Elias Zerhouni Leaving as Head of US National Institutes of Health
VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Barbara Klein. This week, we will tell about a plan to stop the disease malaria in Africa by twenty fifteen. We will also tell about a change of leadership at America’s National Institutes of Health. And we will tell about an insect suspected of influencing weather conditions in the Rocky Mountains.
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VOICE ONE:
Governments, businesses and other groups have promised to add three billion dollars to the fight against malaria. The promises came last month at a meeting at the United Nations in New York.
The money will support a new Global Malaria Action Plan. The plan aims to stop the disease in Africa by two thousand fifteen. Malaria is not limited to Africa. Yet ninety percent of deaths happen south of the Sahara. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the plan will not only support bed nets, but research, cutting drug costs and expanding health care systems
VOICE TWO:
Governments and international groups spent a billion dollars on malaria programs last year. But the Roll Back Malaria Partnership says the world should spend more than five times that amount. It says doing so could save four million lives by twenty-fifteen. The partnership includes U.N. agencies, the World Bank and leading drug makers.
Last month, the World Health Organization released its World Malaria Report for two thousand eight. The report presented sharply lower estimates of malaria cases than in the past. Officials say the corrections were mostly the result of better methods of collecting information.
VOICE ONE:
Until now, the W.H.O. has said there were as many as five hundred million infections every year, with a million deaths. The new report estimates the number of malaria cases in two thousand six at about two hundred fifty million. And, it estimates the number of deaths at eight hundred eighty-one thousand. The great majority who die are young children.
The W.H.O. says the old numbers came from using malaria maps from the nineteen sixties. But changes have taken place, including the movement of people to cities, especially in Asia. The disease is less common in cities and towns.
VOICE TWO:
The report says malaria deaths have decreased in several countries, and a few African nations have reduced deaths by half. Yet the malaria drugs needed for what is known as artemisinin-based combination therapy reached only three percent of African children in need.
In the last two years, there have been greatly increased efforts to provide families with bed nets. These nets are treated with insecticide products to kill the mosquitoes that spread malaria. Campaigns for indoor spraying of insecticides in homes have also increased in Africa and other areas.
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VOICE ONE:
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| Elias Zerhouni |
The director of the National Institutes of Health will resign at the end of this month. Doctor Elias Zerhouni has led the organization for more than six years.
The N.I.H. is the United States government’s medical research agency. The research is done at its headquarters in Maryland, in other states and around the world. About eighteen thousand people work for the agency. It has twenty-seven centers and other institutes. They include the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health.
Doctor Zerhouni says he plans to write about his time at the N.I.H. before he accepts another position. During his first two years as director, the organization had strong financial support. But after that time, Congress did not increase the budget by very much.
VOICE TWO:
Some scientists have praised Doctor Zerhouni for creating a plan known as the N.I.H. Road Map.
The goal of the plan is to speed up creation of medical treatments and devices from scientific discoveries. This is to be done by getting researchers from different specialties to cooperate.
In addition, Doctor Zerhouni is known for banning N.I.H. researchers from serving as paid consultants, or advisors, to drug manufacturers and chemical companies. Doctor Zerhouni announced the ban in two thousand five. He acted after lawmakers investigated scientists who also worked for private companies while still employed at the N.I.H. These employees received additional payment as consultants or members of boards of directors.
VOICE ONE:
Elias Zerhouni and his wife moved to the United States from Algeria in nineteen seventy-five. At the time, they had very little money and no family or friends in America. But he had completed medical school at the University of Algiers. He began his graduate school training as a doctor at John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.
Later, Doctor Zerhouni held increasingly important medical positions at the School. Before his appointment to the N.I.H., he was chief of radiology at the university’s hospital. Radiology uses X rays and other methods to find and treat medical problems. Doctor Zerhouni also established or helped establish medical companies. One of the companies produced a device that lets magnetic resonance imaging tests be done in places other than hospitals.
