In Star’s ‘Habitable Zone,’ an Earth-Like Planet
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MARIO RITTER: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Mario Ritter.
BARBARA KLEIN: And I’m Barbara Klein. Today, we tell about the discovery of a planet like Earth. We tell about a Canadian study of sea ice. And we attempt to answer a question involving computers.
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MARIO RITTER: On a clear night, the sky is a wonderful thing. It seems we never grow tired of looking up and thinking. Is there life out there somewhere? Is there another place like Earth where life might exist? If so, where is it? And how far away is it?
Researchers with the American space agency think they know the answers to all those questions except the first. But without the Kepler spacecraft, they would still not know for sure. Last week, scientists announced the latest information from Kepler. The news is exciting!
BARBARA KLEIN: The Kepler spacecraft was named in honor of Johannes Kepler, the seventeenth century German astronomer. It was designed to examine a small part of the Milky Way galaxy and search for places like Earth.
Recently, the spacecraft found 22b, a planet about six hundred light years away. The space agency says it is the first planet in a “habitable zone” outside our solar system. That means the planet orbits a star like our sun, but it is not too close to it, nor too far away. Because of this position, scientists say, Kepler-22b might have water, one of the main things needed for life.
The newly discovered planet is about two and a half times larger than the Earth. The planet is closer to its star than we are to the sun. But 22b’s sun is smaller than ours, and does not produce as much heat. Scientific instruments have yet to show what the new planet is made of. It could be gas, rocks, or some kind of liquid.
MARIO RITTER: The Kepler spacecraft was made to inspect over one hundred fifty thousand stars and measure how bright they are. It looks to see if a star’s brightness gets less over a short time.
Spectators in Cocoa Beach, Florida, watch the March 2009 launch of NASA’s planet-hunting spacecraft Kepler
AP
If a planet passes between Kepler and the star, it blocks out part of the light. That is what suggested to scientists that there is at least one planet orbiting the star. The instruments on Kepler show the new planet as a small, black dot moving across its sun.
An important part of the Kepler experiment is on Earth. After the spacecraft gathers information, scientists use the large Spitzer Space Telescope, and smaller telescopes on the ground.
BARBARA KLEIN: Earlier this month, the American space agency reported that its scientists have discovered over one thousand new planets. Since Kepler was launched three years ago, they have found over two thousand three hundred. About two hundred of these are about the size of the Earth. Most are much larger. But it is the new planet’s distance from its star that is important. For life to possibly exist there, the planet’s temperature must not be too hot or too cold.
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MARIO RITTER: Sometimes, the Earth changes quickly.
In two thousand five, Hurricane Katrina severely damaged the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Last year, huge rainstorms caused landslides near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. People and buildings were washed away.
Thirty years ago, Mount St. Helens in the northwestern United States exploded. It was the most damaging volcanic event in the country’s history.
But sometimes, when the Earth changes, all you hear is … silence.
BARBARA KLEIN: You usually cannot hear sea ice melting in the Arctic Ocean, but change is taking place. And some scientists are concerned. They say our planet is getting warmer, and a great deal of ice is disappearing. Their experiments show that the ice has not melted this fast in the past one thousand four hundred fifty years.
The scientists examined sea ice records, tree rings, dirt from the bottom of lakes, and historical writings to estimate how much ice there once was. They found that sea ice has disappeared much more quickly just during the past thirty years.
MARIO RITTER: Christian Zdanowicz of Natural Resources Canada reported results from the latest study last month in the journal Nature. He says that melting sea ice, way up north, is nothing new. But when he sees satellite pictures of the amount of ice that is melting, he thinks something important, and damaging, is happening.
Scientists believe that if this continues, there soon may not be any sea ice left during the Arctic summer. Christian Zdanowicz thinks the ice is melting much faster than before because people are burning oil and other fossil fuels.
BARBARA KLEIN: About eighty percent of all the sunlight that strikes the earth is reflected back into space. If there is less ice, that sunlight warms the ocean. Warmer ocean waters cause warmer air above the oceans. That can cause the whole planet to heat up. And that causes even more ice to melt. It becomes a destructive cycle.
Researchers with Natural Resources Canada say their work is far from done. They hope to answer three important questions. How unusual is this fast disappearance of sea ice? Could this be something that happens only once? Or, is this part of a much longer phenomenon or event, something that has been going on for millions of years?
