Week Five - The Revenant and Leonardo Dicaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar win for The Revenant triggers surge in sales for spinning tops

        When serial Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio finally broke his Academy Award drought last week, he inadvertently triggered a small surge in sales of spinning tops. The reason, explains Will Cutler, a product designer from Burton upon Trent, is somewhat complicated.

        Movie buffs will remember that DiCaprio’s character in the 2010 science-fiction film Inception was a thief who infiltrated the subconscious of his victims. In a world where dreams and real life are difficult to distinguish, Dominic Cobb relied on a small top – his totem – to check if he was awake (the spinning top slows and topples) or dreaming (it spins for ever).

        So, when DiCaprio picked up his Best Actor Oscar for The Revenant, the internet celebrated with a meme showing the actor using his top to check if he was dreaming or if he had actually got his hands on a gold statue. And that, according to Mr Cutler, the designer of the Vorso MK1 top, was enough to cause “an upturn in business”. 

        “I’m serious man,” said the 26-year-old designer. “I’m worried we won’t have enough stock.”  In truth, the curious renaissance of the spinning top was under way before DiCaprio won his first Oscar. A cursory search of crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo reveals a plethora of tops, a rudimentary toy that has existed since antiquity. 

        Today’s tops tend to be small, metal objects with hyperbolic names. They include the TTi-180, the UltraTop XXX, the BilletSpin, the Kraken and the ForeverSpin, a product that reportedly raised $1.5m (£1m) on Kickstarter. Some of the new generation of tops glow in the dark, others can be stacked like building blocks; most promise extravagant spin times. A few boast more metaphysical qualities: the UltraTop, for example, is billed as “a great way to relax, escape from the hustle and bustle and meditate”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/leonardo-dicaprios-oscar-win-for-the-revenant-triggers-surge-in-sales-for-spinning-tops-a6914271.html

Structure of the Lead: 

Who: The spinning tops.

When: Not given.

Why and What: The movie, The Revenant, boosts the sale of spinning tops.

Where: Not given.
How: Not given.

Keywords:

1. infiltrate (v.) 潛入

2. totem (n.) 圖騰

3. meme (n.) 透過模仿傳遞的風潮

4. renaissance (n.) 復興

5. cursory (a.) 匆忙草率的

6. plethora (n.) 過剩

7. rudimentary (a.) 初步的；早期的

8. hyperbolic (a.) 誇張的

9. extravagant (a.) 奢侈、過度的

10. metaphysical (a.) 隱喻的

Week Four - Zika virus

Brazilian Zika doctors find severe brain damage in babies.

     Brazilian scientists studying possible links between birth defects and the mosquito-borne Zika virus have found that babies born with microcephaly have severe brain damage with a range of abnormalities. Microcephaly is a rare birth defect where a child is born with an abnormally small head. Since 2015, Brazil has reported thousands of suspected cases of the condition and linked them to a large and spreading outbreak of Zika virus infection.

     In a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the researchers said their findings could not prove Zika causes microcephaly, but did confirm a link and pointed to potentially severe consequences for babies of mothers who become infected with the virus while pregnant.

     The World Health Organization (WHO) declared in February that the Zika outbreak and its links to microcephaly constitute an international public health emergency. Last month, WHO said there was now strong scientific consensus that the Zika virus can cause microcephaly. The WHO has also said Zika can cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis.

     For the research reported in the BMJ, a team of doctors from Recife, a city at the center of the Zika outbreak, and led by Professor Maria de Fatima Vasco Aragao, analysed the types of abnormalities and lesions in brain scans of the first cases of microcephaly associated with the Zika virus in Brazil.

     The study involved 23 babies diagnosed with a congenital infection associated with the Zika virus. All babies who had a CT scan showed signs of brain calcification, a condition in which calcium builds up in the brain. The researchers said the hypothesis is that the Zika virus destroys brain cells, and forms lesions similar to "scars"on which calcium is deposited.

     Other findings included malformations of cortical development, decreased brain volume, and ventriculomegaly - a condition where the brain cavities are abnormally enlarged. The team also found underdevelopment of the cerebellum, which plays an important role in motor control, and the brainstem which connects the cerebrum with the spinal cord and communicates messages from the brain to the rest of the body.

http://news.asiaone.com/news/yourhealth/brazilian-zika-doctors-find-severe-brain-damage-babies-study

Structure of the Lead: 
Who: The research of Zika virus. 

