Your Health and 5G
The fifth generation of cellular (移动电话) data service, or 5G, promises to bring lightning-fast data connection speeds. Much faster, even, than broadband internet connections currently offered in many homes. High-speed cellular service has the potential to revolutionize many different technologies, from virtual reality to medicine. Not everyone is excited about 5G service, however.
Some people worry that the technology behind 5G might present serious health risks. There are even protests aimed at slowing down or even stopping companies from installing the equipment necessary for 5G service. Why are people so worried, and do they have credible reasons to be concerned?
To understand the possible health risks of 5G, it is important to understand how the new service is different from existing ones, like 3G or 4G. The main difference is the new frequency of the signals that will be used to transmit data. 5G uses a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum than previous cellular services. The signals have short wavelengths measured in millimeters called millimeter waves. Millimeter waves are perfect for high-speed data, but small transmitters and antennas (天线) must be put up everywhere to ensure good connections. This presents a cause for concern.
A. The gene editing tool stays in the eye and does not travel to other parts of the body.
B. Scientists have found it difficult to treat the condition with usual gene therapy.
C. Through a tube the width of a human hair, doctors put three drops of fluid containing the gene editing machinery just under the retina.
D. Many scientists believe CRISPR is a much easier tool for finding and cutting DNA at an exact spot.
E. Some independent experts were hopeful about the new study.
F. The CRISPR tool makes it possible to change DNA to add needed genes or take some away if they lead to problems.
CRISPR Gene Editing Used to Restore Eyesight
Scientists say they have used the gene -editing tool CRISPR to repair a person's eyesight for the first time.
DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid, the substance that carries genetic information in the cells of living things.
A patient recently had the procedure done for an inherited form of blindness, the companies that make the treatment announced Wednesday. The operation took place at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. The companies did not release additional details about the patient. It may take up to a month to see if the procedure worked to repair a patient's vision. If the first few attempts seem safe, doctors plan to test it on 18 children and adults.
Dr Jason Comander is an eye doctor at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston. He said it marks "a new era in medicine" in which technology has made "editing DNA much easier and much more effective."
Doctors first tried in-the-body gene editing in 2017 for a different inherited disease using a tool called zinc (锌) fingers.
The people taking part in the study have a genetic condition that keeps the body from making a protein needed to turn light into signals to the brain, which leads to sight. People with the disease are often born with little ability to see. They can lose whatever vision they are born with when they are still very young.
So, they are aiming to edit or remove the mutation (突变) by making two cuts on either side of it. The hope is that the ends of DNA will reconnect and make the gene work as it should.
The procedure is done in an hour-long operation.That is the lining at the back of the eye that contains the light-sensing cells.
Doctors believe they need to fix one-tenth to one-third of the cells to repair vision. In animal tests, scientists were able to correct half of the cells with the treatment, Albright said.
Right now, a red Tesla convertible roadster (敞篷跑车) is orbiting our solar system's sun. It's been in space since February 2018, when the private company SpaceX launched its first flight of the new Falcon Heavy rocket with the car as its test payload. Launching a car into space might seem silly, but it was a major milestone in private spaceflight. For decades, space exploration was just in the hands of national space agencies. In the last few decades, however, private companies have begun to explore the value of commercial spaceflight.
SpaceX is arguably the most successful of those businesses to date. In 2002, young visionary Elon Musk started the company because of his enthusiasm for space exploration. After an unsuccessful attempt at buying Russian rockets to help him send mice to Mars and back, the young multimillionaire made a surprising decision. He planned to build his own rockets at a small proportion of the cost.
Musk went to Southern California and started recruiting people to help bring his vision to life. In a remarkably short time, and despite some devastating setbacks, SpaceX launched Falcon 1, the first successful privately-built liquid fuel rocket, into orbit in 2008.
For SpaceX, the successful launch of Falcon 1 was a major accomplishment. But it was just the beginning of notable firsts for the company. As the first Falcon rocket began testing, development was underway for the Falcon 9. This much larger rocket, which uses nine engines to lift heavy payloads into orbit, has another crucial first built into its design. The rocket is engineered to return to Earth, ready to be reused for another flight!
