English Times New Coronavirus 'Won't Be The Last' Outbreak To Move From Animal ToHumanThe new strain of coronavirus that has killed hundreds of people in Chinaand caused a travel lockdown 一级防范禁闭（期） of some 56 million people,has been classified as a "zoonosis"动物传染病 because of the way it spreadsfrom animals to humans.Science writer David Quammen says the virus, which the World HealthOrganization last week declared a global health emergency, is just the latestexample of how pathogens 病原体 that start in animals are migrating to humanswith increasing frequency — and with deadly consequences."When there's an animal host 宿主, then it becomes much, much moredifficult to eradicate 根除，消灭 or even control an infectious virus,"The civet (above), a mammal in the mongoose family, was a carrier of another coronavirus — SARS. But it turned out in that instance that bats were the original source of the virus.Quammen says. "This novel coronavirus — whether or not it turns out to be a huge catastrophe, or something we can control — one thing we know is that it won't be the last."Quammen's 2012 book, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, traces the rise of different zoonoses around the world, including AIDS, Ebola and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). He says that one of the first questions that arises with any zoonosis pertains to 关于，适用于 the animal host: How is it being transmitted?In the case of the new coronavirus, researchers believe that the virus may have originated with horseshoe bats in China, then could have possibly spread to other animals — which people then ate.Quammen notes that humans are the common link in all zoonoses: "We humans are so abundant and so disruptive 破坏性的 on this planet. ... We're cutting the tropical forests. We're building work camps in those forests and villages. We're eating the wildlife," he says. "You go into a forest and you shake the trees — literally and figuratively — and viruses fallout."Quammen says that the new coronavirus should be taken seriously. But he also warns against panic: "Being educated and understanding it and being ready to respond and support government response is very useful. Panicking and putting on your surgical mask every time you go on a subway ride, an airplane, is not nearly as useful."Interview highlightsOn wild animal "wet" markets where viruses can mixWhen I was in southern China researching [Spillover], only briefly, I got to see some of these markets where all forms of wild animals were on sale. ... By the time I got there, [these sorts of markets] had gone underground .... suppressed after the SARS outbreak. But then [the markets] gradually came back ... allowed tocontinue again and proliferate when this new virus beganOn the theory that palm civets were "amplifier hosts" for the 2003 SARS outbreakThe civet 果子狸 is a type of mammal that belongs to the family of mongooses. But it's a medium-sized animal, and it is both captured from the wild for food and captive-bred and raised for food, and it was the first big suspect in the SARS outbreak. It was found that some of the people who got sick very early on had eaten butchered civet. And they tested some civets and they found evidence of the virus. They found antibodies or fragments of DNA or RNA in these civets, suggesting that they had been infected with the virus. And that didn't prove they were the reservoir host 贮存宿主, but it made them the No. 1 suspect, until a couple of Chinese scientists did further work and they established that, in fact, the virus was not living permanently in the civet population in the wild or in captivity 圈养. It had a different reservoir host. It was living in bats and had passed, presumably 大概；推测起来, at a market somewhere. It had passed from a bat into one or more civets and they became the amplifier host 增幅寄主. ...Thousands of civets in captivity were butchered and electrocuted and smothered and drowned in this first, panicked blind reaction in China to the SARS outbreak.On why bats are often hosts for virusesBats are implicated in what seems to be more than their share of zoonoses. There are a lot of different species of bats. One quarter of all mammal species are bats. But there are other things special about them — including aspects of their immune system. There have been some discoveries lately that bat immune systems are "down-regulated" in a certain way that allows for the metabolic stresses of being a mammal that flies. And the down regulating of the immune system to avoid 2nd IssueFebruary 17,2020overreaction to those stresses seems, perhaps, also to create an environment in which viruses are more tolerated in bats than in other mammals.On how coronaviruses have evolved through different speciesOne of the reasons SARS could adapt from bat to civet to human is the fact that it is a coronavirus, which is a group of viruses that are very readily adaptable. Experts call that intrinsic evolvability. Their rate of mutation 突变is very high when they copy themselves. Their genome contains a lot of mistakes and that represents mutations that are sort of the random, raw material for Darwinian evolution. So viruses that have high mutation rates are able to evolve quickly and adapt quickly. And coronaviruses have that characteristic.On more public investment and research on new virusesThis is absolutely a matter of need for more public investment, more public education, adequately funding, richly funding our CDC（Centers for Disease Control）, the disease programs through the U.S. Agency forInternational Development, the World Health Organization, the