More than words: the solitary world of interpreters

Go to any international conference, and you are bound to be unaware of their presence. Yet, without them, the high-level meetings and shuttle diplomacy that make our world go round would grind to a halt. They are interpreters, the unsung heroes who bridge the cultural and linguistic barriers between people.
The challenge for interpreters lies in much more than just knowing two languages－say, Mandarin and English. Oftentimes, they need to do their job in real time, meaning that as a speaker is talking, interpreters have to listen to, understand, translate, and verbalize what’s being said. The process is so demanding on the brain that live interpreters cannot go on for more than three hours without a break.
An additional hurdle for interpreters is that one misinterpretation may change the whole meaning of what the speaker is saying. Consequently, a congratulatory remark during peace talks at the United Nations can easily turn into a catastrophic mistake!
So why not use computer software instead? While many programs are efficient in mechanically translating words, they are not as good as the human brain in translating subtleties and indirect meanings. For example, one program was given the biblical quotation,“the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,”to translate from English into Russian. What came out was the equivalent of“the vodka is attractive, but the meat is rotten.” A rotten translation indeed!

Concern over Handwriting Lesson

In the age of computer technology, it appears that handwriting has been left behind. A survey in England estimated that nowadays only 13 percent of written communication is done by pen and paper, compared to 50 percent by email, and 29 percent by text message.
This has led to some concern that the education system could do damage to students by neglecting to teach handwriting. In England, a study found that two-thirds of teachers had not been shown how to teach handwriting during their initial training. Moreover, most schools were not teaching students how to increase their writing speeds. Poor handwriting could affect students’ exam performance overall academic achievement as well as self-esteem. In an increasingly competitive world, handwriting might just be what sets you apart from the pack.

Genes Key to Entrepreneurs’ Drive

It used to be widely assumed that the entrepreneurial spirit in children was based on the influence of one’s parents. According to a new study of identical twins in Britain and the U.S., that is not the case anymore. It seems that a person’s ability or drive to become self-employed may be in his or her genes. This suggests that entrepreneurs are mostly born rather than made.
The study compared self-employment in 609 pairs of identical twins and 657pairs of same-sex non identical twins. The former share all the same genes, while the latter share about half.
Researchers found that the rate of entrepreneurship in identical twins is greater than that in non-identical twins. Put differently, it means that when one twin was an entrepreneur, it was more likely that the second twin would also become one. Contrary to previous beliefs, family environment and upbringing, it seems, have little influence.

Childhood 'toy' revealed as ancient Persian relic

LONDON (AFP) - An ancient gold cup mysteriously acquired by an English scrap metal dealer is expected to fetch close to a million dollars at auction after languishing for years in a shoe box under its current owner's bed.
Owner John Webber says his grandfather gave him the 5.5-inch (14-centimetre) high mug to play with when he was a child, back in 1945.
He assumed the golden cup, which is decorated with the heads of two women facing in opposite directions, their foreheads garlanded with two knotted snakes, was made from brass.
But he decided to get it valued when he was moving house last year and was told it was actually a rare piece of ancient Persian treasure, beaten out of a single sheet of gold hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ.
Experts said the method of manufacture and the composition of the gold was "consistent with Achaemenid gold and gold smithing" dating back to the third or fourth century BC.
The Achaemenid empire, the first of the Persian empires to rule over significant portions of Greater Iran, was wiped out by Alexander the Great in 330 BC.
Auction house Duke's, in Dorchester, south-west England, will put the cup under the hammer on June 5, with an estimate of 500,000 pounds (630,000-euro, 988,000-dollars).
Webber, 70, told The Guardian newspaper that his grandfather had a "good eye" for antiques and picked up "all sorts" as he plied his trade in the town of Taunton in south-west England.
"Heaven knows where he got this, he never said," he added, revealing that as a child, he used the cup for target practice with his air gun.