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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 mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. That&`&s mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. 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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