Before the Falcon 9, rockets were considered disposable. Only a few components were partially reusable. But the Falcon 9 rockets not only boost payloads into orbit, they then return and land under their own power. This is a profound development in the world of spaceflight. It can dramatically reduce the cost of launching things into space. Musk believes reusability is the key to the future of space exploration. And the effort has paid off. SpaceX has secured contracts to put satellites into space and resupply the International Space Station. But that's just the beginning. SpaceX has made plans for manned missions. Perhaps someday, a SpaceX rocket will pass by Musk's roadster on its way to Mars.
For me, it was bacon. There I was, standing in the streets of Medellin, Colombia, looking hungrily at a delicious empanada. The sign read "queso y tocino". Because I'd got my tongue round some essential Spanish vocabulary, I knew that "queso" was cheese. But "tocino"? I typed it into my smartphone translation app. What came back? "Tocino". I later learned that means "bacon" in the local lingo.
Computer-assisted translation is popular. Google Translate, for example, is used by more than 500 million people. But while convenient and easy to use, they are hardly perfect. Now, dropping the odd expression now and again is hardly important on an informal conversational level-as might happen to a tourist on holiday. But in more formal circumstances, such as a medical or legal discussion, the wrong dialect can be disastrous. So, can a computer translator ever equal a human?
The technology has come a long way. These days, people can wear a "translation earpiece". These pick up the foreign particular terms and translate it directly to the wearer. Andrew Ochoa, chief executive of US start-up Waverly Labs, a producer of one such earpiece, says they work by "combining a network of algorithms and speech-recognition technology". But they have limitations.
Firstly, there's a delay while the phrase is translated. How long often depends on the connection strength. Secondly, they aren't able to communicate human sentiment well. Human conversation is subtler than just the words used. It has tone, attitude, nuance, for example. "If you want to create a relationship... you need a human translator to make it sound natural, "said Zoey Cooper, brand and content director at Wordbank, a global marketing and translation agency.
So, while many professional translators do use computer-assisted translation tools to help them with the repetitive nature of translation, context is important. It might work well for a survey or instruction manual, but for important human-to-human speech, and for the time being at least, better to use a translator, or your message might get lost in translation.
Not that long ago, portable translation devices were only commonplace in works of science fiction. Travelers1for foreign countries took bilingual dictionaries or phrasebooks with them. But now people can2instant translation services almost anywhere they go.
Online translations are free, and when you use translation apps like Google Translate, sometimes you don't even have to look things up! Just3your phone's camera at some text, and a translation instantly appears. If you want to translate something being said aloud, just turn on your phone's microphone. Some apps even have a(n)4mode where you take turns speaking with someone in a different language.
Translation apps make foreign travel much easier than before. They are5when it comes to communicating with taxi drivers or hotel staff who don't speak your language. But these apps are far from6. Sometimes a translation makes no sense, and you can only guess at the gist of what it means. Other times, you might not know that the translation has7until you try it on a native speaker.
British science fiction author, Arthur C. Clark once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is8with magic." Since even the best translators can still fail terribly, they are hardly magic. But consider what's happening underneath the app's surface. You might not appreciate how advanced modern translation systems are!
Translators use machine learning to compare millions of examples of human translated texts. That information helps the program reproduce more natural sounding translations9on real-world examples. People can flag incorrect or10translations and suggest better ones. This11is then used to make future translations better.
With programs like Google Translate, it can be hard to get good translations for single words because most words have12meanings. It's better to try short sentences that provide13instead. But make the sentence straightforward. Anything too complicated or idiomatic will likely produce unusual results.14, "I am very hungry." will get better results than "I am dying of hunger"
As people continue to use translation services, translations will improve. One day you might not have to worry about a poor translation causing an embarrassing misunderstanding. If used15they are still excellent aids for exploring and understanding the world around you.