英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Things turned upside down for many businesses earlier this year. We're looking at how two companies made changes to survive. So, OK, Richard, what happened? In March 2020, companies in the UK, they were told that they weren't allowed to offer over-the-counter services. 今年年初，许多企业的经营状况被彻底颠覆。我们今天要看看两家公司是如何调整策略以求生存的。好的，Richard，当时发生了什么？2020年3月，...

When we moved to Portugal, it was the third country that we had lived in while working on our podcasting website. Yeah, we realised that, of course, working digitally, you can live anywhere in the world. And with online teaching these days, it's become even easier. 当我们搬到葡萄牙时，那已经是我们在经营播客网站期间居住过的第三个国家了。是啊，我们意识到，既然是数字化工作，那其实你可以生活在世界的任...

My friend Anne says that when her children were very small and they received presents, it was the packaging that excited them the most. First they would play with the brightly coloured wrapping paper, then they would play with the box, opening and closing it and when it was empty, filling it with toys they already had. It wasn't until some time later that their attention was drawn to the actual pr...

We're looking at the wine industry. Yeah, we're looking at two countries whose wine industries have faced two very different problems recently. Richard, we're starting with South Africa. 我们来看看葡萄酒产业。是的，我们要谈的是两个国家，它们的葡萄酒产业最近面临着截然不同的问题。理查德，我们先从南非开始吧。 Tell us about that. Yes, well they've been making wine for quite some time, since 1659, and...

Since TV advertising began, there has always been food adverts aimed at children. Yes, sweets, chocolate, ice cream. But that may be about to change. 自从电视广告诞生以来，就一直有针对儿童的食品广告。是的，糖果、巧克力、冰淇淋——但这种情况可能即将改变。 We're looking at the UK's radical plans for advertising of junk food for children. 我们今天要看看英国针对儿童垃圾食品广告的一项激进计划。 There's g...

It has been suggested that one in three jobs that exist today will eventually be done by smart machines, robots and software. Some say as soon as 2025. The robots, it seems, are taking over. 有人指出，当今存在的工作中有三分之一最终将由智能机器、机器人和软件来完成。有些人甚至认为这一切最早会在2025年发生。看来，机器人正逐步接管人类的工作。 Now we have some podcasts about the rise of automation, we'r...

A global level study by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations says that one third of food, roughly 1.3 billion tonnes, is wasted every year. 联合国粮食及农业组织（FAO）的一项全球性研究显示，全球约有三分之一的食物——大约13亿吨——每年被浪费掉。 Yes, but it's also estimated that about 815 million people in the world are suffering from chronic undernourishment. 是的，但据估计，全...

In July of 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left the first human footprints on the moon. They also left two pairs of boots, a handful of tools, and four vomit bags. This lunar litter was far from the last space junk humanity has produced. In 2006, Suni Williams lost her camera while tussling with a stuck solar array on the ISS. And the following year, a similar job resulted in the loss of a ba...

We're talking about The Dragon's Den. 我们今天要谈的是《龙穴》（The Dragon’s Den）这档节目。 Yes, so Richard, what is The Dragon's Den? 是的，那么，Richard，《龙穴》到底是什么节目呢？ Well, the BBC describes it as a show where budding entrepreneurs get three minutes to pitch their business ideas to five multi-millionaires who are willing to invest their own cash. BBC 的官方描述是：这是一个节目，让...

We're talking about marketing terms used on food products and deciding if they are officially recognised terms or not. 我们今天要讨论的是食品包装上常见的营销术语，并判断这些术语是否是官方认可的。 Richard? Yes. A popular term used on many products, organic. Richard？是的。一个在许多产品上都能看到的热门词——“有机”。 Right, yes. So, do you think organic is a legitimate term? 好，对。那么你认为“有机”是...

When we first started podcasting many, many years ago, other podcasters who didn't have worksheets to sell suggested that those who used their podcasts to buy me a coffee. Yeah, buy me a coffee. It was a way of generating a small income for their work, wasn't it? And also advertisements on sites are also one way of making money and there are a few websites that don't have Google Ads or something s...

We're talking about how technology has really changed the face of business.  我们在谈论技术是如何改变商业面貌的。 To be more specific, We're really talking about the internet, aren't we? 更具体一点，我们其实是在谈论互联网，不是吗？ Yeah. I mean, nowadays, Richard, every company, whether they provide a service or sell a product, they have a website. 是啊。我的意思是，如今，Richard，不论一家公...

