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周六及周日聚會來了!
各位好朋友:
周六及周日早上 或許您一個人在家 看著無聊重複的有線電視節目
或是找不到一個好去處休閒 又不想浪費寶貴的時間 歡迎您來聊聊
Billy提供 兩篇時事主題 應用會話
大家來喝咖啡 以輕鬆的方式 用英文聊是非
大家交流更多有益的知識, 也能交到好朋友!
學英文、交友、拓展人際關係、終身學習，一舉數得！
(目前周六及周日共用主題 雖然是相同主題
有不同的提問 見解)
周六聚會
時間: 每周六早上 10:00~12:00
周日聚會
時間: 每周日早上 10:00~12:00
地點: 摩斯漢堡 新北市板橋區文化路一段302號
(板南線新埔捷運站2號出口旁)
(周六/日 聚會請電話詢問)
Tel: 0976217450 (02) 22540821 (02) 22556076
Tel: 0976217450 (02) 22540821 (02) 22556076
北京空污入「極危險」老外紛逃離北京.(TVBS)
籠罩在嚴重污染空氣中的北京，「毒空氣」一直無法散去，很多老外已經開始「逃離北京」，走不了的當地人，天天戴口罩出門，不過專家說這些都於事無補，因為現在監測到的北京空氣懸浮微粒，已經達到1立方公尺700微克，進入「極危險」等級，如果空氣品質再不改善，光是北京、上海、廣州等大都市，恐怕會奪走上萬條人命。
大霧版「北京北京」：「大霧瀰漫在這裡的每一條街道，空氣汙染指數竟然不斷爆表。」
北京空氣品質拉警報，民眾苦中作樂，把大陸知名歌手汪峰的歌曲「北京北京」，改編成KUSO的「北京毒氣」版。大霧版「北京北京」：「誰在霧裡尋找，誰在霧裡呼吸，誰在霧裡活著，又在霧裡死去，北京、北京。」
放眼望去一片霧茫茫，整座城市壟罩在一片白霧裡，伸手不見五指，大白天開車也要大開燈，更恐怖的是這霧氣根本有毒，關在北京大毒氣室裡，很多人已經出現了呼吸道疾病，尤其是抵抗力弱的小朋友，紛紛掛病號，兒童醫院大排長龍。小朋友：「就是手上還有身上起了一些東西，會咳嗽，肚子也有點疼。」
到處都可以聽到有人在咳嗽、在清喉嚨，都說大陸人愛吐痰，現在吐得更嚴重了。民眾：「非常不滿，真是。」記者：「為什麼？」民眾：「健康是最重要的。」
民眾很生氣，食物不安全可以不吃，水有問題可以花錢買礦泉水，但空氣有毒該怎麼辦？電視新聞主播不斷教導民眾如何選口罩，但戴口罩有用嗎。香港大學教授：「我不覺得戴口罩有用，特別是在這種高度污染的狀況下，因為你可以看到，這污染程度已經到了『極危險』，懸浮微粒每立方公尺700微克，到了這種程度，戴口罩根本一點都沒用。」記者：「那我很快問一下我們該怎麼辦？」香港大學教授：「我覺得我們根本無能為力，即使是待在室內，我覺得還是不安全。」
專家說即使待在屋內也不安全，這麼恐怖的狀況，連CNN主播聽到都害怕。CNN主播：「我們可以做的，就是離開這座首都城市。」
老外可以說風涼話，但逃離北京城哪有那麼容易，由於今年的冬天特別冷，供暖燒煤炭的大煙囪24小時不停燃燒、不停冒煙，廢氣遮天蔽日，再加上交通污染、廢氣排放，雪上加霜的是天氣因素，讓這些污染的擴散不出去。綠色和平組織人員：「因為最近的3天都是逆溫層，等於是說上層的空氣往下沈，然後外面吹過來的空氣又出不去，所以就導致這個污染，不斷不斷地累積。」
根據大陸媒體報導，如果情況再不改善，北京、上海、廣州、西安4座城市，因為懸浮微粒過高，引發相關疾病而死亡的人，每年將有8500多人，經濟損失高達人民幣68億元。大霧版「北京北京」：「誰在強調發展，只顧眼前利益，誰在瘋狂開採，不管遺留問題。」
Questions:
1. What can we do to stop pollution?
2. Why should you be concerned about air pollution?
3. Ways to improve air quality and reduce air pollution?
4. Is a good method to stop car idling emissions to reduce air pollution?
Air pollution in Chinese capital reaches hazardous levels
(AP January 13, 2013, 12:02 )
(敬告 本會與英語雜誌社媒體 有合作關係 本會文章有保留權 請勿觸法)
BEIJING -- Air pollution levels in China's notoriously dirty capital were at dangerous levels Saturday, with cloudy skies blocking out visibility and warnings issued for people to remain indoors.
Local authorities warned that the severe pollution was likely to continue until Tuesday.
