October 31 is Halloween. But many Americans have been preparing for the holiday for weeks. And businesses are hoping for good profits from Halloween purchases.  10月31日是万圣节。但许多美国人已经为假期做准备了数周。企业希望从万圣节采购中获得丰厚利润。  The National Retail Federation (N.R.F.) is the largest U.S. trade group representing sellers of material goods. It expects total Halloween spending in 2024 to reach about $11.6 billion. That sounds like a healthy amount, but it would be a drop from the year before. The N.R.F. says total...

Octopuses are usually considered to be solitary creatures, but this study suggests they may have richer social lives than previously thought.  章鱼通常被认为是独居动物，但这个研究表明它们的社交生活可能比此前人们认为的更加丰富。 Researchers found they work together with different species of fish when hunting for prey, even making decisions on behalf of the pack and sharing leadership responsibilities. But things don't always go swimmingly. Scientists witnessed octopuses punching fish in the group, apparently, as a way of making them...

Suddenly a sound rings out, stopping you in your tracks. Panicking, you search for where it could be coming from. It's your phone, and if you're like a quarter of 18 to 34-year-olds in a recent British study, you probably won't answer it. The same study found that 70% of people in this age group prefer text messages to phone calls. Why do so many people hate phone calls?  突然，一道声音响起，让你停下了脚步。你惊慌失措，寻找它可能来自哪里。这是你的手机，如果你就像英国最近一项研究中 18 至 34 岁人群中的四分之一一样，你可能不会接听它。同一项研究发现，这个年龄段的人中有 70%...

A new study says humanity is hitting the upper limit of life expectancy.  一项新的研究表明，人类正在达到预期寿命的上限。  Developments in medical technology and genetic research are not leading to major increases in lifespan overall, the researchers said.  研究人员表示，医疗技术和基因研究的发展并没有导致整体寿命的大幅延长。  The study was published recently in Nature Aging.  该研究最近发表在《自然衰老》杂志上。  “We have to recognize there’s a limit” and possibly change ideas about when people should retire and how much money they will need to live out their lives,...

In Pakistan, polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign. Violence targeting health workers has also hurt years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.  在巴基斯坦，在新的疫苗接种活动之前，脊髓灰质炎病例正在上升。针对卫生工作者的暴力行为也损害了该国多年来为消除脊髓灰质炎所做的努力。  The World Health Organization says polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. The disease largely affects children under age five. The virus is transmitted from person to person and spread mainly through contact. It invades the nervous...

“There was a trend, it happened when COVID hit, to stop reading full-length novels because students were in trauma; we were in a pandemic. The problem is we haven’t quite come back from that,” she said.  “当新冠疫情来袭时，出现了一种趋势，即停止阅读长篇小说，因为学生们正处于创伤之中；我们正处于大流行之中。问题是我们还没有完全恢复过来，”她说。  Other teachers blame standardized testing and the influence of education technology.  其他教师则将此归咎于标准化考试和教育技术的影响。  Some students struggle to read. Only one third of fourth and eighth graders reached reading proficiency in...

Teachers in many English classes across America are having students read fewer full-length books.  美国许多英语课堂的老师都在减少学生阅读长篇书籍的数量。  Recently, the Associated Press explored the issue in education.  近日，美联社就教育问题进行了探讨。  It reports that students instead are given only short parts of books. Educators said this is because they believe current students have shorter attention spans than those of the past. The teachers might feel pressure to prepare students for state and nationwide examinations know as...

A new state law will soon require school districts in California to create new rules restricting student smartphone use.  新的州法律很快将要求加州学区制定新规则，限制学生使用智能手机。  California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the law recently. The legislation makes California the latest state to try to reduce student phone access. Florida, Louisiana, Indiana, and several other states have also passed laws aimed at restricting student phone use at...

Early education expert Dan Gartrell says the most important civics lesson that preschools can teach is “social democracy.”  早期教育专家丹·加特雷尔表示，幼儿园可以教授的最重要的公民课程是“社会民主”。  Gartrell wrote a book about teaching democracy to preschoolers. It is called Education for a Civil Society. The book is used by the ACCA Child Development Center near Washington, D.C. in Northern Virginia.  加特雷尔写了一本关于向学龄前儿童教授民主的书。它被称为公民社会教育。这本书由弗吉尼亚州北部华盛顿特区附近的 ACCA 儿童发展中心使用。  Gartrell said this teaching “starts with appreciating...

