Orangutan Study - VOA Special English (Phần 1) pdf

Many of the animals die whenpeople harvesting other kinds of fish pull in sharks by accident.George Burgess leads the International Shark Attack File at theFlorida Museum of Natural Hist

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English I'm Bob

Doughty And I'm Faith Lapidus

This week, we will tell about sharks a fish with a public relationsproblem

A picture in the newspaper shows a person standing next to ahuge shark The body of the shark is hanging with its head down Ascale is measuring its weight

The lines below the picture say the shark was a very big one Orperhaps it was one of the biggest ever caught in the area Theperson who brought in the fish looks extremely pleased Thatperson won a battle with what has been called one of nature'sfiercest creatures

Some people, however, do not approve of catching sharks They

do not think all sharks are terrifying enemies They know thatstudies show lightning and snakebites threaten people more thanshark attacks

Activists for sharks note that the fish are valuable in the ocean.Sharks eat injured and diseased fish Their hunting means thatother fish do not become too great in number This protects othercreatures and plants in the ocean

Environmental activists worry that some kinds of fish are in danger

of dying out The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationestimated that fishing operations kill more than one hundred millionsharks every year Sharks are harvested for meat and cartilage,liver oil and, especially, for their fins Many of the animals die whenpeople harvesting other kinds of fish pull in sharks by accident.George Burgess leads the International Shark Attack File at theFlorida Museum of Natural History of the University of Florida Hesays shark attacks increased during the past century for a goodreason Hundreds of millions of people now use the world'soceans, more than in the past

Professor Burgess says the first ten years of the twenty-firstcentury are expected to register the most attacks of any ten-yearperiod.

Yet the International Shark Attack File reports that the number ofshark attacks has, in fact, decreased in recent years During thisperiod, there was an average of sixty-three attacks worldwide eachyear That compares with a high of seventy-nine in two thousand

The file gives some likely reasons for the decrease One reason isthat overfishing of sharks and related fish has reduced the size ofsome shark populations

Another is that more people are careful to stay away from waterswhere sharks swim And the file says workers responsible forboating and beach safety may be doing a better job of warningpeople when sharks are seen

The International Shark Attack File describes shark attacks aseither provoked or unprovoked An unprovoked attack means theperson is alive when bitten It also means the person must nothave interfered with the shark

Some divers interfere with sharks on purpose They want to get theattention of sharks, perhaps to take pictures of them The divermay put food in the water to get the animal to come close Sharks

do not normally want to be with people But their excellent sense ofsmell leads them to food

Some experienced divers say they may not face danger when near

a shark But they say the next person who comes near the sharkmay be in trouble The animal's experience with being fed maymake it connect food with people

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Some divers, filmmakers and nature photographers enter a shark'sterritory while inside containers made of steel Others wear heavymetal equipment for protection And others get near sharkswearing only normal diving equipment.

Close contact with sharks has its critics Some people say itrepresents invasion of the animals' territory for no good reason Butexciting films may increase public interest and sympathy for theanimals

Many people wanting to save sharks have formed activist groups.For example, a group called Shark Safe helped prevent the killing

of sharks at a fishing competition in Florida earlier this month.Event organizers had said the goal would be to catch and releasesharks

But the Shark Safe Project said the stated goal of "bringing in thebig one" would lead to killing of the biggest sharks The big onesare the most likely to reproduce

The Shark Safe Project planned a demonstration against thecompetition The demonstration never took place, however.Instead, the event organizers changed their plans Participantswere to catch the sharks as expected But all sharks were to bereleased

The Shark-Free Marinas Initiative is a campaign aimed at helpingsharks worldwide Under the Initiative, people could not bring akilled shark to a participating marina People transporting capturedsharks to the boat landing for weighing and killing would also berejected

The initiative cooperates with several other programs, including theCape Eleuthera Institute in the Bahamas islands The Institute is

an educational center that also operates a shark researchprogram

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In late two thousand seven, a United Nations conference reportedthat one kind of shark, the basking shark, is in danger of dying out.The numbers of basking sharks have been decreasing for the pasthalf-century The animals are the second largest shark, after whalesharks They swim with their mouths open, cleaning the water asthey move They take up and eat objects like fish eggs and tiny seaorganisms

Scientists want to know how and where basking sharks travel

Recently, experts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean wereinterested in a huge basking shark discovered in eastern Canada.The remains of the eight-meter long animal were found on a rockybeach in Saint John, New Brunswick Experts said the cause ofdeath is unknown

Donald McAlpine heads the zoology collection at the NewBrunswick Museum in Saint John He said scientists removed thehead and some backbones from the shark for examination Mr.McAlpine said pictures of the animal were sent to scientists inBritain The British scientists had requested the pictures to learn ifthe shark was the same fish they had observed on their side of theAtlantic

Sharks can be identified by their individual markings andsometimes by healed wounds

For years, the travels of basking sharks have been a mystery toscientists Basking sharks from the northeastern United States arenot seen in the winter They seem to disappear from cool waters ofthe Atlantic and Pacific Oceans Yet studies published in thejournal Current Biology are providing clues about the mystery

The studies found that the sharks went to warmer waters of theAtlantic during the winter The animals did a good job of stayinghidden from sight They swam in waters from two hundred to onethousand meters deep

Like Americans living in cold climates, some of the sharks traveled

to Florida for the winter Others went even further south One spent

a month in waters near Brazil

One of the investigators was Gregory Skomal of theMassachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries He says the fishprobably get to eat more plankton in the warmer waters

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Today, a major threat to sharks comes from shark fin soup Thepopularity of the soup has increased greatly over the years.Fisheries can earn a lot of money for even one kilogram of sharkfins

Finning, as it is called, is big business It means cutting the fins off

a live shark Fishermen cut off the shark's fins and throw theanimal back into the water The shark then bleeds to death on thebottom of the ocean

Many animal-protection groups and people worldwide havedenounced finning as cruel Some areas have banned this activity.But it is hard to enforce the ban in many places

Ann Luskey is an activist for the world's sea environment She lives

on a boat and often dives to watch underwater life Her threechildren took part in an unusual recording project The familyhopes the music will attract attention to the need for taking goodcare of the earth and its seas

One of the recordings is a hip-hop song called "Shark Fin Soup." Iturges people not to eat the soup because it threatens sharks

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This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jerilyn Watson.Brianna Blake was our producer I'm Faith Lapidus And I'm BobDoughty Listen again next week for more news about science inSpecial English on the Voice of America

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, a program in VOA Special English I'm Bob

Doughty And I'm Shirley Griffith.

