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This is Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.
More than 18 million children were born in Chinese hospitals last year, an increase of 11 percent from 2015. More than 45 percent of the newborns were not the first child of the family.
Last year, China saw the largest number of newborns since 2000, following the abolition of the decades-long one-child policy.
Moreover, the health authority reports that the maternal and infant mortality rates also dropped last year.
China has pledged to improve maternal and child care services by increasing the number of obstetricians, midwives and hospital beds.
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China will host a United Nations meeting on fighting desertification in September.
An estimated 1,400 delegates from around 200 parties to a United Nations special convention on desertification will participate in the event. They will gather in Ordos in north China&`&s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for the meeting.
The participants will discuss their national goals and action plans to achieve zero net land degradation by 2030.
China&`&s desertified areas were greatly reduced in the period between 2009 and 2014.
According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, 12 million hectares of land are lost to desertification every year across the globe. And the figure could rise due to population growth, climatic reasons and unsustainable farming practices.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
More than 100 golf courses have been banned in China, as part of its efforts to clamp down on illegal use of land and water resources.
Of the total 680 golf courses across China, 110 have been closed since a national project was launched in 2011.
Among their illicit behavior, these golf courses were found to have illegally used large amounts of arable land or nature reserve areas, or extracted groundwater in prohibited areas.
Eighteen of the golf courses have been required to return their illegally occupied land, and another 47 have been ordered to stop business activities or construction.
The central government has ordered the rectification of the remaining 500 golf courses, of which a dozen have closed voluntarily.
China imposed a ban on the construction of new golf courses in 2004, when there were fewer than 200 in the country. However, the number continued to rise as the sport gained popularity, especially among business people and government officials.
Golf courses are seen in all provincial-level regions except Tibet.
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Moving some colleges out of central Beijing, either to the suburbs or other cities, is necessary to ease overcrowding; but experts say any new locations will have to first meet the needs of the employees.
Beijing&`&s rich education resources have long attracted large numbers of people from across China, leading to chronic congestion and putting a strain on public services.
To alleviate the problem, the city government released a five-year plan last year for education development. The plan aims in part to keep higher-education institutes small in size. It also aims to remove some university facilities from central areas.
Experts say it is imperative that some colleges and universities leave the city, but they expect it to be a long term process.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Seven hundred million Chinese people, or around half of the country&`&s total population, had used mobile phones to access the Internet as of the end of last year.
The number of people who used their mobile phones to surf online continued to increase by an annual 10 percent during the past three years.
Last year, almost 500 million people used mobile phones to make payments, an increase of 30 percent from a year earlier.
China has more than 700 million internet users, accounting for 53 percent of the total population. The user number increase is now stable after almost 10 years of fast growth.
Last year, the public used Internet-based government services more often than they used offline service centers and hotlines to access government information. Officials say this means that government information was disclosed to the public in an increasingly mobile, immediate and transparent manner.
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Surgeons in a central China hospital have succeeded in performing two complex pediatric heart surgery operations using 3D printing technology.
One of the patients was a 13-year-old girl who suffered a condition which causes her heart muscle to grow abnormally thickly. The other patient was a 3-year-old boy with severe left ventricular outflow tract obstructions.
Complexity was involved in both cases. Doctors at the hospital used a 3D printer to produce full-size replicas of the patients&`& hearts. The models allowed doctors to carefully study the condition and plan the operations.
The surgery was successful and the patients are recovering.
The event marked the first time that 3D printing technology was used in Hunan Province for pediatric cardiovascular surgery.
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Shanghai police have detained a gang of 83 people for faking auctions with illegal gains of 6 million yuan, roughly 870,000 U.S. dollars.
The suspects charged antique owners high commission fees for fake auctions. They then told the clients that their auction items remained unsold.
The suspects were also found to have issued fake authentication certificates and charged very high fees.
Police started investigating the case in July last year when three fake auctions were discovered in the city.
Around 100 people had been captured as of mid-December, with 83 of them facing criminal charges.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at [email protected]. That&`&s [email protected]. Now the news continues.
A teenage pop star from China, Wang Yuan, has addressed a United Nations youth forum at the UN headquarters in New York.
Wang spoke at the United Nations youth forum on Jan. 31, calling for equal access to high quality education for young people worldwide.
Wang is a member of the popular boys band TFboys. He told the crowd that China has 280 million young people, which is the second largest youth population in the world. He said he is fortunate to work with the United Nations to end poverty, promote gender equality and combat climate change.
Wang said his dream for 2030 is that every young person will have access to good quality education; and girls have the same potential to achieve amazing things as boys.
The United Nations youth forum is aimed at involving the efforts of youth to eradicate poverty and promote prosperity across the globe.
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Beijing has received more than 2 billion cubic meters of diverted water from the Yangtze River, benefiting 11 million local people.
Since it began operation in December 2014, the south-to-north water diversion project has pumped over 2 billion cubic meters of water to Beijing, with 70 percent of the water from the Yangtze River.
The water has been stored in reservoirs or is being used for groundwater, rivers and lakes.
Officials say the project is running smoothly and safely. The water supply is stable and the water quality is up to standard.
The project has greatly relieved the water shortage problems in the city. Previously, Beijing relied mainly on underground water with high calcium and magnesium salt levels.
The middle route of the diversion project transmits water through canals and pipes from a reservoir in central China&`&s Hubei Province, bringing water to northern China.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Major parks in Beijing received a record high of 460,000 visitors in a single day on January 31, the fourth day of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The visitor numbers in a dozen parks were up 14 percent year on year.
Temple fairs, cultural exhibitions and other traditional events were held in the parks to celebrate the Spring Festival.
Major parks in Beijing attracted some 1.4 million visitors during the week-long holiday.
Beijing had blue skies for most of the holiday week, after the city had seen frequent smog earlier in the winter.
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The Chinese New Year was in the beginning of spotlight at a newly-founded cultural center in Athens, as Greeks celebrated the Year of the Rooster.
On the weekend of the New Year, 40 children aged four to eight attended a craft workshop where they had the chance to make their own traditional Chinese paper kite. To many of the children, this was their first experience of Chinese culture.
Excited about their new decorative toys, the children played in the vast indoor and outdoor spaces of the cultural center, flying kites.
Adults were invited to make paper mache lanterns to take home with them, as a souvenir of their participation in the celebration. Afterwards, they decorated a wire dragon figure with paper strips and lighting, and attempted their first dragon dance. The auspicious dragon is a symbol of good luck, wisdom and power in Chinese culture.
The workshops were followed by two Chinese film screenings, with one being the 2011 martial arts drama "Dragon", and the other, "The Grand master", a 2013 film based on the life of Chinese martial-arts grand master Ip Man.
A statement from the center said that starting with the Chinese New Year celebration, its goal is to introduce a new events section to initiate visitors into foreign cultures.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
A naval ship has been found in southern Sweden some 400 years after it went missing.
The naval ship was the first to set sail from a naval base in southern Sweden in 1682 and is considered to have marked the launch of the famed shipbuilding history of the country.
With its 70 canons and 450-strong crew, the ship was used in the bombing of Copenhagen and King Karl the Twelfth&`&s landing in Denmark in 1700. Later, the ship fell into oblivion.
Last year, the area in southern Sweden where the ship was clearly marked out was located on old maps of the area.
Diving expeditions were carried out and it was confirmed that an old shipwreck was indeed buried in thick layers of sediment at the bottom of the sea.
Now, all evidence seem to point to it being a well-known warship and it seems it was deliberately sunk, with the intention of using it as a blockhouse.
