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A new study shows a lower risk of herpes and HPV in men who are circumcised. Transcript of radio broadcast:
31 March 2009

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Male circumcision is the cutting off of a small amount of skin from the tip of the penis. In many parts of the world it is done when a baby is a few days old. However, in other parts of the world it is unacceptable.

Studies have shown that male circumcision can reduce a man’s risk of getting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Now, a new study shows that it can also reduce a man’s risk of getting human papillomavirus, or HPV. The research also shows circumcision reduces the risk for another common sexually transmitted infection, genital herpes. The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study was led by scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and Makerere University in Uganda. It involved about three thousand four hundred uncircumcised Ugandan men between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine. None had HIV, genital herpes or HPV at the start of the study. The men were split into two groups. One group got immediate circumcisions. The others had it done two years later.

All the men were tested for sexually passed diseases four times in the next two years. The researchers found that those who had been circumcised were twenty-eight percent less likely to get genital herpes than uncircumcised men. They were thirty-three percent less likely to get HPV.

Ronald Gray of Johns Hopkins was a lead investigator. He says the team will now study whether female partners of the men in the study experienced any reduction of risk of the diseases. This is especially important in the case of human papillomavirus.

HPV causes cervical cancer. That disease kills almost three hundred thousand women around the world every year. It is the number one cancer killer of women in poor countries.

There is a vaccine against the human papillomavirus. American medical officials have advised that the vaccine, called Gardasil, be given to girls around age eleven. But, like circumcision, it is an issue of public debate. Some American parents argue that the vaccine will make their girls more likely to have sex early. Others question the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.

Now, Gardasil’s maker, Merck, has asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve the drug for boys beginning at age nine. The complete treatment costs several hundred dollars.

And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. I’m Bob Doughty.

A new study shows a pill containing five medicines may cut heart disease risk in half.Transcript of radio broadcast:
07 April 2009

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Studies have shown that the fewer medicines a person has to take the more likely he or she will take them. Last week, a study was released about a new treatment that combines five medicines for heart disease in one pill. Salim Yusuf of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada was the lead investigator. He presented the findings at the American College of Cardiology Conference in Orlando, Florida.

pillsThe experimental drug is known as Polycap. It contains aspirin, a drug to lower cholesterol and three medicines to lower blood pressure. The study was carried out at fifty health centers across India. More than two thousand people between the ages of forty-five and eighty took part in the study. All had at least one risk factor for heart disease. These include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or being severely overweight.

The people were divided into nine groups of about two hundred people each. One group took Polycap. The other groups took either a single drug or different combinations of the medicines in the Polycap pill. The study showed that Polycap lowered blood pressure and cholesterol without many side effects. Doctor Yusuf said the single pill, taken once a day, could reduce the average person’s risk of heart disease and stroke by about half. The maker of Polycap, Cadila Pharmaceuticals of India, paid for the study.

Cardiovascular diseases of the heart and blood vessels are the number one cause of death around the world. These diseases kill more than seventeen million people every year.

Eighty percent of them are in low and middle income countries. Doctor Yusuf said the single pill treatment could revolutionize heart disease prevention. People would be more likely to take one pill a day than many pills. And one pill would cost less than several pills.

Other heart doctors say heart disease prevention is important but not necessarily with pills. They say patients might be able to get the same results with changes in diet and exercise.

Doctors say that more research on Polycap is needed. They say the drug should be tested on thousands more people, including those in different risk, age and ethnic groups.

And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.

The disease carried by mosquitoes has been found in Africa and Asia for many years, but appeared in Italy in 2007. People rarely die from it, but the muscle and joint pain can last for weeks or months. Transcript of radio broadcast:
11 April 2009

http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/specialenglish/2009_04/audio/Mp3/se-dev-chikungunya-13apr09_0.Mp3

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

People get chikungunya fever when they are bitten by mosquitoes infected with the disease. For many years, the disease has been found in countries in Africa and Asia. The symptoms are increased body temperature, pain in muscles and joints and stomach sickness.

Hospital patients suffering from chikungunya in Ahmadabad, India, in 2006
Hospital patients suffering from chikungunya in Ahmadabad, India, in 2006
The disease is not usually deadly. But the muscle and joint pain can last for weeks or months. There is no vaccine to prevent the disease and no special drug to treat it. Doctors advise taking medicines like aspirin or ibuprofen.

