BBC 英语学习 News Review 2022年度回顾

Welcome to news review from BBC, learning English.

I'm new and I'm back. 2022 has come to an end, and what a year it's been.

We've got a special video for you here with all of your favourite clips from your favorite stories of the year.

Enjoy watching late into

the night. For some people, it's just the way they prefer to live, but it may be affecting their health.

New research from the US found that night owls may be more likely to develop heart disease and diabetes.

It's because people who get up early burn fat for energy more easily.

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

Okay, this one is from Sky News, early Bird or Night Owl?

How your sleep cycle put you at risk of heart disease and diabetes?

So the headline asks, what kind of sleep pattern you have?

Er to stay up late, or do you like getting up early?

And there are two expressions in there for those two situations.

What are they? Okay, so the one we're going to look at is night owl.

What can you tell me about owls?

Neil Well, owls are a type of bird, and they they stay up late, they stay up all night, and they are very active at night.

That's when they do their work, which is hunting, in this case, exactly.

And so we call people who stay up late night owls.

It means they stay up late, but also they are mentally or physically active at night.

What about the opposite? Now? Well, we can also see in the headline the expression Early Bird, which comes from the saying, the early bird catches the worm.

And it describes someone who likes to get up early.

There are other ways of saying that as well.

You can call someone an early riser or a morning person.

Which one are you sure? I used to be a night owl, and I think, naturally I'm a night owl, but I want to be a morning person, so I've made myself become one.

How about you? Well, the same Yeah, I like staying up late, but it's never a good idea.

Let's have a look at that again.

Cancer vaccine By 2030, the husband and wife team who worked on the covid job say the same technology could be used to treat cancer.

These vaccines tell the cells to produce a protein that can fight tumors.

The trials are in the early stages, but results have been encouraging so far.

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

OK? This one is from the BBC Biotech Could covid vaccine technology crack cancer?

And so the headline is asking whether the technology that was used to develop covid vaccines could also help in finding a vaccine or cure for cancer.

The company that's working on this is by on Tech, but the word we're looking at is crack.

Now, I know this word crack.

I can crack an egg or cracker plate.

It means it breaks. What's the connection?

Okay, so those examples are physical examples, literally examples of breaking something.

But here, crack means to solve a problem, to find a solution to a problem.

Ah, OK. So it's this technology that could solve or crack the problem of cancer?

Um, can we use crack in any other way, like this?

Yes. So we can talk about the police crack in a case.

So this means they solve the case, they solve the crime.

Or detective like Sherlock can crack a code, so that means he finds a solution, he works out what the code means.

Okay, well, I think we've cracked this explanation for our audience.

Let's look at that again. Food and energy prices are rising across the world, meaning millions now face tough choices in their daily lives.

Economists blame a combination of covet, the war in Ukraine and poor harvests.

Now, central banks are putting up interest rates to try to control the crisis.

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

This one comes from The Guardian.

Fight Against Inflation Raises spectre of global Recession.

Now, the expression that we're looking at is the spectre of something.

A spectre is a ghost, isn't it?

Yet? That's absolutely right. And

you're probably wondering, neil, why are we talking about ghosts?

Yeah, I am. Is it because a ghost is a scary thing?

Well, yes. Is the spectre of something is the possibility of something bad happening?

So in this

case, it's a possible recession. So e.g.

we could talk about the specter of climate change or the specter of nuclear war.

These are really serious things. But could we also use this for more light hearted situations, e.g.

the spectre of my dentist appointment next week?

No, not really. We use this expression for unpleasant things that may happen in the future, and will probably happen to a lot of people.

And by the way, there's a spelling difference, so spectre in British English ends in R-E, but in the US, it finishes with E-R.

OK. Let's have a look at that again.

And that's it. 2022 is over.

Thank you for watching. Join us next year for more news review.

Happy new Year.

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