When: July, 2015

Why and What: The babies contacting Zika may lead to microcephaly and other abnormalities.

Where: Brazil
How: Contacting Zika.

Keywords:

1. (mosquito)-borne   藉由(蚊子)傳播的

2.  microcephaly (n.) 畸形小頭

3. consensus (n.) 輿論

4. congenital (a.) 先天的

- hypothesis (n.) 假設；前提

* Guillain-Barre syndrome

   格林-巴利症候群 (急性多發性神經炎)

* neurological 神經病學的

* lesions (n.) 機能障礙

* calcification (n.) (組織)鈣化

* cortical (a.) 皮質的

* ventriculomegaly 腦室過大

*  cerebellum 小腦

Week Three - Oxford's word for 2015 is an emoji.

Oxford’s 2015 Word of the Year Is An Emoji

- It's a historic moment of recognition for little images that have been gaining popularity since 1999

     Oxford Dictionaries made history on Monday by announcing that their “Word of the Year” would not be one of those old-fashioned, string-of-letters-type words at all. The flag their editors are planting to sum up who we were in 2015 is this pictograph, an acknowledgement of just how popular these pictures have become in our digital daily lives.
     “Although emoji have been a staple of texting teens for some time, emoji culture exploded into the global mainstream over the past year,” the company’s team wrote in a press release. “Emoji have come to embody a core aspect of living in a digital world that is visually driven, emotionally expressive, and obsessively immediate.”

     Oxford University Press partnered with keyboard-app company SwiftKey to determine which emoji was getting the most played this past year. According to their data, the “Face With Tears of Joy” emoji, also known as LOL Emoji or Laughing Emoji, comprised nearly 20% of all emoji use in the U.S. and the U.K., where Oxford is based. The runner-up in the U.S., with 9% of usage, was this number.

     Caspar Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Dictionaries, explained that their choice reflects the walls-down world that we live in. “Emoji are becoming an increasingly rich form of communication, one that transcends linguistic borders,” he said in a statement. And their choice for the word of the year, he added, embodies the “playfulness and intimacy” that characterizes emoji-using culture.

     Though this marks a historic moment of recognition for the pictures plastered throughout tweets and texts, Oxford has not added or defined any emoji in their actual databases. Nor, says a spokesperson for the publisher, do they have plans to do so at this point. The word emoji, however, has been in both the OED and Oxford Dictionaries Online since 2013.

http://time.com/4114886/oxford-word-of-the-year-2015-emoji/

Structure of the Lead: 
Who: Oxford

When: November, 16, 2015 

Why and What: An emoji is selected as the word of 2015.

Where: Not given.
How: Not given.

Keywords:

1. pictogragh (n.) 象形文字

2. press release 新聞稿

3. transcend (v.) 勝過；超越

4. linguistic (a.) 語言的

5. plaster (v.)  貼滿(俚)

Week Two - Paris Climate Change Conference

Obama administration pays out $500m to climate change project

     The Obama administration has made a first installment on its $3bn pledge to help poor countries fight climate change – defying Republican opposition to the president’s environmental plan.

     The $500m payment to the Green Climate Fund was seen as critical to shoring up international confidence in Barack Obama’s ability to deliver on the pledges made at the United Nations’ climate change conference in Paris in late 2015. Obama is expected to announce a number of joint climate initiatives when the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, visits Washington this week, sources familiar with the plans said.

     The White House is also working with United Nations officials to encourage countries to formally approve the Paris climate agreement ahead of a signing ceremony on 22 April. At least 55 countries, representing at least 55% of global climate emissions, must ratify the agreement before it takes effect.

     Administration officials said the initial $500m payment to the Green Climate Fund demonstrated that Obama would follow through on the promises of last December’s Paris climate agreement – despite February’s setback at the Supreme Court and threats by Republican presidential candidates to dismantle Obama’s agenda.

     “Today, the United States provided a $500m grant to the Green Climate Fund,” a State Department official said. “This grant is the first step toward meeting the president’s commitment of $3bn to the GCF, and shows that the United States stands squarely behind our international climate commitments.” Administration officials described the payment as an important signal to the international community that Obama was pressing ahead on his climate agenda in his remaining months in the White House.

Obama has faced a number of recent setbacks to his climate agenda.