The name chikungunya means “that which bends up” in the Swahili language. People infected with the virus walk in a bent-over position because of the severe pain in the joints.

Malaysia reported more than one thousand one hundred cases of chikungunya so far this year. In Indonesia, about two hundred people in central Java became sick from the virus last month. And about one thousand people near Yeshwanthpur in India also showed signs of the disease in March.

But the disease also appeared in a cooler climate in two thousand seven, causing concern about its spread. Italy reported about two hundred cases during warm weather. The medical journal Eurosurveillance Weekly said it was the first time mosquitoes carried the virus inside Europe.

Two kinds of mosquitoes carry chikungunya fever. One is called Aedes albopictus, or Asian tiger mosquito. It has been reported in many European countries including France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. It also lives in the southern United States. The other mosquito that can carry chikungunya, Aedes aegypti, also is present in the United States.

Ann Powers is an expert on viruses. She works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colorado. She said the disease spread is not directly connected to climate change. But she also said C.D.C. scientists are preparing for possible cases of chikungunya in the United States.

People around the world can prevent diseases spread by mosquitoes by removing standing water from their property. They should try to keep mosquitoes out of their homes. And they should wear clothing that covers the arms and legs when they are outside. DEET and other chemicals that work against insects can keep mosquitoes from biting.

And that’s the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I’m Steve Ember.

Correction: As a comment below points out, this report incorrectly describes “chikungunya” as a Swahili word. Kamusiproject.org says it “almost certainly derives from the Makonde language.”

A study in women suggests that hopeful individuals are less likely than others to suffer an early death.

Transcript of radio broadcast: 14 April 2009

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Here is a good reason to be hopeful about the future: it might help you stay alive.

Smiling woman
Findings from a new study were presented at a recent meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society. Researchers in the United States studied one hundred thousand women during an eight-year period, beginning in nineteen ninety-four. All of the women were fifty years of age or older. The study was part of the Women’s Health Initiative organized by the National Institutes of Health.

The women were asked questions that measured their beliefs or ideas about the future. The researchers attempted to identify each woman’s personality eight years after gathering the information.

The study found that hopeful individuals were fourteen percent less likely than other women to have died from any cause. The hopeful women were also thirty percent less likely to have died from heart disease after the eight years.

Hilary Tindle from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pennsylvania was the lead author of the report. She said the study confirmed earlier research that linked optimistic feelings to longer life.

The researchers also gathered information about people’s education, financial earnings, physical activity and use of alcohol or cigarettes. Independent of those things, the findings still showed that optimists had less of a chance of dying during the eight-year period.

Some women who answered the questions were found to be cynically hostile, or highly untrusting of others. These women were sixteen percent more likely to die than the others. They also were twenty-three percent more likely to die of cancer.

The study also found that women who were not optimistic were more likely to smoke and have high blood pressure or diabetes. They were also more likely not to exercise.

Professor Tindle says the study did not confirm whether optimism leads to healthier choices, or if it actually affects a person’s physical health. She also says the study does not prove that negative emotions or distrust lead to bad health effects and shorter life. Yet there does appear to be a link that calls for more research.

And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Brianna Blake. For more health news, with transcripts and MP3s, go to voaspecialenglish.com. And you can also follow our reports at twitter.com/voalearnenglish. I’m Steve Ember.

A look at some of the ways (good and not so good) that sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are reshaping communications. Transcript of radio broadcast:
13 September 2009

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VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Faith Lapidus. This week on our program: the world of social media.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

People use social networking sites to share ideas, opinions and interests. Millions post comments, videos, pictures, links and other content, or just follow what other users post.

People reconnect with old friends and classmates, and make new connections. Social networks are all about connecting friends and friends of friends, just like in the physical world.

Social media is a way to communicate one to many. But sites generally have a way for users to also send private messages and to control access to their pages.

VOICE TWO:

Social media is still young and evolving. Take the example of Facebook. It was launched in two thousand four as a social network just for Harvard students. Then it opened up to all colleges. Then high schools got their own private pages.