However, the ship will likely not be salvaged because marine biologists cannot tell how much of the ship remains. But there is a theory that at least one deck is intact.
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A collection of over 300 works of art from Russia&`&s State Historical Museum is on display at a museum in north China&`&s Shanxi Province.
The items on display in the Shanxi Museum include oil paintings, sculptures, fashion and jewelry, as well as gold and silver ware from the 18th and 19th centuries.
The collection displays the life of the Russian people in that period. The curator of the museum says the event has helped visitors to understand Russia, as well as its culture and history.
Last November, as part of the cultural exchange program, a similar show from the province was held in Moscow.
The exhibition is free of charge and will run until May before moving on to other parts of China.
That is the end of this edition of Special English. To freshen up your memory, I&`&m going to read one of the news items again at normal speed. Please listen carefully.
That is the end of today&`&s program. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing, and I hope you will join us every day, to learn English and learn about the world.

2017-02-07 Special English
This is Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing. Here is the news.
The health authority in Beijing is studying the long-term impact of smog on people&`&s health, including the widespread concern that smog could be a cause of lung cancer.
The Beijing News reports that the Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning in Beijing has begun to study the issue.
The report said that current studies have confirmed that inhaling smog may lead to some acute diseases in people&`&s respiratory system. Long-term exposure to pollutants could cause chronic inflammation, hypo immunity and allergies. But the exact relationship of smog and lung cancer is not clear at the moment.
The commission said it will take a decade or longer to collect data before the researchers can make clear the relationship between smog and people having a certain kind of disease.
Based on previous studies on smog, the commission and the Beijing Center for Diseases Control and Prevention have issued a list of protective measures against smog. The measures urge people to stay indoors and wear masks outdoors on smoggy days.
Smog has been a frequent issue in many Chinese cities in recent years.
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China has issued a plan on medical reform targets of the next five years.
The plan covers diagnosis and treatment systems, hospital administration, medical security, medical supplies and regulatory system of the sector.
A multi-tiered diagnosis and treatment system matching China&`&s conditions should be in place by 2020. The system aims to encourage patients to go to community clinics for initial diagnosis and treatment, instead of directly going to specialized hospitals.
The plan also stressed a "streamlined and orderly" medical supply system.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
China&`&s central authority has issued a guideline on mobile Internet service management, calling for more efforts to develop the sector in a healthy manner.
The guideline calls for increasing the use of mobile Internet service in sectors including transport, tourism, education and medical service, to better serve the public.
It says mobile Internet service could play a big role in poverty relief, as it provides an efficient means to connect these regions with the outside world.
The guideline also urges cultivating an orderly environment for the development of mobile Internet service.
China will resolutely crack down on criminal activities including instigating overthrowing state power and inciting religious extremism through mobile Internet services. Promoting ethnic separatist ideology and instigating violence and terror will also be targeted.
In addition, more efforts will be made to punish those involved in defamation, telecom fraud, infringement and illegal sale of others&`& personal information.
It urges preventing and eliminating risks caused by the development of mobile Internet service to ensure security of network data, technology and apps.
The guideline also called for more efforts to be made on strengthening intellectual property protection and boosting international exchange and cooperation in the sector.
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China has established cooperation ties in science and technology with 158 countries and regions in the world.
According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, a total of 111 intergovernmental agreements on science and technology cooperation had been signed, and China had taken part in more than 200 intergovernmental organizations devoted to boosting such cooperation.
A stable intergovernmental cooperation mechanism, which covers major countries, regions and international organizations, has taken shape, contributing to the improvement of the nation&`&s capability in science and technology.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
Land-space Technology Corporation, a private aerospace company based in Beijing, said it has secured a contract with Gomspace, a Danish company, to launch a series of satellites.
The company says this is the first time for a private Chinese company to provide satellite launching services to the international market.
According to the contract, Land-space will use its rocket to put Gomspace&`&s satellites into orbit next year.
Land-space said his company could not have won recognition from the overseas client without decades of efforts by Chinese workers in the aerospace industry, which has been developing for 60 years.
The total value of the global aerospace market could hit 485 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, with the market value in China alone reaching 800 billion yuan, roughly 116 billion U.S. dollars, during the 2016-2020 period.
A scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said the aerospace industry matters not only for space exploration, but also for economic and social development; and the civil aerospace industry has great potential and will grow very quickly.
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Chinese scientists say they have built a facility that can generate the world&`&s brightest extreme ultraviolet free electron laser.
The facility in Dalian, a coastal city in northeast China, can generate 140 trillion photons per laser pulse in one picosecond.
The Dalian Coherent Light Source facility was jointly built by scientists from Dalian and Shanghai, with a total investment of 140 million yuan, roughly 20 million U.S. dollars.
The scientists say the flashes of light will illuminate new aspects of the microscopic world. The light sources are especially useful for sensitive detection of atoms, molecules and clusters.
Brightness and pulse duration of the light source are key to such detection. The brighter the light source, the more clearly people can see the small number of atoms or molecules.
The scientists say that since many physical, chemical and biological reactions happen on a time scale with a picosecond, people need high-speed "flashlights" to capture these moments to study the process.
The technology will play a unique and important role in exploring the unknown material world and promoting technological progress.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at [email protected]. That&`&s [email protected]. Now the news continues.
Renowned linguist Zhou Youguang has been remembered by Chinese Internet users since he passed away recently at age 111. Zhou is known for creating the pinyin, a system of Latin letters for reading standard Chinese.
In 1955, Zhou was an economics professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. He was asked by the central government to join a national committee to develop an accessible alphabetic writing system.
It took him and his colleagues three years to work out the system, which was adopted in 1958. Since then, the pinyin system has been used to greatly increase literacy levels across the country. It has also made it easier for foreigners to learn Chinese.
Pinyin has also facilitated the use of Chinese characters on computer keyboards and cellphones. When users entered pinyin with a keyboard, they are given choices of relevant Chinese characters.
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Traveling abroad is becoming more and more popular among the Chinese people, who are also found to have spent more on travel then just shopping. Meanwhile, female tourists outnumbered male.
According to one of the leading travel websites in China, bookings increased 34 percent last year compared to the previous year.
Chinese tourists are traveling greater distances. The top 10 choices last year included Switzerland, the United States, Germany and Australia. For 2015, the top tourist destinations are Phuket in Thailand, Cheju in South Korea, Bali in Indonesia, and Hawaii in the United States.
Last year, 62 percent of overseas travels were made by females, and the number of children doubled.
The website says the number of tourists from China&`&s first-tier cities including Beijing and Shanghai are growing at a steady pace, while those from second and third-tier cities are booming.
As more tourist destinations had become visa-free for China as of last year, the country has again ranked first-overall globally, in terms of the number of people traveling abroad, and for tourism spending.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
A new gibbon species has been discovered in southwest China&`&s Yunnan Province.
The new species is characterized by white eyebrows and is found mainly only in Yunnan Province.
Their beards are completely black or brown instead of white as seen in other gibbon species.
Chinese scientists began their research on the newly found gibbons in 2007, and a joint study by scientists from five other countries confirmed the discovery of the new species.
The gibbons inhabit at altitudes of 500 to 2,000 meters. Their total number is no more than 200.
Scientists suggest the new species should be categorized as endangered and need special conservation efforts.
Gibbons and siamangs are small apes inhabiting southern, eastern and southeastern Asia. The new species increases the number of recognized living species of the animals to 20.
