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03-12
很多人BMI指数(身体质量指数)“超重”，实际上却健康苗条。如果你也是其中的一员的话，那么下面的这个新研究可能会让你觉得很中听。因为一种新的测试体重的指数诞生了。
If you're one of the legions of slim, fit and healthy people whose BMI (Body Mass Index) makes them ‘technically' overweight, this story will be music to your ears. A new test is about to launch - called the ABSI.
很多人BMI指数(身体质量指数)“超重”，实际上却健康苗条。如果你也是其中的一员的话，那么下面的这个新研究可能会让你觉得很中听。一种新的测试体重的指数诞生了。
BMI is calculated by dividing your weight (in kilograms) by your height (in metres) squared. It has been widely criticised for years.
BMI指数(身体质量指数)的测量方式是：体重(千克)/身高(厘米)的平方。而近年来，这一指数受到的非议颇多。
‘The BMI is flawed because it doesn't take into account where you carry fat or how muscularyou are,' says Sue Baic, a dietician from Bristol University. ‘A woman with a fat stomach, thickwaist and skinny arms and legs could be deemed a healthy weight - yet people who carry fat around their mid-section are more at risk of heart disease, diabetes and even certain cancers.'
来自布里斯托大学的营养学家Sue Baic表示，“BMI指数是有缺陷的，因为它没有办法说明人体内有多少脂肪或多少肌肉。比方说，一名女性她肚子肥大却四肢纤细，而她的BMI指数有可能显示的就是健康。然而，腰腹部肥胖的人群患心脏病、糖尿病和某些癌症的危险性更大。”
To calculate your ABSI you take your waist measurement (in centimetres) and divide that by the square root of your height (in centimetres) multiplied by the square of the cube-root of your BMI.
而新推出的ABSI指数是这么计算得出的：腰围(厘米)/[身高(厘米)的平方根乘以BMI的立方根的平方]。
‘It's a very complicated formula!' says Sue. ‘But...
03-12
一般来说，我们都知道肥胖的人体型不美观，还有可能有一些血脂和血压方面的问题，但是，我们大概不知道，肥胖的人比一般人更容易患痴呆。
最新一项研究显示，肥胖会加速人的认知能力衰退，从而增加患痴呆症的风险。这项研究对6000多名年龄在35到55岁的英国公务员进行了为期十年的跟踪调查，并且在十年期间对他们进行了三次记忆力和认知技能测试。结果显示，身体肥胖且伴有不健康代谢变化的被试者认知技能退化速度比其他人要快。不过，专家强调，该研究关注的知识被试人群的认知功能，而不是痴呆症。正常老化、轻微认知障碍以及痴呆症之间的界限很模糊，但并不是所有的认知障碍都会导致痴呆症。研究人员表示，目前还不清楚为何肥胖和代谢异常与大脑功能退化相关，不过怀疑可能与高血糖及高胆固醇等因素有关。
Being overweight is not just bad for waistlines but for brains too, say researchers who have linked obesity to declining mental performance.
Being overweight is not just bad for waistlines but for brains too, say researchers who have linked obesity to declining mental performance.
Experts are not sure why this might be, but say metabolic changes such as high blood sugar and raised cholesterol are likely to be involved.
Obesity has already been tipped as a risk factor for dementia.
The work, published in Neurology, tracked the health of more than 6,000 British people over a decade.
The participants, who were aged between 35 and 55, took tests on memory and other cognitive skills three times over a 10-year period.
People who were both obese and who had unhealthy metabolic changes showed a much faster decline on their cognitive test scores compared to others in the study.
Delving deeper
The experts stress that they only looked at cognitive function, not dementia.
The boundary between normal ageing, mild cognitive impairment and de...
03-12
在很多办公室里，都是寂静一片，然而你知道吗?这种过于安静的状况，反而会增加员工的压力，降低工作效率。
我们描述某个地方特别安静的时候，通常会说“安静得连针掉到地上的声音都能听到”。英语中也用类似的表达。如果说某个地方，尤指办公室，特别安静，我们就可以说这地方有pin-drop syndrome(过度安静综合症)。
Pin-drop syndrome describes extreme quietness in an office, which leads to worker stress because the significance of even the smallest noises is magnified.