Now anyone can join. Facebook said it had over two hundred fifty million active users as of July. And not everyone is happy about that. Karey is a student at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.

KAREY: “I have kept my mom off of Facebook. She wants one, I said ‘No, you can’t have one.’ It started out as a college thing and then high school students got it. The value of it decreases to me with like the wider amount of people. Like the older population that gets it, I’m not OK with that.”

VOICE ONE:

Ekin Oz is a seventeen-year-old exchange student from Turkey. She does not think older people should be on Facebook.

EKIN OZ: “I think it’s so silly because like it’s something for teenagers.”

But a lot of older people would disagree that social networks are just for teenagers. About eighty percent of American adults use the Internet. A recent online survey found that half of them now belong to social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Forrester Research says four out of five online adults use social media at least once a month. That includes almost everyone age eighteen to thirty-four. Now, the fastest growing group of users are people thirty-five and older.

VOICE TWO:

That would include thirty-nine-year-old Evan Falchuk. He says he first heard about social media two or three years ago at a business meeting.

EVAN FALCHUK: “What I was really surprised by when I first joined was how many people were there who I knew.’”

Evan Falchuk is a lawyer. But he is president and chief operating officer of Best Doctors, a medical company in Boston, Massachusetts. He likes to use LinkedIn, a social networking site for professionals.

EVAN FALCHUK: “I mean, I travel all over the world and have dozens of people that I meet every month and I get business cards from them. And you get back to your office and look at the business card and you say ‘Who was that again? And what did we talk about?’ I try to write notes, but it’s very hard.

“Whereas if you connect with them on LinkedIn, now I’ve got not only the person’s name and contact information, but I know what their prior jobs were. I know who they are connected to who I might know. You have a much richer way of connecting with this person than you otherwise would.”

VOICE ONE:

Evan Falchuk uses Facebook to connect with friends and family members. But not all share his enthusiasm for social media.

EVAN FALCHUK: “My wife is a little bit less of a social media user than I am. So I like to share things about what’s going on. And we like to go out to dinner to different places, for example, and I like to share ‘Hey we’re at this place and this is what we had and it was good.’ And then she is more private and says ‘Well, I don’t really want everybody to know where we are and what we’re doing.’”

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

For couples in long-distance relationships, the main ways to communicate used to be phone calls, letters and visits. Now, they have texting, e-mail, instant messaging and video chat. Patricia is a student at Radford University in Virginia.

PATRICIA: “I was in a long distance relationship for about a year, and Skype really helped because you could actually see the other person when you are talking.”

Skype is an Internet video and phone service that was just in the news. Its current owner eBay agreed to sell a sixty-five percent share to a group of investors for two billion dollars.

Ekin Oz uses Facebook and Skype to stay in touch with family and friends back in Turkey.

EKIN OZ: “I’m using Facebook to contact with my friends, I’m using Skype to contact with my family. Because I miss my family so much, I want to see them, their faces. It’s much more important than friends.”

VOICE ONE:

But even a simple text message can mean a lot. Dan in Virginia is twenty years old. He will be in a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend after joining the Marines. He says texting is good because it lets you communicate whenever you have time.

Not everyone in the military, however, is at ease with social media. The Marine Corps has banned the use of sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter on its computers. But the ban does not limit access on other computers.

Many service members use social networks to communicate with their families or with the public. The Defense Department has been writing a policy for all of the military on the use of social networking sites. Defense officials say they are aiming for a balance that will not compromise the security of operations or military networks.

VOICE TWO:

Public officials recognize that social media has changed the way people communicate. The White House, for example, held a live discussion last Tuesday on its Facebook page. People watched and commented on a speech by President Obama that was broadcast to students nationwide from a Virginia high school.

Before the speech, a student at the school asked for advice about how to get the president’s job.

BARACK OBAMA: “First of all, I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook because in the YouTube age, whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life. And when you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff. And I’ve been hearing a lot about young people who — you know, they’re posting stuff on Facebook, and then suddenly they go apply for a job and somebody has done a search and, so, that’s some practical political advice for you right there.”

VOICE ONE:

Experts say a good rule to remember is not to post anything you would not want your mother to see. But what if your mother — or father — is one of your “friends,” as in a friend you accepted on Facebook?

