The Major Science Stories of the Year 2002

 

Broadcast: Jan 7, 2003
By George Grow, Cynthia Kirk, Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver¹

VOICE ONE:

This is Sarah Long.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Bob Doughty² with the Special English program SCIENCE IN THE NEWS. Today, we tell about some of the major science stories of the year two-thousand-two. We tell about hormone³ replacement⁴ research, an ancient burial1 box, a genetic⁵ map of rice, the spread of the disease AIDS and the smallpox⁶ vaccine⁷ debate.

VOICE ONE:

Last year, American government researchers halted a national women's health study because they found harmful effects from hormone replacement therapy2, or H-R-T.

Women's bodies stop producing the hormone estrogen at about the age of fifty. This period of life is called menopause. Until now, medical experts believed that taking the hormone estrogen could protect older women from health problems like heart disease. Recent studies have disagreed, however.

The latest study was the largest ever carried out to investigate the effects of H-R-T on healthy older women.

The study involved more than sixteen-thousand women between the ages of fifty and seventy-nine. Half of the women took a pill containing the hormones⁸ estrogen3 and progestin4. The others took an inactive substance.

After five years, the women taking the hormones were twenty-six percent more likely to develop breast cancer than the others. The hormones also increased the chances of heart attacks by twenty-nine percent and strokes by forty-one percent.

The hormone treatment was also found to reduce the number of broken bones and colon⁹ cancers. But officials at the National Institutes of Health decided¹⁰ to stop the study three years early because they believed the hormones were doing more harm than good.

The researchers said more testing is needed to see if other kinds of hormone replacement therapy have similar effects.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

History and religious experts were excited last year about the discovery of an ancient box that might be the oldest historic¹¹ evidence of Jesus5. The box reportedly held the bones of a man said to the brother of Jesus, called James.

The burial box belongs to a private collector in Israel. It contains a message written in the ancient Aramaic language. It says "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."

An expert on ancient languages, Andre Lemaire, examined the box and wrote a study about it. He said the box was evidence of Jesus. But other experts have questioned his findings. They say the box is real and is two-thousand years old. They also say that the first part of the writing is real. But they say that the writing that means "brother of Jesus" was placed on the box at a later time and is not even in the Aramaic6 language.

The experts do not think the dispute will be settled until the Israeli government carries out a more complete examination.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Another major science story from last year involved efforts to identify all the genes¹² found in rice. In April, two teams of scientists published separate reports about the genetic information for rice plants. It was the first time scientists had mapped the genes of an important crop.

The scientists say this genetic information could lead to improved kinds of rice and better rice production in developing countries. They also expect the information to be useful in improving other grains, such as corn and wheat.

Rice feeds more than half the people in the world. But weather conditions, disease and insects can restrict its production. That may change because of efforts by the two scientific teams.

One group was led by Jun Yu of the Beijing Genomics Institute in China and the University of Washington in Seattle. The scientists studied the rice most commonly grown in China, called indica rice. They said they have identified more than ninety percent of the genes in indica rice.

The other scientists work for the Syngenta Company based in Switzerland. They did the research at the company's Torrey Mesa Research Institute in La Jolla, California. They created a map of a short-grain rice grown in warm areas of the world, called japonica. Syngenta says its map is more than ninety-nine percent complete and ninety-nine percent correct.

One expert said the rice genome could prove to be more important in the next few years than the human genome because more people depend on rice than any other crop.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Another important science story last year involved the increase in the number of people suffering from the disease AIDS.

A United Nations report estimated that forty-two-million people are infected with the AIDS virus, also called H-I-V. Nearly thirty-nine-million of those infected are adults. More than nineteen-million of them are women.

U-N officials said many women were infected with H-I-V by having sex with infected men. Studies have found that H-I-V passes more easily from men to women than from women to men.

The main reason for the rise in infected women is the AIDS crisis¹³ in southern Africa. Fifty-eight percent of infected adults there are women. The report says this is one cause for the drop in agricultural production in several African countries. Women do much of the work on family farms in parts of Africa. U-N officials say more than fourteen-million people are at risk of starvation in six African countries. They are Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The U-N also reported rising infection rates among women in North Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean Sea area. The report shows that Eastern Europe and Central Asia have the world's fastest growing population of people with H-I-V.

