- Keto diet in cancer : A double-edged sword?
- A daytime nap is good for the brain
- The Korean Wave: 25 stories that define Korea's dramatic history
- ‘Fruits, seeds and water’ were pivotal in keeping four children alive in the Amazon rainforest
- Rampant groundwater pumping has changed the tilt of Earth’s axis
- Model embryo with heartbeat replicates cells in early pregnancy
Keto diet in cancer : A double-edged sword?
生酮飲食法治療癌症是一把雙刃劍？
Health
Researchers have been investigating ketogenic — or “keto” — diets as a means of slowing the growth of cancer cells. However, new research suggests that this approach may come with a significant catch: It may also promote cachexia, the untreatable wasting disease that can occur with cancer. Cachexia can lead to a termination of treatment as a patient becomes too weak to withstand cancer drugs any longer. A new study in mice seeks a means of leveraging the cancer-killing properties of a keto diet while delaying the onset of cachexia. The study suggests that augmenting a keto diet with corticosteroids may delay the development of cachexia.
--from Medical News Today
研究人員一直在研究生酮飲食作為減緩癌細胞生長的方法。然而，最新研究表明，這種方法可能存在一個嚴重的問題：它可能也會促進癌症，引起的無法治療的惡病質（cachexia）。惡病質會導致治療終止，因為患者變得太虛弱無法再承受治療癌症的藥物。一項利用小鼠的新研究在尋求利用生酮飲食在殺癌細胞的同時，延緩惡病質發展。該研究表明，將生酮飲食與類固醇互相配合，可能會延緩惡病質的發展。
--摘錄翻譯自Medical News Today
A daytime nap is good for the brain
在白天小睡對大腦有益
Health
Regularly finding time for a little snooze is good for our brain and helps keep it bigger for longer, say University College London researchers. The team showed nappers' brains were 15 cubic centimetres (0.9 cubic inches) larger - equivalent to delaying ageing by between three and six years. However, the scientists recommend keeping naps to less than half an hour. But they said a daytime sleep was hard in many careers, with work culture often frowning on the practice.
--from BBC Health
倫敦大學學院的研究人員表示，抽出時間午睡對我們的大腦有益，有助於保持腦部更健康。研究團隊發現，愛打瞌睡的人大腦體積較大，較其他族群大了15cm³（相當於延緩衰老3到6年）。然而，科學家建議午睡時間應該控制在半小時以下。但他們也指出，在許多職業中，白天很難實行小休，現今的職場文化也往往不支持這種做法。
--摘錄翻譯自BBC Health
The Korean Wave: 25 stories that define Korea's dramatic history
韓流：25 個定義韓國波折歷史的故事
Culture
This spring, Penguin Classics published their first collection of modern Korean literature in the UK – a short story anthology that brings the country’s dramatic 20th Century to life. The history witnessed via The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories, edited and curated by Bruce Fulton, parallels that observed in one of the great works of contemporary Korean long-form fiction: Min Jin Lee's Pachinko. With the International Booker Prize continuing to spotlight Korean storytelling in 2023, an exciting new chapter of the K-culture revolution is unfolding. And as Fulton and Lee tell BBC Culture, it's one that fosters a greater understanding of the country's development over the past century.
--from BBC Culture
今年春季，Penguin Classics 在英國出版了他們的第一本韓國現代文學選集。此本短篇小說選集生動地再現了該國戲劇性的20 世紀歷史。由企鵝出版社的Bruce Fulton編輯和策劃的韓國短篇小說集 (The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories)中所見證的這段歷史，與韓國當代長篇小說的代表作李珉真的《柏青哥》(Min Jin Lee's Pachinko)中所觀察到史事有許多相似之處。從2023 年布克國際獎持續聚焦來自韓國的創意故事[這件事可以推知]，韓國文化正在迎來新的篇章。正如 Fulton 和 Lee 告訴 BBC Culture 的那樣，此新篇章正促進人們對該國過去一個世紀的發展有更深入的了解。
--摘錄翻譯自BBC Culture
‘Fruits, seeds and water’ were pivotal in keeping four children alive in the Amazon rainforest
「果實、種子和水」是讓四個孩子在亞馬遜雨林中存活的關鍵
Culture
When four young indigenous children were found last week after 40 days in the Colombian Amazon jungle, their rescuers noticed that the oldest, 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, had something hidden between her teeth. “We found she had a couple of seeds slowly chewed between her cheeks and her jawbone,” said Eliecer Muñoz, one of the four indigenous guards who made the very first contact with the children. Muñoz told CNN the seeds were from a native Amazon palm tree called Oenocarpus Bataua, colloquially known as “milpesos” in Colombia. Its fruits are rich in fat and Amazon tribes use them to make a vegetable oil, but Lesly’s seeds were still unripe when she was found, Muñoz said. “She was keeping them so that the warmth of her mouth would open up the seeds and she could feed the pulp to her younger siblings,” Muñoz says. “That’s how they stayed alive.”