Some parents use social media to communicate with their kids and to monitor their activities. This, in turn, has led to myparentsjoinedfacebook.com. This is a site for sharing and laughing at things that parents have posted.

VOICE TWO:

Ekin Oz, the exchange student from Turkey, has a different concern about privacy. She worries about cybercrime and the information that could be gathered about a person from different Web sites.

EKIN OZ: “I’m scared of copying my personal information to use, like my photos they can use for things which is not good for me, and I’m concerned about that. If someone write my name on Google they can find one picture from Facebook or something, but is it safe?”

VOICE ONE:

By now most parents know about the dangers of sex offenders using social networks. But the computer security company F-Secure points out the risk even in posting information like vacation plans. Someone who wants to break into the house will then know when people are away.

VOICE TWO:

And then there is the time issue. Jenn is a student at Appalachian State in North Carolina.

JENN: “I’m probably on Facebook a lot more that I should be. I’ll go on sometimes to check it and then get right back off. And then maybe ten minutes later I’ll be like ‘Oh, well, I need to talk to so-and-so,’ and so then I’ll go back on it, every thirty minutes or something.”

And how often does her classmate Karey check her page?

KAREY: “If it’s like during school when things are busy, once maybe for like twenty minutes max. But then if it’s like during the summer and I’m really bored, I don’t have anything else to do, then it might be a little longer.”

And Ekin?

EKIN: “I check my account at least one time a day. If I talk with my family, it’s like an hour. But if I don’t talk to them, just ten or twelve minutes at most.”

VOICE ONE:

And what about Evan Falchuk — a frequent commentator on social media. How often does he check for updates?

EVAN FALCHUK: “It kind of happens in the background, because I have an iPhone which I love. And the iPhone has applications on it for each of the social media that we’ve been talking. And so I’m frequently looking at it or typing stuff or posting something. It feels like it’s something I do continuously.”

VOICE TWO:

Some people like to write long entries in their blogs. On Twitter, each message, or tweet, is limited to one hundred forty characters.

Market researchers at Pear Analytics say they are big fans of Twitter. But in a recent study they declared that forty percent of the tweets captured over a two-week period were “pointless babble.”

Evan Falchuk would agree that some people write things like “I am now sitting in the doctor’s waiting room.”

EVAN FALCHUK: “But most of the people on Twitter that I see are actually trying to have a substantive discussion — a real conversation about topics that are interesting to them. So for me personally, I’m in the health care business and in America we’re having this very important debate about health care. And I’m connected with hundreds — actually I think maybe thousands — of health care professionals or people with an opinion on health care or doctors or others who are constantly posting things to do with what’s going on in health care.”

VOICE ONE:

Some people find answers through social media. Others find love.

A woman named Georgina says she used a social dating site because she was looking “for a higher quality of a mate.” She was still looking when we talked to her. But she thinks the new technologies are a great way to communicate — as long as people still show traditional respect for each other.

GEORGINA: “Back in the nineteen eighties when I was dating without computers, cell phones, text messaging, instant messaging, people had to be more organized. They had to be home, and they had to stick to their plans, because you had no way of communicating with someone once you left for your destination.

“Nowadays, with the extremely fast mode of communication, people have the ability to be lazy and spontaneous and not organized, because they can text you at the last minute or call you wherever you are and say ‘I’m not coming, change of plans.’”

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and Marisel Salazar, and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE ONE:

And I’m Steve Ember. You can share comments and find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find Special English on Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA.

Clay is formed by the action of wind and water on rocks over thousands of years. Transcript of radio broadcast:
13 September 2009

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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Clay is found almost everywhere in the world. It is formed by the action of wind and water on rocks over thousands of years. The rocks change in both chemical and physical ways. Chemically, elements like potassium and aluminum are added and taken away. Physically, the rocks break down into smaller and smaller pieces. After a long time, some of the rock changes to clay.

Clay is important because it is used around the world to make containers of all kinds. Potters add water to soften the clay. This makes it easier to form into shapes by hand or by machine. Then it is fired in an extremely hot stove. The result is a container with a hard surface that will last for many years.

In many countries, clay was formed from volcanoes. This kind of clay usually contains many minerals. So the fires to make containers from volcanic clay must be hotter than those used for non-volcanic clay. The fires may be as hot as one thousand four hundred degrees Celsius.

