VOA慢速英语2012 SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - Health Officials in Uganda Watching for New Cases of Ebola

 

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - Health Officials in Uganda Watching for New Cases of Ebola

From VOA Learning English, this is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in Special English. I’m Christopher Cruise.

And I’m Faith Lapidus. Today, we tell about renewed concerns in central Africa about a deadly disease. We tell about efforts to restore an ancient city along the border between Syria and Turkey. And we tell how the simple act of babysitting may have had a major effect on human development.

Ugandan health officials are watching for more cases of Ebola after three people recently died from the disease. The World Health Organization had reported a few weeks earlier that Ebola was no longer a threat in the country. 

Ugandan Health Minister Christine Ondoa reported last month that two of the victims belonged to the same family. She said they died from the Sudan strain of the virus in an area about 50 kilometers from Kampala. But she noted¹ studies in nearby Entebbe confirmed that the disease has struck again.

“Another viral hemorrhagic fever, Ebola, has broken out in the country. This follows confirmation² from the laboratory investigations³ done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute.”

The health minister said people who had come into contact with the disease were being closely watched.

The World Health Organization recently declared an end to the health threat from Ebola in Uganda. At the time, 17 people had died of the disease. WHO officials also said that Ebola had been stopped in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 25 people in that country died of Ebola.

There is no known cure for the disease. Dr. David Heymann formerly⁴ worked for the WHO. He describes the first symptoms of the disease as similar to those of other tropical African sicknesses. The signs include a sore throat, high body temperature, muscle and joint⁵ pain. Patients often report having a headache and feeling extremely tired. Dr. Heymann said that during the seventh and eighth day of Ebola, people feel better. About 30 percent go on to survive. The others develop bleeding from openings in the body.

The WHO says Ebola first appeared in 1976 at the same time in Sudan and in the DRC, which was formerly called Zaire. The Congo cases took place in a village near the Ebola River, which gave the virus its name.

Thousands of years ago, a battle was fought at a city called Karkemish. Babylon and other early states clashed for control of what is now in a neutral border area between Turkey and Syria. Not far away, a modern-day civil war is taking place. Syrian rebels are fighting military forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 

The historic battle of Karkemish was important enough to appear in the ancient religious writings of Jews and Christians⁷. Nebuchadnezzar the Second led the Babylonian army to defeat the forces of Egypt and Assyria. 

Researchers hope to open the battle site area to visitors in about two years. Turkish military forces are guarding the area, which is now closed to the public. But in October of 2011, the Turkish military let archeologists begin work there.

Almost a century had passed since extensive excavations⁸ were done at Karkemish. Removal of landmines⁹ placed on the site during recent conflicts helped make the latest work possible. 

Nicolo’ Marchetti of the University of Bologna directs the current project. His Italian and Turkish team finished a 10-week dig on the Turkish side of Karkemish in late October. They started work in August, not long after violence on the Syrian side of the border.

Professor Marchetti’s team follows in the footsteps of other archeologists. Experts from the British Museum excavated¹⁰ at Karkemish. The work began in 1878 under Patrick Henderson, the British consul¹¹ in the city of Aleppo.

The area had been identified earlier by George Smith, also from the British Museum. He is remembered for discovering a stone tablet that tells the story of a great flood. The flood story appears in Jewish, Christian⁶ and Islamic writings. Smith fell victim to disease and died in Aleppo at age 36.

T.E. Lawrence is probably the best known of the Karkemish investigators¹². Lawrence was a British writer who became famous as the adventurer, Lawrence of Arabia. He began work at Karkemish as assistant to archeologist Leonard Woolley in 1911. The Ottoman Empire controlled the site at that time.

Lawrence wrote about the information written on stone tablets. He told of helping¹³ to settle fights among the workers on a dig and of repairing ancient pottery¹⁴. His colorful descriptions of Aleppo seem especially affecting today, when the Syrian city is a place of continual battle. 

Archeologists left Karkemish after the start of World War One in 1914. Work started again after the war. But later came conflict between Turkish nationalists and French colonizers. Machine gun nests were built on the site. The landmines were buried there in the 1950s and later. 

Over the years, statues, temples and other artifacts have been discovered and removed. Some of these objects are now in the Anatolian Museum of Civilizations in Ankara.

Today, Nicolo’ Marchetti says only five percent of the site has been investigated. That raises the possibility that many more artifacts may be found there. The professor looks forward to a newly developed Karkemish in the near future. He can imagine a beautiful park on the Euphrates River. He hopes it would attract many visitors, who will help poor local cities and villages. 

In modern society, grandmothers are often asked to watch children. But a few million years ago, when primate¹⁵ grandmothers started doing that, they may have had a major effect on how human beings developed. Scientists believe it is a big reason why humans live much longer than other primates¹⁶. They call it the “grandmother hypothesis.”

Kristen Hawkes is with the University of Utah.

“One of the things that’s really different about us humans, compared to our closest living relatives, the other great apes, is that we have these really long lifespans. We reach adulthood¹⁷ later and then we have much longer adult lives. And an especially important thing about that is that women usually live through the childbearing years and are healthy and productive well beyond.”

Yet other primates are not as lucky.