This week, we will tell about a study involving monkeys and a genefrom jellyfish We will tell about an agreement to ban ninedangerous chemicals We will also report on problems linked tocigarette smoking and alcoholic drinks

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Scientists in Japan say they have produced monkeys with a genethat gives the skin of the animals an unusual look The skin is said

to look bright green under ultraviolet lighting

The scientists say the monkeys represent an important step in howresearchers study human disease These marmosets are the firstfully transgenic primates Primates are the biological group ofanimals that includes monkeys and apes An animal that hasreceived foreign genetic material is considered transgenic

For almost thirty years, researchers have used transgenic mice tocarry out biomedical research To produce these animals,researchers inject fertilized mice eggs with foreign genes, and thenplace them in the uterus of a female mouse The specially chosengenes are then expressed in some of the mouse's babies

Transgenic mice help researchers study the appearance andtreatment of human diseases But mice are not as helpful asprimates are for studying the behavior of human diseases

Scientists at Japan's Central Institute for Experimental Animals ledthe study that made the transgenic marmosets The scientists saythey injected a green glowing protein found in jellyfish into fertilizedmarmoset eggs They chose this gene because it is easy to seewith a fluorescent light

Four of the five marmosets born as part of the experiment carriedthe foreign gene in several kinds of tissue The fifth only carried

the green protein in its placenta tissue at birth Two of the animalslater showed the foreign gene in their reproductive cells Thismeans they would pass on the gene for the green protein to theiryoung.

Later, a male transgenic marmoset reproduced and passed on thegreen gene to a baby This is the first time scientists havesuccessfully passed on a foreign gene to a future generation And,

it means that transgenic marmosets can be produced frombreeding instead of by the lengthy process of injecting fertilizedeggs

The scientists say the marmosets could one day be easilyproduced for medical research They could be used to studyconditions like Parkinson's disease and Lou Gehrig's disease Areport about the experiment was published last month in Naturemagazine

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Officials from more than one hundred sixty governments haveagreed to ban production of nine of the world's most dangerouschemicals The agreement was announced last month at a UnitedNations conference in Switzerland

The chemicals are joining twelve other substances that are alreadybanned under a treaty known as the Stockholm Convention Thetreaty was signed in two thousand one

The Stockholm Convention governs some kinds of industrialchemicals and pesticides products meant to kill insects Thesesubstances can damage the human nervous system and naturaldefenses against disease They have also been linked to cancer,reproductive disorders and interfere with normal childdevelopment The substances can also kill people

Donald Cooper is Executive Secretary of the StockholmConvention He says the substances are especially dangerousbecause they travel through the air and stay in the atmosphere,

soil and water It takes many years for them to weaken Mr.Cooper says the substances build up in the cells of plants, animalsand human beings.

One of the newly banned chemicals is perflurooctane sulfonic acid,

or PFOS It is found in electrical parts and fire-fighting products Another banned chemical is the pesticide Lindane It is used insome areas as a treatment for head lice

The governments at the U.N conference also reached a decision

on another pesticide, DDT They said they want DDT banned, butrecognize that some countries use it to protect people fromdiseases like malaria The governments said they will consider aplan that supports safer, effective choices to DDT And, they hope

to ban its use by two thousand ten

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Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also known as C.O.P.D.,blocks airflow through the lungs It makes breathing difficult Theleading cause is cigarette smoking America's National Institutes

of Health says the damage to the lungs cannot be repaired andthere is no cure

Dawn DeMeo is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School

in Massachusetts

DAWN DeMEO: "By two thousand and twenty, C.O.P.D will likely

be the third leading cause of death across the world."

C.O.P.D is a new name for emphysema and chronic bronchitis These are the two most common forms of the disease Manypeople with C.O.P.D have both of them

Doctor DeMeo wrote about a study by a team from Harvard'sBrigham and Women's Hospital and the University of Bergen inNorway The study adds to findings that women may be more atrisk than men for the damaging effects of smoking

The team examined results from a Norwegian study of more thannine hundred people with C.O.P.D Inga-Cecilie Soerheim alsowrote about the team's findings She says they show that womensuffered the same severity of C.O.P.D as men But, the femalesmokers were younger and had smoked a lot less.

The team also looked at two groups among the people in thestudy These were people under the age of sixty and those whohad smoked for less than twenty years In both cases, women hadmore severe C.O.P.D and a greater loss of lung function thanmen

The study was presented last month to the American ThoracicSociety

Doctor Soerheim says there are several possible explanations whywomen may be more at risk from the effects of cigarette smokethan men Women have smaller airways, she says, so eachcigarette may do more harm Also, there are differences betweenmales and females in the way the body processes cigarette smoke And, she says, genes and hormones could also play an importantpart

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Finally, a listener in Taiwan wrote to ask why his face turns redwhen he drinks alcohol This effect called facial flushing is acommon reaction to alcohol among East Asians It affects anestimated thirty-six percent of Japanese, Chinese and Koreans

For many people, even a little alcohol can cause unpleasanteffects Most commonly, their face, neck and sometimes theirwhole body turns red People might also feel sick to their stomachand lightheaded They might experience a burning sensation,increased heart rate, shortness of breath and headaches

The cause is a genetic difference that some people are born with

It prevents their bodies from processing alcohol the way otherpeople do But the effects might be more serious than just a red

face Researchers have warned of a link between this conditionand an increased risk of cancer of the esophagus from drinkingalcohol.

