BBC 英语学习 News Review 吃塑料的蠕虫

Could plastic eating worms help the world s pollution crisis?

This is news review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil and

I'm Beth. Make sure you watch to the end to learn vocabulary to talk about the story.

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video and try the quiz on our website.

Now it's time for the story Getting rid of plastic with worm spits.

Spanish scientists have discovered something in wax worm saliva, which helps them eat plastic.

Its hopes the breakthrough will be an effective and natural way of reducing plastic pollution.

One researcher suggests in the future, plastic eating worm kits could be used in the home.

You ve been looking at the headlines best, what's the vocabulary?

We have Gobbling, lonely and humble.

This is news review from BBC, learning English.

Let's have a look at our 1st headline.

This one is from France. 24 Plastic gobbling enzymes in worm spit may help ease pollution.

And so the headline is saying, something useful has been found in the spit of a certain kind of worm, and it's the enzyme in the spit.

Enzymes are things that help chemical processes happen more quickly, in this case, destroying plastic.

But the word that we're interested in is gobbling.

And gobbling is a word connected to the noise of turkey makes.

Yes, you're right. So when a turkey gets its food, it's very quickly and loudly.

And we say, this is gobble.

So the headline writer has turned this into an adjective, just like the noise Gobble, gobble.

And we've got a new word, plastic gobbling.

Gobble is a funny word in English because it sounds like the thing it is describing.

And we have a lot of words like that, um, e.g.

What noise Does a cat make meal?

Okay, so the noise is like that, and the word to describe that is Miow.

What about chickens? Puck. Okay? Chickens make a cluck like noise.

And the word we write down and say is cluck Yep.

So the headline makes you imagine a worm noisily eating plastic, just like a turkey, gobbling it.

Um. Now, of course this is an exaggeration, but it's quite entertaining, and it gives you a strongly mental image.

CA Yeah. Can you give us some examples of other words connected to eating and the noise involved?

Yes, so we have, gulp. Okay, so that is, nope.

And nice about eating food and drinking quickly and loudly.

And then we also have guzzle, but that's only really used for drinking.

Yeah. And we have a word not connected to sound, but it's got an animal in it.

To wolf something down, means to eat it really quickly.

Let's take a look at that one more time.

Let's take a look at our next headline.

This one is from Reuters. Lowly wax worm Saliva may boost fight against plastic pollution.

The headline is saying that the saliva, that's the spit, another word for spit, of this certain kind of worm, might boost That means help the attempt to reduce plastic.

But the word we're looking at is, slowly.

What can you tell us about lonely?

Well, there's a clue in this word, lonely, low, and it means low in position or importance.

So, E.G. Neil, when I started in my career, I wasn't presenting news review for the BBC, I was in a lonely position.

OK? So you mean that you feel the the job you were doing wasn't as important as the one you're doing now.

It was lower, exactly. Ok Um.

Now, we have heard that this worm is actually really important.

It's eating plastic. So why are we calling it lonely?

Well, wax ones aren't really high up in the animal kingdom.

They're a little bit dirty. Most people think of them as pests, and they don't really like them.

And so the headline writer uses the word lonely, because even though this worm doesn't seem that important, it's actually doing a really important job.

Now, do we use this word much in our everyday English?

Well, yeah, when we use it, it's always in a humorous way.

We're kind of saying, the thing we're doing isn't very important.

Like, I used to just be a lonely teamaker in

the office. Ah, well, you call yourself lonely.

But just like the worm, you're performing a really important

task. Everybody loves tea. It may not be the most glamorous job in the world, that it is very important.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's take a look at our next headline.

This one is from the BBC Humble Worms saliva can break down tough plastic.

And so the headline is saying, the saliva of this type of worm, this wax worm, can break down, which means destroy certain types, certain types of plastic, tough plastics, ones that are difficult to break down, difficult to destroy.

Um, we have another adjective that we're looking at, which is humble.

What can you tell us about humble?

So humble can have the same meaning as lonely, meaning ordinary or not important.

But it has another meaning too.

So it can describe a person who isn't proud or doesn't believe that they're important, even if they are.

So imagine someone wins an award, they got on stage to give their speech, and they say, this isn't for me.

It's for everyone else. Thank you everyone who helped me.

They are humble. Ah, what a humble person.

And it's a positive thing to say about someone, isn't it?

So in this headline, using humble about this worm is a positive thing, exactly, because even though this worm maybe looks just like a worm, it's really special and important.

It has plastic eating abilities. OK, let's look at that again.

We've had goblin eating quickly and loudly, like a turkey, lonely, low in position and importance and humble, not proud, but often important.

Don't forget, there's a quiz on our website at bbc learning english dot com.

Thank you for joining us. And goodbye bye.

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