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    You may want to skip the toppings on your next hot dog, or skip it altogether: Health researchers at the University of Michigan have found that eating a single hot dog could take 36 minutes off your life. In their study, researchers looked at 5,853 foods in the US diet and measured their effects in minutes of healthy life gained or lost. “We wanted to make a health-based evaluation of the beneficial and detrimental impacts of the food in the entire diet,” Olivier Jolliet, professor of environmental health sciences at the university and senior author of the paper, told CNN.

     The team came up with an index that calculates the net beneficial or detrimental health burden in minutes of healthy life associated with a serving of food. It’s based on a study called the Global Burden of Disease, which measures morbidity associated with a person’s food choices. “For example, 0.45 minutes are lost per gram of processed meat, or 0.1 minutes are gained per gram of fruit. We then look at the composition of each food and then multiplied this number by the corresponding food profiles that we previously developed,” said the professor.

     One of the foods researchers measured was a standard beef hot dog on a bun. Its 61 grams of processed meat resulted in the loss of 27 minutes of healthy life, Jolliet said — but when ingredients like sodium and trans fatty acids were factored in, the final value was 36 minutes lost. Consumption of foods such as nuts, legumes, seafood, fruits and nonstarchy vegetables, on the other hand, have positive effects on health, the study found. “The index is primarily there to help aid in selecting and using calories consumed on a daily basis to tweak a minimum of habits and make the minimum of change to obtain a maximum benefit for health and the environment from our food experience,” Jolliet said.

(Lauren M. Johnson. https://edition.cnn.com, 27.08.2021. Adaptado.)

TEXT

The end of life on Earth?

    It weighted about 10,000 tons, entered the
atmosphere at a speed of 64,000 km/h and exploded
over a city with a blast of 500 kilotons. But on 15
February 2013, we were lucky. The metereorite that
[05] showered pieces of rock over Chelyabinsk, Russia, was
relatively small, at only about 17 metres wide. Although
many people were injured by falling glass, the damage
was nothing compared to what had happened in Siberia
nearly one hundred years ago, when a relatively small
[10] object (approximately 50 metres in diameter) exploded in
mid-air over a forest region, flattening about 80 million
trees. If it had exploded over a city such as Moscow or
London, millions of people would have been killed.
    By a strange coincidence, the same day that the
[15] meteorite terrified the people of Chelyabinsk, another
50m-wide asteroid passed relatively close to Earth.
Scientists were expecting that visit and know that the
asteroid will return to fly close by us in 2046, but the
Russian meteorite earlier in the day had been too small
[20] for anyone to spot.
    Most scientists agree that comets and asteroids
pose the biggest natural threat to human existence. It
was probably a large asteroid or comet colliding with
Earth which wiped out the dinosaurs about 65 million
[25] years ago. An enormous object, 10 to 16 km in diameter,
struck the Yucatan region in Mexico with the force of 100
megatons. That is the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb
for every person alive on Earth today.
    Many scientists, including the late Stephen
[30] Hawking, say that any comet or asteroid greater than
20km in diameter that hits Earth will result in the
complete destruction of complex life, including all
animals and most plants. As we have seen even a much
smaller asteroid can cause great damage.
[35]    The Earth has been kept fairly safe for the last 65
million years by good fortune and the massive
gravitational field of the planet Jupiter. Our cosmic
guardian, with its stable circular orbit far from the sun,
sweeps up and scatters away most of the dangerous
[40] comets and asteroids which might cross Earth’s orbit.
    After the Chelyabinsk meteorite, scientists are now
monitoring potential hazards even more carefully but, as
far as they know, there is no danger in the foreseeable
future.
[45]    Types of space rocks
    • Comet – a ball of rock and ice that sends out a
tail of gas and dust behind it. Bright comets only appear
in our visible night sky about once every ten years.
    • Asteroid – a rock a few feet to several kms in
[50] diameter. Unlike comets, asteroids have no tail. Most
are to small to cause any damage and burn up in the
atmosphere.
    • Meteoroid – part of an asteroid or comet.
    • Meteorite – what a meteoroid is called when it
[55] hits Earth.

Taken from: http://learningenglishteens.britishcouncil.org  - Access on 29/06/2020

The Genre of Autobiography and Autofiction

[1] Derived from three Greek words meaning “self”, “life” and “write”, autobiography is a

style of writing that has been around nearly as long as history has been recorded. Yet,

autobiography was not classified as a genre within itself until the late eighteenth century.

In his book, Inside out, E. Stuart Bates offers a functional definition of autobiography as “a

[5] narrative of the past of a person by the person concerned”. That definition, however, is too

broad for some literary critics. Many, such as Philippe Lejeune, wish to define the genre more

narrowly: “(a) retrospective prose narrative produced by a real person concerning his own

existence, focusing on his individual life, in particular on the development of his personality”.

Despite disagreements concerning how inclusive the category of autobiography should

[10] be, there are characteristics that are common to the majority of autobiographical works.