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China has 50,000 medical and health institutions that offer Traditional Chinese Medicine therapies.
The State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine revealed that 40 percent of the population have access to Traditional Chinese Medicine at a local level.
The administration said that in the first nine months of last year, the average fee for traditional Chinese medicine and the per capita in-patient cost at public traditional medicine hospitals were 11 percent and 24 percent lower than treatments offered by western medicine public hospitals.
China&`&s top legislature last month adopted a law on Chinese medicine, with stricter control on the source of the medicine and qualification of doctors.
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Hong Kong actor and singer Andy Lau has been injured while filming a commercial in Thailand.
Lau was riding a horse during the shoot, and fell off the horse when the animal lost control of itself. The horse stepped on Lau&`&s back, causing spinal fractures.
The shoot was halted, and Lau was transported to a local hospital for treatment. He was then sent home on a medical plane to Hong Kong for further treatment.
Lau&`&s public relations spokesperson said they will update everyone with any new developments on the matter.
Lau was working at a scene in Khao Lak, a city three hours from the capital city of Bangkok. According to sources, there were several horses on set that day.
The 56-year-old actor has enjoyed tremendous stardom in the Chinese speaking world since the 1990s. He has been hailed as one of the "Four Kings" of showbiz in Hong Kong. Lau has been working tirelessly in multiple genres, including acting and singing.
This is the end of this edition of Special English. To freshen up your memory, I&`&m going to read one of the news items again at normal speed. Please listen carefully.
This is the end of today&`&s program. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing, and I hope you can join us every day, to learn English and learn about the world.

2017-02-06 Special English
This is Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.
Beijing is planning to equip schools with air filtration devices as the city chokes on heavy smog.
Beijing&`&s education authority has said that air purifiers will be installed in pilot primary and secondary schools and nurseries to protect students and small children from polluted air. The program is to be subsidized by the municipal government.
According to a local newspaper, some schools in the city have installed air filtration systems using donations from businesses.
A staff member in a school equipped with an air purifier system told the Beijing News that the concentration of PM2.5 had been reduced remarkably in the school after the system was set up.
Beijing has suffered heavy air pollution since winter began. To avoid polluted air, outdoor activities have been suspended in schools, nurseries and extra-curricular education institutions.
The municipal government said children&`&s health is a priority concern of education authorities. It urged schools to raise the students&`& awareness of self-protection to prepare for days with heavy pollution.
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Chinese scientists are drawing a 1:2.5 million scale map of the Moon&`&s geology.
Scientists of China&`&s lunar exploration program said five universities and research institutes from across China have set standards for digital mapping. They have begun drawing the map of the Moon&`&s geological structure.
A sketch version of the map measures around 4 by 2 meters. It will be finished by 2018, and will be released by 2020.
The map will provide information on the structure and rock types of the Moon and will reflect the timeline of the Moon&`&s evolution.
Scientists say the map will clearly show the size and appearance of the Moon and the craters on it.
Creating the map depends on data and images sent from circumlunar satellites from China and other countries.
The scientists say that a lunar map is very different from that of the Earth, where scientists can go to the spot in person to learn the details.
Through the satellites, the scientists have obtained overall images of the Moon, which contribute to the precision of the lunar maps.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
A total of one million registered domain names with Chinese characters are in use. The information was released by the China Internet Network Information Center.
The center said that at present, Chinese-character domain names can be used in mainstream browsers, search engines and input methods. This means that, for example, by inputting a Chinese-character domain name in a browser, users are able to reach a corresponding website, like with any regular English domain name.
Since domain names were created in the 1980s, they had long been formed with characters in the Roman alphabet.
The information center has called on Chinese Internet companies, including email service providers, to further promote the use of Chinese-character domain names.
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Shanghai Disney Resort is planning to expand its talent pool by partnering with local educational institutions. Shanghai Disney is Walt Disney Company&`&s latest theme park.
Walt Disney says it will sign agreements this year with 10 universities, colleges and vocational schools to launch its "Talent Class" for professional training.
Philippe Gas, general manager of Shanghai Disney Resort, says the move is part of the Disney Company&`&s goal of finally having at least 98 percent of its staff members being from the local area.
Gas says interaction with visitors is an essential part of the resort, and it relies on the company&`&s 10,000 staff members to achieve visitor satisfaction.
The training will be provided jointly by the company and the schools.
Internship opportunities are also up for grabs. Under the training, students will take on different roles including animation designers, makeup artists, accountants and mechanical technicians. Outstanding participants can apply to intern at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida in the United States, training alongside their American counterparts.
The first several schools to ink the deal include the Shanghai Polytechnic University and the Tourism College of Zhejiang.
Shanghai Disney will employ 2,000 people in full-time and part-time jobs this year, with the vacancies tailored to disabled people in China.
You are listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Toxic pollutants in the Arctic pose great health threats to polar bears, leading to brain damage in the animal.
Italian scientists analyzed the effects of persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, on species in the Arctic, and found that polar bears are exposed to greater health risks than seals. Polar bear cubs are at the highest risk.
POPs are widely used around the world in industrial production as they have been since World War II. They are toxic chemicals that have a negative impact on human health, animals and the environment. The toxins can be transported by wind and water, accumulate in the environment and pass between different species through the food chain.
In 1996, researchers in Norway observed two cases of "intersex" in polar bears. The bears were normal males by their looks but neither of them showed signs of having a Y chromosome which could determine that they were male.
Scientists believe that the number of such "intersex" polar bears may have risen as a result of hormonal disruptions caused by pollutants.
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Australia experienced its fourth-hottest year on record last year despite also having above average rainfall.
Australia&`&s Annual Climate Statement showed that the national mean temperature was 0.8 degrees Celsius above average, resulting in the nation&`&s fourth-warmest year on record.
2016 was one of the most eventful years in terms of weather in Australia.
Bushfires earlier in the year came about after a prolonged hot spell, while the end of the El Nino weather event later last year brought flooding rains for some states.
Despite being one of the warmest years in Australia&`&s history, annual rainfall last year was 17 percent above average.
Widespread, drought-breaking rains led to flooding in many states. Even northern Australia saw widespread rainfall, during what is usually the dry season, and in green regions that had been in drought for several years.
The World Meteorological Organization has announced that 2016 would likely be the warmest year on record for global mean temperatures.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at [email protected]. That&`&s [email protected]. Now the news continues.
U.S. scientists have discovered that microscopic structures within a brain region change from childhood into adulthood over a timescale that mirrors improvements in people&`&s ability to recognize faces.
The study has overturned a central thought in neuroscience. People used to believe that as humans are born with brains riddled with excess neural connections, the amount of brain tissue goes in one direction throughout their lives, from too much to just enough.
By looking at the brains of children, the team examined a region of the brain that distinguishes faces from other objects. It&`&s only in the last 10 years that psychologists started looking at children&`&s brains.
The study shows that children are not miniature adults, and that there is still a lot of very basic knowledge to be learned about the developing brain in that age range.
The study found that there are actual changes to brain tissues and the process takes place for the whole lifetime.
The study is the first to use quantitative MRI to directly assess changes in brain regions.
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Plans are being made to turn China&`&s most complete 2,000-year-old cemetery into a national park.
The tomb of the "Marquis of Haihun" near Nanchang, the capital of east China&`&s Jiangxi Province, is one of the few imperial tombs that have not been looted.
The remains of the marquis were found in a coffin in an interior chamber and hoisted out in January, last year, for lab research. More than 10,000 artifacts have so far been unearthed.