equivalent organizations in Great Britain, France, China ... and the other institutions and countries around the world. Yes, we need to be training scientists who will become virus hunters, who will go into those caves in those forests doing the hard, dangerous work, and will go into the laboratories doing the molecular work to help us identify these viruses. And we need our public health officials to be ready with resources and information to deal with these outbreaks — by containment, contact tracing, quarantine and, when it's necessary, isolation. We need more resources, and we need more skills.Kobe Bryant, one of basketball’s greats, dies at 41 Kobe Bryant, the 18-time NBA All-Star who won fivechampionships and became one of the greatest basketball players of hisgeneration during a 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, died ina helicopter crash Sunday. He was 41.Bryant died in the foggy hills above Calabasas, California, about 30miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, a person familiar with thesituation told The Associated Press 美联社. A different person familiarwith the case confirmed Bryant ’ s 13-year-old daughter Gianna also waskilled. Authorities said nine people were on the helicopter and that allwere presumed dead. No names were released.Both of the AP’s unnamed sources spoke on condition of anonymitybecause few details of the crash had been released publicly. The crashhappened around 10 a.m.Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said the helicopter was a Sikorsky S-76, and it was not known what caused the crash.Bryant lived south of Los Angeles in coastal Orange County for much of his adult life, and he often used helicopters to save time and avoid Southern California’s notorious声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的traffic. He often travelled to practices and games by helicopter before his playing career ended in 2016, and he kept up the practice after retirement as he attended to his business ventures.The crash occurred about 20 miles from Mamba Sports Academy, Bryant’s basketball training complex in Thousand Oaks, California.Bryant, who had four daughters with his wife, Vanessa, dedicatedhimself to boosting women ’ s sports in recent years, coaching andmentoring basketball players. Gianna, better known as Gigi, was a talentedbasketball player.Bryant retired nearly four years ago as the thirdleading scorer inNBA history, finishing two decades with the Lakers as a prolific shooterwith a sublime all-around game and a relentless competitive ethic. He heldthat spot in the league scoring ranks until Saturday night, when the Lakers ’LeBron James passed him during a game in Philadelphia, Bryant’s hometown.“Continuing to move the game forward (at)KingJames,” Bryant wrote inhis last tweet. “Much respect my brother.” Basketball legend Kobe Bryant, 13-year-old daughter, seven others dead in helicopter crashOn Saturday night, James said he was “happy just to be in any conversation with Kobe Bean Bryant, one of the all-time greatest basketball player to ever play. One of the all-time greatest Lakers.”News of Bryant’s death inspired an outpouring of grief around the sports world and beyond, but it was felt particularly painfully in Los Angeles, where Bryant was unquestionably the most popular athlete and one of the city’s most beloved public figures.The Lakers’ next game isn’t until Tuesday night against the crosstown rival Clippers, but hundreds of fans – many in Bryant jerseys and Lakers gear – spontaneously gathered at Staples Center and in the surrounding LA Live entertainment complex on Sunday, weeping and staring at video boards with Bryant’s image before the Grammy awards ceremony.The NBA kept its games on as scheduled when the news broke, but the San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Raptors both took voluntary 24-second shot clock violations at the start of their game in honour of Bryant, who wore No. 24 for the second half of his career.Bryant opened a production company and entered the entertainment field in retirement. He won an Academy Award in 2018 for his contributions to “Dear Basketball,” an animated short动画短片about his relationship to the game. He also produced content for ESPN.‘This is not real right now’: The world reacts to the death of basketball superstar Kobe Bryant and his daughterCanada’s basketball community mourns Kobe Bryant after tragic helicopter crashBryant had one of the greatest careers in recent NBA history and became one of the game’s most popular players as the face of the 16-time NBA champion Lakers franchise. He was the league MVP in 2008 and a twotime NBA scoring champion. He earned 12 selections to the NBA’s All-Defensive teams.He teamed with Shaquille O’Neal in a combustible partnership to lead the Lakers to NBA titles in 2000, 2001 and 2002. He later teamed with Pau Gasol to win two more titles in 2009 and 2010.“There’s no words to express the pain I’m going through with this tragedy of loosing my niece Gigi & my brother (at)KobeBryant,” O’Neal wrote on Twitter. “I’m sick right now.”A two-time Olympic gold medallist with the dominant U.S. team, Bryant retired in 2016 after scoring 60 points in his final NBA game. In December 2017, the Lakers hung banners retiring his No. 8 and No. 24 jerseys in the Staples Center rafters in an unprecedented double honour.Bryant looms large显得突出over the current generation of NBA players, most of whom grew up either idolizing Bryant or absorbing his work ethic and competitive spirit in the same way Bryant ’ s generation learned from Michael Jordan. After James passed Bryant on Saturday, he remembered listening to Bryant when the superstar came to speak at a childhood basketball camp.