Pin-drop syndrome(字面意思为“掉针综合症”)描述的是办公室内极度安静的状况，在此状况下，员工感受到的压力可能会更大，因为任何微小的声音都有可能被放大。由此，pin-drop syndrome也可译为“过度安静综合症”。
According to the experts, too-quiet offices are a growing problem. Almost complete silence in office is unhealthily stressful. It may make workers feel lonely and, on the rare occasions when the silence was shattered by the telephone, all the workers would down pens to eavesdrop on the conversation.
专家表示，过度安静的办公室环境成为日渐突出的一个问题。完全安静的办公环境会产生过大压力，会让员工感觉孤单。以至于当这种安静被铃声打破之时，所有员工都会放下手中的工作偷听这通来电。
...03-12
女生们大都喜欢指甲油，那或鲜艳或神秘的颜色，给心情增加了不少斑斓。不过，这小小的指甲油，也有平价和天价之分。
珠宝品牌Azature推出号称“全世界最昂贵的指甲油”，成分含有267克拉的黑钻石，一瓶售价高达25万美元。
流行品牌Models Own两年前推出一款名称为“淘金潮”(Gold Rush)的金黄色指甲油，要价13万美元，且宣称是“全世界最昂贵的指甲油”，受到媒体瞩目。
这款指甲油内含约14克拉的钻石粉末，手工打造的瓶子含有将近4盎司黄金，并镶着1118颗碎钻。
如今珠宝品牌Azature更上一层楼，推价25万美元的黑钻石指甲油，指甲油内含有276克拉的黑钻石，堪称“全世界最昂贵的指甲油”。
The most expensive nail polish in the world has been unveiled.
Containing 267-carats of black diamonds, the tiny bottle of varnish, by Los Angeles-based luxury jeweler Azature, has been priced at $250,000 (157万元).
Models Own, a British company, released a Gold Rush Couture nail polish last year. The product, which contained 1,118 diamonds, was priced at $132, 800 (84万元), which set a new record for the most expensive nail polish in the world.
It also featured a hand-crafted lid made from yellow gold.
Just last month, beauty fans showed their passion for nail polish by taking to the auction site eBay in order to purchase the almost impossible-to-get Black Spotted polish by OPI.
Because it only sells in France, French owners of the product are able to price the varnish for up to $70 (440 元) per bottle.
以上就是今天的材料，大家可以积累其中的高分词汇及句型，并且练习提升阅读速度，迅速找到托福阅读的主题句和出题点。
...03-12
如果可以选择，你愿意去哪个城市生活呢?据统计，墨尔本获评最宜居城市，这也难怪有些学生仅因为环境的问题，选择了去澳大利亚留学。
Australia may have been trounced by Britain at the Olympics but its dejected sports stars can take some comfort from the fact that their cities have been judged far better places to live.
Melbourne is the best city in the world to live in while Sydney, Adelaide and Perth also make the top 10 and Brisbane comes in at number 20, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit global “liveability” study.
By contrast there is not a single British city in the top 50. London, basking in the afterglow of the hugely successful Games that saw Team GB reach third place in the medal table, is judged to be just the 55th most desirable place to live in the world and has fallen in the rankings after last summer’s riots.
Manchester remains Britain’s best city according to the study, which looks at crime levels, education, health care, culture and infrastructure, but it also dropped points to reach number 51 following the widespread looting and disorder that reached its shopping centres last August.
The EIU first began ranking cities to test whether or not companies should pay staff a hardship allowance if they make employees relocate to a different country.
Its researchers look at how “tolerable” it is to live in a particular place given its crime levels, threat of conflict, quality of medical care, levels of censorship, temperature, schools...
03-12
现在的职场当中，女性强劲势头不可阻挡，然而，由于固有眼光和某些考虑，女性在职场当中仍然属于弱势群体。
The real reason why more women don’t rise to the top of companies
职场金字塔，女性为何越来越难以登顶?
IN “BORGEN”, a Danish television drama, the country’s first female prime minister returns home late each night to domestic bliss. Her stay-at-home husband stacks the dishes and massages her back. The children cheer her televised speeches. But before long her son is seeing a shrink, the neglected hubby is having an affair and our heroine is throwing furniture around her office.
