Today's Headlines:

Painless flu jab trial

Tucking into Alaskan reindeer

Reunion Island's shark problem

Transcript:

Let's face it – few people enjoy injections. But vaccines administered this way, such as the flu jab, help save millions of lives around the world. Now scientists in the US have carried out trials involving a hundred people with the influenza vaccine is given like this instead. It may look like a plaster for a small cut, but zoom in and you'll see a hundred microscopic hair-like needles containing the flu virus. They penetrate the skin's surface and then dissolve.

Traditionally this land was home to hunters of wild caribou, not farmers of domesticated reindeer, but as temperatures rise everything changes. And while politicians ponder those problems, the Tlingit people are finding that hunting is harder than ever. Plans are now afoot to fly thousands of live reindeer to remote Alaskan villages to start new farms. Rump of Rudolf could yet become an Alaskan delicacy.

Reunion Island, a tropical paradise in the Indian Ocean. But over the past few years this island has become notorious as the shark attack capital of the world. After the first attacks, the local authorities put a blanket ban on surfing and swimming on the island, and that hit the island's idyllic tourism image hard. Since 2015, the figures do show a slow increase in the number of tourists to the island. That was the year that the government installed a series of exclusion nets on two beaches on the island's western coast.

Words and phrases and definitions:

penetrate
get into or through

ponder
think carefully about something over a long period of time

notorious
well known for being bad

blanket ban
order that completely prevents something from happening

Exercise:

Use one of the words or phrases from Lingohack to complete each of these sentences. Note that you may have to change the form of a word or phrase to complete the sentence correctly.

penetrate/ponder/notorious/blanket ban

1. Tanzania's most ______ elephant poacher, nicknamed "The Devil", has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

2. The council has been ______ the plans for a by-pass for so long that the volume of traffic has now doubled!

3. Only 5% of the deep-sea floor has been properly explored. Light ______ only the top layers, and the vast, deep oceans are pitch-black, with temperatures just a few degrees above freezing point.

4. Health campaigners are calling for a ______ on the selling of junk food to patients, visitors and staff, saying hospitals should be 'role models' for healthy living.

Answers:

1. Tanzania's most notorious elephant poacher, nicknamed "The Devil", has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

2. The council has been pondering the plans for a by-pass for so long that the volume of traffic has now doubled!

3. Only 5% of the deep-sea floor has been properly explored. Light penetrates only the top layers, and the vast, deep oceans are pitch-black, with temperatures just a few degrees above freezing point.

4. Health campaigners are calling for a blanket ban on the selling of junk food to patients, visitors and staff, saying hospitals should be 'role models' for healthy living.