李老師陪你探索英文世界 Exploring English with Ms. Lee

Recently a group of archeologists discovered a painting on a wall of a cave on an island of Indonesia. The painting depicts a boar, a wild pig, and three human shape figures. Because of its age, it’s hard to see clearly, but it looks like the humans are hunting the pig. Scientists believe the painting might be more than 51000 years old. They are thrilled about the finding because the drawing appears to be telling a story. So even in prehistoric times, our ancestors had this inborn desire to tell stories and think in creative ways. The discovery might also change our idea toward evolution and how humans have changed over thousands of years ago.

What’s the worst nightmare that parents might have when taking their kids to a museum? Off the top of my head, it will be accidentally damaging a piece of priceless artwork or artifact 有歷史價值的手工藝品 and that’s exactly what happened to a family in Israel. Anna Geller and her husband took their three kids on a museum trip one day in early September. Their four-year-old son, Ariel, was looking at a 3500-year-old jar from the Bronze Age and when Anna looked away for a second, she immediately heard a loud boom sound. Then she saw Ariel standing next to a pile of broken jar pieces, looking absolutely fear-stricken 受挫的，因為恐懼而受挫 The jar was the one of the only containers of its size from that period that was discovered intact. It may date back to 2200 BC. Ariel’s dad said that Ariel was exceptionally curious and the moment he heard the crashing sound, he was praying really hard that it wasn’t Ariel. Unfortunately his prayer wasn’t answered. Upon discovering that their son had damaged the artifact, Anna and Alex first tried to calm Ariel down and then approached the security guard to own up to 面對their mistake. After checking the surveillance camera監視器and making sure it was not an act of vandalism, the museum decided to turn this disaster into a teachable moment and invite the family back again. This time, they joined an organized tour and learned about the restoration process behind the artifacts. The restoration 修復 expert behind putting the jar back said that artifacts should still remain accessible to the public even though accidents may happen. He said, “I like that people touch. Don’t break, but to touch things, it’s important.”

Faced with aging and declining population, the Chinese government is doing everything they can to coax women into motherhood. Mr. Xi, the leader of China, has repeatedly said that promoting childbirth is a national priority which ensures that women “always walk with the party”. According to a China correspondent working for the New York Times, the measures taken by the government have been quite invasive, including sending officials going door-to-door to ask women about their plans, and sometimes even the date of their last menstrual cycle. We all know that this is not the first time for the communist party to impose its will on women’s reproductive rights. However, the in-your-face approach taken by the ruling party might have backfired this time. Most women believe that whether to have kids is a private decision. And nagging at women is just not going to cut it now.

As autumn is in full swing, flu, COVID season comes on the heels of it. The CDC of the US says while there’s evidence showing rampant COVID cases, the current variant, an offshoot of omicron, is not causing an increase in serious illnesses and deaths. One more welcome news on the vaccine front is that a group of scientists in University of Texas may have discovered the antibody that will rein in every known form of coronavirus variants. They are now working to mass manufacture the new vaccine. With this breakthrough, more lives will be spared against future spikes of the virus.

Imagine being the first human to see things that others in the world have never seen and trying to convince others around him that the invisible organisms are real. That person is Anthony van Leeuwenhoek. Leeuwenhoek was born in 1632 in the city of Delft, Netherlands. By day, he made a living by selling clothes. By night, he made lenses used in microscopes and telescopes, which were invented by fellow Dutch during his times. Unlike others in this field, Leeuwenhoek never went to university, was not a trained scientist. Despite the lack of training, he taught himself to make lenses with a skill that no one else could match. His lenses could magnify objects up to 270 times. In his day, his instruments were unrivaled. But Leeuwenhoek was not just a good microscope maker, he was also an outstanding microscopist. Even though he was an amateur, he conducted his experiments with scientific methods. He was incredibly curious about everything around him. One day, his curiosity took him to explore one drop of lake water. What he saw took him by surprise. That one drop of water was teeming with life. He became the first person to see microorganisms. From then on, almost every thing he saw, he became the first human to see it. By the time he died at the age of 90, he, an amateur, had become one of the Royal Society’s most famous members. Due to his suspicious attitude, he never shared or taught his lens-making technique to anyone. In one letter, he complained that students were more interested in money or reputation than making discoveries. His bias almost destroyed his legacy because when others looked through their inferior microscopes, they saw nothing, so the interest in microbiology declined. It would be a century and a half later until new discoveries were again made in the field of microbes.