A report about facial flushing appeared recently in PLoS Medicine,

a publication of the Public Library of Science The report says themore alcohol that persons with this deficiency drink, the greatertheir risk It estimates that at least five hundred forty million peoplehave the deficiency

Esophageal cancer is one of the deadliest cancers It can betreated when found early But once it grows the chances ofsurvival drop sharply

Philip Brooks is a researcher at America's National Institute onAlcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Doctor Brooks says it is important

to educate people about the link between the alcohol flushingeffect and esophageal cancer He says doctors should ask EastAsian patients about their experiences with facial flushing afterdrinking alcohol Those with a history of it should be advised tolimit their alcohol use They should also be warned that cigarettesmoking works with the alcohol in a way that further increases therisk of esophageal cancer

This is the VOA Special English DEVELOPMENT REPORT.

In far northern Mongolia, the survival of the smallest ethnic group

in the country depends on reindeer

An American named Morgan Keay visited the Tsaatan communitywhen she was studying in Mongolia in two thousand two Leaderstold her that the animals were not healthy and the number ofreindeer was getting too small to support the community

When she left, the chief gave her his grandfather's smoking pipe.That way she would remember the Tsaatan and try to help them.The Tsaatan have about five hundred members About half arereindeer herders up in the Taiga mountains The other half live in atown

Back in the United States, Morgan Keay and a friend who had alsostudied in Mongolia started an organization They named it Itgel the Mongolian word for hope.

The Itgel Foundation has helped bring foreign scientists toMongolia to research and treat reindeer diseases Itgel also helpedTsaatan workers build a community and visitor center The buildingincludes guest rooms for tourists

The Tsaatan not only work as guides, they now provide all servicesfor travelers The community works in partnership with internationaltour operators Those tour operators had formerly been in control

of the services

People in the community designed the center, which they also ownand manage Before the visitor center was built, families earned anaverage of one hundred dollars a year Now Morgan Keay says theaverage is three to four times that Money also goes into acommunity fund

Four years ago the Tsaatan had fewer than five hundred reindeer.Now Morgan Keay says the herd has just reached nine hundred

Last year, the Tsaatan learned that the government of Mongoliaplanned to spend one and a half million dollars on their community.But no one had talked to the Tsaatan about the plans The ItgelFoundation organized a meeting between community membersand government representatives

Morgan Keay says the Tsaatan are becoming economicallyindependent for the first time The Mongolian government is nowconsidering a development plan written by the community Theplan deals with education, health, the environment and economics

And that's the VOA Special English DEVELOPMENT REPORT,

written by Karen Leggett For pictures, transcripts and MP3archives of our reports, go to voaspecialenglish.com

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English I'm Bob

Doughty And I'm Shirley Griffith

This week, we tell about a discovery of gorillas in the Republic ofCongo and the loss of Bengal tigers in Nepal We also tell about afamous heart surgeon and what you need to know about yourheart.

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Deep in the forests in the northern part of the Republic of Congo,scientists have made a surprising discovery Researchersdiscovered more than one hundred twenty-five thousand critically

In the nineteen eighties, scientists estimated that the totalpopulation of western lowland gorillas in Central Africa was fewerthan one hundred thousand Since then however, the scientistsbelieved this number had been reduced by at least half Theythought the animals were being killed off by hunters and disease,

The new population count was the result of intensive work by theWildlife Conservation Society, based in New York City, andscientists of the Republic of Congo They searched rainforests and

Gorillas build beds, or nests, for sleeping each night They useleaves and other parts of trees The researchers use the number ofnests they find to help estimate the local gorilla population Theyfound some forests had population densities that were among thehighest ever recorded The researchers studied an area of forty-seven thousand square kilometers They announced the results oftheir population count at a meeting of the InternationalPrimatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland

The scientists say the higher number of gorillas is the result ofefforts by the Republic of Congo to take care of its protected areas.The gorillas have also done well because they live in areas faraway from people And they have plenty to eat WildlifeConservation Society President Steven Sanderson said the

success of the gorillas is proof that humans can help protect

Western lowland gorillas are one of four recognized gorillasubspecies Other subspecies include mountain gorillas, easternlowland gorillas, and Cross River gorillas The International Unionfor Conservation of Nature considers all of the subspecies to becritically endangered, except for the eastern lowland gorillas That

Researchers at the meeting in Scotland warned about the dangersthat continue to threaten gorillas They say almost fifty percent ofthe world's species of primates are in danger of disappearing,especially in Asia This is because the areas in which they live arebeing destroyed And many animals are illegally hunted as food.(MUSIC)

That was some good news about gorillas But we have some badnews about tigers Three years ago, between twenty and fiftyBengal tigers lived in the Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal.But this year, researchers reported evidence of only six to fourteentigers The Nepalese government announced the decrease of thetiger population last month The wildlife reserve measures aboutthirty thousand hectares It is the world's third largest living area for

Nepalese national parks and conservation officials called thesituation very serious They said illegal hunting is the major cause

of tigers disappearing from this protected area

The World Wildlife Fund did most of the study about the tigers Thefindings were based on pictures taken by camera traps fromJanuary to April The camera traps contain devices that take apicture when they sense movement in the forest Researchersused two cameras to take pictures of the tigers from both sides.But the cameras also photographed the hunters who killed the

The Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve is on the border with India.World Wildlife Fund officials say this makes it easy to illegallytransport protected wildlife Very little of the tigers' remains arefound because all of the animal's parts are valuable in the illegal

Jon Miceler heads the World Wildlife Fund's Eastern HimalayasProgram Mr Miceler said that in May, two tiger skins were seizedfrom the Nepalese border town of Dhangadi So were thirty-two

