WEEK4

Brazil plans to zap mosquitoes with radiation to halt spread of Zika virus

 23 Feb 2016
      Brazil is planning to fight the Zika virus by zapping millions of male mosquitoes with gamma rays to sterilise them and stop the spread of the virus linked to thousands of birth defects.Called an irradiator, the device has been used to control fruit flies on the Portuguese island of Madeira. The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday it will pay to ship the device to Juazeiro, in the northeastern state of Bahia, as soon as the Brazilian government issues an import permit."It's a birth control method, the equivalent of family planning for humans," said Kostas Bourtzis, a molecular biologist with the IAEA's insect pest control laboratory.

    Brazil is scrambling to eradicate the Aedes mosquito that has caused an epidemic of dengue and more recently an outbreak of Zika, a virus associated with an alarming surge in cases of babies born with abnormally small heads.The new epidemic threatens to scare visitors away from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in August. A Brazilian non-profit organisation called Moscamed will breed up to 12 million male mosquitoes a week and then sterilise them with the cobalt-60 irradiator, produced by Canadian company MDS Nordion, said Dr Bourtzis.The sterile males will be released into target areas to mate with wild females who will lay eggs that produce no offspring, he said during an IAEA meeting of mosquito control experts.

     After an initial programme in a dozen towns near Juazeiro, the Brazilian government would have to decide on scaling up the sterile mosquito production with more funding for use in cities, where they would be released from the air, possibly from drones, said Dr Bourtzis.With no cure or vaccine available for Zika, which has spread to more than 30 countries, mostly in the Americas, the only way to contain the virus is to reduce the mosquito population.Brazilian researchers are also experimenting with radiation. The Fiocruz biomedical research institute has released 30,000 sterile mosquitoes on an island 217 miles off the coast of northeast Brazil.Another experiment under way in Brazil involves a mosquito genetically modified so their offspring die before reaching adulthood.Much remains unknown about Zika, including whether the virus actually causes microcephaly. Brazil said it has confirmed more than 500 cases, and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating more than 3,900 additional suspected cases of microcephaly.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/zika/12169491/Brazil-plans-to-zap-mosquitoes-with-radiation-to-halt-spread-of-Zika-virus.html


STRUCTUER OF THE LEAD:

WHAT-Zika virus

WHEN-Feb 2016

WHO-not given

WHY-stop the spread of the virus

HOW-zap mosquitoes with radiation

WHERE-Brazil

KEY WORDS:

1. sterilise  消毒
2. irradiator  輻照
3. equivalent  相等的；等值的
4. molecular  分子的
5. eradicate  根絕；消滅
6. epidemic  流行的；傳染性的
7. offspring  子孫；後代
8. microcephaly  畸形小頭

WEEK3

Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is…

2015

  That’s right – for the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph: , officially called the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji, though you may know it by other names. There were other strong contenders from a range of fields, outlined below, but  was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015.
Why was this chosen?

Emojis (the plural can be either emoji or emojis) have been around since the late 1990s, but 2015 saw their use, and use of the word emoji, increase hugely. This year Oxford University Press have partnered with leading mobile technology business SwiftKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world, and  was chosen because it was the most used emoji globally in 2015. SwiftKey identified that  made up 20% of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015, and 17% of those in the US: a sharp rise from 4% and 9% respectively in 2014. The word emoji has seen a similar surge: although it has been found in English since 1997, usage more than tripled in 2015 over the previous year according to data from the Oxford Dictionaries Corpus. An emoji is ‘a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication’; the term emoji is a loanword from Japanese, and comes from e ‘picture’ + moji ‘letter, character’. The similarity to the English word emoticon has helped its memorability and rise in use, though the resemblance is actually entirely coincidental:emoticon (a facial expression composed of keyboard characters, such as ;), rather than a stylized image) comes from the English words emotion and icon.

  Emojis are no longer the preserve of texting teens – instead, they have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and one which can cross language barriers. Even Hillary Clinton solicited feedback in the form of emojis, and  has had notable use from celebrities and brands alongside everyone else – and even appeared as the caption to the Vine which apparently kicked off the popularity of the term on fleek, which appears on our WOTY shortlist.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/11/word-of-the-year-2015-emoji/

STRUCTUER OF THE LEAD:

WHAT-Oxford dictionaries word of the year 2015

WHEN-2015

WHO-not given

WHY-it was the most used emoji globally in 2015

HOW-not given

WHERE-not given

KEY WORDS:

1. contenders 競爭者
2. ethos氣質 ;風氣
3. preoccupation 偏見
4. plural 複數的
5. surge 激增
6. Corpus 文集
7. nuanced 微妙的

