15 industrial-design graduate students dream and design big for NASA “Design for extreme environments” sounds like a new cable show, but it’s actually a class at RISD that focuses on building habitats for truly challenging locations—like the moon. Last fall, NASA asked the students to design a mobile dwelling for its next manned mission to the moon, scheduled for 2020. “NASA wanted a rover that could house four people for two weeks in 24-hour sunlight,” says student Zack Kamen.
One of the biggest obstacles the students faced was how to keep astronauts from tracking lunar dust, which can be as harmful to human lungs as asbestos, into the habitat. The solution was to build airtight “suitlocks” into each habitat. The suitlock designs the RISD students used worked like lunar mudrooms. To leave the habitat, astronauts climb through a hatch and slide their legs directly into a six-foot spacesuit. The astronaut’s life-support pack is mounted on the suitlock door, and when the door closes, the pack snaps into place on the back of his suit. Then the astronauts depressurize the lock and go exploring. “It’s like a holding tank on the exterior of the moon rover, so the suits never actually come inside,” Kamen says.
WHAT’S NEXT: NASA will be using the students’ research to plan its 2020 expedition. “We’re going to have to get together in 2020 and have a big party,” says RISD student Julianne Snow Gauron.
Researchers find that capuchin monkeys love to give Primate intelligence gives me cognitivedissonance. It’s fascinating that monkeys can recognize numbers, construct tools and even follow to-do lists. But it also bruises my ego, just slightly, knowing that monkeys aren’t that different from my parents, friends or heroes. (Michael Phelps excluded. He’s the übermensch.)
We’ve always been separate from monkeys on one front, though. In countless documentaries about primates, after proving how intelligent monkeys are, the host always caveats it with a final statement: monkeys don’t like to share. Even when they split a banana with a fellow monkey, the reward centers of their brain don’t light up like ours. There you have it—we love altruism, so we’re better than them.
Well, not quite. Earlier this week, scientists from Emory University found that capuchin monkeys take delight in giving to others. They paired the animals with either a relative, non-related acquaintance, or complete stranger, and gave them a choice between two tokens. One of the tokens allowed the monkeys to enjoy an apple slice all to themselves, while the other rewarded both monkeys with the treat. When they were paired with a family member or acquaintance, most of the animals chose the latter. Researchers attributed this to their emphatic nature, and explained that the closer they were to the fellow monkey, the more likely they were to give. Just like us.
Jackie: Hello, welcome to bbclearningenglish.com with me, Jackie Dalton. In a previous How to, we looked at how to tell someone you’re not happy about something and ask them to change their behaviour in a polite way,with phrases like ‘Would you mind…?’
Insert
Neil, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this…but, would you mind keeping the toilet seat down after you’ve used the toilet?
Jackie: In this programme, we look at more direct ways to tell someone you’re unhappy with their behaviour - expressions that might come up in very informal contexts. If you’re not already in an argument when you use
William: Hello, and welcome to How to… The BBC Learning English phrase book for everyday situations…
TAG
William: My name’s William Kremer. Now, it’s often said that we English people hate making complaints – but, just for you, I’m going to make a programme about making complaints. This edition of How To will look in detail at the language of spoken complaints. Earlier on, I spoke to my colleague Catherine, who told me about a time she’d made a complaint a couple of years ago. The incident happened at her brother’s wedding, which was being held in a hotel. Now, Catherine arrived at the hotel one hour before the wedding but to her surprise, the hotel told her that she had to pay £10 extra for checking in early. What did Catherine say?
Jackie: Hello, welcome to How to… with bbclearningenglish.com. I’m Jackie Dalton. In this programme we’ll look at how to express anger and annoyance about something. Of course, there are all sorts of very strong words in English used to show annoyance (some of which you probably already know!), but we’ll be focusing on those expressions which aren’t quite so offensive, so you don’t find yourself upsetting people! Let’s hear our first one. I’m at a party drinking a glass of wine but then (smash!)
Oh no!
Amber: Hello, I’m Amber with another edition of ‘How to …’ the series that gives you useful language to do things in English.
In an earlier programme we looked at simple ways to apologise – to say sorry when you’ve done something wrong. In this programme, we look at how to reply when someone says sorry to you for something they’ve done wrong. Now the good news is there are lots of short and friendly expressions that you can use to accept an apology. For example, if you’re with someone who’s really sorry for what they’ve done, you can just say: That’s OK.