在丹麦电视剧《权利的堡垒》中【1】，国家的首位女总理每天很晚才能到家享受天伦之乐。她的家庭煮夫会收拾好了碗碟贴心唤她回家，她的孩子们为她在电视里的精彩演讲而欢呼。但好景不长，不久后她的儿子便被带去看心理医生了，她那被冷落的丈夫也有了外遇，而我们的女英雄只能悲愤得在办公室里摔家具。
Rarely has there been so much angst about women reaching the top. In the Atlantic magazine last month, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the first female director of policy planning at America’s State Department, declared that women cannot successfully combine a super-demanding job with bringing up young children. (She quit Washington, DC, to return to academia.) This month a British member of Parliament, Louise Mensch, resigned, saying it was too hard to juggle job and family. Yet the news is not all grim. In July Yahoo!, a struggling internet firm, picked a 37-year-old from Google, Marissa Mayer, who is expecting a baby in October, as its new boss.
处于事业巅峰的女性有这么多的痛苦困扰也不多见。在上个月的《大西洋月刊》里，美国国务院政策规划司首位女司长Anne-Marie Slaughter(她已经退出华盛顿政坛回归到学术界)表示女性不可能同时...
03-12
随着经济的发展，越来越多的游客去世界各地旅游。而游客花在旅游方面的费用，仅次于德国、美国。
YANG RONGLIN, a teacher, usually spends his summer holidays in China. This year Mr Yang, who is 50, decided to venture abroad for the first time, booking a two-week coach tour of America. Mr Yang joins a multitude of Chinese tourists venturing overseas. In the first half of this year 38m Chinese took international trips, 18% more than in the same period last year. In 2011 they spent $73 billion while travelling abroad, third only to Germans and Americans.
杨荣林(音译)是一位教师，往年暑假，他都呆在国内。然而今年，年届半百的老杨一改往常，预定了去美国两周的大巴游，决定到国外转一圈。这次他是跟团出国游玩。今年上半年，共计三千八百万人到国外度假，这一数字比去年同期增长18%。而游客去年海外旅游消费达七百三十亿美元，仅次于德美。
Holidaying abroad is a recent luxury. Not until the early 1990s did the government approve foreign countries as holiday destinations, and a passport was hard for ordinary people to obtain. Now applying for a passport is easier and 140 countries are on the approved list.
近年来出国旅行成为一种奢侈享受。事实上，政府直到九十年代初才允许出境旅游，在过去，对普通老百姓而言，护照可谓“一证难求”。现如今，申请出国护照省事多了，出境旅游目的地国家也达到了140个。
Competition to lure Chinese tourists has become fierce, says Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia. To give them an edge, Australian hotels have introduced Chinese television channels and congee on the breakfast menu. In July, America announced that it had processed a million tourist visa applications from China since October 2011, an increase of 43% on the same period a year earlier. Foreign government...
03-12
生化危机也许并不止局限在屏幕上，虽然目前科技比较发达，但是，在医学方面，还存在着很多未知领域。近日，加州公园爆发致命病毒，大约1万名游客承受风险。
Some 10,000 people who stayed in tent cabins at Yosemite National Park this summer may be at risk for the deadly rodent-borne hantavirus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.
The CDC urged lab testing of patients who exhibit symptoms consistent with the lung disease, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, after a stay at the California park between June and August and recommended that doctors notify state health departments when it is found.
Two men have died from hantavirus linked to the Yosemite outbreak and four others were sickened but survived, while the CDC said additional suspected cases were being investigated from "multiple health jurisdictions."
Most of the victims were believed to have been infected while staying in one of 91 "Signature" tent-style cabins in Yosemite's popular Curry Village camping area.
"An estimated 10,000 persons stayed in the 'Signature Tent Cabins' from June 10 through August 24, 2012," the CDC said. "People who stayed in the tents between June 10 and August 24 may be at risk of developing HPS in the next six weeks."
Yosemite officials earlier this week shut down all 91 of the insulated tent cabins after finding deer mice, which carry the disease and can burrow through holes the size of pencil erasers, nesting between the double walls.
Park authorities said on ...
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