“I remember one thing he said: If you want to be great at it, or want to be one of the greats, you’ve got to put the work in,” James said.James later teamed up with Bryant on the 2008 U.S. Olympic team in Beijing.“He had zero flaws offensively,” James said. “Zero. You backed off of him, he could shoot the 3. You body him up a little bit, he could go around you. He could shoot from mid-range. He could post. He could make free throws. … He was just immortal offensively because of his skill set and his work ethic.”Bryant was a basketball superstar for his entire adult life. He entered the NBA draft straight out of high school in 1996 after a childhood spent partly in Italy, where his father, former NBA player Joe “ Jellybean ” Bryant, played professionally. He spoke four languages, and was a huge part of the NBA’s international growth, travelling the world, connecting with athletes in other sports and celebrities.The Lakers acquired the 17-year-old Bryant in a trade shortly after Charlotte drafted him, and he immediately became one of the most exciting and intriguing迷人的players in the sport alongside O’Neal, who had signed with the Lakers as a free agent. Bryant won the Slam Dunk Contest as a rookie, and the Lakers gradually grew into a team that won three consecutive championships.Bryant and Spanish star Pau Gasol formed the nucleus of another championship team in 2008, reaching three straight NBA Finals and winning two more titles.Between those title runs and before the quiet final years of his career, Bryant accomplished innumerable feats including an 81-point game against Toronto in January 2006. Bryant’s final NBA seasons were dogged by injuries, but he still went into retirement with that jaw-dropping 60-point performance against Utah.J-LO AND SHAKIRA'S STREAMING NUMBERS SPIKE AFTER SUPERBOWL HALFTIME SHOWAfter their Super Bowl Halftime performance, both JenniferLopez and Shakira saw massive spikes猛增in their streamingnumbers.Other musicians who performed at the big game alsoincreased their streaming numbers. National anthem singer DemiLovato's streams increased on Spotify by 31 percent. Halftimeshow guests J. Balvin and Bad Bunny also saw small spikes intheir streams on Spotify by 16 percent and 24 percent respectively.Unsurprisingly, the hits sang during the halftime show sawthe biggest increases. Shakira's"Empire" was a standout from the event, in termsof Spotify streams. It saw a whopping巨大的2,135 percent increase from the week before, dwarfing the increased streams from the other singles. Despite not meeting the same number of streams as "Empire," the other songs Shakira performed still saw massive spikes. "She Wolf" increased by over 905 percent. "Whenever, Wherever," jumped more than 705 percent, and her 2005 hit "Hips Don't Lie" increased by 430 percent.Lopez saw similar increases on Spotify Her 2005 single "Get Right" had the largest leap by over 735 percent. "Waiting for Tonight" increased by 685 percent. "Let's Get Loud" and "Jenny from the Block" both jumped by over 500 percent each.Besides steaming, the two artists saw a massive increase in sales for their catalogs. In total, their sales increased by 893 percent on Super Bowl Sunday, according to Billboard. On February 2, Shakira sold 13,000 downloads, over a 900 percent increase from just over 1,000 downloads sold on February 1. Lopez sold 8,000 downloads, an 800 percent increase from just under 1,000 downloads on February 1.Similarly, the highest-selling songs were those performed on Sunday. Shakira's "Whenever, Wherever" topped download sales with 4,000 copies sold. Lopez's 2011 hit "On The Floor" was her highest seller with 2,000 downloads sold.The jumps in streams help make up for the fact that neither performer was paid for their performance. According to Forbes, Lopez and Shakira are only paid union scale and production costs.An increase in streaming and song sales has been a frequent occurrence in recent years. Previous Super Bowl halftime acts Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga saw similar spikes in streams and album sales after their performances. Timberlake's Spotify streams increased by 214 percent after his 2018 performance. Gaga's Joanne hit no. 2 on the Billboard charts, after her performance in 2017.HOW WILL BREXIT AFFECT YOUR EUROPEAN V ACATION?Brexit is finally here. Britain is officially leaving the EuropeanUnion (EU) today, January 31. T his major change will cause aripple effect of travel issues for American tourists planning a tripto Europe, especially those planning a stop in Britain. While theU.K. will be in a transition period from February 1 to December 31,any new travel regulations that come with Brexit will apply from2021.The controversial exit will inevitably不可避免地meantravel-related logistical difficulties for all Europeans, with therebeing no more visa-free travel within the Schengen area (the 22remaining EU countries as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerlandand Lichtenstein).But Brexit will also have consequences for Americans visiting Britain and the rest of Europe. Here we look at what U.S. travelers should know if they're heading to Britain post-Brexit. Flight cancellations and delaysAmericans planning on a stopover in Britain before traveling elsewhere in Europe may be subject to（遭受；受影响）flight delays and cancellations.Post Brexit, Britain is longer part of an "open skies" agreement among countries with