Mr Miceler says the loss of tigers is linked to a powerfulinternational criminal group that controls the illegal wildlife trade.Only about two thousand to four thousand Bengal tigers survive in

Most live in forests in central and south India, Bhutan, and theHimalayan foothills of India and Nepal Bengal tigers also live inChina, Bangladesh and Burma The World Wildlife Fund sayspopulations of all kinds of tigers have decreased by ninety-fivepercent over the past one hundred years And three kinds of tigers

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Famous American heart surgeon Michael DeBakey died lastmonth He was ninety-nine years old He performed more thansixty thousand operations during his long career As a medicalstudent in nineteen thirty-one, he invented the roller pump Yearslater doctors used it for blood transfusions during heart operations.The roller pump became a major part of the heart-lung machine.The machine pumps oxygen-rich blood to the brain and otherorgans so doctors can operate on the heart

Michael DeBakey was a pioneer of open-heart surgery The namemeans that doctors open the chest and perform surgery on theheart Doctors may or may not open the heart as well

Doctor DeBakey developed a way to replace or repair bloodvessels with Dacron, a stretchy manmade material He continued

to improve on the process Today the DeBakey artificial graft isused around the world He was also a pioneer in artificial hearts,heart transplants and recording surgeries on film During WorldWar Two in the nineteen forties, he helped develop the Mobile

Michael DeBakey saved many lives during his long career as aheart surgeon One life he helped save was his own Two yearsago he had a damaged aorta, which carries blood from the heart tothe body Surgeons repaired it with an operation he developed longago

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Speaking of hearts, here is some information about that complexorgan and how to keep it healthy The heart has four parts As theheart beats, it pumps blood through these chambers and the bloodvessels in the body The body is estimated to have at least ninety-six thousand kilometers of blood vessels That is about the same

as two and a half times around the Earth But blood goes thedistance in about twenty seconds on its way back to the heart.Each day the heart pumps about eight thousand liters of blood

The blood feeds the brain and other organs with oxygen andnutrients It also carries away carbon dioxide and other waste Theheart pumps by expanding and contracting of muscle In a healthyadult, the heart beats an average of seventy-two times a minute about one hundred thousand times a day

Rates of heart disease started growing sharply in the second half

of the twentieth century As machines did more and more work,people did less and less Not only did physical activity decrease,but people started eating more processed foods.Experts say a diet low in fats and high in fruits, vegetables,

proteins and whole grains may help reduce the risk of heartdisease At least thirty minutes a day of physical activity, enough towork up a sweat, can also help A good night's sleep is also

Cardiovascular disease is caused by disorders of the heart andblood vessels It includes heart attacks, strokes and high bloodpressure The World Health Organization says there are threemajor causes of cardiovascular disease: tobacco use, physicalinactivity and an unhealthy diet The W.H.O sayscardiovascular disease is the world's leading cause of death.(MUSIC)

This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by JerilynWatson, Caty Weaver and Brianna Blake, who also was our

And I'm Bob Doughty You can read and listen to our programs atvoaspecialenglish.com Join us next week for more news aboutscience in VOA Special English

This is the VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT.

A burro is a small donkey Donkeys are related to horses; both arepart of the equine family Another way people say it is BOOR-oh.The name comes from Spanish and, before that, from a Latin term

Burros reach an average height of over a meter and can weighmore than two hundred twenty-five kilograms The long-earedanimals are often gray with white noses, jaws and undersides Butthey can also have coats of red or blue

Burros are known for their sure footing on mountains while carryingheavy loads In the United States, they are best known for theirhistory as pack animals in the desert Southwest In fact, burros inthe wild are related to pack animals that ran away or were freed by

gold miners and others.

But burros are not only good pack animals They can also helpcalm and control nervous horses and guard sheep and goats onfarms Robin Rivello works with the New Jersey chapter of theAmerican Mustang and Burro Association She says burros haveprotected farm animals even against bears

People may have the idea that burros and donkeys do not likebeing told what to do But experts say the animals are not beingstubborn; they just like to take their time considering what they willdo

In the United States, there are breeders who raise and sell burros

Or Americans can buy a burro taken from the wild by a federalagency, the Bureau of Land Management

People who get a wild burro need to "gentle" the animal "Gentling"means training it to accept the human attention needed for care

Burros like to clean each other But these desert animals groomthemselves with dust instead of water So it is normal for a burro tohave some dirt in its coat A brush can remove hardened mud

Experts like Robin Rivello advise owners not to let their burros eattoo much Being fat can ruin their health Overweight burros canalso develop a condition that threatens their well-known walkingability

Robin Rivello says a burro's feet should be cleaned and cared forevery six to eight weeks But she warns owners not to raise thefeet as high as with a horse A burro's legs differ from a horse'slegs The pain could make the burro kick

And that's the VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT,

written by Jerilyn Watson Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of ourreports are at voaspecialenglish.com I'm Jim Tedder

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English I'm Bob

Doughty And I'm Barbara Klein

This week, we will tell about mammal populations in danger ofdisappearing We will also tell about one kind of animal thatdisappeared long ago And, we will examine some traditionalbeliefs about the viruses that cause influenza and the commoncold

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A worldwide study has found that almost twenty-five percent of wildmammals are in danger of permanently disappearing Scientificresearchers considered all known mammal populations Theresearchers say permanent disappearance threatens at least onethousand one hundred forty-one species or groups of animals.Mammals are the closest relatives to human beings

The researchers are blaming loss of habitat, or living space, andhunting for threatened land mammals They say water mammalssuffer more from pollution, being hit by ships and caught in fishingnets

One thousand seven hundred experts worked on the study Theyare from one hundred thirty countries Their findings were reported

at the World Conservation Conference of the International Unionfor Conservation of Nature in Barcelona, Spain

The report was presented in connection with the Red List ofThreatened Species The World Conservation Conferenceannounces the Red List each year The list contains almost fortyfive thousand animals and plants Of those, almost seventeenthousand, or about thirty eight percent, are threatened withextinction

Some scientists say the report provides evidence that Earth'swildlife is going through widespread extinction The last suchperiod may have taken place millions of years ago, when dinosaursbecame extinct

Jan Schipper led the writing of the report He directs the I.U.C.N.'sprogram that observes animal populations worldwide.