Local authorities said the design of the national park by the China Architecture Design Group has been completed.
The site, which covers over 20 square kilometers, will preserve the tomb in its original form by the side of Poyang Lake, China&`&s largest freshwater lake.
The construction, landscaping and preservation are expected to cost 1.2 billion yuan, roughly 170 million U.S. dollars. A tourist center in the park is set to open in 2019.
The marquis, Liu He, was grandson of Emperor Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty, whose reign began one of the most prosperous periods in China&`&s history.
The excavation of the tomb began in 2011. It has been recognized as a model archeological research and relic protection project. Preservation was carried out alongside the archeological excavation and an application for it to be inscribed on the UNESCO world heritage list is in the pipeline.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
The Belgian Cancer Foundation has presented a campaign to encourage Belgians not to drink alcohol during the month of February this year.
A total of 82 percent of Belgians consume alcohol, and as much as 51 percent consume more than 11 glasses per week.
According to the foundation&`&s website, the "Mineral Tour" campaign has been organized for the first time this year and it aims to raise awareness.
Candidates register to participate on Mineral Tour campaign website where they can find health information, testimonies, and advice on participating.
So far, public figures and celebrities including renowned tennis players, federal ministers, actors and actresses have confirmed their participation.
The campaign will also include charitable motifs including donation of money to the Cancer Foundation for research.
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Britain&`&s interior department says more than 200 people died in the past year after taking psychoactive drugs known as "legal highs".
The Home Office said that almost 500 people have been arrested by law enforcers since a landmark psychoactive substances law came into force six months ago which made so-called designer drugs illegal.
New powers were introduced under the new law to tackle what officials described as the menace of so-called legal highs.
Home Office figures showed that new psychoactive substances were involved in 204 deaths in Britain in the last year, an increase of 25 percent compared to the previous 12 months.
The government minister for Vulnerability, Safeguarding and Countering Extremism Sarah Newton said that new psychoactive substances are banned because they are not safe, and can devastate lives and are not tolerated in the country.
Police forces have stopped 330 shops across Britain from selling the substances since the new law came into force.
Police Commander Simon Bray, from the National Police Chief&`&s Council, said the Psychoactive Substances Act has fundamentally changed the way police tackle the supply and distribution of dangerous drugs.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
American students have a math problem. The latest global snapshot of student performance shows declining math scores in the United States and stagnant performance in science and reading.
Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said the U.S. is losing ground, a troubling prospect when, in today&`&s knowledge-based economy, the best jobs can go anywhere in the world. (全文见周六微信。)

2017-01-31 Special English
This is Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing. Here is the news.
China will quadruple its new energy vehicle annual output to 2 million by 2020.
A government plan released by the Industry and Information Technology noted that by 2025, at least one in every five cars sold in China will be a new energy model.
Last year, China produced 517,000 new energy vehicles. The country has been the world&`&s top seller of such environment-friendly cars since 2015. The cumulative sale has exceeded 1 million.
New energy vehicles include battery electric cars, plug-in hybrids, and fuel-cell cars.
Last year, three top Chinese electric carmakers sold their models in more than 30 countries and regions around the world.
The government will continue to improve policies, boost research and development, invest in charging infrastructure construction, and promote international cooperation to help the sector grow.
In terms of charging infrastructure, China built 100,000 public charging poles in 2016, ten times the figure in 2015. A comprehensive charging grid has taken shape in big cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
China witnessed a boom of electric vehicle investment in the past few years, largely thanks to government&`&s incentives.
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An oil-electricity hybrid locomotive, the most powerful of its kind, has started in an experiment in extreme cold weather in northeast China.
The experiment was conducted in the northern part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, when the local temperature was minus 40 degrees Celsius.
Despite the cold, the temperature in the cab was 25 degrees Celsius. The batteries were 12 degrees Celsius, suitable for operation.
The manufacturer says the experiment marked the end of a series of experiments for the hybrid locomotive.
In earlier experiments, the locomotive was run under a temperature of minus 30 degrees Celsius in northeast China.
Last year, it operated in high temperatures in northwest China&`&s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Hybrid locomotives are environment friendly, energy-saving and less noisy. The successful experiments mean that the world&`&s largest-power hybrid locomotive can run in all weather conditions.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
Facebook is launching a journalism project aimed at strengthening its ties with media organizations. The move aims to expand their audiences, come up with new products and generally promote trusted news in today&`&s "post-truth" era.
The project is in its early stages and as such, is light on its specifics. But the company envisions Facebook engineers working with news organizations to create new ways of telling stories and novel advertising or subscription models, right from the early stages of development. The company also wants to help promote "news literacy" and support local news.
Dave Merrell, lead product manager at The Washington Post, which is among the news organizations working with Facebook, said it is very early in the process but certainly something they are really excited about. He said he worked with Facebook on numerous products over the years, but often were not involved in the product development stage.
With "Instant Articles" launched in 2015, Facebook hosts and displays news items directly instead of pointing users to news websites. Such instant stories load faster on Facebook than those on outside links, and Facebook gives participating publishers a cut of the advertising revenue from Instant Articles.
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The U.S. Homeland Security Department has warned about an unusual cybersecurity flaw for one manufacturer&`&s implantable heart device where it is said it could allow hackers to remotely take control of a person&`&s defibrillator or pacemaker.
Information on the security flaw was identified by researchers at MedSec Holdings in reports months ago. It was only formally made public after the manufacturer, St. Jude Medical, made a software repair available earlier this month. MedSec is a cybersecurity research company that focuses on the health-care industry.
The government advisory said security patches will be rolled out automatically over months to patients with a device transmitter at home, as long as it is plugged in and connected to the company&`&s network. These transmitters will send heart device data back to medical professionals.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
The first self-sufficient boat powered by only emission-free energy will start a six-year trip around the world in the spring.
Energy Observer is a former multi-hull race boat converted into a green vessel equipped with solar panels, wind turbines and a hydrogen fuel cell system. This means that it will be powered by the wind, the sun and self-generated hydrogen.
The 5 million euro boat is currently in a shipyard. It will set sail in Paris and make its first of 101 stops across 50 countries as part of a six-year circumnavigation.
French environmentalists say the boat will demonstrate that there are many solutions for energetic transition, and all solutions are within nature.
Designed in 1983, the boat enjoyed a successful career in open-sea sailing races. The Energy Observer project was conceived in 2015 by skippers, scuba divers and filmmakers.
The technology fitted to the 30-meter boat will enable the production of hydrogen through the process of electrolysis.
The boat is also equipped with a kite sail. It relies on the diversity of renewable energies. If there is no sun or wind, or at night, it has the option to draw in its hydrogen reservoirs. It will produce this hydrogen in a decarbonized manner through electrolysis of the sea water.
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Children with a genetic risk for obesity respond more strongly to fast food television advertising in a brain region associated with the reward processing. That&`&s according to a new study that may help understand why some children are more likely to over-eat unhealthy foods.
The study is the first-of-its kind to examine how a key obesity gene influences brain response to food advertisements and other cues to eat. The gene is known as the fat-mass and obesity-associated, FTO, gene.
The research was carried out by a team at the Dartmouth College, and the findings were published in the U.S. journal Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.
In the study, 78 children, aged 9 to 12, watched a children&`&s television show in an magnetic resonance imaging scanner.
To simulate the experience of watching television from home, the show included 12 minutes of commercial breaks, half were advertisements for fast food and the other half for non-food items.
