VOA慢速英语2011--A Social Network Aims to Speed Up Progre

Education Report - A Social Network Aims to Speed Up Progress in Science

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。

A few years ago, a university researcher was having problems with an experiment that involved medical imaging. His adviser 1 and his friends had no solutions. The researcher was Ijad Madisch at Harvard in Massachusetts.

几年前，一名大学研究人员在涉及医疗成像的实验中遇到问题，他的导师和朋友都没有解决办法。这名研究人员就是马萨诸塞州哈佛大学的伊贾德·马迪士（Ijad Madisch）。

IJAD MADISCH: "I was so frustrated 2. I said, you know, there has to be something online where I go, where people can, you know, present themselves as a scientist, and where they put their information about their research and their publications and you can search for it."

马迪士：“（当时）我非常沮丧。我说，得有这么一个网站，科学家可以展示自己，将他们研究和出版物的相关信息放上去，人们可以搜索它们。”

The solution was to start a scientific network to connect researchers and share information. ResearchGate is similar to another social network developed at Harvard -- Facebook. But Mr. Madisch says the purpose of his site is to make scientists more productive.

解决方案就是开设一个科学网络，将研究人员联系起来，并共享信息。ResearchGate网站（国内译为：研究之门）和另一个哈佛大学开发的社交网站Facebook类似。马迪士说，ResearchGate的目的是使科学家们更富成效。

IJAD MADISCH: "My goal: to win the Nobel Prize. And I really believe in that. Like, if we think that ResearchGate will accelerate research in all the different fields, it will change the speed of science significantly in the future. So i definitely do believe that ResearchGate could win the Nobel Prize for that one day."

马迪士：“我的目标是获得诺贝尔奖，我相信这一点。如果我们认为ResearchGate能够够??加快各个不同领域的研究，它将显著地改变未来科学发展的速度。所以我绝对相信有一天，ResearchGate能够获得诺贝尔奖。”

Investors 3 liked the idea, including a former Facebook executive and the same investment group that put money into Twitter. So far, nine hundred thousand people have signed up as members of ResearchGate.

包括Facebook前董事，以及投资Twitter的同一家投资集团等投资者看好这个项目。截至目前有90万人注册成为ResearchGate网站用户。

CAROLINE MOORE-KOCHLACS: "Logging in ... "

凯洛琳·缪尔-考克雷克斯（CAROLINE MOORE-KOCHLACS）：“登录中...”

One of those users is Caroline Moore-Kochlacs at Boston University. Her profile page shows her picture and her specialty 4 -- neuroscience. It also lists her doctoral adviser and the work she has published. She can follow other researchers and click onto group pages that discuss different subjects.

波士顿大学的凯洛琳是其中一个用户。她的个人页面显示了她的照片和专业--神经科学。该页还列出了她的博士导师以及她发表的研究成果。

CAROLINE MOORE-KOCHLACS: "Let's see what's going on in the computational neuroscience group today."

凯洛琳：“让我们看看今天神经科学群组有什么动态。”

She also uses Facebook but says people almost never discuss science there. She says on ResearchGate she can ask questions and learn about what other researchers are working on before they publish their results. She can also learn about recently published science.

她也使用Facebook，但她说人们在Facebook网站几乎不讨论科学研究。她说，在ResearchGate网站她可以提问，在其他研究人员发表研究结果前了解他们的研究动向。她还可以了解到最新发表的科研成果。

CAROLINE MOORE-KOCHLACS: "The scientific literature is so huge at this point, that it's really impossible to get through everything in your topic area. People really rely on hearing it from other people."

凯洛琳：“在这一点上，科研文献是如此庞大。因此了解自己研究领域的所有信息几乎是不可能的。人们确实依赖于从他人处获得信息。”

ResearchGate developer Ijad Madisch says he knows his site will only prove valuable if scientists use it to help each other. But not every user is pleased with it.

ResearchGate的开发者马迪士说，他知道只有科学家们使用他的网站相互交流，他的网站才能证明自己的价值。但并不是每个用户都对网站满意。

Kim Bertrand at the Harvard School of Public Health is an epidemiologist -- someone who studies the spread and control of diseases. Ms. Bertrand says she finds more value in her own offline network of researchers and advisers 5 than in this online network.

哈佛大学公共卫生学院的金姆·贝特朗（Kim Bertrand）是一名流行病学家，研究疾病的蔓延和控制。贝特朗女士说，她认为她自己的研究人员和导师脱机网络比ResearchGate这种在线网络更具价值。

KIM BERTRAND: "Sometimes I get these e-mails that are like: 'Dear Sirs: I'm writing a dissertation 6 on public health. Any suggestions? Please advise.' I don't need that."

贝特朗：“有时我收到类似这样的邮件：‘您好：我正在写一篇公众健康的论文，有什么建议吗？请给点建议。’我并不需要这些。”