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英语长篇文章1Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability. People with autism have trouble communicating and with social skills. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the person also might repeat some behaviors and not want change in their daily activities. Some people with the condition need a lot of help. Others need less.
自闭症谱系障碍是一种发育障碍。自闭症患者在沟通和社交能力上存在障碍。美国疾病控制和预防中心表示，患者还可能会重复某些行为，并且不希望改变他们的日常生活。有些患者需要大量帮助，还有些患者则不太需要帮助。
CDC officials say autism affects one in every 68 children in the United States. More boys than girls are believed to have the condition. But the number of cases appears to be growing. It is unclear whether the growing number shows a real increase or comes from more knowledge about this disorder.
美国疾病控制和预防中心表示，美国每68名儿童中就有一名儿童受自闭症影响。据认为这类患者中男孩比女孩多。但病例数似乎越来越多。目前尚不清楚这一数字增长是表明着患者确实增加，还是源自于对这种疾病认识的增长。
Symptoms of autism
自闭症的症状
Common signs of autism include trouble making eye contact and a delay in learning how to speak. Some people with severe autism never learn how to talk. Many people with autism also have difficulty understanding facial expressions and the feelings of others. They also have trouble making friends of the same age.
自闭症的常见症状包括眼神接触障碍以及学说话推迟。有些严重的自闭症患者从未学会说话。许多自闭症患者还很难理解面部表情和他人感受。他们在与同龄人交友上也存在障碍。
Doctors have learned how to recognize autism, but much is still unknown about its causes.
医生已经学会如何识别自闭症，但关于其成因尚有很多未知数。
Researchers at Harvard University have come closer to finding answers. They found that women exposed to the highest levels of fine particulate air pollution late in their pregnancies are two times more likely to give birth to a child with autism. The findings appeared in Environmental Health Perspectives -- a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
哈佛大学的研究人员已经接近于找到真相。他们发现，在怀孕后期暴露于高水平细颗粒物空气污染中的女性生下自闭症儿童的可能性翻了两倍。这一研究结果发表在美国环境健康科学研究所发行的《环境健康展望》刊物上。
Marc Weisskopf led the Harvard researchers. Mr. Weisskopf studies environmental conditions that cause sickness, developmental disabilities and deaths. He and his team studied women who were late in their pregnancies, shortly before they gave birth. In all, they examined medical records from all 50 U.S. states for about 116,000 mothers and their children.
马克?韦斯科普夫领导着这些哈佛研究人员。韦斯科普夫先生从事导致疾病、发育性残疾和死亡的环境状况方面的研究。他和他的团队研究了怀孕后期即将生产的女性。他们一共检查了来自美国50个州的11.6万份母婴医疗记录。
The study found that the women who were around high levels of fine particulate matter air pollution were at highest risk of having an autistic child. The increased risk of these women was two times that of women who lived in areas with low levels of fine particulate pollution.
研究发现，接触高水平细颗粒物空气污染的女性生下自闭症儿童的风险最高。与居住在低水平细颗粒物污染地区的女性相比，这些女性的风险增加了两倍。
The researchers found that the timing of exposure to pollution was important. They found no increased risk of autism in children whose mothers were around high levels of pollution before becoming pregnant. And the study found air pollution does not seem to increase the risk of children developing autism after they are born.
研究人员发现，暴露于污染的时机非常重要。他们发现，在怀孕前接触高污染的母亲生下自闭症儿童的风险没有增加。该研究还发现，空气污染似乎并未增加出生后儿童患上自闭症的风险。
Marc Weisskopf says this finding does not prove there is a direct link between pollution and autism. But, he adds, it has ratcheted up, or increased, his team's confidence that there is a relationship between the two.
韦斯科普夫表示，这一研究结果表并不能证明污染和自闭症之间有直接联系。但他补充道，该研究结果提升了他的团队对两者之间存在联系的信心。
"Finding an association like this that's very specific in time rules out a lot of other possible explanations for that. So, it really ratchets up the strength of our confidence that we've got something really related to the air pollution here."
他说，“找到这样一种时机非常具体的关联排除了其它很多可能的解释。所以，它增加了我们的信心，让我们相信我们已经找到一些确实涉及空气污染的东西。”
What can pregnant women do?
孕妇该怎么做呢?
Mr. Weisskopf says pregnant women should avoid air pollution as much as possible. But he warns that other things may increase the risk of autism spectrum disorder.
