Shadowing Practice: The Mutated Animals of Chernobyl - Learn English Speaking with Video
בחר מצב תרגול
כל מצב פותח חדר תרגול במסך מלא.
222 משפטים
אם המשפטים קצרים או ארוכים מדי, לחץ על ערוך כדי להתאים אותם.
1
Something about this forest feels off.
2
Pines twist into bizarre shapes.
3
Spider webs hang crooked and uneven.
4
Red firebugs are crawling on the ground.
5
But the patterns on their backs are warped.
6
A bird flies overhead.
7
Its beak is deformed.
8
There's a reason for all this.
9
The forest sits inside a highly radioactive exclusion zone.
10
It's one of the most contaminated places on Earth.
11
Not far from here, the largest nuclear disaster in history happened in 1986.
12
A nuclear accident in the Soviet Union and the Soviets have admitted that it happened.
13
Deadly radiation is being released from...
14
Thousands died from the radiation's immediate and long-term effects.
15
For humans, the area remains mostly uninhabitable until today.
16
But nature stayed.
17
Plants and animals.
18
Wolves, deer, wild horses, birds and insects.
19
But the radiation changed them.
20
Spring 1986 in the dead of the night.
21
Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has just exploded.
22
Massive amounts of highly radioactive material like iodine and cesium are hurled into the air.
23
The radiation seeps into the cells of all living things in the area, including this deer.
24
30 minutes after the blast, it's dizzy and barely able to stay on its feet.
25
The radiation has burned the mucosal tissue inside its digestive tract.
26
Cells all across its body start dying.
27
Blood circulation in the brain falters.
28
And since the blood can't flow properly, pressure builds inside the skull.
29
The deer's blood pressure crashes, it suffers seizures, and multiple organs fail.
30
The next day, the deer is dead.
31
In the following days and weeks, the pine needles change color, first to yellow, then to red.
32
Trees die for kilometers around, giving the area a new name.
33
The Red Forest.
34
A few kilometers away, a shepherd dog lives in the town of Pripyat.
35
For the past day, it's been feeling unwell, tired and nauseous.
36
Its owners are worried.
37
They too feel under the weather, though they don't know why.
38
Then, a voice crackles over the radio with an announcement.
39
Dear friends, the city council, national deputies...
40
to cover up a nuclear disaster of unprecedented scale.
41
Like tens of thousands of others, this family will never return.
42
Their dog is on its own now.
43
Three days later, the food is gone.
44
On the fourth day, he leaves the house, hungry and searching for anything to eat.
45
He encounters other dogs wandering the empty streets.
46
They too were abandoned and left behind.
47
Suddenly, shots are fired.
48
The Soviet authorities have ordered police to kill all stray dogs, an attempt to stop the animals from spreading radioactive material.
49
The dogs flee into the forest.
50
Just like all the other animals here, they find themselves in the heart of the world's largest nuclear exclusion zone.
51
Radiation remains dangerously high for months.
52
Many animals develop chronic radiation sickness.
53
Blood pools in their livers and spleens, lymph nodes swell, thyroids fail.
54
The animals grow thin, and many die.
55
Over the next ten years, radiation levels drop significantly.
56
The only humans left are workers and guards looking after the ruins of the nuclear plant.
57
Beyond that, the area is almost completely abandoned.
58
In this vast and empty space, wildlife can spread freely.
59
Over the years, the zone evolves into one of Europe's largest nature reserves.
60
Countless animals settle in.
61
Bears and lynx, moose and foxes, and multiple packs of wolves.
62
Even some of the original residents remain.
63
Hundreds of street dogs, descendants of the pets left behind, roam the area.
64
Swallows skim over the treetops.
65
The rocks leap through the undergrowth, and they are all followed by their silent companion, the radiation.
66
The first thing you notice are the eyes.
67
One of the first signs of exposure to radiation is something called cataract in the eye.
68
It's a cloudiness of the lens of the eye that happens to people who are exposed to higher levels of radiation.
69
Timothy Mossoe.