Mr Schipper says up to thirty six percent of mammals could befacing extinction He says this is true because not muchinformation exists about some species At least seventy-sixmammals have permanently disappeared since fifteen hundred

The director general of the I.U.C.N., Julia Marton-Lefevre, sayshuman activity could cause loss of hundreds of species She saysthat is a frightening sign of what is happening to habitats Still, thereport said human efforts also could help save some species Ms.Marton-Lefevre is calling for action to make that happen

For study purposes, the I.U.C.N divides animals into groups Thescientists call animals that have disappeared, or almostdisappeared, extinct or nearly extinct A frog-like creature calledHoldridge's toad was declared extinct It lived only in Costa Rica

Other divisions depend on the amount of threat the animals face.The animals in most danger are considered critically endangered

For example, the Iberian lynx is called critically endangered Asfew as eighty-four adult members of the large, cat-like animalsremain alive

The Red List identifies the second most threatened animals asendangered The scientists named a Southeast Asian animal, thefishing cat, as among the endangered Part of the fishing cat'swetland habitat no longer exists

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A new study suggests the last woolly mammoths in Siberia werenative to North America Scientists had believed these mammothscame from Europe or Asia

The study involved genetic evidence from the remains of theancient animal Woolly Mammoths share an ancestor with modern-

day elephants The mammoth is recognizable for its long hair andlarge tusks.

Woolly mammoths disappeared thousands of years ago, afterEarth's most recent ice age But mammoths were able to survivefor thousands of years During this period, they slowly changed tolive in extremely cold climates

Scientists believe the ancestors of woolly mammoths came fromAfrica As the African mammoths moved north to Eurasia,scientists believe, they grew long hair to protect them from theextreme cold of Siberia

To better understand these animals, an international researchteam examined genetic material from more than one hundredwoolly mammoth remains The remains were found in NorthAmerica, Europe and Asia These fossils came from woollymammoths that lived between forty-four thousand and eleventhousand years ago

Hendrik Poinar is a molecular evolutionary geneticist at McMasterUniversity in Ontario, Canada He and his team examined geneticmaterial from fossilized teeth and pieces of bones from woollymammoths They also examined results of earlier woolly mammothstudies

Until recently, many scientists believed that mammoths came fromEurope and Asia because that is where the oldest fossils werefound Earlier studies of the mammoths involved only one continent

at a time The researchers discovered that mammals traveled backand forth several times between Eurasia and Alaska overthousands of years The animals were able to travel on a landbridge that connected Siberia and Alaska during low sea levels

The researchers discovered that the mammoths were divided inthree major groups One group lived mainly in Asia Another grouplived mainly in the Americas And, a third group lived in bothplaces They believe the American mammoths traveled back

across the Bering Strait and in time replaced the other populations

of mammoths

The researchers believe the animals moved the great distances insearch of food A report with their findings was published in CurrentBiology Other researchers disputed the findings They say thestudy is based on only limited information

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Autumn and winter are cold and flu season when people aremost likely to catch the viruses that cause influenza and thecommon cold

Is the old advice true that wearing warm clothing will help prevent acold? Or if you do get sick, should you follow the old saying, "Feed

a cold and starve a fever"? And what about that fever? Should youtake medication to reduce your temperature, or is it better to let thebody treat the infection itself?

Everyone seems to have an answer But how much value is there

in popular wisdom?

Doctor Alvin Nelson El Amin knows a lot about cold and flu season

He is medical director of the immunization program for the LosAngeles County Department of Public Health in California

Doctor Nelson El Amin says studies may be just starting to provideevidence for long-held beliefs For example, scientists for yearsdismissed the idea that getting cold and wet might cause colds orflu

But recent studies have shown that cold temperatures cause stress

on the body That stress can create conditions more inviting toviruses So maybe it does make sense to wrap up warmly beforeleaving home

And what about the advice to feed a cold and starve a fever?Doctor Nelson El Amin says you should eat if you have a cold andare hungry But a higher than normal body temperature suggests a

more serious problem He says people are usually not hungryanyway when they have a high fever Eating might even cause aperson to vomit But drinking plenty of liquids is important A fevercan easily dehydrate the body.

Finally, when should you treat a fever? Doctor Nelson El Aminsays a fever should be treated if it stays at forty degrees centigrade

or above for a day or more A temperature that high can damagebrain cells The doctor also believes in treating a fever if it prevents

a person from sleeping

Aspirin, acetaminophen and ibuprofen can all be used to reducepain and fever But aspirin should not be given to children because

it can cause a rare condition

One belief that Doctor Nelson El Amin wanted to make clear iswrong is that influenza vaccine can cause the flu It cannot.Sometimes people get the flu from another person soon after theyget vaccinated, so they blame the vaccine, he says

But, flu vaccines do not protect everyone who gets them Still, even

if a person does get sick, the vaccine can limit the effects of thevirus

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This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jerilyn Watson, CatyWeaver and Brianna Blake, who also was our producer I'mBarbara Klein And I'm Bob Doughty Read and listen to ourprograms at voaspecialenglish.com Listen again next week formore news about science, in Special English, on the Voice ofAmerica

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English I'm Bob

Doughty And I'm Barbara Klein

This week, we will tell about a genetic map for an animal thatdisappeared long ago We will tell about an unusual-looking insectfrom South America And we will tell about a reported link betweenanimals and health problems in children

Scientists say they have completed most of a genetic map for anancient creature the woolly mammoth The map is said to be thefirst to show the genetic structure of an animal that no longerexists

Biologists at the Pennsylvania State University studied the remains

of two woolly mammoths from Siberia One mammoth lived twentythousand years ago The other lived at least sixty thousand yearsago

The woolly mammoth belongs to a species, or group, linked to themodern African elephant With its thick, long hair, the now extinctmammoth was able to survive in cold weather Lead researcherStephan Schuster says the mammoth and African elephant sharemore than ninety-nine percent of their genetic material

STEPHAN SCHUSTER:"So this tells you that they are very, verysimilar And also, just because the mammoth is extinct does notmean it is an ancient elephant It is as modern as an Asian orAfrican elephant But unfortunately, it had the bad luck to go extinctbefore today."