“In other great apes, females, if they make it to adulthood - they usually die in their childbearing years - and they get to be old, frail¹⁸ and gray and less able to do all the things that we associate with, you know, getting old. Well, of course, it happens to all of us, but it happens slower and later to us compared to the other great apes.”

Professor Hawkes says climate change may have affected¹⁹ food supplies. She says grasslands²⁰ started taking the place of forests in Africa.

“One of the things it did was restrict the availability of the kinds of things that little kids, little apes, can feed themselves on. So that meant that ancestral moms had two choices -- they could either follow the retreating forests, or if they stayed in those environments, then they just would have to feed their kids themselves. You know, the kids couldn’t do it.”

So, if mothers decided²¹ to feed their children themselves, they would not be able to give birth as often. They would just be too busy finding food. That is where the grandmother can help.

“It would also mean that older females, whose fertility was coming to an end, could now make a big difference in their fitness by helping their daughters feed those grandchildren. And that would mean then that moms could wean earlier.”

Professor Hawkes says the act of early babysitting had long-range effects.

“That whole array of changes could account for why we have longer adult lifespans. We age more slowly. We mature later. Our kids are actually dependent longer, but we wean them earlier than the other apes do. And that hypothesis has been on the table for a while.”

Caring for their daughters’ children may have caused genetic²² changes that, in turn, caused older females to live longer. Those changes were eventually passed down from one generation to the next.

Computer models show that chimpanzees who reached adulthood at age 13 lived another 15 or 16 years. But humans in developed countries generally lived another 60 years or more.

Professor Hawkes believes the lengthening²³ of lifespan happened quickly in scientific terms -- between 24,000 and 60,000 years.

“This combination of grandmothering and increased longevity²⁴ go together. When there’s grandmothering, that makes more grandmothers. And it makes longevity increase from an apelike range into a humanlike range.”The “grandmother hypothesis” comes from research done in the 1980s. Professor Hawkes and anthropologist²⁵ James O’Connell lived among the hunter-gatherer Hadza people in Tanzania. Older women in that community spent their day gathering²⁶ food for their grandchildren.

Professor Hawkes says grandmothering made humans more socially dependent on each other and, in her words, “prone to engage each other’s attention.”

1 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

2 confirmation   

n.证实，确认，批准

参考例句：

• We are waiting for confirmation of the news.我们正在等待证实那个消息。
• We need confirmation in writing before we can send your order out.给你们发送订购的货物之前，我们需要书面确认。

3 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

4 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

5 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

6 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

7 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

8 excavations   

n.挖掘( excavation的名词复数 )；开凿；开凿的洞穴（或山路等）；（发掘出来的）古迹

参考例句：

• The excavations are open to the public. 发掘现场对公众开放。
• This year's excavations may reveal ancient artifacts. 今年的挖掘可能会发现史前古器物。 来自辞典例句

9 landmines   

潜在的冲突； 地雷，投伞水雷( landmine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The treaty bans the use production and trade of landmines. 该条约规定，禁止使用地雷相关产品及贸易。
• One of the weapon's of special concern was landmines. 在引起人们特别关注的武器中就有地雷。

10 excavated   

v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘

参考例句：

• The site has been excavated by archaeologists. 这个遗址已被考古学家发掘出来。
• The archaeologists excavated an ancient fortress. 考古学家们发掘出一个古堡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 consul   

n.领事；执政官

参考例句：

• A consul's duty is to help his own nationals.领事的职责是帮助自己的同胞。
• He'll hold the post of consul general for the United States at Shanghai.他将就任美国驻上海总领事(的职务)。

12 investigators   

n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
• The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

14 pottery   

n.陶器，陶器场

参考例句：

• My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
• The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。

15 primate   

n.灵长类（目）动物，首席主教；adj.首要的

参考例句：

• 14 percent of primate species are highly endangered.14%的灵长类物种处于高度濒危状态。
• The woolly spider monkey is the largest primate in the Americas.绒毛蛛猴是美洲最大的灵长类动物。

16 primates   

primate的复数

参考例句：

• Primates are alert, inquisitive animals. 灵长目动物是机灵、好奇的动物。
• Consciousness or cerebration has been said to have emerged in the evolution of higher primates. 据说意识或思考在较高级灵长类的进化中已出现。

17 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

18 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

19 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

20 grasslands   

n.草原，牧场( grassland的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Songs were heard ringing loud and clear over the grasslands. 草原上扬起清亮激越的歌声。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Grasslands have been broken and planted to wheat. 草原已经开垦出来，种上了小麦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

22 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

23 lengthening   

（时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长

参考例句：

• The evening shadows were lengthening. 残阳下的影子越拉越长。
• The shadows are lengthening for me. 我的影子越来越长了。 来自演讲部分

24 longevity   

n.长命；长寿

参考例句：

• Good habits promote longevity.良好的习惯能增长寿命。
• Human longevity runs in families.人类的长寿具有家族遗传性。

25 anthropologist   

n.人类学家，人类学者

参考例句：

• The lecturer is an anthropologist.这位讲师是人类学家。
• The anthropologist unearthed the skull of an ancient human at the site.人类学家在这个遗址挖掘出那块古人类的颅骨。

26 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。