介绍:
1 / Obama's highly anticipated book
奥巴马回忆录成畅销书
Barack Obama is well on his way to becoming the bestselling author of the year. It is a title previously bestowed on his wife, Michelle Obama, whose book "Becoming" rocketed to the top of the charts in 2018.
贝拉克•奥巴马即将成为年度畅销书作家。他的妻子米歇尔•奥巴马曾赢得过这个称号，她所著的《成为：米歇尔•奥巴马自传》在2018年飙升至图书销售榜榜首。
Now the former president's new memoir, "A Promised Land," is breaking records for the book's publisher, Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
如今，这位前总统的新回忆录《应许之地》正在打破该书出版商、企鹅兰登书屋旗下的皇冠出版社的纪录。
"A Promised Land" offers Obama's take on some of his most notable moments in office, from wrestling a global financial crisis to passing the Affordable Care Act.
从应对全球金融危机到通过《平价医疗法案》，《应许之地》记录了奥巴马执政期间最重要的一些时刻。
Hundreds of thousands of people pre-ordered "A Promised Land" ahead of Tuesday's release date.
在11月17日正式发售之前，已有数十万人预订了这本书。
Those pre-order sales, plus first-day sales, totaled 887,000 units "in all formats and editions in the US and Canada," Penguin Random House said on Wednesday. The publisher said this result represented "the largest first-day sales total for any book ever published" by the company.
企鹅兰登书屋11月18日表示，在美国和加拿大，该书"各种版本"的预订量加上首日销量总计达88.7万册。这家出版商表示，这是公司"有史以来出版的图书中首日销量最高的"。
重点词汇：
bestow
英 [bɪˈstəʊ] 美 [bɪˈstoʊ]
vt. 使用；授予；放置；留宿
2 / Marriages benefit from lockdown
疫情期间夫妻关系改善
One in five of marriages in the UK have benefited from the national lockdown, research has revealed. A study carried out by the Marriage Foundation found 20% of married couples felt their relationship had strengthened, while only 9% said theirs had worsened during the pandemic.
研究表明，英国五分之一的夫妻在疫情封锁期间关系有所改善。英国婚姻基金会开展的这项研究发现，20%的已婚夫妇认为他们的关系得以改善，只有9%的人表示夫妻关系在疫情期间恶化了。
Harry Benson, the Marriage Foundation's research director and one of the report's authors, said: "Our study debunks claims that lockdown is leading to a divorce boom.
婚姻基金会研究主任、报告的作者之一哈利•本森说："我们的研究让'封锁导致离婚潮'的说法不攻自破。
The data strongly suggests the opposite – spending more time with your husband or wife has been beneficial for large numbers of the UK's 12.8 million married couples."
数据有力地表明，事实正好相反，对于英国1280万对夫妻中的大部分人来说，花更多时间和另一半相处益处良多。"
重点词汇：
debunk
英 [diːˈbʌŋk] 美 [diːˈbʌŋk]
vt. 揭穿；拆穿…的假面具；暴露
3 / Pink diamond sold for $26.6M
'玫瑰之魂'钻石拍出1.76亿
A giant, flawless pink diamond sold for $26.6 million at auction in Switzerland, according to Sotheby's auction house. On its website, the "Spirit of the Rose" diamond is described as a "superb and magnificent fancy vivid purple-pink diamond."
据苏富比拍卖行称，一颗巨大的、无瑕的粉色钻石在瑞士拍卖会上以2660万美元(约合人民币1.76亿元)的价格拍出。在苏富比官网上，拍卖行将这颗"玫瑰之魂"钻石描述为"顶级的、华丽的艳彩紫粉钻"。
"Fancy vivid" is the gemological term for the deepest shade of pink diamonds. The stone was unearthed in northeastern Russia in July 2017 and originally weighed 27.85 carats.
"艳彩"是最深色粉钻的宝石界术语。这颗钻石于2017年7月开采于俄罗斯东北部，原石重27.85克拉。
It took over one year for gemologists to cut and polish the Spirit of the Rose down to its current 14.83 carat size; the gem is the largest pink diamond ever mined in Russia.
宝石专家用了一年多的时间对"玫瑰之魂"进行切割打磨，该粉钻成型后重14.83克拉，为俄罗斯有史以来开采出的最大粉钻。
重点词汇：
gemological
英 [,dʒemə'lɔdʒikəl] 美 [,dʒemə'lɔdʒikəl]
adj. 宝石学的
4 / Why plane windows are rounded
飞机舷窗为何是圆形的
While not everyone will have pondered the subject while staring out of the window during a flight, the question as to why airplanes have circular windows rather than square ones is interesting.
虽然不是每个人都会在飞行中凝视窗外的时候思索一个问题：为什么舷窗是圆形的而不是方形的。但这个问题很有趣。
Over the years, aerospace engineering has made huge leaps in airplane technology, meaning planes can carry more passengers and go faster. The planes have also changed shape to increase safety – including the windows.
多年来，航空航天工程在飞机技术上取得了巨大的飞跃，这意味着飞机可以运载更多的乘客，飞行速度更快。同时，为了提高安全性，飞机在外形上也做出了相应的改变。舷窗，便是变化之一。
Where there's a corner, there's a weak spot. Windows, having four corners, have four potential weak spots, making them likely to crash under stress – such as air pressure. By curving the window, the stress that would eventually crack the window corner is distributed, and the likelihood of it breaking is reduced.
哪里有拐角，哪里就有弱点。方形舷窗有四个角，就有着四个潜在的薄弱点，使它们很可能在压力作用下破裂，比如大气压力。因此，让窗缘线条弯曲，来分散窗口四角的压力，从而降低了窗户破碎的可能性。
重点词汇：
ponder
英 [ˈpɒndər] 美 [ˈpɑːndər]
vi. 考虑；沉思
vt. 仔细考虑；衡量
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