>Drinks improve second tongue
小酌有助提高外語(yǔ)發(fā)音
Take a tipple and you could find yourself speaking a second tongue more naturally, according to a new research. The foreign language skills of participants in the study were found to be improved after a drink of alcohol, which suggests the way booze can put us at ease outweighs the negative effects on our brain – at least for the first drink, anyway. The study, involved 50 native German speakers recently studying Dutch at a Dutch university, who were either given a proper amount of alcohol or water based on body size. Their audio recordings of the five minutes chatting with a researcher were then presented to and assessed by two native Dutch speakers who weren't told whether alcohol had been consumed or not. Those people who had been given the alcoholic drink were given better ratings by the observers, especially for their pronunciation. "One possible mechanism could be the anxiety-reducing effect of alcohol," said one of the researchers, Jessica Werthmann from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. "But more research is needed to test this."
一項(xiàng)新研究顯示，一杯酒下肚，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)自己的外語(yǔ)會(huì)說(shuō)得更自然。研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，飲酒后，研究參與者的外語(yǔ)能力有所提高，這表明酒精令人身心放松的效果超過(guò)其對(duì)大腦產(chǎn)生的負(fù)面影響——至少喝完第一杯酒以后是這樣的。50名近期在荷蘭某大學(xué)學(xué)習(xí)荷蘭語(yǔ)的母語(yǔ)為德語(yǔ)的德國(guó)人參與了這項(xiàng)研究，研究人員根據(jù)體型給他們適量的酒或水。隨后，他們與一名研究人員閑聊五分鐘的錄音交由兩位母語(yǔ)是荷蘭語(yǔ)的荷蘭人評(píng)估，這兩人并未被告知說(shuō)話的人是否飲酒。觀察者給喝過(guò)酒的人，尤其是這些人的發(fā)音打分更高。研究人員之一、荷蘭馬斯特里赫特大學(xué)的杰西卡?威爾斯曼稱: "一種可能的機(jī)制是酒精的焦慮減輕效應(yīng)。但我們需要做更多研究來(lái)證實(shí)這一點(diǎn)。"

>Fingerprints login fails
老人指紋或無(wú)法被識(shí)別
Millions of older people, manual laborers and cancer sufferers could be unable to use their fingerprints to log in to online bank accounts. Banks are investing millions of pounds in fingerprint technology to replace passwords and PINs. But banks may have to rethink these plans after warnings the technology could be fatally flawed. Delegates representing major banks at a London cyber security conference were told many older people's fingerprints are too faded for the machines to recognize. Fingerprints can "rub off" for bricklayers, stonemasons and other manual laborers. Some medical treatments, such as chemotherapy, can cause fingerprints to disappear - sometimes permanently.
數(shù)百萬(wàn)老年人、體力勞動(dòng)者和癌癥患者可能無(wú)法用他們的指紋登錄網(wǎng)上銀行賬戶。銀行正為指紋技術(shù)投入數(shù)百萬(wàn)英鎊，以使其取代密碼和個(gè)人識(shí)別碼。但因?yàn)橛腥司?，指紋技術(shù)或存在致命缺陷，銀行可能不得不重新考慮這些計(jì)劃。各大銀行的代表在參加倫敦網(wǎng)絡(luò)安全會(huì)議時(shí)被告知，許多老年人的指紋消褪嚴(yán)重，以至于機(jī)器無(wú)法識(shí)別。瓦匠、石匠以及其他體力勞動(dòng)者的指紋可能"磨沒(méi)了"?；煹纫恍┽t(yī)療方法能讓指紋消失，有時(shí)甚至能使其永久消失。

>Town offers newcomers cash
意小鎮(zhèn)為增人口'買居民'
The mayor of a picturesque Italian town has come up with a novel solution in tackling its dwindling population figure - by paying people to move there. Nicola Gatta wants to return Candela, a small medieval town in Puglia, to its former glories when there were more than 8,000 residents in its Nineties heyday. Today, however, thanks to a troubled economy, there are just 2,700 people remaining in the town. Therefore, the mayor is offering up to 2,000 euros in an attempt to entice people to move to the area and boost population. In order to qualify for the cash incentive, new residents must move to Candela where they rent a house and have a job with a salary of at least 7,500 euros per year. According to the mayor, six families from northern Italy have already settled in and another five have applied to move.
意大利一個(gè)風(fēng)景如畫(huà)的小鎮(zhèn)的鎮(zhèn)長(zhǎng)為解決該鎮(zhèn)人口日益減少的問(wèn)題，提出了一個(gè)新穎的解決辦法，即付錢請(qǐng)人們移居到這里。鎮(zhèn)長(zhǎng)尼古拉?加塔希望能重振小鎮(zhèn)過(guò)去的輝煌，位于普列利亞區(qū)的坎德拉是一個(gè)中世紀(jì)小鎮(zhèn)，在90年代鼎盛時(shí)期，居民曾多達(dá)8000余人。然而，因?yàn)榻?jīng)濟(jì)不景氣，如今小鎮(zhèn)只有2700名居民。因此，鎮(zhèn)長(zhǎng)提供高達(dá)2000歐元(約合人民幣16000元)的獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)，試圖吸引人們搬到該地區(qū)并促進(jìn)人口增長(zhǎng)。為符合獲得現(xiàn)金獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)的資格，新居民必須搬到坎德拉小鎮(zhèn)租房，擁有年薪至少7500歐元(約合人民幣59000元)的工作。鎮(zhèn)長(zhǎng)稱，意大利北部的六個(gè)家庭已經(jīng)搬來(lái)定居，另有五個(gè)家庭已申請(qǐng)移居。

>Lack of sleep is killing us
研究:睡得越少壽命越短
In an interview with the Guardian, Professor Matthew Walker, director of the Centre for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, said that sleep deprivation affects "every aspect of our biology". Through his work, he's determined that people who don't get enough sleep tend to be less healthy and have lower energy levels than those who get the recommended amount of shut eye per night. After analyzing the results of 20 separate studies, he's found a strong correlation between how much people sleep and how long they live. In summary: The less you sleep, the shorter your life will be. In one study, for instance, adults age 45 and older that slept less than 6 hours each night were 200% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke during their lifetime compared to participants who got 7 or 8 hours. In other studies, sleeping less has been associated with an increased risk of weight gain, developing Alzheimers, and relapses in addition disorders. Lack of sleep also lowered participants' immune systems.
加州大學(xué)伯克利分校人類睡眠科學(xué)中心主任馬修?沃克在接受《衛(wèi)報(bào)》采訪時(shí)說(shuō)，睡眠不足會(huì)影響"我們生物學(xué)的各個(gè)方面"。沃克通過(guò)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，與那些達(dá)到了建議睡眠時(shí)間量的人相比，睡眠不足的人往往健康狀況欠佳，精力不足。他分析了20個(gè)獨(dú)立的研究結(jié)果，發(fā)現(xiàn)人們的睡眠時(shí)間與壽命長(zhǎng)短存在很強(qiáng)的關(guān)聯(lián)。簡(jiǎn)而言之，睡眠越少，壽命越短。以其中一項(xiàng)研究結(jié)果為例，45歲及以上、每晚睡眠少于6小時(shí)的成年人一生中心臟病發(fā)作或者中風(fēng)的幾率是每晚睡7或8小時(shí)的受訪者的2倍。在其它研究中，缺乏睡眠的人被認(rèn)為患肥胖和阿爾茨海默癥的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)增大，其他身體機(jī)能失調(diào)的舊病也更容易復(fù)發(fā)。缺乏睡眠還導(dǎo)致了受訪者免疫力降低。

Find more audio news on the China Daily app.