‍ RWFIB 810. Spit Analysis Reveals Hocker's Age
تجزیه و تحلیل تُف، سنّ تف‌کننده را نشان می‌دهد
ریدینگ اپیونی (سوال غیرامتحانی/تمرینی) Apeuni328
An analysis of a person's DNA methylation finds that the number of methyl groups attached to the DNA correlates with the person's age--making saliva analysis a possible CSI tool. Cynthia Graber reports

Full Transcript:
Saliva contains many useful components. Lubricants. Enzymes for breaking down food. And now, compounds that can reveal a person’s age. That’s according to a study in the journal Public Library of Science ONE. [Sven Bocklandt et al., "Epigenetic Predictor of Age"]

During normal development, DNA in your body gets what’s called methylated. Small chemicals called methyl groups bind to the DNA, helping to determine which genes become active. But the patterns of methylation change as we grow older. Which was a clue that measuring methylation might give away age.

The researchers studied DNA in saliva contributed by 34 pairs of male identical twins, ages 21 to 55. They found 88 sites on the men’s DNA where the amount of methylation correlated with their ages. The scientists next verified that finding in 60 men and women, ages 18 to 70.

Then they narrowed in on two genes that had the strongest age-related correlation. And using just that data, they found that they could estimate the ages of their saliva contributors to within five years.

This technique might help in crime scene investigations—recovered saliva could tell the age of a perpetrator. So if you’re worried about anyone knowing how old you are, be careful where you spit.
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➡️ Saliva بزاق دهان

collocation:
the patterns of methylation, The researchers studied DNA, the amount of methylation correlated with their ages, The scientists next verified that, had the strongest age-related correlation, crime scene investigations.

‍ 👇RWFIB 812. Younger Kids Don't Care What's Fair
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‍ 812. Younger Kids Don't Care What's Fair
بچه‌های جوانتر به آنچه عادلانه است اهمیت نمی‌دهند
ریدینگ اپیونی (سوال غیرامتحان/تمرینی) Apeuni347
Children below the age of about seven were indifferent to whether their playmates shared in a candy giveaway, but older kids were more sensitive about fairness. Karen Hopkin reports

Full Transcript :
If you’ve ever spent time with toddlers, sooner or later you’ll hear the word “Mine!” It’s usually followed by an adult saying, “Now, now, you have to learn to share.” But a study in the August 28th issue of Nature suggests we may be wasting our breath. Because kids in the preschool set have no interest in making sure everyone gets their fair share.

Scientists from Switzerland wondered if, and when, young children begin to consider the welfare of others. So they gathered up over 200 Swiss schoolchildren and a small mountain of candy. And one-by-one they gave each child a choice that goes something like this: I can give one M&M to you and one to one of the other kids. Or I can give one to you—and none to anyone else.

Children who were three or four years old didn’t much care whether or not their friends also got an M&M, or a jellybean or any other sweet. But that attitude changed by the time the kids were seven or eight, when almost 80 percent of them opted to be fair. Okay, that doesn’t exactly make them candidates for a Nobel Peace Prize. But maybe magnanimousness begins with an M…&M (example).
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🍬 M&M
شکلات های دکمه ای شکل چند رنگی
🍬 Jelly bean
آب‌نبات ژله‌ای
🍬 magnanimousness
بزرگواری

👇 RWFIB 797. Cash Rewards Help Dieters
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‍ RWFIB 797. Cash Rewards Help Dieters
جوایز نقدی به رژیم های غذایی کمک می کنند
ریدینگ اپیونی (سوال غیرامتحان/تمرینی) Apeuni122
A study in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that people who were rewarded with a few hundred dollars for losing a few pounds were much more successful than those who just dieted. Steve Mirsky reports

Full Transcript:
Finally, science has something you can give people that really does help them lose weight: money. Rewarding dieters with a few hundred dollars is effective for promoting at least short-term weight loss. That’s according to a study in the December 10th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researchers tried two approaches. In one, study subjects got paid if they lost 16 pounds in 16 weeks. In the other, participants invested their own money, which they lost if they didn’t make that same goal. A control group just tried to lose weight without any economic incentive. And the losers are:

Dieters who got paid for losing—53 percent of them met the target. Followed by those who risked their own money—47 percent of them lost the 16 pounds. And the regular old dieters, for whom losing weight was its own reward? Only 10.5 percent of them got to their goal. And that group averaged just a four-pound loss, compared with 14 pounds for the paid dieters.

