Voicy初の公式英語ニュースチャンネル「Voicy News Brief with articles from New York Times」。チャンネルでは、バイリンガルパーソナリティがThe New York Timesの記事を英語で読み、記事の中に出てくる単語を日本語で解説しています。
Voicy Journalでは、毎週金曜日にその週に読んだ記事を、まとめて紹介します！１週間の終わりに、その週の放送をもう１度聞いて復習するのも良いかもしれません。VoicyのPCページやアプリでは、再生速度も変えられるので、自分の理解度に応じて、調整してみましょう。
2/6(土)の放送
Instagram Bans Hundreds of Accounts With Stolen Usernames
著者：Taylor Lorenz
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
Instagram is coordinating with other social media platforms, including Twitter and TikTok, to ban users who have been involved in stealing hundreds of single-word usernames.
These short, covetable handles, known as “OG usernames” (think keywords like @Killer, @Sick and @Miracle), are valuable because they are eye-catching and confer status; the people who first snatched them up were early adopters. Cybercriminals buy and sell the usernames on dedicated forums and messaging apps.
The crackdown, which began Thursday, follows a monthslong investigation by Instagram into ogusers.com, the primary forum in which these accounts are sold and traded. Instagram discovered that stolen account names were obtained through hacking, extortion, blackmail and harassment — and then could be sold for as much as $40,000. Such manipulation has gone largely unchecked for years. (Ogusers.com was also the forum where last year’s gigantic Twitter hack that affected former President Barack Obama, Elon Musk and many other celebrities was orchestrated.)
Recently, cybercriminals in pursuit of OG usernames have resorted to harassment and threats. According to Instagram, the people behind the accounts banned Thursday — some of which had millions of followers — had subjected the owners of desirable Instagram handles to threats of swatting, revenge porn and violence.
Instagram said that nine cybercriminals were behind the unauthorized seizure of hundreds of Instagram accounts, but the platform’s ban includes not just these nine users but middlemen who helped orchestrate the buying and selling of accounts on ogusers.com and Telegram, an encrypted messaging app. Many of the middlemen are young people, including teenagers.
After noticing an alarming uptick in account theft and escalation in the methods used to acquire usernames, Instagram took action in 2020 and began working with TikTok and Twitter to identify accounts across platforms.
Instagram said it is sending cease-and-desist letters to individuals behind the theft of high-value handles and is collaborating with local law enforcement agencies to hold those involved in criminal activity accountable.
Although Instagram has previously banned meme accounts for violating terms of service, Thursday’s crackdown is the most public and decisive action Instagram has taken against people manipulating the platform for financial gain.
covetable 欲しくてたまらない
confer 授与する、贈る
crackdown 取り締まり
extortion 強奪、ゆすり、強要
orchestrate 結集する、統合する、画策する
swatting スワッティング
cybercriminal サイバー犯罪者
encrypted 暗号化された
uptick 上昇、増加
cease-and-desist letter (知的財産侵害行為などの) 停止通告書
2/7(日)の放送
How Scientists Shot Down Cancer’s ‘Death Star’
著者：Gina Kolata
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
After 40 years of effort, researchers have finally succeeded in switching off one of the most common cancer-causing genetic mutations in the human body. The finding promises to improve treatment for thousands of patients with lung and colorectal cancer, and may point the way to a new generation of drugs for cancers that resist treatment.
The finding has already led to a new medication, sotorasib, by drugmaker Amgen, which tested its drug in patients with the most common type of lung cancer, called non-small cell cancer. The disease is diagnosed in 228,000 Americans a year. For most patients in the advanced stages, there is no cure.
The new drug attacks a cancer-causing mutation, known as KRAS G12C, that occurs in 13% of these patients, almost all of whom are current or former smokers. Sotorasib made the cancers shrink significantly in patients with the mutation, Amgen reported.
On average, tumors in the patients stopped growing for seven months. In three out of 126 patients, the drug seems to have made the cancer disappear entirely. Side effects included diarrhea, nausea and fatigue.
How the off-switch was discovered is a story of serendipity and persistence by an academic chemist who managed the seemingly impossible.
The search for drugs to block previously discovered cancer-causing mutations was always straightforward: Researchers had to find a molecule that attached to the mutated protein and could stop it from functioning.
The standard solution would be a drug that would hold the mutated protein in the “off” position. But that seemed impossible. KRAS is large and globular, and it doesn’t have deep pockets or clefts on its surface where a drug could slip in. It was like trying to drive a wedge into a ball of solid ice.