VOICE TWO:
President Bush chose Doctor Zerhouni to lead the N.I.H. eight years ago. The president made the appointment after limiting federal financing of research on stem cells from human embryos. Stem cells can grow into any one of the body’s cells. Scientists say such cells have the possibility of treating diseases like cancer and Parkinson’s disease. Last year, the doctor told the Congress he thought the limits were interfering with progress in research.
Doctor Zerhouni said his resignation would let the new American President choose his own director of the N.I.H. The presidential election is two weeks from now.
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| A mountain pine beetle near Vail, Colorado |
Finally, scientists are attempting to learn whether a tree-killing insect can have an effect on weather conditions and air quality. The mountain pine beetle is a threat to forests in the western United States. The beetles invade pine trees to mate and leave their eggs. A tree will produce a sticky substance in an effort to defend itself against the beetles.
In some cases, however, the insects are able to enter the tree. The beetle larvae then feed off the tree as they develop under the tree’s bark or protective cover. The larvae rob the tree of its nutrients as they feed. It takes one year for the larvae to develop and become adult beetles. In that time, the tree is so weakened, that it dies.
VOICE TWO:
The mountain pine beetle has killed large numbers of pine trees. But that might not be the only effect of the insect. American scientists are leading an international project to study how the large tree kills affect weather conditions.
The scientists work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The project is called BEACHON. That is short for Bio-hydro-atmosphere Interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, H-two-O, Organics and Nitrogen.
VOICE ONE:
Earlier studies have suggested that beetles killing trees can result in temporary increases in temperature. The scientists say this is partly because the lost trees do not throw the sun’s heat back into space.
Scientists also believe that beetle attacks cause trees to release more particles and chemicals in the atmosphere as they fight the insects. This makes air quality worse and at least temporarily increases levels of ground-level ozone. This affects both nearby air quality and temperatures.
VOICE TWO:
The BEACHON project is expected to last four years. It will cover an area extending from southern Wyoming to northern New Mexico.
Scientists say they will use aircraft, instruments on the ground and above the trees to study relationships between Earth and its atmosphere. Scientists will be able to gather information about cloud formation, climate change and movement of gases and particles between the ground and the atmosphere. Plants release gases like water vapor and tiny particles that influence the atmosphere. The scientists say the exchange of gases and particles between the ground and the atmosphere is especially important in dry areas such as the western United States.
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VOICE ONE:
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Brianna Blake, Jerilyn Watson and Caty Weaver. Brianna Blake was also our producer. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Barbara Klein. Read and listen to our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again at this time next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.
Continents and Ocean Floors Are Always Moving
VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
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| A massive earthquake in China’s Sichuan province earlier this year was the country’s worst in more than 30 years. |
And I’m Barbara Klein. Scientists who study the Earth tell us that the continents and ocean floors are always moving. Sometimes, this movement is violent and might result in great destruction. Today, we examine the process that causes earthquakes.
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VOICE ONE:
The first pictures of Earth taken from space showed a solid ball covered by brown and green landmasses and blue-green oceans. It appeared as if the Earth had always looked that way — and always would.
Scientists now know, however, that the surface of the Earth is not as permanent as had been thought. Scientists explain that the surface of our planet is always in motion. Continents move about the Earth like huge ships at sea. They float on pieces of the Earth’s outer skin, or crust. New crust is created as melted rock pushes up from inside the planet. Old crust is destroyed as it rolls down into the hot area and melts again.
VOICE TWO:
Only since the nineteen-sixties have scientists begun to understand that the Earth is a great, living structure. Some experts say this new understanding is one of the most important revolutions in scientific thought. The revolution is based on the work of scientists who study the movement of the continents — a process called plate tectonics.
Earthquakes are a result of that process. Plate tectonics is the area of science that explains why the surface of the Earth changes and how those changes cause earthquakes.
VOICE ONE:
Scientists say the surface of the Earth is cracked like a giant eggshell. They call the pieces tectonic plates. As many as twenty of them cover the Earth. The plates float about slowly, sometimes crashing into each other, and sometimes moving away from each other.