Nasa's Perseverance Rover has spent the past four years exploring an area of Mars called the Jezero Crater. It's dry and dusty, but billions of years ago, it was thought to be an ancient lake with a river flowing into it. 美国国家航空航天局的 “毅力” 号火星车在过去四年里探索了火星上被称为杰泽罗陨石坑的区域。这片区域干燥并布满灰尘，但科学家认为数十亿年前这里是一个古湖泊，有一条河流汇入其中。 The int...

The researchers describe this artificial intelligence model as like a weather forecast for your health. But instead of warning of a 70% chance of rain, it tells you the risk of more than a thousand diseases. The AI has learned to spot patterns hidden in the types and timings of different medical diagnoses, so now it can look at a patient and predict what is likely to come next. 研究人员称，这个人...

An asteroid ended the age of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Could something as catastrophic as that happen again? 6600 万年前，一颗小行星结束了恐龙时代。 如此灾难性的事情还会发生吗？ Asteroids are something astronomers closely track. Recently, the asteroid named 2024 YR4 made headlines for its tiny, but real, chance of colliding with Earth in 2032. In February 2025, NASA increased the impact&...

Everyone knows that dogs are supposed to be our best friends. Could it be that they know what we are thinking? Whether it's getting  excited  at the prospect of a walk or knowing that tasty food is coming soon, are our dogs reading our minds? 每个人都知道狗应该是我们最好的朋友。 难道他们知道我们在想什么吗？ 无论是对散步的前景感到兴奋，还是知道美味的食物即将到来，我们的狗会读懂我们的心思...

The real beauty of inhalers is how they get these medications into your lungs. They work by suspending, or aerosolizing, medications into the air to be easily inhaled. Each type of inhaler does this in a slightly different way. 吸入器真正的妙处在于，它能将药物高效地送入肺部。它的原理是将药物悬浮在空气中，或将其雾化成可吸入的微粒。而不同类型的吸入器实现这一过程的方式略有不同。 Dry powder inhalers r...

In chronic bronchitis, the airway’s lining is inflamed and produces more mucus to trap incoming smoke or dust particles. And the little hairs lining the airways that normally help push the mucus out are often damaged, so the mucus gets stuck. During a COPD attack, rescue inhalers open the airways, just as they do for asthma. 在慢性支气管炎中，气道的内壁会发炎，并分泌出更多的黏液来捕捉进入的烟雾或...

So how do they work? When you take a breath, air travels through your lungs using tubes called airways, or bronchi. The airways funnel to sacs, called alveoli, where your red blood cells absorb all the oxygen your body needs. 那么，它们是如何起作用的呢？当你吸气时，空气通过称为气道或支气管的管道进入肺部。气道最终通向被称为肺泡的气囊，红血球就在这里吸收身体所需的全部氧气。 But if you have asthma, t...

Early 20th century writer, Marcel Proust, finished his magnum opus “In Search of Lost Time” from bed— in a cork-lined room to keep allergens out. Proust suffered from severe asthma. At the time, there weren’t great treatments. When breathlessness set in, he’d burn powders that filled the space with smoke and fumes. Or, for a quick fix, he’d smoke a doctor-recommended anti-asthma cigarette. These p...

The major supermarkets have imposed their own voluntary ban on selling high-caffeine drinks to the under-16s, but this isn't the case in many smaller stores. Plans to prohibit their sale to children in England were published by the last government but then shelved. Now they're being revived by ministers. 英格兰各大主要超市已经开始在店内自主实施禁令，不再向 16 岁以下的未成年人售卖咖啡因含量高的饮料...

How much pocket money did you get as a child, if any? Was it a regular, weekly allowance, or just occasional one-off payments for chores? Parents around the world have different ideas about the dos and don'ts of pocket money. How much should parents give? Should they track what their children spend money on? And where is the balance between teaching children valuable life lessons and simply spoili...

Simply put, to make better digital cameras, you need image sensors with higher numbers of larger photosites. Engineers know this. In fact, it’s basically how they’ve made the best cameras humanity have: giant telescopes that take photos of deep space. But phones don't even have as much sensor space as a standard DSLR camera, let alone the surface area of a massive telescope. In fact, most phone ca...

When the Visualphone VP210 hit the market in 1999, it advertised a never-before-seen feature: a camera. With only 0.11 megapixels and storage for 20 photos, the Visualphone is a relic compared to modern devices sporting three distinct cameras, each with up to 100 times more resolution. But while this technology has improved dramatically in the 21st century, engineers are rapidly approaching a hard...

So we ended up taking the car back, it was no longer functional, and we decided to place it in an art gallery in Los Angeles. And at this gallery, actually, I got to attend the opening, and at the opening I observed something that I totally did not expect to see, which was purchasers of the key had flown in from all over the country, not just to see the thing that they had touched and interacted w...