“Our medicinal chemists referred to it as the Death Star,” said Dr. David Reese, executive vice president for research and development at Amgen.
In 2008, Kevan Shokat, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco and his colleagues began looking for a molecule that could do the trick. Five years later, after screening 500 molecules, they found one.
Their drug held the protein steady, making a crevice visible on its surface. “We never saw that pocket before,” Shokat said.
Their work may hold promise for another lethal threat: “KRAS is the signature mutation for pancreatic cancer,” Shokat noted.
Genetic mutations 遺伝子変異
Colorectal cancer 大腸癌
Non-small cell cancer 非小細胞癌
Diagnose 診断
Cancer-causing mutation 癌化変異
Tumors 腫瘍
Diarrhea 下痢
Nausea 吐き気
Fatigue 倦怠感
Serendipity 思わぬものに偶然に遭遇すること
Persistence 根気強さ
Protein タンパク質
Globular 球体の
Cleft 裂け目
Drive a wedge 分裂させる
Medicinal 医薬の
Crevice 裂け目
Pancreatic cancer 膵臓癌
2/8(月)の放送
It’s Not Every Day We Get a New Blue
著者：Evan Nicole Brown
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
Blue is a color that has deep cultural cachet, while being nearly impossible to find in nature. The blues that abound in nature — a butterfly, a navy beetle, even blue eyes — are not natively blue, according to scientists, but instead are reflections of light, the impression of blue.
Since antiquity, blue has been associated with rarity and expense; ultramarine — a pigment originally made from grinding lapis lazuli, a semiprecious gemstone — was once worth as much as gold.
Today, our blues are created by chemists in labs. But that doesn’t mean creating new shades is easy or common.
Before 2009, when a team of chemists at Oregon State University developed a color now known as YInMn Blue, it had been 200 years since the last inorganic blue pigment was created. (That one was cobalt, discovered by French chemist Thénard in 1802.)
Now, YInMn Blue is available to artists as a paint and for commercial use. (The Environmental Protection Agency approved it for industrial coatings and plastics in 2017.) It has a home in the archive of the Forbes Pigment Collection at Harvard University, and has even inspired a Crayola crayon — a striking shade called “Bluetiful.”
The shade was invented by Mas Subramanian, a professor of materials science at Oregon State University, who was working with a team of graduate students to develop an inorganic material that could be used for electronic devices. When a sample he had put in the furnace came out a vivid, vibrant hue of ultramarine, Subramanian said he realized “the brilliant, very intense blues” were like nothing he had seen before, and would be better suited to use in paint than on pieces of technology.
The blue proved stable, but it could also be slightly altered to get variations in hue. “We decided ‘OK, this is interesting for the pigment industry,’” Subramanian said.
The name for the new blue is derived from its chemical components’ symbols on the periodic table of elements: yttrium, indium and manganese.
The beauty of YInMn Blue is that it is not only able to be widely duplicated via Subramanian’s formula, but is also nontoxic, making it safer to use — and perhaps more eco-friendly too.
Cobalt, on the other hand — though a boon for 19th-century artists — turned out to be extremely toxic.
cachet 信頼，威信(など)を示すもの(印・特徴)
abound たくさんいる、富む
antiquity 古代
rarity 珍しいもの
pigment 顔料、色素
semiprecious gemstone 半貴石
shade （色彩の）濃淡、色合い
inorganic 無機性の (↔organic)
furnace (工場などの）炉、かまど
hue 色合い
periodic table of elements 元素周期表
duplicate 複製する
formula やり方、処方
nontoxic 毒性の無い（↔toxic）
boon 恩恵
※(Y) イットリウム: yttrium / (In) インジウム: indium/ (Mn) マンガン: manganese
2/9(火)の放送
France’s Latest COVID Measure: Letting Workers Eat at Their Desks
著者：Roger Cohen
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
PARIS — Eating habits are as good a guide to France as any, and they are about to undergo a radical change.
The Labor Ministry says it will allow French employees to eat lunch at their desks in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus, a practice previously forbidden under Article R.4428-19 of the 3,324-page French labor code, or Code du Travail.
French eating habits have already been sorely tested by the pandemic. A 6 p.m. curfew prevents the predinner stop at the boulangerie or the butcher, and the closure of all cafes and restaurants has propelled takeout in the form of “le click & collect” — an English expression the French have adopted. It has been a case of one indignity after another.