These features are the grammatical perspective of the work, the identity of the self, selfreflection

and introspection.

Most autobiographies are written from the first person singular perspective. The author, the

narrator and the protagonist must share a common identity for the work to be considered

[15] an autobiography. This common identity could be similar, but is not identical. The self that

the author constructs becomes a character within the story that may not be a completely

factual representation of the author’s actual past self.

In their book The voice within, Roger Porter and H. R. Wolf state that “truth is a highly

subjective matter, and no autobiographer can represent exactly what happened back then,

[20] any more than a historian can definitively describe the real truth of the past”.

Because the author cannot describe events objectively, even the most accurate

autobiographies have fictional elements. The blurring of fiction and truth characteristic

of autobiography has even led to the creation of a subdivision within the genre of

autobiography that deals with fictionalized self-accounts. For this style of writing that

[25] blends characteristics of both fiction and autobiography, Serge Doubrovsky coined the

literary term “autofiction”.

The difference between traditional autobiography and the genre of autofiction is that

autobiographers are attempting to depict their real life, while writers of autofiction are

only basing their work upon real experiences. Writers of autofiction are not expected to be

[30] as historically accurate as possible as autobiographers are. According to Alex Hughes,

authors of autofiction are saying “this is me and this is not me”. This sums up autofiction.

Autofiction draws from the life of the writer with the addition of fictional elements to

make the work more than just a life story.

Autobiography is a popular genre. Writers of memoirs and life stories never lack an

[35] audience. People are interested in the actual lives of others and want to know about

others’ pasts and feelings and desires. Autobiography is a way to organize the story of a

life and reflect on the past in order to better understand the present.

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Sickle cell anemia¹ – past and present stories

    Thousands of years ago, a special child was born in the Sahara. At the time, this was not a desert; it was a green belt of savannas, woodlands, lakes and rivers. Bands of hunter-gatherers prospered there, catching fish and hippos. A genetic mutation had altered the child’s hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen through the body. It was not harmful; there are two copies of every gene, and the child’s other hemoglobin gene was normal. The child survived, had a family and passed down the mutation to future generations.

     As the greenery turned to desert, the descendants of the hunter-gatherers became farmers, and moved to other parts of Africa. The mutation endured over generations, and for good reason. People who carried one mutated gene were protected against one of the biggest threats to humans in the region: malaria.

    There was just one problem with this genetic advantage: From time to time, two descendants of that child would meet and start a family. Some of their children inherited two copies of the mutant hemoglobin gene instead of one. These children could no longer produce normal hemoglobin; as a result, their red cells became defective and blocked their blood vessels. The condition, now known as ‘sickle cell anemia’, leads to extreme pain, difficulty with breathing, kidney failure and even strokes.

    Today, over 250 generations later, the mutation has been inherited by millions of people. While the majority of carriers live in Africa, many others live in southern Europe, the Near East and India. Those carriers have about 300,000 children each year with sickle cell anemia.

    How humans got the sickle cell mutation is a saga that emerges from new research carried out at the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health. The researchers analyzed the genomes of nearly 3,000 people to reconstruct the genetic history of the disease. They conclude that the mutation arose roughly 7,300 years ago in West Africa. Later, migrants spread the mutation across much of Africa and then to other parts of the world. Wherever people suffered from malaria, the protective gene developed thrived — but brought sickle cell anemia with it.

    Today, sickle cell anemia remains a heavy burden on public health. In many poor countries, most children with the disease still die young. In the United States, the average life span of sufferers has been extended into the early 40s. According to the researchers, an improved understanding of the history of sickle cell anemia could lead to better medical care at a global level.

(Carl Zimmer. www.nytimes.com, 08.03.2018. Adaptado.)

¹sickle cell anemia: anemia falciforme.

Out of Shape at 18, at Risk for Future Diabetes

Nicholas Bakalar 

March 9, 2016 

  Being out of shape at age 18 may increase your risk for eventually developing Type 2 diabetes, regardless of your weight and family history, a new study says. The study looked at data from more than 1.5 million Swedish men, using tests of muscle strength and aerobic capacity when they were conscripted for military service at age 18, between 1969 and 1997. Their muscle strength had been measured with handgrip and other tests, and their aerobic capacity calculated as they exercised on a stationary bicycle.

  With this data in hand, researchers checked the men’s medical records from 1987 to 2012. They found 34,008 cases of Type 2 diabetes over an average 26 years of follow-up. The study is in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Both low aerobic capacity and low muscle strength at 18 were associated with a higher risk for Type 2 diabetes; poor aerobic capacity was a slightly stronger risk factor. Having both weak muscles and low aerobic capacity more than tripled the risk for future diabetes. The effect was independent of other risk factors — body mass index, family history of diabetes, education and socioeconomic status.

  “Early life interventions are really important,” said the lead author, Dr. Casey Crump, a professor of family medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “Prevention of Type 2 diabetes should begin early in life, and should include both aerobic fitness and muscular strength. This is important regardless of people’s weight.” 

(http://well.blogs.nytimes.com)