NASA also chose American aerospace company Boeing to serve as a possible partner in its Artemis program. But the company’s Starliner rocket has faced major delays and difficulties during past test flights. 美国宇航局还选择美国航空航天公司波音作为其阿尔忒弥斯计划的可能合作伙伴。但该公司的 Starliner 火箭在过去的试飞中遇到了严重的延误和困难。  In the last one, Starliner successfully transported two American astronauts – Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – to the ISS in early June. The two were expected to stay in space for only a week. But ongoing technical...

SpaceX has successfully completed a fifth test of its Starship rocket system. The uncrewed test was carried out Sunday at the American space company’s launch center in Boca Chica, Texas.  SpaceX 已成功完成其 Starship 火箭系统的第五次测试。这次无人测试是周日在美国航天公司位于德克萨斯州博卡奇卡的发射中心进行的。  During the flight, the 121-meter-tall Starship was successfully pushed into space by a SpaceX Super Heavy booster rocket. After reaching a height, or altitude, of about 70 kilometers, the booster separated from Starship’s second stage,...

Glasgow hosted an extremely successful Commonwealth Games in 2014. So, after Victoria's withdrawal, it was suggested the city could rescue the 2026 Games using existing infrastructure and venues.  格拉斯哥在 2014 年主办了一届极其成功的英联邦运动会。所以在维多利亚州退出后，便有人提出格拉斯哥可以利用现有的基础设施和比赛场馆来举办比赛，从而挽救 2026 年的运动会。  Today, the Scottish government approved a scaled-back version of the event after receiving assurances that no public money will be spent. The total budget for 2014 was £543m. This Games is set to cost about...

Flying has revolutionised the way we navigate the world. It's often the quickest and most convenient way to travel long distances. But there's a catch – it's one of the most carbon-intensive activities the average person is likely to do. In 2018, a small group of celebrities in Sweden led the 'flygskam' movement, meaning 'flight shame' in English, to encourage people to give up flying. But, for people who need or love to travel, what can we offer as green...

The team began following Chrastil shortly before she became pregnant through in vitro fertilization. During the pregnancy and for two years after she gave birth, they continued doing MRI brain scans and blood tests to see how her brain changed. During this time, Chrastil’s sex hormones, like estrogen, increased and decreased. Some of the changes continued past pregnancy.  在克拉斯蒂尔通过体外受精怀孕前不久，研究小组开始追踪她。在她怀孕期间和产后两年内，他们继续进行核磁共振脑部扫描和血液测试，以了解她的大脑如何变化。在此期间，克里斯提尔的性激素（如雌激素）增加或减少。一些变化在怀孕后持续存在。  Emily...

When a brain scientist at the University of California, Irvine got pregnant at the age of 38, she saw a rare chance. Neuroscientist Liz Chrastil wanted to see how her brain changed while she was pregnant.  当加州大学欧文分校的一位脑科学家在 38 岁时怀孕时，她看到了一个难得的机会。神经科学家莉兹·克拉斯蒂尔想看看她怀孕期间大脑发生了怎样的变化。  Chrastil was among a group of researchers who presented their findings in a new study. It offers the first detailed map of one woman’s brain through the steps of pregnancy, also called...

When seismic sensors around the planet picked up the unusual signal emanating from Greenland, a group of geologists set out to solve the mystery of what was causing it.  当全球各地的地震感应器接收到格陵兰岛发出的 “地震” 信号后，一群地质学家开始着手解开有关该情况形成原因的谜团。  They eventually worked out that this vibration, that lasted an unprecedented nine days, came from a massive landslide that triggered a tsunami in a remote fjord in the east of the country. Before and after images revealed that a whole mountain top had collapsed there,...

