【文章分享】Diabetes research offers possible good news for caffeine addicts 糖尿病研究：咖啡因控好消息？

People who boosted their coffee intake by “moderate to large” doses in a US-based study had a lower risk for adult-onset diabetes than those with stable consumption, researchers said on April 25. An analysis of studies that tracked the diet and lifestyles of more than 120,000 health sector workers, showed that those who increased their daily caffeine dose by about 1.5 cups a day over a four-year period had an 11-percent lower chance in the subsequent four years of developing type 2 diabetes, the team found. This was in comparison to those whose intake remained constant. “Furthermore, those who had moderate to large decreases in intake about two cups a day had an 18 percent higher risk,” a research team in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. “Changes in coffee consumption habit appear to affect diabetes risk in a relatively short amount of time,” concluded the team led by Shilpa Bhupathiraju of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
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Vocabulary:
Boost 促進
Consumption 攝取
Track 追蹤
Sector 部門
Subsequent 繼…之後
Comparison 相較
Diabetologia 糖尿病學
appear to 似乎
relatively 相對地

【文章分享】Solar-powered scarecrows protecting harvests, saving money and labor 台東太陽能稻草人趕鳥 比真人厲害

Chirping sparrows are a constant headache for farmers, who fear more than anything that the birds will pilfer their rice paddy and millet farm harvests. The Taitung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station has come up with a “solar-powered dummy bird repellent.” Experimental farmland using the repellent had a 30 percent higher harvest rate than the average farm. Other advantages include protecting the environment by saving energy and economizing on labor. Tseng Hsiang-en, an assistant researcher at the station, says that Taitung County has the greatest amount of farmland devoted to the cultivation of millet in all of Taiwan. Millet is also a special traditional crop among Aborigines, Tseng says. During the month before harvest, however, millet is often picked at by birds, Tseng says, adding that if no preventative measures are taken as much as 95 percent of the harvest can be lost. Conventional farmers can only hire workers to physically drive away the birds, which Tseng says can cost up to NT$39,000 for each worker per hectare during a single harvest. Tseng says it is excruciating labor because each worker must stand under the sun for at least eight hours every day. Hopefully the new device will help lessen the burden for farmers, Tseng says. In three consecutive experimental millet harvests, the station discovered that preventative measures during the spring harvest for Asian rice were highly effective, Tseng says, adding that rice farms using the repellent had a 30 percent greater harvest than farms using only humans to drive away birds. The bird repellent uses a solar-powered panel as its power source and stores power in an accumulator, allowing the device to run autonomously in the field. As soon as the first rays of sunlight hit at dawn, the circuit board detects even the slightest bit of power being generated in the solar-powered panel, and immediately flips a switch to start up a DC motor to power the scarecrow’s mechanized arms. A conducting wire is wrapped around the ends of the arms, which pulls on a noisemaker that makes sounds to imitate the way a human would try to scare off birds. At dusk the electricity switches off and the devices stops running. In the event of unremitting cloudy or rainy conditions, Tseng says that, if the solar-powered panel does not produce enough electricity, an internal battery system provides a continuous power source. A utility model patent was acquired for the technology, which has been transferred to manufacturers, Tseng says. (Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Vocabulary: 

1. chirping 吱吱喳喳的 

2. sparrow 麻雀 

3. pilfer 當小偷；偷竊

4. millet 黍，稷；小米，粟 

5. The Taitung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station 台東區農業改良場 

6. dummy（櫥窗中的）模型人；假人 

7. repellent擊退的；驅除的；抵禦的；排斥的

 8. average 一般的 

9. economize節約，節省 

10. cultivation耕種 

11. crop作物 

12. aborigines 原住民 

13. conventional 傳統的 

14. drive away 驅趕 

15. hectare公頃 

16. excruciating使苦惱的；極痛苦的；難忍受的 

17. burden 負擔 

18. consecutive連續不斷的 

19. accumulator聚財者；電瓶 20. autonomously自治地；獨立自主地 

21. dawn黎明，拂曉 

22. circuit board電路板 

23. detect偵測 

24. slightest絲毫 

25. generate產生，發生（熱，電，光等） 

26. conducting wire導線 

27. wrap包，裹 

28. imitate模擬 

29. unremitting不間斷的；不懈的 

30. internal 內部的 31. ptent專利 

32. acquire 取得 

33. transfer轉移 

34. manufacturer製造業者，廠商，廠主；製造公司

【文章分享】if Santa were salaried... 如果耶誕老人支薪 年薪可賺四百萬

Every Christmas Eve is Santa’s busiest time. Santa Claus does not have an easy job. He not only has to prepare gifts for each of the world’s children, he also needs to deliver them to the kids in a single night. But if we were to actually calculate Santa’s salary, how much would he earn? The latest labor survey announced on an insurance Web site discovered that, if you combined all of his festive activities, from the management and distribution to tasks such as checking off name lists of how good or naughty children have been, altogether Santa should get an annual salary of US$139,924, approximately NT$4.4 million. The Web site explained that Santa’s tasks include managing the reindeer, reading kids’ letters, wrapping presents, keeping a stealthy check on whether children have been good, sweeping chimneys, driving the sleigh, and singing Christmas carols. (Liberty Times, translated by Paul Cooper) 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Vocabulary：
1. festive 歡樂的；喜慶的
2. check off 在...上加符號表示已核對
3. naughty 淘氣的
4. reindeer 馴鹿
5. wrap 包
6. stealthy祕密的；鬼鬼祟祟的
7. chimney 煙囪
8. sleigh 雪橇
9. Christmas carols 耶誕歌
10. carol 頌歌，讚美詩

【文章分享】Lost sleep leads to loss of brain cells, study suggests 研究：喪失睡眠導致大腦細胞流失

Sleep loss may be more serious than previously thought, causing a permanent loss of brain cells, research suggests. In mice, prolonged lack of sleep led to 25 percent of certain brain cells dying, according to a study in The Journal of Neuroscience. If the same is true in humans, it may be futile to try to catch up on missed sleep, say US scientists. They think it may one day be possible to develop a drug to protect the brain from the side-effects of lost sleep. The study looked at lab mice that were kept awake to replicate the kind of sleep loss common in modern life, through night shifts or long hours in the office. A team at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine studied certain brain cells which are involved in keeping the brain alert. After several days of sleep patterns similar to those followed by night workers — three days of night shifts with only four to five hours sleep in 24 hours — the mice lost 25 percent of the brain cells.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vocabulary: 

prolonged 延長的

futile 無效的；無益的

catch up 趕上 

replicate 複製；複製品 

night shifts 上夜班