Continuing Job Losses May Signal Broad Economic Shift

美国失业率创25年新高

Another 651,000 jobs disappeared from the American economy in February, the government reported Friday, as the unemployment rate soared to 8.1 percent - its highest level since 1983.

美国政府周五发布的报告显示，二月份美国又有65.1万个工作消失，失业率已飙升至8.1%，为1983年以来的最高水平。

Most economists now assume that American fortunes will not improve before near the end of the year, as the Obama administration's $787 billion emergency spending program begins to wash through the economy. The acceleration has convinced some economists that, far from an ordinary downturn after which jobs will return, the contraction underway reflects a fundamental restructuring of the American economy. In crucial industries - particularly manufacturing, financial services and retail - many companies have opted to abandon whole areas of business.

大多数经济学家预计，美国在今年年底之前不会扭转颓势，因为奥巴马政府7870亿美元的紧急刺激计划要到年底才会开始渗透经济。一些经济学家因此确信，跟工作可以失而复得的普通衰退不同，此次萎缩反映了美国经济正经历根本性的调整。在重要行业，特别是制造业、金融业和零售业，许多公司都选择放弃整个商业领域。

'These jobs aren't coming back…There are going to be fewer stores, fewer factories, and fewer financial services operations.' said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia. With job losses so enormous over such a short period of time, some economists argue that the latest crisis challenges the traditional American response to hard times. For decades, the government has reacted to economic downturns by handing out temporary unemployment insurance checks, relying upon the resumption of economic growth to deliver needed jobs. This time, argues Mr. Silvia, the government needs to put a much greater emphasis on retraining workers for careers in other industries.

“这些工作不会再回来了……商店、工厂、金融机构都会减少。”美联银行首席经济学家约翰•E•思伟亚说。在如此短的时间内，有这么多工作岗位消失，一些经济学家因此认为，危机挑战着美国应对艰难时刻的传统做法。数十年来，面对经济衰退，政府则发放临时失业保险卡，寄希望于经济增长恢复后创造出所需要的工作。思伟亚认为，这次政府得着力对工人进行再培训，让他们从事其他行业。

《纽约时报》

Meet the Future of Teaching: Mr Confucius

孔子老师

The education system has a new saviour. At the weekend, schools minister Jim Knight suggested that studying the works of Confucius might boost exam results and is apparently drawing up plans to incorporate the Chinese philosopher into the syllabus of England's secondary schools.

教育体系有了一个新的救星。本周末，英国教育大臣吉姆•奈特建议说，学习孔子的著作可能会提高考试成绩，他正打算制定相关计划，将这名中国哲学家列入英国中学的教学大纲。

'There is a lot we can learn from the Chinese culture and Confucius,' he said. 'Confucius said that, alongside knowledge, you should have time to think. It is not just about acquisition of knowledge, but about respect for the importance of education and the family, and that is something I would love to see engendered in our culture as well as it is in China.'

“我们从中国文化和孔子那里会学到很多东西，”他说。“子曰，学而不思则罔。不仅要获取知识，还要重视教育和家庭，我希望在我们文化中也能产生这些，就像在中国一样。”

Just how Knight proposes to implement this is anyone's guess. It's not just a question of rustling up several thousand teachers qualified to teach Confucianism and slotting their lessons into an already hopelessly overcrowded timetable; it's about ripping up the whole curriculum, which is predicated on testing and the acquisition of knowledge rather than time to think. Knight's conversion to Confucianism stems from government figures that show 65.8% of students of Chinese origin getting five GCSEs at A*-C, compared with 44.3% for white British pupils; when adjusted for the comparative income levels and class background of families, however, Chinese students only score a little higher than the British, since the Chinese have the highest median household incomes of any group in the UK.