70
He's a biology professor at the University of South Carolina.
71
Few people know the creatures of Chernobyl as well as he does.
72
He's talking to us from a research ship in the middle
73
of the Pacific studying the effects of nuclear weapon testing on wildlife.
74
We've had many exciting visits to Chernobyl.
75
You know I've been going to Chernobyl pretty much two or three times a year, sometimes four times a year.
76
A so-called cataract is a clouding of the lens in the eye.
77
It's a common disease in humans known as Grey Star.
78
It blurs the vision and its most severe form can cause total blindness.
79
The high radiation levels in Chernobyl cause many animals to develop cataracts.
80
The landscape itself has changed too.
81
This is what a natural pine forest looks like.
82
Green needles, straight trunks.
83
And this is what a pine forest looks like in the most contaminated areas of Chernobyl.
84
This trunk is twisted, stunted and misshapen.
85
The wood has changed its color.
86
If you look closely at the rings, you can see exactly when the disaster happened.
87
Near the base there are these strange clusters of tangled leaves called Witches' Brooms.
88
This forest doesn't just look eerily strange.
89
It's a stark reminder of what our actions can do to nature.
90
Seeing it can make you feel powerless, but it doesn't have to be that way.
91
Planet Wild is a community-based environmental protection organization.
92
Think of it as crowdfunding for nature.
93
Every month their community funds a carefully selected rewilding project to restore forests, bring back endangered species, and protect the oceans.
94
Planet Wild documents all their projects in monthly videos, so you can see how your contribution helps to protect nature.
95
In one of their latest projects, they used chainsaw detectors to protect one of Europe's last ancient forests.
96
Of course, environmental protection also involves broader systemic and regulatory change.
97
At the same time, collective efforts like these are essential to the larger cause.
98
Support Planet Wild's mission by scanning the QR code or clicking the link in the description.
99
Pay whatever amount feels right for you.
100
The first 100 people to sign up using our code FERN10 will get their first month covered by us.
101
You can cancel any time after that.
102
Every forest has spider webs.
103
Normally they're neat and symmetrical like this.
104
But here, in Chernobyl's most contaminated areas, the gaps in the strands are far too large.
105
The patterns are warped and chaotic.
106
This is what a barn swallow usually looks like.
107
Note the distinctive combination of blue-black feathers and a red face.
108
This one from Chernobyl has white patches on its face.
109
Its tail feathers are crooked and its beak deformed, stuck slightly open.
110
A lump protrudes beneath its plumage.
111
A tumor.
112
Many changes are not visible from the outside.
113
You can't see that this swallow will live a shorter life and have lower chances to successfully reproduce.
114
Red firebugs are native to Central Europe.
115
Their vibrant red and black coloring with its symmetrical patterns helps ward off potential predators.
116
But Chernobyl firebugs are different.
117
The patterns on their backs are warped and asymmetrical.
118
Some are missing an eye and the fine black lines are blurred.
119
All of these changes trace back to mutations in the genetic code.
120
This is where the DNA is stored.
121
The blueprint for the insects entire organism.
122
DNA is made up of two strands, twisted together in a shape called a double helix.
123
It's made up of base pairs.
124
The genetic information is stored in the sequence of these bases, kind of like a computer carrying information using ones and zeros.
125
Several of those bases form a gene.
126
The body reads the sequence through complex molecular processes.
127
Genes act as a blueprint.
128
They determine how the bug looks, the pattern on its back and what it can and cannot digest.
129
They also influence how long it lives, its vulnerability to certain diseases, and even its behavior.
130
Scientists believe these blueprints make up only a tiny fraction of our DNA.
131
Studies in humans suggest that around 8 to 15 percent of DNA are functional and actively doing something important.
132
Radioactive atoms like uranium and cesium are unstable.
133
They decay spontaneously, releasing radiation.
134
That That radiation carries so much energy it can damage living cells the moment it makes contact.
135
It can break DNA directly or split the water molecules in a cell.
136
This creates smaller particles called free radicals.