When the plates move, the continents move with them. Sometimes the continents are above two plates. The continents split as the plates move.
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VOICE TWO:
Tectonic plates can cause earthquakes as they move. Modern instruments show that about ninety percent of all earthquakes take place along a few lines in several places around the Earth.
These lines follow underwater mountains, where hot liquid rock flows up from deep inside the planet. Sometimes, the melted rock comes out with a great burst of pressure. This forces apart pieces of the Earth’s surface in a violent earthquake.
Other earthquakes take place at the edges of continents. Pressure increases as two plates move against each other. When this happens, one plate moves past the other,suddenly causing the Earth’s surface to split.
VOICE ONE:
One example of this is found in California, on the West Coast of the United States. One part of California is on what is known as the Pacific plate. The other part of the state is on what is known as the North American plate.
Scientists say the Pacific plate is moving toward the northwest,while the North American plate is moving more to the southeast. Where these two huge plates come together is called a fault line.
The name of this line between the plates in California is the San Andreas Fault. It is along or near this line that most of California’s earthquakes take place, as the two tectonic plates move in different directions.
The city of Los Angeles in Southern California is about fifty kilometers from the San Andreas Fault. Many smaller fault lines can be found throughout the area around Los Angeles. A major earthquake in nineteen ninety-four was centered along one of these smaller fault lines.
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VOICE TWO:
The story of plate tectonics begins with the German scientist Alfred Wegener in the early part of the twentieth century. He first proposed that the continents had moved and were still moving.
He said the idea came to him when he observed that the coasts of South America and Africa could fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. He proposed that the two continents might have been one, then split apart.
Later, Alfred Wegener said the continents had once been part of a huge area of land he called Pangaea. He said the huge continent had split more than two hundred million years ago. He said the pieces were still floating apart.
VOICE ONE:
Wegener investigated the idea that continents move. He pointed out a line of mountains that appears from east to west in South Africa. Then he pointed out another line of mountains that looks almost exactly the same in Argentina, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. He found fossil remains of the same kind of an early plant in areas of Africa, South America, India, Australia and even Antarctica.
Alfred Wegener said the mountains and fossils were evidence that all the land on Earth was united at some time in the distant past.
VOICE TWO:
Wegener also noted differences between the continents and the ocean floor. He said the oceans were more than just low places that had filled with water. Even if the water was removed, he said, a person would still see differences between the continents and the ocean floor.
Also, the continents and the ocean floor are not made of the same kind of rock. The continents are made of a granite-like rock, a mixture of silicon and aluminum. The ocean floor is basalt rock, a mixture of silicon and magnesium. Mister Wegener said the lighter continental rock floated up through the heavier basalt rock of the ocean floor.
VOICE ONE:
Support for Alfred Wegener’s ideas did not come until the early nineteen-fifties. American scientists Harry Hess and Robert Dietz said the continents moved as new sea floor was created under the Atlantic Ocean.
They said a thin valley in the Atlantic Ocean was a place where the ocean floor splits. They said hot melted material flows up from deep inside the Earth through the split. As the hot material reaches the ocean floor, it spreads out, cools and hardens. It becomes new ocean floor.
The two scientists proposed that the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is moving away from each side of the split. The movement is very slow — a few centimeters a year.
In time, they said, the moving ocean floor is blocked when it comes up against the edge of a continent. Then it is forced down under the continent, deep into the Earth, where it is melted again.
Harry Hess and Robert Dietz said this spreading does not make the Earth bigger. As new ocean floor is created, an equal amount is destroyed.
VOICE TWO:
The two scientists also said Alfred Wegener was correct. The continents move as new material from the center of the Earth rises, hardens and pushes older pieces of the Earth away from each other. The continents are moving all the time, although we cannot feel it.
They called their theory “sea floor spreading.” The theory explains that as the sea floor spreads, the tectonic plates are pushed and pulled in different directions.
