Study Links Weather to Migraine Headaches

MP3
Download (MP3)

Researchers compared hospital visits to weather conditions and found that the higher the temperature, the higher the risk of migraines. A separate study found that overweight people may have a higher risk of migraines. Transcript of radio broadcast: 17 March 2009

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

A migraine headache can cause disabling pain. People may not feel back to normal for hours or even days.

Migraine headaches are most common among young adults and middle-aged people. In the United States, about eighteen percent of women and six percent of men report having migraines.

People who suffer from migraines can find that different "triggers" in different people may get a headache started. Stress can act as a trigger. So can chocolate in some people.

Many migraine sufferers say hot weather and low barometric pressure can act as triggers. But researchers say they did not have much scientific evidence of that -- until now.

In a new study, a team examined the medical records of seven thousand hospital patients. The patients had visited the emergency room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, because of a headache. More than two thousand of them had been found to have a migraine.

The team then compared those records to weather conditions in the twenty-four hours before the hospital visits. For every increase of five degrees Celsius in air temperature, the patients had a seven and one-half percent higher risk of migraine. Decreases in barometric pressure two to three days before the visit also appeared to trigger headaches, but to a lesser extent.

The researchers found no evidence that air pollution influenced headaches. But they could not rule out the possibility of a smaller effect similar to that seen earlier for strokes.

Kenneth Mukamal of Beth Israel Deaconess and Harvard Medical School led the study, reported in the journal Neurology.

A separate study has found that age, gender and where a person has extra body fat may affect the risk of migraine. It found that overweight people between the ages of twenty and fifty-five may have a higher risk. On average, those who were larger around the middle were more likely to have migraines than those of the same age with smaller waistlines.

The study involved twenty-two thousand people. It was led by Lee Peterlin of Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She says early results suggest that losing weight in the stomach area may help younger people who experience migraines, especially women. The findings will be presented in a few weeks at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Seattle, Washington.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember.

Read More

Wiley Post: The First Pilot to Circle the World Alone

MP3 Download (MP3)
Post became the most famous pilot in America in 1933 but died in a plane crash two years later. Transcript of radio broadcast: 17 March 2009

Now the VOA Special English program EXPLORATIONS. Today Shirley Griffith and Doug Johnson tell about pilot Wiley Post. He set new records when he flew his own airplane around the world in nineteen thirty-three.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

It was nineteen thirty-three. Only six years earlier Charles Lindburgh became famous around the world as the first person to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean. Now, a young pilot was trying to fly across Russia. He had left Moscow several hours before. All he heard was the sound of the one engine that powered his plane. Hour after hour the same sound.

Now the weather was bad. He could not see much ahead, only the fog. Flying in fog is very dangerous. Yet the sound of the engine made everything seem warm and safe. Then, out of the fog he saw a mountain. He had only seconds to bring the airplane up. It was a narrow escape, one of many he would have during his long flight.

Wiley Post in his pressurized flight suit

VOICE TWO:

The young pilot was Wiley Post. He was trying to fly around the world by himself. He made the trip in less than eight days. He stopped eleven times for fuel, food and a little sleep.

Wiley Post made his famous flight in July, nineteen thirty-three. Not many flight instruments existed that could help him find his way. He was alone, fighting against sleep. If he fell asleep he would die.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Nothing in Wiley Post's early years suggests that he would become a famous pilot. He was born in Grand Saline, Texas, in eighteen ninety-eight. His family were farmers. In nineteen thirteen, Wiley saw something that forever changed his life -- an airplane. After watching the plane fly, young Wiley waited until most people had left the area. He then began inspecting and studying the plane. He measured different parts of the plane with his hands. Many years later, Wiley Post would say that first airplane was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

VOICE TWO:

Wiley Post began to study everything he could find about flying. He began to educate himself about subjects such as mathematics, radio and machinery. His self-education would continue the rest of his life. Post finally rode in an airplane in nineteen nineteen. At the time, many people believed all pilots were special people. They believed it took special skills and courage to fly an airplane. But after his first ride, Wiley Post knew that flying was something he could learn to do.