137
These free radicals then rip through the DNA.
138
Base pairs can be swapped or deleted entirely.
139
Or the entire DNA strand can break apart.
140
When radiation hits the DNA, it damages it.
141
Most of the time the damage is repaired, but often, if there's enough radiation, this damage will persist.
142
Sometimes it will lead to a disease like a cancer or a tumor or some other developmental problem.
143
Many of these mutations have no effect.
144
The body either repairs them or they occur in parts of the DNA that don't serve an important function.
145
But sometimes those repairs go wrong, and that's when lasting changes can happen, like the ones we see in Chernobyl.
146
These changes can even be passed down to future generations.
147
But some of the animals around Chernobyl aren't just mutated, they seem to have adapted and are thriving in their new environment.
148
This is a tree frog.
149
Normally tree frogs are green.
150
But here in the exclusion zone, some of them are pitch black.
151
The dark pigmentation likely comes from melanin.
152
Melanin is what makes your skin darker in summer.
153
Your body produces it to shield your skin from sunlight.
154
But melanin can also help protect against other types of radiation.
155
According to a 2022 study, the darkest frogs in Chernobyl were found in areas where radiation levels used to be especially high.
156
So does that mean they've adapted to high radiation?
157
Timothy Mossor is not convinced.
158
He says the data isn't strong enough to prove a causal link.
159
Frogs in Chernobyl show no relationship between the melanism and radiation level currently.
160
So inside Chernobyl zone there are light frogs in highly radioactive areas and there are dark frogs in clean areas.
161
That is just one of the many scientific debates around Chernobyl's wildlife.
162
What can truly be verified and what's too speculative?
163
Both sides hold firmly to their findings.
164
There's another organism that may be putting the benefits of melanin to work.
165
This black fungus.
166
One of them grows here, right inside reactor 4.
167
One of the most irradiated places on the planet.
168
Radiation levels remain so high that nothing should be able to survive here.
169
And yet, this fungus is thriving.
170
Multiple independent studies suggest that this fungus may actually be using gamma radiation as an energy source.
171
Much like plants use sunlight for photosynthesis.
172
Unlike in the frogs, the melanin in this fungus doesn't just block radiation.
173
It seems to convert it into energy, which the fungus then uses to grow.
174
Melanized fungi like this one have been found in other highly radioactive places.
175
Astronauts have even studied it aboard the International Space Station.
176
Researchers hope that one day this fungus could act as a natural shield against radiation.
177
Perhaps for space travel.
178
As for the fungi in the reactor, it's still unclear whether they've truly adapted to the radiation or if they were just inherently able to cope with it.
179
Larger mammals may have adapted to radiation exposure as well.
180
At least that's what biologist Kara Love and her colleagues at Princeton University believe.
181
They suspect that wolves living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone may be less likely to develop cancer
182
or more resilient to the disease overall.
183
Despite constant exposure to high radiation levels.
184
The theory goes like this.
185
Random and spontaneous mutations in DNA make some wolves less vulnerable to cancer.
186
These wolves have a higher chance of survival, while others are more likely to die from the long-term effects of radiation, often from cancer itself.
187
The survivors reproduce, natural selection happens.
188
Their offspring inherit the protective genes.
189
Over time, they breed with wolves that are also better adapted to radiation, and so on and so forth.
190
After a few generations, the whole pack is less prone to cancer cancer.
191
Researchers say the wolf's DNA evolved in regions around genes linked to the body's immune response to cancer.
192
But is that actually realistic?
193
The research hasn't been published yet, which means there's no way for us or anyone else to verify it.
194
This study and many others have one thing in common.
195
They all suggest that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster may have triggered evolution right before our eyes.
196
Other scientists remain skeptical, including Timothy Musso.
197
We wrote a paper a few years ago where we reviewed all of the literature that had been published on Chernobyl,
198
claiming to test for adaptations and rapid evolution.
199
And in every case, except for maybe one, the data were too weak.
