20
Oct
2008

TechWatch No.20081017

V: Hello dear audience. It’s been a long time. And Here we are on techwatch. I’m Vincent and the gorgeous sitting beside me is
E: Emma,but thanks Vincent. And i’m glad to be here on techwatch.I can’t wait to know what is on today’s show.
V: yeah,me too. But before it, i would like to talk about something about the selective trial. What we did these days is just picking up the best person that ,we think, could be fit for this job. And fortunately we found it surprising that there are so many talented contestants here. And i think it’s just GREAT!
E: Yes, i can’t agree with you more. We have to admit that it’s a little bit difficult for the freshmen to go through the three rounds. And don’t you think we judges are a little picky?
V: yes, we are. But the situation is we have to be picky. Because there are so many competent people here. We have to select the best ones from the really good ones.
E: so that means if you were eliminated that dosen’t mean you are not competent.
V: you are just not among the best ones.
E: Yeah. Quite right.
V: so Emma, as you know the third round is coming. I would like to ask a question for the contestants. Can give some pieces of advice to the comtestants?
E: yes of course.....
V: Thank you for sharing. Good luck to you all.


V:先要给大家介绍的是一台非常先进的洗衣机.
E:一台洗衣机能有多先进.不就是洗衣服么?能有什么特别的?
V:当然有拉,洗衣机除了满足别人能洗衣服的要求之外还要够节能环保才能称得上是新一代的environmental friendly washing machine.
E:那他又是怎样实现环保的呢.
V:that’s what i’m about to say.
UK to give waterless washing machine a spin

The picture shows how the new washing machine works.
A washing machine using as little as a cup of water for each washing cycle could go on sale to environmentally conscious Britons next year.
一款每次洗衣只需用一杯水的洗衣机有望于明年与注重环保的英国民众见面。
Xeros, which has been spun out of the University of Leeds to commercialize the technology, said on Monday the new machines would use less than 2 percent of the water and energy of a conventional washing machine.
负责推广该技术的利兹大学克塞罗斯公司于本周一称,这款新型洗衣机的耗水量及能耗还不到传统洗衣机的2%。

Plastic chips are used to remove dirt and stains from clothes, leaving them dry and reducing energy consumption as there is no need to use a dryer after the washing cycle, Xeros said in a statement.
克塞罗斯公司在一份声明中称,这款节水洗衣机主要利用塑料芯片去除衣物上的污渍。由于在洗涤过程中衣物干燥,洗完后不用烘干,因此能够降低能耗。
The firm, which recently secured investment of almost 500,000 pounds from IP Group, said the price of the new machines was "not expected to be dramatically different from (conventional) washing machines."
该公司称,这款洗衣机的价格“与(传统)洗衣机不会有太大差别。” 克塞罗斯公司近日从IP集团获得一笔近50万英镑的投资。
Washing machine usage has risen by 23 percent in the past 15 years. The average household uses almost 21 litres of water daily on clothes washing, 13 percent of daily household water consumption, according to Waterwise, a non-government organisation focused on decreasing water wastage.
据一直致力于减少水资源浪费的非政府组织“水智慧”统计,在过去15年中,英国洗衣机使用量增加了23%。目前英国普通家庭每日洗衣耗水近21升,占家庭日耗水总量的13%。
A typical washing machine uses about 35 kilograms of water for every kilogram of clothes, in addition to the power needed to heat the water and dry the clothes.
传统洗衣机每洗一千克衣物就需耗水约35千克,烧水和烘干衣物也需耗费不少能源。

There are more than two million washing machines sold in Britain annually, with a value of about 1 billion pounds, Xeros said.
克塞罗斯公司说,英国每年售出200多万台洗衣机,其市场总价值高达约10亿英镑。


California to drivers: Drop the cell phone, dude
美国加州开车时打手机必须用免提
Next week California will try to wrest cell phones from the hands of drivers, telling everyone from movie starlets and dot-com millionaires to surfers and soccer moms that conversations behind the wheel must be on a headset.
美国加利福尼亚州将从下周起禁止人们开车时用手接打手机,无论你是电影明星、互联网富翁,还是冲浪高手或者“足球妈妈”,以后开车时如需打手机必须戴上耳机。
Several U.S. states and some two dozen countries around the world already have restrictions on mobile phones while driving but now such a law has come to California -- where the car is king and much of life is spent on the famously snarled freeways.
美国几个州及全世界约20个国家已颁布过开车时禁打手机的法令,而如今这一法令将在“汽车主导生活”的加州开始实行,加州人日常生活的很大一部分都是在拥堵的高速路上度过的。
Californians interviewed mostly supported the law requiring hands-free phones in cars and outlawing cell phones entirely for drivers under 18, which takes effect on Tuesday.
该法令将于本周二生效,它要求人们开车时打手机必须使用免提功能,并规定未满18岁的驾车者开车时不得使用手机,多数接受采访的加州人对此表示支持。