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VOICE ONE:
The idea of plate tectonics explains volcanoes as well as earthquakes. Many of the world’s volcanoes are found at the edges of plates, where geologic activity is intense. The large number of volcanoes around the Pacific plate has earned the name “Ring of Fire.”
Volcanoes also are found in the middle of plates, where there is a well of melted rock. Scientists call these wells “hot spots.” A hot spot does not move. However, as the plate moves over it,a line of volcanoes is formed.
The Hawaiian Islands were created in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as the plate moved slowly over a hot spot. This process is continuing, as the plate continues to move.
VOICE TWO:
Volcanoes and earthquakes are among the most frightening events that nature can produce. The major earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province in May, two thousand eight, killed almost seventy thousand people. Many more were injured or left without homes because of the earthquake. At times like these, we remember that the ground is not as solid and unchanging as people might like to think.
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VOICE ONE:
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Nancy Steinbach. Our producer was Brianna Blake. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Barbara Klein. We would like to hear from you. Write to us at Special English, Voice of America, Washington, D-C, two-zero-two-three-seven, U-S-A. Or send your e-mails to special@voanews.com. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.
Jessica Tandy, 1909-1994: She Performed in More Than 100 Plays and Movies
VOICE ONE:
I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Rich Kleinfeldt with the Special English program, People in America. Today, we tell the story of Jessica Tandy who died in nineteen ninety-four. She won many awards for her acting during the almost seventy years she performed.
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| Jessica Tandy in “Driving Miss Daisy” |
Jessica Tandy probably is best known for winning an Academy Award in nineteen eighty-nine for the movie “Driving Miss Daisy. ” She was the oldest person to have won the award. But for many years, she had received praise for her great performances.
Tandy appeared in more than one hundred stage shows, twenty-five movies and on many television programs during her sixty-seven years of acting. Most of her performances were in the United States, although she did not become an American citizen until nineteen fifty-four.
VOICE TWO:
Jessica Tandy was born in London, England in nineteen-oh-nine. Her father died when she was twelve years old. Her mother taught and took other jobs at night to make extra money for her three children.
Jessica’s older brothers showed an interest in the theater. They would put on shows in their London home. Jessica said later that she was terrible in all of them. But she said taking part in those plays as a child created a desire in her to be someone else.
VOICE ONE:
Jessica loved going to the theater. And she loved British writer William Shakespeare. Years later, she acted in many of Shakespeare’s plays, with great actors like John Gielgud and Lawrence Olivier.
This love of the theater led her to attend an acting school in nineteen twenty-four. When she was eighteen years old, she performed in her first play. It was called “The Manderson Girls.” She did not earn enough money to pay for the five different dresses she had to wear in the play. She solved the problem by sewing them herself.
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VOICE TWO:
Jessica Tandy always thought she was plain-looking. So did most theater professionals. She said people in the theater knew she was a good actress, but did not believe she was pretty enough to be a success. She noted that they said: “She is plain but on the stage she looks all right. “
Pictures of Jessica Tandy do not suggest that this is true. She just looked different from the leading women actors of the day. Later, she said that it was good that she was not considered pretty. She said she got more interesting parts that way.
VOICE ONE:
In nineteen thirty-two, critics in London recognized her great acting skill in her performance in the play “Children in Uniform.” That part gave her what she said was one of the moments she loved most in the theater. She said at one performance, people watching were so moved they continued to sit quietly when the play ended.
That same year, she married actor Jack Hawkins. They had a daughter, Susan. Tandy continued to work in the theater in London. By nineteen forty, her marriage was ending. So she took her daughter and moved to the United States to escape World War Two. In New York City, she met a young actor named Hume Cronyn. Two years later they married and moved to Hollywood. By nineteen forty-five, they had two children.
VOICE TWO:
In California, Hume Cronyn was getting good parts in movies. But Tandy was not. She got only small parts, when she got them at all. She said the producers in Hollywood did not take her seriously as an actress. She began to feel like a failure.