A spokesperson for the Labor Ministry said a decree opening the way for another sharp lifestyle adjustment would be made public in the next few days with a view to limiting employees’ exposure to COVID-19. Companies have up to now been barred from “allowing workers to have their meals in places dedicated to work.”
The leading economic newspaper, Les Echos, ran its article about the development under the shocking image of a woman eating a salad of lettuce and tomato from a plastic container in front of her laptop. A faint smile on her face suggested she might even be happy.
Until now, any company allowing employees to eat lunch at their desks was subject to a fine if discovered by the inspectors who enforce the labor code. The employee in question faced unspecified disciplinary action.
The ban was consistent with the hyperregulation of workers’ rights enshrined in a labor code that took form in the 20th century on the rough premise that every owner of a business was a ruthless capitalist bent on exploiting workers — say, by making them work through their lunch hours.
“We French and you Americans have totally different ideas about work,” said Agnès Dutin, a retired translator, as she wheeled a bag with her Sunday market produce. ”
undergo (変化を)経験する
labor code 労働法典
☝️code(規則、法典)
sorely ひどく
☝️sore(痛い): I have a sore throat.
boulangerie パン屋
click & collect ネットで注文、お店で受け取り
indignity 不当なこと、侮辱 [語源: in(not)+dignus(相応しい)]
☝️dignity(尊厳)
decree 政令
with a view to 〜するために
with respect to(〜に関して)
laptop ノートパソコン
☝️lap(ひざ)+top(の上) ↔︎ desktop
be subject to a fine 罰金を科される
☝️be subject to(左右される、対象になる)
face disciplinary action 懲戒処分を受ける
☝️face(直面する), discipline(自制心、克己心)
hyperregulation 過剰規制
☝️hyper(過剰な)+regulation(規制)
enshrined 大切にされている [語源: en(入れる)+shrine(神社に)]
ruthless 冷酷
☝️ruth(同情、後悔)+less(〜がない)
bent on 熱心に注ぐ
☝️bend(曲げる)
exploiting 搾取すること
☝️コア：自分の利益のために利用し尽くす
wheeled (車輪を)転がす
2/10(水)の放送
Climate Change Lengthening Pollen Season, Study Shows
著者：John Schwartz
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
Among the many disasters climate change is wreaking around the world, scientists have now identified a more personal one: It’s making allergy season worse.
That is the message of a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published Monday. The researchers found a strong link between planetary warming and pollen seasons that will make many of us dread spring just a little bit more.
According to the new paper, the combination of warming air and higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has caused North American pollen seasons since 1990 to start some 20 days earlier, on average, and to have 21% more pollen.
Scientists have suggested for some time that the season is getting longer and more awful, and the new research provides greater detail and estimates of just how much a warming planet is responsible for the greater misery. They concluded that climate change caused about half of the trend in the pollen season, and 8% of the higher pollen count. What’s more, the trend of higher pollen counts, the researchers said, is accelerating.
The most pronounced effects were seen in Texas, the Midwest and the Southeast, said William Anderegg, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah and the lead author of the new study. The effects were less obvious in the northern United States, including New England and the Great Lakes states. The greatest pollen increases came from trees, as opposed to grasses and weeds, he said.
The researchers employed the techniques of attribution science, which is commonly used to state the degree to which extreme weather events like heat waves, wildfires or the amount of rain a hurricane brings are worse than they would have been in a world without climate change.
They looked at data gathered by 60 long-term pollen monitoring stations around the continental United States and compared the results with various climate models to find correlations. They also tried to discount potentially confounding factors, using satellite photos to determine whether changes in land use or tree growth during the period of the study near the pollen measuring stations could have skewed the results.
“The world’s a messy place,” Anderegg said, with many potentially confounding influences, “but the really strong signal here, and the attribution to climate change, is compelling.”
lengthening 長くする、のばす
pollen 花粉
wreak （破壊や損害を）引き起こす
planetary 惑星の、地球上の
dread 恐れる、びくびくする
awful ひどい
misery 苦痛、みじめさ
pronounced 目立った、顕著な
as opposed to 〜に対して
2/11(木)の放送
Elon Musk Adds Momentum to Cryptocurrency Boom
著者：Nathaniel Popper
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
SAN FRANCISCO — Bitcoin hit a new high of nearly $45,000 Monday, shooting up more than 45% from the beginning of the year.