Mr Schuster and the research team studied genes, or DNA, thatwere found in long pieces of mammoth hair They say genes fromhair are better to study than those from bones or other remains.That is because the genes from hair are less likely to mix with otherkinds of DNA

The researchers say they were able to uncover about seventypercent of the mammoth's genome, or genetic structure They alsosay the study will help scientists better understand how elephantsevolved, or developed

Mr Schuster says the information shows the mammoth evolvedfrom the African elephant six million years ago Mammothsdisappeared about ten thousand years ago

The researchers hope their work will also increase understanding

of how the woolly mammoth evolved and why it died out Theirfindings were reported in the publication Nature

The study also provides some information that would be needed tore-create the mammoth But scientists say such an animal wouldnot be possible any time soon if ever

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Some researchers like to study animals that disappeared long ago.But others want to discover new species creatures that may haveexisted for thousands of years, but remain unknown to scientists.One recent discovery was made in Brazil This is where aresearcher from the United States discovered a new ant species.Christian Rabeling is a graduate student at the University of Texas

in Austin He believes the species could be linked to some of theearliest kinds of ants to have evolved

The ant has a very unusual appearance It is extremely light incolor and has no eyes It also has large extensions from its headcalled mandibles These are likely used to capture food

Because of its appearance, the ant was given the scientific nameMartialis heureka The name means "ant from Mars."

The insect is two to three millimeters long Scientists believe itsappearance resulted from changes that took place for the ant tobetter live under the ground

Genetic testing shows the ant belongs to a new ant subfamily.There are twenty-one known ant subfamilies The discovery marksthe first time since nineteen twenty-three that a new ant subfamilyhas been identified Since then, new subfamilies have only beenfound from fossilized ant remains

The genes of the new ant also show that it comes from a speciesthat first evolved from the wasp Ants developed from these insects

more than one hundred twenty million years ago Some specieschanged to live in trees or in their leaves.

Scientists believe others like the new species may have evolved tolive in the dirt That would explain the ant's loss of eyes and lightcolor

Christian Rabeling collected the only example of the new species

in two thousand three It was found among leaves in the Amazonrainforest Mr Rabeling reported on the discovery in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences He says findingnew ant species could help scientists understand more about theevolution of ants He believes many other species have yet to bediscovered in warm climates

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Many families in the United States have at least one pet The mostpopular are dogs, cats and fish Some Americans own exotic, lesstraditional pets They care for animals like hedgehogs, monkeys orsnakes

Recently, a report warned that non-traditional pets may causeserious health problems in children The report appeared inPediatrics, a publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics Itsays families with children less than five years old should not haveexotic pets It says children that age should avoid contact with suchanimals in petting zoos, schools and other public places

The report says the number of exotic pets available in the UnitedStates has increased since nineteen ninety two Many people findthem easier to care for than other pets For example, more thanfour million American homes have reptiles like snakes and turtles

as pets

Another exotic pet, the hedgehog, is native to Europe, Asia andAfrica But hedgehogs can now be found in forty thousand homes.Yet the animal also can spread salmonella infections The sharpspines on their back also make it easier to spread infections like E

coli Exotic pets also can cause allergic reactions and sicknesseslike rabies.

Larry Pickering was a lead researcher in the study He says elevenpercent of salmonella infections in children are believed to becaused by touching lizards or other reptiles Salmonella can causethe uncontrolled expulsion of body wastes It also can cause highbody temperatures and stomach problems

Children can become sick by kissing or touching animals and thenputting their fingers in their mouths Young children are especially

at risk because their natural defenses against disease are stilldeveloping Also at risk are other persons with weakened defensesystems, older adults and pregnant woman

The report says parents need to be educated about the health riskscaused by exotic pets And, it says, families with children under theage of five should not own such animals

It says parents should first talk with their children's doctors andanimal experts to see if there is cause for concern And, it suggestswashing hands often to help decrease risks for disease

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Bacterial meningitis must be treated with antibiotic drugs as soon

as possible or the infection can cause hearing loss and braindamage It can also kill

A large area in Africa holds the world record for the most meningitiscases Known as the meningitis belt, this area extends fromSenegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east More than two hundredfifty thousand people got sick there in nineteen ninety-six andnineteen ninety-seven Twenty-five thousand of them died frommeningitis The disease still strikes the area from time to time

Nations along the meningitis belt agreed in September to support acampaign to protect their populations with a new vaccine TheWorld Health Organization will provide technical aid with thevaccine

The campaign will also get help from weather experts One partner

in the effort is America's National Center for AtmosphericResearch It will make long-term weather predictions along themeningitis belt Local health officials can then plan the best times

to vaccinate people

The disease often strikes during dry, dusty weather One possiblereason is that dust can affect the breathing passages and peoplemay be more open to infection Another theory is that people maystay in their homes more during the dry season, making it easier tocatch meningitis from others The infections usually stop when therainy season begins

Weather experts will provide fourteen-day forecasts of atmosphericconditions The weather program will start in Ghana next year.(MUSIC)

This SCIENCE IN THE NEW was written by Lawan Davis, JerilynWatson and Brianna Blake, who was also our producer I'mBarbara Klein And I'm Bob Doughty Join us again next week formore news about science in Special English on the Voice ofAmerica

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English I'm Bob

Doughty And I'm Faith Lapidus

This week, we will tell about sharks a fish with a public relationsproblem

A picture in the newspaper shows a person standing next to ahuge shark The body of the shark is hanging with its head down Ascale is measuring its weight