200
They did not have the strength, the scientific strength to support this hypothesis of adaptation.
201
Mousseau has studied potential adaptations himself.
202
He and his colleagues sampled colonies of certain bacteria in Denmark and at various sites across Chernobyl.
203
The colonies are often found on the wings of swallows, among other places.
204
Back in the lab, they exposed both sets of bacteria to radiation.
205
Some colonies from Chernobyl actually reproduced better under radiation, especially those that had lived for years in areas with moderate background radiation.
206
By contrast, colonies from Denmark, as well as those from the most highly contaminated parts of Chernobyl, were far less resistant to radiation.
207
Because the experiment was carried out under carefully controlled lab conditions, the researchers are confident that this adaptation wasn't caused by any other environmental factor.
208
To study the animals of the exclusion zone, Timothy Mossaux set up around a hundred motion-activated cameras throughout the area.
209
In late 2021, they recorded something strange.
210
Russian soldiers.
211
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.
212
Russian troops occupied the exclusion zone for weeks.
213
Overnight, nearly all research in Chernobyl ground to a halt.
214
some scientists were forced to flee the zone.
215
When the Russian forces finally withdrew in the spring of 2022, researchers returned to find their work in ruins.
216
Military vehicles had kicked up radioactive dust, offices and labs had been ransacked, computers and valuable equipment were stolen or destroyed,
217
long-term surveys were interrupted, and some irreplaceable research data may be lost forever.
218
Several promising studies were put on hold indefinitely.
219
Carol Lough and her team never got the chance to return and study the wolves in the field.
220
It's a bitter blow to our understanding of the world.
221
Don't forget to check out Planet Wild and become a member.
222
If you want to see them in action, check out their project protecting one of Europe's last ancient forests.
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אוצר מילים והערות הגייה לשיעור הזה
שיעור הדיבור הזה ברמה C1 מבוסס על הסרטון “The Mutated Animals of Chernobyl”. המילים שחוזרות הכי הרבה: radiation, Chernobyl, Dna, forest. בסרטון הזה יש 222 משפטים ו-2445 מילים לתרגול Shadowing. הדיבור נמשך 17:49. הדובר שומר על קצב יציב של כ-137 מילים בדקה, קצב נוח לתרגול Shadowing. רק 77% מהמילים נמצאות בין 3,000 המילים הנפוצות ביותר באנגלית, כך שאוצר המילים מאתגר.
אוצר מילים מרכזי בסרטון הזה
15 המילים המתקדמות ביותר בסרטון, עם ההגייה והמשמעות שלהן:
| מילה | הגייה | משמעות |
|---|---|---|
| radioactive שם תואר | /ˌɹeɪdioʊˈæktɪv/ | רדיואקטיבי |
| fungus שם עצם | /ˈfʌŋ.ɡəs/ | פטרייה |
| exclusion שם עצם | /ɪksˈkluːʒən/ | הדרה |
| swallow פועל | /ˈswɑ.loʊ/ | בָּלַע |
| mutation שם עצם | /mjuˈteɪʃən/ | מוּטַצְיָה |
| reactor שם עצם | /ɹiˈæktɚ/ | כּוּר |
| bacterium שם עצם | /bækˈtɪəɹ.ɪəm/ | חַיְדַּק \ חידק |
| beak שם עצם | /biːk/ | מַקּוֹר |
| caesium שם עצם | /ˈsiːzi.əm/ | צסיום, צזיום |
| cataract שם עצם | /ˈkætəˌɹæk(t)/ | תְּבַלּוּל |
| organism שם עצם | /ˈɔɹ.ɡəˌnɪz.əm/ | אוֹרְגָּנִיזְם, יְצוּר |
| reproduce פועל | /ˌɹi.pɹəˈdus/ | התרבה |
| crooked שם תואר | /kɹʊkɪd/ | עקום |
| strand שם עצם | /ˈstɹænd/ | גְּדִיל |
| feather שם עצם | /ˈfɛðə/ | נוצה, נוֹצָה |
Phrasal verbs שתשמעו
| מילה | משמעות |
|---|---|
| check out פועל | בדק |
דקדוק בסרטון הזה
המבנים שהדובר משתמש בהם הכי הרבה, עם המילים המדויקות מהסרטון:
| מבנה | בסרטון |
|---|---|
| הווה מושלם (Present perfect) have/has + past participle — פעולה שקרתה בעבר ועדיין יש לה חשיבות או השפעה עכשיו | have admitted · has just exploded · has burned |
| סביל (Passive voice) be + past participle — הדגש הוא על מה שקורה, לא על מי שעושה את הפעולה | are warped · is deformed · being released |
| משפטי זיקה (Relative clauses) who / which + clause — מידע נוסף על אדם או דבר | people who are · yet, which means |
הגייה ששווה לשים לב אליה
הדובר משתמש ב-17 קיצורים וצורות מקוצרות, כמו doesn't, don't, can't. אמרו אותם בצורה הקצרה, כפי שאתם שומעים אותם.