VOICE ONE:

Wiley Post began his career in flying, not as a pilot, but as a performer who jumps from airplanes using a parachute. He did this with a group that performed flying tricks to earn money. He jumped ninety-nine times in two years with the flying show. When he was not jumping with a parachute, he was being taught how to fly by pilots in the air show. But he could not fly as often as he liked.

VOICE TWO:

Wiley Post then decided the only way to become a good pilot was to buy an airplane of his own. He needed more money than he earned in the flying show. He went to work in the oil-producing areas of Texas. But he damaged his left eye in an accident. Doctors had to remove his eye. At first, Post thought his days as a pilot were ended. A pilot needs to be able to judge distance. Judging distance is difficult without two eyes. It seems impossible to tell how big objects are and how far away. Wiley Post began teaching himself to judge distance with only one eye. He worked hard at training his eye and brain to tell the correct distance. It took a long time, but he succeeded. He continued to fly and soon became a very good pilot.

Post and the plane called the Winnie Mae

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen twenty-eight, he got a job flying the plane that belonged to a rich oil producer from Oklahoma. The man's name was F.C. Hall. He bought a new airplane for Post to fly. Mister Hall named the airplane the "Winnie Mae" after one of his daughters.

F.C. Hall told Post he could use the plane to enter flight competitions. Post did. In nineteen thirty, he entered the National Air Races. The race called for flying without stopping from Los Angeles in the western state of California, to the city of Chicago, in the middle western state of Illinois. Post won the race. He defeated several well known pilots. It was the first time the public heard the name Wiley Post.

VOICE TWO:

Post was not really interested in racing airplanes. He wanted to be the first person to fly around the world. Many pilots had talked about trying to make such a flight. But no one had done it.

Post believed he would need someone to help him in the effort. He chose an Australian man, Harold Gatty, to do the mathematics that decided the plane's direction. Post would fly the plane. On June twenty-third, nineteen thirty-one, Post and Gatty took off from Roosevelt Field in New York. They returned to Roosevelt Field eight days, fifteen hours and fifty-one minutes later. They had flown around the world.

VOICE ONE:

At first everyone was very happy. Wiley Post and Harold Gatty were heroes. Then many people began to say that Post was nothing more than an airplane driver because he had no real education. They said Gatty was the real hero. He had guided the flight. Both men knew they had made the flight as a team. Others did not recognize this. This hurt Post. Wiley Post began to plan another flight around the world. This time he would go alone.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Wiley Post knew that any effort has a good chance of success if the person planning the task is well prepared. So he worked hard to prepare well. He used the most modern equipment possible. He made sure the engine on the "Winnie Mae" was perfect. And to prepare himself, he went without sleep for long periods of time.

On July fifteenth, nineteen thirty-three, Post took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York. His first stop would be Berlin, Germany. He landed in Berlin twenty-six hours later. He became the first person to fly from New York to Berlin without stopping.

VOICE ONE:

After a little food for himself and fuel for the "Winnie Mae," Post was once again in the air. This time he was headed for Russia. For long hours he flew, listening only to the sound of his engine. Often, the weather was so bad he could not see where he was. At one point he came so close to running out of gas he considered using his parachute. But at the last minute he found a place to land and get gas. The flight across the huge width of Russia was difficult. He made several stops for gas and a few hours rest before flying across the Bering Sea to Alaska.

VOICE TWO:

By now, he was very tired. To keep himself awake as he flew east during the long night, Post tied a piece of string to one finger. The other end of the string was tied to a heavy aircraft tool. He held the tool in his hand. If he started to fall asleep, the tool would fall from his hand. The string would pull his finger and wake him.

From Fairbanks, Alaska, he flew to Edmonton, Canada and then on toward New York. More than fifty thousand people waited at Floyd Bennett Field. Wiley Post gently landed the "Winnie Mae" long after dark. He had flown around the world in seven days, eighteen hours and forty-nine minutes.

Thousands of excited people rushed toward the plane. Wiley Post was a hero. He had become the most famous pilot in America.

(MUSIC)

A compass from the last plane flown by Wiley Post

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen thirty-five, only two years after his around the world record flight, Wiley Post was killed in a flying accident in Alaska. Post and the famous American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post's plane crashed on takeoff near Point Barrow.

