sweetness, but only adding it in the brain, not in what we were giving to the mouse." Think adding sugar to your coffee—but doing it only in your mind. The findings appear in the journal Nature.
在另外一個實驗裡，研究人員老鼠吃苦味的東西——但是研究人員又刺激老鼠大腦中的“甜味”區，而讓苦味變得更加的可口。“我們做的是增加甜蜜，但僅僅是通過刺激老鼠大腦中的甜味區域，而不是餵老鼠吃填的東西。”想想在咖啡裡面加糖——而這次僅僅是在大腦裡面加糖。該研究結果發表在《自然》雜誌上。
Ryba says the study suggests that a lot of our basic judgments about taste—sweet means good, bitter means bad—are actually hard-wired at the level of the brain. As for that virtual-sugar-in-your-coffee idea? "I think it's basically science fiction to think that this would be something that would be applied to humans." But today’s science fiction might be tomorrow’s artificial sweetener.

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://static.iyuba.com/sounds/minutes/95.mp3

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🎁 中英文稿：
Hello, I’m Feifei and this is 6 Minute English.
大家好，我是菲菲，這裡是六分鐘英語。
And I’m Neil.
我是尼爾。
How are you Neil and what have you been up to?
你好，尼爾，你都在忙什麼呢？
I’m very well, thank you. I’ve been listening to the news a lot this week.
我很好，謝謝你。這周我收聽了很多新聞。