So, what do you do with the money you win by losing weight? That’s easy: pizza!
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👇🗣🎧🗣🎧 #RL 🗣🎧🗣🎧👇

little languages are disappearing #RL
(Extinction of Language) Apeuni122
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Why worry if languages die?
Professor David Crystal, author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Languages responds:👇

1. How do languages die?

A language dies only when the last person who speaks it dies. But you know, some people say it dies when the second-last person who speaks it dies. Because then the last person has no one left to talk to. Well, of course, languages have come and gone throughout history as communities have come and gone. But what's happening now is something quite extraordinary.
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🗣 David Crystal

2. How many languages are dying?

There are about 6000 languages in the world, more or less. Nobody knows the exact number. And of these, people think that about half of them are so seriously endangered that they are likely to die out in the course of the present century. Now the present century is a hundred years, half is 3000 languages, so that means one language is dying out somewhere in the world, on average, every two weeks.
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3. Why are they dying?

There are all kinds of reasons why languages die. One is the physical reasons when people are affected by famine and disease and earthquake. Another is genocide, when some countries deliberately try to stamp out a small language. The main reason is globalisation. That is, there are some huge languages in the world, like English and Spanish, and Arabic and French, and these are like steamrollers crushing the smaller languages that they find in their path.
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4. Can anything be done?

A great deal can be done to preserve an endangered language. The first thing is that the people themselves must want the language to be preserved. That's very important. The second thing is the powers-that-be must want the language to be preserved. They must have a respect for the minority languages that are in their care. And the third thing that has to be there, of course, is cash. It costs quite a lot of money to preserve an endangered language. Think about it - you have to train the teachers, you have to write books for the children, and all that sort of thing. It doesn't cost an extraordinary amount of money, but it does cost a bit. So without money, endangered languages don't have a positive future.
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👆 My answer: #SST
The lecture was about dying a language, which comprised coming and going throughout the history. The spokesperson determined 6000 languages, and the essence of being seriously in danger emphasized dying out every two weeks. Although both physical reasons and genocides could be inferred from globalization and cash, the impacts of crushing smaller languages, preserving languages by intentions of people, respecting minority languages, and not having a positive future were acknowledged. 70w
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📖📖📖📖 #reading 📖📖📖📖👇

‍ RWFIB 818. Black Plant Life Could Thrive on Other Planets
زندگی گیاهان سیاه می تواند در سیارات دیگر رشد و پرورش مناسب کند (رونق بگیرد)
ریدینگ اپیونی (غیرامتحان/تمرینی) Apeuni437
Photosynthetic plants on other planets that revolve around different kinds of suns could be mostly gray or black. Cynthia Graber reports

Full Transcript :
Most plants capture sunlight. And the results are usually green. Because in photosynthesis, plant chlorophyll uses wavelengths of blue and our sun’s abundant red, and reflects green. But what if—as many sci-fi scenarios suggest—there’s an Earth-like planet with multiple suns? Researchers at England’s University of Saint Andrews say that photosynthetic life on such a planet might end up as a drab black or gray. Or even with a high SPF.

A quarter of all stars like our sun actually exist in multi-star systems. Plants on a planet with two sunlike stars could need protection against too much radiation—they might evolve their own UV-blocking sunscreens.

Or a planet with two stars may have one sun-like star, along with a red dwarf star that’s also common in multi-star systems. Any photosynthetic life would be adapted to take advantage of the available light waves.

Plants that relied at times mostly on the dim red dwarf might need light from all across the visible spectrum. They wouldn’t reflect any wavelengths, so they'd appear black. These ideas were presented at the current Royal Astronomical Society meeting. So for healthy eating on some other planets, try the leafy dark salad.
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🟢 #collocation
capture sunlight, plant chlorophyll, wavelengths of blue, many sci-fi scenarios, an Earth-like planet, England's University of, photosynthetic life, a drab black, a high SPF, A quarter of all stars, multi-star systems, sunlike stars, protection against/from, a red dwarf star, take advantage of, the available light waves, the dim red dwarf, the visible spectrum.