Before Post's death, the government of the United States had bought the "Winnie Mae." The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. owns the plane. You can see it at the museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

VOICE TWO:

Many pilots have flown around the world since Wiley Post made his famous flight. His record was first broken only a few years after his death. Since that time many records for the trip have been made and broken. Yet Wiley Post was the first to fly around the world … alone.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This program was written by Paul Thompson and produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Doug Johnson. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are all available -- free of charge -- at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

Read More

Studying in the US: Helping Foreign Students Feel at Home

MP3
Download (MP3)

A college or university's international student office is a good place to start getting to know a school and the country. Part 26 of our Foreign Student Series. Transcript of radio broadcast: 18 March 2009

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Being a new student in school can be a little scary. Being a new student in a new country can be even scarier.

A college or university's international student office is a good place to start getting to know the school and the country. This week in our Foreign Student Series, we talk about support services for international students in the United States.

Members of the International Students' Assembly at the University of Southern California

Our example is the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. U.S.C. has had the most international students of any American college or university for the past seven years. So says the Institution of International Education in New York.

U.S.C.'s Office of International Services says the number of students this year is about seven thousand five hundred. The University of Southern California has more than thirty-five thousand students total.

The Office of International Services helps explain student life at the university. It also organizes programs to help foreign students feel more at ease in their new surroundings. For example, there are trips to explore the Los Angeles area.

Most American colleges and universities have a similar office that helps international students. These offices look for ways to get students involved in school life and make American friends. Their job is not always easy. International students often want to spend their free time with friends from their own country or group.

India, China, South Korea, Japan and Canada sent the most students to the United States during the last school year. Next came Taiwan, Mexico, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.

The office at U.S.C. also assists family members who come to the United States with international students. The family members can take English classes and go on trips to places like museums.

The Office of International Services also organizes other activities. For example, a State of the World Seminar takes place each semester. A group of international students and a professor discuss current social and political issues and take questions from the audience. The most recent seminar, held earlier this month, dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our series on studying in the United States will continue next week. Earlier reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. Click on Foreign Student Series. You can write comments and read what other people are saying. I'm Steve Ember.

Read More

What does your ring tone say about you?

Download MP3 (3 MB | 7:15 min)

Leave me a message! Photo by couleurs gm/flickr

Do you know the word “impact”? “Impact” means the action of hitting something with a lot of force. So, if two cars hit each other, we can talk about the “impact” of the collision. But generally we use “impact” in a figurative way – we use it to mean “a big effect”. For example, if someone loses their job, this will probably have a big impact on their lives and on their families. Or we might say that cars have a big impact on the environment.

What piece of modern technology, do you think, has had the biggest impact on the way we live? Perhaps modern medical technology – like drugs to treat cancer. Or computers – I wrote this podcast on a computer. Now I am recording it on a computer, and soon I will put the recording onto another computer, so that you can download it to your computer! Or maybe modern means of transport, like aircraft and cars – maybe they have had the biggest impact on the way we live.

I think, however, that the piece of modern technology which has had the biggest impact is something which most of us carry with us almost everywhere. You probably have one in your bag or your pocket. I am of course talking about mobile phones.

I remember the first mobile phone that I ever saw. It was about 25 years ago. The phone was the size of a brick. You needed to be quite strong to carry it. I asked the owner if I could make a call on it, and he agreed. It felt strange to be standing in a field in the country, talking to someone on a telephone.

Today, over half the population of the world either own or use a mobile phone. At the end of last year, there were over 4.1 billion mobile phones in use in the world. In most countries in Europe, in fact, there are more mobile phones than people.

You might think that mobile phones would have the biggest impact in those countries where most people have one. However, I do not think this is true. In Africa, for example, mobile phones have made a huge difference to people’s lives, because so much of Africa does not have a network of fixed telephone lines. In Gambia, for example, there are only 50,000 fixed telephone lines. But there are 800,000 mobile phone users – so, roughly, 16 times as many Gambians can use a mobile phone as can use a conventional telephone. A few years ago, in many parts of Africa, it was very difficult to send money from one person to another, because most people did not live near a bank, or did not have a bank account. Today, many Africans are able to send money to their families, or to pay for things, by mobile phone.