The lines below the picture say the shark was a very big one Orperhaps it was one of the biggest ever caught in the area Theperson who brought in the fish looks extremely pleased Thatperson won a battle with what has been called one of nature'sfiercest creatures

Some people, however, do not approve of catching sharks They

do not think all sharks are terrifying enemies They know thatstudies show lightning and snakebites threaten people more thanshark attacks

Activists for sharks note that the fish are valuable in the ocean.Sharks eat injured and diseased fish Their hunting means thatother fish do not become too great in number This protects othercreatures and plants in the ocean

Environmental activists worry that some kinds of fish are in danger

of dying out The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationestimated that fishing operations kill more than one hundred millionsharks every year Sharks are harvested for meat and cartilage,liver oil and, especially, for their fins Many of the animals die whenpeople harvesting other kinds of fish pull in sharks by accident

George Burgess leads the International Shark Attack File at theFlorida Museum of Natural History of the University of Florida Hesays shark attacks increased during the past century for a goodreason Hundreds of millions of people now use the world'soceans, more than in the past

Professor Burgess says the first ten years of the twenty-firstcentury are expected to register the most attacks of any ten-yearperiod

Yet the International Shark Attack File reports that the number ofshark attacks has, in fact, decreased in recent years During thisperiod, there was an average of sixty-three attacks worldwide eachyear That compares with a high of seventy-nine in two thousand

The file gives some likely reasons for the decrease One reason isthat overfishing of sharks and related fish has reduced the size ofsome shark populations

Another is that more people are careful to stay away from waterswhere sharks swim And the file says workers responsible for

boating and beach safety may be doing a better job of warningpeople when sharks are seen.

The International Shark Attack File describes shark attacks aseither provoked or unprovoked An unprovoked attack means theperson is alive when bitten It also means the person must nothave interfered with the shark

Some divers interfere with sharks on purpose They want to get theattention of sharks, perhaps to take pictures of them The divermay put food in the water to get the animal to come close Sharks

do not normally want to be with people But their excellent sense ofsmell leads them to food

Some experienced divers say they may not face danger when near

a shark But they say the next person who comes near the sharkmay be in trouble The animal's experience with being fed maymake it connect food with people

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Some divers, filmmakers and nature photographers enter a shark'sterritory while inside containers made of steel Others wear heavymetal equipment for protection And others get near sharkswearing only normal diving equipment

Close contact with sharks has its critics Some people say itrepresents invasion of the animals' territory for no good reason Butexciting films may increase public interest and sympathy for theanimals

Many people wanting to save sharks have formed activist groups.For example, a group called Shark Safe helped prevent the killing

of sharks at a fishing competition in Florida earlier this month.Event organizers had said the goal would be to catch and releasesharks

But the Shark Safe Project said the stated goal of "bringing in thebig one" would lead to killing of the biggest sharks The big onesare the most likely to reproduce

The Shark Safe Project planned a demonstration against thecompetition The demonstration never took place, however.Instead, the event organizers changed their plans Participantswere to catch the sharks as expected But all sharks were to bereleased.

The Shark-Free Marinas Initiative is a campaign aimed at helpingsharks worldwide Under the Initiative, people could not bring akilled shark to a participating marina People transporting capturedsharks to the boat landing for weighing and killing would also berejected

The initiative cooperates with several other programs, including theCape Eleuthera Institute in the Bahamas islands The Institute is

an educational center that also operates a shark researchprogram

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In late two thousand seven, a United Nations conference reportedthat one kind of shark, the basking shark, is in danger of dying out.The numbers of basking sharks have been decreasing for the pasthalf-century The animals are the second largest shark, after whalesharks They swim with their mouths open, cleaning the water asthey move They take up and eat objects like fish eggs and tiny seaorganisms

Scientists want to know how and where basking sharks travel

Recently, experts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean wereinterested in a huge basking shark discovered in eastern Canada.The remains of the eight-meter long animal were found on a rockybeach in Saint John, New Brunswick Experts said the cause ofdeath is unknown

Donald McAlpine heads the zoology collection at the NewBrunswick Museum in Saint John He said scientists removed thehead and some backbones from the shark for examination Mr.McAlpine said pictures of the animal were sent to scientists in

Britain The British scientists had requested the pictures to learn ifthe shark was the same fish they had observed on their side of theAtlantic.

Sharks can be identified by their individual markings andsometimes by healed wounds

For years, the travels of basking sharks have been a mystery toscientists Basking sharks from the northeastern United States arenot seen in the winter They seem to disappear from cool waters ofthe Atlantic and Pacific Oceans Yet studies published in thejournal Current Biology are providing clues about the mystery

The studies found that the sharks went to warmer waters of theAtlantic during the winter The animals did a good job of stayinghidden from sight They swam in waters from two hundred to onethousand meters deep

Like Americans living in cold climates, some of the sharks traveled

to Florida for the winter Others went even further south One spent

a month in waters near Brazil

One of the investigators was Gregory Skomal of theMassachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries He says the fishprobably get to eat more plankton in the warmer waters

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Today, a major threat to sharks comes from shark fin soup Thepopularity of the soup has increased greatly over the years.Fisheries can earn a lot of money for even one kilogram of sharkfins

Finning, as it is called, is big business It means cutting the fins off

a live shark Fishermen cut off the shark's fins and throw theanimal back into the water The shark then bleeds to death on thebottom of the ocean

Many animal-protection groups and people worldwide havedenounced finning as cruel Some areas have banned this activity.But it is hard to enforce the ban in many places.