If you could work from any location in the world, where would you go? Picture filling in a spreadsheet on a sandy Caribbean island, or maybe a little rooftop cafe in Rome where you can sip an espresso while editing a social media video. More and more countries are offering digital nomad visas and therefore the chance to work remotely, from wherever you'd like to.  如果您可以在世界任何地方工作，您会去哪里？在加勒比海的一个沙滩上填写电子表格的图片，或者在罗马的一家屋顶小咖啡馆，您可以一边喝着浓缩咖啡一边编辑社交媒体视频。越来越多的国家/地区正在提供数字游牧签证，因此您有机会在任何地方进行远程工作。  This way...

Meta’s Instagram service recently introduced some built-in tools designed to protect young users. The changes also give parents more control over their children’s accounts to improve safety and limit the amount of time spent on the social networking app.  Meta 的 Instagram 服务最近推出了一些旨在保护年轻用户的内置工具。这些变化还使父母能够更好地控制孩子的帐户，以提高安全性并限制在社交网络应用程序上花费的时间。  Instagram says the new tools aim to “reassure parents that teens are having safe experiences.” The main change was the establishment of Teen Accounts,...

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its activism against nuclear weapons.  诺贝尔和平奖被授予日本飞段协（Nihon Hidankyo），这是一个由美国广岛和长崎原子弹爆炸幸存者组成的日本组织，因其反对核武器的积极行动而被授予。  The Nobel committee said it "wishes to honor all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for...

South Korean writer Han Kang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee said her work “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”  韩国作家韩康周四荣获 2024 年诺贝尔文学奖。瑞典学院诺贝尔委员会表示，她的作品“直面历史创伤，暴露了人类生命的脆弱”。  Born in 1970, Han Kang is the first South Korean to win the literature prize. Kang began her career in 1993 with the publication of several poems in Literature and Society. She published her first story in 1995 with Love of...

A series of powerful hurricanes have affected millions of people in the United States in recent weeks.  最近几周，一系列强大的飓风影响了美国数百万人。  Some people are wondering if scientists could control extreme weather events. However, experts say hurricanes are far too powerful for humans to control.  有些人想知道科学家是否可以控制极端天气事件。然而，专家表示，飓风的威力太强大，人类无法控制。  Climate change is leading to increasingly powerful storms. This has led to greater attention on the possibilities of...

Cunningham, who was not involved in the new study, said it is not clear why rates of severe obesity are going up. Cunningham also said it is not clear why severe obesity rates were higher among women.  坎宁安没有参与这项新研究，他表示目前尚不清楚严重肥胖率上升的原因。坎宁安还表示，目前尚不清楚为什么女性严重肥胖率更高。  Reasons could include the effects of hormones, the effects of childbearing or other causes that require further study, she said.  她说，原因可能包括激素的影响、生育的影响或其他需要进一步研究的原因。  The new study also found that obesity rates varied by education....

Body weight continues to be a big public health issue in the United States. New government research suggests that the condition of having far too much fat stored in the body – severe obesity – has increased greatly over the past ten years.  体重仍然是美国的一个重大公共卫生问题。新的政府研究表明，体内储存过多脂肪的情况——严重肥胖——在过去十年中大大增加。  The U.S. obesity rate is about 40 percent, says a 2021-2023 study of about 6,000 people. Almost one in 10 of those questioned reported severe obesity, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and...

Edgar Tapia works on the Homeless Outreach Team of San Francisco, California. He goes to places where people are living in the streets and tells them there is space for them in city shelters. He recently went into one San Francisco neighborhood on that mission.  埃德加·塔皮亚 (Edgar Tapia) 在加利福尼亚州旧金山无家可归者外展团队工作。他前往人们流落街头的地方，告诉他们城市避难所里有空间。他最近前往旧金山的一个社区执行这项任务。  He came to a group of tents, calling out greetings and offers of food and water bottles. He asked if anyone was interested in moving indoors....

Benmou Suzuki is a religious worker at a 420-year-old temple that is not in very good condition.  铃木本谋 (Benmou Suzuki) 是一座拥有 420 年历史、状况不佳的寺庙的宗教工作者。  It is deep in the forest near a small Japanese mountain village. It does not look like a valuable property.  它位于日本小山村附近的森林深处。它看起来不像是有价值的财产。  Yet two men recently asked Suzuki if he was interested in selling. He said he thinks they did not want the old, ornate building next to a mountain that is considered holy. Instead, they wanted the special...