每日英語跟讀 Ep.K424: About India - Mumbai turns to Twitter for help mapping India’s monsoon floods

When monsoon rains sweep into Mumbai each year, residents of India’s financial hub find their social media feeds awash with flood memes - from Venetian gondolas plying the city’s deluged streets to office workers commuting on inflatable dinghies.

當季風雨水每年橫掃孟買的同時，印度金融中心居民發現社群媒體充斥洪水梗圖：威尼斯貢多拉遊船在城市被雨水淹沒的街道上行駛、上班族利用充氣橡皮艇通勤。

This year, a research institute hopes social media can play a more practical role - asking residents to tweet details about floods in their neighbourhoods and using the data to issue geographically specific flood alerts in real-time.

今年，一個研究機構希望社群媒體能夠發揮更實際的功用──要求居民在推特上描述住家附近地區洪水的詳細情況，並利用這些資料即時發布特定地區洪水警報。

"Since we cannot monitor flooding across the city ourselves, we thought of taking the help of the community," said Subimal Ghosh, head of the Climate Studies department at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, which is behind the initiative.

孟買印度理工學院氣候研究部門領導人蘇比墨爾．高許說，「由於我們無法單靠自己監測整座城市的洪水，於是想到可以利用群眾的協助」。該部門正是此倡議的幕後推手。

Around the world in countries including Australia and Indonesia, climate researchers are increasingly using data gathered via social media to help monitor weather events such as floods.

包含澳洲和印尼等世界各國，氣候研究學家們越來越頻繁地利用透過社群媒體上蒐集得到的資料來協助監控諸如洪水等天氣事件。

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Nipah Virus, Dangerous and Little Known, Spreads in India－危險但鮮為人知的立百病毒在印度擴散

A rare, brain-damaging virus has broken out in the state of Kerala, India, for the first time, infecting at least 18 people and killing 17 of them, according to the World Health Organization.

一種罕見、傷害腦部的病毒首度在印度喀拉拉邦爆發，感染至少18人，其中17人死亡，世界衛生組織指出。

The Nipah virus naturally resides in fruit bats across South and Southeast Asia, and can spread to humans through contact with the animals’ bodily fluids. There is no vaccine and no cure.

立百病毒自然寄宿於南亞與東南亞的狐蝠，並可透過接觸該動物的體液而傳播給人類。沒有疫苗，也沒有藥物可以對治。

The virus is listed by the W.H.O. as a high priority for research. Current treatment measures are insufficient, according to Dr. Stuart Nichol, the head of the viral special pathogens branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

該病毒被世衛組織列入高優先研究名單。當前的治療措施不足，美國疾病管制與預防中心病毒特殊病原體部門主任尼科爾博士說。

"There’s a market failure for protecting people from this," said Dr. Steve Luby, an epidemiologist at Stanford University. "It’s not like treating baldness or breast cancer, where wealthy people will pay for your product. There’s no big customer here, no incentive, until it escalates."

「保護人們免於該病毒感染的市場失靈」，史丹福大學流行病學家魯比博士說。「這不像治療禿頭或乳癌，有錢人會花錢買你的產品。在這裡沒有大客戶、沒有誘因，直到疫情愈演愈烈為止。」

The Nipah infection produces flulike symptoms, including fevers, body aches and vomiting, which often progress to acute respiratory syndrome and encephalitis. Some survivors show persistent neurological effects, including personality changes.

感染立百病毒會產生類似流感的症狀，包括發燒、身體疼痛與嘔吐，並常發展成急性肺炎症候群與腦炎。有些倖存者出現持續性的神經性影響，包括性格改變。Source article: https://features.ltn.com.tw/english/article/paper/1534206; https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/paper/1210313

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每日英語跟讀 Ep.K424: About India - 孟買向推特請求掌握洪水與立百病

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