11月7日午间英语新闻：研究发现脑部电刺激术可改善记忆力

Japanese scholars head to China
中国不断优化的科研环境正吸引日本青年学者

Motoyuki Hattori was a promising young scholar in Japan, held a position at the nation’s most elite university and had career prospects far more solid than those of his peers. But Hattori left Japan seven years ago for a professorship at a university in China. Hattori, now 40, specializes in the structure and function of membrane transporters and wanted to quickly start his own laboratory. This was possible at Fudan University in Shanghai.
服部素之是一位杰出的日本青年学者，曾在日本最顶尖的大学任职，其职业前景远比同龄人更有前途。但七年前服部离开了日本，前往中国一所大学任教。现年40岁的服部专攻膜转运蛋白的结构和功能研究，他希望尽快建立个人实验室。在上海复旦大学，他的期望可以化为现实。

“In Japan’s academic culture, it usually takes 10 years or so until post-doctorate researchers can set up their own labs after completing the so-called ‘apprenticeship’ period under professors,” he said in a recent online interview. A number of Japanese scholars are opting to do research in China mainly because of something that most young workers want: job stability.
“在日本学术界中，博士后研究员通常需要10年左右才能完成所谓的教授‘学徒期’，此后才能建立个人实验室。”他在最近一次线上采访中说。许多日本学者之所以选择在中国开展科研工作，主要是因为这里可以为大多数年轻学者提供他们想要的：工作稳定性。

Hattori noted the Chinese government has increased support to regional universities to raise academic standards across the country. “It is essential for progress in science to have large numbers of scholars and to have them in broader areas,” he said. “It is the same as a mountain. The higher a mountain is, the larger its foundation is.”
服部还指出，中国政府加大了对地方大学的支持力度，以提高全国的学术水平。“拥有大量的学者，并且让学者们在更广泛的领域开展研究，这对于科学进步是至关重要的。”他说，“就好比一座山，山越高，山底的基石越庞大。”

重点词汇：

1.elite

英 [eɪˈliːt]

美 [ɪˈliːt] 

n. 权力集团，上层人士；尖子，精英

adj. 出类拔萃的，精锐的

2.peer

英 [pɪə(r)]

美 [pɪr] 

n. 同龄人，同等地位的人，相匹敌的人；（英国）贵族

v. 凝视，费力地看；隐现

3.membrane
英 [ˈmembreɪn]

美 [ˈmembreɪn] 
n. （动植物的）膜；（可起防水、防风等作用的）膜状物

Brain stimulation can boost memory 

研究发现脑部电刺激术可改善记忆力

As our brains work by firing off electrical impulses, a team at Boston University used this in order to test whether stimuli can boost one’s memory. They asked volunteers to wear a cap filled with electrodes, then used precise electrical currents to alter their brainwaves in 20-minute sessions of brain stimulation. 

我们的大脑通过发送电脉冲来工作。美国波士顿大学研究团队就利用了这一原理来提高人们的记忆力。研究人员让志愿者戴上一顶装满电极的帽子，然后用精确的电流改变其脑电波，对大脑进行每次20分钟的无创刺激。

These took place every day for four days, and the group's ability to remember a list of words was tested. The results, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, showed improvements in memory lasted at least a month. The researchers were able to boost volunteers’ long-term memory and also working memory, which is for the here and now.

实验连续进行了四天，然后测试了志愿者们记忆一组单词的能力。测试的结果发表在《自然-神经科学》期刊上，志愿者们记忆力改善的效果至少维持了一个月。研究人员能够提高志愿者的长期记忆，同时还改善了工作记忆，就是用于记住此时此刻发生的事情的记忆。

The researchers are now investigating whether this technology can be used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, when brain cells have already started dying, as well as schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

研究人员正在研究这项技术能否用于治疗患病时脑细胞已开始萎缩的阿尔茨海默病，以及精神分裂症和强迫症。

重点词汇：

1. fire off

升火，发射；熄火

2.schizophrenia
英 [ˌskɪtsəˈfriːniə]

美 [ˌskɪtsəˈfriːniə; ˌskɪtsəˈfreniə] 
n. [内科] 精神分裂症