韦斯科普夫先生表示，孕妇应该尽可能避免接触空气污染。但他警告说，其它情况也可能会增加自闭症谱系障碍的风险。
"You can avoid being in extremely polluted cities during pregnancy if possible. You can also choose to go running in a park rather than next to a street. But that said, I think also it's very important to recognize that autism spectrum disorders is a very multi-factorial disorder. And there are lots of reasons why risk could be increased."
他说，“如果可能，你可以避免在孕期置身于极度污染的城市。你也可以选择在公园而不是街道边跑步。话虽如此，我认为还得认识到，自闭症谱系障碍是一种非常多因素的疾病。可能增加患病风险的原因也非常多。”
Autism is believed to result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors.
据认为自闭症是环境和遗传因素两者的联合产物。
Autism Speaks is an organization that helps families with autistic children. Paul Wang is head of medical research at Autism Speaks. He says the findings are very compelling. He notes that during the last three months of pregnancy, the brain of the fetus develops very quickly. He says the study does not change his group's main suggestion: focus on treatment and educational therapies.
自闭症之声( )是一家帮助自闭症儿童家庭的组织。保罗?王是自闭症之声的医学研究负责人。他说，这一研究结果非常引人注目。他指出，在孕期最后三个月，胎儿的脑部发育极快。他说，这项研究并未改变该组织的重要建议：专注于治疗和教育疗法。
"For parents of children who have already been diagnosed, the focus should continue to be on treatment for them, on the behavioral, educational therapies that are available and that we know can help kids who are diagnosed with autism."
他说，“对已经确诊儿童的父母来说，重点应该是继续对他们进行治疗，继续采用已有的行为和教育疗法，我们知道这些可以帮助被诊断患有自闭症的孩子。”
For now, Marc Weisskopf says researchers are trying to identify the exact substances in air pollution that increase the risk of autism.
韦斯科普夫表示，目前研究人员正在试图鉴定空气污染中会增加自闭症风险的确切物质。
英语长篇文章2Popular physics has enjoyed a new-found regard. Now comes a brave attempt to inject mathematics into an otherwise fashionable subject
科普物理再次得到新的关注。如今，学者大胆的尝试将数学引入另外一个流行学科;
The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen. By Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw.
量子宇宙：一切可能发生的的确发生。布莱恩·考克斯和杰夫·福肖著。
Previously the preserve of dusty, tweed-jacketed academics, physics has enjoyed a surprising popular renaissance over the past few years. In America Michio Kaku, a string theorist, has penned several successful books and wowed television and radio audiences with his presentations on esoteric subjects such as the existence of wormholes and the possibility of alien life. In Britain Brian Cox, a former pop star whose music helped propel Tony Blair to power, has become the front man for physics, which recently regained its status as a popular subject in British classrooms, an effect many attribute to Mr Cox's astonishing appeal.
从前的学者保持着蓬头垢面、身着花呢夹克的形象。在过去几年里，物理学迎来了惊人的全面复兴。在美国，弦论学家米奇霍·卡库创作出数本反响不错的书。他对诸如虫洞及外星生命存在的可能性等小众课题的介绍赢得了电视观众和电台听众的赞赏。在英国，其作品曾帮助托尼·布莱尔登上大宝的前流行歌星布莱恩·考克斯，现在成了物理学的领军人物。近来物理学在英国学生中再次获得了受欢迎的科目的地位。产生这样的效果很大程度上归功于考克斯先生惊人的感召力。
Mr Cox, a particle physicist, is well-known as the presenter of two BBC television series that have attracted millions of viewers (a third series will be aired next year) and as a bestselling author and public speaker. His latest book, “The Quantum Universe”, which he co-wrote with Jeff Forshaw of the University of Manchester, breaks the rules of popular science-writing that were established over two decades ago by Stephen Hawking, who launched the modern genre with his famous book, “A Brief History of Time”.
粒子物理学家考克斯先生，因推荐了两部吸引了数百万观众的BBC电视剧而知名(第三部将于明年开播)。他同样是畅销书作者兼公开演讲家。他的新书《量子宇宙》，是由他和曼彻斯特大学的杰夫·福索合著的。该书打破了20年前由史蒂芬·霍金创立的科普写作规范。霍金以其著作《时间简史》开创了这一现代写作流派。
Mr Hawking's literary success was ascribed to his eschewing equations. One of his editors warned him that sales of the book would be halved by every equation he included; Mr Hawking inserted just one, E=mc2, and, even then, the volume acquired a sorry reputation for being bought but not read. By contrast, Mr Cox, whose previous book with Mr Forshaw investigated “Why does E=mc2?” (2009), has bravely sloshed a generous slug of mathematics throughout his texts.