Children were also evaluated on their genetic risk for obesity based on the FTO gene, which strongly predicts obesity across the lifespan.
The study found that the part of the brain which is commonly associated with reward craving is physically larger in children with the obesity-risk FTO genotype, compared to genetically low-risk children. In addition, this part of the brain also showed a stronger craving response to the food commercials in these children.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at [email protected]. That&`&s [email protected]. Now the news continues.
Lethal overdoses on prescription painkillers in Australia have almost doubled in ten years.
A new study published by Melbourne&`&s Penington Institute revealed that opioid-based painkillers were responsible for 71 per cent of all drug-related deaths in Australia in 2014.
It also found that the use of opioid-based painkillers in Australia quadrupled between 2004 and 2014.
The study shows that Australians aged 30-59 represented 78 per cent of all painkiller overdose deaths in the country.
These figures have challenged the conventional wisdom that it is young urban people who are most at risk of dying of overdose in Australia.
The study says it is now time for significant investments to be made to reduce the human toll from accidental overdose.
Researchers said comprehensive investments have been made to reduce the road toll, and there should be similar level of investment being made into overdose prevention and awareness.
Painkiller-related deaths were particularly prominent in rural areas, with 5 deaths per 100,000 people being attributed to painkiller overdoses in 2014. The figure marked an 83 per cent increase from the 3 deaths per 100,000 people recorded in 2004.
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A new study has found that urban sprawl is kicking one group of songbirds, called "avoiders", out of their territory, forcing divorce and stunting their ability to find new mates.
The findings were the results of a 10 year research by John Marzluff, a professor of wildlife science in the University of Washington.
Marzluff and his team monitored hundreds of individually marked songbirds from six common species found in suburbs of Seattle.
The researchers tracked bird activity in different types of landscapes. Bands were placed around the birds&`& legs, and sightings of mated pairs and nest locations were mapped.
The researchers were able to tell when a bird relocated, broke up from its mate or stayed put year to year.
Avoider birds are species that are known to decline in response to urbanization, when forested areas are removed for developments.
Monogamous birds will "divorce" their mate and move to a new territory if they have a reason to.
When forced to move, the avoiders largely failed to reproduce again for at least one year after relocating. The whole transition to a new home and often a new partner might cause a bird to lose half of its breeding years.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
Northwest China&`&s tourist city Xi&`&an is to appoint "toilet chiefs" this year, in an effort to improve services.
The tourism bureau said the move aims to make all public toilets and those in restaurants and entertainment venues meet national standards, in terms of space and sanitation. All public toilets will also be free of charge.
Xi&`&an is one the most popular tourist destinations in China. The city is planning to have private enterprises and individuals to run the toilets, which are currently under municipal administration.
Toilet management will become part of the assessment for any tourist attractions and restaurants.
China is in the middle of a three-year "toilet revolution", which includes building 35,000 new toilets across the country and renovating another 25,000 by the end of the year.
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China has a total of 700 million 4G mobile users, and the Ministry of Science and Technology says 5G commercial operations will be launched in 2020.
The Ministry of Science and Technology said the 4G industrial chain has taken shape in China, with strengthened research and development capabilities.
Wen said the ministry will promote the formation of a global unified 5G standard and push forward the use and innovation of 5G-based mobile Internet and the Internet of Things to lay a foundation for 5G commercial operations in 2020.
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More than 72,000 companies were offering language and translation services across China at the end of 2015.
Among them, around 7,400 specialized in the field.
According to a report on the development of China&`&s language service industry, the sector generated an output worth 280 billion yuan, roughly 41 billion U.S. dollars, in 2015.
Experts say the development of information technology has presented brand new and huge opportunities for growth of language services.
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2017-01-30 Special English
This is Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.
Five hundred clean energy buses have been put to use in Tianjin, a major industrial city in north China.
These public buses were jointly produced by Tianjin Bus Group and car maker BYD which is based in Shenzhen in Guangdong Province. The electric buses can run at least 200 kilometers after a full charge, enough for a bus to finish its daily task.
The Bus Group also opened a major charging station, capable of serving 80 buses at one time and a total of 450 buses in a day. This is the largest charging station in the area which also includes Beijing and Hebei Province.
Tianjin has 3,200 clean energy public buses. Among them, 1,300 are powered by electricity.
China pins its hope on clean energy to reduce its dependence on coal and gas, which has been linked to the winter smog in northern China. Tianjin is among the cities with the poorest air quality.
Since 2010, Tianjin has built 200 charging stations and 3,000 charging positions to encourage the use of clean energy transport.
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Australia&`&s flag carrier Qantas Airways&`& fatality free record in the jet age means it is the world&`&s safest airline, for the fourth year running.
AirlineRatings.com announced the flag carrier atop its Top 20 list recently, followed by Cathy Pacific, Middle-eastern giant Etihad Airways, Singapore Airlines and local rival Virgin Australia, which are listed alphabetically.
The website&`&s editor Geoffrey Thomas said that while those in the Top 20 are always leaders in safety, Qantas remains the leader in safety enhancements and operational excellence.
Thomas said in a statement that over its 96-year history, Qantas has amassed an amazing record of firsts in safety and operations and is accepted as the world&`&s most experienced airline.
Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major operational safety advancement over the past 60 years.
Qantas was the leader in the Future Air Navigation System and the Flight Data Recorder developed by Australia&`&s chief scientific body to monitor the plane and crew performance. It also made advances in automatic landing and precision approaches in mountainous regions.
The ratings website said Qantas was also the lead in real-time monitoring of its engines across its fleet using satellite communications, enabling problems to be detected before they become a major safety issue.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Following 28 years of talks between China and Russia, construction has finally begun on a highway bridge connecting China and Russia across the Heilongjiang River.
Stretching some 1,300 meters, this is the first highway bridge between the two countries.
A Chinese official says the bridge is an important part of the economic corridor linking China, Mongolia and Russia. The bridge will boost trade between China and Russia, as well as China&`&s investment in Russia.
Economists expect that the bridge will benefit both Russia&`&s Far East and China&`&s initiative to revitalize the traditional industrial base of northeast China.
With a total cost of 2.5 billion yuan, roughly 360 million U.S. dollars, the bridge is scheduled to open in 2019.
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China plans to further improve its space debris database and space debris monitoring facilities. That&`&s according to a recent white paper entitled "China&`&s Space Activities in 2016".
The while paper said that in the next five years, China will improve the standardization system for space debris to further control near-earth objects and space climate.
Efforts will be made to build a disaster early warning and prediction platform to raise the preventative capability.
Research will be conducted on building facilities to monitor near-earth objects and to enable the country to monitor and catalog such objects.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
A study with critically ill, respirator-dependent patients showed that early in-bed cycling may help the patients recover more quickly during their stay in the hospital intensive care unit, or ICU.
Canadian researchers say people may think that ICU patients are too sick for physical activity, but if patients start in-bed cycling two weeks into their ICU stay, they will be able to walk farther at hospital discharge.
Lead researcher of the study Michelle Kho says their TryCYCLE study finds it safe and feasible to systematically start in-bed cycling within the first four days of mechanical ventilation and continue throughout a patient&`&s ICU stay.
For over a year, Kho and her team conducted a study of 33 ICU patients at St. Joseph&`&s Healthcare Hamilton. The patients were 18 years of age or older, receiving mechanical ventilation, and walking independently prior to admission to the ICU.
Kho said the study achievements even surprised the researchers, and the patients&`& abilities to cycle during critical illness exceeded their expectations.
