| In Other News |
| IG Nobels |
搞笑諾貝爾獎 |
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| People who predicted the end of the world and got it wrong, scientists who built a wasabi fire alarm, and researchers who studied how the urge to urinate affects decision-making were among the winners of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes. |
預言世界末日將至但預測失準的人、還有發明山葵火警警報器的科學家、以及研究尿急如何影響決策的研究人員，全是今年搞笑諾貝爾獎的大贏家。 |
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| Founded in 1991, the Ig Nobels are awards given to the researchers behind the year's funniest and strangest scientific studies. The awards, which are intended to make people both laugh and think, are seen as a witty counterpart to the world-renowned Nobel Prizes. Former winners of the real Nobel Prizes hand out the awards at a ceremony at Harvard University. |
設立於一九九一年的搞笑諾貝爾獎，旨在頒獎給當年做出最爆笑且最怪誕研究的科學家。這些目的是要讓人們在捧腹大笑的同時深思的獎項，被視為舉世聞名的諾貝爾獎的幽默版。真正的諾貝爾獎得主會在哈佛大學舉行的頒獎典禮中，頒獎給搞笑諾貝爾獎的得主。 |
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| Among the Ig Nobel winners this year were researchers who found that male buprestid beetles like to try mating with a kind of Australian beer bottle called "stubbies," and researchers who showed why discus throwers become dizzy and hammer throwers do not. |
今年搞笑諾貝爾獎的得主，包括發現雄吉丁蟲喜歡嚐試與一種叫做「stubbies」的澳洲啤酒瓶交配，以及發現為何擲鐵餅的選手會頭暈但是鏈球選手卻不會的研究人員。 |
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| This year's winner of the Ig Nobel Public Safety Prize was John Senders of the University of Toronto, Canada. Senders conducted experiments to see how distractions — in this case a helmet with a visor that repeatedly flaps over the face — affects a person's concentration during driving on highways. "Someone had to drive while this visor was blinding them," stated Marc Abrahams, architect of the Ig Nobels. Remarkably, the driver fared quite well. |
加拿大多倫多大學的約翰森德斯是今年搞笑諾貝爾公共安全獎的得主。他做的實驗是要研究在高速公路上開車時，令人分心的事物對駕駛的集中力有何影響——而他所使用的道具是一頂面罩頻頻掉落到面前的安全帽。搞笑諾貝爾獎創辦人馬克亞伯拉罕斯指出：「有人得在面罩不斷遮住視線的情況下開車。」而出乎意料的是，駕駛開得還不錯。 |
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| Peter Snyder, a professor of neurology at Brown University in the U.S. state of Rhode Island, was part of two research teams who won the Medicine Prize for studying how the urge to urinate affects decision-making. Snyder's team set up an experiment in which volunteers did computer tests while periodically drinking 250 ml of water. Unsurprisingly, the study found that both attention and memory suffer when you are focused on having to pee. "When you gotta go, you gotta go," Snyder concluded. |
美國羅德島州布朗大學神經學教授彼得史奈德，是獲頒醫學獎的兩支研究小組的成員之一，他們研究了尿急會如何影響決策。史奈德的研究小組設計了一項實驗，讓自願參與研究的受試者在進行電腦測驗的同時，每隔一段時間就喝下兩百五十毫升的水。這項研究結果不出意料地顯示：當你尿急時，注意力與記憶力都會降低。他的結論是：「想尿的時候就趕快去方便吧！」 |
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| Abrahams said Ig Nobel judges spend much of the year sifting through piles of nominations, and the selection process can become quite heated. "We have a very difficult time picking the winners. I often have to step in and remind people that the prize is supposed to be for fun," he explained. |
亞伯拉罕斯表示，搞笑諾貝爾獎的評審會花將近一年的時間在堆積如山的研究提名中進行篩選，而且遴選過程也有可能會趨於白熱化。他解釋：「挑選得主時會陷入天人交戰。我經常得介入並提醒各位評審：頒發這些獎項的宗旨是趣味性。」 |
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| Movies |
| ‘Contagion’ sells both fear & sensibility |
恐懼和感性兼具的《全境擴散》 |
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| Hollywood disaster movies usually feature earthquakes, asteroids or aliens trying to destroy the planet while manly heroes crack jokes between impossible stunts. "Contagion," however, is something completely different. There are no muscular heroes, no over-the-top action scenes and no silly wisecracks. |
好萊塢災難片通常是以地震、彗星或試圖摧毀地球的外星人為主題，然後再搭配充滿男子氣概的英雄人物，一邊開玩笑一邊做出不可能做到的驚險動作。不過電影《全境擴散》卻完全不同，裡面沒有肌肉發達的英雄或過火的動作場景，更沒有愚蠢的俏皮對話。 |
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| Local News |
| When kids go into hiding |
當孩子失蹤時 |
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| Few things are as heartbreaking as a missing child. Now, new statistics are helping to explain why this happens. According to the Child Welfare League Foundation, 85 percent of missing children chose to run away. This has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Only 27 percent of missing children ran away in 1992. |
沒有什麼事情會比孩子失蹤更令人心碎。現在，一份新的統計數據有助於說明孩子失蹤的原因。據兒童福利聯盟文教基金會指出，八成五的失蹤兒童選擇逃家。這種情況比起過去廿年來加劇許多。在一九九二年，只有兩成七的失蹤兒童逃家。 |
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| World News |
| What a star-laden surprise |
眾「星」雲集的驚喜 |
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| After 15 years living in far-off Australia, American-born Brian Schmidt thought the phone call informing him he had jointly won the Nobel Prize for Physics was a student prank, coming in the dead of the night from a woman with a thick Swedish accent. |
在美國出生的布萊恩施密特久居偏遠的澳洲長達十五年之後，某天深夜，當他接到一名帶有濃厚瑞典口音的女子打來的電話，通知他成為諾貝爾物理學獎得主之一時，他一度認為那是惡作劇。 |
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