奈特如何实施其计划无人知晓。这不只是凑来数千名合格教师来教儒学，并把其课程塞进本来已经繁忙的时间表内的问题，而是打碎全部课程，现在的课程只是考试和获取知识，没给学生思考的时间。奈特之所以转向儒学，源自于政府数据。数据显示，在英国中学结业考试(GCSE)中，65.8%的华裔学生能获得个A至C级，而英国白人学生获得类似成绩的比例仅为44.3%。但考虑到收入水平与家庭背景，华裔学生的成绩只比英国本地学生的成绩高一点，因为在英国，华人家庭的平均收入是所有族群中最高的。

《卫报》

India Moves to Protect Traditional Medicines from Foreign Patents

保护传统药，印度在行动

In the first step by a developing country to stop multinational companies patenting traditional remedies from local plants and animals, the Indian government has effectively licensed 200,000 local treatments as 'public property' free for anyone to use but no one to sell as a 'brand'.

为制止跨国公司取得本地传统动植物药物的专利，印度政府在发展中国家中率先采取行动，把国内20万种药方列为“公共财产”，任何人均可使用，但不能作为“品牌”进行销售。

The move comes after scientists in Delhi noticed an alarming trend – the 'bio-prospecting' of natural remedies by companies abroad. After trawling through the records of the global trademark offices, officials found 5,000 patents had been issued — at a cost of at least $150m— for 'medical plants and traditional systems'.

在此之前，德里的科学家注意到一个惊人的趋势——外国公司对天然药物的“生物勘探”。逐一查看了全球商标局的记录后，官员们发现已有5000个专利发放给“草药和传统疗法”，成本至少为一亿五千万美元。

'More than 2,000 of these belong to the Indian systems of medicine … We began to ask why multinational companies were spending millions of dollars to patent treatments that so many lobbies in Europe deny work at all,' said Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, who heads the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which lists in encyclopedic detail the 200,000 treatments. The database, which took 200 researchers eight years to compile by meticulously translating ancient Indian texts, will now be used by the European Patent Office to check against 'bio-prospectors'.

“其中2000多个都是印度药方……我们问跨国公司，为什么花成百上千万美元取得药方的专利，而欧洲许多政治团体根本不承认这些药方有效，”古普达医生说。他是传统知识数字图书馆馆长，该图书馆详尽记录了这20万种疗法。该数据库由200位研究人员，将古印度文本精心翻译过来，历经8年编撰而成，欧洲专利局将据此核对“生物勘探”。

《卫报》

Do Optimists live longer?

乐观的人更长寿？

A perennial grump? Might want to brighten up a bit – if, that is, you'd like to live longer. A new study says that the optimists among us may have a lower risk of heart disease and early death.

心情总是不好？想变得开朗活泼些，如果是真的，你可能会活得长些。一项新的研究显示，乐观的人得心脏病和早亡的几率较低。

Researchers in the University of Pittsburgh analyzed eight years of data on 97,253 women, age 50 and over. Their findings: the women who were most cheery were 30 percent less likely to die of heart disease and 14 percent less likely than their pessimistic peers to die from all causes during the study period.

匹兹堡大学的研究人员八年间分析了97253名50岁及其以上年纪的女性。他们的发现是：这期间，最活泼的女性同悲观的同龄女性相比，得心脏病死亡的几率低30%，得各种病死亡的几率低14%。

The researchers caution that their findings only show a link, not a cause-and-effect relationship, between optimism and health outcomes. So what is it about Pollyannas that may make them live longer? It could be that optimistic people tend to be healthier in general; they are more likely to be slim and physically active and less likely to smoke, a researcher says. Optimistic people have good social networks and strong social relationships，which could help them cope with chronic stress, a risk factor for heart disease. So are pessimists doomed to die early? Not necessarily. This is just one study, and more research is needed to get to the bottom of that question.

研究人员提醒说，他们的发现只是显示乐观与健康存在一种联系，但并非因果联系。但为什么波利安娜（极度乐观的意思）能让人活的更久？一名研究人员表示，可能是因为乐观的人往往比较健康，身材比较苗条，爱运动，少抽烟。乐观的人有良好的社交网络和人际关系，这可能会帮助他们应对慢性抑郁，而慢性抑郁是引发心脏健康的一个危险因素。但悲观的人就注定短命么？不一定。这只是一项研究，要有更多研究才能解答这个问题。

《科学美国人》