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MARIO RITTER: Millions of us use them every day. Some are so large they have to sit on the floor. Others are so small that they fit in our hand. They help us with mathematical problems, store our music and pictures, and are needed to search the Internet. They are, of course, computers. So try this experiment. Ask a friend or just someone you see on the street this question: “Who invented the computer?”
BARBARA KLEIN: Some people cannot live without computers, but we know very little about who invented them. So who did it? Are you ready? The answer is … we do not know for sure. Many people who know a lot about information technology might say computers were invented by Alan Turing. He was a British mathematician who helped solve coded messages from Germany during World War Two. Many people consider him the “father of computer science.”
But to find the first person who thought he could make a computing device, we have to go back one hundred eighty years to a man named Charles Babbadge. He also was British.
Recently, researchers in his home country announced plans to use millions of dollars to build one of Babbadge’s “Analytical Engines.” John Graham-Cumming and Doron Swade are supervising the project at the Science Museum in London.
MARIO RITTER: It seems that Charles Babbadge never had time to build this machine. He left blueprints or plans on what he thought would work. But the plans are not complete. That means the first thing the two Science Museum researchers have to do is find all the blueprints and decide how they fit together. Since this is a lot of work, they will publish the information on the Internet next year and ask people around the world to help them.
In Charles Babbadge’s day, there were no electrical power lines. So his computer would have been totally mechanical. His Analytical Engine was designed to be powered by steam. It was to have been made from brass and iron. And it would have been very large, maybe even room size.
A number of cards with holes in them were to be used to tell the machine what to do. This kind of “programming” would have been similar to one that IBM – International Business Machines — used in the nineteen sixties.
BARBARA KLEIN: Charles Babbadge died in eighteen seventy-one. As the years went by, his work was mostly forgotten. People who knew Alan Turing do not think that he knew much about what Babbadge had done. But Turing’s writings show that he was knowledgeable about the work of Ada Lovelace. She lived during Babbadge’s time and knew about his machine. She even designed a way to make it work better.
Lovelace thought that this early computer should be able to do more than just add and take away numbers very fast. She thought it could be taught to make music, and to recognize images. Ada Lovelace left many notes about her work. When her writings were studied again years later, people began to call her the first computer programmer.
MARIO RITTER: The researchers in London hope to get suggestions from many people when they put the blueprints on the worldwide web next year. After that, they will attempt to build a complete Babbadge Analytical Engine.
They may be able to prove that this [sound of keyboard typing] once sounded like this: [steam machinery].
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BARBARA KLEIN: This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jim Tedder. Our producer was June Simms. I’m Barbara Klein.
MARIO RITTER: And I’m Mario Ritter. Join us again next week for more science in Special English on the Voice of America.
American History: Nixon Resigns Over Watergate
STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION — American history in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.
This week in our series, we conclude the story of the thirty-seventh president of the United States, Richard Nixon.
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Richard Nixon’s first term ended with the hope for a complete American withdrawal from the war in Vietnam. Yet Americans were still angry about the war and its economic effects on life at home. Inflation and unemployment were both high.
Some political observers thought Nixon would not win a second term. Nixon, however, was sure the American people would support him.
He did not actively campaign in the state primary elections leading up to the Republican nominating convention. He focused much of his attention on foreign policy — including his historic trip to China in February nineteen seventy-two. In May he traveled to Austria, the Soviet Union, Iran and Poland. In Moscow, he signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, or SALT, with the Soviets.
But back in Washington, something happened. It was a small incident, but one that would have a huge effect.
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On June seventeenth, nineteen seventy-two, five men wearing surgical gloves broke into the headquarters of the Democratic Party. The Democratic National Committee offices were located in one of the buildings in a complex called Watergate. Police caught the burglars and, at the time, the incident did not seem very important.
But the men carried papers that linked them to top officials in the Nixon White House. The question was: Did the president know what was going on? Nixon denied any wrongdoing.
In time, the Watergate break-in would lead to a congressional investigation.
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But, in the summer of nineteen seventy-two, attention focused on the presidential nominating conventions. Democrats met in Miami Beach, Florida, and chose George McGovern, a senator from South Dakota, as their candidate for president.