霍金在文学上的成功归因于他避开了方程式。一位编辑曾警告他，每个写进书中的方程式都会让销量减半。霍金就插了一个：E=Mc2。即使那样，让人感到遗憾的是，该书是靠购买量而非阅读量赢得声誉。相比之下，在上一本旨在探寻“为什么是E=Mc2”(2009)的书中，考克斯与福索就已经大胆地通篇砍掉冗长的数学公式。
The difficulties in explaining physics without using maths are longstanding. Einstein mused, “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility,” and “the fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.” Yet the language in which the world is described is that of maths, a relatively sound grasp of which is needed to comprehend the difficulties that physicists are trying to resolve as well as the possible solutions. Mr Cox has secured a large fan base with his boyish good looks, his happy turns of phrase and his knack for presenting complex ideas using simple analogies. He also admirably shies away from dumbing down. “The Quantum Universe” is not a dry undergraduate text book, but nor is it a particularly easy read.
不用数学解释物理知识所造成的困难由来已久。爱因斯坦语重心长地说过：“世间永恒的神秘在于它的可了解性。”“可以了解这一事实本身就是一个奇迹。”然而，用于描述世界的语言就是数学。在理解物理学家试图解决的困难及可能的解决方案时，数学是一个相对合理的必要的抓手。凭借其大男孩般的优质外表、习语的运用、简单类比解释复杂概念的窍门，考克斯拥有了一大帮粉丝。他同时成功避免过度简化。《量子宇宙》非一本干巴巴的大学教材，但也不是特别容易读懂。
The subject matter is hard. Quantum mechanics, which describes in subatomic detail a shadowy world in which cats can be simultaneously alive and dead, is notoriously difficult to grasp. Its experiments yield bizarre results that can be explained only by embracing the maths that describe them, and its theories make outrageous predictions (such as the existence of antimatter) that have nevertheless later been verified. Messrs Cox and Forshaw say they have included the maths “mainly because it allows us to really explain why things are the way they are. Without it, we should have to resort to the physicist-guru mentality whereby we pluck profundities out of thin air, and neither author would be comfortable with guru status.”
有关物质的课题是艰涩的。众所周知，用于详细描述原子内部这个猫亦生亦死的虚无世界的量子力学很难领会。要解释实验产生的奇异结果，只能运用描述这些结果的数学。虽然量子力学理论对诸如反物质的存在所做出的预测是匪夷所思的，但这些预测后来得到了证实。考克斯和福索称他们之所以在书中加入数学主要是因为数学让我们真正去解释为什么事物是以这样一种方式存在。没了数学，我们不得不依靠物理大师般的心智，由是，我们凭空捏造出奥义，而任何一个作者都不会对这样的大师头衔心安理得。
That stance might comfort the authors, but to many readers they will nonetheless seem to pluck equations out of thin air. Yet their decision to include some of the hard stuff leaves open the possibility that some readers might actually engage in the slog that leads to higher pleasures. For non-sloggers alternative routes are offered: Messrs Cox and Forshaw use clockfaces to illustrate how particles interact with one another, a drawing of how guitar strings twang and a photograph of a vibrating drum. A diagram, rather than an equation, is used to explain one promising theory of how matter acquires mass, a question that experiments on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, will hopefully soon answer.
这样的立场也许会使作者感觉不错，但对很多读者来说，他们似乎还是想凭空弄出方程式。作者决定加入一些生涩的东西，这样就给一些苦心钻研并从中获得更多快感的读者留下了余地。他们还为一般读者提供了另一条途径：考克斯和福索以表盘为例说明粒子是如何相互作用的，一副有关吉他琴弦如何发出声音的图画，一张振动的鼓的照片。他们用图表，而非公式去解释物质是如何获得质量这一前沿理论。在邻近日内瓦的粒子物理实验室，即欧洲核子研究委员会的巨型强子对撞机上进行的实验产生的这个问题有望很快得出答案。
The authors have wisely chosen to leaven their tome with amusing tales of dysfunctional characters among scholars who developed quantum mechanics in the 1920s and beyond, as well as with accounts of the philosophical struggles with which they grappled and the occasional earthy aside. Where the subject matter is a trifle dull, Messrs Cox and Forshaw acknowledge it: of Heinrich Kayser, who a century ago completed a six-volume reference book documenting the spectral lines generated by every known element, they observe, “He must have been great fun at dinner parties.” And they make some sweeping generalisations about their colleagues who pore over equations, “Physicists are very lazy, and they would not go to all this trouble unless it saved time in the long run.”