     The supreme court last month agreed to block the centerpiece of Obama’s climate plan – new rules cutting emissions from power plants – until lower courts rule on legal challenges from 29 states and dozens of industry groups. The ruling created immediate uncertainty about the fate of the power plant rules and the Paris agreement.

     Obama’s climate plan is also under political attack from Republican presidential contenders who say they will scrap the rules and dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency if they take the White House next November.

     Republicans in Congress have also threatened to scrap the power plant rules and block any US contributions to the Green Climate Fund, which was set up in 2009 to help poor and vulnerable countries adopt cleaner energy technologies and protect their peoples from rising seas, droughts and other impacts of climate change.

     At one point Republicans insisted that the Paris agreement be submitted to the Senate for approval before any funds were released – before quietly relenting during budget negotiations last December.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/07/obama-administration-pays-out-500m-to-climate-change-project

Structure of the Lead: 

Who: Countries concerning about the climate change.

When: March, 8 2016

Why and What: To solve the climate change problems, the US took steps to call for others countries to participate.

Where: In United States. 
How: Not given.

Keywords:

1. pledge 保證 
2. Supreme Court (美)最高法院
3. dismantle 廢除
4. agenda 議程

Week One - Volkswagen's emissions scandal

Volkswagen pressed to fix dirty diesel cars in emissions cheat scandal 

       A federal judge on Thursday pressed Volkswagen to find a way to fix its dirty diesel cars that are still on the roadways.“600,000 vehicles are on the road today, out of compliance,” said US district Judge Charles Breyer at a hearing in San Francisco. “It’s an ongoing harm that has to be addressed, and that gives a sense of urgency.”He set 24 March as the date for Volkswagen and the Environmental Protection Agency to report back as to whether a solution was forthcoming and what it might look like.

       The automaker has been under fire since revelations last September that it had installed software on diesel cars that allowed them to cheat on pollution tests. With the software, the diesel cars can meet America’s strict pollution standards while in the laboratory, even though the cars continue to produce excessive pollution – up to 40 times the allowed amount of nitrogen oxides – on the roadways. Some 11m cars are affected worldwide, with 600,000 in America.

The judge said that Volkswagen already had enough time to come up with a fix for dirty cars and it was time to move forward, even if the solution was not perfect.“Six months is long enough to determine whether or not there is an engineering process that would be accepted by Volkswagen,” Breyer said, adding: “There is a deadline, and the deadline is before March 24th.”

       Robert Giuffra Jr, an attorney representing Volkswagen, said that the company was in close discussions about solutions with the EPA, the Department of Justice and the California air resources board, which must also sign off on a fix. While talks were making progress, Giuffra said, he was not at liberty yet to share details.

       The judge said he did not yet have an opinion on what a solution should look like but wanted to move forward as rapidly as possible. Breyer has named former FBI director Robert Mueller to oversee settlement discussions, and on Thursday he said it was important for Mueller to meet with top management of Volkswagen.“We are obviously working very hard,” with multiple meetings in Washington, DC, and around the nation, Giuffra said.

       One possible, albeit very expensive, fix is that Volkswagen could buy back non-compliant diesel cars from their owners.

       Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against Volkswagen over its cheating software. The class-action suits are consolidated in the court of Breyer, who is the brother of US supreme court Justice Stephen Breyer. The plaintiffs’ complaint runs more than 700 pages and accuses Volkswagen of “one of the most brazen corporate crimes in history”.

       The courtroom on Thursday morning was close to half full, with about 40 people in the audience.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/25/vw-volkswagen-emissions-cheat-scandal-software-judge-orders-fix

Structure of the Lead: 
Who: Volkswagen

When: Thursday 25 February 2016 

Why and What: Volkswagen cheated on the emission test and the authorities have conducted the investigation. 

Where: In California. 
How: Not given.

Keywords：

1. compliance (n.) 順從、遵守

2. hearing (n.) 聽證會

3. attorney (n.) 辯護律師

4. albeit (conj.) 雖然、儘管

5. consolidated (adj.) 鞏固、團結的

6. brazen (adj.) 無恥、明目張膽的

 *under fire  受到譴責

*nitrogen oxides 二氧化氮

*sign off 驗收

(指美國司法部及加州空氣資源局會對召回車輛進行處理這件事驗收成果)