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1.VOA常速
【W(wǎng)orld No Tobacco Day Proven Successful】成功的世界無煙日
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TEXT:May 31 marked the 25th anniversary of World No Tobacco Day, a day set aside by the World Health Organization (WHO) to draw global attention to the devastating health results that come from using tobacco products. On earlier anniversaries, public health officials couldn't tell if the program was effective in encouraging people to stop smoking, but that's changed.
Every year, Americans observe the Great American Smoke Out, a day set aside to encourage smokers to go without a cigarette for one day. Suddenly giving up a habit is referred to as "going cold turkey." In Knoxville, Tennessee, smokers on one anniversary could trade in their cigarettes for a real cold turkey.
One day events like The Great American Smoke Out or World No Tobacco Day usually get publicity, but it was impossible to scientifically determine their effectiveness.
The Google search engine changed all of that. Joanna Cohen heads the Global Tobacco Initiative at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
"Today with the tools of Google News and being able to analyze Internet search queries, you can actually pinpoint the effects of actual days," noted Cohen. The researchers picked several countries in Latin America for their study. Among the reasons: Spanish is the main language so the researchers were able to examine the impact of World No Tobacco Day in many countries with only one language.
What they found was encouraging for health officials who are trying to get people to quit smoking.
"If you look at people searching for how to quit smoking which would be the logical next step - awareness and then interest in cessation - we see on average about 40 percent increase in all those countries in all years from 2000 onward," said John Ayers, the study's lead author who spoke to VOA via Skype.
The researchers say these spikes in interest on how to quit smoking could have potentially large health implications.
"What our study shows is that World No Tobacco Day is having a significant impact on raising interest in and awareness of cessation in these developing countries," added Ayers.
The researchers say this information will help the health ministries in countries around the world because if they know that their citizens are interested in information on how to stop smoking, the ministries can provide better online information on World No Tobacco Day to help people kick the smoking habit.
2.VOA慢速
【A New Education Center at Theater Where Lincoln Was Shot】林肯射殺處劇院新建教育中心
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TEXT:It estimated 750,000 people visit Ford's Theater each year to see the box where President Lincoln was shot. Now they can go across the street to the house where he died and then to the center next door to it.
A 10 meter-high tower of 7,000 books on Abraham Lincoln shows his enduring appeal. Curator Tracey Avant says there are more books about Lincoln than any other American.
"He's just continued to be fascinating, and people throughout every generation seem to redefine who Abraham Lincoln is to them," said Avant.
The center has some artifacts, like a handle from the president's casket and tassels used to decorate it. Other exhibits are re-creations of the train that carried his coffin and a barn where John Wilkes Booth, the president's assassin, was shot and killed.
There are also interactive exhibits, which impressed Charlie Doer. "I think it's pretty cool, pretty high tech for Abraham Lincoln," said Doer.
Tracey Avant says one reason the center was opened was to answer visitors' questions about the president.
"He's still very relevant to us today, so we want people to walk away having a better understanding of what it was about Abraham Lincoln that makes him relevant today and has made him such a popular president," added Avant.
The civil war began after 11 southern states, known as the Confederacy, split from the north over the rights of states, including slavery. In 1863, Lincoln announced that slavery would end. Two years later, the south surrendered and the United States was preserved.
Avant say even though President Lincoln was controversial, he was admired.
"It has a lot to do with his leadership style, his personality and the things that he championed," Avant noted. "The fact that he could relate to the common person because he had come from humble roots himself."
The center also shows American presidents and world leaders who have quoted President Lincoln on topics like courage, equality and tolerance.
"His writing encompassed really big ideas, championed important issues, but he wrote in an elegant but very simple style which was not really the tradition at the time," Avant added.
Visitor Wendy Taylor found the center remarkable. "I love the way that it encourages people... to think about some of the values that Lincoln stood for to make the world they live in a better place," said Taylor.
To make that point, the center has created a video of average Americans today quoting the principles President Lincoln stood for.