Others cast a jaundiced eye on lawmakers, who they blame for failing to build more freeways or public transportation in the face of increasingly gridlocked roads in the nation's most populous state and say hands-free conversations are no safer.
另有一些人则对立法机关表示不满,他们责怪政府没有多修建一些高速公路或公共交通设施来缓解这一人口最多的州所面临的日益严重的交通拥堵问题,他们还认为用免提功能通话并不能提高驾驶安全。
"I can't believe that (Californians) will put up with all these nanny, nit-picking laws," KFI-AM radio talk-show host John Kobylt said.
KFI-AM广播谈话节目主持人约翰•科比尔特说:“我无法相信(加州人)会容忍这些如此苛刻的法律。”
"It's stupid because we've gone over about seven different studies and each one of them says it's the conversation that distracts you, not holding the phone," he said.
他说:“这个法案毫无意义。我们对七个不同的研究进行了分析,每项研究都表明让人分神的是谈话本身,而不是手持电话。”

Vocabulary:
wrest:to obtain by or as if by pulling with violent twisting movements(夺取)
snarl:缠结;混乱
nit-picking: 挑剔的

诺贝尔奖的幕后人生
Shuttle driver reflects on Nobel snub

Twenty years ago, was one of the driving forces behind research that earned a Nobel Prize in chemistry this week. But today, he's just driving.
二十年前的道格拉斯 普拉舍当年是本周诺贝尔化学奖研究背后的一大推动力,二十年后的今天,他还是个司机。

Prasher, 57, works as a courtesy shuttle operator at a Huntsville, Ala., Toyota dealership. While his former colleagues will fly to Stockholm in December to accept the Nobel Prize and a $1.4 million check, the former Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist will be earning $10 an hour while trying to put two of his children through college.
57岁的普拉舍在亚拉巴马州亨茨维尔(HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA)一家本田经销部做司机这个前伍兹霍尔海洋研究所(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution )科学家一小时挣10美元,辛辛苦苦想把两个孩子送进大学,而他的同事们将在十二月飞往斯德哥尔摩领取诺奖一并还有140万美元的支票。

"It's a cutthroat world out there," Prasher said during a phone interview yesterday.
Despite his contributions to the groundbreaking research, a Nobel Prize can only be shared among three people. “这个世界就是这么残酷。”,在昨天一次电话采访中他说到。
虽然在此项开拓性的研究里功勋卓著,但是一项诺奖只能有三个人分享。

In 1961, Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole discovered the green fluorescent protein that gives the Aequoria Victoria jellyfish its glow. In the 1980s, Prasher began working with the protein, designated as GFP, after hypothesizing the gene responsible for the protein's fluorescent properties could be used to help view formerly invisible molecular functions.

1961年,伍兹霍尔海洋生物实验室的Osamu Shimomura发现增强型绿色荧光蛋白(enhanced green fluorescent protein,EGFP)可以让海洋生物水母(Aequoria victoria)发光。1980年开始,普拉舍开始研究这种被叫做GFP的蛋白,假设产生发光物质的基因能够用来帮助观察以前看不到的原子作用。
After the American Cancer Society gave Prasher a $220,000 grant in 1988, he set about isolating and copying the GFP gene. 在美国癌症协会在1988年给普拉舍提供了22万美元的资金,于是他便开始分离并复制这种基因。

