VOA慢速英语2011--Science on View and Not at the Museum of

AMERICAN MOSAIC¹ - Science on View and Not at the Museum of Natural History in Washington

DOUG JOHNSON: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
I'm Doug Johnson. This week on our show, we play new music from Gillian Welch… and we answer a question about a popular place to visit in Washington, DC…
But, first, we go to a place in Maryland where children get “artsy” every Tuesday.
(MUSIC)
Porch Art
DOUG JOHNSON: Every week, children gather at a home in the Remington neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. The house belongs to Beth Barbush, an artist and local community activist². The children will spend about ninety minutes there doing art projects under her guidance. The weekly “Porch Art” meeting is one of the largest and longest running art programs in this historic but sometimes dangerous area. Christopher Cruise has our story.
(NATURAL SOUND)
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Beth Barbush started “Porch Art” four years ago. She gathered a few art supplies from her home and several neighborhood children who had little to do in the summer. And she provided her own high energy.
BETH BARBUSH: “I started by doing it one night a week, an hour and a half a week, just hanging out with kids and it really benefited me because I got know the people here and I think it benefited them because it gave them something to do.”
The meetings soon moved from Barbush’s porch to the public sidewalk a few meters away. The boys and girls explore a new art form every week. This day, the project is print calligraphy³ but the children are also drawing, painting and sculpting⁴. Middle school student Toha Mohamed enjoys the program.
TOHA MOHAMED: “Every week we do something cool and interesting that I wanted to do. Like arts and craft; we get to put things together, glue stuff.” 
Other artists and local volunteers help teach the children at “Porch Art.” Many parents also take part. Mother Catherine Bear says the program is about community building and trust.
CATHERINE BEAR: “My child gets to do things, do something one day out of the week, like she don’t do any other day and she gets to spend time with other kids and do art.”
(NATURAL SOUND – GUITAR MUSIC)
The “Porch Art” event on this day is also the start of a music series. Local musicians volunteer to play instruments while the children do their art. Volunteer Jason Reed says the program makes a difference in the neighborhood.
JASON REED: “Having a bunch of houses crammed⁵ together, really close, doesn’t make a community and it’s things like this that do. I am not going to say that it reduces crime or it saves lives but none of these people would steal from each other, none of these people would hurt each other, so there is a sense of caring and responsibility and I don’t think that can’t be underestimated.”
Donors⁶ provide the art supplies. Sometimes volunteers provide them. No major groups provide money for the program. And Beth Barbush suggests that outside financial support is not necessary.
BETH BARBUSH: “Anyone can do this. You can do it with whatever skills you have. If you want to do it with music, cooking if you want to do it with theater or art or gardening. I just feel like it’s an example for others to be able to see that they can start a program like this.”
The artist says “Porch Art” has changed her life. This is the first time she has known all her neighbors by name and the only time she has truly felt part of a community.
Museum of Natural History
DOUG JOHNSON: Our question this week comes from Kogi state in Nigeria. Abubakar Yakubu asks about the Smithsonian Institution’s Natural History Museum in Washington.
Let us go there now.
(NATURAL SOUND)
This is the central room on the first floor of the Natural History Museum. The first thing you see when you enter is a huge African elephant. The animal was fifty years old and weighed eight tons when it was shot and killed in nineteen fifty-five. The hunter then donated the remains⁷ to the Smithsonian. Workers used its bones and skin to rebuild the elephant. Now it is a symbol of the Natural History Museum.
Around this big circular room are doors leading to the extensive collections in the building. There is a dinosaur⁸ room, a mammal room, a gems⁹ and mineral room, an ocean room and others. It would take days to really see everything here. But as museum press officer Kelly Carnes explains there is more than meets the eye. The museum is a living, breathing research center.
KELLY CARNES: “We have more than a hundred and twenty-six million objects. Less than one percent of those are on display at any given time. One of the interesting things about the museum that people don’t always know right away is that in addition to having objects on display out in the exhibits, we also have researchers actively¹⁰ doing science behind the scenes. So when you’re looking at exhibits, behind those big displays, are labs, offices, collections, where people are answering questions about our natural world and the science of our universe.”
Sometimes the scientists are also seen. Visitors to the dinosaur room can see a working laboratory. Behind the glass, fossil preparer David Lopez, is hard at work. A small electronic machine in his hand is working the surface of a fossil. A crowd has gathered to watch.
DAVID LOPEZ: “OK, I’m working on a rock that contains fossil bones of a small dinosaur called syntarsus. It’s looking like it’s part of the neck area of the animal and I’m exposing some of the bones from the vertebrae. They’re very, very small; very narrow.”
Researchers believe this syntarsus lived about seventy million years ago. It is a shock to look at that little animal and then enter the room where a huge diplodocus stands. This creature is many meters long and tall. It lived about one hundred fifty million years ago. The diplodocus has been part of the Smithsonian’s collection for more than a century. It has stood in the same place since the museum opened in nineteen-ten.
Kelly Carnes says about one hundred PhD level scientists work at the museum. There are also many other researchers and volunteers. And there are many other Natural History Museum scientists collecting information around the world. We wonder if there are any like Indiana Jones, the fearless archaeologist of movie fame.
KELLY CARNES: “One of our favorites is in our anthropology¹¹ department Doctor Jane Walsh studies South American archaeology¹² including crystal skulls¹³ that became very popular when the last Indiana Jones film came out which was about crystal skulls. A lot of the media that we spoke¹⁴ with at the time informally dubbed¹⁵ her Indiana Jane.”
Ms. Carnes says the Natural History Museum is working hard to reach more people more of the time. She says the expansion of resources through the Internet is a continuing project.
KELLY CARNES: “We get six million visitors a year here at the museum but we realize a lot of people can’t physically¹⁶ come to Washington, D.C. and come to the museum. So we love to make a lot of resources on line so people can visit them from wherever they are.”
One is the Ocean Portal, where people can find out about the ocean and its life.
KELLY CARNES: “One of the unique things about the Ocean Portal is that it’s actually a cooperative between several different organizations. So we get support from like-minded organizations like NOAA or National Geographic¹⁷ that are also sharing their information with us and allowing us all to be one source of information together about ocean science on our planet.”
The millions of people who do come to Washington and visit the museum, in reality, all seem glad for it. Like Xavier Nunez, a sixth grader from New Jersey¹⁸. We talked to him as he left the dinosaur collection.
XAVIER NUNEZ: “I saw a tyrannosaurus and triceratops. And I also saw a lot of ancient fossils from the seas. I thought it was very interesting to see where they came from and how they went extinct and also how they moved around and looked.”
Gillian Welch “The Harrow and the Harvest”
DOUG JOHNSON: Singer and songwriter Gillian Welch is known for her striking and often dark songs. They sound like they came from a time long ago. Traditional American folk and bluegrass music have strongly influenced her work. Recently, Gillian Welch and her partner, guitarist David Rawlings, released a new album. Katherine Cole plays us three songs from “The Harrow and the Harvest.”
(MUSIC)
KATHERINE COLE: That was the song “Scarlet Town” from Gillian Welch’s new album “The Harrow and the Harvest.” It has been eight years since a collection of her songs was released. She and David Rawlings have said they wrote songs during these years, but doing so was not easy. They say there was little connecting the songs to anything else to form a record.
The two kept busy performing with other musicians, including Bright Eyes, Nora Jones and The Decemberists. They also recorded an album and performed under a new name, “The Dave Rawlings Machine.”
Here is the song “The Way It Will Be.” Their voices combine so well it is hard to tell where one voice ends and the other begins.
(MUSIC)
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are performing their new music at shows in the United States this month and next. We leave you with “Six White Horses.”
(MUSIC)
DOUG JOHNSON: I’m Doug Johnson. Our program was written by Ana Ward¹⁹, Dana Demange and Caty Weaver²⁰, who was also our producer. Join us again next week for music and more on AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

