In today's news, with Nancy and Trevor:

Citizen scientists, art on money, and a bigger sun.

Stay tuned and we'll tell you more about these stories, coming up next!

________________________________

號召公民科學家

"Citizen Scientists" Help Termite Study

Would you like to be a scientist when you grow up?

How about starting now?

Researchers at National Chung Hsing University were working on an important project.

They wanted to learn more about termites (白蟻).

They wanted to know which types of termites did the most damage (損害) to buildings in Taiwan.

To do this, they would have to catch termites that were living in buildings.

But they couldn't go into people's homes to do their work.

So they asked for people's help.

They put out a call for "citizen scientists" (公民科學家).

They asked these citizen scientists to catch termites.

The researchers also set up a website (網站).

People can record the time and place where they caught the termite.

They can then send the termites to the university.

More than 200 citizen scientists sent termite samples (樣本) to the university.

The researchers got more than 3,000 termite samples.

All this helped the researchers learn something important.

They found that the termites that did the most damage to buildings are the Formosan termite, and the Asian subterranean termite.

分析樣本以後，研究人員發現危害臺灣建築物最嚴重的是臺灣家白蟻與格斯特家白蟻。

This helped them come up with better ways to stop the termites and protect buildings.

________________________________

阿根廷藝術家用紙鈔作畫

Argentine Artist Paints on Money

Artists sometimes make money through their artwork.

But what if their artwork IS money?

Sergio Guillermo Diaz paints on banknotes (紙鈔).

The artist from Argentina paints pictures on the country's money, "pesos" (比索).

Sergio has painted movie characters on $2 and $5 peso bills.

He has even painted soccer star Lionel Messi lifting the World Cup on a $10 peso bill.

Why not just use normal paper?

Sergio says the peso bills are not worth much (價值低).

He says once he paints on the money, he can sell it for much more.

There's a bigger picture here (完整情況、主要的事情).

In the past few years, Argentina's money has lost a lot of value.

This is because of inflation (通貨膨脹).

It's when the cost of things go up.

Inflation happens for many reasons.

But inflation in Argentina has been made worse by world events, like the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Now, a $1,000 peso bill is worth around just $170 NT.

And that $1,000 peso bill is not enough to buy a combo meal at a fast food restaurant, which costs around $1,500 pesos.

阿根廷公布的11月通膨年增率，已升至92.4％，成為全球通膨最嚴重的國家之一。

Sergio says his art shows how inflation affects the lives of Argentinians.

________________________________

全年看太陽最大的「近日點」

Earth's Closest Point to the Sun

We've had some cold weather recently.

So you may be surprised to know…

Our planet was closest to the Sun last week.

The Earth orbits (地球公轉) once around the Sun every year.

And Thursday last week, the Earth was at the place in its orbit that brings it closest to the Sun.

That point is called "perihelion" (近日點).

「近日點」是一年中地球最接近太陽的位置，也是全年中太陽看起來最大的一天。

Perihelion comes around about two weeks after December solstice (冬至、至日).

This year, it happened on January 5th, shortly after 12 AM.

At that time, Earth was about 147,000,000 kilometers from the Sun.

And to us, the Sun looked about 11 percent bigger than usual.

________________________________

So, in today's News Bites:

Researchers wanted to know which types of termites did the most damage to buildings in Taiwan.

So they asked citizen scientists to catch termites and send the termites to the university.

This helped researchers come up with better ways to stop the termites and protect buildings.

________________________________

Argentinian artist Sergio Guillermo Diaz paints on banknotes.

Sergio says the peso bills are not worth much.

He says once he paints on the money, he can sell it for much more.

________________________________

And,

Thursday last week, the Earth was at the place in its orbit that brings it closest to the Sun.

That point is called "perihelion".

Perihelion comes around about two weeks after December solstice.

________________________________

And that's all for today's episode of News Bites!