The mobile phone has given us more freedom. We can contact other people, when we need to, wherever we are. But it has also given us less freedom. The boss can talk to you at any time, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. A few years ago, people travelling by train sat quietly and read a book or a newspaper. Now they talk on their mobile phones. They tell everyone, “I’m on the train.” They discuss private affairs in loud voices. When they get off the train, they plug an earphone into their ear and carry on talking. Once, if you saw someone talking to themselves in the street, you assumed that they were slightly mad. Now you know that they are using their mobile.

Because of mobile phones, teenagers live different lives from when I was their age. At one time, parents would sometimes allow their teenage children to call their friends on the ordinary telephone. “Only a short call,” they would say. “Telephone calls are very expensive.” Now, teenagers send text messages to each other from their mobile phones, all the time. They have developed new ways of using their hands. They use their thumbs to press things like the keys on a mobile phone, while older people use their fingers. Is this how evolution happens? They have developed a new sort of texting language. As you know, the spelling of words in standard English is sometimes very strange. If you are texting in English, however, you can ignore normal spelling completely. You spell words exactly as you pronounce them. You use all sorts of strange abbreviations as well. In twenty years time, texting may have changed the English language completely! The quiz this week is about texting, to see if you can guess what some texts mean.

My mobile phone is about 8 years old. Several museums want to buy it from me. I hardly ever switch it on, and it refuses to send texts any more. I do not care, because I love its ring tone. It is a short piece of music by Franz Schubert. It tells the world that I am a sophisticated and cultured person.

Other people too have ring tones that tell the world what sort of person they are. Sometimes the ring tone says, “I am a witty and intelligent person”. Sometimes it says, “I am ignorant and uncivilised.” What does your ring tone say about you?

Read More

American History Series: Plan in 1850 on Slavery Aims to Save Union

MP3
Download (MP3)

American History Series: Plan in 1850 on Slavery Aims to Save Union
''Life itself is but a compromise between death and life,'' said Henry Clay, the Kentucky senator who offered a way to keep the states together. Transcript of radio broadcast: 18 March 2009

Welcome to the MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

The United States faced a deep national crisis in eighteen fifty. That crisis threatened to split the nation in two. It began over the issue of slavery in the new territories of California and Mexico. President Zachary Taylor had no clear policy on the issue. He tried to be neutral. He hoped the problem would solve itself. But he did not get his wish.

The split between the North and South only got wider. There was a real danger that the South would declare its independence. Then, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky stepped forward to save the Union.

This week in our series, Stuart Spencer and Jack Moyles begin the story of the Compromise of Eighteen Fifty.

VOICE ONE:

Henry Clay

After being away from the Senate for almost eight years, Clay was surprised to find how bitter the two sections of the United States -- north and south -- had grown toward each other. Clay urged his friends in the border states between North and South to try to build public support for the Union. He felt this would help prevent the South from seceding.

Clay also began to think about a compromise that might settle the differences between the two sections of the country.

VOICE TWO:

Clay was a firm believer in the idea of compromise. He once said: "I go for honorable compromise whenever it can be made. Life itself is but a compromise between death and life. The struggle continues through our whole existence until the great destroyer finally wins. All legislation, all government, all society is formed upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, and courtesy. Upon these, everything is based."

Clay was sure that a compromise between North and South was possible. Near the end of January, Clay completed work on his plan. Most parts of it already had been proposed as separate bills. Clay put them together in a way that both sides could accept.

VOICE ONE:

Clay offered his plan in a Senate speech on January twenty-ninth, eighteen fifty. Clay proposed that California join the Union as a free state. He said territorial governments should be formed in the other parts of the western territories, with no immediate decision on whether slavery would be permitted.

Clay proposed that the western border of Texas be changed to give New Mexico most of the land disputed by them. In exchange for this, he said, the national government should agree to pay the public debts that Texas had when it became a state.

He proposed that no more slaves be sold in the District of Columbia for use outside the federal district, but also proposed that slavery should not be ended in the district unless its citizens and those of Maryland approved. Clay said a better law was needed for the return of fugitive slaves to their owners.