That caught the attention of Martin Chalfie, another of the Nobel Prize winners announced this week. The Columbia University researcher said yesterday that the organism he was working with at the time was transparent, and he hoped Prasher's work on the luminescent jellyfish protein would provide a way for him to see its molecular functions.
这引起了MartinChalfie本周宣布的另一位诺奖得主的注意。这个哥伦比亚大学的研究员昨日表示他那时研究的有机体已经是透明的,还表明只是希望普拉舍的发光水母蛋白研究将会给其观察原子运动提供便利。
Four years later, as Prasher's grant dried up and he was no longer able to continue his own research, he voluntarily gave samples of the GFP gene to Chalfie. 当四年后普拉舍的资金耗尽无力继续研究时,他自愿将GFP基因样本给了Chalfie。
The cloned gene was also given to Roger Tsien, the third Nobel Prize winner, who has been in the forefront of fluorescent protein research ever since.
复制的基因又给了Roger Tsien,自此成为发光蛋白研究的先驱,也即本奖项的第三位获奖人。
"(Prasher's) work was critical and essential for the work we did in our lab," Chalfie said. "They could've easily given the prize to Douglas and the other two and left me out."
Chalfie表示普拉舍的研究对于我们在实验室所做的东西至关重要,他们应该把将颁给他和其他两人才对。
But instead of focusing on his hard luck, Prasher said he is happy for his former colleagues. While it was perfectly within his rights not to share the cloned gene with others, Prasher said he felt an obligation to give his research a chance to turn into something significant, even if he was no longer a part of it.
尽管对自己的坏运气很是愤懑,普拉舍说他仍然为同事感到高兴。普拉舍说,他完全可以不跟别人分享复制的基因,但是他感到即使自己已成为无关的人,
"When you're using public funds, I personally believe you have an obligation to share," Prasher said. "I put my heart and soul into it, but if I kept that stuff, it wasn't gonna go anyplace."
“当你使用公共资金进行研究的时候,我个人认为有责任与别人分享所得,我对这项研究耗尽心血,但是把它留在我这里,它永远也不会为世人所见的。”。
David Mark Welch, assistant scientist of evolutionary biology at MBL, said this sort of situation is a natural byproduct of working in an industry where competition for grant money can be intense. Some grants have 100 applications but will only fund 10 requests, Welch said. That means competition — even from fellow colleagues at the same institution — can be fierce and scientists often feel the need to keep all unpublished research a secret.
David Mark Welch,海洋生物实验室一位进化生物学助理研究员说,这中情况是在一个研究资金争夺激烈的领域工作的必然产物,“只能资助十个项目的资金可能申请的人就超过一百个,这也就是说,竞争,甚至是同一研究所同事之间的竞争都是非常激烈的,科学家们自然会想着把未公开的研究当成自己的秘密。”
Welch praised Prasher's actions and said many researchers are finding it easier to obtain larger grants if they collaborate instead of alienate. "You have to put aside any sort of personal desires to be better than everyone else because if your grant isn't funded, you're in trouble," he said. Welch赞扬了普拉舍的行为,并说如今很多研究员发现合作会带来更多的资金,“你得把超过别人的欲望放在脑后,因为一旦资金没了,你就麻烦了。”。
Prasher knows that trouble all too well.
After stints at a U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory and working for NASA in Huntsville, Prasher was out of work for a year before he took a job at the car dealership. 普拉舍显然很懂得这种麻烦。
在为一家农业部实验室和亨次威尔国家航空航天局(NASA)工作之后,依然拮据的普拉舍开始在一家汽车经销部干活。
Prasher said he has suffered from health problems and depression, some of which stems from being out of science for so long. But his sense of humor remains intact. 他说,自己跟科学研究分别太久,已经患上了抑郁症和别的毛病,但是幽默感始终不变。
"If Marty and Roger want to show me some gratitude, they can always send some cash," Prasher said. "I'm accepting gifts and donations." “如果他俩还有点良心就给我送点钱过来,我接受礼物和捐赠。”。
Prasher hopes the Nobel Prize exposure will lead to a job offer in his field, ideally back to Falmouth, where he said he lived happily for 14 years.
普拉舍希望诺奖的公布可以让他有机会重回研究领域,以及他度过14年快乐时光的Falmouth.
Google tool to keep emails sober
Google has adapted its free email service to help those letting loose after a few evening cocktails or succumbing to lovelorn moments from firing off messages they might regret in the morning.
Google日前在其电邮系统中增加了一项新的功能,这项功能可以防止你在喝醉后或失恋的时候发送一些事后后悔发出的邮件。
Mail Goggles software comes to life after dark and on weekends, when altered states of mind are more probable, and requires that five simple math problems be answered correctly in less than a minute in order to send a Gmail missive.
(在默认设置下,)Mail Goggles软件会在深夜和周末时激活,因为这个时候人的思想状态不太稳定。在发送邮件前,Mail Goggles会要求发信人在不到一分钟的时间内正确回答五道简单的数学题。
"Sometimes I send messages I shouldn't send," Gmail engineer Jon Perlow wrote Monday in a website posting announcing the optional new feature.
Gmail研发工程师乔恩•佩罗于本周一在网上发贴公布了这一可选的新功能,他在其中写道:“我有时候就会发一些不该发送的邮件。”
"Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together." “比如,有时我会发短信向我爱慕的女孩表白;或者我在深夜给前女友发邮件,希望我们能重修旧好。”
Gmail users can adjust their email settings to activate the Goggles feature and dictate the times it is active.
Gmail用户可以自行修改邮箱设置,启用Goggles功能,并可设定启用时间。
"It will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email," Perlow wrote.
"And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?"
佩罗说:“这项功能可以帮助你确认所发送的邮件是否是一时冲动的想法。”
“而要确认你发邮件时是否清醒,没有什么办法比几个简单的数学题更有效了。”
logo

李维的网志

给 人 生 的 素 描

Archive

October 2008
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
 
 
 
 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 7 
 8 
 9 
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
21
22
23
24
26
27
28
29
30
31
 
 

我要找...

 

Can't Read Chinese?

Credits

Knallgrau New Media Solutions - Web Agentur f�r neue Medien

powered by Antville powered by Helma


Creative Commons License

xml version of this page

twoday.net AGB

2961187166_325556098f_o

Shambhala
Sth. Fun
我的英文广播节目
日记
没事写写
维恩谝闲传
Profil
Logout
Subscribe Weblog