WEEK2

Paris Climate Change Conference

from 30 November to 12 December 2015

  The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The conference negotiated the Paris Agreement, a global agreement on the reduction of climate change, the text of which represented a consensus of the representatives of the 196 parties attending it. The agreement will become legally binding if joined by at least 55 countries which together represent at least 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions.Such parties will need to sign the agreement in New York between 22 April 2016 (Earth Day) and 21 April 2017, and also adopt it within their own legal systems (through ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession). According to the organizing committee at the outset of the talks, the expected key result was an agreement to set a goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (°C) compared to pre-industrial levels. The agreement calls for zero net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to be reached during the second half of the 21st century. In the adopted version of the Paris Agreement, the parties will also "pursue efforts to" limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.The 1.5 °C goal will require zero emissions sometime between 2030 and 2050, according to some scientists. Prior to the conference, 146 national climate panels publicly presented draft national climate contributions (called "Intended Nationally Determined Contributions", INDCs). These suggested commitments were estimated to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100.For example, the EU suggested INDC is a commitment to a 40 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 1990. The agreement establishes a "global stocktake" which revisits the national goals to "update and enhance" them every five years beginning 2023.However, no detailed timetable or country-specific goals for emissions were incorporated into the Paris Agreement – as opposed to the previous Kyoto Protocol. A number of meetings took place in preparation for COP21, including the Bonn Climate Change Conference, 19 to 23 October 2015, which produced a draft agreement.

Key role of China and the U.S.

  Think-tanks such as the World Pensions Council (WPC) argued that the keys to success lay in convincing officials in the U.S. and China, by far the two largest national emitters: "As long as policy makers in Washington and Beijing didn't put all their political capital behind the adoption of ambitious carbon-emission capping targets, the laudable efforts of other G20 governments often remained in the realm of pious wishes. Things changed for the better on 12 November 2014 when President Obama and General Secretary Xi Jinping agreed to limit greenhouse gases emissions."

  President Obama insisted on America’s essential role in that regard: “We’ve led by example […] from Alaska to the Gulf Coast to the Great Plains [...] we’ve seen the longest streak of private job creation in our history. We’ve driven our economic output to all time-highs while driving our carbon pollution down to its lowest level in nearly two decades. And then, with our historic joint announcement with China last year, we showed it was possible to bridge the old divide between developed and developing nations that had stymied global progress for so long […] That was the foundation for success in Paris.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference

STRUCTUER OF THE LEAD:

WHAT-United Nations Climate Change Conference

WHEN-Dec.2015

WHO-not given

WHY-not given

HOW-conference

WHERE-Paris

KEY WORDS:

1. session 會議
2. protocol 草案
3. consensus 一致
4. ratification 認可
5. accession 同意
6. anthropogenic 人為的
7. emitters 發出者
8. laudable 值得讚賞的
9. realm 領域
10. streak  疾駛
11. stymied 妨礙

WEEK1

Volkswagen emissions scandal

18 September 2015

What did Volkswagen do?

The German car maker has been installing "defeat devices" - software that allows cars to cheat in emissions tests, making them appear cleaner than they actually are. Volkswagen's software allowed it to beat the tests in a lab, but when on the road with emissions controls switched off, cars would pump out nitrogen oxide (NOx) - a polluntant - at up to 40 times the legal limit. Crucially, the software "knew" when it was being tested, allowing it to switch emissions controls on and off. It knew this thanks to the software's algorithm, which used information about steering patterns, engine use and even atmospheric pressure to tell whether it was under scrutiny. Volkswagen has been installing the software in certain models of its cars for at least six years. While investigating the scandal, VW found that around 800,000 cars also had irregularities around carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which contributes to global warming.

What happens if you own one of these cars?

Volkswagen will get in touch with you if your car has to be returned, and it will perform the repairs free of charge. It looks likely that the necessary software update will leave Volkswagen drivers with a car that doesn't perform as they were told it would when they bought it.Consequently, drivers will potentially face much higher fuel bills in order to remain compliant. However if your car is not updated, the resale value of your vehicle could take a hit, and you could invalidate your insurance. If you think your car is affected, there is more detail here.

Has this harmed the environment?

Emissions have not only been much higher than we thought, but the promise of "clean diesel" might also be dead. Analysis conducted by The Guardian suggests that Volkswagen's rigging may have meant that an extra 1m tonnes of NOx pollution have been emitted each year. Health experts have claimed that nearly 12,000 lives a year in Britain are being lost because emissions have not fallen.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/11884738/VW-emissions-scandal-whats-it-all-about.html

STRUCTUER OF THE LEAD:

WHAT-Volkswagen emission scandal

WHEN-Sep.2015

WHO-Volkswagen

WHY-making them appear cleaner than they actually are

HOW-not given

WHERE-German

KEY WORDS:

1. nitrogen oxide 二氧化氮
2. algorithm 演算法
3. steer 駕駛
4. invalidate 使無效
5. rigging 伪造