It is also important to dry the clay containers slowly. This means that the highest temperature should not be reached too fast.

You can add materials to clay to gain desired results. For example, you can add sand to prevent tiny breaks or lines from forming in the finished product. But you should not use sand from the coasts of oceans. Instead, you should use sand from rivers or from other areas of land that are not near the sea.

You can usually find good clay in low areas of islands or land, especially if volcanoes helped form the land. Clay often exists in fields covered with some water. The clay will be found about one meter below the ground. River banks often also have clay about one meter or less under the surface.

You can recognize clay because it is very shiny when it is wet. You can also perform a test. Take some of the material and add enough water to it to make it seem like you are making bread. Then press it in your hand until it is about the size of an egg. It is probably clay if it holds together instead of falling apart when you stop pressing.

And that’s the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Gary Garriott. Guides to working with clay and other materials can be found on the EnterpriseWorks/VITA list of publications. These publications can be ordered for a charge. The list is available at enterpriseworks.org. Transcripts, MP3 and archives of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Chris Cruise.

A number of viruses acting together may help explain cases of colony collapse. Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 September 2009

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This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Colony collapse disorder first struck honey bees in the United States in late two thousand six. Over the next two years, beekeepers lost more than one-third of their honey bees.

Scientists in the United States and other countries have been working to explain the mysterious disappearances of bees. Now, a new study suggests that several viruses may act together.

Scientists from the University of Illinois and the United States Department of Agriculture did the study. Their report appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team compared bees from affected colonies with those from healthy colonies.  They were looking for differences in gene expression in the guts of the bees.

The scientists found that the affected bees had a number of viruses from a group called picorna-like viruses. The infections observed in the bees included Israeli acute paralysis virus and deformed wing virus.

Tiny insects likely play a big part in spreading the viruses. Varroa mites have been causing serious problems in bee colonies in the United States since the late nineteen eighties. These mites carry picorna-like viruses.

The viruses appear to harm the bees’ ability to use their genetic material to produce proteins needed to fight infections. Researcher Reed Johnson, now at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, says the study suggests that the damaged proteins are unable to respond effectively when attacked.

University of Illinois Professor May Berenbaum says it appears that bees could deal with one or two viruses at the same time, but not three or four.

She says the picorna-like viruses “hijack” the ribosome in cells. Ribosomes are structures in which proteins are made. As a result the ribosome produces only viral proteins.

The professor says ribosome is central to the survival of any organism. If it is compromised, then the bees could not defend themselves against pesticides or fungal infections or bacteria or poor nutrition.

These have all been identified as possible causes of the collapse disorder. Spanish researchers, for example, recently said they suspected a parasitic fungus which has been found among affected bees in Spain.

Bees add billions of dollars in value to many crops worldwide. For now, beekeepers have been doing their best to try to protect their colonies.

And that’s the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I’m Faith Lapidus.

He created an industry to prepare students for admissions tests in higher education. He died last month at age 90. Transcript of radio broadcast:
16 September 2009

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Here is a question for a college admissions test. Who was Stanley Kaplan? Did he A) start a test preparation company, B) start the test preparation industry, or C) die last month at age ninety? The correct answer is D) all of the above.

Stanley Kaplan was an educator and private tutor. In the nineteen forties, he began preparing students for the Scholastic Aptitude Test, now just called the SAT.

His parents were European immigrants who did not go to college, and he himself was rejected from medical school. He thought all Americans should have an equal chance at the best colleges, not just children of wealthy families.

These days, more students go to college. Yet wealthier families are the ones best able to pay for test preparation. Many programs cost up to one thousand dollars or more, though some are available for poor families.

Parents may hate the whole idea, but they feel nervous seeing others doing it. Then, after college, there are graduate admissions tests to prepare for.

How much do American spend on this largely unsupervised industry? At least one billion dollars a year, estimates David Hawkins at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The research company Outsell puts the amount at two and a half billion.

The two biggest providers in the United States — Kaplan and Princeton Review — both operate in more than twenty countries.

Thirty years ago, the Federal Trade Commission found that Stanley Kaplan’s program could raise SAT scores — but only by about twenty-five points. The association for college admission counseling recently found a thirty-point increase with Kaplan and other programs.