3 calligraphy   

n.书法

参考例句：

• At the calligraphy competition,people asked him to write a few characters.书法比赛会上，人们请他留字。
• His calligraphy is vigorous and forceful.他的书法苍劲有力。

4 sculpting   

雕刻( sculpt的现在分词 )； 雕塑； 做（头发）； 梳（发式）

参考例句：

• The quality of the result is determined by a Craft( sculpting) check. 由手艺（刻）定决定结果质量如何。
• Another difficulty in the process of ice sculpting is time control. 冰雕过程中的另一项困难是时间的掌控。

5 crammed   

adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式)

参考例句：

• He crammed eight people into his car. 他往他的车里硬塞进八个人。
• All the shelves were crammed with books. 所有的架子上都堆满了书。

6 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

8 dinosaur   

n.恐龙

参考例句：

• Are you trying to tell me that David was attacked by a dinosaur?你是想要告诉我大卫被一支恐龙所攻击？
• He stared at the faithful miniature of the dinosaur.他凝视著精确的恐龙缩小模型。

9 gems   

growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长

参考例句：

• a crown studded with gems 镶有宝石的皇冠
• The apt citations and poetic gems have adorned his speeches. 贴切的引语和珠玑般的诗句为他的演说词增添文采。

10 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

11 anthropology   

n.人类学

参考例句：

• I believe he has started reading up anthropology.我相信他已开始深入研究人类学。
• Social anthropology is centrally concerned with the diversity of culture.社会人类学主要关于文化多样性。

12 archaeology   

n.考古学

参考例句：

• She teaches archaeology at the university.她在大学里教考古学。
• He displayed interest in archaeology.他对考古学有兴趣。

13 skulls   

颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜

参考例句：

• One of the women's skulls found exceeds in capacity that of the average man of today. 现已发现的女性颅骨中，其中有一个的脑容量超过了今天的普通男子。
• We could make a whole plain white with skulls in the moonlight! 我们便能令月光下的平原变白，遍布白色的骷髅！

14 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

15 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

17 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

18 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

19 ward   

n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开

参考例句：

• The hospital has a medical ward and a surgical ward.这家医院有内科病房和外科病房。
• During the evening picnic,I'll carry a torch to ward off the bugs.傍晚野餐时，我要点根火把，抵挡蚊虫。

20 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

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