She adds that more research is needed to determine if this early cycling with critically ill patients improves their physical function.
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U.S. scientists have created a material that can independently heal the damage caused by mechanical wear, hence extending the service life of devices.
The material is a transparent and soft rubber-like ionic conductor which can stretch 50 times its original length.
Researchers at the University of California found that the self-healing process of the material can finish within 24 hours at room temperature after being cut.
The newly-designed material combined a polar, stretchable polymer with a mobile, high-ionic-strength salt.
In addition to solving the instability problem, the material can also improve the decaying performance of the materials within the machinery.
The researchers stressed the advantages of using the material in electrically activate transparent artificial muscles.
Scientists have begun exploring the potential applications in other fields including robotics and medical research.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at [email protected]. That&`&s [email protected]. Now the news continues.
A new study shows that 20 conditions make up more than half of all health care spending in the United States. The study examined spending on diseases and injuries.
U.S. researchers tracked the costs associated with 155 conditions between 1996 and 2013. They found that a total of 30 trillion U.S. dollars was spent by Americans in personal health care over the 18-year period.
Of these conditions, diabetes was the most expensive, totaling 101 billion dollars in diagnoses and treatments in 2013, while heart disease was the second most expensive, costing 88 billion dollars the same year.
The study shows that costs associated with diabetes have grown 36 times more compared to those for heart disease. Heart disease was the number-one cause of death for the study period.
The two conditions typically affect individuals who are 65 years of age and older. Back pain is the third-most expensive condition, primarily striking adults of working age.
The three top spending categories, along with hypertension and injuries from falls, comprised 18 percent of all personal health spending, totaling 430 billion dollars in 2013.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Chinese and German archaeologists have found images of what they believe to be Arabian horses in cliff paintings dating back 2,000 years in the Yinshan Mountains of north China&`&s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The images of Arabian horses have been found in a dozen cliff paintings, which also contain images of other animals and humans. The images are believed to be the oldest found to date.
The horses are depicted in the paintings, with armor, leather saddles and stirrups.
The pictures were painted around 210 B.C., when the nomadic Huns were at war with a nomadic tribe from north China.
More than 10,000 ancient cliff paintings have been found in the Yinshan Mountains.
Experts say the pictures suggest that the Huns had trade links with people in western Asia and northern Africa at that time.
Earlier archaeological excavations in Erdos in Inner Mongolia unearthed bronze and pottery figurines of Arabian horses.
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"The Ancient One" is going home.
One of the oldest and most complete skeletons found in North America will be given back to Native American tribes in Washington State for reburial.
President Barack Obama has signed a bill with a provision requiring the ancient bones known as Kennewick Man to be returned to tribes within 90 days.
Experts estimate the remains found in 1996 on federal land near the Columbia River are at least 8,400 years old. The discovery triggered a lengthy legal fight between tribes and scientists over whether the bones should be buried immediately or studied.
In 2015, new genetic evidence determined the remains were related to modern Native Americans.
The bill transfers the skeleton, which the tribes call "the Ancient One", from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the state archaeology department, which will give it to the tribes.
The Yakama Nation is among the tribes that have pushed to rebury the bones in the manner their people have followed since ancient times. It took 20 years for the tribes to successfully fight for the return of the bones.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Australia&`&s Victorian iconic Great Ocean Road is set for a major upgrade after it was damaged by a number of natural disasters last year.
The Victorian Government has announced that 38 million U.S. dollars will be spent on urgent repairs and safety upgrades to the 240-kilometer-long national heritage-listed road.
The road runs along Victoria&`&s south-east coast, and was significantly damaged by bushfires at Wye River in December 2015 and January 2016, as well as a number of serious landslides in September caused by higher than average rainfall for the year.
The upgrades for the popular tourist destination will be retainer walls, erosion prevention, rock fall netting, electronic traveler information signs, closed circuit television monitoring and real-time traffic counters.
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Eight out of 10 middle-aged people in England weigh too much, drink too much or don&`&t exercise enough.
An analysis from Public Health England says modern life taking its toll on health.
Public Health England has launched a campaign to reach out to 83 percent of men and women aged 40 to 60 who are either overweight or obese, exceed alcohol guidelines or are physically inactive.
The aim of the campaign is to provide free support to help them live more healthily in 2017 and beyond.
Modern life is harming the health of the nation with 77 percent of men and 63 percent of women in middle age, overweight or obese. Obesity in adults has shot up 16 percent in the last 20 years. A spokesman for Public Health England in London said many people also can&`&t identify what a healthy body looks like, suggesting obesity has become the new normal.
The diabetes rate among this age group has doubled in this period in England.
People were urged to consider the simple steps they could take to improve their health in the run up to the New Year, by taking an online quiz. The spokesman said people need to eat better, be more active, stop smoking and consider their drinking.
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用声音，在一起

用声音，在一起

his is Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing. Here is the news.
Police have smashed a major human trafficking ring and rescued 36 children who were abducted to be sold.
Police in east China&`&s Fujian Province received information in May about a suspect surnamed Tan who was believed to be involved in child trafficking.
Further investigations found a major child trafficking ring spanning seven provinces and municipalities. Tan and other suspects were found to be responsible for the trafficking of dozens of infants since 2014.
In another case, police in several other provinces coordinated their efforts to crack down on another child trafficking ring, and 160 people were arrested.
The Ministry of Public Security said China has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to the trafficking of women and children, and it will continue to pursue these traffickers.
The ministry will also target the "buyers" in human trafficking cases.
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China has issued a guideline on improving work safety, seeking to plug the holes in its supervision mechanism, laws and safety standards to effectively prevent accidents.
It has vowed to optimize its supervision and management mechanism as well as laws and regulations to "significantly" reduce workplace accidents by 2020.
The guideline was jointly issued by the Party Central Committee and the State Council. It said China will not sacrifice safety for development.
The guideline has clarified the definition and division of responsibilities concerning workplace safety. Meanwhile, China has plans to amend its criminal law to include workplace malpractices that easily lead to major accidents.
It noted the country will increase financial input to enhance workplace risk control and prevent work-related illness, while improving management and auditing to make sure the money would be wisely spent.
It said China&`&s work safety has been improving, but more efforts are needed as many problems remain.
The guideline came after a series of deadly accidents, including mining disasters and power plant collapse. In one of the accidents in November, 74 people were killed when a platform for a cooling tower being constructed as part of a power plant collapsed in east China&`&s Jiangxi Province.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
Scientists claimed they have figured out how the world&`&s biggest and most-valuable diamonds formed.
In a study published in the U.S. journal of Science, scientists said large gem-quality diamonds, including the world-famous Cullinan and Lesotho Promise, may be born in metallic liquid deep inside Earth&`&s mantle.
The research team, led by Evan Smith of the Gemological Institute of America, reached the conclusion after examining so-called "offcuts" of massive diamonds, which are the pieces left over after the gem&`&s facets are cut for maximum sparkle.
They found tiny metallic grains trapped inside in more than 30 exceptionally large stones, which are made up of a mixture of metallic iron and nickel, along with carbon, sulfur, methane and hydrogen.
The inclusions led the researchers to reach the conclusion that diamonds formed in the Earth&`&s mantle, but they did so under conditions in which they were saturated by liquid metal.
Most diamonds formed at depths of 150 to 200 kilometers under the continents and shoot to the surface in volcanic eruptions. But the large, rare stones formed at extreme depths, likely within 360 to 750 kilometers in the convection mantle, where rocks are known to be mobile.