Still, the group says this is not enough to make a difference for most students. It might help some get into a top college, but only if they have above-average scores in the first place. The report suggested saving money by considering “less costly forms” of test preparation.

Now, more about our story last week on President Obama’s nationally broadcast speech to students. We noted that many conservatives raised objections before the speech. But in nineteen ninety-one, Democrats accused President George H.W. Bush of using the last such speech for political purposes.

Then as now, Democrats led Congress. They demanded an investigation. It found no misuse of public money to support the speech.

And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I’m Steve Ember.

Also: Exploring underwater worlds at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. And a question from Iran about the Beatles, who can be found in a new video game and a new set of CDs. Transcript of radio broadcast: 17 September 2009

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HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I’m Doug Johnson. This week on our program, we tell about a new set of Beatles CDs and a video game based on the British rock band …

And we visit the undersea world while staying on dry land …

But first, a report on National Hispanic Heritage Month.

(MUSIC)

National Hispanic Heritage Month

HOST:

National Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States began September fifteenth. Events are being held throughout the country to celebrate the history, culture and success of America’s Hispanic population. Shirley Griffith has more.

(SOUND)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH:

National Hispanic Heritage Month first began as National Hispanic Heritage Week in nineteen sixty-eight under President Lyndon Johnson. President Ronald Reagan expanded the national celebration to a month-long event in nineteen eighty-eight.

September fifteenth was chosen as the starting date because it is the anniversary of independence for five Latin American countries. They are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The United States Census Bureau estimates that there are almost forty-seven million people of Hispanic heritage living in the United States. They are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the country. Hispanics are fifteen percent of the nation’s total population.

The theme for this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month is “Embracing the Fierce Urgency of Now.” It was taken from the historic “I Have a Dream” speech by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior. In the speech, Mister King called on Americans to remember the promises of democracy. From historic exhibits to music festivals, this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month makes the same appeal.

There are several exhibits at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. This weekend, visitors can see a short theater piece. An actor plays Spanish-American Admiral David Farrugut, a hero in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the American Civil War. The exhibit is called “The Price of Freedom.”

The Library of Congress also has events, including a talk on “Increasing Hispanic Representation in the Federal Government.” In addition, cultural fairs and music performances are taking place throughout the country.

At the end of this month the Hispanic Heritage Foundation will honor six Latinos. United States Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey is among the honorees. Foundation chairman Pedro Jose Greer, Junior says all of the honorees serve as role models not only for Latinos but for all Americans. The official Hispanic Heritage Month celebration ends on October fifteenth. The unofficial celebration continues all year round.

(MUSIC)

Georgia Aquarium

HOST:

The Georgia Aquarium in the southern city of Atlanta calls itself the largest aquarium in the world. It is filled with thousands of fish, large and small, from all over the world. It is a very popular place for visitors who want to learn more about the wonders of the underwater world. Faith Lapidus tells us more.

FAITH LAPIDUS:

(SOUND)

Two huge walls of fish greet visitors to the Georgia Aquarium. The jack fish inside these tall tanks swim back and forth quickly. They are lit with a striking blue light and seem to glow in the dark room. Visitors can choose to visit rooms with river fish and animals, or they can explore creatures found in warm tropical waters.

In the “Coldwater Quest” exhibit, visitors can watch three large white beluga whales. These beautiful creatures live in the coldest northern waters. They are the only whales with necks that fully bend. Belugas are also known as “canaries of the sea” because of the high-pitched noises they make underwater.

(SOUND)

Watching them in the aquarium is a special experience. Their muscular bodies swim gracefully through the water.

The “Ocean Voyager” exhibit is home to many stingrays, hammerhead sharks and groupers. It also has two manta rays, the only ones in an American aquarium. Most exciting of all, this exhibit also holds several whale sharks. These huge creatures are the largest fish in the world. Despite their name, they are not whales. The Georgia Aquarium is the only aquarium in the United States that exhibits these huge fish.

To make all these creatures visible, museum experts built huge walls of acrylic material that is over half a meter thick. One viewing window is about eighteen meters wide by seven meters tall. But to really experience this ocean world, you can enter a tunnel and watch the fish swimming above you.