Jessica Tandy was considering not acting anymore. But then her husband did something that changed her life. He gave her the lead part in a play he was directing in Los Angeles. It was “Portrait of a Madonna” by Tennessee Williams. She played a lonely woman. Critics praised her.
Tennessee Williams came to Los Angeles from New York just to see her in the show. He said later that he knew he had found the actress to play the lead in his new play, “A Streetcar Named Desire. “
That play opened in New York in nineteen forty-seven. Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter were the stars. It won a Pulitzer Prize and many other awards. Tandy won the first of her four Tony awards for best actress in a play. One director said that she was full of surprises. He said that she always did things better than expected.
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| Tandy and Cronyn in the play “The Fourposter” |
During the nineteen fifties, Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn began working together in theaters in New York City. Their first appearance together in a major Broadway theater was the hit play “The Fourposter. ” Through the years, they appeared together in nine other plays on Broadway, including “A Delicate Balance,” “The Gin Game” and “Foxfire. ” Their last Broadway appearance together was in “The Petition” in nineteen eighty-six.
Tandy also worked with her husband in local theaters across the United States. They liked doing it because they had a chance to play parts in the older well-known plays.
In nineteen sixty-three, for example, Miss Tandy played Gertrude in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Olga in Anton Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters,” and the wife of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” She also acted in plays in the Shakespeare festivals in Stratford, Connecticut and in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
VOICE TWO:
Jessica Tandy said she hated seeing herself in the movies. She said she never was as satisfied making movies as she was working in the theater. But she thought it was important to accept the acting jobs that were offered. It helped pay expenses when she performed in small theaters for less pay.
Tandy played Hume Cronyn’s wife in four movies during the nineteen eighties, including “Cocoon” and “Batteries not Included.” In nineteen ninety-two, she played an old woman in the movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes. ” But she never really thought of herself as a movie actress. Perhaps that was because of her experience earlier when she was not accepted in Hollywood.
Even after her success in the play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Hollywood producers did not choose her to be in the movie. Vivien Leigh replaced her in the part of Blanche Dubois. Tandy said she was surprised when she won the Academy Award for “Driving Miss Daisy.” She said then that the wonderful part she had made up for her lack of experience in movies.
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VOICE ONE:
Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn were married for fifty-two years. During their years of acting together, they won almost every cultural award possible. In nineteen eighty-six, they won the Kennedy center lifetime achievement award. In nineteen ninety, President George Bush presented the National Medal of Art to them. A few months before she died, Tandy and Cronyn were honored with a special Tony Award for their work in the Broadway theater.
Reporters always were asking them how they were able to work so closely together for so long. Tandy said they never discussed their work at home. She said they always honored each other’s ideas if they did not agree about something.
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VOICE TWO:
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| Tandy and Cronyn together in the television movie “Foxfire” |
Jessica Tandy suffered from stage fright that became worse as she grew older. It made her feel sick before a performance. Yet her husband said she was at her best when she was working. She was in great demand as she grew older. Tandy took good parts and bad ones. She always said a person is richer for doing things. If you wait for the greatest part, you will wait a long time and your skills will decrease, she said. You cannot be an actor without acting.
Tandy was an actor until the end. She had problems with her eyes and her heart. Yet they did not slow her down. In nineteen eighty-eight, she won an Emmy Award for a television movie of the play “Foxfire. “
Three years later, Jessica Tandy had a cancer operation. But she continued working. She did not let her pain lessen the effectiveness of her performance. She appeared in more television movies in the years before her death. And she made several movies that were released after she died September eleventh, nineteen ninety-four. She was eighty-five.
VOICE ONE:
Jessica Tandy said as an actor her job was getting the best out of what the writer expressed in the play or movie. The critics said she did. They said she always was able to show deep meaning in the people she played. One critic wrote that she was such a good actor that only poets, not critics, should be permitted to write about her.
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VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Lawan Davis. I’m Rich Kleinfeldt.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of America.