The Republicans also met in Miami Beach and, as expected, nominated Richard Nixon for a second term.
McGovern, a liberal, attacked Nixon for his policies on Vietnam. However, Nixon easily won the nineteen seventy-two election. He defeated McGovern, carrying forty-nine of the fifty states.
But the shadow of Watergate would not go away.
Two young reporters for the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, had been following the story since the break-in. In early nineteen seventy-three, they found evidence that linked the break-in to White House officials. The evidence also showed that these officials tried to use government agencies to hide the connection.
The burglars had been financed with money connected to the Committee to Re-Elect the President.
Pressure grew for a full investigation. In April, President Nixon ordered the Justice Department to carry it out. Attorney General Elliot Richardson appointed law professor Archibald Cox as a special prosecutor to lead the investigation.
SENATOR SAM ERVIN (WATERGATE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN)): “The committee will come to order.”
In May, a special Senate committee began its own investigation. A former White House lawyer, John Dean, provided the major evidence.
JOHN DEAN: “It is my honest belief that, while the president was involved, he did not realize, or appreciate at any time, the implications of his involvement. And I think that, when the facts come out, I hope the president is forgiven.”
By July, the public learned that President Nixon had made tape recordings of some of his discussions and telephone calls. The Senate committee asked him for some of the tapes. Nixon refused. He said the president of the United States has a Constitutional right to keep such records private.
A federal judge, John Sirica, ordered the president to surrender the tapes. Lawyers for the president took the case to the Supreme Court. The high court supported Sirica’s decision.
After that, pressure increased for Nixon to cooperate. In October, he offered to provide written transcripts of parts of the recordings. Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor, rejected the offer. So Nixon ordered Attorney General Richardson to dismiss him. Richardson — the nation’s top law enforcement officer — refused. Instead, he resigned, as did his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, when Nixon ordered him to fire Cox.
ABC NEWS REPORTER JERRY LANDAY: “The Watergate drama has taken a half-year to unfold. The president’s unique actions in firing two popular and respected members of the Executive Branch, and forcing a third to quit, took less than eight hours. The impact of all this, clearly colossal, and yet to be measured.”
Jerry Landay, reporting for ABC News.
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The incident happened on a Saturday night and became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre.”
Nixon then had acting Attorney General Robert Bork dismiss Cox, and the president eliminated the office of special prosecutor. He gave the Justice Department the responsibility of continuing the investigation.
President Nixon had another political problem, in addition to Watergate. In late nineteen seventy-three, his vice president, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign. A court had found Agnew guilty of violating tax laws.
President Nixon asked Gerald Ford to become the new vice president. Ford was a longtime member of Congress from Michigan.
By that time, some members of Congress were talking about trying to remove Nixon from office. Was the president covering up important evidence in the Watergate case? Was he, in fact, guilty of crimes?
In April nineteen seventy-four, Nixon surrendered some of the recordings of conversations in his office. However, three important ones were missing. The Nixon administration tried to explain, saying the tape machine had failed to record two of those conversations. The third recording, it said, had been erased accidentally. This became known as the famous “eighteen-minute gap.”
Many Americans did not believe these explanations.
Two months later, the Supreme Court ruled that a president cannot hold back evidence in a criminal case. It said there is no presidential right of privacy in such a case.
Congress moved ahead with efforts to bring charges against the president.
REPRESENTATIVE OGDEN REID: “Congress has no alternative now but to institute impeachment proceedings.”
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In July nineteen seventy-four, a committee in the House of Representatives proposed to impeach Nixon. That is, put the president on trial in the Senate. If Nixon were found guilty of crimes connected to the Watergate case, he would be removed from office.
Finally, Nixon surrendered the last of the documents sought by congressional investigators. These documents appeared to provide proof that the president had ordered a cover-up of evidence in the Watergate burglary.
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Every president promises to protect and defend the Constitution. The congressional investigation showed that Nixon had repeatedly misused government agencies in an effort to hide wrongdoing and punish his critics. The hearings also showed that he had tried to block the investigation.
Richard Nixon says goodbye to staff members outside the White House on August 9, 1974, after resigning
AP
On August eighth, nineteen seventy-four, Richard Nixon spoke to the nation. His long struggle to remain in office was over.
RICHARD NIXON: “Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.”