The exhibits teach young visitors about the importance of protecting sea creatures and the environments they live in.

But the Georgia Aquarium is more than just a museum. It partners with the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine to operate the Correll Center for Aquatic Animal Health. The group says this is the first and only teaching hospital for animals to operate within an aquarium.

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The Beatles

HOST:

Our listener question this week comes from Masoud in Iran. He wants to learn about the famous rock band the Beatles.

Masoud has great timing. A new video game featuring the Beatles went on sale last week. And a new group of Beatles CDs was also released last week. The series includes digitally improved versions of every song the British band released between nineteen sixty-three and seventy. Experts say these songs have been re-mastered using the latest technology. They sound much better than the CDs that have been sold for the past twenty-two years. Like this song, from nineteen sixty-nine, “Come Together.”

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The Beatles were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The group began in Liverpool, England in the early nineteen-sixties.

They were together for only ten years. Yet, by some estimates the band has sold one billion albums worldwide.

The Beatles’ first big hit single was released in Britain in nineteen sixty-two. It became a number one song in America two years later. Here is “Love Me Do.”

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People now can play that song along with John, Paul, George and Ringo on “The Beatles: Rock Band” video game. The game uses real Beatles recordings. The video shows colorful and dreamy background images to provide players with a nineteen sixties feel. But does it have the sound of thousands of screaming teenage girls?

That is who welcomed the Beatles on their first American visit in nineteen sixty-four. Crowds of girls waited for the band’s arrival at an airport in New York City. The Beatles’ concert in Washington, D.C., was also a huge success. And more than half of all the people in the United States watched the Beatles appear on a popular television program during their visit.

We leave you with the Beatles performing their nineteen sixty-seven song, “Fool on the Hill.”

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HOST:

I’m Doug Johnson. Our program was written by June Simms, Dana Demange and Caty Weaver, who was also the producer.

Do you have a question about people, places or things in America? You can send it to mosaic@voanews.comand we may answer it on this show.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

Expressions involving the word hit. Transcript of radio broadcast:
18 September 2009

[audio:http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/specialenglish/2009_09/audio/Mp3/se-ws-hit-20-sep-09_0.Mp3]

Now, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES - a VOA Special English program about American expressions.  I’m Rich Kleinfeldt with some expressions containing the word hit.

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Hit is a small word but it has a lot of power.  Baseball players hit the ball.  Missiles hit an airplane.  A car hits a tree.

Hit also joins with other words to create many colorful expressions.  One is hit the road. It means to travel or to leave a place, as suggested in this song, “Hit the Road.”

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Another common expression is hit the spot.  At first it meant hitting a spot at the center of a target with an arrow.  Someone who did so was satisfied with his shooting.  Now, hitting the spot usually means that a food or drink is especially satisfying.

Many years ago, Pepsi Cola sold its drink with a song that began, “Pepsi Cola hits the spot, twelve full ounces, that’s a lot…”

Another expression involving hit is hit bottom.  Something that has hit bottom can go no lower.  If the price of shares of a stock hits bottom that might be the time to buy it.  Its value can only go up.

A student who tells you his grades have hit bottom is saying he has not done well in school.

When a student’s grades hit bottom it is time to hit the books.  Hit the books is another way to saying it is time to study.  A student might have to tell her friends she can not go with them to the movies because she has to hit the books.

Not hitting the books could lead to an unpleasant situation for a student.  The father or mother may hit the ceiling when they see the low grades.  Someone who hits the ceiling, the top of the room, is violently angry.  A wife may hit the ceiling because her husband forgot their wedding anniversary.

To build something of wood, you usually need a hammer.  That is what you use to hit nails into the pieces of wood to hold them together.  When you hit the nail on the head, exactly on its top, it goes into the wood perfectly.  And when someone says your words or actions hit the nail on the head, he means what you said or did was exactly right.

If you are tired after hitting all those nails on the head, then it is time to hit the hay.  That expression comes from the days when people slept on beds filled with dried grass or hay. Some people slept on hay in barns where they kept their farm animals.

Hitting the hay simply means going to bed. That is a good idea. I think I will hit the hay now.

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This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Frank Beardsley. I’m Rich Kleinfeldt.