Humor4u

  A recent study has proved that the intensity of exercise matters to reduce the risk of dementia and mortality caused by cancer or heart disease, according to CNBC reports . The article is suitable for B2 students, but there are links to JAMA Neurology and JAMA Internal Medicine leading to the scientific paper, Ahmadi et al, European Heart Journal, 2022 , which is more suitable for C2 students and Medicine professionals. In the CNBC article you can find some interesting words like: a step, to go about [walking], to keep up with a pace , to lower, to be committed to [a daily walk], burst , early death, to peak at [10,000 steps each day], to drop [risk of dementia], purposeful, to review the data, [to walk] briskly , [it] proved to be beneficial, a condition , a device, to monitor [phisical activity]. Time magazine also reports  on a second study by  Dempsey et al, European Heart Journal 2022 , which also studied the intensity of the effort and the time spent. Tara Law e...

Professor Wolf Reik from the Babraham Institute in Cambridge , has led a group of scientists to find a technique that rejuvenates skin cells by 30 years. BBC News recently reported about this breakthrough, a step forward in regenerative medicine research, which eventually might help in the treatment of diabetes, heart disease or neurological disorders, although there is still a great deal of work to be done, because some of the chemicals involved in the process of cell reprogramming can cause cancer, and clinical application are still "a long way off" , according to Prof. Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute in London .   The BBC News article and the video below are suitable for C1 students and above.  You will find interesting words like: to tackle, ageing, tissues, age-related disease, disorders, to build on [a technique], to clone, super [exciting], to stress that, [scientific] issues to overcome, a critical step forward, to stem from, embryo, [human emb...

Freddie is a 14-year-old inventor who has developed two machines to help his 89-year-old great aunt, Pat, who has demetia. In this short BBC World Service video (4':46") you will hear him explaining his inventions.  The video can be seen with automatic subtitles, so it is accessible to B2 students and above. Some of the new words you will find in the video are:  an award-winning inventor, a facial recognition door entry system, random strangers, to scan my ID tag for authentification, a code club, a wearable sensor, to dispatch [a robot], to rope in [his family], to trigger [a false positive], thoroughly, to be over, for a second year running, to set him up, a former [winner], to showcase [your skills].

Future Boyfriend is a short (11 minute), romantic film with a clever sci-fi twist in the plot. I would like to thank my student May L. for sharing this video with me. The film was first written as a one-act play by A. Vincent Ularich and it was accepted in the Sci-Fest festival in Los Angeles in 2014,  Subsequently the actors raised $12,645 in donations to fund the production and the shooting of the film, David Alayón reports for Medium.  The dialogues are fast, but they can be subtitled, so the movie should be accessible to B2 students.   Some of the new, colloquial language you may find is: I should come clear about something, disrupting the fabric of time, to take in, to have a lot to handle, weird, gross!, grisly, a better shot, a creep, to work out, to get this straight, deal? If you want to know more about the film, you can watch this 5 minute video,  Behind the Scenes of Future Boyfriend,  where the main actors, Ron Morehouse and Emily Bell talk to s...