In Asia and the Pacific Ocean area, more than seven-million people now have H-I-V. More than one-million people in China are infected. And almost four-million have the AIDS virus in India.

The United Nations says the fight against AIDS needs at least ten-thousand-million dollars a year by two-thousand-five. The spending now is three-thousand-million dollars a year.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Another top science story last year was the debate about the vaccine medicine to prevent the disease smallpox. Smallpox is caused by the variola virus. It spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Smallpox can damage the brain and other body organs. It kills about thirty percent of the people who get it. There is no treatment. The vaccine ended the threat of smallpox around the world in nineteen-seventy-seven. But now, American officials fear that terrorists¹⁵ may have the virus and could use it in a biological attack.

In December, President Bush announced a plan to protect the American people from smallpox. The plan will first give the vaccine to those serving in the military forces, health care workers and emergency workers. The vaccine would then be offered to the public in two-thousand-four. Experts say each person would decide if he or she wants the vaccine.

However, the smallpox vaccine can be dangerous. It can even kill. The vaccine is a live virus similar to the one that causes smallpox. The vaccine can spread throughout a person's body and cause infection.

Records from the nineteen-sixties show that one or two people died for every one-million people who received the vaccine. Nine others suffered brain infections and more than one-hundred people developed severe skin infections. Hundreds of other people developed other health problems.

Medical experts believe that even more people would suffer such reactions today. This is because many more people have weakened body defense¹⁶ systems against disease. These include cancer patients who have been treated with chemotherapy drugs, people infected with the AIDS virus and those with skin diseases like eczema. Doctors say the current smallpox vaccine has not been tested on children and may not be safe for them.

Many health professionals have criticized President Bush's decision to offer the vaccine to the public. They say the threat of becoming sick from the vaccine is greater than that from the disease unless a real terrorist¹⁴ attack takes place.

VOICE TWO:

This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by George Grow, Cynthia Kirk, Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver. It was produced by George Grow. This is Bob Doughty.

VOICE ONE:

And this is Sarah Long. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.
1. burial  [5berIEl] n. 埋葬
2. therapy [5WerEpI] n. 治疗
3. estrogen [5estrEdVEn] n. [生化]雌激素
4. progestin [prEu5dVestIn] n. [生化]孕酮, 黄体酮
5. Jesus [5dVI:zEs] n. 耶稣(基督教信奉的救世主)
6. Aramaic [7ArE5meIIk] n. 亚拉姆语

1 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。

2 doughty   

adj.勇猛的，坚强的

参考例句：

• Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质：脾气倔强，性格刚强。
• The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。

3 hormone   

n.荷尔蒙，激素，内分泌

参考例句：

• Hormone implants are used as growth boosters.激素植入物被用作生长辅助剂。
• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body.这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。

4 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

5 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。

6 smallpox   

n.天花

参考例句：

• In 1742 he suffered a fatal attack of smallpox.1742年，他染上了致命的天花。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child?你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

7 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

8 hormones   

n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式

参考例句：

• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body. 这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
• The adrenals produce a large per cent of a man's sex hormones. 肾上腺分泌人体的大部分性激素。

9 colon   

n.冒号，结肠，直肠

参考例句：

• Here,too,the colon must be followed by a dash.这里也是一样，应当在冒号后加破折号。
• The colon is the locus of a large concentration of bacteria.结肠是大浓度的细菌所在地。

10 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。

11 historic   

adj.历史上著名的，具有历史意义的

参考例句：

• This is a historic occasion.这是具有重大历史意义的时刻。
• We are living in a great historic era.我们正处在一个伟大的历史时代。

12 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

13 crisis   

n.危机，危急关头，决定性时刻，关键阶段

参考例句：

• He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明，在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
• The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。

14 terrorist   

n.恐怖主义者，恐怖分子

参考例句：

• Without the gun,I'm a sitting duck for any terrorist.没有这支枪，我就成了恐怖分子下手的目标了。
• The district was put on red alert during a terrorist's bomb scare.这个地区在得到恐怖分子炸弹恐吓后作了应急准备。

15 terrorists   

n.恐怖主义者，恐怖分子( terrorist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The terrorists have halted their bloody campaign of violence. 恐怖分子已经停止了他们凶残的暴力活动。
• They were finally forced to capitulate to the terrorists' demands. 他们最后被迫屈从恐怖分子的要求。

16 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。