👇 RWFIB 821. Future of Science Coverage
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‍ RWFIB 821. Future of Science Coverage
آینده پوشش علمی
سوال ریدینگ اپیونی (غیرامتحان/تمرینی) Apeuni471
At the World Conference of Science Journalists in London last week, outgoing Scientific American Editor in Chief John Rennie talked to writers about the future of what they do, remarks that also pertain to this podcast. Steve Mirsky reports

Full Transcript :
At the World Conference of Science Journalists last week in London, outgoing Scientific American Editor in Chief John Rennie talked to writers about the future of what they do, remarks that also pertain to this podcast:

The question then is, how could science writing for the public possibly be better? I think there are a couple of different ideas. One of them is, maybe there should just be less of it. And because I would like to leave this room unlynched, let me amend that to say that at least there should be less of some of it. If our job is, ultimately as we see it, to try to inform the public better about science and technology, I for one think that we could all do with a lot fewer of the “what causes/cures cancer this week” story.

I think that in fact is directly related, that kind of story is really related to a different problem, which is that we have a model of following what defines science news as that 95 percent of the time it is “interesting paper that appears in prestigious journal this week.” That constitutes science news. Except that we’re all smart enough to know that that has absolutely nothing to do with how science works. That has to do with how publishing works. That’s what did they put into press this week.

Science actually doesn’t change when one, new important paper comes out. We all know that. The reality of science is it takes time for science to play itself out. When interesting new results come in, they’re tested and they’re confirmed and people rework them. One paper can be the landmark that starts to affect some of that, but the reality is the actual change in the science follows that often by a considerable amount of time. Sometimes long after we’ve actually written the big headlines about the exciting, dramatic, revolutionary change of whatever has come about because of something.

And I think that’s something that I don’t have a particular prescription on all of this. But I really think this comes down to why it is that we have a responsibility as editors to try to rethink what counts as science news.
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🟢 #collocation
a couple of different ideas, be less of it, to inform the public better, all do with, that kind of story, a different problem, science news, interesting paper, prestigious journal, nothing to do with, coming out new important paper , takes time, play itself out, interesting new results, a considerable amount of time, the big headlines, a particular prescription on, have a responsibility as editors,
the exciting, dramatic, revolutionary change.

‍ RWFIB 822. A Little Yolk for Boys
یک زرده کوچکتر (کمتر) (تخم مارمولک) برای پسر شدن نوزاد
سوال مشترک ریدینگ اپیونی (غیرامتحان/تمرینی) و HIW (امتحان)
When it comes to lizard sex, size does matter. But not in the way you might think. Because in the June 4th online issue of the journal Current Biology, scientists say that for at least one type of lizard, larger eggs are more likely to make girls while smaller eggs yield boys.
For many animals, the sex of an individual is dictated solely by its chromosomes. But for small alpine lizards, gender isn't so cut-and-dried. The scientists had earlier found that nest temperature can influence the sex of lizard hatchlings. Cooler nests turn out more boys—no matter what their chromosomes say. At the same time, the researchers noticed that larger eggs seemed to make more daughters. But they wanted to put their observation to the test. So they took big eggs and removed some yolk—and, voila, they made males. Adding yolk to a little egg was a recipe for a female.
This egg size manipulation might allow moms to balance their babies' sexes when a chilly nest would otherwise produce mostly sons. Because when it comes to alpine lizards, sex determination all comes down to a practical yolk.

#RWFIB Apeuni483: scientists chromosomes influence daughters manipulation determination practical.
#HIW Apeuni121: scientists influence chromosomes manipulation otherwise determination.

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🟢 #vocabulary :

🔸 lizard sex= gender جنسیت مارمولک
🔸 size does matter
اندازه تخم (گذاشته شده) مارمولک مهم است
🔸 cut and dried adj.
a situation, decision, result etc that is cut and dried cannot now be changed.
(تصمیم، شرایط و اوضاع) غیر قابل تغییر. (نتایج) از قبل معلوم و قابل پیش بینی. (شغل) کسل کننده.
🔸 hatchling
نوزاد، جوجه سراز تخم دراورده، جانور تازه متولد. جوجه.
🔸 voila (voilà) /vwɑːˈlɑː/ interjection
used when you are showing or telling someone something surprising.
(فرانسه، حرف ندا) این است!، بفرمایید!، ببینید!، آن است! این جا هست...

🔸a practical yolk
یک زرده بدرد بخور

🟢 #collocation :
make girls, the sex of an individual, is dictated solely by, nest temperature, Cooler nests, larger eggs , made males, size manipulation, balance their babies' sexes, a chilly nest, produce sons, sex determination.