The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center has reported air-quality indexes between 176 and 442 from its monitors throughout the greater Beijing area since Friday. The index indicates the level of airborne PM2.5 particulates, which are tiny particular matters considered the most harmful to health.
The air is considered good when the index is at 50 or below, but hazardous with an index between 301 and 500, when people are warned to avoid outdoor physical activities.
Monitors in Beijing reported air quality indexes above 300 on Friday, and the center's real-time reports showed Beijing remained heavily polluted Saturday, with the indexes at or approaching 500 at 5 p.m. from some monitoring stations.
A warning scrolled across the monitoring center's website on Saturday said that the density of PM2.5 had reached 700 micrograms per cubic meter in many parts of Beijing and that the polluted air was expected to linger for the next three days.
Monitors at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing recorded an off-the-chart air-quality reading of 728 as of 4 p.m. Saturday and said the PM2.5 density had reached 845 micrograms per cubic meter.
Readings are often different in different parts of Beijing.
手機「進化」人類 手指增長腦變小 (蘋果日報) 李佳純．編譯
人類不斷進化，數位生活會如何改變千年後人類的外貌？英國蘭開斯特大學專家指，使用iPhone等電子產品需複雜的眼手協調能力，大量使用這些產品不但讓手與手指變長，且讓手指末梢神經更發達；但靠電腦記憶思考，則讓腦袋縮小；長時間盯著電子設備，讓人皺紋變多。
由於未來溝通仰賴臉部表情與眼睛運動，因此人類恐眼大、嘴小；營養改善使身高變高，牙齒則因毋須太多咀嚼而變少。
Questions:
1. Are smartphones making us dumb?
2. How the smartphone invasion changed the way we live?
3. Why your smartphone may be making you depressed?
4. Have smartphones killed boredom and is that good?
Are smartphones making us dumb? (Katherine Ellison, NetApp Forbes)
This modern dread– that chronic distraction from all our e-gizmos is mangling our focus, maybe permanently – has become so acute that one leading scientist went so far as to compare the threat to climate change.
Even so, experts have yet to find the smoking gun for the alleged theft of our neurons.Scientists immersed in the growing field of distraction studies say there’s still no hard evidence that cellphones, e-mail and social media have impaired our intelligence.
“Direct systematic studies are either unavailable or I am unaware of them,” notes neuroscientist Gary Small, who, as author of “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind,”closely follows the field.
Still, there’s a rising tide of worries, fed by recent books with grim titles like “Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age,” and “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.” There are hints that some worry is justified: indirect evidence strongly suggests that increasing exposure to flashing and pinging screens is shaping our ever-adapting human brains.
In one seminal study in 2005, the University of California at Irvine informatics professor Gloria Mark found that information workers on average switch tasks every three minutes. In more recent research, Mark has shown that people working on computers toggle between windows – mainly to check e-mail or surf the Web – on average 37 times an hour.
Such task-switching, aka multi-tasking, has been shown in several studies to increase stress, which can interfere with short-term memory, leading to more mistakes.Scientists have found that people who constantly multitask are more easily distracted, as a rule –although they’ve yet to confirm whether such people multitask a lot because they’re by nature more distractible.
Given the high stress and potential risks of juggling tasks, why do so many people do it? The answer has to do with a powerful brain chemical called dopamine, which surges when people encounter something new or important. Our brains evolved to love dopamine back in the days on the savannah. Novelty was in scarce supply, but it proved helpful for humans to become stirred up by a new kind of predator or food source. Today, novelty surrounds us 24/7, making it hard to determine what’s worth our limited attention.
The magnitude of this change in less than two decades, is what prompted Oxford neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, in an interview with British reporters, to call it “almost as important as climate change,” citing her fear that the our new hyper-connectedness is “rewiring the brain” to encourage instant gratification and erode empathy.
Neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley at the University of California at San Francisco agrees that we’re in the midst of an epic transformation. Yet it’s hard, if not impossible, he says, to tease out the specifics of the re-wiring in progress, including whether the changes are more negative than positive. Some brain-imaging studies suggest that people who regularly use the Internet become more skillful in tracking down data and some video games appear to help players improve visual acuity.
Especially confusing, says Gazzaley, is that key brain functions, like short-term memory, processing speed, and the capacity to multi-task, decline steadily as we age. Is it age alone that’s causing the decline? Might older people be even worse without all the increased practice they’re getting? These questions remain unanswered.
Last spring, however, Gloria Mark at UC Irvine and collaborating U.S. Army scientists produced another intriguing study involving e-mail. They monitored 13 office workers who abstained from using e-mail for five days, and found that at the end of the time, the workers were multi-tasking less, less stressed, and more able to focus.
Mind psychologist-author Sherry Turkle has observed that “We don’t do e-mail; our e-mail does us,” and suggest that, for our brains’ sake, some new restraint would make sense.”
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