Stonehenge （巨石陣）is probably the most famous prehistoric structure in England. It is a collection of enormous rectangular stones arranged in a circle in an open field south of London. Archeologists say that Stonehenge was built over 5000 years ago, made up of 800 gigantic rocks. Some weigh more than two African elephants put together. To this day, historians still don’t know how the rocks were moved there. There were no trucks, cranes (起重機）available 5000 years ago to transport the enormous rocks to the field. Geologists believe most of the rocks are from a quarry（採石場） 200 miles away. Recently they discovered one of them is actually transported from Scotland, which is 400 miles away. Historians think whoever built it probably moved the rocks over water, be it by the sea or the ocean. It’s the most probable explanation.

When asked what he uses to write, to doodle, to take note, the AI poster boy, Sam Altman actually prefers the pen, even recommending several pens to a podcast host that interviewed him recently. Even though computer keyboards and tablets may dominate our lives, scientists are actually telling us not to write off pens and note pads just yet because the pen is still mightier than the keyboard . For one thing, tablets and notebook computers create ample opportunities to be distracted. How many of you will switch to FB, IG when you are in a dull lecture? Moreover taking notes by hand will slow down the process of note taking, which is what makes it more useful in the long run. People who take longhand notes have to be very selective since they can’t write down everything they heard, so that extra time of processing information is beneficial to your cognitive learning. You can remember conceptual information better. Therefore, students who take notes by hand tend to be able to retain more knowledge and perform better on exams than those who simply type in what they hear onto the keyboard because those working on paper have to execute the preliminary stage第一階段的of summarizing and comprehension. In contrast, those working on keyboard tend to just type in everything they heard without digesting first. Some neuroscientists even go as far to suggest that giving up writing may affect how next generation learns to read.

Have you heard of an exoplanet called HD 187933 b? Don’t worry if you haven’t**, **because neither have I. You might wonder what an exoplanet is. An exoplanet is a planet outside our solar system. HD 187933 b is very far away from us. In fact it will take 200,000 years to get there by rocket. To the human eye, this planet looks like Earth with its bright blue color, but it’s extremely inhospitable. First because of its close distance to its sun, the planet is scorching hot. And if you are caught in the rain, it will definitely kill you because when it rains, it’s not water. Instead, it’s liquid glass. To make the living condition even more dire is its wind blows up to seven times the speed of sound. And just when you think the situation cannot get any worse, here’s one more to the list. Recently astronomers figured out there’s hydrogen sulfide in its atmosphere, so the planet reeks of rotten egg stench.

Wi-Fi is now essential to every modern person’s life, but have you heard of Li-Fi. It’s been boasted as the new technology that could rock the world of the Internet. Li-Fi stands for light fidelity. Instead of using radio waves to transmit information like Wi-Fi, Li-Fi uses light waves, which makes the process faster and more secure. How does Li-Fi work? With this technology, your Internet would actually be transmitted through LED light bulbs, which would also provide the sources of light. So you basically kill two birds with one stone. Another advantage of Li-Fi is that it’s immune to occasional interference from other radio signals that can sometimes disrupt Wi-Fi. Naturally being man-made, it’s far from perfect. Unlike Wi-Fi, which can pass through walls, Li-Fi is limited to the room you are in because the devices have to be able to catch the light. Due to this limitation, it’s still too early to say whether it will replace Wi-Fi.

So not just young people in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan don’t want to have kids, so do those in the US. In fact, fertility rates are declining throughout the developed world, and the decline in the US actually accelerated after 2008. Last year, the fertility rate dipped to 1.6 births per 1,000 women, a historic low. One of the reasons is that young people want to reach a certain level of financial stability before starting a family. Unfortunately, this has become increasingly harder because of the rise of mortgage rates and childcare costs. Moreover many young people are growing more pessimistic about the future of the world due to climate change, gun violence, and the recent pandemic. According to one social scientist who has interviewed many young people, they view having children as a decision you can make when you are ready, so they are reluctant to enter parenthood if they can’t provide their children with what they think is necessary. So stop accusing them of being selfish when they say they don’t want or are not ready to have kids.