the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA), which includes EU states and a few other nations, that allows air travel between ECAA member countries.With Britain no longer being a part of the ECAA, airlines will need to seek permission to fly to an EU country, while carriers in EU countries will need to do the same for flights to the U.K. If permissions aren't granted（批准同意）in time before scheduled departures, several flights may either be delayed or even grounded until permissions are granted.Tourists traveling directly to an EU country from the U.S., however, will not experience any changes because of Brexit due to an existing air transport agreement between the EU and the U.S. which allows all transatlantic routes to be opened up to EU and US airline companies.Likewise, tourists who plan on traveling only to Britain will also need not worry about flight regulation changes after Brexit. While the U.S. is among the 17 non-EU countries where Britain's air travel agreements are covered under EU membership, in November 2018 the U.K. established a separate air service agreement with the U.S. that allows transatlantic flights between the two countries to remain unaffected following Brexit.More expensive flightsAmericans have been taking advantage of the pound becoming weaker since the Brexit vote in 2016. The U.K. Office for National Statistics previously reported that 21 percent more visitors came to the U.K. in the first three months of 2017, spending a record amount of money.Americans reportedly spent around $4.4 billion in the U.K. between January and September in 2019, with the country having received a total of 3.5 million visits from the U.S. in that period, according to the latest International Passenger Survey from VisitBritain.But Americans traveling from Britain to an EU country are likely to face hiked flight prices because European airlines will have to pay more fees to fly within U.K. airspace, which is no longer part of an open skies agreement allowing free travel. Therefore, airlines may be forced to foot the bill by increasing air fares for passengers traveling between Britain and the EU countries.Longer wait times at airportsFrom 2021, British passport holders will have to join American travelers on queues for non-EU passport holders at European airports, so getting through customs will take longer than before.Airport delays in Europe will also result from officials having to take a closer look at the expiration终结dates of passports. After Brexit, British travelers visiting an EU country will need to have at least six months left on their passports to be allowed to travel, whereas before officials only needed to check that the passport hadn't expired. The six-month passport rule will also apply to American tourists traveling to an EU country from Britain.On the upside从好的方面看, if you're only planning to visit Britain, at the moment American tourists visiting the U.K. no longer need to fill out landing cards and can access automatic ePassport gates, so Americans no longer need to queue to be approved for entry by a U.K. customs officer. "These gates use facial recognition technology to check your identity against the photo in your passport," the U.K. Home Office government website notes, so it only requires passports to be scanned at the gate.But to use the ePassport gates, you must be aged 12 or over (if you're between 12 and 17, you must be accompanied by an adult) as well as have a valid visa or a biometric residence permit and a passport with a 'chip' on it. Your passport must also be valid for the duration of your stay, the Home Office adds.More expensive hotelsWhile flights to Britain might be cheaper due to the weaker pound, Americans may also have to compete with U.K. domestic travelers who are likely to opt for选择"staycations" at home in Britain due to their usual European vacations now being more expensive and more of a logistical nightmare following Brexit, with there no longer being visa-free travel between the U.K. and EU countries. T herefore, the demand for U.K. hotels is likely to climb with Brexit, which will come with rising prices. This may be the same case for hotels in the rest of Europe.Hotel guests may also bear the cost of higher pay offered for jobs at hotels in the U.K. Hotels may be forced to offer higher wages to provide more incentives激励机制for Europeans to apply for U.K. jobs to maintain hotel staff numbers, which is likely to dwindle due to EU citizens no longer being allowed to live and work visafree in the U.K. Additional security screening Unrelated to Brexit but also in effect from next year, it will be mandatory强制的for U.S. travelers heading to an EU country to register for the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS). The new system is designed to be an extra security measure for travelers who have visa-free access to countries in the EU, such as U.S. travelers."Starting in 2021, the European Commission will roll out a U.S. style electronic travel authorization system for visitors from countries that are currently not part of the EU. These visitors have been granted visa-free access to the EU and Schengen member countries through virtue of their good track record on security issues and, thus, have not been deemed as 被视为a threat to EU security," the ETIAS explains."However, the EU is wanting to strengthen its border security as well as digitally screen and track travelers entering and leaving EU countries.""Under the ETIAS, these visitors will undergo additional security checks prior to being permitted to enter into the EU," it adds.。