Ann Luskey is an activist for the world's sea environment She lives

on a boat and often dives to watch underwater life Her threechildren took part in an unusual recording project The familyhopes the music will attract attention to the need for taking goodcare of the earth and its seas

One of the recordings is a hip-hop song called "Shark Fin Soup." Iturges people not to eat the soup because it threatens sharks

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This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jerilyn Watson.Brianna Blake was our producer I'm Faith Lapidus And I'm BobDoughty Listen again next week for more news about science inSpecial English on the Voice of America

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English I’m

Barbara Klein And I’m Shirley Griffith

This week, we tell about sharks They are among the world's mostfeared animals But studies show that sharks are in far moredanger from people than people are from sharks

You may have seen shark diving on television If so, you know thatsome divers observe the animals from the safety of a steel cage orcontainer Or they wear special equipment made of metal.

But some divers have no extra protection when they watch sharks

A few swim in waters containing food People drop it in the water

to bring fish close to them

Reports say Markus Groh was in the water with food when he wasbitten His death is the first deadly attack during shark feedingrecorded by the International Shark Attack File But the group hasreported many injuries in the sport

Many shark divers say it is exciting to swim near the animals Theyare likely to dismiss any danger Those who like shark diving say itincreases people’s interest in sharks

Such persons say it helps the public understand how important theanimals are to the environment They say it makes people want toprotect sharks at a time when some kinds of shark are dying out

Some ocean experts criticize shark diving that involves feeding theanimals They say the fish can become aggressive after havingcontact with the people feeding them They say feeding sharks isbad for both animals and human beings The American state ofFlorida seemingly agrees Florida banned the feeding of all sealife, including sharks, in two thousand one

Several companies offer diving trips near the Bahamas Islands That is where Markus Groh died Jim Abernethy’s ScubaAdventures organized the diving trip taken by the Austrian man The company has provided passenger boat trips for divers in theBahamas for several years

Last year, the Bahamas Diving Association criticized such trips The group wrote to Mr Abernethy’s company and others like it The Association asked that they stop taking people to shark diveswithout protective cages It also proposed an end to cagelessdives in open waters with possibly dangerous sharks

Markus Groh’s death brought criticism of this kind of shark diving But a group called Shark Savers has praised Jim Abernethy andhis company

The group says Mr Abernethy is an ambassador of protection ofsharks in the Bahamas Shark Savers says he brings publicattention to sharks’ importance in the environment It says Mr.Abernethy’s work helps warn people of the danger that somesharks could disappear from Earth

Shark Savers operates a Web site called Sharksavers.org It hasasked people to add their names in support of cageless sharkdiving in the Bahamas The Web site also contains a list ofsupporters of shark diving in general

But an activist organization opposes the feeding of sharks TheMarine Safety Group led the movement for the Florida ban onfeeding sharks and other water creatures

The head of the group, Bob Dimond, says sharks normally do notwant to be with people But their excellent sense of smell leadsthem to food The smell also causes more sharks than normal toenter the same waters Mr Dimond says the presence of manysharks increases risk to humans

He adds that shark feeders do not face the most danger from theanimals Instead, people who come near a shark later face thegreater threat By then, he says the fish has linked people withfood

George Burgess heads the International Shark Attack File and theFlorida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida Healso opposes the feeding of sharks He supports watching themdoing normal activities in their natural surroundings

Professor Burgess notes that hundreds of millions of people usethe world’s oceans He says this has caused shark attacks toincrease during the past century Still, the Shark Attack File

reported only one deadly shark attack last year The victim wasskin-diving off Tonga.

Professor Burgess says the total number of shark attack deathsthrough two thousand seven was the lowest in twenty years Hesays people have more to fear from some snakes, insects andlightning than from sharks Taken together, shark attacks are farfrom the most dangerous threats to humans

The International Shark Attack File describes shark attacks aseither provoked or unprovoked An unprovoked attack means theperson is alive when bitten The person is in the shark'senvironment Also, the person must not have interfered with theshark Professor Burgess says the death of Markus Groh willsurely be recorded as provoked

Surprisingly, the International Shark Attack File has records ofattacks back to the sixteenth century How does the group knowabout attacks hundreds of years ago? With some difficulty, saysthe professor His volunteer team of researchers investigatesreports They study old newspapers, books and historicdocuments He also says the media provide stories about sharkbites And people who have observed attacks communicate withhis team

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Many people think of sharks as a deadly enemy But these fishhelp the environment They perform activities that help people They eat injured and diseased fish Their hunting means that themany other fish in ocean waters do not become too great Thisprotects other creatures and plants in the oceans Sharks alsomay someday be valuable for treatment of human diseases

During a recent year, business and sport fishing killed an estimatedone million or more sharks Most sharks reproduce only every two

years and give birth to fewer than ten young For this reason,over-fishing of sharks is a danger to the future of the animal.

Julia Baum of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography worries thatsome sharks may disappear from Earth She has noted majordecreases in sharks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean

Ms Baum and scientist Ransom Meyers carried out studies forDalhousie University in Halifax, Canada Their work showedspecial danger to large coastal sharks Populations of tiger,scalloped hammerhead, bull and dusky sharks all had dropped byninety five percent over five years The two researchers placedmost blame on intensive fishing This overfishing includedcatching sharks by mistake

Some scientists say about half of the thousands of sharks caughteach year were not the target of the fishing But no one reallyknows whether these sharks would survive if they returned to thewater

People hunt sharks for sport, food, medicine and shark skin Collectors pay thousands of dollars for the jawbones of a shark Shark liver oil is a popular source of Vitamin A Sharkskin can beused like the skin of other animals

Some people enjoy a soup made from shark meat The popularity

of the soup has grown greatly over the years Today, fishingcompanies can earn a lot of money for even one kilogram of sharkfins Some restaurants serve shark fin soup for one hundreddollars a bowl

Finning, as it is called, means cutting the fins off a live shark Some areas ban finning But illegal shark-fishing is big business

Fishermen often cut off the shark’s fins and throw the animal backinto the water The shark is left to bleed to death to save space onthe boat

In two thousand four, sixty-three nations approved laws to protectsharks Some rules are effective near land But, as George