- הצלילים של “th”: feather /ˈfɛðə/, thrive /θɹajv/
- הצלילים של “sh” ו-“zh”: exclusion /ɪksˈkluːʒən/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, mutation /mjuˈteɪʃən/, shepherd /ˈʃɛpəɹd/, fraction /ˈfɹæk.ʃən/
- מילים ארוכות — שימו לב להטעמה: radioactive /ˌɹeɪdioʊˈæktɪv/, contaminate /kənˈtæmɪneɪt/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, symmetrical /səˈmɛtrək(ə)l/, organism /ˈɔɹ.ɡəˌnɪz.əm/
צלילים שדוברי עברית מתקשים בהם:
- /w/ — שפתיים מעוגלות, לא /v/: swallow /ˈswɑ.loʊ/, warp /ˈwɔːp/
- /æ/ — פתוח יותר מה-“אֶ” העברית, לא כמו “a” ב-“cup”: radioactive /ˌɹeɪdioʊˈæktɪv/, adapt /əˈdæpt/, contaminate /kənˈtæmɪneɪt/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, reactor /ɹiˈæktɚ/
- /r/ — הלשון לא נוגעת בשום מקום, לא ה-“ר” הגרונית: radioactive /ˌɹeɪdioʊˈæktɪv/, researcher /ˈɹiˌsɝ.t͡ʃɚ/, reactor /ɹiˈæktɚ/, bacterium /bækˈtɪəɹ.ɪəm/, blueprint /ˈbluːˌpɹɪnt/
איך לתרגל עם הסרטון הזה
- הקשיבו לכל הסרטון פעם אחת בלי לדבר, ורשמו את המילים שאתם לא מכירים.
- תרגלו Shadowing משפט אחר משפט במהירות רגילה, וחזרו על כל משפט עד שהקצב שלכם תואם את הדובר.
- הקליטו את עצמכם והשוו למקור, תוך תשומת לב למילים כמו radioactive, fungus, exclusion.
מהי טכניקת השאדואינג?
שאדואינג היא טכניקת למידת שפה מבוססת מדע שפותחה במקור להכשרת מתורגמנים מקצועיים ופופולרית על ידי הפוליגלוט ד"ר אלכסנדר ארגואלס. השיטה פשוטה אך עוצמתית: אתה מקשיב לאודיו באנגלית ילידית וחוזר עליו בקול רם מיד — כמו צל העוקב אחרי הדובר עם עיכוב של 1–2 שניות בלבד. בניגוד להאזנה פסיבית או תרגילי דקדוק, שאדואינג מכריח את המוח והשרירים בפה לעבד ולשחזר דפוסי דיבור אמיתיים בו זמנית. מחקרים מראים שזה משפר משמעותית את דיוק ההגייה, האינטונציה, הקצב, הדיבור המחובר, הבנת השמיעה ושטף הדיבור — מה שהופך אותו לאחת השיטות היעילות ביותר להכנה לIELTS Speaking ולתקשורת באנגלית בעולם האמיתי.