为了加强这个大部头的影响力，两位作者明智地选择了一些有趣的段子：在20世纪20年代以及更早时候发展量子力学的学者的怪癖;他们设法解决的哲学问题;间或出现的通俗旁白。有关物质的课题是枯燥的，考克斯和福索承认：海因里希·凯瑟在一个世纪前完成了6部用以证明光谱是由每个已知元素产生的参考著作，据他们观察，“他肯定在晚宴上很开心。”他们也对专注方程式的同事进行了高度概括：“物理学家非常懒惰，除非从长远看这节约时间，他们不会招惹这些麻烦”。
Whether or not readers of “The Quantum Universe” will follow all the maths, the authors' love for their subject shines through the book. “There is no better demonstration of the power of the scientific method than quantum theory,” they write. That may be so, but physicists all over the world, Messrs Cox and Forshaw included, are longing for the next breakthrough that will supersede the claim. Hopes are pinned on experiments currently under way at CERN that may force physicists to rethink their understanding of the universe, and inspire Messrs Cox and Forshaw to write their next book—equations and all.
不论《量子宇宙》的读者是否会关注所有与之相关的数学知识，作者对专业的热爱贯穿整部作品。他们写道：“没有比量子理论更能展现科学方法的力量。”也许吧。但包括考克斯和福索在内的所有物理学家都渴望有新的突破去取代这一论断。大家寄希望于目前在欧洲核子研究委员会进行的实验，该实验也许会迫使物理学家重新思考他们对宇宙的理解，并激励考克斯和福索写下一本书——方程式及所有其它的。
英语长篇文章3Science and technology
Air travel
Preparing for take-off
A cheaper, cleaner way for the long taxi to the runway
ENGINES on airliners are highly efficient when they are in flight, but not when operating on the ground.
When a plane is taxiing under its own power, the engines burn vast amounts of fuel.
A Boeing 747 can consume a tonne of fuel and emit several tonnes of carbon dioxide during an average 17-minute taxi to take-off.
And when the aircraft lands there is likely to be another long drive to the passenger gate.
Which is why there are various methods being developed for aircraft to use other means of propulsion while moving around an airport.
Towing aircraft with a tug, similar to how they are pushed back from the gate, is one way.
But constantly pulling on the front landing gear can lead to mechanical problems.
Many pilots would also prefer to be in control of the driving once their aircraft is on the taxiway.
One method that addresses both concerns is a semi-robotic tug called TaxiBot, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries.
Instead of using a tow bar attached to the aircraft's nose wheel, TaxiBot employs a mechanism which automatically scoops the wheel up into a rotating turret.
The TaxiBot also avoids having any complicated links to connect to the cockpit, yet still gives the pilots driving control.
It does this by accelerating to the speed set for the taxiway, using its inbuilt GPS map system.
The pilots then use their usual controls to steer with the nose wheel and to brake with the main landing gear.
A safety driver remains in the TaxiBot, and he also drives the vehicle to and from the aircraft.
With the high price of aviation fuel—a tonne can cost more than $1,000—the savings at a busy airport could be large.
At some airports the passenger gates can be several miles from the runway.
All told, the world's airlines spend $7 billion-8 billion a year taxiing between passenger gates and the runway, says Yehoshua Eldar, who is in charge of business development at IAI.
The TaxiBot, though, uses just 20-30 litres of fuel for a typical trip.
It also reduces the risk of debris being ingested by the engines and causing damage.
Germany's Lufthansa will trial the system at Frankfurt Airport from May 2013.
In the future some airliners may be driven to and from the runway with electric power.
The German Aerospace Centre has tested this idea in an aircraft using a fuel cell to power two electric motors built into the hub of an aircraft nose wheel.
The centre reckons that up to 19% of current airport emissions could be saved using such a system.
And it would also please the neighbours: there would be hardly any noise during taxiing.