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U.S. researchers have taken inspiration from the human brain in creating a new "deep learning" method that enables computers to teach themselves about the visual world largely on their own, much as human babies do.
In the test, the new image-processing system "deep rendering mixture model" can learn largely on their own about how to distinguish handwritten digits using a standard data-set of 10,000 digits written by federal employees and high school students.
In results, the researchers said they trained their algorithm by giving it just 10 correct examples of each handwritten digit between zero and nine and then presenting it with several thousand more examples that it used to further teach itself.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
The world&`&s first cloned goat bearing superfine cashmere wool was born in north China&`&s Inner Mongolia.
The goat was born and is raised in a base for animal husbandry research conducted by experts from agricultural universities and academies in Inner Mongolia and southwest China&`&s Yunnan Province.
The cashmere fiber from the goat is less than 14 micrometers thick, much finer than the average of 16 micrometers grown by the famous Erlang Mountain goats in Inner Mongolia.
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Every day, trains full of laptops and other electronics products as well as auto parts depart a remote village in southwest China heading for Europe.
For five years, trains have delivered laptops for Hewlett-Packard, car window regulators and semi-conductors, from Chongqing Municipality to Europe.
Since the trains started in 2011, there has been a business boom in the mountain city. It imported more than 2,000 cars on the international rail network in the past two years.
Six years ago, the city was struggling to attract businesses which mostly centered on China&`&s coastal areas where there are convenient shipping.
With the launch of the trains, the city got more deals because train transport costs only around one-fifth of air transport, and one-third faster than shipping by the sea.
As prices along the eastern seaboard rose, industries began to move inland. In 2010 Hewlett-Packard established a computer production line in Chongqing, seeking government help to launch a rail network to transport products overseas. That was when the China-Europe rail network was launched.
Following the footsteps of Hewlett-Packard, other brands including Acer, Toshiba and Apple set up bases in Chongqing to take advantage of the rail line.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at [email protected]. That&`&s [email protected]. Now the news continues.
When it comes to surgical procedures to enhance beauty, Chinese women are twice as generous than their global peers.
According a report based on a survey by Insightful Engineers, a market research consultancy in the United Kingdom, the survey found that Chinese women spent the equivalent of around 580 yuan, roughly 84 U.S. Dollars, per month. That&`&s more than twice the global average of about 250 yuan, and 150 yuan higher than the second group on the list, women from South Korea.
A plastic surgeon from Shanghai said Chinese women are displaying an increasing interest in a range of surgical procedures, mainly to look prettier, rather than fighting aging, which may help explain why the population of plastic surgery receivers in the country is much younger than in other places.
The report also said that 74 percent of Chinese respondents associate beauty directly with facial appearance, the highest of all surveyed countries. The biggest concern for Chinese women is flabby skin and crow&`&s feet, the little wrinkles at the corner of the eyes.
The survey interviewed 7,700 "aesthetically aware" women from 16 countries, who were between 18 and 65 years of age.
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Paris&`& first perfume museum, the Grand Musee de Parfum, has opened its doors, inviting visitors to discover perfume history through a quite innovative sensory and olfactory exhibition.
The museum&`&s president said the Grand Musee du Parfum was created after noting the absence of an emblematic place for French perfumery in Paris despite the sector&`&s flourishing influence abroad.
The museum gathered major players in French and international perfume industry, including the Federation of Beauty Enterprises, the French Syndicate of Perfumery and the International Flavors and Fragrances.
It has three spaces with one area dedicated to the history of perfumes.
Alongside the permanent exhibition, many events and workshops for young people are planned at the museum and intend to bring together the visual arts, gastronomy, live entertainment, literature and cinema around perfume.
France has the world&`&s leading cosmetics-perfumes sector and its turnover totaled 25 billion euros, roughly 26 billion U.S. Dollars, in 2014.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Ryan Price in Beijing.
British actor Colin Firth dwells on the virtue of restraint in a wide-ranging conversation with Raymond Zhou on the art of acting.
Colin Firth joked that he was looking for offers in Chinese films, adding that he hoped to work with Chinese directors including Zhang Yimou.
The light-hearted revelation came at the end of an hourlong talk, moderated by yours truly, which was designed to encompass the highlights of an illustrious career of the much honored British actor.
Titled "A Colin Firth Retrospective", the conversation was, in turn, part of a program for the 2016 China-Briton Film Festival held in the Beijing suburb of Langfang.
Firth received a lifetime-achievement award at this festival when it opened on Dec 12.
The 2010 Academy Award winner for best actor, for The King&`&s Speech, did not randomly pick a few big names from China&`&s booming film industry to please the host country. But he did his due diligence.
Firth said he was impressed by how seamlessly American actors Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody fitted into the epic tale on the 1942 famine. He also liked the 2012 movie Mystery, and said Farewell My Concubine was one of the best movies in world of cinema.
And he was plugged in to the latest in Chinese showbiz, aware of the publicity blitz whipped up by The Great Wall, the epic tale of fighting monsters on the best-known Chinese landmark, which is a Sino-US co-production that stars Matt Damon.
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China&`&s northernmost province of Heilongjiang will hold an "Ice and Snow Day" to warm up its winter tourism industry and sluggish economy.
The provincial legislature adopted a decision to hold the event on Dec. 20 each year, starting this year. State-owned winter sports facilities will be open to the public for free during these event.
Travel agencies and key scenic spots will offer discounted tickets to tourists on Ice and Snow Day.
The province&`&s bitter winter, which lasts 120 days, used to be an obstacle to the area&`&s development. However, Heilongjiang has taken measures to turn the cold, snowy season into a resource to boost its economy, which has slowed in recent years amid the country&`&s economic restructuring.
The "Ice and Snow Day" will make more people to enjoy ice and snow, creating a favorable environment for developing the winter economy and tourism.
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The Maldives tourism industry has seen a remarkable growth in 2016, contributing to strengthening the island&`&s economy.
A press statement by the Maldives Embassy in Colombo said the growth has been achieved with the dynamic economic policies introduced by the country to transform the economy of the Maldives.
This year, the Maldives unveiled seven new resorts, featuring the world&`&s largest underwater restaurant.
The government said 20 new resorts will be unveiled in 2017.
With the opening of the new resorts and influx of tourism investments, the tourism industry has become a catalyst for the governments&`& key pledge of youth employment.
That is the end of this edition of Special English. To freshen up your memory, I&`&m going to read one of the news items again at normal speed. Please listen carefully.
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This is Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.
Chinese scientist Yuan Longping is leading a research team to cultivate new strains of high yield "sea rice".
The research team plans to spend three years developing a breed that can withstand water with a salinity of up to 0.8 percent, and with a yield of 450 kilograms per hectare.
Yuan is a renowned scientist known for his research and development of hybrid rice.
China has around 700 million hectares of saline-alkaline soil. Yuan said it will be of great significance to convert the soil into arable land by developing sea rice with a high salinity tolerance.
More than half of the world&`&s population relies on rice as staple food, while the proportion is over 60 percent in China.
If China uses 70 million hectares of land to grow sea rice, it could produce an extra 30 billion kilograms of rice a year, enough to feed an extra 80 million people.
Sea rice is found in saline-alkaline soil at the junctures where rivers join the sea. Sea rice is resistant to pests and diseases, and does not need fertilizer to grow. Currently, the most advanced sea-rice breed in China can only be grown in water with a salinity less than 0.3 percent.
