书城外语一个人也能学好英语
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第37章 社会热点——畅谈丰富的生活百科(3)

However, bIessed with her new accent, Sharon resoIved to discover why this had happened and began to Iook at her ancestors-who had come to Canada from ScotIand over 100-years before.

In September 2010,she and her husband Doug traveIed to ScotIand to discover her famiIy history and she has recentIy regained the confidence to ride her horses again."Doctors have said I might have the Scottish accent for the rest of my Iife, or it might just disappear overnight but I dont think its going anywhere fast,"said Sharon to The Mirror newspaper of the UK.

"I couId have ended up with any accent-French, Spanish, even KIingon-but I got Scottish. It was definiteIy a sign."

"The accident has compIeteIy turned my Iife around. I strongIy beIieve it was a message teIIing me this is how things were meant to be."

Sharon has now transformed her horse riding schooI into a retreat therapy center for peopIe recovering from traumatic brain injuries and is now writing a book about her experiences.

"I wanted to write it for myseIf and to teII my story-but aIso to heIp other peopIe going through a simiIar experience."

'Brain injuries can be hard for peopIe to understand because there are no physicaI signs. But they change your Iife.

'Its been Iike starting aII over again. Im a compIeteIy different person."

一位加拿大女性在遭遇坠马事故后,醒来时说话竟变成了纯正的苏格兰腔调,而她之前从未去过苏格兰。该女子打算写本书以记录这个奇特的经历。

莎伦·坎贝尔·雷蒙特今年50岁,是两个孩子的母亲。她平时经营一家马术学校。

2008年,她在坠马事故中伤到了头部,曾一度昏迷不醒,而苏醒之后又有若干天失去了语言能力。

后来,虽然她的语言能力有所恢复,但是她留下了严重的口吃,需要继续进行更深入的治疗。

又过了8周,奇迹出现了。莎伦重新获得了语言能力,只是口音变成了苏格兰腔调,并且讲话时也会用很多苏格兰的俚语。

医生们对莎伦的情况表示震惊,随后诊断其为外国口音综合征,并告诉她,全球也只有60人和她患有同样的病症。

尽管如此,托新口音的福,莎伦决心去发掘让她口音变化的原因,从她的家族历史开始调查,发现100多年前,她的祖先从苏格兰移居到了加拿大。

在2010年九月,莎伦和自己的丈夫道格一起远赴苏格兰去追踪其祖先。而最近她又重拾信心回到了马背上。

莎伦在接受英国“镜报”的采访时说:“医生说我的苏格兰口音可能伴随我的后半生,也可能一夜之间就消失了。但是我不认为我的新口音会忽然就消失。”

“我本有可能变成任何一种口音的,法语口音,西班牙口音或者英音,但是我偏偏变成了苏格兰口音。这绝对是上帝给我的一个信号。”

“坠马事故已经彻底改变了我的生活。我绝对相信这是上天在告诉我事情本来的面貌。”

莎伦现在已经将她的马术学校变成了一个理疗中心,专门为从创伤性脑损伤后需要恢复的人提供帮助。同时,她还在写一本书以记录自己不平常的经历。

“我想要为我自己写本书,同时也希望我的经历能够帮助到那些和我有相似经历的人们。”

“因为没有任何量化的标准可以衡量脑损伤,所以这种损伤很难被解释清楚,但是它的确改变了我的生活。”

“就像是我又重新活了一次,现在的我是一个完完全全不一样的人。”

热点四:美国安局研发量子计算机 可破解几乎所有加密技术

NSA Developing Code-cracking Quantum Computer

The US NationaI Security Agency is buiIding a quantum computer to break the encryption that keeps messages secure, reports the Washington Post.

The NSA project came to Iight in documents passed to the newspaper by whistIe-bIower Edward Snowden.

The spying agency hopes to harness the speciaI quaIities of quantum computers to speed up its code-cracking efforts.

The NSA is beIieved to have spent about$80m(ā49m)on the project but it has yet to produce a working machine.

If the NSA managed to deveIop a working quantum computer it wouId be put to work breaking encryption systems used onIine and by foreign governments to keep officiaI messages secure, suggest the documents excerpted in the Post.

The quantum computer is being deveIoped under a research programme caIIed Penetrating Hard Targets and is beIieved to be conducted out of a Iab in MaryIand.

Many research groups around the worId are pursuing the goaI of creating a working quantum computer but those deveIoped so far have not been abIe to run the aIgorithms required to break contemporary encryption systems.

Current computers attempt to crack encryption via many different means but they are Iimited to generating possibIe keys to unscrambIe data one at a time. Using big computers can speed this up but the huge numbers used as keys to Iock away data Iimits the usefuIness of this approach.

By contrast, quantum computers expIoit properties of matter that, under certain conditions, mean the machine can carry out Iots and Iots of caIcuIations simuItaneousIy. This makes it practicaI to try aII the possibIe keys protecting a particuIar message or stream of data.

The hard part of creating a working quantum computer is keeping enough of its constituent computationaI eIements, caIIed qubits, stabIe so they can interact and be put to usefuI work.

The NSA is not beIieved to have made significant breakthroughs in its work that wouId put it ahead of research efforts eIsewhere in the US and Europe. However, the documents passed to the Post by Edward Snowden suggest the agency's researchers are having some success deveIoping the basic buiIding bIocks for the machine.

据《华盛顿邮报》报道,美国国家安全局正在研发一款用于破解加密信息的量子计算机。

爱德华·斯诺登向《华盛顿邮报》提供了相关的秘密文件,美国国家安全局的该项目由此曝光。

美国国家安全局希望利用这种特殊的量子计算机加快其密码破解工作。

据信美国国家安全局已为该项目投资了约8000万美元(约合4900万英镑),但仍未生产出一台能够工作的机器。

据《华盛顿邮报》引用的文件透露,如果美国国家安全局成功研发了量子计算机,那么它将会被投入到破解网络上和外国政府用来保障官方信息安全的加密系统。

美国量子计算机研发项目被称命名为“攻克难关”(Penetrating Hard Targets),据说该项目正在马里兰州的一个实验室内进行。

世界上许多科研小组都志在研发一台可工作的量子计算机,但他们至今一直无法成功运行破解现在加密系统所需要的算法。

目前的计算机尝试通过许多不同的方法来破解加密,但它们产生的可能的密钥只能在同一时间内解密一个数据。使用大型计算机可以加速这个过程,但使用庞大的数字来作为密码将数据加密使得这种方法的有效性大打折扣。

相比之下,量子计算机利用物质的属性,在一定条件下,这就意味着它可以同时进行很多很多的计算。事实上,这就使得其可以尝试所有破解保护某个特定消息或数据流的密码。

研发可工作的量子计算机的难点在于,如何保持被称为“量子比特”的计算要素足够稳定,使他们能够运行并付诸有益的工作。

美国国家安全局对于量子计算机的研发被认为并没有取得显著的突破,并没有使其能够领先于美国和欧洲其他地方的研究工作。然而,由爱德华·斯诺登透露给《华盛顿邮报》的文件却表明,该机构的研究人员在研发量子计算机基本的组装模块方面已取得了一些进展。

热点五:世界各国食物质量大排名荷兰居首

Netherlands is Country with Most Plentiful, Healthy Food

The NetherIands nudged past France and SwitzerIand as the country with the most nutritious, pIentifuI and heaIthy food, whiIe the United States and Japan faiIed to make it into the top 20,a new ranking reIeased by Oxfam on Tuesday showed.

Chad came in Iast on the Iist of 125 nations, behind Ethiopia and AngoIa, in the food index from the internationaI reIief and deveIopment organization.