--from CNN
上週，哥倫比亞的四名原住民孩童在亞馬遜雨林撐過40天後獲救。救援後，搜救人員注意到年紀最大、 13 歲的 Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy 的牙齒間藏著東西。「我們發現她的臉頰和下顎骨之間有幾顆被慢慢咀嚼的種子」Eliecer Muñoz說道。他是最早找到孩子們的四名原住民守衛之一。 Muñoz 告訴 CNN，這些種子來自一種名為 Oenocarpus Bataua 的棕櫚樹，是亞馬遜原生種，在哥倫比亞俗稱「milpesos」。它的果實富含豐富的脂肪，而亞馬遜的原住民部落也會用它來製作植物油。但Lesly[口中]的種子被發現時皆尚未成熟。Muñoz表示:「她將種子含在嘴中，目的是為了用她嘴巴的溫度使種子的外殼開啟，讓她可以把果肉餵給她的弟弟妹妹們。他們就是這樣活下來的。」
--摘錄翻譯自 CNN
Rampant groundwater pumping has changed the tilt of Earth’s axis
猖獗的地下水抽取改變了地軸的傾斜度
Sciences
The net water lost from underground reservoirs between 1993 and 2010 is estimated to be more than 2 trillion tons. That has caused the geographic North Pole to shift at a speed of 4.36 centimetres per year, researchers have calculated. The results appeared on 15 June in Geophysical Research Letters. The tilt of the axis on which any celestial object spins tends to be stable. But small changes can occur when large masses shift location inside a planet and on its surface. “Every mass moving around on the surface of the Earth can change the rotation axis,” says Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul National University. The Earth has lost enough groundwater to thirsty humans to measurably tilt the planet’s axis of rotation.
--from Nature
1993年至2010年間，地下水貯水層流失的水量淨值估計超過2兆噸。研究人員計算出，這導致地理北極每年以4.36公分的速度偏移。此結果發表在6月15日的《地球物理研究快報》。任何天體旋轉軸的傾角趨於穩定。但是當大質量物體在行星內部和表面位置改變時，就會發生微小的變化。首爾國立大學地球物理學家Ki-Weon Seo說：「每一個在地球表面的大量移動物體都會改變旋轉軸。」地球的地下水為解人類之渴所流失的量，已足以使地球的自轉軸明顯地偏移。
--摘錄翻譯自Nature
Model embryo with heartbeat replicates cells in early pregnancy
有心跳的胚胎模型複製妊娠初期階段的細胞
Sciences
Scientists have created a model human embryo with a heartbeat and traces of blood in an advance that offers an extraordinary window into the first weeks of life. The synthetic structure, created from human stem cells without the need for eggs, sperm or fertilisation, replicated some of the cells and structures that would typically appear in the third and fourth week of pregnancy. But it was specifically designed to lack the tissues that go on to form the placenta and yolk sac in a natural embryo, meaning that it did not have the theoretical potential of developing into a foetus. Despite the resonance of a heartbeat, this safeguard makes the experiments ethically uncontroversial, the team behind the work argue – a view supported by international guidelines.
--from The Guardian
科學家們創造了一個帶有心跳和血液流向的人類胚胎模型，為了解生命的最初幾週開啟了一扇特別的窗。此合成結構複製了一些通常會出現在懷孕第三週和第四週的細胞和結構，由人類幹細胞產生，不需要卵子、精子或受精。但它經過專門設計，缺乏在自然胚胎中繼續形成胎盤和卵黃囊的組織，這意味著它不具備發育成胎兒的理論潛質。這項工作背後的團隊表示，此模型已有國際準則的支持；儘管有心跳的共振，其安全措施讓實驗沒有倫理爭議。
--摘錄翻譯自The Guardian