A sea-rice research center, with Yuan as the chief scientist, has been set up in Shandong Province. With dozens of breeds brought in from worldwide, the researchers will use gene sequencing technology to cultivate new strains of sea rice.
Over the decades, Yuan and his team have worked on new approaches to significantly increase rice yields.
This is Special English.
More of the world is getting into the spirit of China&`&s biggest holiday, the Lunar New Year. The Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, falls on January 28th this year, and the celebration lasts around two weeks.
China&`&s Ministry of Culture, in cooperation with local Chinese cultural organizations, will present around 2,000 cultural events for the holiday across the world.
The ministry says a variety of activities, including performance shows and shopping events, will serve as the flagship of China&`&s cultural relations with other countries.
Since 2001, the ministry has been organizing shows overseas during the Spring Festival period. In 2009, the ministry launched the more comprehensive "Happy Spring Festival" program to offer a greater diversity of celebrations.
In 2010, the program saw 65 events in 40 countries. It further expanded last year to include 2,000 events in more than 400 cities across the world, and more than 200 million people joined in the events worldwide. The ministry says this year&`&s program will essentially match that scale.
The Spring Festival is one of the major holidays for 10 other countries, including Canada, Malaysia and Mauritius. The ministry says different activities are held in different countries.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
A new study has found that pregnancy affects not only a woman&`&s body, but also changes parts of her brain too.
When researchers compared brain scans of women before and after pregnancy, they spotted some differences in 11 locations in the brain. They also found hints that the alterations help women prepare for motherhood.
For example, they might help a mother understand the needs of her infant. The women were also given memory tests, and they showed no signs of decline.
Neuroscientists at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain presented the results in a paper released by the journal Nature Neuroscience.
The study included data on 25 Spanish women scanned before and after their first pregnancies, along with 20 women who didn&`&t get pregnant during the study. The brain changes in the pregnancy group emerged from comparisons of the two groups.
The results were consistent. A computer program can tell which women get pregnant just by looking at results of the MRI scans.
The changes, first documented an average of 10 weeks after giving birth, were mostly still present two years after childbirth. That&`&s based on a follow-up with 11 study participants.
Scientists say the brain is being shaped all the time, and hormones are part of the whole orchestra of processes that change the brain structurally.
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A link between human exposure to aluminum and Alzheimer&`&s disease has been suspected for over half a century and recent research may confirm that the metal does play a role in causing this devastating brain disease.
Chris Exley, a professor in bioinorganic chemistry at Keele University in Britain, revealed the new findings from his latest study on medical-blogging website The Hippocratic Post.
Many scientists say aluminum cannot be blamed for causing Alzheimer&`&s disease because there is not enough evidence. However, Exley said the latest research from his group makes the link even more compelling.
He added that the findings are unequivocal in their confirmation of a role for aluminum in some if not all causes of Alzheimer&`&s disease.
Scientists have known for some time that individuals who developed Alzheimer&`&s disease in their late sixties and older have accumulated more aluminum in their brain tissue than individuals of the same age without the disease.
Exley&`&s research shows that Alzheimer&`&s disease has a much earlier age of onset in individuals who have been exposed to unusually high levels of aluminum in their daily lives.
As aluminum is widely used in people&`&s daily lives, Exley suggests that people should take all possible precautions to reduce the accumulation of aluminum in their brain tissue and start to do this as soon as possible.
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British scientists say the belief that humans may have inherited kindness from its close relative the chimpanzee is wrong.
Instead, the new study found that unlike humans, chimpanzees are entirely "selfish creatures" who act in their own interests, turning conceived wisdom on its head.
The team includes academics from the universities of Manchester, Birmingham, and St Andrews, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. The researchers say humans were unlikely to have inherited the trait of kindness from their primate cousins.
They found that chimpanzees are unlikely to take an interest in each other unless there is an anticipated benefit.
They said in the journal Nature Communications that previous research implying helpful behavior in chimps was likely to be a by-product of the way the experiments were designed.
The team worked with a group of 16 chimpanzees at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, in Uganda.
Using two ingenious experiments, the team discovered chimpanzees were no more likely to help feed each other as they were to block access to a box of peanuts.
One of the principle investigators, Dr. Keith Jensen from the University of Manchester, said the evolution of social behavior and what drives individuals to act altruistically, is an important and active area of debate.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at [email protected]. That&`&s [email protected]. Now the news continues.
A new scientific report has found that man-made climate change played some role in two dozen extreme weather events in 2015 but not in several other weird weather instances around the world.
An annual report released by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that climate change was a factor in 24 of 30 strange weather events. They include 11 cases of high heat, as well as unusual winter sunshine in the United Kingdom, Alaskan wildfires and odd "sunny day" flooding in Miami.
The study documented climate change-caused weather in many parts of the world including Alaska, the southeastern United States, Europe, China and Africa.
Stephanie Herring, co-editor of the report, said weather has to be measurable, but in many cases, the scientists could not detect climate change&`&s effects.
Herring highlighted the Miami flooding in September 2015. Because of rising sea levels and sinking land, extremely high tides flooded the streets with 22 inches of water.
She said it is just remarkable because there were no clouds in the sky before the event occurred, and this type of flooding is clearly becoming more frequent.
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Scientists have used a laser to tickle atoms of antimatter and make them shine, a key step towards answering one of the great riddles of the universe.
Theory predicts that the Big Bang produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Since they cancel each other out, scientists have been trying to find out why a relatively small amount of matter remained, allowing the stars, planets and ultimately life to come about, and antimatter vanished.
It took researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, decades to work out how to create an antimatter version of the most basic atom, hydrogen, and trap it for long enough to perform tests.
In a paper published online by the journal Nature, they reported the first cautious result from an experiment with anti-hydrogen. It turns out that when it&`&s stimulated with a laser, anti-hydrogen appears to produce light on the same ultraviolet frequency as its nemesis in the world of matter, hydrogen.
A physicist who wasn&`&t involved in the study said scientists had been eagerly awaiting the results of the CERN experiment for years, and successfully discovering a difference between matter and antimatter would be worthy of a Nobel Prize.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Volunteers of the Bird Watchers Association in Zhuhai in Guangdong Province have found a black-faced spoonbill inhabiting and foraging at a forest area of the city.
Zhuhai is located along the East Asia-Australia route of bird migration, one of the top eight such routes around the globe. The city attracts a large number of migratory birds in early winter every year. Egrets, teals, and sandpipers are often seen flying in flocks at Qi&`&ao Mangrove Forest, which has a favorable ecological environment.
The black-faced spoonbill gets its name from its flat spoon-like beak. It is also called the black-faced angel or dancer because of its elegant posture. The species is one of the most endangered in the world.
The newly established Zhuhai Bird Watchers Association was invited to take part in the worldwide survey of the bird. Members of the association spotted a young black-faced spoonbill at Qi&`&ao Mangrove Forest, the first time such a sighting has been made in the city.
Experts predict that more of the bird and other species are likely to be found this winter in the same area.
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A new study shows that non-lethal methods of predator control can be highly effective in protecting livestock from predators and in turn, saving predators from people.
The study has been published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin. It addresses the issue that top predators such as wolves, bears, lions and tigers have declined dramatically around the world over the past century and one major driver of these declines is retaliatory killing by people following predator attacks on domestic livestock.
The researchers examined 66 published, peer-reviewed research papers that measured how four categories of lethal and non-lethal mitigation techniques influenced attacks on livestock. They found that the most consistently effective tools were guard dogs, electric fencing, shock collar, and removal of predators, which includes both killing and relocation to other places.
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