He also proposed that Congress declare that it had no power to interfere with the slave trade between states. Senator Clay believed these eight steps would satisfy the interests of both the North and the South.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Jefferson Davis

Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi declared that Clay's compromises did not offer anything of value to the South. He said the South would accept nothing less than extending the Missouri compromise line west to the Pacific Ocean. This meant that land south of the line would be open to slavery.

Clay answered that no power on earth could force him to vote to establish slavery where it did not exist. He said Americans had blamed Britain for forcing African slavery on the colonists. He said he would not have the future citizens of California and New Mexico blaming Henry Clay for slavery there.

VOICE ONE:

Clay said he did not want to debate, but wished that the senators would think carefully about his proposals. He said he hoped they would decide on them only after careful study. He asked them to see the proposals as a system of compromise, not as separate bills. Clay expected extremists on both sides to denounce the compromise. But he believed the more reasonable leaders of the North and South would accept it.

One week after Clay first proposed the compromise, he rose in the Senate to speak in its defense. The Senate hall was crowded. People had come from as far away as Boston and New York to hear Clay speak. Some senators said there had not been such a crowd in the capitol building since the day Clay said goodbye to the Senate eight years earlier.

Clay had to rest several times as he climbed the steps of the capitol. He told a friend that he felt very tired and weak. His friend advised Clay to rest and make his speech later. "No," Clay said. "My country is in danger. If I can be the one to save it from that danger, then my health and life are not important."

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Henry Clay speaks before the United States Senate

Clay began his speech by talking of the serious crisis that faced the nation. He said that never before had he spoken to a group as troubled and worried as the one he spoke to now. Clay listed his eight resolutions. Then he said: "No man on earth is more ready than I am to surrender anything which I have proposed and to accept in its place anything that is better. But I ask the honorable senators whether their duty will be done by simply limiting themselves to opposing any one or all of the resolutions I have offered."

"If my plan of peace and unity is not right, give us your plan. Let us see how all the questions that have arisen out of this unhappy subject of slavery can be better settled more fairly and justly than the plan I have offered. Present me with such a plan, and I will praise it with pleasure and accept it without the slightest feeling of regret."

VOICE ONE:

Clay said the major differences separating the country could be settled by facing facts. He said the first great fact was that laws were not necessary to keep slavery out of California and New Mexico. He said the people of California already had approved an anti-slavery state constitution. And he said the nature of land in New Mexico was such that slaves could not be used.

Clay said there was justice in the borders he proposed for Texas, that it would still be a very large state after losing the area it disputed with New Mexico. And he said it was right for the United States to pay the debts of Texas, because that state no longer could collect taxes on trade as an independent country.

VOICE TWO:

Clay said there was equal justice in his resolutions ending the slave trade in the District of Columbia and strengthening laws on the return of runaway slaves. He said the South, perhaps, would be helped more than the North by his proposals. But the North, he said, was richer and had more money and power.

To the North, slavery was a matter of feeling. But to the South, Clay said, it was a hard social and economic fact. He said the North could look on in safety while the actions of some of its people were producing flames of bitterness throughout the southern states.

Then Clay attacked the South's claim that it had the right to leave the Union. He said the Union of states was permanent -- that the men who built the Union did not do so only for themselves, but for all future Americans.

VOICE ONE:

Clay warned that if the South seceded, there would be war within sixty days. He said the slaves of the South would escape by the thousands to freedom in the North. Their owners would follow them and try to return them to slavery by force. This, he said, would lead to war between the slave-holding and free states. He said this would not be a war of only two or three years. History had shown, he said, that such wars lasted many years and often destroyed both sides.

Even if the south could secede without war, he said, it still would not get any of the things it demanded. Secession would not open the territories to slavery. It would not continue the slave trade in the District of Columbia. And it would not lead to the return of slaves who escaped to the North.

So, said Clay, the South would not help itself by leaving the Union. Clay's two-day speech gave new hope to many that the Union could be saved.

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER:

Senator Henry Clay's compromise seemed to be a way to settle the dispute. But extremists on both sides opposed it. That will be our story next week.

Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. The narrators were Stuart Spencer and Jack Moyles. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs can be found, along with historical images, at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

Read More