Other digital currencies — with names like Terra and Solana — also rose sharply in value.
Even Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that began as a joke with a perpetually surprised Shiba Inu dog for its symbol, has soared almost 1,000% over the last week to set a record.
The rally is a moment of euphoria for the thousands of different versions of digital money, which years ago were dismissed as little more than online Beanie Babies caught in a speculative bubble. While cryptocurrencies often rise and fall together, the latest surge stands out for its magnitude — for the first time, the value of all cryptocurrencies skyrocketed above $1 trillion during the last month — as well as the number of people who are using the digital tokens for practical purposes and the major players who are getting involved.
On Monday, the ostensible reason for the rally was an announcement from Tesla, the electric car company run by Elon Musk, the world’s richest person. Tesla said that it had bought $1.5 billion of Bitcoin and would begin accepting bitcoin payments, setting off a frenzy of interest.
But the underlying momentum for a spike has been slowly building for about a year. Over that period, PayPal has joined other consumer apps that allow their users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies. Some of the biggest hedge fund operators in the world — like Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller — have also put money into the new market.
“It’s just a sea change in sentiment,” said Meltem Demirors, the chief strategy officer at Microshares, a cryptocurrency asset manager. “We went from being mocked and ridiculed to having the richest man in the world talking about it.”
add momentum to ～に弾みをつける、拍車をかける
perpetually ひっきりなしに、始終
soar 高騰する、高まる
set a record 記録となる、記録を樹立する
rally （景気や株式相場など）反発、反騰
euphoria 幸福感、陶酔感
Beanie Babies （90年代全世界に大ブームを巻き起こした）ビーニーベイビーズ というぬいぐるみ
magnitude （物事の）重要さ、（規模が）大きい事
skyrocket 急騰する、急上昇する
ostensible 表向きの、うわべだけの
frenzy 狂乱、熱狂
sea change 目覚ましい(急激な)変化、変貌
being mocked （真似て）馬鹿にされる
being ridiculed 笑いものにされる、冷やかされる
2/12(金)の放送
House Lays Out Case Against Trump, Branding Him the ‘Inciter in Chief’
著者：Nicholas Fandos
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
WASHINGTON — The House impeachment managers opened their prosecution of Donald Trump on Wednesday with a meticulous account of his campaign to overturn the election loss and goad supporters to join him, bringing its most violent spasms to life with never-before-seen security footage from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Filling the Senate chamber with the profane screams of the attackers, images of police officers being brutalized, and near-miss moments in which Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers came steps away from confronting a mob that was hunting them down, the prosecutors made an emotional case that Trump’s election lies had directly endangered the heart of American democracy.
They played frantic police radio calls warning that “we’ve lost the line,” body camera footage showing an officer pummeled with poles and fists on the West Front of the Capitol, and silent security tape from inside showing Pence, his family and members of the House and Senate, racing to evacuate as the mob closed in, chanting: “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!”
All of it, the nine Democratic managers said, was the foreseeable and intended outcome of Trump’s desperate attempts to cling to the presidency. Reaching back as far as last summer, they traced how he spent months cultivating not only the “big lie” that the election was “rigged” against him, but stoking the rage of a throng of supporters who made it clear that they would do anything — including resorting to violence — to help him.
The managers argued that it warranted that the Senate break with two centuries of history to make Trump the first former president ever to be convicted in an impeachment trial and disqualified from future office on a single count of “incitement of insurrection.”
“Donald Trump surrendered his role as commander in chief and became the inciter in chief of a dangerous insurrection,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead manager, told the senators. They watched the footage in silence in the same spots where they had been when the mob breached the building last month.
“He told them to ‘fight like hell,’” Raskin added, quoting the speech that Trump gave supporters as the onslaught was unfolding, “and they brought us hell on that day.”
commander-in-chief 最高指令官／司令長官
☝️アメリカの大統領を示すことが多い
incite 扇動する／掻き立てる
meticulous 綿密な／几帳面な
goad 煽る／仕向ける
spasm 痙攣／発作＊文章の中では比喩表現として出てきたため、イメージを保つために「断末魔」と訳しました
profane 冒涜的／口汚い
brutalize 残忍にする／無慈悲に扱う
make a case 〜と主張する／（自説など）を述べる
frantic 必死の／慌ただしい
pummel 殴打する／（何回も）殴りつける
hang 吊す／縛り首にする
warrant 正当する／是認する