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By resigning, Nixon avoided impeachment and possible imprisonment. Never before had an American president resigned. On August ninth, Nixon’s vice president, Gerald Ford, was sworn-in as the nation’s thirty-eighth president.
Soon after becoming president, Gerald Ford made a surprise announcement.
GERALD FORD: “I deeply believe in equal justice for all Americans, whatever their station or former station. But it is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me, though surely it deeply troubles every decent and every compassionate person. My concern is the immediate future of this great country.”
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He pardoned Richard Nixon. Many Americans criticized Ford for doing this. But the new president believed he had good reason.
Ford wanted to deal with the other problems facing the nation. He did not want Watergate to go on and on. But the investigation did go on. A number of officials in the Nixon administration went to prison.
The effects of Watergate on public opinion and public policy would be felt for years to come.
For example, Congress passed laws designed to prevent an administration from using its power to punish opponents. Nixon’s abuses also led Congress to order government agencies to provide more information about their intelligence gathering activities.
Nixon’s actions violated the basic trust between the American public and their elected officials. It led to more aggressive reporting by a new generation of journalists hoping to follow in the footsteps of Woodward and Bernstein. Their coverage of Watergate won a Pulitzer Prize — one of journalism’s top awards — and led to a movie based on their book “All the President’s Men.” It starred Robert Redford as Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein. Jason Robards played Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee.
MANAGING EDITOR HOWARD SIMONS (MARTIN BALSAM): “But do any of them have an axe?”
BOB WOODWARD (ROBERT REDFORD): “No.”
HOWARD SIMONS: “Personal, political, sexual, is there anything at all on Mitchell?”
BOB WOODWARD: “No.”
HOWARD SIMONS: “Then can we use their names?”
CARL BERNSTEIN (DUSTIN HOFFMAN): “No.”
BEN BRADLEE (JASON ROBARDS): “When is somebody going to go on the record in this story? You guys are about to write a story that says the former attorney general, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in this country, is a crook! Just be sure you’re right.”
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The presidency of Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, will be our story next week.
You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I’m Steve Ember, inviting you to join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION — American history in VOA Special English.
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Contributing: Jerilyn Watson
This was program #218. For earlier programs, type “Making of a Nation” in quotation marks in the search box at the top of the page.
Business English Speakers Can Still Be Divided by a Common Language
This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
Business is the most popular subject for international students in the United States. At last count, twenty-one percent of foreign students at American colleges and universities were studying business and management.
The Institute of International Education in New York says engineering is the second most popular field, in case you were wondering.
Thomas Cossé is a professor of marketing and business at the University of Richmond in Virginia. He says international students who want to study business need to have good English skills — and not just to study at his school.
English is a common language for business, but communication is not just about language
THOMAS COSSÉ: “At least among business schools, more and more worldwide are requiring that their students take English, and they are teaching more in English.”
But the world has more non-native speakers of English than native speakers. As a result, Americans working with foreign companies may need to learn some new English skills themselves.
At the University of Richmond, teams of graduate students work with companies seeking to enter the American market. The students learn about writing market entry studies. The reports are written in English. But Professor Cossé tells his students to consider who will read them.
THOMAS COSSÉ: “My students have to write the report in such a way that it can be understood by someone who is an English speaker but not a native English speaker.”
For example, he tells his students to avoid jargon and other specialized terms that people might not know in their own language. This can be good advice even when writing for other native speakers.
But effective communication involves more than just words. Kay Westerfield is director of the international business communication program at the University of Oregon.
KAY WESTERFIELD: “If you just have the language awareness or the skills without culture, you can easily be a fluent fool.”
Cultural intelligence means the need to consider local behaviors in everything from simple handshakes to speaking to large groups.
Still, Kay Westerfield says the ability of local workers to speak English is becoming more important to companies looking to move operations to other countries. Or, as she puts it, to “off-source.”
KAY WESTERFIELD: “While cost remains a major factor in decisions about where to off-source, the quality of the labor pool is gaining importance, and this includes English language skills.”
Also, she says English skills often provide a competitive edge for business students when they seek jobs.
KAY WESTERFIELD: “As one business student in West Africa put it, ‘English is a lifeline.’”
And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. You can read and listen to our programs and find activities for English learners at voaspecialenglish.com. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. I’m June Simms.
